Gohan was just as excited this day as he had been each previous one at Hogwarts, he'd get up early in the morning, making sure to take the stairs to appease the portrait on his way out of the castle and finally he do a warm up before a hearty breakfast. This was the routine he set for himself, one he was certain would result in his parents being proud of him for balancing the responsibilities set on him, to be a good wizard like his mother, and to be strong enough to protect the world like his father believed he could.
As the days went by without incident, it came to the first day of flying lessons. Gohan was bemused, he'd known that magicals flew on brooms, his mother even having an old Cleansweep in the closet that didn't see too much use. But he was interested in trying it out for himself as, after Mr. Piccolo had taught him to fly under his own power, the idea of testing a broom had completely slipped his mind.
Madame Rolanda Hooch, the flying instructor had laid a broom down next to each of the students, they looked old and well worn. "Welcome to Introductory to Flying, now while I suspect that some of you have had some practice on a broom before, everyone will be treated as if they have never put one between their legs."
This earned a few snickers from the immature eleven-year-old students, because they were children and they find things like that funny.
"Okay, now everybody line up, hold out your hand and firmly say, UP," Rolanda instructed her class. Only a few of the students managed to get the brooms to react on their first command. But finally each student was holding onto the broom handle and waiting for their next instruction. It wasn't a difficult one to predict, first you pick up the broom, then you get on the broom.
As each student mounted their respective brooms, Neville suddenly began to float uncontrollably away. His shouts of panic as he rose higher and higher as the students looked on. "Mr. Longbottom, get down here this instant." Madame Hooch hollered at the student who was drifting higher and higher.
"He's going to get hurt," Susan said, nudging the teacher. "Why don't you get him?" she asked.
"I will, I have a spell to stop him should he," she started to say before an object blurred past her. Stopping just below Neville on the ground, Gohan jumped the nearly sixty foot gap upwards to grab Neville and pull him off the broom. Before anyone could react Gohan had touched back down on the ground and patted the nervous boy down.
"You okay there Neville?" Gohan asked as the other boy took deep breaths to calm himself.
"Yeah, thanks Gohan," Neville responded as the broom without a rider floated down to the ground. "I think I'll want to stay on the ground for the foreseeable future."
"Too bad he didn't land on his fat head," Draco grumbled as he had hoped to see the other boy fall.
After this ordeal, for the rest of the lesson, a few of the muggleborn students were more reluctant to use a broom as they realized how dangerous it could be to rely on a flimsy piece of wood as the only thing between you and hard ground below. "Madame Hooch," Hermione raised a hand. "Do witches and wizards only use brooms? Or are there other methods of travel?"
"Of course," Rolanda said as she directed those students who were in the air to come back down. There wasn't usually a lot of lecture when it came to flying lessons but every so often a few of the students were interested and it gave Madame Hooch a reason to use her knowledge of the various methods of flight. "There of plenty of ways of travel, but as I assume you mean by flight, there are a few, but they are far more prohibitive than a broomstick."
"There are the flying carpets, but those are restricted through trade agreements, which makes them very expensive to import. The art of self-propelled flight has been something only the most powerful of witches and wizards have been able to achieve, as such it is not feasible for the vast majority of witches and wizards. Outside of that there have been talks of legendary relics and artifacts capable of achieving the feat." Most of the students were interest in this as rare stuff was fascinating to everyone.
"In fact, the Nimbus Broom Company, had based their original model on one such artifact after supposedly seeing a Flying Nimbus, a legendary cloud that the legends say only those who are pure of heart could ride."
"Oh, I have one of those," Gohan raised his hand interrupting the lecture because he felt it might be relevent.
"You have what?" Rolanda asked as she wasn't sure what the student was talking about.
"A flying nimbus, it was my dads, he got it as a gift from Korin," Gohan answered. Looking up to the sky, he inhaled deeply. "NIMBUS!" his voice carried into the clouds above.
"What is that mudblood doing now?" Draco groaned as the attention was on this weird student once more.
For a moment nothing happened, but then the students could see movement in the air above them, a golden ball was zooming towards them. "Hey Nimbus," Gohan greeted the cloud as it stopped in front of the child. "It's been a while, how are you?" Gohan patted the cloud.
"An actual, flying nimbus cloud," Rolanda gasped as she got a good look at the fluffy orange puff floating just off the ground. "Incredible, they were only thought to be legend." This rare occurrence was actual proof to the claims made by Devlin Whitehorn.
"There are a lot of truth to old legends," Gohan smirked as he sat on the cloud and took off into the air. "It's been so long since I've ridden you," He said as the cloud shot around the castle for a lap before coming back down to the stunned crowd of onlookers. "Anyone want to see if they can ride Kintōun?"
"Move it," Draco ordered as he pushed through the sea of excited children. "If a mudblood can ride it, then it will submit to a pureblood," his arrogant attitude as he jumped onto the cloud only to fall through it. This caused the other kids to laugh at Draco, who lay on the ground in a heap.
"Don't worry, not everyone can ride it," Gohan shrugged as one after the other, more and more students failed to get onto the cloud.
"I would suspect not," Madame Hooch said. "The legends tell that only one who is pure-hearted is capable of riding it as they have a soul lighter than air that won't fall through the cloud." She looked to Gohan and the Nimbus. "May I try please?" Asking in the same way that giddy child would when seeing a puppy they wanted to pet.
"Go right ahead," Gohan waved to the cloud. "Honestly, I rarely use the Nimbus anymore, even if it can go over mach one, it's usually faster for me to go by myself." Gohan said as he floated off the ground to the shock of the class. "If anyone could ride it, I'd probably just give it to them since they'd be able to use it more than me." Touching back onto the ground since he didn't feel the need to float for very long.
Madame Hooch found that she was unable to ride the cloud, which was disappointing, but she hadn't expected to be able to do, as she knew she had done some bad things in her time. "Well, that's a shame," she shook her head, a little saddened that she would be unable to experience riding the legendary cloud.
"I'm honestly a little surprised I can still ride it myself," Gohan scratched his head. "I've done some not nice things myself."
"Well class, that ends the first lesson, an unusually exciting one, but I will see you all next week." Madame Hooch clapped her hands as she had to let the students go to their next lesson of the day. She was excited for the staff meeting that night where she could bring up the existence of the Flying Nimbus to Filius and gauge his reaction.
"I want to try something," Gohan rubbed his chin. "Kintōun, please, would you let my teacher ride on you, even if it's just once?" Cupping his hands together.
Waving her hands quickly Madame Hooch stepped forward. "No, that's quite alright, you don't have to go that far for me." Not wanting to impose on the child.
"But I want too, I'm sure you'd be better able to appreciate it than I could," Gohan shrugged as the cloud floated over and nudged Rolanda.
"Are you sure?" Madame Hooch inquired.
"Seems to be fine with it." Gohan smiled.
"Wheeeee," Madame Hooch cheered as she zoomed around the castle on the Flying Nimbus, it was everything she had hoped it would be and then some.
"So the mudblood has a fancy puffball, what's next, you have a pet dragon," Draco sneered as he led most of the first-year Slytherins away from the group.
Stopping suddenly Gohan rubbed the back of his head. "Weeeellll," He dragged out. "Icarus isn't really a pet." He said as he didn't own the dragon, it was just his friend, who he hadn't seen in a few months.
"Please tell me you're joking," Susan shook her head in exasperation.
"Sorry I'm not, my mom's got some pictures of me riding on Icarus' back when I was younger, I'll see if she can send some over with the post," Gohan shrugged as he headed up to the castle to get to his next lesson.
"Okay, who wants to start this meeting," Minerva asked the room this was the last night of the first week of the new year of school, so it was a good idea to get feedback and find potential problems early.
"Ooh me me, pick me," Rolanda said excitedly as she was barely contained in her chair.
"Well then, go right ahead," Minerva sat back in her chair quickly as she had not expected the flying instructor to be the one to start. Sometimes she had spirited comments on potential students for the Quidditch teams next year, but never to this extent.
"So during the flying lesson, we had an incident, thankfully no one got hurt, but it led to a little lecture on brooms, carpets, so on." Rolanda started. "Now, normally that doesn't take too long, but I like to be thorough and mention a few more obscure methods of flight, such as the Wings of Icarus, the Sorcerer's Cloak, those, when I mentioned the Nimbus, you aren't going to believe what happened."
Her normally stoic nature completely gone as she bounced in her seat. "A student is in possession of an actual Flying Nimbus Cloud." She let out a squeal as she pumped her fists. "Isn't that amazing, they exist."
"That's, astonishing," Filius blinked as he cleaned his glasses. "And who did this legendary object belong to?"
"Mr. Son," Rolanda nodded.
"If the topic is Lily's child, I have something to add," Minerva raised her hand. "The child is already capable of self-propelled flight, all without a wand and unspoken on top of that."
"Well he is certainly a powerful individual then." Dumbledore nodded, half paying attention to the conversation as his mind was elsewhere at the moment.
"The boy threatened me the other day," Snape said quietly adding to the conversation.
"Oh and I'm sure it was completely unjustified." Pomona rolled her eyes.
"He gave me the address to his home in Hogsmeade, he said it was a chance for me to make amends with Lily," Snape folded his arms.
"That sounds like it will do you some good Severus," Filius nodded as the older teachers were aware of the falling out that Lily and their potions professor had when they were students.
"His threat however was, not unwarranted, he warned me against making her hurt again," Snape admitted. "But the comment he made after was unusual, he said that something called a Shenron would be unable to fix me? Is that word familiar to any of you?" He asked his colleagues.
Binns, the history ghost who never had anything interesting to say for the last two hundred years perked up. "Shenron, now that is a name I have not heard in quite some time."
The ghosts sudden decision to join into the conversation succeeded in startling all the professors as he usually floated there silently, saying nothing.
"You, know who this Shenron is?" Severus asked, a part of him not believing that.
"I think it would be very hard to forget The Eternal Dragon," Binns scoffed, showing more emotion in this moment than he had any time in his death.
"The what?"
"A dragon, said to be bigger than the sky, it appears only once every hundred years, and will grant any wish asked of it," Binns lectured as he had heard the tale long ago. "No one alive has seen the dragon but some say that the Demon King himself was always searching for it." The tales of demons not being a part of the standard classwork, but one could always learn if they were adventurous enough. "Strange that such a young man even knows the name."
"He is a very different individual though," Filius stroked his beard. "Definitely one to keep an eye on."
As the discussions moved from Gohan to more general topics, Dumbledore's thoughts were pulled to the orange orb locked away in his desk. 'I have the orb, then why has the dragon not appeared to grant my wish?' he thought deeply on this as he had been for quite some time.
The weeks would continue to go by and the rumors about Gohan would get stranger and stranger, but nothing prepared the castle's occupants for Halloween night. While the feast was in full swing and the mood was high amongst the students, the doors bursting open allowing a terrified Professor Quirrel to rush in screaming his head off. "Troll, Troll, in the dungeon," he managed to get out before he fell onto the floor in the center of the Great Hall.
The panic that swept through the students was almost deafening, each of them began to scramble this way and that. "SILEEEEENCE!" Dumbledore shouted over the children. "Now, prefects if you would kindly-" was all he was able to get out when a loud lumbering thud carried into near quiet room. "Students away from the door," the headmaster ordered as he knew the sounds of screaming children and the smell of food had likely attracted the beast to the Great Hall.
A third-year barely made it back as the mountain troll shoved the giant doors all the way open again with enough force they bounced off the stone walls.
"Students please move to the back of the room, allow us to," Minerva started to direct when she noticed one student was standing directly in the path of the large beast. "Mr. Son, get away, you are going to get hurt." She ordered.
"I'll be fine," Gohan dismissed as he stared up at the creature. "If you're as strong as you are ugly, I might have a real fight on my hands." the young half-saiyan smirked as the beast raised it's massive tree trunk sized club. "Yeah, bring it," Gohan smirk turned into an expectant smile.
"Get out of my way," Tonks shouted as she tried to push through the mob of students, she figured Gohan might be impressively fast and capable of doing some strange magic, but surely he couldn't take on a troll by himself. "Gohan, I'm coming," she said as she kept shoving other kids out of her path.
The troll roared as it brought it's club down with enough force to pulp a car.
Everyone had expected this to be the end of the first-year, turned into a smear on the floor. What they did not expect was that this child had caught the swing, effortlessly holding the club with one hand.
"Is that all you got?" Gohan scoffed as he yanked the club from the trolls hand and hurled it into a wall with enough force that the wood exploded into a shower of splinters that rained down on the floor. "Oh well, my turn," Gohan grinned as he leaped into the air and spun around like a top. The onlookers barely caught the sight of his leg shooting out into a powerful kick, landing directly on the trolls chest, sending it rocketing out of the great hall, through the foyer and out onto the lawn over one hundred feet away.
Gohan landed with his arms folded in his starting position, as he waited for the troll to get up, he hadn't wanted to end the fight this soon. "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay down." Gohan said loudly enough to be heard by the beast. The angry roar of the troll as it slowly stood up was the expected response. "They never learn do they." Gohan sighed as he moved to the troll and stopping within striking distance of the creature.
"It's your last move, so you better make it count," Gohan informed the mountain troll which pulled back it's fist. "Every time," he sighed again as these types always did the same thing. "Okay, I'll let you hit me," Gohan said as he held out his arms, opening himself up.
"Bombarda Maxima," Tonks shouted as she ran across the lawn to stop Gohan from dying. The flashy white spell impacted the troll and knocked it away from the cocky child.
"Tonks what are you-," Gohan complained when he felt his cheek begin to sting.
"Are you fucking stupid, how dare you make me worry like that," Tonks shouted at the young boy as the teachers ran past to secure the troll. "What were you thinking?" she demanded to know.
"I wasn't-" Gohan opened his mouth, which earned him another slap.
"Of course you weren't, you didn't think about anything, not with the centaur, not with whatever the hell training you do and most certainly not now," Tonks' tone furious with the young boy in front of her. "Did you ever stop to wonder how terrifying that must have looked to everyone else, to see you almost die?"
"I wasn't going to-" Gohan tried to defend himself only to be greeted with another slap.
"We don't know that!" Tonks screamed in his face. "I don't know that, all I know is you are my friend and I just watched you allow a troll to take a swing at you. I was so fucking scared Gohan, don't you ever do that to me again, you hear me, never," she ordered.
Realizing quickly that anything other than full commitment and an apology would result in him getting slapped once more, stepping forward he wrapped his arms around Tonks' midriff. Exhaling Gohan buried his face into her stomach. "I promise, I won't do something like that again. And, I'm really sorry for scaring you, I don't want to do that to my friends."
"Apology accepted," Tonks smiled as she looked down on her neighbor's crazy black hair. "You're going to be in so much trouble for what you did though."
"Why, I didn't get hurt or anything." Gohan wondered.
"Ms. Tonks is correct," Minerva cleared her throat. "You will have a weeks worth of detention for this stunt you pulled, injuries or not. The headmaster and myself gave clear instructions for the students to move away from the danger, you disobeyed us, and one hundred points from Gryffindor and I will be calling you mother to the castle to have you explain what you did tonight."
"Yes Professor McGonagall," Gohan replied, thinking on it now, he should have known he was going to get in trouble for doing what he did, but he just saw that big creature and all he wanted to do was fight it. No, destroy it. Something in him wanted to show everyone watching he was the strongest, that this would be the best way to do so, but now that the troll was defeated he realized how stupid that sounded.
Gohan started his walk up to the castle as he had been told to wait at Dumbledore's gargoyle for the professors to clean up the damage.
"Did anyone get hurt?" Lily inquired as she sat in the plush chair of the headmaster's office, it was her, Gohan and the heads of house, the headmaster and the school nurse.
"No injuries were sustained in this event," Madame Pomfrey said. "Thankfully." tacking that on to the end.
"Then I don't see what the problem is, my son's been fighting things that size for years," Lily inquired as she pulled out a photograph she had of Gohan standing on top of a defeated T-Rex.
"What the bloody hell is that?" Pomona Sprout shouted as she saw the size of the beast.
"A dinosaur," Lily blinked her eyes in confusion. "He was only six years old when he brought this beast down. Goku was so proud." Smiling as she remembered the happy times when she had her entire family alive and with her.
Something that was noticed by the professors but not brought up was that it was obvious in that photograph that Gohan had a tail, why that was, was unknown to them and they were unsure how to start that conversation.
"But, I understand that he broke the rules and didn't listen to the professors, like I told him too," she turned her gaze to her son. "In addition to the punishment Minerva gave you, you..." she started to say.
"What, no, come on, that's so, ugh," Gohan complained as he knew what he was going to be punished with, it was the typical threat that worked to keep him in line.
"You want to fight and get your energy out, then you'll just have to put up with it," Lily folded her arms. "It's that or, no training for a month."
"Fine," Gohan groaned as he'd rather take a week of the former punishment than a month of the latter.
"Excellent, now Headmaster, would it be alright if a guest came by the school, during the nights that Gohan was in detention?" Lily inquired as she didn't want to impose on the Hogwarts staff.
"I don't necessarily see a problem with that, but who may I ask is coming?" Albus asked.
Bulma had just gotten off the phone with Lily, she listened to what had happened and agreed this was a suitable punishment. She raised her hand to knock on the heavy metal door. "Vegeta." she called out through the sounds of training. "Lily needs you to help discipline Gohan, he's been causing some problems at his school."
The door slowly creaked open for the first time in a few days, for some reason smoke billowed out, "Yes," a raspy voice said from the darkness. "This is perfect." Slowly the sweaty, muscular figure stepped out of the gravity chamber.
"Oh and can you take this to Lily when you go, she's expecting Goten any week now and I have some of Trunks' old baby clothes he grew out of she can use," handing off a box to Vegeta. "And I put your juice in there too." the inventor said as she headed out to leave her husband to laugh menacingly in the hallway.
Little Trunks attempted to join in with his higher pitched giggles, which only served to make Vegeta genuinely laugh as he picked up his baby boy. "Soon my son, I will be the strongest in the universe," Vegeta declared, tossing the half-saiyan up and down.
"Are you throwing Trunks around like a basketball again," Bulma stuck her head around the corner.
"Nuh, no," Vegeta stumbled as he caught his son and made a poor attempt at looking innocent.
"Uhuh," Bulma shook her head as she headed back to her lab.
"I wasn't," Vegeta whined. "I didn't bounce him off the floor this time at least." he said as he followed his wife, he had to defend his honor, or something in this case, from the completely accurate accusation.
"Master, the plan, it didn't work," Quirrel said into a mirror. "That Son boy, he's strong."
"Imbecile, this plan failed before it even began and we are not even one step closer to the stone," the parasite shade of Voldemort hissed at his host. "We will have to try again, it is imperative that we get the object or else."
"I have another plan, for the holidays, when the castle is mostly empty." Quirrel bowed quickly for his master.