Sweat ran down Harry's brow, over the bridge of his nose and stung in the corner of his eye. He was exhausted, but kept pushing himself. Sirius next to him was in even poorer shape, wheezing with exertion, and Dora on his other side fared somewhat better. It had been a week since their Diagon Alley excursion, and training had begun the following day. It was non-stop and of all types, a morning run or swim, followed by muggle weightlifting, then occlumency and metamorphmagy before lunch. Afterwards was a crash course in runes, before battle magic with Sirius.
The trio stumbled to a stop. They had increased their pace today, and it had been brutal. Sirius had arbitrarily picked 20 minutes to do 3 miles as their goal, without realizing just how hard that was. They had just finished in about 24 minutes, still well shy of their goal, but better than yesterday's 26 minute pace. Dora let her morph go, which she had been using to improve muscle mass in necessary areas.
"I need - to - figure out" She spoke between huge lungfuls of air "How to morph my lungs for a larger capacity." She was resting her hands on her hips, wearing a sports bra and running shorts, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Harry was well distracted by how much skin she was showing, his eyes constantly being drawn to her exposed stomach.
Harry struggled to resist the temptation to sit, having been told by their trainer that would only make things worse. The three of them shambled into the gym.
"You know that morphing the part of your body that you're working out with slows down growth in your base form" Harry replied. It was why Dora wasn't cheating - much - while weightlifting. She pouted at him before their trainer walked over. They had chosen this place because it was purely muggle - not that gyms existed in the wizarding world for them to choose from - and because it was a convenient distance to run from the Tonks townhome.
Harry sat under the watchful eye of Andromeda as he slowly worked his way through a Futhark rune sequence. While he would have preferred to start with Ogham, apparently that was sixth year material. It was fascinating to hear how history influenced which rune sequence was used - anglo-saxon and norse runesets were far more common here, due to their invasions and colonization. Apparently Ancient Greek was used in a fair few places around the Mediterranean, and in the Middle East some wizarding cultures still used Cuneiform.
Turns out any written language could be used for runes, it was the inscriber's intent that formed the rune's meaning, however like family magic, it built over time. It's why ancient written languages were preferred - their meanings hadn't changed much and had time to imprint themselves onto the magic of the world, in a sense. That had brought up some more questions about natural magic whose answers had gone straight over Harry's head, and that Andromeda had told him was still very theoretical. Harry found himself surprised at his interest in an otherwise theoretical subject, though - normally he was great at practical magic but the book learning side lost him.
"So… with this Ehwaz here, that means this whole sequence is to make the object less likely to catch fire?" Harry looked up at the woman mentoring him, who nodded with a smile.
"Very good! We'll start with inscribing runes next week, but you've picked up on their meanings rather quickly. Truth be told, this is most of what will be on the OWL exam." Andromeda stood from the kitchen table and began to make tea.
"Honestly the class moves too slowly for anyone actually invested in learning. The same thing could be said for most Hogwarts classes, really." Harry nodded, still looking down at the runes. He saw her point, even with half the work ethic of Hermione, it wouldn't be too hard to do exceedingly well in class.
"You should go find Sirius and get started on that lesson, you've only got a couple hours until dinner." Andromeda turned from the counter where the kettle was now heating to face Harry, crossing her arms.
"Yeah, I'll go change and find him." Harry also stood, packing away the runes material before heading upstairs.
"Tleehekakiauitl!" A tempest of fire blasts forth from Harry's wand as he focuses on controlling the ancient Aztec firestorm spell. Originally cast as a ritual with human sacrifice that would devastate entire villages, the modified form in use today by mestizo wizards was still an incredibly draining spell, and required immense control. It was effectively fiendfyre, but without the curse that prevented it from being conventionally extinguished.
The inferno grew, a swirling vortex of flame and plasma spitting from Harry's wand, and he could barely see the large boulder he was targeting. Sirius wanted him to melt the rock, claiming it to be possible with this spell, but it was Harry's third attempt this session and he had yet to manage it.
"Twist your wrist to control the cone!" Sirius shouted over the rushing wind and roar of the flame. He was standing well clear, ready to use a rain conjuration spell that originated in persia to put the fire out, if necessary. They were using a fairly barren portion of what had been the Black Family farmland, but which had been left fallow for a couple decades at least.
Harry did as instructed, sweating all the while as his muscles began to cramp from the magical exertion. He slowly rotated his wrist, and watched as the wide cone tightened to nearly a beam of fire, flowing hotter and faster than it had before. The rock, which had been engulfed in flame and had only started to glow under even the center of Harry's previous efforts, now quickly began to soften under the new assault. The more controlled beam slowly began to burrow into the boulder, molten rock flowing out onto the ground in front of the impact. The heat was beating at Harry, starting to steal oxygen from his lungs.
"That's enough!" Sirius called out, and Harry tried to stop, but it was as if the spell was pulling magic from him through his wand.
""Untwist your wrist!" Sirius's words were barely registered over the rushing in Harry's ears, but as he loosened the beam back into a cone, his ability to throttle the magic given to the spell returned, and he slowly let off. As he finally was able to put out the spell, he realized that he was being pelted by a local rainstorm, which was making short work of the fire left behind.
"Good job Harry!" Sirius said as he walked to the edge of the rain. Harry shuffled towards him, and as he passed out of the small cloud's shadow, Sirius hit him with a drying charm and handed him a bar of chocolate.
"You look done in for the day, but if you feel up for it, I do have another spell for you to try, and this one will be more useful for impressing the examiners. I don't think showing them that-" He gestured to the melted face of the rock "- is probably the best idea." Sirius walked back to the stump on the edge of the field he had been sitting on, and grabbed a bottle of water for Harry.
"I think it'll come more easily to you, too. It's very similar to the Patronus charm, but it can't be used for messages. The important part is that the guardian it summons is corporeal, and therefore useful in a fight." Sirius walked back over to Harry, who was unwrapping the chocolate but reached for the water and took a swig first.
"It's also modifiable with elemental incantations, so you can summon a fire guardian, or a water guardian, and so on. The base form is similar to the Patronus though."
Harry drained the bottle and started on the chocolate, instantly feeling better. He stood for a few moments, breathing deeply, before opening his eyes and looking to his godfather.
"Sure, I think I can try something like a Patronus."
Sirius nodded. "So it's in Navajo, from the American Southwest. It's originally from the Anasazi, one of the ancient Pueblo tribes, but this is the form used by the remaining natives in the area. It's point cast, and the incantation is 'haʼasídí', with emphasis on the second syllable." Sirius pulled his wand and cast, a large grim leaping forward from his wand. It looked around, before ambling over to Harry. It was visually identical to a Patronus, though the elation it evoked was less extreme.
The grim snuffled against his hand, and he started when he felt an actual dog's nose instead of the warm ghosting of a normal Patronus spirit. Harry couldn't help himself, and he knelt down to rub the dog's ears and give it a few pets. It felt just like a normal dog under his hands, and it certainly loved the attention, even going so far as to lick his face! Harry pulled back, and wiped the slobber off on his sleeve, sticking his tongue out at Sirius's laughter. Sirius dispelled the dog, which faded away with a happy woof.
"There ya go, that's how it works. Now you try!" Sirius walked back to the stump and sat back down. Harry walked a bit closer, away from the rain that was still coming down on the boulder and steaming off. He prepared himself as if he were about to cast a patronus, pulling forward the feeling of love and home he felt when his mum hugged him in the place between.
"Haʼasídí!" He spoke firmly, clearly, but didn't shout. The rushing feeling he got when he cast a patronus was there, but more liquid, substantial? Prongs formed before him, as per normal, and like padfoot before him, looked around for danger before walking over to the young wizard. The stag pressed its nose into his hair, whuffed and shook his head, before Harry's focus lapsed and Prongs faded away.
"Prongs will be especially useful given those antlers of his. Plus, in combat an Anasazi guardian is difficult to fight. They're not conjurations or transfigurations, really, so spells designed to unmake those will fail, and it's not a normal animal, so spells designed for use on living beings won't work well either. It'll take more magic from the caster to resist damage, and will act with some intelligence to recognize threats and protect the caster." Sirius gave him some more chocolate, though Harry felt fine.
"I've been told that the arithmancy differences between the Patronus and the Anasazi Guardian are minor," Sirius continued, "Which is why it's so easy to cast one if you've already learned the other. The Guardian is still effective against dementors and lethifolds, though less as a repellant and instead actively damages them. A fire variant can even kill them, which speaking of, the modifier necessary is "kǫʼ" at the beginning. A righteous furor is supposedly the best emotion for this variant, though you can cast it with happiness or love like the base form."
Harry gave it a go, and Prongs formed before him again, but this time as a fire elemental. The flame tongues licked up his body, slowly turning color as they reached the points of his antlers, the ends being a dark blue of intense heat. The Stag stood proud, but didn't approach either of them, seeming to know he'd hurt the humans. He shook his head, and stamped his hooves, leaving licks of fire on the ground behind. Harry let the magic go, and the stag flashed away in a conflagration similar to Fawke's phoenix fire teleportation. He sagged, that took a lot more out of him than the previous casting.
Sirius came over with yet more chocolate. Harry quickly finished it off, before yawning. "Yeah, you're done for the day." Sirius led him back to the stump, where he gathered the rest of their stuff before apparating them back to the Tonks' entryway.
"So you've had a few weeks of occlumency instruction with mum, so we can really start on morphing now. It's not hard to actually morph, it's all visualization, just like transfiguration, but the hard part is holding a stable form - thankfully you didn't go through puberty as a metamporh, I've not been able to walk properly since. Something to do with how my body was constantly changing." Dora was sitting crosslegged on her bedroom floor, across from Harry whose back was against her dresser, facing her floor length mirror.
"The hard part is dedicating a small part of your mind to holding a morph - the sign you've really got this down is the ability to hold a morph through your sleep. I'll be helping you with some morphs, but for the most part I'll be trying to explain how I tell my body to stay a certain way in the background." Her face screwed up in thought. Harry found himself distracted by how cute her nose was all scrunched up. She suddenly locked eyes with him, though and smirked.
"You've not got enough occlumency training to hold a morph through your sleep, so we won't start there. What you'll do is morph something, doesn't matter what, and then maintain it while I try and distract you!" She was all too cheerful for this, Harry thought. With some worry over what she would do to distract him, he quickly chose to retract his hair until it was only an inch or so long, having found holding that harder than lengthened hair.
Dora started by standing up and stepping out of his field of view. Suddenly, he felt her wet finger enter his ear. He jumped, sprawling on the floor, rapidly trying to get her spit from his ear canal.
"Merlin Dora! Really? A wet willy?!" Dora had her hands on her hips, pouting.
"I was sure that would work!" She huffed. "I guess I'll have to try harder." Harry tentatively sat back, worried about what she would try next. He didn't have to wait long though, before she sauntered back into his view wearing a bikini. Harry gulped, his throat going dry and struggled to maintain focus on holding his hair "in", as he thought of it.
"Do you like it? I thought we'd go swimming this Saturday, as a bit of a break from everything. I know you're going to go visit a few Potter places on Sunday, but it's supposed to be pretty nice this weekend and I don't want to sit around inside!" Dora knew what she was doing to him, Harry had been fun to tease over the last few weeks. Knowing he appreciated her and liked her for who she was made it far easier to enjoy his gaze when he also snuck a glance at her bum or midriff. She ran a finger under the waistband of the bottoms, ostensibly to straighten it out but really just to further tease the teen in front of her.
"It's a bit small though, I bought it last summer and I have to morph my boobs to make them small enough to fit properly now. And Malkins' doesn't sell muggle bikinis with auto sizing charms!" She flopped down in a huff, excited by how his gaze had switched from her thighs to her chest, only for it to bounce a bit with her exaggerated movement.
Harry was sweating now, struggling to hold the morph and hide his erection at the same time. Dora was a beautiful girl, in great shape and even in her base form, pretty close to perfect, according to Harry at least.
"If I go back to my base form now, They barely fit in the cups! I think I gained a couple sizes last year." She reverted back, overfilling the bikini top as she spoke, loving how his eyes widened at how much side and underboob was visible. His short hair was shuddering, as if it wanted to grow back out but he was only just holding it from doing so. She leant forward, going in for the kill.
"Do you wanna touch them?" She smirked as his hair shot out, past his normal base form, and went deep red to match his blushing face. Harry quickly looked away, trying to stutter out a response. Dora stood, celebrating her win, and pulled her shorts and shirt back over her bikini.
Harry was still struggling to form a sentence, but eventually managed to force out a "Really?!" in response. Dora shrugged.
"I was mostly teasing, but if you were to kiss me first, I'd consider it…" She smiled at him again. "It was a good job! You'll need to do better, of course, but for a first effort that was good!" She sat back down, next to him this time, and leant against his side. "Honestly, it's harder to hold through embarrassment than pain or anger, really. Those can help focus you, but embarrassment is pure distraction. Mum will explain more."
Harry was still hung up on her comment about kissing her. It sounded like she was okay with the idea?
Dora nearly rolled her eyes at the boy's obliviousness. She had been trying to drop hints for a week now, but he just wouldn't do it himself.
"Are you looking forward to seeing Penrhyn Mawr?" She asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah, I really want to see where my family came from. I met my mum and dad for a bit before I came back, but this will really help me feel like I have a family to belong to, even if the people are missing. Just knowing that I came from somewhere, anywhere, will help, I think." Dora snuggled closer to the introspective wizard.
"Well, I'm coming with you. I always liked Wales when we would visit." She smiled as he put his arm around her, pulling her closer to his side.