So, I'm not going to make any excuses. I had this half written for forever. And I also don't like how short it ended up being, but it ended where it ended for this chapter. And no, I wasn't holding the fic hostage for a certain number of reviews. I'm not that dumb, though that's probably what a lot of you thought when this didn't go up any time soon after my last request. If I still have any readers out there, thanks for sticking with me.
The vanished newspapers had ended up in the common rooms, where the crowds were less and not as likely to blow up in fights.
At least in Ravenclaw tower the papers were read and re-read, facts and figures picked out as best as the article gave.
"You know, this would have been a lot better in the Quibbler." One of the older students sighed to himself, tossing the paper down.
Harry saw Luna frown, but not speak up. He did so in her place. "Why better in the Quibbler?"
The sixth year looked up, a bit of surprise that he'd been overheard. "At least then we could say it was blown out of proportion." He looked at Luna. "Your da, even when he's telling the truth, spins it up. The Prophet tries to downplay anything bad, and if it's this bad here." The older teen shivered. "It had to be nasty."
"Aurors are coppers, right?" Harry asked aloud, looking around. He got a few nods. "Why can't they take care of this then?" He shook the paper in the air. "Why are they getting beat up and killed so easily?"
"You-Know-Who isn't your average criminal, Harry." Roger spoke up. "From what my parents said, about the only person he was afraid of was the Headmaster. And he can't be everywhere."
Harry set the paper back down, the feeling from his other seemed slighted. "I think there's at least one more now."
A smug feeling that Harry wasn't sure wasn't from himself and not the other.
When Harry walked into Defense Against the Dark Arts the next morning, he was fully expecting Mrs. Flamel to start 'not teaching' at an even higher level.
The fact that Nicholas Flamel was instead waiting patiently filled Harry with a certain level of dread. It was reflected in his fellow second years as well.
"My wife will be taking over potions for the last month of the school year. Before you ask why, I will tell you. It is no longer enough to train you all to be aware of your surroundings, and know how to identify my wife's little traps. With the return of Voldemort-" here a number of students shuddered or flinched, "and we'll get that fixed as well, awareness is not enough."
A wave of the wand Nicholas held, and six dummies appeared, conjured from thin air. They held wands as well.
"I do not expect to turn you into duelists or fighters in the month we have. I do not even expect anyone in your year to successfully strike back. However, I do expect you all to learn enough that once you are outside the walls of this castle, you can survive long enough to get away."
Another flick of his wand and the dummies changed. They wore the robes of death eaters and slowly started to spread out.
"These are your death eaters. They will be casting spells at you for the remainder of the class time. Green is the killing curse, black is the Crucio. Red is a violent splitting hex that can shatter your ribs and make your heart burst, if you get a direct hit. All three are actually stunners that will keep you down for two or three minutes."
As the transformed dummies raised their wands, Nicholas smiled. "There will be a bonus for the student that is hit the least, and extra punishment for the one hit the most. Begin." With that, Nicholas' form darkened and blurred. "I'll be playing Voldemort."
"Crucio!" 'Voldemort' called, and a black spell raced out and slammed into one student, knocking them to the ground. Screams erupted as the dummies began firing spells as well and the DADA classroom descended into madness.
Harry quickly dived under one of the desks, the green light of the killing curse barely whizzing above his head. Other students were diving as well, some hit by spells and other just trying to get some sort of cover.
Harry looked up at Shiva, who was sitting calmly amongst the chaos. She gave him a smile and shook her head. "This is your training. Though I will always try my best to protect you, you must learn to protect yourself, Bahamut." Her last word was quiet, a winter's breeze that caressed him not in the English language. Harry shook himself, turning a little red at the interesting contact.
"Right." Harry stood, and almost immediately had three separate spells headed his way. Without time to touch his focus, Harry twisted his fingers in front of him just so. "Protego!" The wall of magic sprang into being and the two red spells crashed into it. The green spell that was supposed to be the killing curse passed through his shield and for a moment, Harry knew no more.
He awoke just a few minutes later as the stunner wore off, his robes stained with a little of the green from the spell and saw 'Voldemort' standing in front of him. "Nice spell, Potter. Did you forget the Unforgivables can't be shielded against?"
The other inside him tried to roar forward, but Harry pushed back, trying to impress on it that this wasn't a real battle.
"Eyes front." A wand lifted Harry's head back up to Mr. Flamel in his Voldemort disguise. "Come boy, it's time to play. Cruc-"
The wand snapped in two as Harry's hand was suddenly holding onto Flamel's, an unknown strength filling him. There was a subtle building of magic in his chest as Harry suddenly and frantically threw himself into mental battle against the dragon roaring in his own mind.
"Master yourself, Mr. Potter. Whatever power you may have, it does you no good if you don't control it."
Nicholas stepped back from Harry, turning on him to continue the fight among the other students. With the man's dismissal of Harry, the boy's other faded back again a bit, enough for Harry to look at the chunk of wand in his hand, and the nails that had grown half an inch, before they receded back once more.
Huh, maybe there's more to Madam Pomphrey's animagus thing than I thought?
Before he could continue that line of thought, Harry had to throw himself out of the way of another black Crucio. Looking up, one of the dummies was advancing on him. Unfortunately, there were too many others scurrying around nearby for Harry's comfort in using any Command magic, and all he could do was dodge another spell.
Harry was pushed out of the way of another spell, only to see that it was because Hermione had been fallen against him, hit by one of the killing curse stunners.
"Fine, let's play it that way then." Reaching into himself for magic, Harry focused not on the dummies or Mr. Flamel, but himself and the other second years. "Hastega!"
He sagged for a moment tagging that many people at once with the reaction and speed enhancer, but was able to quickly dodge the next volley of incoming spellfire. Under the effects of the Haste, Harry saw the dummies and Mr. Flamel begin to up their spell casting to compensate.
By the end of class, no one had been spared dozens of hits by the dummies, even after Harry had tried using Slow against them all.
"Now, what today's demonstration was, was an example of how a handful of people could throw forty students into complete panic." At the last few minutes of class, the room had returned itself to normal and Mr. Flamel was standing at the desk lecturing again.
"Six dummies and myself. Next time, I'll expect you all to do better about protecting yourselves. As Mr. Potter so eloquently proved early on, shields do not matter to the Unforgivables. Instead, put something between you and the spell." He waved them all off. "Since you all got hit so many times, you all get the extra homework. Each of you will stand in front of the class next time, saying Voldemort until you don't flinch. Class dismissed, Mr. Potter, please stay behind."
Harry lingered behind, his classmates throwing him worried looks as they filed out. Harry wasn't worried, exactly, but didn't know why he had to stay back. He hadn't done any worse than the others.
After the last student had left, Nicholas motioned at the door and it shut itself. Another gesture and one of the chairs pulled itself from the wall where it'd been sitting the entire class, coming to a halt next to Harry. Nicholas then leaned against the professor's desk and motioned Harry to sit.
"You realize that you're going to be the most targeted person in Britain, the moment you step outside of Hogwarts?"
Harry sat, frowning. "I'd figured that Voldemort wouldn't like me throwing him out of the throne room, but seriously? The most targeted? Out of the entire British Isles?"
It was Shiva who answered him, having chosen to stay standing nearby. "You handily defeated him, Harry. Multiple times, in multiple incarnations. Very few would accept that."
"Exactly." Nicholas replied. "With him taking Azkaban, it gives him a base to work out of and the contingent of Dementors to serve him, beyond his death eaters. What he did to gain their allegiance I could not even begin to guess." The alchemist sighed. "I doubt Voldemort will be very quiet about using them. But I digress. My point is Harry, is that you will be a high value target at the end of the month when school ends. I would prefer to keep you out of his sights."
Harry shifted in the chair. "So you want me to what, come back to France with you and Mrs. Flamel? That'd be a good place to start, I guess."
"No." Nicholas shook his head. "I will likely be staying here at Hogwarts if things become as bad as I expect, and I would keep you here. Behind the Hogwarts wards, with enough people here to make Voldemort think twice about attacking. It is your seat of power as well."
Now Harry sighed, standing and turning the seat around before sitting once more, his arms crossed against the back of it. "Yeah, but I need to get to the Throne of Ice. I've been looking into ways to get to the Himalayas this summer, to get Shiva back there. I was hoping you might have a Portkey there, or something." Harry shrugged. "If not, well, Firewing's large enough to give me a ride."
"Harry, mentally you're twelve. Physically you may be almost fourteen. How much planning beyond 'get to the Himalayas' have you done?" Nicholas asked. "Food, lodgings, the fact that not everyone even speaks English? Do you know where in the Himalayas you would be going?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but the alchemist continued on. "Regardless of what power you have, you still appear to be a young teen and there are people out there that will try to take advantage of that."
"Then I was right to ask you first, I hadn't thought of all of those things. I did some of them though." Harry answered as Nicholas finally paused long enough to let Harry speak. "I didn't think about the language thing because Padma speaks English. The other stuff, yeah, I've been doing research on where I'd be going and I was going to get some Galleons out of my vault for buying stuff. There is a Gringotts India too."
Nicholas moved from the desk, walking around the room as he waved his hand, desks and chairs flying back to their original starting places. Harry watched as the man's wedding ring glinted occasionally, reminding him of the necklace focus that Professor Flitwick had used once. "It would get you further out of harm's way," he mused as he righted the room, "though Perenelle is likely to want my head over letting you go."
Harry didn't say anything as the temporary professor talked to himself. "And you can't travel by flame due to Shiva, but that doesn't preclude..." he trailed off, looking at Harry thoughtfully. "It has been several decades since I've been anywhere near India. However, just a few years ago I was in Lecce in Italy. It is a major hub for wizarding tourism in Italy and you can likely get a portkey from there to India without issue. I will provide you with a portkey there under two conditions. The first being you travel with Iris. A vanishingly small number of wizards will try to take advantage of someone with a phoenix companion."
Harry nodded. "So long as she doesn't try to transport me, that's cool."
"Secondly, you have just under a month to the end of the school year. I want a detailed written plan from you on how you expect to deal with any difficulties that will arise from language barriers and anything else. If I don't think that you are through enough, you agree to not go until I say your plans are ready."
"You're not just going to keep saying I'm not prepared enough, are you?" Harry guessed.
Nicholas shook his head with a hint of a smile. "No, I wouldn't do that to you. For at least the reason that you would eventually stop listening to me and go anyways."
"Deal then." Harry grinned.
"I won't slack on you in class though, in fact I will push everyone harder to push you as hard as I dare." Nicholas warned him, as Harry stood to leave.
"That's fine too." Harry's eyes were bright now that he had a way forward. "If you'll excuse me, I guess I have studying to do."
The next morning an announcement went out that all newspaper deliveries were now to be delivered directly to the dorm rooms. Everyone understood why, though Harry paid it little attention.
For all that Mrs. Flamel had just played at instructing students in Defense, she proved no slouch in potions and piled theory and practical work onto the students that required a lot of almost insane effort to complete successfully.
In the few moments he had between the last minute deluge of extra work and his research, Harry had the fleeting thought that she was purposely trying to eat into his research time. Haste was liberally abused that.
Research included reading the Daily Prophet however, to keep up with what was happening with Akzaban and the outside world. While nothing happened for the first week, Harry was smart enough to read between the lines of the hysteria that was building up outside the castle walls.
It was easy enough because it reflected in the school as well. Conspiracies about what was going on, several students leaving for funerals over the original attack, a few more pulled out early because of parental fears.
Thus it was a strange sort of dreadful relief when ten days later an attack was reported. Though it may have been in the Prophet, the students learned of first at breakfast.
A meal that many were beginning to learn to dread.
As soon as the majority of students had finished their morning meal, the Headmaster stood from the professor's table. The twinkling eye and smile was all but gone from the normally jovial old wizard. "Before you all return to your dorms to news, I would prefer to share it with you here. Last night a large number of Dementors came ashore in the hamlet of Homore. Most of you will not recognize the name, as it is almost entirely Muggle, but a large number of Aurors and myself apparated out to combat them."
Whispers and worried looks broke out, though for most students the fact that it was a muggle village was a question. Why them and not wizards?
"In good news however, these Dementors were weak and new, as the Patronus Charm more than drove off most, it destroyed them. Professor Nicholas Flamel will be going over the Patronus with all of you while you are still here, though I do not think you will have time to master it." Dumbledore waved his own wand, and a silver version of Fawkes erupted. "The charm creates an embodiment of positive energy and magic that may overcome the Dementors. Learn well, and practice it."