Magi Ranger

By: Tenstar12

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Power Rangers.

Chapter 32, In Which Harry Embraces his Inner Professor

Harry's first evening of captivity set the stage for the rest of his time in Rita's palace. Rita had taken possession of his Power Coin from Goldar and led the procession of herself, Harry, Goldar, and a half dozen putties through the corridors of her lunar palace to a room that she told him would be his quarters and classroom all in one.

The room itself was similar in size to the Command Center's main room, standing nearly thirty feet on each wall with the ceiling around ten feet high. As far as features, there really were none. The walls, floor and ceiling of the room were all solid, unmarked stone. Leading the group to a shadowed corner, Rita gestured to a stone slab sticking out of the wall that Harry hadn't immediately noticed and indicated that that was where he would be sleeping.

Seeing the wicked grin on Goldar's face accompanied by the smug superiority on Rita's, Harry walked over to the slab and waved his hand briefly, casting a cushioning charm (and leaving his fingers feeling a bit "feathery") before lying down. "Hmm… surprisingly comfortable."

Goldar's scowl and Rita's triumphant look were the first sign that Harry had goofed already. "Ah… I had suspected that you were capable of fociless magic beyond your combat spells, Mageling, though it has been so long since I've seen you use it that I wasn't too sure. Still, since you were so kind as to reveal this skill…"

Harry cursed inwardly as he slowly sat up, watching the contemplative villain uneasily. Finally, after a few more seconds, Rita nodded to herself decisively and focused on him again. "Listen well, Mageling. If you wish to avoid feeling the effects of the collar again, these are the commands that you will have to follow. First, you will not use fociless magic again unless absolutely required for the purposes of teaching me your magic. Second, any time you come into possession of your Power Coin, you will not morph or use it against anyone in my palace, again unless necessary for teaching me your magic. Third, you will not leave this room without an escort. Fourth, you will not leave the palace under any circumstances unless told otherwise by myself. Fifth, you will answer any and all questions I ask you about your magic when I ask them and will teach me your brand of magic to the best of your ability. Any questions?"

Harry winced as Rita lay out the terms of his capture. With the collar on, he wouldn't be able to go against her commands without setting it off, and with her forbidding his wandless magic he didn't see any obvious route to getting rid of the collar. Still, she had all but admitted that he'd find himself in possession of his Power Coin again, so perhaps there was a chance.

He was torn out of his thoughts by Goldar yanking him up from his seated position and shaking him in midair. "The Empress asked you a question, Mageling!"

Harry just stared at Goldar blankly for a moment before shaking his head. Ignoring the armored monkey still holding him up, he turned his head toward Rita. "No, I think everything seems fairly clear."

Rita nodded sharply before turning to leave. "Very well then, Mageling. We shall leave you to begin putting together your lesson plans. I shall see you again tomorrow. Come, Goldar." Rita completed her exit with a cackle that managed to make the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up.

Goldar brought Harry slightly closer to his face, glaring to his eyes. "Know this, Mageling. My Empress may have a use for you for now, but that won't last forever. And when your usefulness runs out I will be the first in line to remove your head!"

"You're welcome to try, Goldar." Harry shot back, resorting to taunting for lack of another option. "Merlin knows you've been doing so ever since we first met anyway."

Goldar growled and seemed about to speak when Rita's voice rang through the room from the doorway. "GOLDAR!" The simian seemed to flinch slightly before growling and unceremoniously dropping Harry and smirking as the wizard fell to the ground. Without another comment, the monster turned and marched out of the room, disappearing into the shadowed hallway beyond.

Harry clambered back to his feet, his mind racing. There wasn't an actual door to be closed, so his first instinct was to try and leave. Moving swiftly and as silently as he could, Harry made his way to the doorway, waiting several more seconds just to make sure that Goldar was actually out of sight, before easing forward.

The instant that his foot slid across the threshold, he felt a tiny pulse of magic from the collar before he was once again consumed by unimaginable, nerve burning pain. Luckily enough, when he collapsed to the floor, his foot was drawn back into the room as he instinctively curled into the fetal position and the pain stopped instantly.

After a minute or two of panting and cringing at phantom remnants of the pain, Harry sighed. "Right…" he mumbled. "Don't leave the room. Dammit." Harry had been so focused on not being "allowed" to use his wandless magic that he hadn't even fully processed the rest of Rita's dictates.

Once more returning to his feet, though with a slight groan this time from the residual pain, Harry staggered to the stone slab that was to be his bed and laid back. He needed a plan, but found himself unable to come up with anything solid. Eventually, the physical exhaustion brought on by the recent torture from the collar, plus mental exhaustion from the rest of his day, led to Harry drifting to sleep.

-MR-

"Wake up, Mageling!" Rita's none to pleasant voice ripped Harry from his rest, making him nearly bolt from his bed and into a fighting stance, his hands brought up in preparation to cast or punch, whichever was more appropriate. It took several moments before Rita's smug visage registered to him and he had to fight down the instinct to follow through on his attack as the memory of his current situation reasserted itself.

Straightening himself up, Harry fought to refrain from voicing any attitude and answered her as calmly as he could manage. "Rita… What can I do for you?"

Rita's expression remained unchanged as she responded. "I'm here for my first lesson, Mageling."

Harry's sudden wide-eyed expression certainly had an impact as Rita began scowling. "You are prepared for our first lesson, aren't you?"

Harry still didn't respond, his mind switching back and forth between trying to think up something to teach her and "Oh boy, this is gonna hurt…"

Rita's scowl changed to a thoughtful look for a moment before she smiled again. "Ah, I see. I failed to directly order you to prepare for today before I left last night. A mistake I shall not make again, I assure you." She glared at him momentarily before changing back to a neutral look as she began pacing nearby. "Very well, instead, why don't you tell me about your magic? What will you be showing me how to do?"

Rita, Harry noted, seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in implying that he was teaching her willingly. It was not an ineffective psychological tactic, he mused, but it was really more annoying than anything else. He wasn't happy about this situation, though that went without saying, but he also knew that until he managed to come up with some kind of plan, really anything at this point, he was stuck working within Rita's constraints. That meant keeping her appeased as long as possible.

But could he really manage that without teaching her anything truly dangerous?

Knowing that he had to respond lest she do something to activate the subservience collar again, or have it activate on its own for his failure to answer at all, Harry took a breath and began speaking. "In my world, young magicals began attending a school of magic at the age of eleven. Some students were raised in a magical environment beforehand and so knew about magic already, but I was among the group that did not. The school I went to, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, offered a seven-year program where we were taught about the different disciplines of magic and the most common spells and techniques within each of those disciplines."

Rita now began looking interested, so Harry pressed on. "The core subjects taught at Hogwarts were Transfiguration, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, History of Magic, Herbology, and Astronomy. Starting in our third year, we were given the opportunity to take elective courses. These were Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies. Of these subjects, some of them are outside my ability to teach."

The sorceress cut him off. "Why is that? If you're refusing to teach me something you know, remember that the collar will activate."

Harry did his best to fight down his flinch at the mention of the collar, but the amusement on Rita's face led him to believe that he was less than successful. Still, he was a bit more awake now and his mind was racing to find a way to explain the subjects, but still get him out of teaching her too much that was useful. "I never took any classes on Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, or Muggle Studies during my time at school."

Rita took another thoughtful look before speaking. "And after you left school? Do not lie to me!"

Harry cursed internally before doing his best to deflect. "I learned a bit about Runes, but nothing that is immediately useful." In truth, most of what he had been taught by Moody and the Order, how to make his expanded room in the Command Center and the basics behind his patchwork wand among other things, would be immensely useful to Rita, just not necessarily 'immediately.' When the collar failed to react to his lack of elaboration he let himself breathe a bit easier. It seemed the key was to tell only part of the truth, lying only by omission as it were. He just hoped that the witch didn't think to dig deeper into the present subject.

"Arithmancy is a form of magical mathematics that is used to break down the fundamentals of a spell. I suppose it could be described as a way to quantify magic as I know it, but as I never even attempted to study it I really don't know for sure. As for Muggle Studies, it was the Wizarding point of view on non-magical life. The class was tremendously out of date and I could have probably taught the class myself just based on what I knew from being raised in the non-magical world."

For her part, Rita merely hummed thoughtfully before shaking her head dismissively and tapping her scepter on the stone floor. "What of the other disciplines at your school. How might they be useful?"

"Herbology, Potions, and Care of Magical Creatures focused on the native plants and animals of my world and their magical properties and effects. Without those plants and animals, any information I could give you on those would be useless. History of Magic was about the past of my Wizarding society, again not much practical use there. Astronomy, aside from teaching us constellations and the like, dealt with how the stars and their alignment affect the other magical disciplines, but most of these effects are outside the realm of active spellcasting, having more effect on Herbology and Creatures than the others. Divination as I know it is only usable by those who have an innate gift for the subject and so I can't really relate much of that to you either."

When Harry stopped talking, Rita merely waited. Her patience, however, only lasted a handful of seconds before she snapped. "And the others!?"

Harry continued without emotion. "Transfiguration is the magical art of changing one thing into another thing, either animate or inanimate. It is also one of the most dangerous and difficult classes we had. Defense Against the Dark Arts dealt with protecting ourselves against magical threats, up to and including other magicals. This class is where we were taught most of the low level combat spells that I know. Charms covers almost all other expressed magic not included in the other two subjects. It involves spells to change appearance, motion, behavior, and several other general purpose spells. Most of the versatility in my magic comes from Charms."

Rita's face split into her gruesome smile again. "Ah… Then that is where we shall start, with those last three disciplines. Take the rest of today to decide on the best way to teach me these spells and prepare accordingly. Make sure you do it properly as well. I will not suffer you wasting my time in a futile hope of giving the rest of those pathetic Power Brats a chance to rescue you." Rita paused for a moment before reaching into her voluminous robes and pulling out Harry's Power Coin. "I will return this to you so that you can properly prepare this room. Remember my rules, Mageling. I would hate for the collar to torture you into insanity before I had a chance to learn from you." And then she left, cackling to herself the whole way.

-MR-

Harry spent his first hour or so pondering his situation. It wasn't until he felt the slightest burst of pain from the collar that he realized that he was breaking one of Rita's commands. She had ordered that he spend the day preparing to teach her what he knew, and pondering his situation was not a part of that. The collar took orders very literally, but that was something he could use.

He had already discovered that he could simply leave out bits of information, so long as Rita didn't press for more detail. That could end up being his biggest asset. He might be able to lead her into making a mistake with a spell that would have less than pleasant results for herself and give him an opportunity at the same time.

Another pulse from the collar put that thought to rest. After another moment of pondering, he realized that he had also been ordered to teach her properly, which meant no intentional misleading.

Oh well, he could work with that too. Harry smirked as he shifted his coin into wand form and began whipping it around, conjuring and transfiguring what he felt he would need to properly teach Rita, his plans growing in his mind with each wave of his wand.

-MR-

"Please have a seat, Miss Repulsa." Harry intoned from his position behind a heavy wooden desk opposite the door. He had portioned off the large room he was given into two smaller ones. The one the doorway opened into had been changed into an approximation of a Hogwarts classroom, teacher's desk and a number of student desks included. While the room was a bit on the smaller size given the room he had had to work with, it was still more than adequate for a class of one.

"What's going on here, Mageling…?" Goldar growled as he followed Rita into the room. The witch herself looked equal parts confused and amused as she looked around the room, taking in the blackboard on the wall and the assorted banners and decorations around the room featuring four different Earth animals.

Harry met Goldar's eyes evenly. "I was ordered to find the best way to teach my magical skills, and I came to the conclusion that the best way I could do so was the way I was taught in the first place." Harry was doing his best to channel the ever proper Professor McGonagall. He had originally considered acting like Snape, but ultimately decided that, aside from the fact that he considered the man to be one of the worst teachers he had ever had and thus his lessons and teaching style weren't "proper," Rita would end up reacting poorly to being called a dunderhead repeatedly. So to avoid retribution from both the subservience collar and his captors, he felt it was better to choose another model to work from.

Goldar seemed about to respond when Rita idly raised a hand, signaling for quiet. "We'll let the human play his little game, Goldar. The collar isn't reacting, so he still intends to teach properly. If he wants a little stage play to make himself feel better, then I'll allow it."

Harry inwardly seethed at Rita's smug comment, but remained outwardly calm. His plan was to stall for as much time as he could. In the right hands, even the simplest of spells could be dangerous to the unprepared, so he had to avoid teaching Rita as much as he could. So long as he made sure to properly teach what he actually was forced to, the collar shouldn't react.

It was time to see if his first ploy would work out.

Once Rita had situated herself in one of the desks, having to tuck her voluminous robes around her to fit, and Goldar had moved to stand in a back corner, Harry walked around his desk to stand before her. "I felt it would be best to start with the spell you have already demonstrated and make sure you can cast it correctly."

"I already know how to use the floating spell. Move on to something else!" Rita snapped, looking insulted at his comment about correct casting and her lack therof.

"I beg to differ." Harry said simply before gesturing to a small table to one side of the room with a single feather resting atop it.

"When I was taught the Levitation Charm," he emphasized the proper name for the spell, making Rita grind her teeth in further frustration. "We used feathers, most likely to prevent us from hurting anyone if we lost control of the spell." Harry flicked his wand, silently summoning the feather to his hand and turning to place it on his desk before moving to one side. "Observe. Wingardium Leviosa." Harry kept his wand pointed straight at the feather the entire time and made sure to cast the spell as quietly as he could without being completely silent, hoping that Rita couldn't clearly hear the incantation. When he then began to raise his wand tip upward, the feather rose steadily off the table and up into the air, always going exactly where Harry pointed his wand to. After a lap around the room, Harry directed the feather back down to his desk where it landed softly.

"Now, if you would demonstrate your technique, Miss Repulsa?" Harry gestured with his left hand toward the feather while subtly tapping his wand on the desk with his right, activating the inlaid sticking charm on the desk to hold the feather in place and, just in case, to hold the desk to the floor. It was misdirection at its finest and arguably one of the most useful things he had learned from his stage magic books.

Rita slid out of the desk seat with a growl before jabbing her scepter at an odd angle to get the Elder Wand pointing toward the feather. "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" Just as before, Harry noted the absolutely obscene amounts of magic she was wasting in her attempts to make the simple spell work. He was forced to hide a smile though as the feather didn't even twitch.

After nearly a minute, Rita cut her spell and rounded on Harry in frustration. "WHAT DID YOU DO!? WHY DIDN'T MY SPELL WORK!?"

Here was the most delicate part of his entire plan. "I did nothing to the feather other than conjure it, but I think the root of this problem lies in that very fact. Since I conjured it from nothing, it is made entirely of my own magic. Because of that, and the fact that we aren't exactly the best of friends, the magic in the feather actively resists your own attempts to cast on it. When you combine that with your absolutely horrendous technique…"

Rita stomped right up to Harry and glared at him nose to nose. "Do not taunt me, Mageling. There is nothing wrong with my spellcasting technique. I have been using magic since before you were even born!"

Harry fought down the urge to swallow in nervousness. "While that may be true, you haven't been using my kind of magic. There are different techniques that must be used if one is to get the proper results. Techniques that you don't know as of yet."

"Then why didn't you show me these techniques in the first place!?"

"Because I knew that you wouldn't believe me, so I felt a proper demonstration was called for. It was a tactic used by one of my teachers when the students thought they knew better than them." In truth, Moody had used such tactics on Ron when he had started to slack off on his training. He felt that he had learned all Moody had to teach him and that he didn't need to stay in practice to stay effective. The mad Auror had taken to ambushing Ron at all hours of the day while they were at Grimmauld Place until Ron had ultimate admitted defeat and started taking things seriously again. It was a tentative connection at best, but it seemed to be enough for the collar to not call him out on it in a most painful fashion.

Rita merely growled. "You're holding information back from me. You aren't teaching me properly!"

Harry raised one eyebrow, his face remaining as blank as he could manage. "The fact that I'm not writhing in pain at the moment suggests otherwise."

Rita's scowl deepened before she stomped back to the desk she had claimed. "And what of the problems with the feather? How do you propose we deal with that?"

Harry shrugged. "We, or rather you I imagine, will simply have to obtain some actual feathers from somewhere. They cannot have been directly influenced by magic of any kind to enable the best results."

Rita growled again before raising her voice. "SQUATT! BABOO!" Her shout echoed painfully in the room and Harry found himself unable to resist a wince of pain.

Mere moments later, the two bumbling monsters came rushing into the classroom, not quite stopping fast enough to avoid crashing into the backmost desks and ending up in a heap on the floor.

"Yes, your evilness…" Baboo moaned from underneath Squatt's bulk.

Rita paid no attention to their predicament. "Go down to Earth and find me some feathers." She turned back to Harry and raised an eyebrow.

"The larger the better, though not too obscenely large. Less than a foot in length as possible."

The two minions exchanged a glance as they struggled back to their feet before nodding to Rita simultaneously. "Of course, Rita! We'll get you the featheriest feathers on the whole planet!" Squatt nearly cheered before leading the charge back out of the room.

Harry did his best to ignore the two, merely waving his wand to repair the destroyed desks once they were out of sight.

"In the future, Mageling…" Rita turned back to face Harry fully. "You will inform me of any materials required before our lessons so that they can be acquired ahead of time."

Harry suppressed a smirk as he moved behind his desk again, idly tapping it with his wand to dispel the sticking charm before opening a drawer and removing a sheet of conjured parchment. He came back around the desk again and passed the parchment to Rita. "I have already taken the liberty of making a list. The items on here should be enough for our first several lessons. Once we need more, usually for Transfiguration, I'll have another list."

He had hoped to use the same "We need materials" gimmick to stall for as much time as possible, but his logical side had pointed out that Rita probably wouldn't stand for that more than once, so he had prepared the list as a contingency. Frankly, at this point, he was just glad that his ruse to obtain the materials he felt he needed didn't count against him for whatever spells drove the collar. His sabotage of the feather could have ruined the entire plan if it hadn't worked out. Though it probably helped that his excuse about conjuring the feather had been true, if somewhat misleading as it would take more magic than what was in the feather to directly interfere with Rita's.

Nodding once and tucking the parchment into her robes after glancing over it only briefly, the witch once more turned her full attention back to her unwilling tutor. "Now…" she said, sliding slowly back into her desk with much tucking and pulling on her robes. "Tell me of these spellcasting techniques."

The next hour was spent going over the basics of Wizarding spellcasting. He spoke of wand movements and proper pronunciation mostly, with overall less time spent on intent and magical power since he knew Rita wouldn't have as much trouble with that and likely wouldn't care for him wasting time rehashing things she already knew. When he mentioned the specific requirements of the levitation charm, Rita had demanded to know why he hadn't gone through any of the techniques for his demonstration.

Harry was, thankfully, prepared for this as well. "You're comparing yourself to someone with nine years' experience with these types of spells. The techniques I'm explaining are for the most basic of witches and wizards, typically the eleven year olds. While you are superior to most firsties in some cases, particularly in your power, in other ways, you're no better off than the muggleborns right off the train in their first classes. You know nothing of this brand of magic besides what you've convinced yourself of, incorrectly I might add. Once you become more skilled with the spells, you can drop parts of it, typically the verbal incantation and parts of the wand movement. For a spell as simple as the levitation charm, a knowledgeable wizard doesn't need any of the techniques. Trying to avoid using them, or doing so out of ignorance as you did, means that there must be a compensation of some sort from one of the other requirements. In your case, you used far too much magic to make such a simple spell work and even then got sub-par results."

Rita had looked furious for a moment, and Goldar had seemed more than a bit disappointed when Harry hadn't dropped to the ground under the collar's influence, but they had both calmed down after a few moments. Nothing Harry had said was a lie and it was mixed with just enough scorn as per McGonagall at her most affronted that it qualified as proper teaching too.

Once they had settled that, he moved on to the specifics of wand movements. He anticipated this to be one of the more difficult aspects for Rita seeing as the wand she was using was mounted at an angle at the top of a scepter as long as she was tall. This would make the assorted twists, flicks, and swishes a bit more difficult to perform.

He had a brief hope that Rita would remove the Elder Wand from her scepter to make things easier for herself. If she did so, Harry was confident that he would be able to summon it from her as he would be casting magic on the wand and not on her which was forbidden by her command. If he was able to do so and then deal with the collar with the Elder Wand before it could activate, he would be able to show her exactly what his magic could do with a wand made exclusively for that type of magic

His hopes were dashed however as Rita's stubbornness led to her finding the exact way she needed to hold her staff and move it to get the necessary wand movements. Some of them were incredibly awkward and far from practical, particularly swishes and twists, but she had taken Harry's words to heart that she would be able to do without after some practice.

Harry just took solace in the fact that her adjusted wand movements took much longer than they should and made her look ridiculous.

When Harry was at least passably satisfied with her wand movements, they moved on to the incantation portion of her problem. In this case, he channeled his best Hermione. "You're problem here is that you're saying it almost completely wrong. It's Win-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa. Make sure you pay attention to the 'Leviosa.' It's not 'Levio-SA.' And make the 'gar' nice and long too."

Rita was not pleased.

Finally, after another hour or so of drilling the frustrated witch on the basics of one of the most basic of all charms, Squatt and Baboo returned, each carrying (and dropping with each step) an armful of colorful feathers. "Here they are, your evilness!" Baboo announced just before tripping over the desks once again, although this time is was because at least some of his vision was blocked by the feathers.

"Yeah! Yeah! We got a bunch!" Squatt followed him in before, predictably, tripping over the prone Baboo and smashing him into the floor again.

Harry found himself comparing the two to Bulk and Skull in his head. Both groups certainly had their fair share of fumbles and falls.

With the feathers now present, and once the two minions were sent away again, Harry set to teaching Rita how to properly levitate a feather. It was a long process that caused no small amount of frustration on the witch's part as she worked to refine her adjusted wand movements to allow for the spell to work without expending grotesque amounts of Power in the process.

By the time she was able to consistently levitate the feather, the two had been working on that one project for five hours and both were more than ready for a break.

"I shall return again tomorrow, Mageling." Rita said gruffly. She had been rather frustrated with the slow pace of her lesson that day and had more than made that apparent with her complaints each time the levitation charm failed to work. "In the meantime, you will return your Power Coin to me."

Harry once more fought down a wince. He had hoped to be able to keep his wand with him, but he knew it had been a longshot at best. Thinking quickly, Harry placed the wand between his two palms and applied a bit of magic as he pressed inward, making the wand glow and compress as it returned to its coin form. If he had to hand it over, there was no way he was doing so in a form that Rita might be able to actually use. There's no telling if his coin wand, being made to use both his magic and the Power, would work better for her than the Elder Wand did, but he definitely didn't want to find out.

Taking the coin from Harry, Rita turned and walked out of the room. "Until tomorrow, Mageling. I certainly hope you have our next lesson planned by then."

Harry let out a sigh of relief before a flash of movement made him realize that Goldar hadn't left the room yet. He turned to face the monster only for pain to overtake him as Goldar drove his right fist into Harry's stomach. "I think you'll find that playing games isn't wise, Mageling." Goldar let Harry fall to his knees, clutching his undoubtedly bruised midsection as he doubled over with a gasp. "You may have found a way to work around the subservience collar, but sooner or later my empress will learn what she wants from you. And then I shall have the great pleasure of disposing of you myself!"

Having said his piece, Goldar turned and stomped out of the classroom, leaving Harry lying on the floor and struggling to catch his breath.

-MR-

The next day, after a fitful night of sleep, Harry decided to do a quick review of the Levitation Charm, hoping that the time that had passed might result in enough backslide to call for more practice and therefore more time killed. Unfortunately, Rita managed the spell properly her first time and Harry was forced to move on to his next intended subject. His next hope was that by doing a different subject each day and only teaching a single lesson or spell each day, he could buy still more time with reviewing and rehashing the same topics over and over. If her difficulties with the levitation charm held true then he might even be able to get away with it without her forcing him to move on to another spell after she figured out his first choice.

He had to teach each individual lesson as well as he could to try and impart the knowledge to the evil witch, but that didn't mean he had to do it in a way that was necessarily easy for her to learn.

And so it was that the two, with a golden-armored sentry, set about Rita's second lesson in Wizarding Magic.

"NO! This is ridiculous! Why would I want to learn something like this?! How is this even remotely useful?!"

"Look, Rita, you wanted me to teach you these things, and the only way I know to do that is the way I was taught back in school."

"I don't want to learn THIS! I want to learn spells that will help me spread chaos and destruction all over the galaxy! This does me no good at all!"

"Alright, Rita, let's try it your way then. How about an exploding curse. It's a fifth year spell and is one of the few purely offensive spells I learned in my basic schooling. You've undoubtedly watched me use it before, yes? You cast it with a simple jab of your wand toward the target with a counter clockwise quarter twist in mid motion. Like so. Bombarda!" Harry said, careful to put the accent on the third syllable in the incantation as opposed to the second where it was supposed to go while silently casting the spell properly in his mind so he got the right result despite his improper verbal incantation.

Rita watched the spell arc across the room, striking a putty patroller that was standing next to the door, apparently as a guard. When the spell hit, the putty exploded into shrapnel and Rita's eyes danced with eagerness and excitement. When Harry gestured for Rita to try, he watched, somewhat amused, as Rita jabbed her scepter toward a second putty with the Elder Wand pointing the way. Because of the angle the wand was mounted in the scepter, Rita had to rotate her entire staff at an awkward angle to get the necessary rotation for the spell, but she managed all the same. When she attempted to cast the spell, using the same accent that Harry had verbalized, and nothing happened, she wheeled to face him with fury in her face.

"You must be teaching me wrong! Why didn't the spell work?!"

Harry sighed as he repeated himself from the previous day. "If I had been teaching you wrong, the collar would have dropped me to the ground, as you well know. The spell didn't work because you aren't ready for that level of magic yet. You have to start from the beginning, which is what I was trying to tell you in the first place. So, matches to needles, let's go."

-MR-

"And today we'll get into some of what I learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"Ah… Finally something useful in combat!"

"Quite… So, the Tickling Charm is cast thusly…"

-MR-

"Today, we'll be going over a spell I've had to use pretty much every time Squatt and Baboo come in here. That should provide an excellent opportunity for you to practice. The Mending Charm is really quite simple…"

-MR-

"Beetles to Buttons…"

-MR-

"Today it's the Vermillious charm, a charm to summon red sparks…"

-MR-

"We'll do a bit of a two part lesson today. First up is Lumos, a spell for lighting up your wand tip. Coupled with that is Nox, which extinguishes this light…"

-MR-

"This spell is used to transfigure the target into a dragon-"

"You mean a giant fire breathing dragon!? Finally a useful spell!"

"Ah… no. These dragons can't breathe fire… or really fly either… unless the target could fly already that is… and they tend to be of similar size to the target as well… and not really very bright on top of all of that… Anyway, the incantation is Draconifors…"

-MR-

"Now our DADA spell for today is-"

"I sincerely hope, Mageling, that we're going to do something different this time…"

"Oh, of course we are, Miss Repulsa. Today, we'll be covering the Verdimillious charm. Last time we made red sparks, this spell makes green sparks…"

-MR-

Harry woke groggily atop the magically cushioned stone slab he had been sleeping on since his arrival at Rita's palace. Without really thinking about it, he blindly reached over the edge and along the floor until he found a short metal spike that he had transfigured as a demonstration for Rita and then pocketed early on during his captivity. Picking the spike up, Harry turned to face the wall and scratched a tally mark into the stone surface.

Eighteen days. It had been eighteen days since he had been captured and he was honestly running out of mostly useless spells to teach her. The best utility spell he had taught her so far had been the mending charm, and even that was grudgingly. He had mostly done so in the hopes that a slightly more complex charm, in this case due to the fact that the caster had to mentally define the affected area, would slow her down some, but no such luck.

As far as combat oriented spells, he had been forced to teach her the Jelly-Legs Jinx the day before and thus spend most of the class wobbling around wherever he went, having been commanded to leave her spell in effect until it wore off on its own. Needless to say, the amount of Power Rita put behind her spells and the fact that she reapplied the spell as often as she could meant that Harry had spent most of the day sitting at his desk.

Luckily enough, there were enough seemingly useless Transfiguration lessons that actually built the caster's skill level up enough to deal with the more complicated magics that he still had plenty to choose from. It was this difference in potential lessons among the three disciplines that now had him cursing his initial decision to rotate through different subject as the days went by. If he were to change things up now then Rita would surely comment on it, likely to his detriment.

He had spent each evening after Rita's lessons and a pitiful meal delivered by putties locked in an Occlumency trance, hoping to come up with the next day's lesson before the cursed collar decided he wasn't prepared as commanded and decided to punish him for it. Such an occasion had happened a few times, and when you combined that with the times Rita had ordered him not to do something mere moments before he did so and was thusly tortured by the collar, he was more than familiar with the effect of the object.

As much as he hated to admit it, he had become somewhat afraid of the collar's effects. Never before had he been in such a position with his enemies. Heck, even Voldemort hadn't managed to capture him and have him so firmly under his control other than during his fourth year when the dark wizard was resurrected, and even then the man's own ego had allowed for Harry's escape before things got too bad.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by Rita's grating voice, summoning him to the classroom.

Harry blinked in surprise. Either Rita was early or he had slept in much later than usual…

Rising from his bed, Harry idly patted himself down in a futile attempt to settle his wrinkled and filthy clothing. Perhaps he should adjust the day's lesson to a cleaning charm? That way at least he would be able to use himself as a demonstration and get back to feeling at least a bit more human.

The instant Harry opened the door between his sleeping area and the classroom area, he found his vision overtaken by Goldar's armor. A heartbeat later, Goldar's arms lashed out, grabbing Harry by his upper arms and lifting him with negligent ease before carrying him over to one of the student desks and shoving him in.

"It occurs to me, Mageling…" Rita drawled from her perch on the "teacher's desk." "That you haven't been teaching me what I want to know."

Harry rallied himself as best he could before responding. "As I've pointed out more than once, Rita, if I wasn't teaching you properly, the collar would activate."

Rita's face stretched into a sickening smile. "Oh, of that I have no doubt, Mageling. You're smarter than I gave you credit for though. You teach each spell properly, but you don't teach me anything especially useful to my goals."

Harry's silence was all but the affirmation that Rita had been fishing for, but he found himself unable to deny her words, knowing what such a lie would do.

Nodding firmly, Rita continued speaking. "Such defiance would normally result in a… painful punishment, but I must admit that I admire your determination and resourcefulness. However, I hope you know that I will no longer give you the room needed for such tricks."

Harry felt his heart sink as Rita's words registered, but before he could think on it, she continued. "The next questions I ask you will be answered immediately and without deep thought or I will let the collar run free. Do you understand?"

Harry paled immediately at her statement. Then he went even paler when his failure to immediately answer sparked a buildup of Power from the subservience collar, a buildup that usually preceded pain for him. Finally, just as the pain sparked on his nerves, Harry managed to gasp out an answer. "Yes!"

Rita's sickening smile returned. "Good. Now, the existence of a 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' class implies the existence of actual 'Dark Arts.' Do you know anything of these Dark Arts?"

Harry once more felt the buildup of Power when he delayed speaking for more than a heartbeat. "Technically, I know of them, but-"

"Yes or no will do, Mageling. Now, answer the question!"

"Yes."

"Can you teach me these 'Dark Arts'?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I wasn't taught to use dark magic, only to recognize and fight against it."

"Surely there are some spells classified as dark that you're aware of and that you would be able to instruct me on…"

As Rita trailed off Harry's mind immediately went to three particular spells that he did indeed have intimate knowledge of. Though he had only ever cast two of the three, he knew that they were exactly the kind of spells that Rita was looking for.

Unfortunately, he must have given some sign of his thought process on his face as Rita's own brightened with a wicked glee. "Ah… So I see you do have something you can teach me, Mageling… Tell me, what spells are you thinking about?"

Harry grit his teeth even as he felt fearful anticipation build within him alongside the Power growing in the collar. He knew that he couldn't tell Rita of the Unforgivables. If she were to learn to use them, and there was no doubt in his mind that she would be able to, she would become several orders of magnitude more dangerous than she already was.

Then the pain hit.

Harry felt himself being held in place in the desk seat by Goldar and dimly recognized the sounds of the sadistic monster's laughter as he screamed out his agony. His body was lashed over and over by waves of pain caused by the magic of the subservience collar, but he still refused to answer Rita's question.

After what seemed like an eternity, Rita did something that made the collar deactivate. Harry spent his first few blissful seconds trying to catch his breath, involuntary tears of relief streaming down his cheeks as he did so.

"You are stronger than I had thought as well, Mageling." Rita spoke evenly, her anger clear in her tone. "But you will tell me what I want to know."

Harry took a few more gasps of air before meeting her eyes. "You can try whatever you want, Rita. Do whatever you want to me, but you'll find yourself sorely disappointed in the end."

Rita met his glare for a moment before looking past him toward the doorway, a smug grin breaking across her face. "I had hoped you would feel that way… Bring her in."

Harry's heart, having been propped up by his own determination not to give in, fell once more as he recognized the voice of the person being brought into the room amid the sounds of a struggle. "Let me go you clay-faced creeps!"

It was Trini.

-MR-

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