Flame of the West 2: The Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 3: Dinner is Served

17th May 2006

It was dead at night, and Ranma was walking back to his home with Harry. He slung an arm around the smaller young man and grinned, "I know its late, but I got one more thing to show you since you're leaving in a few days." He led the wizard to a barbeque pit and set it alight with a ki bolt before chucking in a bucketful of chestnuts. He sat down on the edge and in less than a second he had all of them out. Harry blinked and gawked, "What?" Ranma shrugged, "You've seen Shampoo use it here and there to catch multiple things at once. You try, all of them at the same time without getting yourself burnt."

Harry frowned, "You know very well I will not get burned anyway." Ranma gained a thoughtful look, true enough, they'd been literally playing with fire once. Harry had gotten into the way of a fireball and had just grabbed it and dissipated it, but his hand wasn't even red from the contact. Ranma grinned again, collecting the chestnuts again and replacing them in the bucket, "Good point. Then in that case, lets go to the stream." When they got there, he had Harry stand in stream where the water reached his chest, and threw chestnuts across him onto the opposite bank, "See if you can break them in mid-flight."

They trained and trained for another 2 hours, and Harry managed to break a few nuts, "Hmm, gotta hit the speed training harder then." Harry groaned and they headed indoors where Shampoo waited with a tick under her eye.

………

Tired as he was, Harry still managed to read bits from his spell books here and there, though most of his current spell repertoire came from research in the Hogwarts Library. Kagehoushi came by soon after he arrived with a spell encyclopedia she found somewhere for him, and he'd been reading it every night. Now out of his usual residence, he practiced his spells daily after dinner. He'd just found the Lorada/Larista pair, Everebo looked interesting, and had randomly flipped to the later part of the book.

He blinked when he saw the dark shades of the pages and realized he'd found the darker spells. That is, he reminded himself, if they're not dark themselves. He started with something familiar: Voldemort had used Everte Statum on Su Li at the end of his first year, so he looked that up. "A throwing curse? He must have been royally pissed off.' He flipped to something simpler to use, slicing curses and chain slicing curses, "Discerpo. A moderate dark curse used to create razor edges similar to the cutting curse in all but size and power. Where a cutting curse at best could incapacitate an opponent, a slicing curse could kill several before wearing out."

He grimaced, wondering what would have happened if Voldemort had decided to use that. Then he stopped, 'hang that, we probably managed to block them somehow in the chaos.' He decided to use other variations for spells, and found, somehow, another slicing curse of Japanese orientation, "Koutetsu Kire. Has not been classed a dark spell, or even brought up for classification even though it is a relatively simple spell to learn, because of the amount of power required to use. This spell was popular when it first came into being at the end of the feudal era but fell from grace when wizards began losing the power to use it in series. While it does not cut as well as other slicing curses, this one cannot be blocked by any known magical means. It has, however, been stopped by stone and steel before." That would be good to learn for a needy situation.

He flipped the page, feeling bed calling him and his eyes popped open, "Lacer, reportedly one of the original slicing curses developed just a few generations after Merlin walked the earth, it was meant to be used by the skilled, not necessarily the powerful. It gained popularity, despite being somewhat dark in nature, within the medical field because it could be controlled to a fine enough point to determine the depth severed to. The wand motion is also relatively simple. Whereas modern day slicing and slashing curses require specific slashing motions, this is a mere stab. It is also noted that Dilys Derwent, later Headmistress of Hogwarts, added a unique 'depth of stab' idea to her motion which helped his control of the spell. This idea, however, has not been perfected to her level since she coined it. Hmmm, maybe Dumbledore'll let me have a word with her about it."

Setting the book aside, he made a quick list of the spells and movements before settling into bed and going to sleep.

………

Albus Dumbledore sighed as he went through another batch of missives, this time from the Ministry of Magic. His was really a dull job for the most part, and he wished, not for the first time, he was still deputy headmaster with most of the perks he now enjoyed, including free reign of Hogwarts, and less of the responsibility. He wished, not for the first time, that he could return to his professional roots, but teaching transfiguration was not something he would even think of doing right now, Minerva would have his head (all 160 years of it) if he tried to invade her domain.

He was, however, a practicing alchemical master. Perhaps he could allow Severus some leeway and teach some of it himself? It really wasn't too far off from previous years, his own predecessor had taught Charms for a while when Flitwick had been pursuing his mastery of Charms with old professor Smyth. He shook his head, Smyth had been a good friend of his, it was sad she had died before Fillius had attained Mastery. In the end, Headmaster Dippet had handed roughly a third of his duties to Albus and taken over Smyth's place for the remainder of the year and Fillius's last year.

He entertained for a few moments the possibility of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts himself, but his forte was transfiguration and charms, not so much DADA. That was his brother's realm of study, his mis-charming of a goat testament to that. Albus chuckled, his thoughts still on their outward spiral, remembering how DADA with all its focus on curses and hexes had come to be equated with dueling expertise. Sure, dueling required a great repertoire of curses and hexes at one's disposal, but in Albus's experience it mattered more that one know how to defend against attacks than how to attack per se. Which was why held an undefeated record in the dueling circuit.

Not that he dueled much anymore, mostly for fun, but even then he was unbeatable and had been said to be invulnerable. That didn't stop people from trying though, and he always made sure to speak to the contenders after to try to help them improve. He did what he could, but it was a fact of life now that dueling skill now was synonymous with DADA. He chuckled, nope, that was his brother. Powerful as Dumbledore was, he knew very well the only reason he was undefeated was because Abeforth had been injured quite badly in the Himalayas, allowing Albus to hone his defensive-minded style.

His thought path spiraled even further, Abeforth was a very offensively minded duelist. Not that is stopped him from using effective shields, his knowledge of which was rivaled only by Albus'. He considered, when his thoughts made a roundabout, letting Harry study under his brother for a time, they could probably both learn from each other. It crossed his mind for an instant asking Abe to teach defense, but his thoughts went quickly to a duel he'd watched between a man named Nicholas and Abe. Both were skilled and powerful, with awesome spells at their immediate disposal. In the end, Nicholas had made a mistake and tried to match a silver shield against a shockingly thin slicing curse, losing out to the much younger Abeforth Dumbledore.

They'd dueled when they were younger in the dueling chamber back home, which had since been destroyed when Gindelwald underwent through a botched ritual. It was plainly obvious even at a young age that the knowledge-gaining ability of the Dumbledores had gone to Albus while the raw power that the Prewitt line had come to be known for had become a boon to Abe. Albus remembered when they first learned the limits of rough housing. Abe used a shredding curse, and Albus countered with a layered silver shield, but Abe being slightly older had more power in his curse and Albus ended up with a nasty set of gashes in his right leg.

Sighing, and realizing he might well be forced to hire Lockhart if his duties carried on the way they had, Dumbledore pulled out a sheet of parchment and began his letter. Dear brother, how's Daniel?

………

Shampoo was still in a grouch over Ranma teaching Harry Amazonian techniques, but put on a smile to see Harry off. She slipped him a small book, "Don't let Ranma see it, I'm sure you'll like it." Harry smiled back at her and reached for Aurora's tail feathers before disappearing in a whirlwind of flame. Nabiki sighed, "And there goes a great money-making opportunity…" Kasumi shook her head, "That's not very nice, Nabiki-chan, he's not part of the family unlike Ranma." Nabiki sighed again, "True enough. C'mon Ran-chan, we're off to discuss our next night out…" Ranma's anguished cries followed all the way to their room.

…

They arrived in Kings' Cross station in a secluded corner, away from the hustle that was the rush hour. Finding nobody he knew in sight, he quickly made his way towards platforms 9 and 10. The shadows bent as he walked, and before he made it to the portal Kagehoushi materialized before him, "Harry?" Harry grinned and hugged her, "Where's Tokiya?" Kagehoushi turned sad, "He had someone to take care of, but it's still early. Shall we have something to eat?"

Harry nodded and pocketed his shrunken belongings before following the ageless woman to a nearby hotdog stand. Harry sat and Aurora crooned at him while Kagehoushi bought their snacks. They ate in silence for a while before Harry spoke up, "What really happened?" a stiff silence set in, but Kagehoushi broke it quickly, "2 accidents, Fuko came across a new madogu wielder, but couldn't beat him. You know here current condition, and that is why. Domon lost his head and killed him, but in the process condemned Fuko to… well, you know…" Aurora dropped in a pearly note, and Harry drank his coke, "Maybe I should go see her with Aurora?" The dark haired lady shook her head, "Not for a year at least, the way you are now, she may become something else entirely from what you remember her as."

Silence ensued and Harry glared at his coke, not really seeing anything. After a while he raised his head again, "And the second?" soft laughter permeated the air at this, "Well, it's not really a bad thing, even though my son got injured again. I won't tell you about it though, but Recca has something planned for your next birthday and telling you would spoil it." Harry nodded and saw the clock now read 1040, "I think we should go, it's nearly time."

Harry walked into the barrier. Painfully. Growling and rubbing his face, he grouched, "It seems my challenge was accepted." Kagehoushi looked quizzical, "What challenge?" Harry waved at the barrier, "A conscience-knowing house-elf came to me to warn me away from Hogwarts. I told him he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to stop me from going, but that once he was there he wasn't allowed to try anything else. This must be one of the ways he thought would stop me." He held out his arm, "Aurora? Flame us across please?" He stood up as his phoenix landed and in a flash of fire, he was standing in front of the Hogwarts Express, a few parents seeing their children off further up the train.

He found himself a compartment, disabling and dismantling several traps that were keyed to him. Chuckling at the ingenuity of the elf after dispelling the automatic locking charms on the door of the compartment, he seated himself and laughed when what was probably a scary face popped into existence in front of him. Sighing, he destroyed it with a slight burst of fire and took out a book to read. His friends found him soon, and Luna appeared from a pool of blackness at his feet, "Hello Harry." Harry grinned and motioned to a seat across from him, "Guys, this is a first year friend of mine, Luna Lovegood-Roth. Luna, these are the friends I was telling you about." Luna gazed around, just behind each person's head, "Wow, Harry, you're a fast worker!" Hermione sputtered indignantly.

………

A/N: Well, we're on our way. I'm not sure how to put in the Chamber of Secrets, though I will definitely have another human (definitely a girl) in place of Ginny should I not use her. Anyone think I should use Ginny for any reason though?

Excellent. I'm posting the first three chapters, but this is by far incomplete. I will not focus much on quidditch, though I promise I will bring it in.

I've a few more thoughts on this, but check my profile for it because I don't want to clog up this space.