Chapter Twenty-One

Surprisingly, the first one to visit him in the hospital wing after he woke wasn't Ron, Hermione, the Twins, or even Percy but Cedric Diggory. It seemed that the older teen had skipped Arithmancy the moment he had heard that Harry had woken up, with the blessing of his professor as he left. Percy was the second to arrive, as he had been coming from the greenhouses, but the Twins had Snape (who wouldn't have let them leave even if the castle was under attack), while Ron and Hermione were in Transfiguration. Harry was of the opinion that they might have been able to get away with it if they hadn't been ditching History of Magic everyday for the last week to come see him.

He was actually rather touched that they had gone through all that trouble for him but it still was slightly irritating to be informed of a visitor, allowed to get his hopes up on who it could be, and have someone that you didn't know standing above you after you had just shut your eyes for a minute.

He fought back the yelp when he opened his eyes to see Cedric Diggory above him. Cedric jumped back as well, just as startled. "Sorry," the Hufflepuff seeker apologized. "Madame Pomfrey sent word that you were awake."

Harry gave the other boy a small, shy smile not sure how to react to someone who wasn't Madame Pomfrey, Professor McGonagall, Hagrid or the Weasley family (plus Hermione of course) showing concern. The rest of the school never seemed to care if he died or not and some of them even seemed like they would prefer it if he did die on one of his many adventures. It wasn't all that heartwarming, if Harry was honest.

And since lying to himself was already becoming a bad habit, Harry was definitely trying to keep to honesty. It was bad enough that he kept telling himself to shut up during one of his and Gabriel's conversations. If he started actively lying to himself than they would have even more problems than they currently did.

Like the increase in their wings size. Harry didn't know how to describe the change in his wings as he was still getting use to having them (not to mention he had to do a double take when he only saw two extra appendages where he now knew that there should be six). Either way, before the Dementors attacked him, the wings could only just support his body a few inches from the ground.

Now Harry had to force himself not to stare as half his wing went through the freaking walls of the hospital wing. There would be no preventing people from walking through them anymore, much to his annoyance.

He had a horrible feeling that the increase in size had something to do with his miles long fall after he was pushed from his broom. From what Gabriel (that was even weirder than it had been now that he had memories of actually being Gabriel) had said his soul had been powering his Grace in effort to try and save him.

Somehow he got the feeling that it had done more than he'd originally thought. 'We didn't lose another year, did we?' he asked silently, easily keeping up light conversation with Cedric as he did so. He'd gotten much better at multitasking since the year before.

'No,' Gabriel denied. 'We literally can't lose any more time than we already have. The fact that we're going to complete this at seventeen instead of twenty is dangerous enough. Any sooner and there won't be any saving us.'

'I thought you didn't know for sure,' Harry accused. He wouldn't put it past himself to lie to him…

And there was the headache he knew and loved, Harry thought with a groan as the familiar throbbing of his temples start up once more.

'I didn't. Not until this latest incident.' Gabriel said though Harry could hear a smug satisfaction in the other's tone. 'The sudden increase of Grace, powered by our soul, sent us into shock as soon as it was over. If the Grace had remained in our body, no matter how much CPR the Hufflepuff did, we still would have died.'

'Is that why our wings are bigger?' Harry asked, chatting absently about Quidditch with Cedric in the background. The Hufflepuff was rather different than Harry had suspected, much more friendly and just generally a good person. Harry kind of wished that wasn't as much of a surprise as it was.

Looks like he was more jaded than he had thought.

'Remember what happened when we first regained them?' Gabriel asked before plowing on, already knowing the answer. 'Well with the increase of Grace that nearly killed us and the fact that our soul was also powering said Grace, we suddenly had far too much of it in our system and that caused problems.'

'I thought it was a combination of our Soul, Grace, and Magic reacting together to save us from the Dementors?' Well, at least that was the gist of what Gabriel had told him before.

'Somewhat.' Gabriel said. 'At least that was the main problem. The increase of Grace in our system was a side effect of it coming into contact with our Soul. See, the human soul can act as a battery for Grace, giving it a power boost when they come into contact. So as soon as our Grace met our Soul, it was like dosing a fire with wood. It flared up so much that our wings weren't strong enough or big enough to drain the larger amount of Grace that it would take to keep the amount in our system from killing us. So in order to fix that problem, our wings grew to their full size in order to compensate. We're lucky we didn't end up with two set instead of just one with all that Grace that was filling us.'

Harry sighed mentally. If he was hearing this right than there were so many different things that could have killed him. The more he learned, the more he found that it was a miracle that they were even still alive at all.

"Are you alright Harry?" Cedric asked, concerned from his seat. Harry gave the Hufflepuff a small smile and nodded.

"It's just a lot to take in," Harry said truthfully. "I never expected the game to end like that."

"Mum might have killed you if you had and still played anyways," a familiar male voice said from the door of the hospital wing. Turning to look, Harry grinned as Percy Weasley made his way over to the bed. "She and Dad have been here a few times to see you. Ron and Hermione have been banned from spending more than ten minutes at a time after they refused to leave from your bed for the first two days you were out."

Harry was grateful that Percy seemed to be avoiding the word 'coma'. He had no doubt that seeing him unresponsive in a hospital bed had brought up bad memories from the year before into everyone's minds. "The twins have yet to be caught in their visits but I have it on good authority that they spend every other night here," Percy told him with a sly grin that Harry returned. "Ginny would have been here as well but the Dementor brought forward some memories of last year and the professors are keeping a close eye on her."

Harry shot Percy a concerned look, opening his mouth to ask how she was doing but was interrupted by the banging of the hospital wing door as it slammed open to reveal a panting redhead and frizzy hair brunette standing there.

He barely had time to blink before he had two sets of arms wrapped around him, his own hugging them back.

Cedric might have been the first person there and Percy may have been the second but he was far more pleased to see his best friends than he had been to see either of them. He promised himself mentally, as he took in their tear streaked faces, that he would never do this to them again.

First thing he was going to do when he got out of here was go visit Professor Lupin.

Three days later and Harry was discharged from the hospital wing with strict instructions to avoid performing any magic until the end of the week. Hermione, of course, had collected all of his school work and had notes from every class prepared for him so that he could at least get started on his essays even if he couldn't begin working on the practical until the end of the week.

Ron and Hermione were reluctant to leave him alone but with his ban on practicing magic, Harry was on orders not to attend class as a 'just in case' preemptive measure. It seemed that Madame Pomfrey didn't trust him not to ignore her orders and try to participate in class anyways. She also didn't want him around too much stress, seeing as his heart had stopped less than a month ago. The nurse didn't think it would be a problem but…better safe than sorry.

Unfortunately every single professor he had agreed with her and he found himself bored out of his mind as everyone returned to classes while he remained in the dorm.

'We need to start getting back into shape,' Gabriel said forcefully. 'Even before we spent two weeks unmoving and in a coma, we didn't practice with our sword nearly as much as we should have. We should have been able to fight off those Dementors but we have to experience in aerial combat at the moment. That needs to change.'

Damn, Harry though in annoyance as he couldn't find fault in any of that reasoning. 'What about our orders not to stress ourselves?'

'It won't be a problem,' Gabriel told him confidently. 'Our Grace is back to a nonlethal level and our Soul has been strengthened by the brief contact that it had with our Grace, which has strengthened our magic, making it more potent that it was before. Madame Pomfrey was able to sense the change in our magical core but she has no idea what caused it and that makes her wary. I agree that we should wait until the magic settles again before we use it but that doesn't mean we should just lay in bed all day either.'

'Where are we going to practice then? We can't practice in here and anywhere else is just as risky. If people see us with a sword, they're going to want to know where it came from, Gabriel.' Harry reasoned though his hands itched to call his sword to him. The attack left him feeling vulnerable and Harry rather hated that feeling.

'We could always ask Fawkes,' Gabriel suggested. 'He probably knows everything there is to know about this school with how long he's been frequenting these halls. The familiar bond between him and Dumbledore should also provide knowledge on the secrets that he doesn't already know.'

'Yes, but he could also tell Headmaster Dumbledore about us,' Harry argued. 'Somehow I don't think the Headmaster will appreciate the fact that we've kept this secret from him.'

'Good point.' Gabriel conceded. They sat on their bed in silence until an idea struck them both.

'But the creatures of the Forbidden Forest won't.' Gabriel said gleefully.

'We could use our clearing to practice,' Harry added after a moment of thought. 'It's far enough into the forest that no one would be able to wander across us or see us practicing. And those that do aren't going to rat us out, not with the fact that we were the ones that put up the wards protecting the place. Even Aragog was polite to use once he knew we were the 'Great Tree Child' and Arcnomantula are normally anything but polite.'

'Exactly,' Gabriel said with glee. 'So what are we waiting for?'

The clearing turned out to be the perfect place for them to practice. The trees were tall enough to hide them from view as they appeared to be floating above the ground, wings pumping easily to support them. Aerial combat was more difficult than performing sword maneuvers on the ground as Harry had to remember to keep his wings moving as he performed them, less he end up face first in the dirt.

The select use of his wings, keeping himself at a steady level instead of travelling to a certain place took concentration. Harry learned that the hard way, ending up on the other side of the forest once when he wasn't paying enough attention as he moved his sword.

That wasn't the only thing they were practicing.

Now that Harry had finished his human memories and begun his memories as an angel, he needed to sort through them to keep from getting confused like he did whenever he woke up recently. It wouldn't do to wake up thinking he was a completely different person than he was at the moment, or to respond to the wrong name in class or in the halls.

That would be awkward. So he divided half his time into working with his sword and the other half was divided into two parts: organizing his memories and flying practice. Depending on which one he was doing the best during his practices, Harry switched between which of them he spent the most of the second half on. So far, the meant flying.

Even with the hundreds of lives he had lived and all the memories that he had gained during that time, organizing his memories still came easier to him than flying. Gabriel was of the opinion that this wasn't worrisome at all. According to the archangel, his mind was more organized due to the fact that he had been conversing with, essentially, his memories for over a year. Harry now knew how to locate his mind, how to manipulate it to keep certain thoughts hidden while only projecting others. This gave him an advantage when it came to working within his mind.

Flying was a different story; even with his first few memories of being an angel, Harry only knew how to use three pairs of wings. The memories were no help in teaching him what to do with only one pair and controlling where he ended up hadn't been a concern in those first few memories seeing as there hadn't been anywhere to actually go at that point.

Harry was on his own in that aspect and that made it all the much harder to do. It had been awhile since he had been without guidance from either Gabriel or his memories and he was left floundering as he attempted to figure it out on his own.

By the time the week ended, Harry had only made headway in his memories. It would take time to build up the wiry muscles that would come from using his sword and it would take even longer to be able to control his wings as he wanted to control them. No matter how much he desperately needed to learn these things and quickly, Harry knew that he wouldn't learn them without a lot of hard practice. None of this helped him with the fact that he was currently defenseless if he was cornered by the Dementors again. The minister had yet to move them from Hogwarts, though Harry didn't know why. He only knew that he wasn't going to be completely safe until he had some way of defending himself from the horrible creatures. Even behind the wards of the Forbidden Forest, where Grace made sure that the Dementors wouldn't be able to enter it, Harry knew that he couldn't go on like this.

Which meant that he needed to learn another, quicker, way of defending himself so that he would have something to fall back on if the Dementors tried again. Even if the Dementors were pulled from the school before Harry would need to defend himself against them, there was still the risk that he would run into them again before he turned seventeen and could actively use Grace to protect himself.

That was why once Madame Pomfrey cleared him for the use of magic on Saturday, Harry, accompanied by Ron and Hermione, made his way up to the Defense classroom.

Professor Lupin looked surprised to see them appear in his doorway. Whether that was because of their determined faces or the fact that it was a weekend didn't matter to Harry. "Hello, Ms. Ganger, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter," the man greeted them. "What can I do for you?"

It was Hermione who answered, cutting Harry off before he could say anything. "Can you teach us the Patronus Charm?" she asked, her eyes clearly saying to anyone that looked that 'no' wasn't an answer.

Professor Lupin looked at them before he looked to Harry, eyes considering. It seemed the professor was weighing his options before the man gave them all a small, gentle smile and nodded. "When did you want to begin?" he asked, the question an answer in itself as the three Gryffindors grinned brightly

He was answered by three blinding smiles.

And the pace for third year is finally picking up. Harry's out of the Hospital wing and taking measures to protect himself much more seriously than he has since the end of summer.

I really don't think anything in this chapter needs explaining, really. Mostly, it's just a final wrap up of the Dementor attack (for Harry at least) and introducing the lessons with Remus which Ron and Hermione will also be attending. Possibly the Twins as well, when they discover them. I always thought that it was weird that Harry was receiving lessons and neither Ron nor Hermione wanted to be a part of them. Especially Hermione, considering how bookwormish she is.

You are all wonderful! Though there is something I wanted to address to the guest reviewer who sent: :Ginny is too stupid to be likable. She does not get off the hook as far as I am concerned. Ginny is not that innocent and should have been severely punished. Before it disappeared, that is...

Er...What's your issue with Ginny? I mean, I know that she's not the most developed character in the HP series but still, she's not really as stupid as some fic portray her. And why would you punish someone for being possessed?! If you don't like my portrayal of Ginny, I'm okay with that. I really am but...at least give me a concrete reason that 'she's stupid'. I can't do anything with 'she's stupid' other than 'well, so is 99% of the Wizarding World but I don't see you having a problem with them'. The fact that she is eleven doesn't help. Who can remember being eleven? I bet you did a lot of stupid things at eleven. Hell, I don't even really like Ginny and I still give her more credit than that!

And did you really delete you review? Cause I can't find it anywhere but in my email alerts when I went looking for it. Can you even delete review other than reporting for abuse? I don't actually know...

Anyways, like always, feel free to ask any and all questions and I will do my best to answer them!

~MisteryMaiden~