Chapter 13
"Urgh." He groaned as he fell back against the padded floor and stared up at the ceiling of the room of requirement. His entire body throbbed painfully.
"Again."
Harry rolled his eyes and sat up, pausing to glare half-heartedly at the sadistic bastard that called himself his teacher. He then turned his attention back inwards, searching for the link to his animagus form. His eyes fluttered open when he felt his arms elongate and black hair sprout along them. He was so surprised that he dropped his concentration and his arms snapped back to normal, the pain arriving seconds later.
He rotated one of his shoulders stiffly. "Why does it hurt?"
Dante scratched the side of his head. "Well, we are kind of taking the shortcut method. Your body is trying to be in two forms at once, causing your muscles and tendons to stretch and twitch between the two forms. Normally, you would train your mind to completely switch over instead of trying to force your way into the animal form." He tilted his head to the side. "You've only been working on this for a week, I am surprised at how far you have come already."
Harry sagged his shoulders. "But I don't even know what kind of animal it is yet…Now I know it has black fur. Maybe I can get a little farther." He made to get back into position when Dante's voice stopped him.
"You've done enough with that tonight. You don't want to push your body to far, or you may damage it."
Harry rolled his eyes, but didn't protest too much as his body was still throbbing. He pushed himself to his feet and looked at his watch. "Got another hour before curfew, might as well work on my aim." He wandered over to a short table that held an assortment of throwing knifes and daggers.
Picking one from the bunch, he pricked his left finger and drew a clumsy triangle with a bisecting cross where the main points intersected near his right middle finger in blood. He sucked on his left finger until the blood flow stopped before sealing the mark with a muttered spell.
He bounced the small knife in his right hand, and then he gently flicked it towards the target twenty feet away, easily hitting his mark. "Not sure why I need this." He whined as he picked another knife from the table.
A sigh could be heard from the horizontally floating Dante. "You never know when it could be useful."
Harry shot a glare his way just as he released another knife from his hand, causing the knife to turn in an arc, pass through Dante and stick with a thud into the wall behind him.
Dante sat up slowly and glared at him. Harry shrugged one shoulder and smiled sheepishly. "Oops?"
Dante rolled his eyes before lying back down again. "Oops? Did you forget the mark you placed on your hand not…seconds…before?" Sarcasm flowed freely from his mouth.
Harry rolled his eyes but didn't comment. For the next hour he practiced hitting the target he charmed to move quickly around the room. Dante had taught him the points he wanted to avoid if his intent was not to kill, and points to hit if that was his intent.
Once his hour was up, he surveyed his work with a half smile and Dante clanked his way over to see how he did.
"Not bad." He admitted, which was high praise coming from him. He faded from view and Harry walked towards the door.
He slunk his way through the darkness back to the dormitory and entered only a few minutes past curfew. Most of the upper years were still up and Harry made his way through the room to collapse in the chair beside Hermione.
She gave him a sideways look. "I looked over your homework like you asked me to," He raised an eyebrow at her tone, "and I must say, the quality, Harry…it has gone down." He gave her a look that clearly said, 'and?' She sighed. "For example," she pulled a scroll from the neat stack beside her. "This Herbology essay was supposed to be at least twelve inches long, you barely made nine. And after the first four, you just keep repeating yourself."
Harry shrugged. "Guess Herbology's just not my thing."
She raised an eyebrow. "Neither are any of the other subjects. Except for DADA, you are short on every essay."
He stared at her for a minute and when her glare didn't lessen, he reached for the pile of offending essays. "Fine, I'll add more."
He kept scribbling away until Hermione left for bed. As soon as she was safely out of sight, he rolled the essay he had been working on, without even finishing the sentence, and threw it on the pile of the ones he had 'fixed.' He stretched his arms over his head and looked around the room at those left.
Ron and Seamus were playing chess while Dean watched with half an eye while he seemed to be sketching. Harry had to fight the growl that wanted to escape his throat when he saw Ginny with her head pillowed in Neville's lap while they were both reading.
Taking deep breaths to rid his mind of the anger, he came to the conclusion that he couldn't be in the same room as them. He stood suddenly and headed for the portrait hole.
"Hey where do you think your going? Its after curfew." Ron's annoyed voice had him looking over his shoulder in apathy as his hand pushed open the portal.
"Hospital Wing." He lied blithely before jumping out the hole in the wall.
"Just don't lose us any points!" Seamus' voice yelled before Harry shut the portrait door.
Harry snorted before pulling his wand out and placing concealment charms around himself. Dante had been teaching him all manners of concealment over the past month and some, there was no way Flitch or some stupid cat were going to catch him.
Hands shoved deep in his pockets, he made a beeline for the Astronomy Tower, hoping there weren't any late night visitors there already. Finding it amazingly empty, he propped his elbows on the railing and stared out into the nighttime sky. There was just enough chill in the air to be pleasant.
Neither the warmth that brushed against his arm, nor the voice in his ear surprised him. "You should be tired."
Harry looked sideways at the transparent man, but found Dante's bloodshot eyes fixed on the stars. "Too strung out to sleep." He muttered dryly while rubbing a hand absentmindedly across his scar. It had been stinging more often over the last few days.
"You've come far. You should be happy. When we started you couldn't conceal yourself to save your life, nor were you any way competent with offensive spells."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Gee thanks."
A shoulder shrugged in his line of vision. "It's the truth. This last month and a half you have been training as if for war."
"I am training for war."
A sigh and a rattle of chains followed that blunt statement. "Be careful. I've been down the path your traveling, and I ended up stuck in a book for all eternity." The last part was said with a wry smirk as he turned to look at Harry.
Harry studied him carefully before a look of determination crossed his face. "What exactly is involved in obtaining the Panacea Optica?"
Dante's eyes darkened as they stared at each other; each saying volumes without opening their mouths. Dante was the first to look away. "The ingredient that would prove most difficult and most expensive to obtain would be Dragon Tears. The others are common enough you could snatch some from Snape's storage."
Harry blinked twice. "Dragon Tears?" he deadpanned. "You weren't kidding were you?"
Dante raised an eyebrow. "I told you it would be difficult."
Harry chewed his bottom lip and looked out across the ground as he contemplated this problem. A slow smirk formed and he turned back to the questioning Dante. "I may have an idea."
AN: so this is the end of already written chapters…leave some reviews please…ya know ya wanna!
Cya
chica