And here's the fifty seventh chapter of "A Year Too Soon"! Enjoy!

* Review Response:
SiriusOrionBitch, why does he need to open the locket? Or even really interact with it?
Brockster550, BMS, mwinter1, RedOuroboros, DarkRavie, magitech, Fuck Names, PasiveNox, mizzrazz72, Yaw613, JPElles, Blue Luver5000, erbkaiser, Ep (guest), TaurosSilver, thomaspheasant, DrackNath, thank you for your reviews, folks!
griffin blackwood, that is actually a pretty good idea. I'll see if I can inject it into the story. That said, I think Harry would rather ask Dumbledore or maybe McGonagall for permission to take old and unused things from the Room of Requirement rather than 'loot' it and risk the consequences for 'stealing' from Hogwarts.
Urgazhi, all of Voldemort's horcruxes have been destroyed already in this story, and the Dark Lord himself is completely dead.
tumshie, I'm not saying otherwise. Here, though, the enchantments on the Sorting Hat are based on the Mind Magics amplification enchantments of Salazar's locket.

* AN: This chapter has not been beta-read.

* AN2: I'm... spent, guys. And need some time to just chill out and stuff... So, unless I get some real-big inspiration, there probably will be no chapter next month.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.

"speaking"
"parseltongue"
'thinking'
written text
spells

A Year Too Soon
Chapter LVII: School Life Goes On

After a couple of days the excitement over the return of the Founders' relics started dying down and school life began to settle back into the usual routine. Both for the students and for the staff. And so Harry decided that it was a good time to ask Professor Flitwick about further lessons in Magical fighting.

"Can I have a minute of your time, Professor?" He asked as he approached the man right after the end of his next Charms class.

"Certainly, Mr. Potter." The Charms Master said. "What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to know if you can continue teaching Flora, Hestia and I lessons in Magical combat this semester." The young wizard asked.

"Of course." Professor Flitwick replied. There was a brief pause before he continued: "Alas, I probably won't be able to find time for it this week. How about we schedule it for Monday evening instead? And if something changes, I'll send you a note."

"Alright." Harry said with a nod. Of course, he'd rather the lessons resumed sooner, but this was fine too. "Thank you, Professor." Giving the man a small bow, he turned around and headed for the exit from the classroom where Flora and Hestia, who had decided against coming to talk to Professor Flitwick with him, were waiting for him.

"So, how did it go?" Flora asked him.

"He said we will probably have our lesson next Monday." Harry replied as the three began their journey towards the Slytherin dungeon - Charms was their final class for the day.

"I see…"

As they were in no particular hurry, it took them quite a while to reach the dormitories. And as soon as they stepped into the common room, they immediately found their way blocked by Draco Malfoy and his usual entourage. Meanwhile many a Slytherin stopped doing whatever they were previously doing and turned their attention towards the brewing confrontation.

"Potter!" The Malfoy heir spoke up. "I do not understand how a pitiful excuse of a wizard like you, someone who can't even claim to have pure Magical blood flowing through his veins, manages to keep his command over the people under the banner of great and noble Salazar Slytherin and force them to stray further and further away from the true path, but it ends today!"

Harry let out a deep, tired sigh. His self-appointed nemesis was going about his `I'm the only one worth ruling over the House` thing again. Draco either didn't notice that, or chose not to pay it any mind as he continued with blowing his own trumpet:

"I will show everyone, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it is I who is truly worthy of leading Slytherin." He said boastfully.

"Before you actually go through with your undoubtedly genius plan." Harry replied, making no effort to hide sarcasm in his voice. "Do you remember what happened the last time you tried something like this?" The blonde sent him a hateful glare, clearly not happy about being reminded about that.

"Oh, don't worry about that Potter, things will be very much different this time." Draco said as he reached out for his wand. "I've studied books in the Malfoy library over the holidays, and I've learned spells a half-blood upstart like you can only dream of. And I will show you what a true wizard can do. Con-!"

"Expelliarmus!" Thanks to his training under Professor Flitwick, Harry was able to draw his wand and fire the Disarming Charm before the Malfoy Heir could even finish the first syllable of his incantation. A beam of red light struck the blonde square on his chest, ripping his wand out of his hand and sending him crashing into Crabbe and Goyle. Not giving his opponent a chance to recover - not that there was much Draco could do without a wand - Harry hit him with the Body-Bind Curse, ending this confrontation: "Petrificus Totalus!"

Having witnessed the swift defeat of their 'Lord', Crabbe and Goyle wisely decided not to try their luck dueling Harry. Especially since Flora and Hestia too now had their wands drawn and trained on them. Instead, the boys picked Draco up and beat a hasty retreat towards the boys' dorm rooms. Without even trying to get his wand back from Harry.

Letting out a sigh, the green-eyed teen addressed Pansy, who remained in the common room.

"Ms. Parkinson, can I ask you to return Mr. Malfoy his wand?" He asked the girl. "And please warn him against attacking me again." The brunette nodded and took Draco's wand from Harry before quickly disappearing into the crowd.

With another sigh, the Potter scion returned his wand to its holster. And out of the corner of his eye, he could see his girlfriends doing the same.

"Well…" He began awkwardly, not really sure how to continue from here. "Let's get changed and meet back here?" He suggested lamely.

"Alright." Hestia replied. And with that they split up with Harry heading for the boys' rooms in the dormitory while the twins - for the girls'. As he walked out of the common room, Harry couldn't help but overhear other students talking among themselves as they shared their thoughts on the 'duel' that had just taken place in front of them.

"You know." A sixth year boy said to his friend. "I don't like Potter or his stupid policies, but if that is our alternative…" He paused for a moment before continuing: "I mean, as much of a mu-...ggle-loving fool as Potter is, at least he's not acting like an idiot. Malfoy, on the other hand… I'm afraid it won't be long before he'd make the rest of Slytherin lose its face should we give him reigns." His friend seemed to agree with him, at least where it came to Draco and his tendency to frequently disgrace himself with his rash and ill-conceived actions.

"Yeah, it makes me wonder how he even ended up here, in Slytherin." He said. "With the way Malfoy acts, he sure would fit better with Gryffindors… Do you think the Sorting Hat can be bribed? Or threatened with the Malfoy name?" The first boy shrugged.

It looked like even those under the pureblood-supremacy banner were starting to lose their faith in the young Malfoy heir, Harry noted. What exactly that meant for him, he wasn't sure though.

~/ *** \~

Another couple of days later, Harry finally received a letter from the Finewoods. The builders have taken time to study the materials available on the non-Magical market and have concluded that those indeed could be used to construct a Magical manor with little to no issues. And they were also cheaper even with the cost of hiring a couple of trucks to deliver them factored in.

Thus, the Finewoods decided to try using those for the Potter manor and sent Harry their cost assessment, asking him to make sure that enough non-Magical funds were available to purchase the materials once the time came. Since their figures were quite in line with what Harry was expecting based on his own research on the topic, he wasted no time and immediately penned a letter to Gringotts, asking his Account Manager Silverclaw to make the necessary arrangements.

With this request sent, it looked like he was finally done with the preparations for the construction of the new Potter manor and could put the whole thing out of his mind for the time being.

~/ *** \~

There haven't been any changes to Professor Flitwick's schedule and on Monday evening he finally held the first Magical combat lesson for Harry, Flora and Hestia this semester, just like he had promised. And by the time the three teens arrived at the DADA classroom, the Charms Master had already set up an arena, much like the one they used for practicing defensive Magics and dodging, there.

"Good evening, Professor." The Slytherins greeted the man as they stepped into the classroom. "Are we doing defense training today?" Harry asked then.

"Hello Mr. Potter, misses Carrow." Professor Flitwick greeted them back. "And, no, today we will not be doing the usual defense training. Instead, I would like you to test yourselves against each other. Just don't use too dangerous spells or attack each other recklessly please - we don't want Madam Pomfrey angry with us, do we?" The teens nodded: Hogwarts' Matron could be quite scary and none of them wanted to be the target of her ire.

"Sounds interesting." Flora said. After a brief moment, she asked: "Who will do this exercise first?"

"How about you and Mr Potter show us what you can do?" Professor Flitwick 'suggested'.

"Alright." Harry said before drawing his wand and stepping into the arena. Flora followed him there a few seconds later. The two of them took spots on opposite sides facing each other and waited for Professor Flitwick to start the exercise. And waited. And waited… Then, just about when they both started losing focus, the Charms Master finally gave the go-ahead:

"And, start!" Harry was the first one to recover and quickly fired a Disarming Charm followed immediately by a Stinging Hex at Flora. This forced his girlfriend to abandon casting her own spell and duck out of the way of his attack. His next spell - a Jelly-Legs Jinx - was blocked by a Magical shield Flora flashed into existence for a brief moment.

"Incendio!" The young witch counterattacked, sending an unfocused swipe of flames at her opponent, mostly as an attempt to distract him and get back some of the initiative in their fight. And while her spell lacked real power behind it, it would've probably set more than a few things on fire anyway had Professor Flitwick not had a foresight to enchant the 'arena' against that. "Baubillious!" Flora cast her next spell, sending a yellowish bolt of lightning at Harry.

"Protego!" Even though he couldn't clearly see where it was coming from thanks to his opponent being obscured by a curtain of flames, the young Potter still blocked the spell with little difficulty: Flora couldn't have moved far from where he had last seen her a few moments ago, and the spell traveled in a straight line.

Dropping his Shielding Charm as soon as it had served its purpose, he fired four quick-but-powerful Stinging Hexes back in the direction the lightning bolt had come from. Flora dodged the first three but couldn't avoid the fourth. And while the hex itself was pretty much harmless, getting hit with it caused her to stumble, and that was all the opening Harry needed to secure his victory with a powerful Banishing Charm to momentarily stun her followed by a Petrification Charm to take her out.

After reviving Miss Carrow and resetting the arena to its initial state, Professor Flitwick gave the three teens a very short lecture about how spells that block visibility might be a double-edged sword. Case to the point, while the flames summoned by Flora made it much harder for Harry to see her next spell coming, she herself lost sight of him and could neither attack him very accurately nor defend herself against his counter-attacks truly effectively. The fact that neither of the two teens had really tried to use that moment of distraction to get into a more advantageous position was another mistake in the eyes of the Charms Master that they've made.

Once he was done with this brief lesson, Professor Flitwick announced that the next fight will be Harry facing off against Hestia. And once again, he waited until both teens started losing their concentration before finally giving a go-ahead.

Harry was the first one to react this time as well and immediately fired a pretty accurate Stinging Hex. Unlike her sister, Hestia didn't interrupt her own attack to raise a quick Shield and instead chose to dodge his spell. It did impact her accuracy though, and the green-eyed wizard had little trouble sidestepping whatever yellowish Curse that had been thrown at him.

Recovering swiftly, he sent a Disarming Charm immediately followed by a weak Blasting Curse at Hestia, causing her to take cover behind an upturned table. This was followed by a short lull as neither of the two teens dared to make their next move for the fear of exposing themselves to the other's attack.

Finally, Harry decided to break this stalemate and used the Levitation Charm to deprive Hestia of her cover. This move caught her completely by surprise and she failed to respond in time, which allowed Harry to keep his initiative and fire a stunner at her as soon as he released the Levitation Charm. It missed, though, as the witch quickly dove behind another piece of cover.

Not content with being on the backfoot like this, Hestia launched her counterattack. Raising her wand high, she created a powerful flash of blinding light. She followed this by popping from behind her cover at firing a Disarming Charm at her now blinded and disoriented boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, he was already throwing himself onto the floor and rolling towards where he remembered the nearest cover to be, so the spell missed him. Hestia then tried to get him with a few Curses, including the same lightning one her sister had used previously, but the sturdy desk Harry was hiding behind withstood them all with only superficial damage.

And while his girlfriend was hitting his cover with spells, Harry tried his best to overcome the effects of getting blinded by the flash of light. It certainly hit him pretty hard and he could see little more than blurry shapes at the moment. But he refused to surrender just because of that, even if not being able to see clearly did put him at a considerable disadvantage.

Waiting for Hestia to stop bombarding his position for a moment, he quickly popped from behind it and fired a Disarming Charm towards where he thought she was. He missed, of course. And Luck alone saved him from getting hit by a stunner Hestia flung right back at him.

Meanwhile, the said witch got quite emboldened by his suddenly-terrible aim and decided to end the fight quickly. And so, leaving her own cover, she tried to storm his position. In doing so, however, she failed to consider that would also make it harder for him to miss her, no matter how impared by that flash of light he might still be.

And, indeed, when Harry appeared from behind his cover next time to take another shot at her, Hestia was only a few feet away from him. At such a distance, his stunner didn't miss and hit Hestia on her left shoulder. Meanwhile, her own Stunning Spell landed square on his chest.

Thus, the fight ended in a mutual knock-out.

When Harry was revived by Professor Flitwick a short time later, his vision was mostly back to normal, albeit still a bit blurry. He felt entitled to complain about that.

"Dammit, that was a really mean move, Hestia. My eyes still hurt." He said.

"It was an effective move, but please refrain from using it in the future, at least in the classroom. Flashes of bright light can damage eyes and healing that is not easy even with Magic." The Charms Master said.

"I'm sorry…" Hestia said quietly and with complete sincerity.

There was a brief pause before Professor Flitwick spoke again, now delivering his analysis of the fight and listing mistakes each teen made, such as Hestia's assuredness that randomly-thrown spells will miss her or Harry's risky use of the Levitation Charm. Once he was finished, he reset the arena once again. Then it was time for the Carrow twins to face each other.

And this time Professor Flitwick started the fight right away, taking the girls by surprise with that. Flora was the first one to react and opened the fight by sending a Disarming Charm at her sister. Quickly getting out of the spell's way, Hestia returned fire with a stunner, followed immediately by a bolt of Magical lightning. Flora dodge the former but had to use a Shielding Charm to block the latter. As well as a Knockback Jinx that came next.

Recognizing that staying out in the open was not the best of ideas, she waited for a safe moment before canceling her Shielding Charm and diving behind the nearest cover. From there, she took a potshot at Hestia with a weak Blasting Curse, making her sister take cover herself.

From there, the fight quickly turned into a rather dull action as the girls kept throwing spells at each other while moving from cover to cover in loose circles in an attempt to get into an advantageous position and score a victory. Eventually, Hestia got lucky and, through a daring dash, managed to catch her sister unprepared and one stunner later the fight was over.

There wasn't much for Professor Flitwick to comment about here, aside from the twins' predilection for using cover as their primary means of defense.

"We still have some time left." The man continued. "Shall we have another match?"

"But who is going to fight whom?" Flora asked: all three of them had done two fights each tonight.

"I was thinking that, maybe, you can have a little mêlée à trios this time." The Charms Master said. "And let's make it so that while all three of you are still in the fight, you can only attack one of your opponents and defend only against attacks from another. Admittedly, not being able to attack back isn't the most common situation, but it can still happen."

"Alright." Harry said. After a few moments Flora and Hestia decided that they would like to try this exercise as well. And once the three of them took up their positions on the 'arena', Professor Flitwick gave them the go-ahead.

For a short while, the teens just kept staring at each other, not daring to make the first move as that would leave them open for an attack. Then, finally, Flora decided that this waiting game had gone for long enough and fired a pinkish-red Curse. Harry dodged it, with some difficulty, before sending a Disarming Charm Hestia's way. It was likewise avoided, though Hestia didn't attack her sister right away, choosing to wait for a better opportunity instead.

The ensuing short lull in action lasted only for a few seconds and ended when Harry attacked again, this time with a stunner. A moment later he had to quickly jump aside as Flora sent a bolt of Magical lightning his way. In doing so, however, she also opened herself for an attack and her sister was quick to take advantage of this by firing an Impediment Hex at her. It was blocked by a quick cast of a Shielding Charm.

This exchange led to another moment of calmness as all three teens tried to come up with a way to attack their designated target without immediately getting attacked themselves. And Flora had an idea. Catching the eye of her sister, she slowly nodded towards Harry. Somehow, Hestia understood the message and nodded right back in response. Harry, of course, saw this silent exchange and while he didn't know what it was about, he could still tell that it meant nothing good for him.

His gut feeling was proven right a few moments later when Flora started throwing spells at him while her sister just stood there and didn't even try to attack her. Quickly ducking behind the nearest cover, he sent a stunner at Hestia. She dodged it without too much issue while still refusing to make a move against Flora, thus confirming that the two of them have teamed up against him.

While he could likely win against either of his girlfriends in one-on-one, not being able to attack back Flora as she fired spell after spell at him pretty much forced him into completely-defensive play. Which never was a way to victory. And, indeed, while he managed to last an impressive length of time by moving from cover to cover as well as dodging and blocking spells coming his way, in the end he got pushed into the corner of the arena and taken out with a stunner right to his chest.

"What else have you learned tonight?" Professor Flitwick asked his three students as the post-fight debriefing drew to a close.

"An enemy mine situation can just as easily be used against you." Harry supplied while giving his girlfriends a dirty look. The Charms Master nodded.

"Indeed." He said. After a brief pause, he continued: "While fights where multiple people each represent their own side are not especially common, it does happen from time to time. And, just like Mr. Potter has said, you should keep in mind that your opponents might decide to put their differences aside for a moment and join their forces against you." He said. After another short pause, he added: "Fighting against multiple opponents can be very challenging even for a skilled wizard or witch, so if you find yourself in a situation like that, retreating would be your best course of action. If that's not an option, you can try splitting them up somehow so that you have to deal with them one by one."

The Slytherin trio nodded.

That's all, folks!
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