After he'd carefully placed down the likely priceless book Dumbledore had gifted him, Tonks eagerly presented her gift next. She produced a somewhat unassuming small box, covered in bright purple paper, which matched the bright hair she'd taken to sporting.
Carefully opening the box, Harry was confused when he pulled out a small orb, covered in intricately designed silver rings, each adorned with delicate runic engravings.
"Do you know what that is?" Tonks asked excitedly, quickly explaining her gift. "So, it's called a 'Veilguard Revelator', they're super rare, since only a few guys can make them. But, fortunately for you, one of them works for the Ministry, and he gave this one to me just in time.
"Basically, it's a Dark Detector for anyone who's trying to hide from you, mainly concealment charms or disguises. But it also works on intent, so someone nearby who just wants to stay hidden from you will often trigger the detector too.
"Just hold it and give it a squeeze, and the time between pulses of light will reveal how close the concealed person is." Tonks finished excitedly, gesturing for him to try it out.
Cautious with how delicate the device felt, he tentatively squeezed it, until he felt something click into place, before the orb instantly began emitting bright blue pulses of light.
When Tonks took a clear step backwards, he grew alarmed, fearing a prank or trap, only to calm when the flash slowed in time with her distance.
"See, it even works on metamorphs like me, since it can pick up on my power. Of course, it makes it useless for me to use one, but it should work well for you!"
He found himself smiling gladly for the gift, appreciating Tonks' thoughtfulness. Although he was already quite good at detecting people using his Magesight, it required both line of sight and for him to actively be using his altered vision.
"I wanted to get you one when you were first ambushed by Crouch Junior, but I couldn't get it in time. Then I was feeling guilty, because if I had gotten it to you earlier, he likely wouldn't have been able to pretend to be Mad-Eye… But better late than never, hey?" She asked, giving a tentative laugh, before hurriedly handing over another small and colourful box.
"But, as I still wasn't sure I'd get that detector in time, I also had this made for you."
Half expecting another dark detector, Harry wasn't prepared to see a simple rounded locket. At first glance, it seemed to be perfectly ordinary, and it was only when he picked it up that he could feel a faint enchantment.
"I haven't put any pictures in it, I thought I'd let you do that." Tonks pre-empted, as Harry went to open it. "But it is enchanted. It will put a simple glamour on your left arm, that will make it mirror the right."
He was briefly confused, until he looked down and remembered his fake arm. It was strange, because even after a few weeks to grow used to his missing limb, it still caught him off guard.
Raising the chain, the moment he placed the locket around his neck, he felt something like liquid running down his arm, before his gauntleted arm shimmered away into his old arm, enveloped in a sophisticated glamour.
He'd used a similar glamour in the past to disguise the gradual damage his arm had received, but Tonks' enchantment put his version to shame. While his previous glamour had merely given his sickly skin a healthier colour, Tonks' version was far more intricate.
The enchanted locket mirrored every detail seamlessly. It even included the occasional blemish or spot, giving it a realistic and imperfect appearance. It was as if his Gauntlet had never existed, hidden beneath the flawless illusion crafted by the locket's magic.
Only a close inspection would reveal that the blemish or spot was merely duplicated from the other arm.
"This is fantastic! How did you even get this, I've never heard anything like this?" Harry asked, holding his arm up to the light to try and spot any flaws.
"Oh, it's nothing much, it's just something I made myself." Tonks answered, blushing at his praise, "I just thought you likely don't want to be walking around with a silver arm. Unfortunately, it can only do that mirroring thing. I'm not good enough to tie multiple enchantments into a single object."
Deciding to test the enchantment, he flexed his hand and summoned the full Gauntlet, growing disappointed when the glamour tore apart as the Gauntlet sprung into existence beneath it.
Concerned he'd instantly broken Tonks' gift, Harry turned the Gauntlet back into his standard arm, which allowed the locket's illusion to flutter back into existence.
Where before the entire thing would morph into a ring, since he'd used the Gauntlet for his full arm, it now only partially changed. The gemstones would all shrink, and the ring would form as expected, but with some slight direction it still left a passable imitation of a normal arm behind.
It was unfortunate the full Gauntlet was simply too powerful for Tonks' enchantment to survive over it.
"It's useful for my undercover work… Like, I can morph one arm to be larger, and hide my wand holster on the other arm under the glamour. As you saw, the glamour doesn't react well to sudden changes, but the glamour will reapply itself as soon as it can."
"This is really amazing, Tonks!" Harry repeated, getting a noise of agreement from Dumbledore who'd come over to investigate it for himself.
"Why not just make a standard glamour of his arm? I'd have thought a lady of your talents could make such a glamour without relying on mirroring?" Nicholas inquired.
"Oh… Well I know Harry has been working on his disguise, and I wasn't sure how his arm would react to such a disguise. So, since that same enchantment can keep up with my metamorph changes, I figured his disguise would work fine too."
"That is certainly something to look into. I must admit, I hadn't even considered how Harry's new arm would impede a disguise. My dear, if you ever grow bored of being an auror, I would highly suggest you look into becoming an enchantress."
"Is life always like this for you, Harry?" Sirius asked quietly, pulling Harry away from the others, a sombre look on his face.
Confused, Harry took in the scene again, before turning to his godfather. "I guess so, but what do you mean, Sirius?"
"I mean… there's no rest. Even on your birthday, everyone here's discussing weapons, disguises, and detecting threats… Do you never just get a moment to rest and put it out of mind?"
"It didn't used to be like this… It's just that Voldemort is back, and I'll bet he isn't taking a day to rest. I fought him once, when he was at his weakest, and he almost killed me. I won't have the benefit of him being in a new body, and you can bet he'll be taking a bunch of rituals to give himself a boost." Harry argued, gently.
He certainly didn't want to upset or hurt his godfather, but he couldn't pretend to just be another fifteen year old.
After some consideration, Sirius nodded sadly, "Has Dumbledore been letting you know what the Order's found out?"
"No, this is actually one of the few times I've even seen Dumbledore this Summer. Back at Hogwarts, before Crouch attacked me, we agreed Dumbledore would handle everything, for now. I don't… I don't need to know what Voldemort's up to. Not right now." Harry admitted sombrely, his gaze momentarily flickering away from the ongoing discussions.
"Don't get me wrong, it's hard not knowing what Voldemort's up to. It's like I'm constantly standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for something to happen. But I can either spend my time looking over my shoulder, seeing what Voldemort's doing… Or I can focus solely on myself, so whenever I meet him again, I'll have another chance to survive."
"I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry you have to live like this, it's not right. But I won't try and talk you out of it. Merlin knows James and I were trying to join the Order when we were your age, and we were just unimportant punks back then.
"Any way I can support you, you just have to ask, you know that, right? Makes my gift a bit prophetic though." Sirius said, before pulling out a book that reeked of Dark magic.
"Sirius? What's this?" He asked cautiously, unwilling to put his hands on something so obviously Dark.
"Don't worry, it's a book on countering Dark magic. But my family had strange ideas about how someone should learn how to counter the dark. My family felt rightfully paranoid that just because we knew more Dark magic than anyone else, doesn't mean we'd be immune to it.
"So, this book has a clear patch for every Dark curse we know, and it'll then teach you how to counter it. As long as you don't pull the patches out of the book, you won't interact with any Dark magic directly, I checked."
Taking the book, Harry used his magic to leaf through a few pages, noting how the writing was strangely mechanical looking. Finally, he flipped to the beginning and found an author's note, crediting the book to a Harold Black.
"Sirius… How many Harold Black's are in your family?"
"The writer, right? He's the only Harold in the family, at least as far back as we recorded. He was disowned from the family at birth for being blind, and the Peverell family ended up raising him. Then, when he made a name for himself from his Transfiguration skills, he was reintegrated into the family. Typical Black family politics."
"I've read about him before. According to Xenophilius, this guy used to own my family's invisibility cloak." Xenophilius had also suspected Harold had owned the resurrection stone, making him one of the very few people who'd been the master of two Deathly Hallows simultaneously, but Sirius didn't need to know that.
"That shouldn't be possible, Harry. Think about it, your dad's old cloak was already passed down from his father. I'm surprised it's lasted this long, but it certainly can't have been the same cloak centuries ago."
Rather than open that can of worms, Harry shrugged and put it out of mind, but vowed to read Harold's book very carefully.
"Thank you, for this and everything, Sirius." Harry said instead, hugging the man again.
"Always, Harry. Now, tell me more about your cute friend, Daphne, I think it was. Does she still want to become an animagus?"
"Daphne? Yeah, I think she still wants to, it hasn't really come up in conversation since we last saw you. That actually reminds me, I'll need to arrange a meeting with her… unrelated to the animagus process."
"Good for you." Sirius said proudly, "I remember I spent much of my own Summers making and meeting girlfriends."
"From what I've heard about you, I'm quite sure your visits to girlfriends were far less innocent than my plans." Harry replied wryly, hardly reassured by the devious grin he got in return.
"Are we talking about how innocent little Harry is?" Tonks called, drawn back into the conversation.
"No, no we are definitely not. Nor will we be!"
Harry was quite glad when they eventually stopped to have lunch, which allowed Tonks and Sirius to forget their teasing, after which Dumbledore apologised profusely before taking his leave.
It was then that Nicholas sprang his own gift, having taken his time.
"I had a bit of a dilemma when it came to gifts." Nicholas said, "You see, if I had anything useful for you, you already have it. But I didn't want to give you just some trivial present like food. And then I remembered Perenelle once had her own Grimoire."
From the folds of his velvet cloak, he pulled out the mentioned book, a rather thick and aged tome.
"She hadn't updated it for about a century, but I consulted it when I designed your shield sigil, and I thought you'd enjoy her insights. There will be parts neither of us are able to read, due to the blood magic at play, but I know Fleur and her family can help out there."
"Thank you Nicholas… but wouldn't you want to keep hold of this yourself?"
"No, I have my own family Grimoire to read if I'm feeling nostalgic for Perenelle's musings, and I've had many centuries to study that book. After the last of her family died, Perenelle stopped updating the De Rune Grimoire, but not all her original findings made their way from that book to mine."
Harry ran his fingers over the weathered pages of Perenelle's Grimoire, deeply touched Nicholas would give him something so personal. It was one thing to be told Nicholas cared for him; it was another to be given his late wife's book on family magic.
Nicholas smiled, a hint of nostalgia in his gaze. "Perenelle was an extraordinary witch, and her insights into magic were unparalleled. I'm sure you'll find many fascinating discoveries within those pages."
Harry nodded, a sense of reverence settling over him. "I can't thank you enough for entrusting me with this, Nicholas. It means a lot."
Sirius, drawn from his food by the conversation, joined them. "What's all the excitement about then?" he asked, his eyes flicking between Harry and the Grimoire.
"Nicholas gave me his wife's family Grimoire," Harry explained, displaying the ancient book to Sirius.
Sirius raised an intrigued eyebrow. "A family Grimoire, eh? That's an incredibly generous gift, Harry, you'll need to take very good care of it. And it's probably best if you keep it to yourself. A Grimoire is almost always quite a personal book, enough that I know several Blacks have died over the generations to keep our Grimoire safe."
"I don't think Harry will need to worry all that much." Nicholas interjected, "The last De Rune who might contest Harry's ownership died a long time ago. I assure you, I wouldn't give Harry anything that wasn't my right to give."
Immediately Sirius grew apologetically, bowing to them both. "Of course, my apologies I didn't mean to say Harry shouldn't be in possession of this Grimoire. No, I was only concerned about others who might wish to take it from him."
Slightly unnerved by seeing Sirius act in such a mature manner, Harry somewhat desperately tried to break up the tense moment.
"Sirius, do you know if the Potter's had a Grimoire I'd be able to claim? I keep learning about how different families have their own unique magic… but I have no idea if my own family has something."
Sirius straightened up, his expression thoughtful. "The Potters, like many older wizarding families, probably had a Grimoire of their own. I'd say it would be unusual if they didn't, but I also never heard your father or grandfather refer to it."
Harry's eyes brightened with curiosity. "Do you think there's a chance it's still around, or maybe in the possession of someone in the family?"
Sirius scratched his chin, considering the possibilities. "Well, the Potters did have a rich magical history. James' parents might have safeguarded it somewhere. If I had to guess, it could be in some family vault in Gringotts. You might want to check there."
Nicholas, observing the conversation with interest, chimed in. "Exploring one's family history can be a fascinating journey. It can connect you to your roots in a way just hearing about them cannot."
"I'll see what I've got lying around at home, Harry." Sirius promised, "I didn't leave much behind when I left my parent's house, but who knows, something might show up. Unfortunately, I think a lot of your family's history went up in flames when Voldemort went after your grandparents."
While he certainly wouldn't say he didn't appreciate the previous day's birthday celebrations, he woke up the following morning with a determined anticipation.
Being reminded of just how much destruction Voldemort's actions had robbed him of, Harry felt an added urgency to finish his newest shield. With his prior birthday having prevented him from finishing it, he once again woke up desperate to finish it.
Fortunately, he was hoping that putting the shield together would be an easy process, just time consuming. So he and Nicholas had taken their breakfast into the garden, to sit around as Harry formed the outer mithril layer around the wooden base Fleur had enchanted for him.
The mithril slid over the wood easily, protecting the wood from any magical attacks. In turn, the wood itself would provide the much needed physical reinforcement the mithril required.
Once he'd had about an inch of mithril coating the shield, he moved onto the tedious task of adding the sigil runes. To pass the time, as he laboriously followed the same template as before, he decided to ask his mentor a question he'd been considering for a while.
"Nicholas, if you had Voldemort going after you, like he went after me, what would you do?"
"Well, you see I have some experience with that in the past, your dark lord is hardly the first to exist in my lifetime. Especially when I was far younger, having recently finished my Philosopher's Stone, just after people noticed I wasn't ageing as I should've.
"To deal with the pressure back then, I made a flying castle, which used gravity itself as a power source. Unfortunately, the effort it took to maintain the castle was worse than just learning how to defend my property. But, I will say, I lack the proactive attitude you've been blessed with. I'd much rather hide and outlive a threat."
"Seriously? An entire floating castle? How would you even try and make something like that?" Harry asked, stunned, almost convinced his mentor was pulling his leg.
"I was young and foolish, but it wasn't particularly hard to create. A bit of alchemical runes to convert the gravitational energy applied to the castle into power, and then another controlled conversion to turn some of that power into kinetic energy to keep it in the air."
"Surely that cannot work? I'm fairly sure if you tried that, you'd spin away into space without gravity. I know that much from my old science classes." Harry countered.
"Ah, I see your confusion… The answer is, yes a Muggle couldn't just magically neutralise gravity and expect to stay stationary over the Earth. But also the answer is no, as we are not Muggles. You have to understand, the Muggle laws of physics are just one law of nature we have available to us.
"Where magic is concerned, our planet might as well be an infinite flat plane. Gravity in this sense is purely a downwards force. The realities of our real world hardly matter for this."
Nicholas' explanation wasn't an entirely new concept to Harry, but to scale such an understanding to such a large scale was mind boggling.
"Can… So I can just make something fly like that? Just use some runes to stop gravity?" Harry asked sceptically.
"Well, yes, but it does come at a cost. Although my castle was smaller than you'd likely imagine, more of a small manor, every stone brick was covered in the runes. If you're curious, it will all be in Perenelle's Grimoire. I can't say I'd recommend it, but yes, in theory you could.
"But, for now I'd suggest focusing on your shield, you've done that last rune wrong."
Wincing, Harry looked down and fixed his mistake, putting more focus back on his work. He couldn't get the image of defying gravity out of his head, but he wasn't going to let that sabotage his current project.
"What happened to your castle then? Because I would've thought I'd have heard of that before."
"I donated it to Beauxbatons, although it doesn't fly anymore of course. I believe they now use what remains as a building for enchanting lessons, which has far more prominence than what you'd find at Hogwarts. If you ever do find yourself on the Beauxbatons campus, you can see it for yourself."
"I'll be sure to do so." Harry replied, as he stood up with the almost finished shield. The golden wooden base was almost completely swallowed up by the silver mithril, save for a small patch of exposed wood on the front of the shield.
Handing the shield over to Nicholas, he let the man carefully examine the complex sigil pattern, checking for any flaws. With the amount of magic they'd be feeding it, Harry feared any flaw could become lethal.
That was just the risk he'd had to accept, when he'd vowed to gear up to face Voldemort as an equal. But they could still do their best to mitigate the danger.
"So, your castle, I take it you'd just fly away from danger?" Harry asked.
"Hmm? Oh, yes that was always the plan. Of course, it turned out it was hard for anyone to find a home that is constantly moving. However, we had to live a utilitarian lifestyle while in the air. As you should know by now, the magic we use comes from the Earth, from the land itself.
"The further away from the land you travel, the less magic you have available. It made life difficult for us, especially as I was still dedicated to learning magic's secrets. But, in terms of avoiding Dark Lords? I would say such mobility is unquestionably the best defence."
"Would you recommend it for me? If I made something like a flying castle?"
"No… No, I would say such an endeavour would be ill suited for you. While you are unquestionably my apprentice, our personalities are dramatically opposites, where it matters. Do you ever think you could sit amongst the clouds to avoid your Dark Lord, knowing he was killing those you knew down below?"
"I could bring those I care about into the castle with me." Harry replied hesitantly.
Nicholas leaned in, shield forgotten as he scrutinised Harry's face. The lines around his eyes deepened, conveying a mix of understanding and concern. "You could, as I myself did. And yet those I cared for, they too had people they knew, and wanted to save.
"So eventually they all left, except for my Perenelle, and my son's youngest daughter. But no, I do not feel you could live as I, because you by your nature are not a coward."
Scoffing, Harry waved away Nicholas' statement. "I hardly think you're a coward either. Especially after all you've done."
"All I've done, and yet everything of note only happened once I'd wasted my youth making the Stone you now bear upon your Perenellion Gauntlet. At the end of the day, I likely feared death just as much as your Dark Lord. I would hide and wait for safer times to arrive, then put myself at risk."
Nicholas' eyes bore into Harry's, revealing a vulnerability he'd seldom shown before. "You, for all you are significantly younger, have already faced more danger than I. I am a coward, Harry, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Ask me any question on magical theory, and I'd gladly entertain you. Ask me to fight, to take a stand, and I'd laugh in your face."
Before Harry could formulate a response, Nicholas spun the shield around to face Harry, and pointed at one rune set. "You only need to fix this rune. The redirect rune should point directly to the centre of the shield, but you're off by a degree or two. Normally that's fine, but with this sigil it'll cause a dangerous overlap."
Scowling at his mistake, Harry furrowed his brow in concentration as he fixed the offending rune. Once finished, he did another quick visual sweep of the sigil before seeking approval from Nicholas. The confident nod he received was a welcome relief, knowing his mentor wouldn't allow mistakes.
Holding his new shield aloft, he very carefully picked up the overdrive generator and sealed it into the exposed slot to form the roundel of the shield. When nothing else happened, they both let out a sigh of relief, before Harry manually activated the sigil.
As had happened in their previous test, the sigil gorged itself on all the power the shield's generator could provide, before swiftly projecting the larger glowing sigil.
Once that sigil had pulled enough earth to bury itself within a wall of dirt, Harry activated a newer far smaller rune sequence, before releasing the sigil. Unlike last time, where the dirt had cascaded back to the ground, his new rune sequence had used a modified hardening charm, leaving a resilient wall behind.
Taking a step back, Harry appreciated the solidity of the wall left behind, before blasting it apart with a flick of his Gauntlet.
"Excellent! it all works as expected I take it?" Nicholas remarked, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of pride and approval.
"So far. Now I just need to hope my shielding charms and runes won't interfere with your sigil runes. This is what I'm most worried about now, and I can't even test it on a separate shield, since my runes will use the wood."
Rather than reply, Nicholas merely smiled supportively, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. The grip, though frail looking, carried a firmness and reassurance that gave Harry the courage he needed.
Giving one final sigh, Harry forced his mind to settle, before a simple thought had his mithril chisel formed within his grasp, summoned from the glittering Eidolon Core on his Gauntlet.
With tool in hand, he set to work inscribing the many runes, reciting many from his memory of the last shield. He started on the back, working until every inch of the mithril was written upon. Only then did he swap to the front of the shield, working around the blocks that made up the sigil runes, to finish his own rune additions.
Unlike the sigil runes, his own runes lit up the moment he finished each set, casting a multitude of beneficial effects. It meant he needed to work in a specific order, but eventually he'd finished the final rune, causing a harsh blue magic to coat the mithril.
Even without his charms and enchantments, the shield was impressive, with runes devoted to as many problems as Harry and Nicholas could predict. All of which would be overlaid with as many shielding charms Harry knew.
"Do you want to give it a full test now, or finish with the enchantments and test it all at the end?" Nicholas prompted.
Harry hesitated before answering, sensing a verbal trap. "I was thinking I'd like to finish it all up, but what would you suggest?"
"Normally, I'd advocate for testing throughout the project, but here I think it would be best to do it all at once. We already know the core runes aren't misbehaving, and your spellcraft would pose little issue. Worst case scenario, you just rip your magic off the shield, and we try again."
Nodding, Harry wasted no time in getting to work, using both his Gauntlet and wandless magic to inscribe his charms and enchantments into his shield. It was one of the many times he found himself missing his wand, which Voldemort had no doubt destroyed in the graveyard.
The nature of inlaying enchantments into the mithril meant the Philosopher's Stone and mithraite Eidolon Core were able to work together just as well as his wand could've, but they lacked the eagerness to help that his wand had possessed.
But, for all it wasn't a wand, his Gauntlet was an exceptional magical foci, which meant in no time at all Harry found he'd finished all the charms. The result was a shield that was almost blinding if he Looked with his magesight, which would no doubt shrug off anything.
Sticking the shield to his mithril arm, Harry turned to face Nicholas, and held his new shield aloft.
"Hit me, the strongest spell you've got." Harry challenged, doing his best to hide his nerves.
To his credit, his mentor merely raised his eyes in surprise, before levelling his wand and fired an unknown spell. It shot forward in a perfectly straight line, trailing a bright blue fire, before it struck Harry's shield dead centre and exploded into a giant white fireball.
Even through his shield, the pressure from the spell hit him like a strong storm wind, while he had to clamp his eyes shut from the bright light. But other than being pushed lightly back, he opened his eyes to being completely unharmed.
The same could not be said to Dumbledore's back garden, which now possessed a new crater around Harry, leaving him on an island of untouched grass.
"Merlin! What the hell was that?" Tonks demanded, running out the house with her wand drawn, hair still in disarray from being disturbed from her nap. The moment she stepped out the door, she came to a sharp halt having found herself standing on the fringes of the chaos, her wide eyes taking in the aftermath of the fireball.
"Oh, hello Tonks." Harry greeted, doing his best to pretend nothing had happened, knowing it would infuriate her.
"Don't 'hello Tonks' me! I felt the entire cottage shake from that spell. What in Merlin's name were you two up to?"
"I'm afraid to say this is my fault, Nymphadora," Nicholas interjected bashfully, glancing at Harry. "You see, Harry and I wanted to test out his new shield. But, I fear, I might have underestimated the power of my spell after all these centuries."
Turning slowly, Tonks took a moment to take in the sheer destruction Nicholas had caused, her face apparently stuck in a dumbfounded expression.
"As you can see, the experiment worked great." Harry called cheerfully, moving his shield out the way to reveal his continued health.
As he'd half expected, rather than act relieved at Harry's survival, Tonks' instead raised her wand and began firing spells at him as fast as she could. Grinning from behind his shield, Harry weathered the storm, with each hit increasing his appreciation for his work.
Being a descendant of the Black family, Tonks was a fair bit above average in terms of power, and yet Harry could barely feel the spells impacting his shield. The one thing the shield absolutely couldn't protect him from was Tonks' attempts at transfiguring the ground below him, but instinctively clenching his Gauntlet neutralised that attack.
The embedded glowing Philosopher's Stone easily pretended any foreign transfiguration attempts within its radius, even if it stopped Harry using the foci for a counter attack.
But, when all he wanted to do was test his shield, the ability to counter attack was unnecessary. Instead, he easily moved the shield to intercept the metal balls Tonks had launched at him, where its momentum reversal properties caused the balls to instead bounce backwards.
Even when Tonks had resorted to a stream of fire, his shield held the flames at bay. Given Harry had designed that specific defence with the Horntail from the Triwizard Tournament in mind, the relatively peaceful attack was unnoteworthy.
Finally, Tonks defeatedly lowered her wand, thoroughly exhausted from her exertion. "Fine, you little punk, your shield works. I'm just going to go back to bed now. Don't make me come out again." She warned, waving her wand between a smug Harry and sheepish Nicholas.
"Thank you Tonks, sleep well." Harry called, getting an exceptionally rude gesture in reply as the backdoor slammed shut.
Amidst the still smouldering crater, a mix of pride and joy swelled within Harry. His usual satisfaction of a successful project, however, was now tinged with a detached determination. Completing the shield marked the stepping stone for the next project, all to build another layer of preparation against Voldemort.
"I trust you consider your shield satisfactory, Harry?" Nicholas mused, shuffling over and repairing the garden as he went. "I certainly wouldn't want to be on the end of that lady's wand."
"Of course not." Harry scoffed, doing his part to undo the damage Tonks had caused. "No offence to Tonks of course, but I've been able to withstand her spells myself for a while now. No, this shield needs to defend against the attacks I cannot block myself… So do you feel up to casting that blue spell again?"
Huffing in disbelief, Nicholas shook his head in dismay. "Harry, my boy, I must admit I'm a tad wary of invoking Nymphadora's wrath again. She's a formidable witch, and I fear I shan't enjoy her response…
"How about we relocate to a more secluded area? Perhaps back to the Scottish Highlands where we can test the shield without the risk of disturbing our good friend Tonks or this garden further. What do you think?"
"Sure, that could work. Just wait here a moment." Harry replied, before rushing inside. Nicholas didn't have to wait long for Harry to return, now adorned with his full breastplate underneath his trenchcoat, with a spear stuck to his back.
With some alarm, Nicholas said, "I assure you Harry, I have no intention of us duelling to such a degree you'd need such weapons. Indeed, if we were to duel, I'd be the one needing such protection."
"This is just in case we get attacked while outside the wards. Best case scenario is none of this gets used, but rather have it and not need it, than be dead, right?"
Sighing again, Nicholas merely held out a hand for Harry to grasp, deciding any argument would be fruitless. He'd love nothing more than to prove to his apprentice that such defensive measures were unnecessary, but when it came to Harry, such statements always seemed to turn to ash in his mouth.
Things I think need explaining:
- Anti-Transfiguration aura; I'm not sure if it's a canon concept, but basically most strong wizards can stop transfiguration happening in a radius of them. Mainly, this would be why Dumbledore can't just turn Voldemort's robes into stone etc. It's just the Philosopher's Stone, and by extension the Gauntlet, can make an incredibly strong aura.