Lightning Summoner
Lightning Summoner
By James the Fox
"Well, in this case, Lightning Summoner is about halfway through the first Harry Potter Book plot wise…"
Harry (LS): "Damn. Just the first book!? That can't be right!"
Harry (PW): "Well, at least you're that far. I'm not even really in the First Book yet! I'm in the stupid prologue…"
Harry (GoW): "Yeah, but I'm almost halfway through the Sixth Book! WOO!"
Harry (Canon): "I'm done." (All other Harrys glare at Canon Harry)
Manaphy: "… Harry!"
Harrys: "What?"
Manaphy: (staring with a dumbfounded look) "…"
"Okay, there's another thing to add to my long list of things NEVER to do: Put several incarnations of the same character in the same room. Anyway, On to the Fic!"
Chapter 8: Quidditch, Blitzball, and Christmas
Harry learned two things in the time between becoming Chaser for Gryffindor and capturing the troll:
One, his new role was to be kept an airtight secret.
Two, in Hogwarts, secrets tend to travel like wildfire through the population, especially airtight ones.
The school itself had become divided into two factions: The ones that thought that Harry would turn out to be a Quidditch prodigy, and the ones that thought that Harry would end up six feet under with a bludgers embedded in his skull.
Harry happily ignored both speculations, and was seen munching on his toast on the morning of his first match.
"Aren't you even the slightest bit worried, Potter?" Wood asked. "It is your first game, after all."
Harry laughed. "Nope! I've had enough practice sending balls into goals to know that I have a fairly good chance of winning. Besides, I've seen our team. We'll win, I'm sure of that." Harry bit into his toast again, then started coughing, having eaten too quickly. He beat his chest a little, forcing the food down. "And if we lose, we lose. That just means that the other team was on their game today. No problem!"
An hour later saw the group heading into the Quidditch Pitch. Harry looked at the vast crowd entering the main entrance while they headed for their lockers. "Looks like the whole school's here… Let's give them a good show!" The team entered the room and began changing. Harry simply spun, his clothing swapping quickly with his Quidditch robes.
"Where'd he learn how to do that?" Angelina asked herself, obviously gawking at the quick change.
"Called a Dress Sphere," Harry walked past her, tossing the crystal-like ball up and down into the air. "It carries your entire wardrobe, and allows you to change clothing in seconds flat. Also cleans, repairs, and alters your clothing so that it will fit you, even fifty years after you first get them. Everyone in Spira has one…" Harry said, grinning. Wood called the group to attention, and began a speech:
"Okay, men," He began.
"And women, Oliver," Angelina grumbled.
"Ahem… And women…" Wood agreed. "This is it!" He pumped his fist into the air, the twins copying him movement for movement.
"The big one…" Fred grinned as he continued Oliver's speech.
"The one we've all been waiting for…" George smirked, barely able to contain his laughter. "Come on, Captain, come up with something new for a change!"
Oliver turned around, tilting his head forward in thought. "… Shut up, you two…" He faced the team again, pounding a fist into his palm. "Okay, this is the best team Gryffindor has had in years… We can win this, I know it!" He glared at the team, giving an unspoken promise of death for failure. Harry waggled his finger.
"No problem, we can take them!" Just them, the team was given the signal to enter the pitch. Harry narrowed his eyes, going into what Ensiath had jokingly called his "Competitive God-Face," for the fear of god that he put into his adversaries while wearing that face. He got on his broom, waiting to begin…
As the whistle was drowned out by cheers from the crowd, Harry rushed into the air, watching Angelina catch the Quaffle.
"And the Quaffle is caught by Angelina Johnson, the excellent and beautiful Chaser of Gryffindor!" Lee Jordan, one of Fred and George's friends, was commentating (in a rather biased way) on the match. Harry couldn't help but mentally laugh. After all, it reminded him of the two commentators for Spiran Blitzball.
"Jordan…" Ensiath had been given the job of keeping Jordan in check, much to the weary McGonagall's relief. "At any rate, Angelina tosses the Quaffle to Alicia Spinnet, Gryffindor's ex-reserve, now a full-time Chaser for the team."
"And she makes a throw back to Angelina and̅̅̅̄— OH!" Marcus Flint, Slytherin's captain, had intercepted the Quaffle, and was weaving through the Bludgers and other players to reach the goal. Harry, having been constantly moving since the start of the match, was quickly catching up to Flint, riding in the Slytherin Chaser's slipstream for less wind resistance and more speed.
"It seems that Gryffindor's new Chaser, first-year Harry Potter, is speeding up behind Marcus…" Although there was very little change in his countenance, Ensiath was looking slightly bored. Harry finally caught up to Flint.
"Hello…" Harry greeted, quickly stealing the Quaffle from Flint as he passed him by. Flint looked stupidly at the spot where the small red ball had been, and stared as Harry did a vertical u-turn, passing Flint again while upside down. "And good bye!"
"What the hell is that idiot doing? Harry, stop hanging upside down from your broom this instant!" Ensiath twitched in sheer anger, his voice wavering ever-so-slightly.
"Don't worry bout it!" Harry laughed, feeling every little bit at home in the air as he did in the water as he dodged a bludgers sent at him by the Slytherin Beater. "Aycean dryh myhtehk yh Yencreb!" (Easier than landing an Airship!) Harry then threw the ball… Straight down. Harry then did another vertical u-turn, dismounting from it halfway through (putting slightly more force into the jump on his back leg) to jump straight below the Quaffle, kicking the ball straight into the left goalpost. Harry then landed on the broom, which due to the slight misbalance of force had finished the u-turn.
"And the Chaser Harry makes use of his previous Blitzball practice to get a score in for Gryffindor…" Ensiath spoke into the mike, slightly annoyed at Harry's trick. "Makes me wonder why I even signed him up for it anyway… Giving me a heart attack… YOU KNOW THAT THE MAESTERS WILL KILL ME IF YOU GET KILLED DOING THIS, RIGHT!?" Ensiath had quite visually lost his temper, using the mike to chew Harry out. Harry stiffened in response as Flint scored on Wood.
"Good grief… What a worrywart," Harry muttered in annoyance.
"Man, Ensiath's scary when he's not calm," Ron muttered.
Hermione shrugged. "Well, I guess that's his job as Guardian, Ron, making sure that Harry's not hurt…" Neville agreed, watching the game with interest.
"But still, Harry's definitely on his game with the fancy maneuvers today…" Neville muttered as Harry found the Chaser Montague in his way and passed the Quaffle to Spinnet, barely avoiding a clash but not losing his speed as Spinnet scored on Slytherin.
"Ahem…" Jordan said, trying to get the commentary back on track. "Slytherin in possession, Chaser Adrian Pucey carrying the Quaffle as he dodges both Bludgers, both Weasley Twins, AND Potter. Looks like he's watching out for Potter's antics again, so he won't be able to sneak up like before… Wait a moment, was that the Snitch?" Harry almost stopped before remembering the terrible acceleration of his broom, instead keeping on his game. The rest of the players, however, weren't so persistent, stopping to watch the two Seekers racing towards the Snitch. Harry took that chance to charge for Pucey, grabbing the ball from under his nose.
'Can't believe he'd stop where he was just to watch those two… What the?' Harry noticed Flint moving, but not towards him: 'What does he think he's… Cred!" Harry mentally cursed and turned around to intercept Flint's rush, but it was too late: Flint had pounded right into Katie Bell, almost knocking her of her broom. Harry's eyes followed the Snitch as it flew off during the resulting commotion, keeping it in his peripheral vision as he watched Alicia attempt a penalty goal on Slytherin. Harry then caught the Quaffle after Wood blocked it and flew towards the goal, passing Bell with the quick words: "Between the red and blue stand divisions on the west side!" As he rushed towards the goal, throwing a swerving ball towards the goalposts, he smirked as he heard Lee's excited commentary pick up, revealing that Katie was chasing the Snitch. The ball, wavering through the air due to the way Harry had thrown it, unpredictably landed in the right goal-ring only seconds before the Gryffindor stands erupted with cheers.
"Gryffindors win! WOO!"
Harry laughed when Katie related how Harry had warned her about the location of the Snitch.
"Please, I was just doing my part as part of the team... All I really did was keep an eye on the Snitch when nobody else was." He shrugged, already back in his casual clothes (read: his Summoner's Garb). "Doesn't really matter…"
"Doesn't matter!?" Wood gushed in shock. "Potter, that practically won us the game!"
"Yeah, but it was Katie here who actually CAUGHT the Snitch, therefore winning us the game." Harry said. "And what I did on the Pitch was pretty much no different from what I do in Luca's Blitzball stadium…"
Elsewhere, Harry's exceptional skills were being loathed.
"Damn that boy…" The sinister voice raved as its host flinched. "He didn't stop moving long enough for us to hit him with our jinx…"
"My lord, do not worry, we will get the Sorcerer's Stone soon enough, and you will be able to deal with him yourself."
"Yessss… Soon, Potter, I will gain my power back, and I will take you from your safe haven and torture you to your end…"
Months passed, and supplies were delivered discreetly to Hogwarts, bit by bit. Harry spent part of his time between his classes in a new extension of the Forbidden Corridor, supervising and participating in the creation of Hogwarts' Sphere Maze. His team consisted of skilled, valued, and precise Machina. The robots worked away, raising walls, setting up sphere connections, and overall being useful. Meanwhile, Harry made sure that the Machina behaved as they should and enchanted the spheres themselves so that they would work right. By almost mid-way through December, the Hogwarts Cloister of Trials was complete.
Then came the simple task of moving the maze into its spot right at the end of the trials, before the room where the Stone would be kept. To this end, Harry, Ensiath, and Dumbledore worked together using powerful Time Magic, slipping the room between dimensions using a variant of the basic Time Magic, Teleport. It made all three, especially the young, relatively low-on-magic-stamina Harry and the old, already weary Dumbledore, extremely tired, and Harry spent the next three days resting, with work from the teachers delivered by Ron to the Hospital Wing.
Harry had made absolutely sure that the reason for his fatigue remained unknown, not even telling his friends about it. When they asked, he simply replied that he had eaten something that didn't sit well for him at all. To support this, Harry was often heard in the bathrooms, puking in the toilets.
Finally, three days later, Harry stepped out of the Hospital Wing, still slightly tired, but okay enough to go back to classes.
The days that followed were relatively routine. Harry would get up, get breakfast as usual, and train with Ensiath (although he wouldn't dare go outside, due to the snow that had covered the grounds). After that, he'd go to his classes (He was befuddled as to how Snape was able to keep teaching classes in that dark, cold dungeon over the winter), and spent the rest of his free time either in the library or with his friends.
Elsewhere, a certain Dark Lord was ticked.
'AGH!' The Dark Lord attempted to keep himself from yelling in rage as yet another sensation of cold hit him directly. 'Quirrell! What is happening!?"
"I am sorry, master. It seems that snowballs have been charmed to strike me in the back of the head…" the DADA teacher whispered, just as annoyed as his master.
'WHAT!?' Voldemort mentally hissed. 'WHO DARES ATTACK ME!?'
"I cannot say for certain, but I noticed the Weasley twins sneaking about earlier… Do not worry, my lord, they will be punished…"
'… Forget Potter…' Voldemort mentally grumbled to Quirrell. 'Those two will be tortured most gruesomely for this…'
Snape watched from behind a nearby pillar as another charmed snowball hit Quirrell. He thought to himself for a short while.
Eh, he'd discipline those two later… although they actually deserved medals, in a way. Took a lot of guts to assault a Dark Lord, after all…
But he'd punish them anyway, because he oh so loved torturing students.
Harry would have loved to head back to Spira for the holidays and stay in Bikanel Desert, but the snowstorm was keeping the Lightning Summoner indoors, ironically blocking his escape with the very thing he wanted to escape from.
As thus, he woke up on Christmas morning, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, when Ron, Fred, and George collectively yelled in his ears.
"Merry Christmas, Harry!" Harry glared tiredly at the three Weasley siblings, noting Ensiath in the back of the room.
"I thought you were my Guardian?" Harry asked, annoyed.
Ensiath smirked (or at least gave his variant of one). "Christmas vacation." He then pointed at him. "Bed-head."
"… You guys aren't going to let me sleep, are you?"
"Nope," was the group's reply. Harry sighed, and ruffled his hair into its normal level of unruly-ness.
"… Well, let's get this over with…" The group went to work, opening presents. Harry first got a small flute from Hagrid, on which Harry vaguely noticed the dragon etched into it near the far end. "Well… Now I can finally use that one Job Sphere…" Harry tapped his Dress Sphere with the flute, and it vanished into it. The next present came from Ensiath, and was a small pin depicting a Moomba waving back at Harry (Wizard Magic had enhanced it so that it really waved.) "Be original for once, Ensiath…" Harry mumbled as he put the badge in his pocket.
Ensiath eyed the various clothing from Spira that he had obtained from family and friends. "…" Harry opened a package from Spira as well, finding an ensemble that looked more suitable to Summer than winter.
"Bloody hell, Harry, what IS that!?" George asked, freaked out by the extremely small pair of shorts, accompanied by a skintight-looking tank top and leather belts, gloves, and boots.
"Actually, this is in line with standard Bikanel Island fashion…" Harry mumbled. "All the rage with the Al Bhed…" Harry noted the small image of a Moomba sewed into the collar.
"I know who sent you that…" Ensiath teased.
Harry read the attached note, which was in Al Bhed. Harry shrugged with a slight grimace as he finished, pocketing the note and placing the outfit in his Dress Sphere. He glanced at the present.
"Uh oh…" Ron stared at the present like it was death itself. "Looks like Mum made a sweater for you…"
"Hmm…" Harry glanced at the green sweater. "It looks pretty comfy…"
"Well, get used to them, because she always makes them…" Ron grumbled. "Agh, maroon again!?" Harry laughed as he popped a chocolate from the collection that was also in Mrs. Weasley's package. He placed the sweater inside his sphere, and changed clothing, now wearing simple pants, a black shirt, and his new sweater. He couldn't help but notice that his Moomba pin had somehow pinned itself onto the sweater. He sighed, reaching for the last of his gifts. He opened it, and an odd silvery substance came out.
Ron gaped.
Fred and George both stared in envy.
"I can't believe—"
"—He got that—"
"—When we need it so much more!"
Ensiath raised an eyebrow.
Harry raised the object up, inspecting it. "What on…"
"I've heard of those…" Ron said in reverence. "An Invisibility Cloak… Those are supposed to be really, really rare!"
Harry put the cloth (though it felt to him more like the same liquid that made Spheres) around him and looked at the nearby mirror. He looked to see his body almost fully vanished, with only his head visible. "That's useful." Almost on cue, a small paper slid out from the folds of the cloak. He read the writing, aloud this time: "Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well… Huh, no signature. Now who could that be?" He glanced at the handwriting, and sighed. "I'm not sure… the handwriting looks familiar... but not enough to be obvious…" He placed the cloak in a chest, locking it tight.
The group opened all of their presents, and headed down to the Great Hall.
Harry sighed as he went into bed, having had quite an active day, though he hadn't left the castle. He had played with Wizard Crackers, explored the castle (though Harry still felt like there were places he had yet to see), and lost to Ron in chess (although Ensiath was even worse). In addition, Harry had introduced Ron to a Spiran card game called Triple Triad (in which two players compete to control a higher number of cards by the time nine turns had passed, and the winner gains the cards that the loser had wagered), and had found both players calling for rematches in order to gain back their lost cards.
Overall, Harry enjoyed his Christmas, and was feeling quite rejuvenated by the end of the holiday...
"Yes, I combined two HP:SS chapters for this, since they really didn't have many things happening in canon."
Harry: "What about the Mirror of Erised?"
"… Truthfully, I left it out on purpose. In canon, Harry goes on that trip to acquire information on Nicolas Flamel. However, Harry doesn't need that in Lightning Summoner, because he already knows the truth concerning the Third Floor, though Ron doesn't even know about Fluffy. Also, Because of the nature of Harry's broom, Harry was constantly moving at high speeds, and Quirrell didn't have time to hit him with a curse, removing that plotline."
Yuna: "So you made up for it by including Voldemort's perspective on being hit by snowballs, and some more Final Fantasy VIII references… Yeah… Stupid."
Harry: "So, XIII Ninja, next?"
"Actually, as of after this update, I'm changing my update schedule in accordance to a poll I posted a while back… As a celebration for this, the winner, Pokemon Wizard, will be updated BEFORE XIII Ninja."
Harry: "NOOOOOO-wait, he's nicer to me than the other characters he writes. YES!"