Harry entered the car it a rush. Heart sinking, he saw an open compartment. If there had been a dementor it was long gone, though all the windows were still thickly frosted.
Heart in throat, he walked to the open cabin. At first he thought someone had left bundles of old clothes on the floor, but his rebellious mind finally identified Hermione, one of four girls sprawled among their books, her wand near her hand. There would be no runes club this year.
Harry teetered on the edge of an abyss for a moment but mastered it, all emotion draining away as he stared.
Neville ran up behind him and saw. "Oh. Oh, no."
"Stay here and... Just look after them, Neville." Harry turned away, closing the entry door at the front of the car before moving to the next.
Moving quickly through two more cars, Harry killed another Dementor, this one turning and trying to run for the exit when it saw him. It was slow, fearful and defenseless. Closing the boarding door once again, he continued, entering the first car.
Harry ignored the shouts of Percy and Ron Weasley from inside the first compartment, bursting through the exit door and stabbing an unwary dementor in the belly. He instantly pulled the fang and brushed past it before it could do more than lurch back. He fell upon his next victim with a back-stab, even as the first came apart, the white sparkles scattering and providing welcome light.
Making his way past the coal tender to the chuffing locomotive, Harry pulled the folding step down and climbed up, where in the dim illumination of the instrument lights he found the driver lying face up on the footplate, eyes wide open and unresponsive, the chuffing of the engine growing ever weaker, its great headlight dimming.
Shaking his head, Harry turned away, locking 'eyes' with a dementor approaching the engine. It slowed, then stopped, floating eerily by the drive wheel. It almost seemed to be projecting its uncertainty in the instant before Harry leapt to exact the price of its dithering.
Panting with the adrenaline rush, he checked his watch to see how long it took the thing to die, watching dispassionately to see if stabbing it low would take longer. It didn't seem to matter where he got them, so he used its dying fountain of light to peer about, no longer even remotely fearing the things. They had absolutely no idea how to fight something that could fight back.
Rounding the nose of the engine, Harry jogged down the length of the Hogwarts Express, catching four unwary dementors in quick succession as they loomed in the dark.
Rounding the baggage car, he destroyed one more on the track before the remaining monsters rose into the sky, grouping together and floating sedately north.
Intending to pursue and finish the lot, Harry tried a boarding door but found it locked. Spinning on his heel he raced for the front of the train, trying doors as he passed. The door that he'd exited was also locked.
Pounding and shouting eventually brought Percy, who dragged him in, slammed the door and reattached a chain, all the while hanging on to him as he tried to squeeze past.
"Wait! What are you doing?"
Harry struggled, trying to slip free of the much larger boy, but unlike most pure-bloods Percy knew how to grapple. "I need my broom! They can fly and are getting away! I need my broom to catch them!"
"No! Let the Ministry deal with them, Harry. You've done enough." Percy rather thought that Harry could manage it, but it wasn't a child's place to risk himself further.
Harry shook his head, quit struggling and tried persuasion. "They got Hermione and her runes club friends. When- when I kill them, the white sparks come out. What if she's a spark in one of them? I have to go. Don't get in my way." It would be regrettable, but Percy was on notice.
Percy smiled. "Hermione is fine, Harry. Everyone is fine. When the dementor opened her door she stunned the other three girls and then herself. Dementors are cognovores and cannot perceive unconscious people, so it left them alone. I enervated her myself and she's fine, I promise you."
Harry stared at the older boy. Could this really be true? The wide open, empty eyes of the engine driver…
Hermione's eyes had been closed. Action, the emotional void between rage and fear, abruptly deserted him and Harry's knees buckled.
Percy caught him. "Come on, Harry, lets get you sat down with a bit of water."
Lf
"It won't open." Shacklebolt tried to pull the door one more time, but got nowhere.
"It seems to be jammed somehow. Let me try a Greek unlocking sp-
"Out of the way! Clear!"
The boarding door to the tenth car of the Hogwarts Express violently disintegrated, blasted into tiny fragments. The high speed flying debris did not get a chance to impact the interior of the train car, instantly summoned back through the gaping hole in a dazzling display of skill.
Madame Bones, wand out, charged through and sprinted to the compartment that she had settled her niece in, almost fainting with relief when she saw Susan alive and conscious through the interior window. "Susan!"
"Auntie!"
Susan and Hanna began clearing the track of the compartment door, prying out various objects hammered in to jam it, then sliding the now-broken door open with a group effort.
"They've gone, Auntie. We haven't felt the presence of a dementor for almost half an hour." Susan had to forego the rest of her report for the moment, as she found herself enveloped in a hug that an anaconda would be hard pressed to match.
"I'm so very happy to find you alive." Bones was shaking with adrenaline and anxiety.
Susan couldn't help her choking sobs. "I almost wasn't. One of them opened the door and picked me up for the kiss. I would be gone if Harry Potter hadn't killed it."
"What?" Bones let go, stepped back and looked her niece and heir in the eyes. "He did what?"
"He killed it somehow. He ran up and stabbed it in the back with some kind of big spike. It dropped Susan and fell apart, releasing a lot of what we think might have been trapped souls. Then it died." Hanna Abbot was speaking sotto voice. "Neville Longbottom came and told us that dementor cloaks were poisonous, so Leanne used her herbology gloves to fold it up and put it on the shelf."
"Neville cast a locking charm on the outside door and then ran after Harry." Meghan Jones spoke diffidently. "People were calling up and down and someone said that jamming the door tracks might keep the rest of the dementors out, so we did that. Then Percy Weasley came back with Neville and some of the prefects with chains that they used to chain the outside doors closed. Mary Bevins, the sixth year Slytherin prefect, told me that Percy went outside and took the chains from the coal tender."
"You have all done very well." Amelia turned around to face the aurors. "I want the train secured by patronus capable wands, one per car. The broom riders are to circle out and try to get a bearing on the dementors. Two groups, elements of three, are to sweep up and down the track searching. Any adult is to be taken into custody. Any kissed students or adults are to be guarded until the scene can be fully documented."
A quavering voice spoke out behind her. "How could this have happened? Why are dementors swarming in the middle of the UK? Aren't they all supposed to be under the control of the Ministry?" Leanne Maclintock was seriously reconsidering her attendance at Hogwarts.
Bones' cheek twitched, briefly revealing a fathomless rage before she got hold of herself and carefully assumed a neutral expression. "We are going to thoroughly investigate and determine that, Miss Maclintock, and when we do, I assure you that there will be hell to pay."
lf
Harry woke when the train slowed more rapidly than usual for a curve, almost throwing him forward out of the seat that he was sprawled across. Vaguely, he wondered at the poor driving and then recalled the kissed driver. Perhaps the new one wasn't as experienced.
Sitting up, Harry rubbed his eyes and then looked at his watch. Three hours had passed since he'd stabbed the last dementor. There was someone standing outside, a red cloak with its back to him.
He was alone in the last compartment of the first car and as he watched, the auror turned and walked toward the front. The second the auror moved, Harry acted on impulse, slipping out of the compartment and through the back door to the next car.
This one had an auror trainee, sitting in a compartment with some sixth years. He never looked as Harry passed. Making his way down the cars, Harry noticed that while there were still students on board, they were fewer and older. Most were sound asleep, in their cabins including more than one auror trainee.
Much relieved after visiting the lav, Harry put on his cloak to return to his original compartment, only to find it empty. His trunk was still on the floor, expanded to full size, but safely closed.
He looked inside, finding everything in order with no sign of the girls that had taken refuge there. Putting on his Hogwarts robe, Harry ate the delicious corned beef sandwich that Dobby had packed for him in a stasis locked picnic basket, uncaring of spoiling the feast. He was truly famished and he washed it all down with nearly a liter of cold milk.
He had to admit to being a little surprised to find that he still had his expanded sheath, fang and cloak. The cloak seemed to hide itself, but the sheath had only some kind of runic spell to divert hostile eyes. He couldn't believe that aurors would be so easily fooled. Harry had gone out like a light once his head was down and he couldn't imagine the adult that wouldn't immediately confiscate a basilisk fang from him.
"Are you well, Boy? Those girls spoke freely as they hid. Hell spawn can be difficult for even the most experienced sorcerer to handle." The icon hadn't spoken to the girls, but the silver-eyed one had stared at it the entire time that she was in the trunk.
Harry shrugged. "They easier to kill than a man. I stabbed them with my fang. Drove them off."
"Do you still have the dagger? If you can hide it, do so, but if you cannot then you must be bold. Be sure to find out if there are bounties or valuable remains to be had and demand your due." The icon's pop eyed glare looked almost proud.
Harry nodded. "It kind of surprised me that Percy or the aurors didn't take it, but I still have everything."
The icon's glare intensified. "Others will be eager to wrest it from you now that its existence has become common knowledge. Hide it! Hide everything of value, send them to the vault with the elf until they are done sniffing after them. The heirlooms of the Peverell family are no one's business."
Harry nodded. "The train is warded against elves. Otherwise every pureblood that could call on one would have them pranking and stealing."
"Are you a peasant or are you a Peverell? Find a way!"
Harry thought about the problem for a moment and then dumped out a significantly battered but still credible Potter school trunk, one that he had packed with samples of the various elements and materials that he was experimenting with.
Putting his cloak, his grandmother's pendent, his expanded sheath with the basilisk fang and his father's wand away in a locked cabinet, Harry packed the second trunk for Hogwarts, transferring his school books, supplies, clothes and everything else that he didn't mind losing.
Performing the ritual to shed a bit of blood, he activated the trunk's magical lock, then carried it up the stairs and out into the railway compartment.
No one was there, so he put the new trunk up on the luggage shelf and shrank the other one, pocketing it well before an auror appeared.
The door opened and the man said, "Neatly done, Mister Potter. I'm Auror Stevens. If your business is concluded, Madame Bones would like to speak with you. She's right this way."
"Alright." Harry nodded and proceeded, noting that the auror, probably a real one as opposed to a trainee, walked behind him where Harry couldn't pick him off.
When they arrived at the baggage compartment, now taken over by the aurors, Harry had to wait in a sort of queue behind several aurors, overhearing their reports to Madame Bones.
Something called 'the heavy mob' had arrived with 'control keys,' rounded up the surviving dementors and sent them packing to Azkaban, where the warden had been summarily arrested and was undergoing 'rigorous' interrogation. Records were seized and investigations were under way there and at the Ministry. The Acting Minister was unaccounted for, with a search underway.
When Harry finally had his turn, he had to stop himself from using the 'beg to report' formula that he'd overheard the preceding aurors use.
"Hello. I was told that you wanted to see me?" Harry put on the blandly pleasant smile that he had rehearsed with Jane, hoping to irritate the living hell out of Snape.
Bones shot the escorting auror a look. "Yes, Mister Potter, we have indeed been looking for you. We were quite surprised to find you absent from the compartment in which you were sleeping. The auror standing guard said that he only walked up and down the car once to stretch his legs and when he returned you had vanished."
Harry raised an eyebrow, having been reprimanded by both Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy for shrugging in polite company. "I saw him, but I didn't think anything of it. The train jostled me awake and I made my way to the lav. As we were almost at Hogwarts, I went back to my compartment and put on my school robe."
Bones nodded. The boy had flat out ghosted them, walking right past at least ten aurors, but then he'd killed a basilisk and a bakers dozen dementors, so one really couldn't expect him to be anything but extraordinary. "Mister Potter, please allow me to express my deepest gratitude on behalf of the Ministry of Magic and especially upon my own behalf as Regent Bones for the sterling service that you have rendered to magical Britain in defending the Hogwarts Express. I intend to recommend you for an Order of Merlin, First Class."
"Oh. Well, you're welcome." Harry didn't really have a response.
"Mister Potter, I intend see the dementors exterminated for this debacle. Can you confirm for me that it was a basilisk fang that you used to dispose of them?" Bones was writing in a notebook like Moody's.
Reluctantly, Harry nodded. "Yes. The goblins have the rest of them. I think they're for sale."
Bones ignored this broad hint that the Ministry wasn't going to be using his. "Can you tell me about it?"
Harry nodded. "They came and I could hear screaming. My friend, Neville Longbottom, told me what they were and that spells didn't work on them."
He paused for breath, thinking of how easily it could have gone the other way. "It got very cold and the locking charms we had cast on the door failed. One of them came in, picked me up and died straightaway when I stabbed it through the head, letting all kinds of light-balls out. Thought they might be souls. When I saw that they could die, I wanted to kill them, so I looked in on the last car and then went running up the train, stabbing every one that I found."
He took another breath. "It was easy and even kind of fun until I found Hermione and thought that she and her Runes Club friends had been kissed. Neville, who was following along and watching behind, had told me the things ate souls, so I thought that maybe if I popped the one that had got them it might revive everyone. So I stabbed my way to the engine, where I found the driver. They started to get worried then, when they couldn't touch me."
Madame Bones had two automatic quills taking down his statement. "You were outside at this point?"
"Yes, on the track. I went down the side, stabbing every one that I could catch. When I rounded the baggage car, the ones I hadn't got yet finally ran, or really sort of flew away. They were floating along slow, like balloons, so I went to get my broom to finish them off. Percy and Nev had locked all the doors with some chain by then and when I got in Percy told me that Hermione was alive."
Harry smiled at the memory. "She's just dead clever you know, and had stunned everybody and herself to fool the dementors into leaving them alone. I did as Percy asked then and let them go. He's the Head Boy and and a bit strict."
Madame Bones nodded. "It turns out that you were correct in your theory, Mister Potter. One of the dementors that you killed had indeed kissed the driver. He's awake and responsive at St. Mungos."
"So no one was hurt?" Harry felt elated.
Bones gave him a searching look and then shook her head. "Unfortunately the fireman either jumped or fell from the plate a mile or so back and perished from his injuries."
"I didn't know. Do you think that you'll catch whoever did this?" Harry wasn't going to hold his breath. Most of the people that were trying to kill him were either seen off direct or got away clean.
"I am taking all of this very personally, Mister Potter. I assure you that no stone will remain unturned."
"Whoever it was, they came after me and Susan first. Neville said that each of the compartments that were opened had at least one Wizengamot heir inside. Do you think they'll try to get us at school?"
Bones considered the implications. The dementors were nominally under control of the Ministry, but there were over three hundred people working there and she didn't trust Umbridge to maintain proper security. Given Harry Potter's history, a little paranoia was completely justified. "Perhaps. We will certainly be able to use this incident to improve security."
Harry nodded awkwardly. "Is there any way that we could just sort of forget about my part in this? I mean, does everyone have to know? Maybe the dementors had some sort of accidents or something. Slipped and fell. They have necks to break, right?"
Every auror present broke into involuntary laughter, and even Madame Bones couldn't help a smile. "I'm afraid that particular cat is well and truly out of the bag, Harry. Mister Potter. The students all know."
After that, a demoralized Harry did his best to tell them what had happened step by step, but he couldn't remember exact details or even how many dementors he'd killed. He thought ten, but he hadn't been counting. He sort of ran down and became increasingly monosyllabic even in the face of Tonks arriving and nearly hugging him to death. Whoever she eventually wed would have to be a chap of decent compressability, he mused.
When the train stopped at the station, Harry climbed off and swiftly ducked under to the other side. He called Dobby and handed over the shrunken trunk, the elf sensing his need and popping away unseen.
Satisfied, Harry blithely stonewalled the aurors that had crawled after him, demanding to know what he was getting up to.
lf
The late sorting was chaotic, the students exhausted and out of sorts from dementor exposure. The first through third years had been portkeyed to Hogsmeade by the aurors and walked to the castle, few of them in their Hogwarts robes or wearing sufficient clothing to withstand the Scots chill.
The tiny Hogwarts staff, preoccupied with internal difficulties and beset by intractable demands from the aurors were insufficient to deal with much outside of their usual routine. They had left the students in the care of the elves, who had promptly begun making all sorts of chocolate concoctions, rapturously competing to see which could stuff them fullest.
As a consequence, almost all of the first through third years were now taking the plunge from an enormous sugar rush, their energy flagging terribly. The firsties had it worst of all, forced to go line up and clutching each other to stay on their feet as they waited for the sorting to begin. As it drug on they became angry, argumentative and disgruntled.
The Hat sang an inappropriately cheerful ditty about unity and chocolate, then proceeded to send six muggleborn students to Slytherin, something unprecedented for seven decades.
Most shocking to Harry was the absence of Snape, whom he had fully expected to take points at the door for harming the poor little dementors. He had been ready with a subtle crack about them being long lost relatives of Snape, but the grease-bat had, in the words of Dumbledore, elected to 'abandon the field of pedagogy and seek his fortunes elsewhere.' Harry just hoped it wasn't so far as to be too hard to catch up with him someday.
Professor Aurora Sinistra, the Astrology professor, was presented as the new head of house for Slytherin. From the rather effortless way that she had shut down any push-back for the newly inducted muggleborn students, things were going to be different.
The third shock was Snape's direct replacement. Narcissa Malfoy was introduced as the new Potions Mistress. She was not in academic robes and it was generally agreed upon by the older male Griffindors that she would be vastly easier on the eyes than her unwashed predecessor. She had apparently been hired sometime after Harry had spoken with her at the station, leading him to wonder if Snape had been arrested.
Judging from his expression, Draco had decidedly mixed feelings. Harry liked 'Aunt' Narcissa, who seemed very kind and genuinely nice. It was a little odd to think about a teacher that he might actually feel bad about deceiving.
Harry sat at the table, trying to hold his head up as the talking continued. Finally, with the usual announcement about the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore went off script.
"And lastly, before we tuck in, I would like to award fifty points each to Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom and Percy Weasley for their quick thinking and bravery in the face of danger. A further hundred points is awarded to Harry Potter, as well as a special award for services to the school. Thank you all for your efforts."
Harry managed a sort of wave.
Dumbledore continued, "Mister Potter, I fear I must now ask you for that fang. Such a thing is far too dangerous to be carried in school."
Harry narrowed his eyes at this public demand. Must he confirm that Harry had something valuable? "To who? Everyone here would probably be dead if I didn't have it."
Dumbledore got a stern look. "Nevertheless, you must surrender it."
Harry sat stone-faced. "I sent it to my vault. Perhaps you should speak with my guardian about it."
"I see." Dumbledore looked disappointed, but Aunt Narcissa smiled brightly at him.
Harry thought that he might have felt bad about disappointing Dumbledore last year, but not after talking with Gramps.
The feast was somber and Harry ate hungrily in spite of the sandwich, monosyllabic and feeling little but fatigue. He went to bed as soon as he could manage, wanly acknowledging congratulations and falling asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Lf
"Want to have dinner with me? I've a reservation at Fontains."
"What? No!" Candy might have enjoyed a late dinner there, as the food was really good, but did this coworker, a near stranger, truly think that she was born yesterday? Perhaps he thought her muggleborn, though she had never heard of one working in the hospital. Only a fool or someone completely ignorant of basic hazards would risk being picked off by a love potion that way.
There was a reason for the standard courtship declarations and oaths for adult magi, as it made love potions or compulsion too risky to try. He wasn't completely ugly, nor of too low birth, but Healer Dean had insulted both her and her family with such an offer, as well as making the mistake of addressing her chest, never once actually meeting her eyes. There was no chance.
Retreating from the crass man, she made her way to the caf, where an entire table of them sat grinning at her like a bunch of doxies. She didn't hate them or anything, but couldn't they control themselves? A… bountiful bosom didn't make her a damned vela! Taller than most, she had yet to meet a man that she could see herself marrying, so at twenty four she had given up on the idea in order to pursue a career. Sadly, it wasn't going very well.
Candy resentfully collected a tray, cast her detection charms and then turned back, knowing that they were now leering at her backside. She could put her plate in the lower drawer of her duty station and just sneak bites, avoiding these irritating boys and their constant efforts to get her into trouble with Night Supervisor McNeil.
Making her way back to the Potions, Rituals and Wandless Casualty Ward, Candy halted at the doors, looking through the round windows at the old bat herself, who was sitting at the charge desk reading over her charts. The supervisor was checking up on her work again, always looking for an excuse to let her go. Her work was damned well immaculate, but she knew that the pinch-faced old goon thought her 'disruptive' and wanted her gone.
It was so unfair. Born with a body like hers, named 'Candy,' by her vapid mother, who had tragically married Donald Cain, their only offspring had been cursed with the full weight of Grandmother's incisive intellect. She was here to work and she did her job well! Just because every unbent wizard in Britain wanted to flirt the jealous old biddy had instantly labeled her as the disruptive one!
Backing off unseen, Candy resentfully decided to take the full hour for lunch, which she never did. But where to go?
Climbing the stairs to the top floor, she avoided the empty charge desk of Long Term Care, lest some healer come breezing in expecting service. The monitoring spells were forwarded to Main Administration at night in a cost-saving effort, as very little typically changed in the ward.
Looking up and down the deserted floor, she started looking for an empty room.
Opening the first unlabeled door, she was surprised to find a man standing at the bedside with a pillow held over a patient's face. With a speed born of shooting indiscriminate stinging hexes at catcalling boys back at Hogwarts, Candy dropped her tray and stunned the man.
The man didn't fall though, only turning to face her with a leer. "Well, well, what have we here?"
Recognizing Fenrir Greyback from a wanted poster that she often saw at the owl post office, Candy knew that there was little that she could do with conventional spells. Werewolves were just too resistant, even without being transformed.
The dirty man grinned at her. "You just wait there a moment, Sweetmeat. Daddy will be along right after he takes care of this business and we'll have a real nice time."
She couldn't outrun him. Thinking quickly, she unlimbered a failed experimental spell that she had seen Master Healer Sutherland trying to use. Its purpose was to cut away cursed tissue and it incorporated a stream of conjured carborundum particles to make the cut, the magic component propelling the abrasive dust and healing the damage after it had cut. Putting some power into it, she cast, her panic receding when she managed to amputate both of his legs at the knees.
Greyback fell to the floor, howling. "Damn you! I was just gonna make you my bitch, but now I'm gonna eat you!"
Candy watched dispassionately as he flopped about for a moment and then crazily, stood up on the stumps, balancing on his knuckles. The werewolf healing factor had very quickly scarred over the sealed surfaces that her spell had left, creating a pad for the beast to walk upon. It seemed that he even had something of a heel. Would his legs grow back? It was entirely possible. What a shame that such a powerful healing ability couldn't be studied in depth.
Thoughtfully, she took a step to the side in order to avoid hitting anything valuable in the room and then amputated both of his arms at the shoulders. Pleased with her aim, she dragged the screaming torso out of the room with an accio, scattering chairs in the waiting area and slamming it against a support pillar. Moving quickly, she conjured silver chains that wrapped it tightly to the brick column.
"I'm gonna send the pack after you and your blood! I'm gonna rip your-
Disliking his animal howling and the foul, vicious threats, she used the tooth pulling spell, rendering him as harmless as possible before cauterizing his gums and silencing him. She hit him in the face with a reductor curse for good measure, knocking him out.
The patient was lying still, thin handsome features serenely lifeless, the colored rune plaque that represented life support spells no longer glowing, yet no one came with the crash carpet.
Belatedly realizing that the monitoring spells had been deliberately disrupted by the assassin and that Main knew nothing, she ran into the room and began CPR on the poor man, immediately initiating mouth-to-mouth and chest compression.
After the first twenty she placed her ear on his chest, hearing only faint gurgles, so she leaned him over the edge of the bed and squeezed, letting gravity assist in clearing his airway. Pulling her wand, she cast the heart starter and then summoned flem, ignoring it splattering on the floor.
Levitating him upside down briefly, she put him back in the bed. Taking a position on the bed behind him, she pulled him up against her chest, wrapping her arms around and methodically began compressing his diaphragm. The magical method worked, but not half as well as the muggle, so she kept at it until she tired. She then wrapped her legs around him and used those, hoping that no one saw. After a longer time than she thought reasonable, he coughed hard and his arms flailed.
Candy held him up in a sitting position, leaning him forward until he had coughed all of the remaining fluid out, and then lowered him back across her lap to her right side, cradling his head in the crook of her elbow. That's when haunted blue-gray eyes fluttered open to meet hers.
"Wh- Who are you?"
lf
Carver grunted with interest when the house elf was shown into his workshop. The brethren had little to do with the contemptible creatures ordinarily, but this one was carrying his latest masterpiece. It approached and bowed, slightly mollifying his irritation with its presence. "Well, what is it?"
"I is Dobby, house elf of the Magnificent Harry Potter. I brings the stabby fang of Harry Potter to be checked for the damage." Dobby offered the fang.
"What did he do with it? It better not be something stupid, like prying something." Carver drew the weapon from its sheath and immediately saw the dark sheen on the surface. "What is this?"
"Dobby hears the aurors say that the Great Harry Potter hunts down and stabs thirteen dementorys, killing them all."
The thunderous goblin frown smoothed away immediately. "I suppose that's demon blood on it then. Doesn't appear to etch the bone. I'll scrape it off, clean and polish the ivory and then get started on the new sheath. This old one won't do anymore and the Demonslayer will probably need it soon."