Chapter 12
Harry hopped off the Hogwarts Express with his trunk and smiled seeing Dora waiting for him. He made his way over to her and she drew him into a hug that he returned eagerly, feeling some of the stress leave his body.
"How was the journey?" she asked.
"A bit weird, especially since Hermione and all the Weasleys are staying at Hogwarts for Christmas break. Ended up sitting with the twins, Katie, Alicia, and Angelina. They've been very supportive of me all year, which has been great," Harry admitted. "Though it's probably a good thing that Hermione's staying back. I suspect her parents wouldn't have been happy to see her."
"Why?" Dora asked as they made their way out into King's Cross.
"Well, she's in the hospital wing currently," Harry said, sounding a bit evasive and she leveled a look at him. "She's looking a bit . . . catlike."
"Why?" Dora asked again, though now she was trying to hold back a smile, and she could tell that Harry had already noticed as he loosened up a bit before looking a bit sheepish.
"Well . . . remember how I thought Malfoy was still hiding something?"
Dora nodded.
"Well, we decided to question him . . . and we figured the only way he would talk is if he thought we were someone else," Harry finished a bit slowly, and Dora's eyes widened incredulously.
"You made Polyjuice?" Dora asked, rather impressed when Harry nodded with a wince.
"Mostly Hermione," Harry said.
"Then what happened?" Dora asked. "Did she make it wrong? That's supposed to be a devilishly tricky potion to make. Where did you get the ingredients?"
"Well, Hermione made it correctly, and we mostly stole from Snape," Harry said, causing Dora to grin. "She was going to turn into Millicent Bulstrode, a Slytherin girl in our year, and she had a hair from her from the dueling club a couple weeks back . . . but it turns out that it wasn't Bulstrode's hair. It was Bulstrode's cat's hair," Harry finished, his lips twitching towards a smile as Dora started laughing.
"Oh, I want to feel bad, but that's hilarious!" Dora started cackling.
"It was pretty funny to see," Harry admitted. "I'd feel horrible if it was permanent, but she's clearly losing . . . fur . . . every day. It just is going to take a while for her to completely go back to normal."
Dora wiped her eyes, still laughing a bit. "You and your friends get into some of the craziest adventures Harry. Did you find out anything?"
"Well, yes and no," Harry admitted. "Malfoy's father told him to stay out of the Heir's way. He told us the same things that Mad-Eye said, about the Chamber having been opened 50 years before and that a muggleborn girl died last time, and that the Heir was expelled. Other than that, nothing Chamber-wise. However, Malfoy did reveal that they have a secret chamber in the drawing room of their home where they hide a bunch of their dark stuff," Harry said with a grin. "Ron was going to write to his dad so that the next raid on Malfoy Manor will be successful."
Dora grinned. "It couldn't happen to nicer people."
Dora banished Harry's trunk back to their apartment and then she side-along apparated them back home.
"Well, I have a lot of fun plans for us while you're home," Dora said with a grin, "especially since I've got the time off as well."
Harry smiled widely at that.
"I will have to study quite a bit though," Dora warned him. "I've got my third set of assessments right when we get off this holiday break, and admittedly I'm worried about passing Stealth and Tracking."
Harry smirked at that and she leveled a playful glare at him before his smirk faded.
"I'm sure you'll do great, Dora."
Dora smiled. "We'll see. Still, I feel like we should start out by catching up on things outside of our letters. I want you to let it all out to me and then we'll talk about a few things."
Dora grabbed them each a butterbeer and then she started out talking about some of things she'd been doing with her fellow Auror Trainees and former Auror Trainees, stuff she hadn't put in letters. When she was done, she listened while Harry vented about everything that had gone wrong over the past term, told her his fears, how angry he was that nobody believed him, how angry he was that people were going out of their way to try and make him miserable. Finally, he winded down and he and Dora just relaxed next to each other on the couch, both enjoying the loss of tension at venting their frustrations to each other.
"You know, Harry," Dora started off a bit hesitant, "we could find other schools for you . . . other options than Hogwarts."
Harry glanced at her in shock and she nodded.
"I never really thought something like this would enter my mind because I do love Hogwarts, and I admire and respect most of the staff at Hogwarts, but the fact is that you've faced life and death there too many times, you're dealing with widespread bullying from the other students, and you have one of the faculty who does his absolute best to torment you and allows his students to sabotage your work. Add in this whole Chamber business and it is something that I feel like we should talk about."
Harry sighed, and thought about it for a moment. "I'd never really thought about going elsewhere," Harry admitted. "I honestly didn't even think about there being other magical schools, but I guess it makes sense that there are. Still, I don't know if I could leave Hogwarts. It really was my first home, and yeah, things suck there right now, but they'll get better . . . at least I hope they will."
"Except you don't know that," Dora said firmly. "Last time the Chamber was open, someone died, and frankly, I'm scared."
Harry shot her a shocked look at her admittance of fear, and she nodded.
"You keep investigating things and trying to solve all the problems that occur at Hogwarts, things that shouldn't be occurring at Hogwarts in the first place, and I can't help but fear that eventually, you're going to bite off more than you can chew!" Dora said heatedly. "I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you, Harry," she finished a bit teary eyed.
Harry looked at her in shock before he finally moved close and burrowed into her fierce hug.
"I'm sorry, Dora," Harry mumbled. "I don't mean to cause you trouble."
"I know," Dora said, sniffling slightly, "but I'm still scared, and the fear is certainly a major reason to find somewhere else, but there's other reasons. I'm tired of Snape treating you the way he does. It's not right. I've written a few letters to Hogwarts, but it's clear they're being ignored, and now with the Chamber, I don't really trust a lot of your fellow students at Hogwarts to watch you back. It wouldn't be hard for us to go somewhere different and start fresh. You'll still be famous, but you're not a national icon outside of the UK."
Harry thought about it, imagining not being the focus of everyone's stares, glares, and interest.
"Admittedly, that does sound a bit nice," Harry said quietly, "but . . ."
Dora sighed.
" . . . I still feel like Hogwarts is where I need to be," Harry said finally. "You have no idea how much it means to me that you'd even want to have this discussion because gods knows the Dursleys didn't give a damn about me, but Hogwarts was my first home. This might be my home now, but I still love Hogwarts, and I don't want to leave it, and the few friends I do have."
Dora nodded slowly, looking resigned to the fact that she'd known what his answer would be.
"Where . . . where would I go if I didn't go to Hogwarts, if things don't get better?" Harry asked, trying to break the silence.
Dora shrugged. "That would be something to talk about. There are other magical schools of course. Not many with Hogwarts's reputation, but some. I'd never send you to Durmstrang, but Beauxbatons in France is considered to be just as good as Hogwarts. You would have to learn French, but that's not exactly a bad thing. They have a class that teaches it, since they accept people from all over. Staying in Europe, but dropping a tier in level of education, at least how people see it, would be going to Olympia Institution in Greece, or Romania School of Magic in Italy, or Fjormagis somewhere in the old Viking territories. We could send you to America to Ilvermorney. It's got just as good a reputation as Hogwarts. There's also a few other schools in America, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia that we could consider."
Harry was rather surprised to hear how many schooling options there were. He'd really never even considered there being other schools, though thinking about it, it made sense.
"There's more," Dora said with a nod, "though we'd have to do some more research. Obviously we could also consider getting you a tutor and having you homeschooled."
Harry grimaced at that, and Dora chuckled.
"Yeah, I never liked the idea of homeschooling either."
Harry grinned. "Your poor mum would have gone insane trying to homeschool you."
Dora snorted in amusement as her hands shot out and started pinching Harry's sides as he desperately tried to fend her off, laughing.
"Maybe I should just leave you to the wolves, you cheeky little snot."
"Nah, you're far too kind for that, big sister," Harry said, doing his best to put an angelic inflection into his tone and she narrowed her eyes at him, her lips twitching.
"You're lucky I love you," Dora said, and Harry beamed at her.
"Up for a game of exploding snap?"
**HP**
The days leading up to Christmas were great, in Harry's opinion. Dora had the time off, so she and he usually enjoyed a lazy morning before going out to go flying, sledding, or finding a park where they could get a good snowball fight going. Sometimes, they'd continue their tourist goals and see some more of the sites around England, both muggle and magical, and they found a love for cheap matinee movies. Since she had her third set of exams when the holidays ended, they usually spent a little bit of time each day reviewing or studying, which Harry didn't mind. He certainly didn't study as hard as Hermione, but he'd learned to appreciate a bit of study when it came to subjects he enjoyed.
Christmas morning, Harry awoke to Dora acting like a child by jumping on him, loudly exclaiming that it was time for him to get up. Groaning, he glared up at her, noting her unrepentant grin, and festive red and green hair as he got up.
She quickly left him and made her way to the kitchen where she was already preparing hot chocolate for them to have while opening presents. Harry accepted his mug with a grin after she came back to where he was waiting.
"Merry Christmas, Dora," Harry said.
"Merry Christmas, Harry," Dora said brightly, taking a seat near him, and using her wand to summon their small pile of presents to them, except for one larger gift which she set down near them.
Harry smiled, still amazed that he had any presents, so used to the years of only cleaning up after the Dursleys had opened their presents. They took turns opening presents, Harry smiling as many of Dora's gifts were the books that she needed for Auror training, but were a bit outside of the budget for her to get in one go. Obviously her friends were looking out for her. Ron's brother, Charlie, gave her a new servicing kit for her broomstick, and Mad-Eye did one gift for both him and Dora, much to Harry's surprise, and he gifted them a nice Foe-Glass for their apartment. Dora had to of course explain what a Foe Glass was, but Harry thought the gift was pretty cool regardless. Harry's gifts included a tin of treacle fudge from Hagrid, a Quidditch book, titled Flying with the Cannon's, from Ron, a luxurious eagle-feather quill from Hermione, and a hand-knitted jumper and large plum cake from Mrs. Weasley. The gift from Mrs. Weasley was one that Dora had gotten as well, much to her surprise, and they both grinned as they threw on their matching blue Weasley jumpers, which had a Hufflepuff Badger and Gryffindor Lion on them. He also got a framed photo of him and Alicia, Angelina, and Katie in the common room, smiling as the three girls basically hugged him to death, though he couldn't stop the fond smile seeing the picture version of him blushing, but smiling softly at the three older girls. They really were good friends to him. The girls had gotten him the photo and as a group got him weather resistant goggles to wear while flying.
That only left their gifts to each other.
Harry anxiously waited as Dora opened the package he'd wrapped to the best of his ability, but his worry was for not as she exclaimed in excitement unwrapping the black and red dragon hide boots that he'd given her.
"Harry, you shouldn't have!" Dora exclaimed, pulling him into a big hug as she pulled back and eagerly tried on the boots and sighed, marveling at the comfort. Harry had been advised that dragon hide boots were some of the best things you could give someone due to being very comfortable, but also very spell and element resistant. Perfect for people in her field.
Harry smiled, happy she liked the gift. "Admittedly, I had Ron get help from Charlie for me to get those, but I'm glad you like them."
"Like them? I love them!" Dora said. "I've always wanted a pair, but I always talk myself out of a getting a pair. These are wonderful!"
Harry happily turned to his last gift, the one from Dora. He opened it as Dora focused on him and he grinned, finding a cloak, similar to what he'd given Dora the previous year.
"Yes, that cloak is spell resistant like the brilliant one you gave me," Dora said with a smile, "but I got the Hogwarts crest engraved so that you can wear it at school instead of your normal school robes, and there's one more feature."
Harry turned the cloak over, looking for something that made it different, and Dora chuckled.
"Try out one of the pockets," she said.
Harry reached into one of the two pockets and gasped as he went nearly elbow deep before he felt the end of the pocket.
"It's got an undetectable extension charm on the pockets, and weightless charms as well," Dora said smiling. "So, as long as you can fit it through the opening of your pockets, you can carry nearly anything, and if you know exactly what you're looking for and ask for it, the cloak will spit out the object for you, rather than you having to look for it."
Harry looked at the cloak with awe. He wouldn't need to carry a heavy book bag anymore if he didn't want to with this. Sure, he still would, but he could now keep his Shadow Tome on him, not with his other books and other important things. Like Dora had done to him, he leaned over and pulled her into a hug to thank her for the gift.
"I'm glad you like it," Dora said, smiling still. "It's a way to make life a bit easier and protect you at the same time. Plus, I think you'll find that cloak more comfortable than your Hogwarts ones."
"It's brilliant, Dora. Thanks," Harry said earnestly.
They spent the remainder of the day relaxing and lazing about before they went over to Mad-Eye's for dinner, despite him not expecting them for dinner.
"Merry Christmas, Mad-Eye!" Dora and Harry both exclaimed, Harry grinning knowing that Dora was being extra exuberant just to mildly annoy Mad-Eye, even if the gruff old auror secretly liked it.
"Merry Christmas," he grumbled back, looking pleased to see them, even if he was looking a bit sour. "You should get into the house before someone comes along and curses you lot for being loud. Constant vigilance after all."
Dora rolled her eyes as Harry chuckled and they followed him into his house. Harry and Dora started unpacking the food they'd brought as they overtook the ex-aurors kitchen. The old man just shook his head as Harry took over the preparations and cooking while Dora chattered away, and reluctantly brought Mad-Eye into the conversation.
After Harry and Dora had finished making their dinner, consisting of a roast, mashed potatoes, and a salad, they chivied Mad-Eye into his small dining area and set the table, both grinning at Mad-Eye who had good naturedly resigned himself to their company for the rest of the evening, and was even starting to cheer up a bit.
After they had dished up, Harry glanced over at Dora.
"Can you do it for me?" he asked.
"Oh, of course," Dora said, and then she quickly did the sacrificial spell and a portion of Harry's food disappeared.
"Praying to the gods and goddesses, eh, Potter?" Mad-Eye said gruffly.
Harry nodded. "Yeah, Dora explained it to me this last summer." Harry shrugged. "I guess I just thought it was cool that gods and goddesses existed and that we could actually contact them."
Mad-Eye nodded. "The deities can be tricky to deal with, but I will admit that their protection and aid can be the difference between life and death."
"Are there any particular deities you worship or receive aid from?" Harry asked with interest.
"I have patronage from Ares and matronage from Solteria," Mad-Eye answered. "I also hold favor with Gaia and Athena."
"Wow," Harry said, and even Dora looked surprised and impressed. "You haven't run into any issues having favor or protection from multiple deities?"
Moody shook his head. "Lad, you need to be smart when dealing with deities. The first part of that is knowing the audience. Some deities will cause friction with others, but if you do your research, if you plan, you can avoid those situations. Ares is the God of Battle, Courage, and Warfare. Being an Auror put me in a good position to fulfill the types of tasks he might demand. Mostly, Ares values and favors strong and proven warriors. He doesn't accept cowards and in fact is inclined to punish and curse them. As an Auror, I went after dark witches and wizards, and no matter the situation, no matter my opponent, I never backed down. I never let fear rule my decisions. If I had, he would have likely struck me down himself."
Mad-Eye smirked.
"A good way to survive those situations is to plan accordingly. You need to be aware of what is going on, what could happen, what factors could affect the battle. You need to choose the battlefield when you can. Athena, as a war goddess herself, has been instrumental in guiding me, allowing me to fight against superior opponents on my terms, allowing me to win, even when my opponent had greater skill, strength, or numbers. Throw the grace of Solteria in, and I owe a great deal to those three deities."
"Who's SolterÃa?" Harry asked, still trying to learn the hundreds of deities just in the Greco-Roman pantheon, let alone some of the other pantheons.
"The goddess of safety, salvation, and preservation from harm," Mad-Eye answered. "I attribute surviving my brushes with death to her grace. Again, as an Auror, I was positioned to earn her favor. My job was to protect innocent people, to provide safety to others. Doing an Aurors job, to the best of my ability, understanding that my life might end, but that I could save others, is exactly what she looks for in a servant."
Harry nodded, seeing what Mad-Eye was trying to say. There was no need to worry about limiting favor from deities if you thought and planned properly. If done correctly, you could even pair certain gods or goddesses together, allowing you to earn favor with multiple deities for accomplishing the same task.
"What about Gaia?" Harry asked after a moment.
"She's the Goddess of the Earth," Dora answered. "Mad-Eye's an accomplished earth elementalist."
Mad-Eye nodded at Dora's words. "You've been paying attention in history, lass."
Dora grinned.
"I learned from the best," she answered, and Mad-Eye smiled and shook his head, but there was a fondness in his eyes that Harry liked seeing.
He knew that Mad-Eye had helped out Dora a lot when her parents had passed away, and was obviously her mentor in Auror training and the person she went to first whenever she felt unsure, or needed another opinion. He might grumble and moan about Dora's hair, or exuberance, or clumsiness, but Harry could see that he really cared for her, and Harry himself enjoyed the man's company and the few letters he got during the school year, even if the letters usually dealt with advice for school or advising him to stay out of the Chamber incident.
"Harry's on his way to probably appealing for patronage from Hades some day," Dora said, and Mad-Eye glanced at Harry.
"The God of Darkness, eh?" Mad-Eye asked, and Harry nodded solemnly. Mad-Eye nodded approvingly. "He gets a bad rap from those who don't study him enough, but he's a good choice for a patron. Powerful, but be careful. Any hint of anything to do with necromancy and he'll have you running off to counter it, and those are generally very dangerous situations, Harry."
"Necromancy?" Harry asked with a frown. It sounded familiar.
"Raising the dead," Mad-Eye said simply, and Dora frowned at him slightly.
"I thought Professor Dumbledore said that no spell can awaken the dead?" Harry asked with a confused frown.
"Technically, you can't," Mad-Eye said in agreement. "It's not really awakening departed souls. However, there is magic out there that involves enchanting fallen bodies, skeletons, mummies, zombies, controlling spirits and ghosts, and grave robbing."
Harry grimaced with disgust, and Mad-Eye nodded approvingly.
"Hades, as the God of the Underworld, takes such magic as a crime against his domain. Not many people worship him, but it's well recorded that any hint of necromancy and Hades will require you to put a stop to it or lose his favor and suffer a curse for your lack of faith. His curses tend to be quite gruesome, and loss of favor from him leads to loss of favor from all other deities. He's not a god to cross, but he is known to be more generous with the favor he does provide. Some think that it's because so few worship him. Others think it's just a side-effect of him being the God of Wealth."
"Interesting," Harry said, having learned quite a bit in this little conversation. "Thank you for telling me that."
Mad-Eye nodded.
The rest of the dinner passed by pleasantly, the conversations ranging far and wide. When they were done, Mad-Eye opened the gift Dora and Harry got him together, smiling at the small wardstone which could be used to enhance the current wards at his home, strengthening the protection at his place, and they hoped, helping him relax a bit more.
Afterwards, Harry and Dora returned back to their place, played a few rounds of exploding snap and then finally both fell asleep reading on the couch, snuggled up comfortably.
Now that they were past Christmas, Dora had to reluctantly turn her pursuits from enjoying Harry being home to studying for her exams, which Harry understood.
"You've got Concealment and Disguises, Stealth and Tracking, Charms, and Transfiguration, right?" Harry asked as Dora poured over some of her older texts and two of her newer ones.
"Yeah," Dora said. "Concealment and Disguises will be easy. Not even really bothering to study for that one. Charms and Transfiguration should be there, but the passing grade for Auror Training for those three disciplines is an O, so I can't just blow them off. It's really Stealth and Tracking that I'm really worried about," Dora admitted. "I'm worried about not passing, and if I fail, it'll make the next quarter absolutely miserable, which could push me back from reaching Auror 2nd Class."
"Is there a danger of you being kicked out if you don't pass?" Harry asked, not used to seeing her look as stressed as she did.
"Not really," Dora admitted. "At least not yet. I'm far enough that they really don't want to kick me out. If I fail, I'll have to redo it next quarter, but they'll try to keep me on schedule so it'll mean I'll have an extra block of instruction. If I fail it again, then I might be in danger of being kicked out, but they'd most likely expect me to pass it on the second go, but fail elsewhere, and then we'll rinse and repeat."
"That doesn't sound great," Harry admitted. He couldn't imagine doing bad in something like Potions or History and then getting another block of it thrown on for the following quarter.
"Yeah, plus I was hoping for us to be flat shopping next summer," Dora said with a groan. "It's time we get you a proper bedroom."
"Dora, I don't mind sleeping on the couch," Harry protested. "You transfigure it each night anyway."
"I know you don't, but that doesn't make it right," Dora responded. "You should still have a bedroom. You should have a place you can go to for privacy, if you need it. We all need to be alone once in a while, and sure you have the place to yourself when I'm at work, but you should have a place to go to if I come home in a rather foul mood, just as I have a place to go to when your rampaging hormones turn you into a git," she finished teasingly, and Harry blushed and scowled at her.
"See!" she exclaimed with a grin. "We're already there."
Harry sighed, conceding her point, but he still felt like he needed to make one last point. "Still, Dora, don't over pressure yourself on these exams thinking about me. Do your best for you, but if you get pushed back a quarter, so be it. It's not the end of the world if I sleep on the sofa for one more summer."
Dora sighed. "Alright, Harry. I'll try to not stress over quite so much . . . but no promises."
Harry snorted.
"Why does that not surprise me?"
"Because you're an annoying little twerp," Dora said matter of factly.
"Whatever you say . . . Nymphadora," Harry said blandly and then immediately took off running.
**HP**
The remainder of the holiday went by quickly, rather too quickly for both Harry and Dora but soon Harry was packing up his trunk, and Dora was walking him through King's Cross.
"You'll do your best to stay out of trouble, right?" Dora said.
"Depends on what type of trouble you mean," Harry said with a grin.
Dora couldn't stop the laugh that escaped, even if she really wanted to.
"You know exactly what type of trouble I'm talking about! Pranking and causing good natured chaos and mayhem is not trouble. That's just good fun."
"Alright, I will try and stay out of trouble," Harry answered dutifully. "Though, to be fair, trouble usually finds me."
"You'll write to me if things get worse, right?" Dora asked, and Harry nodded. "You'll tell Dumbledore about anything odd that happens?"
Harry nodded again.
"Alright," Dora said with a sigh as they reached the Hogwarts Express. She helped him load his trunk onto the train into a compartment, and then turned back to him.
"Write often, and I'll see you in a couple months," Dora said, and pulled him into a hug.
"Will do, Dora," Harry said. "Good luck on your exams, and stay safe out there."
AN: Normally I do author's notes at the beginning, but I didn't want to write anything that at all spoiled the chapter. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Really, it's the calm before the storm with a little more information sprinkled in to hint at some of the things I plan. To answer some of your reviews/messages to me, I chose the Greco-Roman Pantheon simply because I know the most about them, and being that magic cannonically is in Latin, I find it easy to justify that pantheon being relevant. Historically, I know Britain has several pagan pantheons that could be used (Celtic, Nordic, and Roman), but admittedly I only have so much time for research, so I figured I'd use what I (mostly) already know. For those worried, I don't intend to go overboard with mythology in this story. They fill a purpose, but I'm not going to be turning this into a mix of HP and Percy Jackson.