Chapter 8
Harry didn't recognize the handwriting but when he saw the headline on the newspaper he knew straight away who it was from.
"Oh no." he said. The headline read:
Mass Breakout from Azkaban.
Last night it is reported 23 high security prisoners were broken out of Azkaban Wizarding prison by You know who himself. All 23 prisoners who were broken out are previous supporters of the dark lord and have already committed heinous crimes in his name. Now that the ranks of you know who are swelling once more we must wonder what effect this will have on the Wizarding community. Although the dementors are still guarding Azkaban, eye witnesses say that they did nothing to hinder the dark lord's plans. How long will it be before the dementors abandon their post and join him? Without a doubt dark times are coming. Only Albus Dumbledore is keeping the ministry of magic from collapsing at this point. We can only hope that he and Harry Potter, the boy who lived, can find a way to eliminate the threat of he who must not be named once and for all.
Harry put the paper down and put his head into his hands. Great, he thought, now Voldemort has his favourite deatheaters back, including Lucius Malfoy. Harry knew that the whole school would know soon enough so he decided to take a walk to clear his head then head to the great hall for breakfast.
As he entered the great hall he saw the expressions on everybody's faces and knew that the post had been. Only Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins looked happy. He took a seat next to Kyla and ate his breakfast quietly. He didn't bring up the fact that he had received a copy of the Daily Prophet directly from Voldemort and instead just listened to other peoples reactions to what had happened. There was one feeling Harry felt from everybody; fear.
During breakfast professor McGonagall got up to speak to the school. "Due to recent events, the staff and I have agreed to step up security. There will be no quidditch until professor Dumbledore returns and Hogsmeaded visits are cancelled as well." Everybody in the great hall moaned but professor McGonagall wouldn't be deterred. "In addition to this, no student is allowed onto the school grounds after 5pm. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but it is a necessary one." She sat back down leaving the great hall to eat the rest of their breakfast.
The gang headed to the potions dungeon, talking about anything but the breakout. Snape seemed especially irritable that morning and split Harry and Kyla up straight away. "Miss Trent, I will not allow you to work with Potter. He will only try and show off." Snape said venomously.
"That's not fair!" Harry shouted.
"20 points from Gryffindor for your cheek Potter. Now sit down!" Snape spat. Harry was about to argue but Kyla put her hand on his arm and shook her head.
Harry made a conscious lesson that lesson to ignore Snape and make his potions perfectly. By the end of the lesson he was sure he had made it correctly and smugly put it down on Snape's desk before heading to charms.
"Over the next few weeks," Professor Flitwick said. "We will be looking at conjuration. I will start by showing you a picture of a small item you must conjure then gradually make the items bigger. When you can do this I will remove the visual aides and simply tell you what I wish for you to conjure. I tell you now that this is not easy, so do not be disheartened if you do not get it straight away. Now are there any questions?" he asked. Harry raised his hand. "Yes Mr. Potter?" he asked.
"Professor, Kyla and I can already do conjuration." Flitwick seemed unconvinced.
"Show me." He said. So, Harry pulled out his wand and conjured a brick wall, then Kyla did the same. Flitwick was stunned and so were the whole class.
"When did you learn to do that?" Hermione asked admiringly.
"Oh, just a few days ago." Harry said conscious that the whole class was staring at him.
"It seems," professor Flitwick said, "that you do not need to attend this class at present. You may leave and consider this a free period until we have finished with conjuration. And well done Mr. Potter, and you Miss Trent." Harry and Kyla picked up their things and left.
"You fancy a bit of training?" Harry asked Kyla.
"Only on one condition." She said. Harry nodded ok and she continued. "Afterwards we go for a walk around the lake, just the two of us."
"Deal." Replied Harry happily and they made their way to the room of requirement.
"So what do you want to learn today," Kyla asked, taking on the role of the teacher.
"Well I was hoping you could show me the full body shield first." Harry had seen it in his book and decided it would come in very useful. It was a spell that created a sphere like shield that surrounded the persons whole body and was more than twice as strong as the protego shield.
"That's pretty advanced magic." She said, "But I think you're up to it. Just watch me then repeat." She waved her wand and said "Sphero Maximus!" A large opaque shield appeared around Tonks and Harry thought it looked pretty cool. "Now, the shield is strong. It can take about 7 or 8 stunning spells or spells of similar power before it collapses but it can only withstand 1 or 2 hits from more powerful spells. Now you try. It'll take you a few goes to make a strong one I think."
Harry waved his wand and said "Sphero Maximus!" A large sphere appeared around him and he was quite pleased with himself.
"Only one way to find out how strong it is," Tonks said and fired a stunning curse at the shield. It flickered but stayed up and the second stunner she sent broke the shield completely which disappointed Harry slightly. Tonks assured him that he did well for his first go and told him to try again. He repeated the spell a few more times and by the fifth go his shield was able to not only withstand 10 stunning spells but could reflect them back aswell. Tonks was seriously impressed. She didn't know of any wizard who could make a shield that strong except possibly Dumbledore. Harry was eager to move on to some more offensive spells so Tonks summoned a practice dummy.
"First, I'm going to show you the slashing curse. It works like this." She made a diagonal slashing motion with her wand and said "Slasio!" a red light shot out of her wand and when it hit the dummy it caused a giant slash to appear on its torso. "As you can see this spell is very effective and can cause an enemy to bleed to death." Harry took his turn and shot the spell at the dummy. Another slash appeared on the dummies torso and Harry smiled.
"You seem to have that one already so we'll move on to the next spell." Tonks said. "Are you familiar with the Flagrate spell?" she asked. Harry nodded. Hermione had used it on the doors in the department of mysteries to burn crosses onto the doors. "Well this is a more advanced version of the spell which they don't teach here at Hogwarts." She pointed her wand at the dummy and said "Firate!" A golden light shot out of her wand and when it hit the dummy it burst into flames burning the dummy to a crisp. She summoned another one so that Harry could have a go. He repeated the spell and the dummy burst into flames. "I don't know how you're getting these so fast." Tonks said. "It usually takes a few days for people to learn these types of spells." Harry blushed slightly and said he was ready to move on to the next spell.
"Right, this last spell is the most painful. As soon as it hits the opponent they are rendered helpless and then you just wait for the main part of the spell to take effect."
"What's the main part of the spell?" Harry asked.
"Well, as soon as you cast the spell, invisible metal cuffs appear on the opponents wrists and ankles slowly tightening until after about 10 seconds the opponents wrists and ankles break."
"Sounds painful," Harry said wincing.
"It is, now watch this. Because the dummy has no bones I've set it to make a loud crack when its bones would break." She made a swish with her wand and said "Constricto!" A blue light shot out of her wand and hit the dummy. After ten seconds Harry heard a crack and knew the spell had worked. Harry took his turn and after 10 seconds heard the same crack. Tonks said he had made astounding progress and would soon be better than most Aurors.
"I believe you owe me walk." She said politely and she and Harry took a walk around the grounds and ended up sitting by the lake admiring then scenery. Kyla turned to face Harry, "Harry I miss 'us'." She said looking sad.
Harry looked at her and said, "I miss 'us' too." He said. "That's why I came up with an idea."
"And what idea would this be?" She asked playfully.
He took her hand and said, "Kyla Trent will you be my girlfriend?"
She leant over and kissed him passionately, "Of course." She said. They lay cuddled on the grass until it was time to go for lunch. They walked back up to the castle hand in hand and walked into the great hall. Those who didn't notice their change in relationship then certainly noticed it when they started kissing at the dinner table and feeding each other ice cream. Nobody had ever seen Harry make a public display of affection before and they were certainly surprised at his behaviour towards a girl he had only known for a few days. The two of them were by far Hogwarts' hottest couple.
Over the next few months Harry was hardly ever seen out of the company of Kyla and the general populace were surprised their relationship had lasted this long. They continued their lessons during their free periods and still hadn't been called back to charms because the class were struggling with conjuration. During his dueling sessions he now had his second wand which he was becoming better with. His duels with Tonks were just to practice reflexes and dueling technique and so they both only used simple spells. Harry found his mother's ring of protection to be very useful indeed. If he was hit with a stunning spell it had no effect on him whatsoever. The same was true with other weaker spells. Tonks noticed this and he was forced to tell her about the rings. With all his practice Harry was now easily the best dueler in the school and probably better than a lot of Aurors.
With Remus Harry focused mainly on sword fighting now that he did all of his dueling with Tonks. He was now proficient at it and could dispatch Remus nine times out of ten. The other thing they focused on was becoming an Animagus. Harry had already taken the first two potions and the third was virtually done. The first potion Harry had taken was designed to open his mind up so it released the animal feelings he needed to become Animagus. The second potion was designed to prepare Harry's body for the transformation. Without it the second potion the third would have no effect.
It was now December and Harry was about to take the third and final potion. This potion would force his body to transform into its Animagus form. After the first transformation Harry's body would know how to change by itself. Lupin poured some of the potion into a glass and handed it to Harry.
"I wonder what animal you'll be," He pondered.
"As long as it's not a worm, I don't care." Harry said and gulped down the potion in the glass. At first there was nothing but then a pleasant tingling sensation overcame his entire body. He closed his eyes and could feel his body change. He felt limbs shrinking and new ones growing. When he opened his eyes Remus was stood there in shock because in front of him was a large, beautiful, red and silver phoenix. Harry couldn't believe it, he was a phoenix! He ruffled his plumage getting used to his new wings and took a quick fly around the room. He changed back into his human form and ran to hug Remus. "We did it!" he shouted. Harry couldn't think of words to say to describe how good he felt so the two of them sat there in contented silence until it was time for Harry to return to his common room.
Harry awoke the next morning and had the sudden urge to fly around the castle. He hadn't been able to fly since McGonagall had banned quidditch and now that he could he desperately wanted to turn into his Animagus form and just fly off. He knew he couldn't because he might be seen but his happy mood still remained at the thought of himself actually being an Animagus. He woke Ron up so they could go down to breakfast and had to wait while he got ready.
"You look happy this morning," Ron commented. Harry just shrugged and they went down to meet the girls. Harry was looking forward to going back to Grimuland place the next day and classes went quickly for him. He was packing his trunk in his dormitory when his scar erupted in pain. He fell to the floor and he could hear manic laughter in his head. Before he passed out he could feel Ron trying to pick him up off the floor.
He woke up the next day in the hospital wing. His mind started racing. His scar hadn't hurt for months, not even when Voldemort had broken his deatheaters out of Azkaban so whatever it was that had happened must be a hell of a lot more terrible than that to make Voldemort so happy. Before Harry could try and think what had happened the door to the hospital wing burst open and Professor McGonagall walked in looking very somber indeed.
"Ah Harry you're awake." It must be bad if she's using my first name he thought.
"What's happened professor?" She pulled a copy of the daily prophet out of her robes and handed it to him as he stared at the headline in disbelief.
Dark Lord destroys Hogsmeade – 260 people killed.
Oh God Harry thought. He looked at the picture on the front of the paper and saw that Hogsmeade was just a pile of rubble. All the buildings had been destroyed and body parts littered the ground. This must be Voldemort's sick way of saying merry Christmas Harry thought bitterly. From reading the article he could tell that the Wizarding world was losing hope. One more blow would be all it took.
The train ride back to Kings Cross was very subdued. They were picked up by Moody and Arthur Weasley who both looked haggard and worn out. They explained that they had been under a lot of stress at the ministry because 20 of the people killed had been ministry officials and 25 were Aurors.
When they arrived at Grimuland Place they all did their best to forget about what had happened and try and get into the Christmas spirit. Mrs Weasley welcomed them back happily and Harry introduced their guest for Christmas, Kyla Trent. Dumbledore had told everyone that Tonks was on a top secret undercover mission and would be away for some time.
"I'm glad to see you've found someone your own age Harry," Mrs. Weasley said. "Tonks was far too old for you. I don't know what she was thinking." Harry could feel the anger coming from Kyla and decided to get her out of their quickly.
"I think I'll show Kyla her room Mrs. Weasley." He said and they headed upstairs into Tonks bedroom. "sorry about that," Harry said.
"It's ok," Tonks said pushing him down onto the bed and kissing him.
"Tonks," he whispered into her ear. "Go back to normal, at least while we're alone." she did so and Harry was reminded that Tonks was just as beautiful as Kyla, just in a different way. "I definitely prefer you like this," he said.
"So you're getting sick of the schoolgirl me?" she asked feigning hurt.
"No, it's just the real you is the person I love."
"Oh Harry, I don't know how I'd live without you. I love you so much." Harry pulled her closer and began to kiss her neck as she ran her fingers through his hair. He slowly started to move his hands up her back as the door opened, but they couldn't react quickly enough.
"Harry dear, dinner's - TONKS! What on earth are you two doing?" they sat up quickly and Harry started to talk.
"Mrs. Weasley let us explain." He said pleadingly.
"You're damn right you're going to explain, you can start by telling me why you come here with a new girlfriend only for me to find you in here with her!"
Harry sighed. There was only one thing he could do.