Beta: Digitize27
You can ask me questions at my forum, link in profile.
This is one of my best chapters. I think shortening the length and increasing the update frequency works for me so expect more soon.
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"Commander Vimes didn't like the phrase 'The innocent have nothing to fear,' believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like 'The innocent have nothing to fear.'"' – Snuff, Terry Pratchett
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Harry held her until she stopped crying. At curfew they departed to their respective rooms, and the next morning she was up and ready to tackle things right away.
"So, what's the plan?" She asked him as they walked up to get breakfast.
"I… don't really have one?"
"But, you always have a plan."
Harry snorted and shook his head. "No, I'm always reacting to things, and my last plan almost got me killed."
"That's not funny."
He quirked an eyebrow. "I wasn't joking."
"And it wasn't funny." She meant it. She didn't find the possibility of his death as mildly amusing as he did.
"Sorry."
"Enough apologizing too."
"Right." He nodded along.
"So, what do we do first?"
"I'm not sure." Harry paused. "We need to get ready. Voldemort is out there, and assuming he won't come after me is foolish. I need to deal with the tournament, but even if I do it won't solve our Malachite problem. She'll still want me dead. Revenge is a powerful motivator."
They crossed the threshold into the breakfast hall and she sat opposite him.
"I want to make something like Dumbledore's order; something I can do to oppose Voldemort. My enemies are powerful because they aren't alone."
"So we shouldn't be either," Daphne nodded, emphasizing the word we. She paused considering, worrying a fork against her lips. "That's why you're helping people."
"To a point," Harry corrected. "I've always helped anyone who asks."
"True." Daphne piled food onto her plate. "You really should eat more."
Harry gave a non-committal shrug and grabbed an apple.
"But we can't just wait for people to ask for help, we need to do more."
Harry nodded along, deferring to her expertise. She would know better than he did when it came to matters of people.
Daphne received her morning paper and unrolled it, beginning to read. Harry watched her. He wasn't sure what he would do without her. In that moment he once again re-affirmed that he had made the right decision.
"You could do an interview," Daphne mused.
"I thought I didn't do interviews."
She rolled her eyes. "Well not with Rita Skeeter, obviously. Someone else. People already want to listen to you."
"They will once Voldemort starts killing them."
She gave him a flat look. "We should try and avoid that."
"You think Voldemort isn't dead?" Susan sat down at the table, swiftly followed by their year-mates.
Harry and Daphne exchanged looks, communicating without actually communicating. "I know he isn't." Harry said at length.
"My Auntie said whatever happened Sunday spooked Dumbledore," Susan pressed. "Spooked him enough to start putting his Order together."
"Order?" Su Li queried, flicking nervous eyes over the group. "What Order?"
"The Order of the Phoenix," Harry answered with surprising candor. "They follow Dumbledore and fought Grindelwald and Voldemort."
"They were Dumbledore's army," Ernie summed up, rather skeptically. "I don't see what a headmaster needs with a private army."
"It's not like that," Daphne corrected, quick to dissuade of that notion and turning all heads to her. "Dumbledore gathered people opposed to the Dark Lords and gave them a united purpose."
"But is it necessary?" Michael asked, voicing the million-sickle question; the wise question. There was a glint in his eye, Harry felt something sharp from him. It was like a familiar hunger pain. Michael had always been at the edge of Harry's friends, but there was no reason things had to stay that way.
[Knowledge isn't free.]
"A Death Eater who was supposed to be dead set a trap for me," Harry told him honestly. Honesty was getting him far recently. "And Dumbledore moved Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel here to protect the stone. The break in to their place was probably him, and he also tried to get his hands on it when we were first years, he broke into Hogwarts."
"You were talking about that when the article came out. I remember that," Michael recalled. "You've been fighting him all this time."
"Only his wraith. He's barely a ghost of his former self."
"What does that mean then?" Michael asked. "What are you planning?"
"Well, he's planning on making himself a new body. Planning to return to his former strength." Harry thumbed his jaw. "Dumbledore is gearing up to stop him. Prevent him from getting the chance. So, I suppose I'm trying to help Dumbledore."
"What does You-Know-Who have?" Michael pressed.
Harry considered how to answer. Michael wanted to know, which was smart in its own way but dangerous in many others.
Michael looked up to Harry. He had seen what Harry could do from the periphery of Harry's friends, seen him take on the Tarasque, and now he knew Harry had taken on a Death Eater too. He wanted to draw on Harry's success. Harry considered Michael.
"You're scaring them," Daphne whispered gently to his side. Harry looked behind Michael at his other peers. If they could be called that. Daphne saw a use for them that Harry didn't, and maybe what would work for Michael wouldn't work for the others.
Harry looked over at Daphne.
Split them up.
She gave a tiny nod of assent.
"Come sit with me in potions, Michael. I'll tell you what you want to know."
Harry stood up. It was time to get to potions.
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Potions was taught by Professor Petit. She was a round woman with a pair of thick elliptical glasses which barely clung to the edge of her nose, she wasn't hard on rules, instead she allowed students to pass or fail as they pleased, provided they could put in the effort.
"Put away your cauldrons. Today we'll be designing a glamor potion," she began at the board. "You'll brew your design in our next class. Now, we need seven elements to this potion at a minimum. Who knows why?"
Delacour's friend Mary raised her hand. "Seven is the most magically important number."
"True but not quite what I was looking for. Seven is indeed the most arithmantic important number, but why do we need seven ingredients in this particular case?"
Harry raised his hand. "Because you actually only need six. One to fool each of the five senses, then one for the mind, and one to catalyze the reaction, though if you use sufficiently powerful ingredients you won't need the last one."
"Have you studied potion design, Mr. Potter?" The Professor asked, impressed.
Harry nodded. "Only briefly. I've never actually designed one before." Harry looked at Michael who had sat next to him. Daphne had quickly partnered up with Susan and wasn't looking his way, but Harry could see her lips moving and feel through the air their conversation. Daphne didn't need his help, he trusted her to know what as in his best interest.
Michael's mother designed potions didn't she?
"Mr. Potter is correct. You'll all pick seven ingredients as Mr. Potter described. Then we'll decide how to mix them in order to bring out the effects. Open your books to the index on ingredients and choose carefully. I'll be checking over your lists, but some ingredients have rather volatile reactions. You'll need to be familiar with the ones you pick."
That sounded easy enough to Harry. He opened his copy of the Potions textbook, going down the list of possible ingredients and marking the ones he thought would work.
"Harry?" Michael tried to get his attention.
"What do you want to know?" Harry whispered back.
"How are you getting ready to stop him?"
"I'm practicing magic," Harry answered easily, and truthfully. "As fast as I can."
"You've been preparing for him all this time?"
Harry considered that. It was true in its own way. His own pursuit of power had been driven by his fear. His fear of the Dementors, his fear of Voldemort. Ever since he had invaded Harry's mind back in first year, the ghost of Tom Riddle had been enough to terrify Harry.
"Yes," Harry answered at last, turning back to the task at hand. It wouldn't do for the unexpected Hogwarts champion to need to be reprimanded for missing classes and ignoring schoolwork. Dumbledore would have enough on his plate without any more of Harry and his brattish attitude.
Harry turned the page and marked a dozen ingredients. Once he had enough he began looking at the specifics. Which parts synergized well with each other. Seeds tended not to go well with fruits as a general rule, but fruits would go with leaves and seeds would go with tubers and roots.
It was a matter of association. The end of a plant didn't go well with the beginning. Of course, that was just a general rule. Some fruits went well with the seeds still inside, so there were exceptions, just like every rule of magic, but it helped him narrow his selection down to a short list of ingredients.
From there he just needed to choose one that would catalyze the whole thing. They were likely going to be using part of a gryphon, maybe a feather each. Just enough to make a glamor work, they weren't trying to make a strong love potion, just hide something.
He made sure his ingredients wouldn't explode on contact with each other and then began to go over a methodology. Milk would be fine as a base, perhaps mixing it with water to make it cloudy would help him with the idea of obscuring something. The milk would have to be of a magical creature. That would do for sight.
The Gryphon feather would have to go last.
Lavender, a magical strain, of course, for smell. Moon sugar for taste. Egg of a songbird would be strongly associated with hearing and would go well with the gryphon feather. The shell of the egg might have done if for touch, but the hard shell wouldn't go well with the rest of the mixture.
Technically speaking the feather also might have done it for touch but Harry wasn't the sort to leave things to chance. He marked down strands of flobberworm silk; whole, smooth pieces.
"Harry what have you got for the mind?" Michael whispered, the class silent as groups worked quietly over their textbooks.
The mind was something special wasn't it? Appearing here even in a Potions classroom.
Ashes of a love letter was an ingredient in amortentia, in fact it was the potion's defining ingredient. A love potion that used that ingredient was classified as an amortentia.
The more personal to the user and the receiver the better, extremely strong ones called for love letters from the one from the target to the receiver. It was easy to see why. A love letter from a young witch sacrificed to the potion rather than given to the target would add a greater effect to the potion.
A more general love poem would do the trick, but it would be far less personal. The sympathetic connection would be weaker, so it's ability to inflicting the proper emotions would be dampened.
The potion Harry was designing didn't need to be personal either. In fact, it was better if it wasn't. It was better to be bland. It was hard to think about. Makeup may have worked but that was sight, not mind. Here was where the potion viewer incorporated intent into the potion. It was a lot like casting a spell in that regard. Adding power and ingredients for focusing the where and how of the spell.
So, what would focus the spell on the mind and affect the mind into not noticing something? What could Harry sacrifice like a young witch would for amortentia?
Studying love potions wasn't enough for him to reach the answer, so he looked at another potion he had studied, Wolfsbane.
Part of why Wolfsbane was a difficult potion to brew was because it affected the mind so deeply. A potion to heal wounds would be made using salves of medicinal plants, affecting the mind distantly, but one to affect the mind of both the wolf and man and make them one was much harder.
First of all, a potion like that needed a lot of power. Which was why wolfsbane was packed in ice during long parts of its process. A lot of power only needed a slight catalyst to go off, which was why many potions had the potential to go catastrophically wrong when mis-brewed.
The potion Harry was designing didn't need as much power as wolfsbane. It just needed to look at something and move on. A slight amount of power to just notice but notice and move on without recollecting. To be something subtle this potion needed something subtle.
Harry had added soap to the list of potential ingredients. Just a little bit of soap, beneath notice but there. If ashes of a love letter worked for a love potion then perhaps burned blank parchment would do just as well.
Harry had already seen burned ashes of a book in Snape's shelves. Harry was sure that had many uses. Both being of a book and generally just some book rather than being a particular book. It touches on the metaphor of a 'general' book and makes it real. Harry knew that a potion for improving memory had this ingredient.
Of those only the soap worked with the rest of the potion. Harry could sort of see why. That he had added animal to the potion worked with the tallow in a related and connected way. It would optimize the potion by being similar to the ingredients already in it.
Harry smirked, no wonder potions were complicated. A potions recipe was a little ritual using a cauldron, and the mind arts showed up everywhere. It seemed that mastering one field of magic would always help in mastering others.
That made Harry think of his predecessors; his magical role models.
The man had said he was created from rituals and Harry was sure that Tom Riddle would have been good at potions. It was hard to keep quiet. No one had any idea how much danger they were all in. Voldemort was creative and had bodies to spend. A wizard who cared as much as Voldemort could buy a lot with that if he was willing to sell death in rituals.
Paying for power with the act of murder seemed not only possible to Harry, but relatively easy. A clear and simple sacrifice that was both powerful and vague. That would allow for easy direction of the ritual while also retaining the inherent value.
Items like Harry's cloak may have been made in such a fashion. Perhaps that's why they had been called aspects of Death.
Harry didn't want to know what Voldemort had bought using death.
"Just a little soap." Harry finally answered. "Tell me, what do you know about mind magic?"
"Mind magic?" Michael asked. "Why? What do you mean?"
"Well you need something for the mind, for this potion don't you?"
"That's mind magic? Well, there's ah, obliviation, right?"
Harry nodded. "Amongst other aspects. There are ways to use magic to augment the mind."
"Like a memory improvement potion?" Michael wondered.
Harry nodded. "Those exist, but there are things more permanent than a potion. The sort of thing that lasts forever." Harry knew what would tempt Michael into Harry's debt.
"Do you know how to do that?" Michael wondered. "Is it something you can learn?"
Harry nodded. "It's called augeomancy, a branch of occlumency. I'll loan you a book on it if you want." Harry reached out and pulled a line, in Michael's brain, causing waves of thoughts. Harry wrapped the cord around a mental finger and pulled. Like a marionette Michael's mouth opened, his gears of though switched slightly.
"What else can you do with mind magic?' Michael pressed. "Could you-"
"Read minds?" Harry interrupted. "Not as such. The mind works in layers. You can learn to affect one branch and use magic to see the conclusion. The Dark Lord was known to break into the minds of his enemies."
"Which Dark Lord? Grindelwald or -"
"Both."
Michael stewed on that. Harry sprinkled in some inspiration.
"Can you learn how to stop that? Is there some form of defense?"
"I can teach you, between my own classwork and practice with magic." Harry offered. "But it won't be easy. It will be the most uncomfortable experience of your life. You'll have no secrets from me."
Michael looked nervous, but his temptation and hunger won him over. Harry could certainly relate to that. "You have a book on the subject, you said?"
Harry smiled and nodded, packing up his things to leave early. He turned in his proposed potion ingredients and, without another word, left.
Perhaps interacting with Michael's mind affected Harry, but he really needed to master as much magic as he could before eventually Voldemort succeeded and returned to power.
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"A plague of nightmares I invoke, to raise up from the ash and smoke. Spider's web and eye of newt, viper's venom and mandrake root. " - Nox Arcana Conjuration
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-WG