"How was your Christmas Ms. Granger?" asked Jamie.
"It was excellent since I left Gryffindor Jamie, thank you for asking," said Hermione. She liked him because he was so polite to her, even before the change.
In fact it was thanks to him that she was finally enjoying her school years. Being away from people like Ron Weasly had done wonders. She could actually have a proper debate now.
"How was your break Jamie?"
"It was great. We even brought Neville with us and he had a lot of fun for once."
"I'm glad for him. Ever since his parents were taken, he seemed so depressed. Now he actually seems happy again," said Hermione.
"It was less of a kidnapping and more of a rescue."
"Hmm?" said Hermione.
"Nothing," said Jamie.
Less than a month of returning, Jamie was confronted by Ron.
Ron had taken his house placement pretty hard, since he fully believed Jamie would be a lion like him. And ever since the boy had festered a deep hatred of Jamie Potter and those around him. It didn't help that he was the most popular boy of the first years and that he had gotten two lions to leave and become a badger and a raven respectively.
Of course it didn't help that Ron had been caught bullying the other first years because of Jamie. Now his parents were threatening a summer of chores and no fun.
"YOU!" he growled.
"What do you want Mr. Weasly?" asked Jamie patiently. He had an idea of how this would end, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. Not for Ron anyway.
Charlie had already talked to Arthur and Molly about letting the twins work at the base over the summer to earn some spending money, and if Ron continued he would be roped into it as well. Percy was already talking with some of the older veterans about getting into an opening with the muggle Prime Minister as an intern.
Charlie had convinced the boy to try for his high school degree, because as he pointed out, the Ministry of Magic only worked with a small amount of people, whereas the Prime Minister helped with nearly the entire country. Plus the average Ministry worker didn't make nearly as much as someone did in the muggle half.
Not to mention it made him much more tolerable to deal with.
Ron growled before he charged at Jamie. Jamie didn't react until the last second, when he knocked out Ron with a single blow. The boy was overweight, brutish and was extremely lazy. His greatest ambition was to be a professional Quidditch player, which he apparently believed didn't require good grades.
Personally Jamie felt the boy would do better as a professional chess champion, if what he heard about the boy's ability to play was correct. Jamie glanced at Ron's prone form and an idea occurred to him.
Perhaps Ron could benefit from a summer in the same program he loved, where he got to see other countries and the sea for two months.
Plus it would give this spoiled brat some structure which he desperately needed.
Molly Weasly was a nice woman, but she coddled her children too much. Which was why she was unsure about this idea to send Ron out to sea for two months in order to calm him down. Arthur, however, had no such concerns and felt it would do Ron good to see the world and to grow up a little. Besides, it once was custom to send sons to sea in order for them to make their own names among the purebloods.
It was the reason why so few had complained about Jamie being sent to a Military Academy at such a young age.
"Hmm? The third corridor? Why should I care what's in there?" asked Jamie.
"But there's a Cerberus in there! Why don't you want to know what it's guarding?" asked Hermione.
"By any chance is it a girl?" asked Jamie carefully. He had been wondering why Scruffy was acting odd these last few days.
"How should I know? I was more interested in their heads!" said Hermione.
"...Wait right here," said Jamie.
An hour later he returned looking rather...odd.
"Well?"
"I need to go talk to Hagrid for a moment. You shouldn't come."
"Why?"
"You don't want to know, trust me," said Jamie.
"What can I do fer you Jamie?"
"Hagrid, do you by any chance know the owner of a Cerberus on the third floor?"
"He's mine. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the... Never you mind!"
"I could care less about what he has you guarding. I am more concerned with the fact that my dog may or may not have gotten your...Fluffy...pregnant."
"What now?" said Hagrid.
"Long story short, your Cerberus is in fact female, not male as you seem to believe and has recently gone into heat. For some reason Scruffy was with Neville when Draco tricked them into a duel, and since he is old enough...well," said Jamie, looking embarrassed.
"Fluffy is a girl?"
"Dogs like me, and since Scruffy has been acting oddly I took notice. It wasn't until Hermione mentioned a dog on the third floor that I went to look. Fluffy is female, and she was displaying all the signs of a dog in heat," said Jamie embarrassed.
"What signs?"
Jamie's face was flaming red as he told Hagrid what to look for. Apparently the groundskeeper never had female dogs before.
Needless to say a month later when 'Fluffy' began to show signs of puppies, Hagrid was very surprised. Jamie, however, was more mortified than surprised.
On the plus side, Hagrid did promise to give one of the pups to Jamie, who was still very embarrassed about the whole situation.
"So Potter, you still not interested in joining the reserve team?" asked Cedric.
"Not even a bit. I have too much on my plate doing magic homework as well as mundane. Besides, I get my exercise done the old fashioned way with Scruffy."
"True. But you are the best flier in the first years. Plus you have a focus none of the other kids have in this school."
"It helps when you're used to drill sergeants yelling at you whenever you screw up," said Jamie.
"Is that how you deal with Snape?" asked Cedric surprised.
"Believe me, he's nothing to my last instructor," said Jamie.
"How bad was he?"
"He tended to yell at us if we went too slowly while running, or didn't do push ups like we were taught. And don't get me started on gun maintenance..." winced Jamie. That was one of the few things the man didn't yell at him for, because his grandfather had him taking care of the guns before he was ever allowed to shoot them.
"You know I've been meaning to ask...why has Neville's attitude taken a 180 since he came back?"
"Not my place to explain...besides I don't want the aurors after my grandfather."
"What he do?" asked Cedric grinning.
"Rescued the Longbottoms from living a life of complete boredom and is helping them return to normal."
"How the hell he manage that?" asked Cedric stumped.
"As it turns out, both of them used to serve with my grandfather, and when he went to regain his lost memory from before the attack on the mansion, he spotted them and later convinced his old war buddies to help him 'rescue' the Longbottoms. They had the two doing old exercises and talking about the good old days and they two slowly started to come out of their shell. Apparently they were suffering a magical form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."
"What's that?" asked Cedric.
"Basically they were stuck relieving the Lestrange attack and were unable to break free of the trauma. It's fairly common in veterans who have been in situations that involve life and death. Like those poor sods who went to fight in Vietnam, they sometimes have memories of those jungles come to the forefront and suffer horrific flashbacks of friends dying."
"Really?" said Cedric. That sounded horrible.
"Some of those people can't lead normal lives, but Grandpa opened up an old base and recreated some of those scenarios so those guys could get it out of their system. It really seems to be working."
"So about that reserve spot..." said Cedric.
"Maybe another year. Right now my plate is too full. Once I get settled into a routine that works, then we'll talk," said Jamie.
In reality Quidditch didn't excite him as much as free running, parkour or football. But he wasn't going to tell a die hard fan that to his face.
"So the Cerberus in the third floor is guarding something created by Nicholas Flamel," said Jamie. For some reason Hermione seemed dead set on knowing what was being held there, even though Jamie had little interest. His interests lay in exploring, not treasure hunting.
Besides the minute she said 'Nicholas Flamel', he had a good idea what was there. What Hermione failed to realize was that she was looking in the wrong places for Flamel, who was so famous that Jamie had heard of him before he had found the Owlry at his old Academy.
Besides, he was a Full Metal Alchemist addict. He had all the books and the entire series in his room.
"Why aren't you more interested?!" she asked.
Jamie was more curious as to when she started hanging around him and why. Aside from a love of books, the two had relatively little to nothing in common.
"Possibly because I already have an idea of what's in there, and even if someone did steal it, I know for a fact that they won't keep it for long."
"You already know what's down there?!"
"You said Nicholas Flamel, right? There is only one thing I know of that he had a hand in that everyone wants," explained Jamie.
Hermione's mouth opened and closed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Philosopher's stone. The Sage's Stone. The Ultimate Amplifier. It goes by many names, but it all ends with the same thing. Tears and blood. That stone is more trouble than it's worth."
"How do you know about that?" asked Hermione.
Jamie dug into his bag for his secret addiction.
"Full Metal Alchemist? Isn't that a kid thing?" she asked.
"...Hermione, do you even read fiction or do you just dive into science?"
"I don't believe in that hogwash," she said tartly.
Jamie inwardly sighed. Here was indisputable proof that Hermione would never get along with him as a girlfriend. Not that he had ever entertained any ideas in that direction. She was just too stiff.
"Right. Anyway all that's down there is a stone that is nothing but trouble," said Jamie firmly.
It was after the finals that Jamie ran into trouble. He was on his way to the kitchens for a healthy snack when he ran right into Professor Quirrel.
The man looked harried like he had done something wrong. Jamie grabbed his hand to help his teacher up with Quirrel started screaming like the damned.
Jamie dropped his hand and saw it crumble beneath his fingers. Quirrel suddenly snarled and grabbed Jamie, who did a basic over the shoulder throw. Quirrel's screams grew as his body turned to ashes.
Something fell out of his pocket and Jamie almost ran. Instead he picked it up and put it in his pocket before he ran like hell.
When he heard heavy footsteps coming his way, he judged the distance between floors. He jumped and managed to grab a railing. Thanks to his upper body strength he was able to pull himself up to the landing and hid behind a pillar.
Once his breathing was down to reasonable levels, he continued on to his way to the kitchens for a snack.
As far as he was concerned, that never happened.
Jamie was understandably horrified when he finally looked at what he picked up.
It was a blood red stone that almost resembled a ruby, except it didn't look like any rubies he had ever seen. The first thing he could thing of was the fact that this was the same amplifier that the Elric brothers had so desperately sought to set things right.
The next thought was that this was a 'lost and/or stolen' item, meaning he had to return it to it's proper owner. Unfortunately it was too valuable to send by mail, which meant that he would have to take a trip to France in the summer.
Jamie immediately shoved the stone into the same bag as his manga collection (oh, the irony) and forgot all about it.
The best defense against any questions about something he wasn't supposed to have was to forget any knowledge about it. It would drop more suspicions than a shielded mind ever would.
"Why do you want to go to France?" asked Sirius. He was proud his godson had managed to help break the Slytherin stranglehold on the House Cup, and still confused why his godson was a Puff.
"I have something that belongs to Nickolas Flamel that is too dangerous to send through an owl or mundane means. And I already sent him a letter from the base asking for his address," said Jamie.
"And why didn't you ask your Grandpa?"
"Because he's stuck with another group of PTSD sufferers who haven't gotten used to the re-enactment phase of treatment. They tend to be a little...dangerous...until they get used to the new routine. It's the same reason why Neville isn't here at the moment."
"Well, it gives me an excuse to corrupt your innocent mind..." said Sirius.
"Did I forget to mention Frank and Alice would be joining us?"
"Damn."
"And no portkeys. We're taking a plane, because I don't want to be sick to my stomach when we meet Mr. Flamel at that cafe."