Chapter 18

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Susan was a little surprised to find Harry on the train home for Christmas holidays. He almost never went home, and he never spoke about home or his relatives.

"Are you looking forward to seeing your family?" she asked, surprised when she passed him in the corridor. He'd never spoken about his family but everyone knew he always stayed at Hogwarts over Yule and only went home in the summer.

"Oh! No. I'm not going home, I'm staying with Ron's family for the holidays," Harry replied. "Are you looking forward to seeing your Aunt?"

"Yes," Susan replied, though she wasn't sure how true it was. Her Aunt hadn't approved of many of her actions since the start of the school year. She wasn't looking forward to listening to her Aunt's lectures and she was still upset that she hadn't done anything when she wrote to her about Harry being cursed by Lucius Malfoy.

"Do you have a large family gathering for Christmas?" Harry asked.

"No it's just Aunt Amelia and myself," Susan said. "Auntie used to try to make a big deal about Christmas for me, but she cannot take the entire holiday away from work so I also spend time with Hannah and their family. They do have a big family party on Boxing Day which we are always invited to."

"That sounds like fun, I think it will be just immediate family other than me at the Weasley's but there are a lot of them if they all come home," Harry said. "I'm sharing a room with Ron. I won't have much privacy to talk to you except in the shower."

"I'd rather hear from you than not. I'll let you go join your friends before we attract too much attention," Susan said.

"See ya Susan, have a great Christmas," Harry said smiling.

"Bye Harry, Merry Christmas," Susan replied.

-o0o-

Harry was right about the lack of privacy at the Burrow and while she checked in with him several times as she felt his emotions, Susan didn't hear from him until he was in the shower early next morning.

"You know, when you told me you'd talk to me in the shower, I thought you meant locking yourself in the bathroom and pretending to shower," Susan said amused as she felt him removing his clothing and stepping into the hot stream of water as she lay in bed.

"The Weasley's only have one bathroom. I can't tie it up any longer than I need to. Thank goodness the hot water doesn't run out like it does in the muggle world or there would be fights to get to the bathroom first," Harry said washing his hair.

"Is that why you're up so early for the holidays?" Susan asked.

"It's not early, I've had breakfast and done some homework while I waited my turn in the bathroom, you know I never like to lol about in bed all day," Harry teased.

"Auntie's at work and Hannah's busy with her mother today. I have nothing exciting to get up for," Susan said, stretching and rolling over.

"You should do some training, hitting targets if you don't want to do anything more destructive, Harry suggested.

"Is that what you're going to do?" Susan asked.

"No Mrs Weasley won't let us do magic over the holiday, we'll probably spend most of the day playing Quidditch if it's up to Ron, or helping with his chores," Harry replied.

"I know you're not seventeen but most magical households don't care about that, you've passed your OWLs you're allowed to practice the spells for your NEWT classes, and surely the Weasleys don't live in a muggle area?" Susan said.

"No their nearest neighbours are Luna Lovegood and the Diggorys, but I don't think they're that close, I've never seen anyone near the house," Harry replied.

"You're not going to…?" Susan asked.

Harry knew what she meant from her embarrassment. "Not with Ginny standing outside the door defending her position as next in line. Besides Ron and the twins will already probably think I did because of the silencing charm and the extra time I've taken talking to you," He said blushing. He wondered how talking about not wanking could be more embarrassing than when he used to deliberately do it while he knew she was watching.

Ginny began to bang on the door letting him know his time was up and Harry quickly dried and dressed himself before reluctantly saying goodbye to Susan.

"Do you want me to go?" Susan asked.

"You can spend as much time hanging about in my head as you like. I doubt Ron and I will talk about anything private unless he brings up his feelings for Hermione, and you already know about that. Perhaps with your help I can finally talk him into asking her out and get it over with," Harry said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? From what I've seen of the two of them when you're not around they'll drive each other mad with their arguments in the first week," Susan replied doubtfully.

"Mmm-Hmmm" Harry hummed agreeingly.

"So, when you say you want them to get it over with, you're meaning you want them to date so they can realise how unsuited to each other they are and get over their feelings for each other?" Susan asked.

"Mmm-Hmmm" Harry hummed agreeingly again.

Susan wondered how long she could have this strange one sided conversation with him before he began to get frustrated with not being able to answer properly.

Harry felt her amusement but couldn't ask whether it was about the idea of Ron and Hermione dating and trying to get along or about the fact she knew she could say whatever she wanted and he couldn't answer back. He began planning his revenge, just in case it was him she was laughing at.

"Do you think he'd take her to Madam Puddifoot's for their date?" Susan asked.

Harry picked up a book and tapped it.

"Yes I know Hermione would prefer to be taken to the bookshop but Ron hates the library, he wouldn't want to spend hours in the bookshop and surely he wouldn't want to irritate Hermione by dragging her out," Susan replied.

Harry rummaged through his trunk and undercover of the lid pulled out a couple of sickles and knuts.

"Just because she can't afford to buy every book she looks at doesn't mean she wouldn't spend hours in there trying to decide which one is best to buy, like Megan does if we go clothes shopping, in fact not being able to buy all the books she's interested in would probably make her take longer, because she'd have to decide which one to buy and which ones she can live without," Susan said.

"Mmm-Hmmm" Harry hummed amused.

Ron came up and dragged Harry out to play quidditch. As soon as she saw Harry pick up the broom, Susan said a hasty goodbye and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, she'd had a great night's sleep and the conversation left her too awake so she began to get bored lying there with her eyes shut and hoped that Harry wouldn't spend too much of his holiday flying. She linked up with Harry so she could see and feel what he was feeling then shut her eyes in horror at the speed they were racing around.

"Come on, it's nowhere near as fast as this broom will go," Harry said amused once he was too far up for the others to overhear him.

Susan shuddered. She picked up a book and tried to block him out and concentrate on reading.

Susan also enjoyed second hand the camaraderie and craziness of lunch with the Weasleys as she ate her own lunch alone in the family dining room, though she was glad she wasn't actually there when the twins managed to prank the whole table with a potion that gave them squeaky high pitched voices. Ron and Harry ran after the twins threatening to hex them yellow and green if they didn't reverse the spell, and started a paint spell war that Harry easily won for his side literally leaving the twins covered from head to toe in yellow and green paint. Harry had altered his spell a little to make his paint feel sticky, smelly and more difficult to remove. Mrs Weasley caught them as they were trying to clean up at the outside tap and set them all chores to do for the rest of the afternoon. Surprisingly, since he admitted casting the first paintball spell, and was clearly less covered in paint than the others, Harry was excused from the chores and sent into the lounge to complete his homework with Ginny once he'd cleaned up.

Of course, Harry took the opportunity to have a second shower and talk to her while he scrubbed the paint out of his hair and skin. "I swear if I still have blue skin and pink hair after all this scrubbing I'm going to hex the twins in their sleep," Harry grumbled.

"At least your voice has returned to normal," Susan said.

"Luckily I can cast silently, Ron's voice was distracting him and throwing off his spellwork," Harry said.

"Lucky the paint didn't penetrate your clothes," Susan said.

"I spelled them impervious before I started the paint spell battle," Harry admitted.

"You didn't spell Ron's?" Susan asked.

"No I couldn't without Fred or George noticing me do it," Harry said slightly guiltily. "I will offer to help spell the stains out if he needs it."

"Is it normal for you to not be punished like the others when you all get into mischief?" Susan asked.

"It's normally not an issue because I'd join Ron in his punishment chores even if Mrs Weasley didn't tell me to but it's odd that she actually sent me inside like that, not that I was sorry to get clean and dry and to have another chance to talk to you without the others banging on the door for their turn. Still I should get out, Mrs Weasley might be keeping them busy with outside chores to stop them getting paint all over the house before they had a chance to clean up, " Harry said.

"Okay Harry, bye. Have fun studying," Susan said teasingly.

"The worst thing is I actually finished all my homework except potions this morning," Harry replied. "Have a nice afternoon and evening, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Night Harry, sweet dreams," Susan said cheekily.

"You can't wish me that! I'm sharing a room with Ron," Harry yelped.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, I wasn't talking about those sorts of dreams," Susan said teasingly.

"Oh yes you were," Harry retorted.

Harry huffed as he sat and worked on his potions' homework, replying to Ginny in monosyllables as he concentrated on trying to get it done so he could go out and help Ron and the twins, feeling guilty that they were still outside working covered in the sticky smelly paint. Ginny was disappointed, not only was he ignoring her but he was working on potions, something she hated every bit as much as he did and she had no hope of being able to help him with it. He was said to be a bit of a prodigy at it lately too so she didn't understand why he was so cross about studying it and it wasn't like he couldn't have chosen to do one of his other essays which were on things she might have been able to talk to him about. Feeling uncomfortable with Ginny's compliments and attempt to draw him into conversation Harry rushed through the essay, realising that he'd probably have to redo it properly later. Before she could come up with a way to ask for his help with her essay without sounding like a complete idiot, he finished his and hurriedly packed up his things and left. She heard him outside laughing with Ron and the twins, no doubt helping them degnome the garden and apologising for being sent in to study with Ginny instead of helping them earlier. She gave up studying and walked into the kitchen to see her mother.

"Hello Ginny dear, do you want some cookies for you and Harry, I imagine you're both ready to take a break," Molly said.

"He's outside with Ron and the twins," Ginny said, helping herself to a cookie.

"Didn't he come in and study with you, I'll send him straight in…" Molly began angry enough that her orders had been ignored that she didn't stop to think that Harry wasn't one of her sons.

"Don't bother Mum, it isn't going to work, he came in grumpily and wrote his potions essay, frowning every time I tried to distract him, then went out and apologised for not being punished for the paintball fight. You're just going to piss off Harry, Ron and the twins if you go out there and send him in again," Ginny said sighing.

"Language Young Lady!" Molly scolded.

"He doesn't want to study with me, this morning with Ron he happily talked through his assignment and helping Ron with his and this afternoon he was all work to get his essay done as quick as possible and get outside, and potions is the one subject I couldn't talk to him about without sounding stupid," Ginny said frowning.

"I can't believe I'm saying this but you should have gone outside and joined in the paintball fight," Molly said sighing.

"You mean shown him I could be one of the guys, I don't know if it would've done much good and I didn't know the spell Harry and Ron were using and they wouldn't have stopped to teach me in the middle of the fight. Hermione never joins in with shenanigans like that and he still counts her as one of his best friends, and he isn't close to any of the chasers on the team. I wish Hermione had been able to come," Ginny said, ignoring all the times Hermione had been there risking her life to save him in favour of concentrating on how she didn't join in their hijinks.

"You don't think that she's a rival?" Molly asked gently. "I had hoped that you'd have the opportunity to get closer without her here."

"No Harry and Hermione are not interested in each other, Harry's encouraging Hermione and Ron to get together," Ginny said confidently.

"I'll write and invite her for Boxing Day and the rest of the holiday," Molly said pulling out her stationary set and jotting off a quick invitation. Having Hermione there to help distract Ron might give Harry and Ginny the opportunity to get to know each other better on a more personal level.

-o0o-

Hermione wrote back a polite refusal stating that she was with her parents in Spain and would spend the rest of the holidays with them since they'd both taken the time off work to be with her. Molly, Ginny and Ron were disappointed but Harry thought that the break from all things magical would probably do Hermione more good than visiting the Weasleys who were all magically slightly above average power and where she'd constantly be surrounded by magic, especially if she got into another fight with Ron about muggles. Ron didn't understand how his comments about muggles and the muggle world were deeply distressing for Hermione who still felt more like she belonged there as much as she did in the magical world, perhaps even more now that she was having to work so hard to succeed with her spellcasting. She and her parents were safer out of the country too, there had been several attacks on muggleborn families over the break and he knew Hermione was worried about her ability to defend her parents.

Harry was still spending his shower time each morning talking to Susan, having got over the embarrassment of knowing she could be looking through his eyes when he looked down at himself and he got to know a lot about Susan's upbringing as she described how she was spending her days between home and visiting with Hannah. The Bone's Christmas day was nice and comfortably lowkey compared to the madness that was the Weasley's household. Harry feeling overwhelmed by too much food, and too much noise and pranks thought that Susan's aunt was sensible in not having accepted back-to-back invitations for the whole week of Yule or Christmas. He wished he could just sit back and spend more time in the back of Susan's head but every time he tried someone in the house wanted his attention or to have him help with chores or join in on some shenanigans.

Harry excused himself directly after lunch on Boxing Day claiming a headache and went to lie down so he could visit with Susan and experience the party with the Abbotts. Susan was aware that he was watching and he could feel she was comfortable with him being there. He saw the way her aunt interacted with those people she enjoyed spending time with and grudgingly impressed by her choice of friends and the way she spoke with and listened to those around her.

He also got to know a lot about Susan's best friend Hannah which would be awkward in future because they were barely supposed to know each other, Hannah didn't know him, and it would be difficult for him to pretend they were strangers from his point of view. Luckily, he liked the girl since he could tell that asking Susan to choose between himself and Hannah would be a deal breaker for every relationship she had. Hannah was more of a sister to Susan than a friend and he only hoped that Hannah felt the same way.

-o0o-

"I found a new spell that would be useful in battle, I'm worried that it's almost too destructive and we'd be in trouble if we're caught using it but it would turn a battle in our favour and it isn't magically as expensive as overpowering a cutting spell or bombarda to get a similar effect," Harry said.

"That sounds like something we should be teaching Hermione and the muggleborns to cast," Neville said. "Let's see it."

"Promise me that you'll only teach it to people that you trust absolutely, both to remain on our side in the war and to only use this in a fight for their lives. It's not an unforgiveable but it needs to be something nobody thinks of casting lightly," Harry said.

"It's that bad, is it dark magic?" Neville asked.

"I don't know. It's that destructive that I think it probably has to be," Harry confirmed.

"Okay, it's not like you've never taught us anything a little dark before, does it feel evil?" Neville asked.

"No, but I can't imagine that it could be used for anything benign," Harry replied.

"Just show us," Luna said.

Neville nodded seriously.

"Sectumsempra," Harry cast at the training dummy with minimal power.

It immediately fell into pieces. The arms and legs were mostly intact but the entire chest and abdomen was in slices no more than three inches wide.

"Great Merlin!" Neville breathed. "What was that?"

"It's a spell I found written on a blank page in the Half-Blood Prince's potion book," Harry said. "The writer said it was for enemies. It uses less power than a cutting charm would use make even one of those cuts, quite a lot less which could be useful in a drawn-out fight. That's about as weak as I can cast it, about the same amount of power as this." He cast a weak stunner, which did still throw the dummy back into the wall but was nowhere near what he could do if he tried.

"I'll say it was for enemies," Susan said. "You wouldn't want to use that in a duel unless you were trying to kill your opponent. I couldn't teach that to Hannah, she'd never trust me to teach her new spells again."

"It would be good if you were trying to get rid of tree roots without having to dig them all out maybe, but I can't think of any other use for it other than in a fight," Neville said.

Luna cast a diagnostic on the training dummy and then tried to cast a healing and repairing spells.

"Umm Luna, I'm pretty sure it's dead," Harry chuckled.

"Definitely, even if you'd managed to put him in stasis immediately he couldn't survive that much damage. The healing spells aren't working at all on him, there is dark magic residue, I can't even begin to heal this damage. If you hit someone with it, even if it was a near miss and they survived they'd be scarred for life. If you removed a limb with that spell it will not be able to be reattached and I'm not sure it could be regrown either, unless the healer or somebody with the victim knew a counter-spell that lets the damage be healable," Luna warned him.

"If there is a counter spell then it's not in the book where I learned this. I looked," Harry replied.

"So it is definitely dark magic. Is it illegal?" Neville asked.

"It's not on the ministry's list of banned spells but that doesn't mean you should get caught with it on your wand, if you use this to finish a fight cast some other lighter stuff to clear your wand before it can be examined by the Aurors. I've never heard of it before so I think maybe the only reason it isn't publicly banned is because it isn't very well known, maybe the owner of your potions book invented it, and they didn't market it or get caught using it on anybody. That doesn't mean that you couldn't be arrested for casting it at a person, it's obviously dark magic from the residue it leaves. The Aurors' diagnostic charm will usually only go back the last thirty spells, so if you cast it then after the fight you should cast a heap of healing charms on yourself and your allies even for really minor injuries to hide the spell on your wand and make it clear that you and your allies were injured too and you were defending yourself and your friends. Perhaps even leave your own minor wounds and try to heal the trees or the grass or something so it looks like you were hurt more than you were and in desperate danger of your life, it won't harm the plants at all and the Aurors won't be able to tell the difference," Susan said.

"That's dependent on us having time to do that and it's a very Slytherin thing to do," Neville pointed out.

"We're not going to be able to help Harry beat Voldemort by acting like a Hufflepuff," Susan said determinedly.

"Or a Gryffindor," Neville agreed, conjuring a block of wood and then cast his strongest shield charm in front of it. "Try the spell now Harry, put some effort into it."

Harry cast the spell again silently but strongly this time and it still blast it's way through the shield charm and turned the block of wood into kindling.

Neville and Susan paired up to try a couple of more complicated shields and they were a little more effective but the spell blew through all of them enough to cause lethal wounds.

"I think it might need that shield Dumbledore casts, the one that looked like an actual golden shield like the suits of armour have," Luna said.

"Or to transfigure or levitate a block of stone into the path of it, like the Unforgivebles" Harry suggested.

"Then we should definitely learn it, if it's a rare spell then it might be hard to block if they're not expecting it," Neville said.

He dropped his shield and came over to look at the book, conjuring more blocks of wood until he could cast the spell as easily as Harry, though the pieces were a quite a bit bigger than Harry's it was still probably almost immediately lethal even through most shields, though the innate magic of witch or wizard would probably resist being cubed like that so easily, they weren't willing to try it on a person or magical creature to find out. The training dummies were supposed to react like people but Harry had stopped trusting that they actually did. Susan learned the spell too though her cuts didn't go deep enough to divide the training dummy in half it definitely carved out chunks of the torso and she wasn't sure she could cast it on a person, but perhaps that would be different if they were attacking her or attacking Harry or her Aunt in front of her and she was desperate.

"Are you going to teach this to Ron and Hermione?" Neville asked.

Harry sighed. "You don't think that I should?"

"I have no issues with you teaching it to Hermione, if she refuses to use muggle methods to defend herself, she's going to need spells like this but I'm hesitant to agree with teaching it to Ron, he's too hotheaded," Neville replied.

Susan agreed.

Harry sighed again. "I'm afraid you might be right, I don't want Ron to have a spell like this in his arsenal if he loses control of his temper in a duel or fight against Malfoy and his cronies. The problem is, Hermione is going to need spells like this to defend herself if they catch her on her own or alone with her parents and she wouldn't agree to learn a spell that I won't let Ron learn, even if she agreed with you about his temper."

Neville and Susan reluctantly agreed that Hermione's need for more effective spells to defend herself with outweighed their concerns about Ron, but when Harry showed the spell to Ron and Hermione they both refused to even try it. Ron declared that it was dark magic even if it wasn't illegal and the fact that Neville and Luna had been willing to learn it too didn't sway him. Harry deliberately didn't bring up Susan.

Harry couldn't deny that it was slightly dark though he argued that if you were defending yourself against someone casting unforgiveables and trying to kill you and your friends and family you shouldn't be constrained to using less effective purely light spells. In his opinion letting someone die that you could have saved was more dark than the choice of spells you used. He was careful to avoid telling them where he'd found the spell not wanting another argument with Hermione about the potions book but Hermione was particularly offended that he was trying to teach her dark magic shortcuts, and hurt that he didn't seem to think her magic was strong enough to win a duel with light magic and lectured him for the rest of the session. Harry was sure any of their magic wouldn't be strong enough against most of the inner circle Death Eaters particularly when they tended to plan attacks where they outnumbered the victims but at least three or four to one, but there was nothing he could say to convince her that he was planning on using this spell himself next time he was fighting for his life and that he wasn't singling her out and insulting her or trying to corrupt them with the choice of spells he was teaching them.

A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed and those who followed or favourited this story for your support.