What was left of Harry's summer was spent between Dumbledore's and Luna's homes, he saw a lot less of Tonks as even though she had been hired as his official bodyguard she still needed to spend time in the office.
Dumbledore's personal library was filled with more books than Harry could ever read in a single summer, but despite this very few of those books appealed to Harry. Among the books of defense and transfiguration was politics and history, subjects which Harry had little interest in.
He had pored over most of the books on doing actual magic, he had opened a book of magical theory once and after several minutes of staring mindlessly at the first page had shut it again. Judging by how the book looked practically untouched Dumbledore hadn't read it much either.
Harry felt like he had learned a lot over that summer, most importantly that he needed to find something to do in the muggle world that he enjoyed next summer. When the first of September finally came around Harry found himself looking forward to Hogwarts greatly.
While he still found most of the students either annoying or forgettable and he often almost died every year, he could still say there was rarely a dull moment there. He would have new subjects to learn and he hoped the class material would be new for him.
As had become normal for him Harry arrived at Kings Cross several hours early, this time however Tonks was escorting him onto the train. Dumbledore had suggested Harry sit near the defense teacher who would be posted on the train, as there was only one adult on the train Harry guessed he must be the new teacher.
He couldn't help wondering where the trolley witch was, the only times he had ever seen her was when she sold the sweets, Harry could only assume the witch somehow got on the train mid-journey.
When he knocked on the compartment door the man didn't stir, entering quietly Harry looked at the man carefully. He appeared to be sleeping but the man's magic was too active for him to be unconscious.
Tonks had been teaching Harry basic self defense, which had included identifying threats. Harry could imagine somebody pretending to be asleep only to attack him once he had let his guard down when the train had left.
"Excuse me, if you're trying to get to sleep I would suggest setting up a silencing ward, if you're only pretending could you stop…"
The man cracked open one eye and looked at Harry speculatively "You must be Harry, Professor Dumbledore did mention you would realise if I tried to deceive you. Foolishly I thought I knew better" the man chuckled dryly, he had shifted upright so that he was facing Harry rather than lean on the window.
"I'm Remus Lupin, although I suppose that would be Professor Lupin now…"
"Harry Potter, did you go to school with my dad because your name sometimes appears in his detention slips."
The man suddenly appeared less sure of himself "Yes, I knew your father, we were in the same year."
Before Harry could reply the door to the compartment opened and Luna breezed in, which gave Harry a distraction to levitate his and Luna's trunks into the luggage rack.
When he turned back to Professor Lupin he frowned when he saw the man had gone back to pretending to be asleep and had even applied a notice-not, a rather strong notice-not at that.
Despite the fact it wasn't the strongest notice-not Harry had ever encountered, it was just strong enough that Harry would've needed to put in some effort to break through. Harry felt professor Lupin would see this as rather rude and he didn't want to annoy somebody who had known his father by pushing him to talk when he clearly didn't want to. There would be time to talk during the school year.
As they had spent most of their summer together Harry and Luna didn't need to catch up, as had become normal Harry read a book, in this case 'The soul of Transfiguration by A. Dumbledore & G. Grindelwald' which he had borrowed from Dumbledore's library.
It mainly consisted in an in depth discussion on what wizard's considered the soul and how the soul remained unaffected even when the body was transfigured, Grindelwald hypothesised that if the body could be changed without affecting the soul then the soul could be transfigured in turn.
While Harry read his book Luna read a magazine, normally Magizoology Monthly or the Quibbler, they would talk as they read and bring up anything interesting and discuss it with each other.
Over the journey very few people bothered to talk to Harry, despite the fact it was him that had killed the basilisk some of the students had decided that he had set up the entire thing to make him more popular. It was only students like Ron who came in to thank him yet again or Justin who said he was grateful Harry had tried to save him.
Then the train suddenly slowed to a stop despite the fact Hogwarts was still over an hour away. "Do you think we broke down?" Luna asked warily, Harry had noticed that whenever she was scared she dropped her airy attitude and became much more serious.
"Can't, the train runs on magic and has never broken down since it was set up… Nothing should be able to stop this train, even a landslide would be pushed out of the way before the train even got close…" As he spoke a deathly cold had started to spread throughout the train, a cold Harry had felt before.
He eyed the professor warily but sometime over the journey the man had actually fallen asleep and his notice-not had started to unravel, it was unlikely the man would notice anything dangerous until it was too late.
Before he could wake the professor up, their door started rolling open and mist started seeping in, moving quickly Harry slammed the door shut and applied the most complex locking charm he knew.
Harry couldn't help feeling terrified when the charm started breaking apart, it wasn't being unlocked by a counter charm or ripped apart by another wizard, it was simply ceasing to be. It reminded Harry of the basilisk venom when it had come into contact with his mithril except this was so much slower, which also meant Harry had time to get scared.
He pushed his palm against the lock of the door and filled it with mithril with the ideology of 'keep this door closed no matter what!', this meant the mithril not only filled up the lock it also spread over the entire door frame.
Even Dumbledore would have struggled to overcome the mithril, he probably would've chosen to just destroy the door rather than unlock it, but whatever was on the other side of the door just fought back harder. The deathly cold became much more intense and the mist started leaking through the seams of the wood and the windows began to crack.
"Wake up the professor!" Harry snapped at Luna, breaking her out of her terror and rushed to fulfill his order.
The mithril started icing over and cracks were soon running over the metal, as if in empathy the various mithril objects on his person had also begun growing cold except for his ring which once more filled Harry with warmth. He also started developing a numbing feeling in his arm and skull, exactly where the mithrilium was.
He now understood why Azkaban prison had been so cold. The mithril had taken in the cold of the dementors and spread it everywhere, even to places the dementors didn't visit. Which meant the creature trying to force entry was a dementor…
He didn't need to wait long to see what the creature looked like, with a great crack the door's window gave in and Harry got his first look at the guard's of Azkaban, the creature's cloak was like solidified smoke and fluttered ethereally, if such a demon could be described as ethereal.
When the cloak fluttered aside it revealed a dark grey skeleton, it looked like flesh had been dried until it covered the bones. The worst part was the skeleton was slightly transparent, which meant Harry got to see what looked like icy blue veins. He didn't dare use his mage sight in case the magic was somehow worse than the beast itself.
Luna was shaking Lupin rather violently but he remained dead to the world, the dementor's cold aura had affected the notice-not and turned it inwards. The notice-not would need to be broken before the man would awaken, which would normally only take Harry a couple of seconds.
Seconds he couldn't afford to lose, he was barely able to keep up with reinforcing the mithril before the dementor could wither it away and get into the compartment.
It had thrust its skeletal hand through the broken window and was grasping at Harry feebly, when Harry had let his hand get too close to the dementor's hand his skin had grown pale. It had felt like burning hot needles were being stuck in his hand, despite the pain Harry felt numbness spread over his hand.
When Harry glanced at his hand and winced at how grey his skin had become, it looked dried and shriveled. Harry didn't know how bad it was but it didn't take a genius to figure out having a grey hand wasn't good, in an attempt to stop it spreading he activated his gauntlet.
Activating the gauntlet was a mistake, the gauntlet spread up his hand but the mithril was icy cold. The Philosopher's Stone glowed brilliantly and spread warmth throughout his body, but it seemed unable to warm up the metal.
The gauntlet did give Harry a surge in power, as if in response to that new power the dementor backed off. Harry let out a sigh in relief only for the dementor to push forward, right as it hit the door it seemed to turn into smoke and phased right through the door.
Harry started hearing faint whispers in his mind, it was as if he was hearing them from a great distance but the closer the dementor drew the louder the voices grew. The dementor stretched out his hand as if to touch his face and Harry reacted on instinct.
Before he could even register what he was doing his gauntleted hand had caught the dementor's arm as a troll's roar and a child's scream filled his mind.
Luna watched Harry fearfully, when the dementor had entered the compartment she had almost fainted as she watched her mother died over and over again. Harry's cloak then reared up like a king cobra's hood, the cloak seemed to stop the dementor's aura.
With the memories fading Luna was able to get back to waking the professor, she was once again stopped, this time by Harry screaming in pain. Where he had grabbed the dementor's arm his gauntlet had frosted over completely, the red stone was easily the brightest thing on the train and causing a stream of steam which had started to condense on the ceiling.
The mithril itself started to look rusted and jagged, normally Harry's mithril was so smooth Luna had used it as a mirror but now she could barely tell what colour it was. Harry's skin had also started turning pale grey, it ran up his arm like frost and had already reached his elbow.
But while his skin was grey his veins had turned the same red as the stone and glowed fiercely, he looked like some sort of demon and Luna found herself terrified. For the dementor's part it was letting off a sound like a hundred different voices screaming.
Knowing that she couldn't do anything to help Harry directly Luna turned back to the professor and started shaping her magic as Harry had taught her, she was unable to use her magic as freely as her friend but she was able to shape a crude spear of magic. The magic carved into the distorted notice-not and tore it to shreds.
Immediately the professor opened his eyes and sat up, in one quick motion his eyes took in the entire scene and raised his wand at the dementor "Expecto patronum!", a huge wolf like shape tackled the dementor and sent it flying out of the compartment.
With the dementor gone Harry collapsed into a seat, Luna couldn't tell how far the grey had spread as it had gone up into his shirt with the gauntlet stopping just above his elbow. The professor started waving his wand over the boy and muttering spells, silently begging her only friend would be okay Luna sank into her own seat and let her eyes close.
Harry awoke almost immediately, he was starting to get annoyed at how many times he had been struck unconscious lately and swore to himself he would make sure he would get stronger. He looked around the infirmary carefully, he seemed to be the only person in there, judging by the purple and orange light trickling through the eastern facing windows it was very early in the morning.
As he rose he felt a charm break and a streak of magic flew off towards the headmaster's office, before he had company Harry inspected his arm. His gauntlet must've been deactivated by Dumbledore as he distinctly remembered it trying to heal the dementor's affect when he had fainted, when he looked closer he was alarmed to see all three of his rings missing.
His skin was still incredibly pale even in the warm light and when he touched it with his other hand he flinched at how cold it was, this was quite alarming for Harry as he didn't feel the cold. After poking his arm he confirmed his suspicion, his left arm was completely numb.
Before he could experiment further Dumbledore strode into the infirmary.
"I'm glad to see you are doing better Harry, nobody was quite sure what to expect… suffice to say the last person that physically touched a dementor died shortly after." There was no levity in Dumbledore's voice, there was only wariness and grief.
"Can't say I was sure either, it was only the gauntlet which stopped the worst of it I think."
"Quite, it was fortunate you gave me permission to remove your gauntlet, the mithril remained cold and prevented your recovery. I would suggest checking your mithril over before putting it on again."
Dumbledore left soon after, it was almost four in the morning, after he left Harry went back to sleep. He was woken up later by madam Pomfrey, Harry privately felt he would've preferred to stay asleep although he wasn't brave enough to tell her that.
"Unfortunately, the only thing that can help you is time and… chocolate."
That was how Harry found himself walking into the great hall for breakfast, as he expected almost every student stopped talking and turned to him. He hurried over to where Luna was sitting and started spreading chocolate on toast.
It took several minutes for Harry to get his first visitor, Draco Malfoy sauntered over with a smug grin on his face, before he got close enough to talk Harry rolled his eyes at Luna who smiled blithely.
"Hey Potter! Word is you fainted at the sight of the dementor"
Harry sighed despondently before turning to Malfoy and pulled his sleeve up to reveal his greyed arm.
"This is from where I fought the dementor, for some reason it tried to kill me, as you can tell I lived. I'd like to see how you'd fare against a dementor trying to kiss you… not that anybody, even a dementor, would want to kiss you." Harry said casually, Malfoy had been rather sedated ever since he had been petrified.
It seemed over the summer he had regained his confidence, although Harry noted his comments had lost some of his bite.
Glad to say I'm starting to feel better, now that Harry's back at Hogwarts I have lots of ideas. This year will mostly be Harry training and discovering his family's history, as such there will be huge time skips. For a few months now I've been planning Goblet of Fire so I'm mentally hitting the breaks so that I don't rush through this year.
Early on when writing this story I got a few complaints about how slow this story is, but considering we are now starting year 3 and chapter 49 (technically this is like the 54th chapter I've uploaded for this story) and the first year anniversary of this story passed 2 weeks ago today. As a belated celebration I wanted to take the time to thank geekymom, vyoom and as some of the first and most consistent reviewers. Personally I write because I enjoy doing it and sharing it with whoever wants to read it is just a bonus, despite this I do notice and read each and every review.