As November rolled into December, Hermione found things change once again. Aurors from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had come, interrogated the four victims and, when they didn't get anything of value, basically shrugged and left. Sufficient to say, none of the group was impressed with Dalwish or Runcorn, especially not Alisaie, who had looked ready to stab them with her rapier.
That was another thing different, Alisaie Leveilluer and G'raha Tia. They had integrated themselves near seamlessly into the group, having known Harry long before Hermione and Neville had met him. It had also allowed the group to take a visit to the Hogsmead branch of Olivander's together, where Alisaie (Blackthorn, 11 inches, Phoenix Tail Feather) and G'raha (Pear, 12 ¾ inches, Dragon Heartstring) got their wands.
They had also taken over the Library. It was utterly bizarre to see, but the Scions, as they called themselves, had apparently decided to use the Library as their base of operations. When they weren't practicing magic on the grounda or, in Harry's case, in classes, they were in the Library, while Harry grabbed books on curses and counter curses and began to leisurely read through them, Alisaie read from a book on dueling and G'raha had three books in front of him, eyes jumping between them as he used them to reference each other.
It was, quite frankly, what Hermione imagined when she heard "school for magic". People with a deep, deep appreciation for knowledge and acquiring it. Even if her attempts to find out who Nicholas Flamel weren't really succeeding.
"With this," Alisaie commented at one point to Harry, "We could both get Archonship."
Harry had grumbled under his breath before saying, "Yeah, of course we can."
""Archonship?" Hermione asked.
"Archons are Sharlayan specialists in a particular field of study," G'raha said, tapping one of the tattoos on his neck, "that's what this is indicative of, only Archons can get these tattoos."
"You're one?" Hermione asked, trying to keep the shock out of her voice. She didn't mean it that way, G'raha was a friendly, handsome man, but the idea of him being, what sounded like, an equivalent of a doctorate wasn't one she'd considered.
"In the field of transdimensional travel and its results."
"What?"
"He rips open holes between dimensions and sees what happened," Harry grunted.
"Really?" Hermione asked.
"Put bluntly," G'raha laughed.
A cough came from behind Hermione and she turned, surprised to see the Weasley twins there. Across from her, she felt Harry tense up, clearly ready to defend himself if they went on the attack again.
"Harry, Mate," one started.
"We just wanna apologize for the whole attacking you thing."
"We weren't in our right mind, we swear!"
"It was like… Being stuck in this happy place, where everything you were told to do sounds like a good idea."
"And we wanted to say we don't blame you for beating us."
"I don't think there was any way of stopping us that didn't involve knocking us out."
"So thanks."
"And Sorry."
"It's fine, you two," Harry said, "just do me a favor and leave Neville alone."
—
Neville stood across from Alisaie, his scythe in hand while she held her rapier in one hand and let a crystalline bobble hang above the other. A small distance away, G'raha was coaching Hermione through casting a Fire spell. Harry was busy visiting Buckbeak and Squall, who were apparently quite surly when Harry wasn't around
"Now," Alisaie said, snapping the bobble to the end of her rapier, "from what Harry's said, you don't have any training in dodging and blocking attacks. So that's what we're going to practice today."
"Ok? Neville asked carefully.
"I'll start out calling the names of the attacks, so you can know what to dodge and what to block. Ready?"
Neville nodded, sliding into a combat stance. Alisaie channeled her Aether into the sword-cum-focus, and then called out, "Verfire!" Neville dodged the blast of fire as best he could, feeling the heat pass by his chest. "Verwind!" Neville swung his scythe up and cut the blade of wind in two, "Verstone!"
Neville dodged again as the spike of stone burst from the ground.
—
"Now," G'raha said kindly, looking Hermione over, "How far along are you?"
"I can only cast sparks," Hermione said shyly to the handsome man, clutching her new staff, well, her new staff, Harry's old one, Blade's Fury.
G'raha nodded, smiling brightly, "A good first step. How quickly are you hoping to create fire?"
"I'd like to do it before Christmas Break in a couple of weeks, because I'm going to see my parents" Hermione explained, "but I keep having trouble pushing out enough Aether for the spell."
"Nothing to be ashamed of there," G'raha said, "I take it Harry hasn't been much help?"
"No," Hermione huffed.
"Not surprising, Harry is one of the most Atherically
dense people you could possibly meet. Manipulation of Aether comes naturally to him, when he opts to exert himself."
"Does he not often?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, Gods no, Harry is incredibly gifted in almost all matters Aetheric, but he has an undeniable lazy streak when it comes to actually exerting himself to do anything with that skill. It's always a shock when he actually finds a field of study that drives him to learn more than the basics."
"That's-" Hermione started, agast, trying to find words to accurately summarize how horrifying she found being that magically gifted and not using it.
"Harry has always preferred the practical to the theoretical. And personally, I think having to read 108 tomes to join the Thaumaturgist Guild turned him off to it. Anyways, enough about Harry and more about you. What image are you using when you attempt to cast it?
"A gunpowder barrel."
"See, there's your problem," G'raha said, "Gunpowder is solid, static, Umbral. You need something that moves, that is Astral, to get the best results."
"Something like… Like…" Oh. It was so obvious, it had been sitting in front of her eyes since day one… "Like fire?"
"That would be the most obvious answer," G'raha chuckled good naturedly. It was bizarre to think Harry, who was reserved and closed off, was friends with someone so open and friendly, and that again was different from Alisaie, who most definitely had noticed Draco Malfoy's attempts to mock Harry and Neville and always looked like she was considering the best way to break his nose over it, "Why don't you try it now, ready? Go!"
Hermione imagined a fire burning in her chest, pushing it through her arm and into Blade's Fury, she called out, "Fire!"
A bolt of deep red fire flew out and hit the target, leaving a smoldering spot on it.
"Good job, Hermione!" Hermione blushed at the praise from G'raha.
"It wasn't that strong," she mumbled.
"Then try again, with more Aether this time, go on!"
—
If there was one difference Fred had noticed about Harry's strange friends, other than the fact that they were clearly non-human, it was that they were very different from him personality wise. Fred had wanted to get closer to Harry before the attack, he had thought the idea of them having an ally who could help them with their pranks would be great, but Harry didn't seem the type to get involved in pranks.
Then the Quidditch match happened and-
Fred hid his shudder as he looked around the grounds. Someone here had cast an Unforgivable Curse on him, it was the talk of the school, other than G'raha Tia and Alisaie Leveilluer, it would take an incredibly powerful wizard to put four people under the Imperius curse, on broomsticks, non-verbally.
The news reported it, and kept reporting it, and people were looking at him and George like they were gonna suddenly snap back under whoever did its control and attack them. And part of Fred was afraid that they were right, because he didn't, for the life of him, know who had cast the spell and why they had picked him and George. Waa it just because they were Beaters, or was it to make the Weasley family look worse than they were already considered?
And most importantly, did he want to stay near Harry or stay away from him? If he was Imperiused again, it would probably be to attack Harry, but at the same time he could trust Harry to take him down without any injuries Madame Pomfrey couldn't heal.
But would Harry even want him nearby after what happened? Fred wouldn't want himself nearby.
Approaching Harry with a crunch of crisp autumn leaves, Fred watched Harry run his hand through the feathers of the black horse bird he had come with.
"Fred, right?" Harry said without turning around, feeding a green cabbage looking plant to the bird, "How are you doing? Must have been rough, what happened."
"Y-yeah," Fred swallowed, "Harry, I know we don't really know each other, but if that happens again, beat me until I'm out of it again, please. I- I don't want to hurt anyone like that. I know my pranks can get out of hand sometimes, but actually attacking someone-"
Fred shuddered.
"Of course," Harry said, face softening, "You're just a kid. No kid in their right mind would want to do what you did at that game. Come on, let's stop by Hagrid's hut for some tea, and I'll show you a game from my home. It's called Triple Triad."
