Chapter 11:
Harry knew that young Black heir would be crucial for dominance of neutrals in Slytherin house. He was expecting to meet Black heir soon after the incident in classroom. Harry knew he had to be cautious regarding Mark Black. Mark Black was a wild card for Harry and therefore he needed to know that Black heir better.
"Good morning, Heir Greengrass, Heir Sayre, Heir Zabini, Heir Davies." Mark Black greeted them.
"Good morning heir Black, it is good to see you at last." Daphne responded.
"Trust me, heir Greengrass, I wanted to meet you all sooner, but I got myself busy in some family business. I have very high opinion about all of you and I think your presence in our house have enriched our house greatly and brings more diversity of thoughts in our house." Mark Black praised him with a diplomatic tone.
Harry knew that the family business things are not entirely true, however, he wo0n't press young Black heir about it. He knew Mark Black could become an important ally for their neutral fraction in the house. Harry guessed Mark Black was testing the water with them at that moment.
"I completely trust you Heir Black and I will be pleased if you address me as Harry in our future conversation. I also agree with you that, our house needs more than one dimensional thought." Harry replied.
"Harry then you also has to call me just Mark. As the heir of my house I can say that, House Black is always open to debate on new interesting ideas even though those new ideas don't seem too much attractive at a first glance." Mark told them in a diplomatic tone.
"I think we all know the importance of having a open mind about new ideas as it can provide us new opportunities to make things better." Daphne uttered.
"I am always ready to look at new opportunities nevertheless in my mind the new opportunities should be better than the existing working system for my final approval. I have to leave now as I have a studying schedule with my cousin Draco. See you soon." Mark Black took leave from Harry and his friends.
"What do you think my friends? Harry asked his friends for their opinion.
"Heir Black is still leaning towards his second cousin Draco Malfoy but he is open to switch the sides at the right moment, I think it will take couple of years for us to make him switch the side" Daphne told her friends about his observation.
"Friends, we all know it is a long process, but we have to continuously work on him and other semi neutral members of our house." Tracy commented.
"Harry we should now go to room of requirement." Blaise suggested.
Harry accepted Blaise's suggestion and after ten minutes, all four of them were in room of requirement.
"Before we start practicing we should know where we stand on skill level in dueling. In the real life in dueling with your opponent, you have to be ruthless and cunning and you should never give your opponent even an outside chance to beat you. As you see in my dueling with Prof. Quirrell, you can beat any opponent if you have a perfect element of surprise. You should be unpredictable to your opponent and for that your need diversity in your spell casting. Now, each one of you will duel with me separately." Harry commented.
"I will go first." Blaise took dueling position after saying that.
Blaise started the duel by casting disarming charm. Harry retaliated by doing multiple transfiguration against Blaise and soon Blaise found himself surrounded by ice and finally disarmed.
"Good effort from you but you needs to pay more attention to your surroundings." Harry commented.
Unfortunately, Tracy was able to last only for 45 seconds against Harry.
"It is your turn now Daphne, give it your best effort." Harry told Daphne.
"I will." Daphne responded in a determined voice.
Daphne tried to prevent herself from Harry's spell by casting a shield charm. Harry was very much impressed from her effort. Harry casted a strong cutting curse and hex and transfiguration at once. Because of that Daphne's strong shield were begin to crack. That made Daphne to go for offensive. Harry suddenly felt the ground beneath of his was shaking like crazy. It seemed like there was an earthquake was going around him.
Harry realized it was a Greengrass family spell. Harry knew that, he could not take Daphne lightly. Therefore, Harry decided to end things quickly. Harry then decided to cast a stunner and an illusionary spell.
Daphne was feeling good because of her performance but suddenly she observed that, both sides of wall were moving towards each other at an alarming rate. She was feeling sudden shock and that caused a lapse in her concentration. The next thing she knew that, she was disarmed and her wand at the hand of her cousin Harry.
Daphne felt little disappointed, nevertheless she knew that, a more skilled opponent beat her.
"Now, all of you should join in duel against me at once." Harry challenged his friends.
"Harry you are decent with your wands. However, you should not be overconfident." Blaise cautioned.
"I am just challenging you all in duel against me." Harry smirked.
"Bring it on Harry." Tracy replied in a strong voice.
Daphne, Blaise, and Tracy all attacked harry at once. Daphne casted a disarming spells Tracy casted a stunning spells and Blaise casted a low-level cutting curse. All three of them were confident that, they got Harry that time as their spells were coming at rapid pace towards Harry.
However, they were wrong in their assumption. Harry conjured a dummy and let the dummy take all the hit from spells. That move from Harry was able to surprise Harry's friend. Harry wasted no time after that he quickly transfigured the dummy into numerous birds and directed them against his friends.
Those birds were moving quickly towards them and Daphne, Blaise and Tracy had no answer of that. They tried to cast shielding charm; nevertheless, their effort was proven meaningless. Harry then casted three disarming spells in a quick succession and all of his friends lost their wands. The whole duel ended in less than a minute.
Daphne, Tracy, and Blaise were feeling little humiliated.
"You were holding back against us earlier." Daphne told Harry.
"I was just preserving my energy as I have to do lot of spell casting today." Harry replied.
"Harry, tell us why you used Transfiguration against us?" Tracy asked Harry.
"Transfiguration is most effective in duel when you are facing multiple opponents at once. By doing that you can surprise your opponents and it will give you opportunity to beat your opponents." Harry replied in a clam voice.
After that, Harry decided to show his friends about water conjuring spell.
"Water conjuring spell is very effective as a surprise element against your opponent in any duel. You have to utter the word 'Agumanti' to cast the spell. To do this spells you need to have imagination power and you have to be careful about how much power you are applying in the spell. Excessive use of power can cause your magical exhaustion."
After telling his friends about basic aspects of water conjuring spell, he casted water conjuring spell and all of his friends saw a stream of water was coming from Harry's wand. With each passing seconds it was becoming stronger and thicker. All of his friends were surprised after seeing the application of Agumanti spell.
"Now all of you try to conjure water by using the spell Agumanti." Harry told his friends.
Tracy tried to do this spell first, she rewarded with few drops of water, and after some seconds, it stopped. It obviously disappointed her. However, Harry assured her that, she was doing more than ok as an average first year student cannot even produce a single drop of water even after their first three four attempts. Harry also told her that, he was confident that, at the end of their first year she would be able to produce a thin layer of water, which will last at least 25-30 seconds.
Blaise was next and his fate was similar to Tracy. Daphne was expecting to produce at least a thin stream of water even if it lasted for only 3-4 seconds and she was happy that, her expectation became true after her casting of Agumanti.
Harry was clearly happy after observing the performance of his friends, his friends were talented, and he was hopeful that at the end of the year with his training they will be mid third year level skill wise. He was hoping that Daphne might be even ready for fourth year material at the end of her first year.
Next he decided to introduce them to the a slight variation of cutting spell which had different color than normal cutting spell and if that spell hit someone , it would only create a small cut. However, that spell was effective in formal dueling as it would distract opponent and it would take time to heal.
Daphne, Tracy, Blaise were happy to learn about that variation of cutting spell. Harry promised them to tell them more about that spell in future, as it would be very helpful to them in their future duel.
Harry, Daphne, Tracy, and Blaise decided to leave the room of requirement as it was the time for lunch in the great hall.
In the Great Hall of Hogwarts:
Every person from the house of snake in the great hall was paying a lot more attention to Hadrian Sayre and some of them were paying attention to all four of them. The news of Prof. Quirrell's defeat to Hadrian Sayre spread into the whole school like a wild fire. The upper year of Slytherin House started to give Harry a lot of special attention. They recognized that, Hadrian Sayre would be a major player in the future of house of Slytherin. One thing became clear, no upper Slytherin student would pursue enmity with Hadrian Sayre on behalf of Draco Malfoy.
Daphne was very pleased that, the upper year would not play the role of paid agent of House of Malfoy. However, she was giving most of her attention that moment to Lilith Moon. She could sense that, Moon would try to do something sinister to Harry and as the cousin and best friend of Harry; Daphne would not let this girl to do any harm to him.
She could see Moon was looking at Hadrian like a hungry predator. Daphne was stunned by that behavior as they were just 11 and 11-year-old girl normally do not look at any boy sexually no matter how much cute that boy was. She suspects Moon's parents were giving her aging potion that does not increase her age physically but made her thinks like 15 years old in the matter of love and boys.
Daphne was disgusted by that she could not believe how an Ancient house could do such things to fulfill their political goal. It reminded her that, how dirty was the house politics in the wizarding UK.
Daphne looked that, Moon was observing at Harry's drinking glass. Daphne was suspecting that, Moon somehow mixed love potion in Harry's drink. Moon was drinking and gleefully waiting for the moment when Harry would drink her love potion. Daphne was ready to punch that nasty girl in her face. However, something interesting happened in next few moments.
Parkinson, Nott, Moon all of three of them stand up and declared that their desire to be bonded in a three way marriage. They also told everyone that, they could not wait for that any longer as their three-way love was facing problems from jealous villain like Draco who wanted to enter their three-way relationship and wanted to be bonded in a four-way marriage.
Draco Malfoy was not pleased by that accusation. He was really pissed by the whole incident. Their fraction was slowly losing its influence to its rival and now his friends were behaving like a crazy fool. Draco decided he would not accept it.
"Shut up you three, don't make such outrageous accusation and I have no interest in romantic relationship as I am only 11 and even when I will become 17 I will not be bonded in a four-way marriage. You three should stop your crazy behavior and act like a young pureblood witch/wizard. You three wanted to be bonded in a three way marriage at 11, really are you three that crazy.
Pansy our society is monogamous so you can either marry Moon or Nott but not both at the same time and Nott you can't have two wives at once." Draco shouted.
"Don't try to hide the truth Draco Malfoy; we know you are jealous of our relationship and our love. However, you will be never succeeding in your mission.
You can be never included in our relationship as you look like a ferret and we cannot accept a ferret as our lover." Moon shouted at Malfoy.
"Our love is pure and beautiful because we are all pure and beautiful. You on the other hand are dirty and ugly. For your kind information, our love cannot be beholden by the rules that are created by fat and ugly witches /wizards." Pansy told Malfoy.
"I agree fully with my lovers and don't fault me for wanting two wives at once as you Draco Malfoy want two wives and one husband at the same time. So stop behaving like a hypocrite." Nott smirked at Draco.
The whole Slytherin house was surprised by that incident. As the three leading first year snake expressed their desire to be married in a three-way marriage and then they accuse Draco Malfoy for being jealous of their love. They also told that, Draco's hidden desire was to be married in a four-way marriage with them.
They did not expect that kind of shocking behavior and soon they broke into laughter at their stupidity. They were not alone , all other three Hogwarts house were also enjoying the show.
Harry was enjoying most, as he was the architect of the whole incident. Harry had to press his stomach as he was laughing uncontrollably. He was not alone Daphne, Tracy, Blaise were also laughing as if crazies and Daphne had tears in her eyes as she was laughing too much.
The teaching stuff also observed the whole incident in the Slytherin table. Albus was sure the whole incident was somehow related to love potion thing. Albus called Horace and told him about his suspicion. Being a potion master Horace agreed with Albus about love potion thing.
Then he went to Slytherin table to control the situation. He called the sixth year prefects to take Nott, Moon, and Parkinson to Madam Pomprey. He informed his fellow snakes that, the whole incident was caused by being fed with love potion. He also warned that, he would find the culprit who was behind that love potion incident.
Even after knowing, the truth about the whole situation Draco was still feeling upset. According to him the damage was already done. His own friends in front of the whole house humiliated him. Draco had no doubt that, that incident would further decrease his influenced his position in the house. He decided he would talk with his father about his three crazy allies.
Daphne was surprised to know that, instead of Harry it were Moon, Nott, and Parkinson who became the victim of the love potion. She enjoyed the whole thing very much and she was feeling very curious to know how that incident happened. She was sure that, Harry had some hand behind that incident. She saw the look of satisfaction in Harry during the whole situation.
However, Harry disappeared after their lunch, so she could not able to know the mystery behind the situation that occurred earlier in the great hall of Hogwarts. Daphne again reminded herself that, her cousin was becoming a tougher mystery for her to solve day by day.
Harry returned in the Slytherin common room after two hours and his friends immediately surrounded him. Harry informed them he was reading some books in the library. His friends were surprised by his answer, as Harry did not usually go to library at that period.
However, they were interested to know if Harry knew something about the whole love potion drama that played earlier in the Slytherin table. Daphne told her friends about her suspicion regarding Harry's hand in that whole incident.
"Harry do you know something about the whole love potion thing?" Blaise asked him.
"May be I know some finer details." Harry's face was full of smile when he replied Blaise's question.
"So, tell us about them." Tracy told him impatiently.
"What are you offering me in return?" Harry asked them in a negotiating voice.
"So, Harry you want to make a deal?" Daphne asked her cousin, irritation was clear in her voice.
"Yes, I am looking for a deal. The whole story is very interesting and for telling that I deserve some reward. I think we can reach a deal if you give me one box of chocolates." Harry told them his condition of the deal.
"You are becoming greedy but I am dying to know the secrets and because of that we have a deal." Tracy confirmed the deal.
"Thanks Tracy, I always knew that, you are wiser than our other two friends." Harry complimented Tracy and mocked his other two friends.
"Harry stop behave like a jerk and tell us now about the whole thing." Daphne demanded.
"Ok. As you know, I have the habit of doing morning exercise & therefore, I woke up early in the morning. I was feeling hungry after doing exercise so I went to the kitchen and I was surprised to find a house elf who was wearing Ancient house Moon's crest in its cloth. I w as already suspicious about the intentions of Moon after observing the behavior of Lilith Moon's towards me. I knew about the nasty nature of The Ancient House of Moon as they can g ny length to achieve their goals.
I became more suspicious when I secretly heard the conversation between Moon and Parkinson and the summary of their conversation was, Uncle rejects my wedding contract from House of Moon and Moons warned your parents that, they would achieve the whole things at any cost. I also heard that, her parents gave her something special and that would spin my heads.
Therefore, it was clear to me they would try to trap me today and when I saw that elf in the kitchen, It confirmed my earlier suspicion. I think, Moons sent their elf to mix something in my drink." Harry told his friends in a serious voice.
"How that elf enter into Hogwarts kitchen. Who gave it the permission?" Daphne asked in an angry tone. She was feeling huge anger towards nasty Moons. Daphne decided that, she would give Moon and Parkinson extra punishment for their activities.
"It is Horace Slughorn who thought there was no harm to give the elf of House of Moon the access to the kitchen to cook something special for young Lilith Moon in her birthday. Of course, the fact that, the Moons gifted him some rare Potion ingredient also helped to influence his decision to give that permission." Harry informed his friends.
"Slughorn is a fool and corrupt person at the same time." Daphne remarked.
All of her friends agreed with her. They all thought, sometimes their head of house behaved too greedy for his own good.
"So, you threw out the love potion that the house elf mixed in your drinks? " Tracy asked him curiously.
"I did no such things; I let the elf mix its love potion in my drink." Harry smirked. His response as expected shocked his friends.
"Why you do such things?" Blaise asked him.
"I wanted to make things more interesting and I also felt pity towards the house elf. The House of Moon is a dark house and if they knew their elf failed at their given task then they would punish that poor creature for no reason. I also able to reach a deal with that elf and the deal was if I agreed to drink that potion mixed drink then it would let me borrow some love potion. We sealed the deal with magical vows." Harry's tale made his friend more surprised. They were shocked to know Harry was agreed to take the love potion and confirmed the deal by magical vows .
"Call me skeptical Harry but, I can't see any signs of being affected by love potion in you." Tracy expressed her doubt at Harry's claim.
"I kept my promise Tracy and I drank the drink that was mixed with love potion. However, as long as I am wearing this Heir Sayre ring, I am safe from love potion." Harry declared his immunity to love potion to his friends.
"Why I don't know anything about this ability of House Sayre? I was reading this family's history from the age of 8." Daphne complained to Harry.
"It is not something you will found in books, the only way you could know about it if you asked Aunt Athena specifically about it. It was an invention of our Great Great Great Grandfather." Harry informed his cousin.
"I will surely dig more about that in future." Daphne remarked.
"You know, I can make a member ring for you, Astoria, Uncle and Aunt. Only the head or male heir can provide it." Harry told her.
"You will do that?" Daphne asked Harry in a hopeful voice. Despite being a Greengrass, she would feel good if she got some symbol of recognition from her maternal house and that ring was very effective to prevent the effect of love potion.
"Of course I will do that, Daphne. You people are my only living relative and you accept me in your house therefore, I consider you all as my family." Harry replied in a honest voice. After that Daphne gave Harry a friendly hug.
"I thought, Harry would wait some years before giving you a ring Daphne. However, it seemed like I was wrong." Tracy teased her friends.
"Shut up, Tracy." Harry and Daphne shouted at the same time.
"Now, tell me how you are able to make Moon, Nott, Parkinson complete fool." Blaise asked Harry.
"After getting sufficient amount of love potion from that elf, I praised rest of the elf for their work ethics and dedication, skill. My praise made me a good boy in the eyes of some house elf and they were more than happy to help me in having some fun." Harry explained to his friends.
"Harry, I am happy that you are my ally not enemy. You are ruthless to your rivals." Blaise remarked.
" I am glad that, you have a such high opinion for me. However, at this moment, I am hungry for some foods and I am going to kitchen now. Are you interested to join with me?" Harry asked his friends.
"Yes." The Harry's entire friend replied in a unified voice.
Chapter End:
I am extremely sorry for delayed update. But, I got myself busy in exams and assignment.
I am promising to update regularly from now.
When I started this story I did not thought this story would get over 200 reviews. But, due to your support and reviews it is now a reality. I want to say thanks to all of my reviewers for this moment.
I want to say thanks to the reviewers of my last chapter and they are
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Next time: Harry in Chamber of secrets and he is making some potion for a mission.