Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

[Demonfir]

Well said megaolix! Personally I'm just getting here And after skipping ahead I'm realizing I'm gonna have to read over everything since it differs from both doghead13 and Tsu Doh Nimh 'a writings.

a major shoutout to Dunkelzahn for continuing what became a wonderful piece of comedy that while not totally refined entertains and keeps smiles!

Also apologies in advance but I'm going to hijack the thread a little here.
Doghead13
I was pleasantly surpised to see you here! Somehow that description as a Scottish biker just fit with the comments you'd made on your profile and fics as well as the speech and mannerisms in your original story on fanfiction.net

i just have to ask you though what you have been up to? How did the web comic go? What developed afterwards?

Anyways back to reading and LINE webtoons. Found a juicy one in Eleceed where a talented and powerful man is trapped in the body of a VERY fat feline helping another young man grow his abilities and learn about the world.

but right now... dunzelkahn has my near full attention with this fic! Hope ya get my message and look forwards to hearing more from both doghead13 and dunzelkahn

 

[Dunkelzahn]

So, a bit of an update since this seems to have attracted some attention while I've been working.

I've been doing a fairly extensive rework of 3.17 (section reordered, the former 3.17.0 scene rewritten into 6 new ones with the actual action significantly expanded, and some fairly extensive editing in the rest --- it's now about 3k words longer) as per some of the suggestions after I released it.

That part is done, and in the process of doing that, I got a fresh look at the 3.18 segment I had written which had many similar flaws --- I had gotten a little too focused on trying to push through the Lockhart plot, and things had gotten both a tad rushed, with bits of plot lines left behind, and had their pacing somewhat jumbled.

I'm currently working my way through revising 3.18 (a revision which involves writing 5 new scenes and pushing some of what I had written into 3.19 for better pacing), and when I finish that, I'll put up the 3.17 revisions. I like to stay a section ahead most of the time so I can back-edit without having to update online copies.

A quick question for when I post it: since the 3.17 edit is so extensive, should I edit the old version or just make a new one and move the threadmark? Would people like to have the old version available for reference?

 

[Svaleryn]

just make a new one and move the threadmark?

Click to shrink...

This is my personal preference. Mainly because I don't think edits create a notification? And if they don't, people may not realize somethings been changed or added, etc.

 

[MutantRancor]

A quick question for when I post it: since the 3.17 edit is so extensive, should I edit the old version or just make a new one and move the threadmark? Would people like to have the old version available for reference?

Click to shrink...

If it's all the same to you, I think you should repost the chapter with the edits and move the threadmark for the old version into the Extras list.

 

[The Unicorn]

A quick question for when I post it: since the 3.17 edit is so extensive, should I edit the old version or just make a new one and move the threadmark? Would people like to have the old version available for reference?

Click to shrink...

You should post a new version as a separate post, however when you do I suggest you edit the old version to put the old chapter in spoilers and add a link to the new version.

 

[GhostHaxStomp]

This is my personal preference. Mainly because I don't think edits create a notification? And if they don't, people may not realize somethings been changed or added, etc.

Click to shrink...

Seconded. I need that notification man.

 

[Zeushobbit]

A quick question for when I post it: since the 3.17 edit is so extensive, should I edit the old version or just make a new one and move the threadmark? Would people like to have the old version available for reference?

Click to shrink...

If it's all the same to you, I think you should repost the chapter with the edits and move the threadmark for the old version into the Extras list.

Click to shrink...

I'd second this. Move the old chapter to extras, maybe have an AN at the top of the new one saying what's happened to the old one.

Means people can go take a look at the differences if they want too but it won't crop up if someone is binging through the threadmarked main posts.

 

[Demonfir]

Kinda figured you were editing some stuff. Glad to see ya here. Personally I'd say move the new thread mark up and post the old in the extras. Not exactly sure where extras section is located but yeah. I will say some of the long speeches by characters other than Harry did seem out of place early on. Don't worry about editing them too much. Just try to avoid it in the future. Breaking it up with character movement or facial expressions might help a bit but ultimately it's your writing style to do as you please. This is just a suggestion.

other than that I'm just glad to be reading an enjoyable fic that remains active. Not sure which scenes are original writing by you and which were influenced by doghead extras and possibly tsu doh nimh's addition. Either way keep up the great work!

nothing better to the day than a smile and a laugh.

PS: kinda glad I haven't finished reading to chapter 3 yet considering you're editing it a bunch. Mind saying which sections are safe from heavy edits and therefore safe to read?

 

[MutantRancor]

Personally I'd say move the new thread mark up and post the old in the extras. Not exactly sure where extras section is located but yeah.

Click to shrink...

At the top and bottom of every page, just under the go-to-page-number links, there are two drop-down menus labelled Threadmarks and Extras. The Threadmarks list is also directly linked by the Reader Mode button at the top, but that doesn't include threadmarked posts from other lists (of which this thread so far only has the Extras one).

 

[Demonfir]

just finished chapter 2. Poor Harry. Also... danfit I like my black dragons! Why'd he have to go turn gold? Maybe he'll change back over time or "shed" the gold. Or perhaps he'll be a multicolored dragon. Long as it ain't pure gold since that sticks out like a sore thumb.

black is such a slick color scheme especially for fiercesome dragons. Now is it safe for me to continue onto chapter 3 given the ongoing edits?

 

[Wolfboy]

Shadowrun dragons don't fall into the classic DnD trope of color alignments. So don't worry about that.

 

[Demonfir]

Shadowrun dragons don't fall into the classic DnD trope of color alignments. So don't worry about that.

Click to shrink...

Never was. Haha! As if Harry'd ever go evil.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Spoiler: Author's Note

This is the second version of Section 3.17. It has changed substantially from the originally published one which is still available on the extras threadmark collection at the original post.

4.3 New situations

---

4.3.1 Postal Reprieve

The morning meal in the Great Hall was unremarkable that day, essentially indistinguishable from most of the other meals during the school year; that is any meal that was not specifically labeled a feast. Scheduling was loose; the house elves made breakfast available for nearly two hours, ending fifteen minutes before the first of the day's classes, and students cycled through the Great Hall on their own schedule over the course of the allotted time.

It was also the time scheduled for the delivery of owl-post.

Nearly three centuries previous, a covered temporary roost had been built into one of the dormers on the roof of the Great Hall for that purpose. With two entrances allowing passage from the outside into the interior of the building, owls burdened with post could perch, sheltered from the weather, and wait for their targeted recipient to show up for the meal. It was a great improvement over the previous system, which allowed post owls to deliver post anytime and anywhere on campus. The reduction in mess and disruption was deemed well worth the not-inconsiderable cost of remodeling an enchanted ceiling. Even with the additional cost of remodeling, it was still much cheaper to enchant the Great Hall to prevent the owls from casting and defecating everywhere than it would have been to do the same for the entire school.

So it was that, as a certain Ravenclaw student loaded down his plate with a third plateful of bacon and eggs, a rather disreputable-looking owl delivered an extraordinarily thick envelope addressed in a cramped hand. It was a piece of correspondence the teenager had been simultaneously longing for and dreading in equal measure. A certain scheme of his had gotten the sixth-year boy into a bit of a pickle, and the contents of that envelope would see him either vindicated or condemned.

When he had come up with the idea to hire someone to investigate his Defense professor's background, it had seemed like such a good plan. The price had been steep, sure, but the payoff had seemed huge, so he'd managed to scrounge up the required fee — if only just, as it had turned out — by passing the hat among his fellow schoolmates. It had taken only a bit of fast talking.

And, in that fast talking lay the trouble.

The sixth-year had been, perhaps, a tad… overenthusiastic in his rhetoric when describing the benefits his fellow conspirators could expect from their investment. In short, he had both undersold the risk of failure and the time to maturity, and his compatriots had grown impatient with waiting in short order.

A few weeks previous, his fellows had managed to coerce him into a clandestine meeting to report on the plan's progress, and his fellows had been left... dissatisfied. He had managed to convince them to hold off until the investigator got back to them, but it had been a close-run thing. The weeks since had been long and uncomfortable weeks, what with all the dirty looks and low-key hostility. The report he now held was the key to ending that tense state of affairs.

Of course, depending on what the report had to say, the subsequent state of affairs might not be an improvement.

The sixth-year Ravenclaw opened the envelope, revealing a brief cover-letter and a second envelope inside, and began to read. After a few moments, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't the best of news; however, it should be enough to work with. He could work with this well enough to get his co-conspirators off his back, hopefully without getting it cursed in the process.

He'd have to put the word out to set another meeting.

4.3.2 Welcome correspondence

As the quiet drama played out at the Ravenclaw table, another owl had made a delivery to the Hufflepuff table, specifically to one Harry Potter. The delivery was a tad unusual, as owl-post went. Rather than the normal procedure of calmly alighting on the table and offering a leg, the owl in question had taken one short look at the intended recipient before dropping the letter from as near to the ceiling as it could manage and zipping back to the exit.

Despite the owl's obvious concern, the young dragon accepted the unorthodox delivery with aplomb, simply reaching up to remove the envelope from its resting place in the shaggy mop he called hair before opening the envelope and eagerly scanning the title of the enclosed correspondence.

Harry smiled in satisfaction before carefully returning the packet to the envelope and turning back to his breakfast. While it was a welcome bit of correspondence, it would need to wait for later in the day to be put to its proper use.

He hadn't gone to the trouble of getting it for his own benefit, after all.

4.3.3 Anonymous reporting

"Madam Bones?"

In the bustling offices of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department Head, Amelia Bones, paused at the sound of her secretary's voice. She was on her way to a meeting regarding recent developments in an old case and was tempted to dismiss the interruption, but the woman rarely interrupted her without good cause.

"What is it, Beverly?"

"You have received an interesting piece of mail, ma'am," her secretary replied. "It seems to be a rather thorough report loosely implicating one Gilderoy Lockhart in what could be a rather extensive case of fraud."

"Gilderoy Lockhart…" Amelia frowned, searching her memory, "the author?"

"Yes, ma'am. The report details findings of consistent traces of mental manipulation on an impressive number of witnesses across the locations of all his books," the woman summarized. "It also includes a rather insightful cross-referenced analysis of nearly a decade worth of news reports and the inconsistencies included therein. Very solid work."

"Really?" That did sound like impressive detective work, Amelia nodded thoughtfully. Best to find out who was responsible, it always good to keep an eye on upcoming talent. "Who was responsible for the report? I don't recall assigning such an investigation."

Normally celebrity investigations were the sort of thing she kept a close eye on, if for no other reason than to avoid being blindsided by the press.

"That's the thing, Madam Bones," Beverly replied, "it's an anonymous tip. The cover letter said it was a report the author had put together at the behest of a client, and he thought the results were suspicious enough he ought to forward them to us. It said he didn't know if it was something we were already investigating, but he figured it couldn't hurt to let us know."

"Damn," she sighed, deflating slightly. Much as she appreciated the help, Amelia hated finding out about new cases. It always meant the world was just that little bit worse than she'd hoped it was. "Is the case strong enough to open an investigation of our own?"

"I doubt it, but I am not the one to determine that, ma'am," her secretary averred.

"Of course, of course," Amelia sighed at her oversight. "Send it off to Investigations with a note asking how they think we ought to handle it. In the meantime, I've a meeting to get to."

"Of course, Madam Bones," Beverly said, already reaching for a blank sheet of parchment to write the requested note.

With a final nod, the busy Department Head was on her way.

4.3.4 New information

"Hey, Abigail!" Harry greeted his friend brightly as he approached their usual table in the Hogwarts library. "I've got something for you!" He brandished a thick envelope emphatically.

"Hi, Harry!" the older girl returned the greeting warmly. "So, what is it that you have there?"

"Well, I met with Madame Marchbanks the day before yesterday," the young dragon explained, "and I asked her for a syllabus for the NEWTs so we could study properly, and it just came in today, so I made sure to bring it by as soon as I could to show you!"

"So that's what you've been working on!" Abigail smiled, stepping over to give him a tight hug. "That was very thoughtful of you, Harry. Thank you!"

Harry positively beamed as his friend released her hug and returned to her usual place at the table. He took his own seat and opened the envelope before placing its contents between them.

"Go ahead and give it a read," he told his older friend.

Their private corner of the library fell silent as Abigail complied, carefully reading through the provided syllabus for the NEWT exams that had been weighing on her mind for the past few months. Her good friend looked on, still smiling broadly. So engrossed was she that she was quite startled by the arrival of someone else at their usual table.

"Hi, Hermione!" the bright voice of the currently human-shaped dragon piped up.

"Hello, Harry, Abigail," the bushy-haired girl nodded to each of her friends in turn, sparing a curious look at the packet of parchment arrayed in front of Abigail as she set her own excessive stack of books down on the library table. After exchanging the usual pleasantries, the younger girl couldn't help herself.

"What are you reading?" Hermione asked her older friend. "You looked like you were pretty deep into it, and it doesn't look like a schoolbook."

"Harry was thoughtful enough to get a syllabus for the NEWT exams for me," the seventh-year girl said absently as she turned back to her reading. "It's good to finally get a handle on what the tests will cover so I can review properly and just get on with it rather than worrying all the time."

"Really?" Hermione breathed as her brown eyes widened in surprise. "I didn't know you could get those!"

"I went and asked Madame Marchbanks," the resident dragon chimed in. "She's in charge of the Examination Authority, and she's really nice! I just explained the situation, and she had somebody send me the syllabus."

"Oh, she sounds nice," the bushy-haired girl said distractedly, her eyes locked intently on the rough stack of parchment sitting before Abigail. "Um… Abigail?"

"Hmm?" the older girl prompted without looking up from her reading.

"Do you think I could read that too?" Hermione asked tentatively.

Without looking up from her reading, the Abigail wordlessly pushed the portion of the document she had already read across the table to the younger girl.

From his place at the table, Harry settled in for the long run as he quietly watched his two friends greedily devour the syllabus he had procured, a broad smile still pasted on his face.

The visit with Madame Marchbanks had definitely been worth the effort.

4.3.5 Heard it through the grapevine

"Once again, I thank you all for your attention," Lockhart addressed his class as the session ended. "I feel I should remind you that your projects will be due at the end of next week!"

Lockhart had assigned the project in yet another effort to spark Mr. Potter's interest. The assignment was to take one of the scenarios described in his books and come up with his own take on how to handle things. The blond dandy had thought it a prime opportunity to spark a conversation — what better source to consult for such a project than Lockhart himself?

Unfortunately, this gambit had proven no more successful than its predecessors. The pint-sized powerhouse had simply nodded agreeably and then gone on to complete the entire project in time to turn it in at the next class, two weeks before the due date. Now Gilderoy was stuck grading an entire school's worth of essays with nothing to show for it.

A very disheartening outcome if he did say so himself.

Despite his disappointment at the lack of progress on his primary goal, his secondary goal remained, and the blond dandy maintained his vigilance for suspicious behavior. Today, as the students were shuffling about preparing to leave once more, that vigilance paid off.

The circumstances were the same. The same two boys passed another note, a nearly identical sequence of events, in fact. This time, however, Gilderoy Lockhart was ready when the second boy went for his wand to vanish the scrap of parchment.

A wizard of Dumbledore's caliber might have used some arcane twist of magic to reverse the partially completed vanishing charm and reconstitute the paper in his hand.

Gilderoy was not such a wizard.

Instead, he used a rather more prosaic, but no less effective, approach. Given his prior knowledge, he had prepared a similarly-sized slip of blank parchment ahead of time, and as the vanishing spell was cast, the former obliviator countered with a humble switching spell, moving the note to his hand and leaving a blank slip of parchment to take its place, dissipating into its component molecules and spreading irretrievably over several square miles of the local landscape.

Neither of the students noticed.

As soon as the room emptied, Lockhart casually opened the note and gave it a read.

It seemed that the children would be holding a meeting.... how intriguing.

Gilderoy cocked a speculative golden eyebrow.

Perhaps he should drop in?

4.3.6 Practical considerations

It was early evening by the time Abigail and Hermione finished with their perusal of the NEWT syllabus, and they were just reassembling the packet with a rustle of parchment after one final read-through, when the resident dragon looked up from his own personal reading.

"So, what did you figure out?" Harry asked. Of the three, he was the only one who had yet to read the syllabus, so he was still in the dark.

"Well, it looks like we'll need to shift our focus to practical casting," Abigail began, reaching up to massage her temples as she leaned back in her chair. "The syllabus was pretty clear that the practicals were the most important thing by far."

"So we wasted all that time with the book reviews?" the young dragon asked, crestfallen.

"Not wasted, exactly," his older friend clarified. "The theoretical portion is required for a passing mark, and our reviews covered enough for that... more than enough, in fact."

As it had turned out, not only had their earlier review sessions already covered all of the academic topics that might show up on the exam; it seemed she and Harry had cast a much wider net when choosing topics to cover than had the examination committee.

"It's just that the difference between an Acceptable and an Outstanding on the overall exam is entirely based on our performance on the practical portions," Abibgail continued. "In fact, truly outstanding scores on the practical can even be used to compensate for subpar performance on the written."

"I'm really glad I found out about it early," Hermione interjected in a cheerful tone. "Imagine how hard it would be to change gears if I'd only found out about that in seventh year!"

Abigail briefly shot her younger compatriot a dirty look at that gauche reminder of her own unenviable situation before shaking and returning to her explanation. "In any case, now that we know how heavily the practical skills are weighted, it only makes sense to focus heavily on practical spell casting for the time we have left."

Harry nodded agreeably.

"Now, we figure there are a few different options to take to really impress the examiners," Abigail continued, "but the best way I can think of, given the short time available and my own talents, is to practice the basics until I'm as good at them as I can get. I'm not likely to be able to learn some obscure or novel magic in time for the exams," she shook her head dismissively. "It's just not something I'm good at. Hard work and practice, though, those I can do."

The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as he processed his older friend's reasoning before slowly nodding. "That makes sense."

"I decided I'd pitch in too and get an early start!" Hermione volunteered cheerfully. "It's never too early!"

"So, what are we going to do, then?" Harry asked brightly as everyone stood up from the table and began gathering their effects. "And how can I help?"

4.3.7 Home, home on the range

It seemed that the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests were aptly named, Harry thought as he watched Abigail run through her latest set of exercises. At least, they would be if the effort his older friend was putting into her preparations was any indication.

After leaving the Hogwarts library, Harry and his friends had relocated to the Lair, specifically to the shooting range, which was ideally suited to the girls' choice of study methods.

Abigail currently occupied one of the lanes Harry had built for spell practice, where she was repeatedly and silently casting stunning spells at the targets downrange. As the regular flashes of red light illuminated the area, Harry thought back on his friend's explanation of her plan.

"The more you work your magic, the stronger it gets," Abigail had explained patiently as they had walked through the halls of Hogwarts on their way to the gate. "And it's not just a matter of improving skill... I mean, that's important too, and I'll be doing more than enough of that over the next few months," she had paused for a moment, grimacing at the thought, "but it's also a real improvement in the body's ability to generate and deliver magic. That means that the more I work my magic, the better my casting can be. I hadn't really gotten into this sort of thing before, but in hindsight, I probably should have been at it for years."

That had led directly to a discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of various magical exercises, including Abigail's current choice: an endurance routine which called for casting a spell repeatedly until the caster was just shy of magical exhaustion, followed by a short recovery time, after which, it would start all over again.

In overall effect, it was rather like wind sprints, but for magical rather than physical prowess.

His friend had gone on to say that if a wizard or a witch was willing to put in the effort — as Abigail obviously was, the young dragon thought with a proud smile — he could improve himself greatly through such exercise. An average wizard might rise to be head and shoulders above his fellows through hard work; though there were practical limitations — for instance, such an average wizard would never challenge the likes of Dumbledore through exercise alone, not within a normal wizarding lifespan. It was a thoroughly practical and almost universally applicable approach to self-improvement, one well-suited to the current situation.

For this first practice session, Abigail had chosen a silently-cast stunner for two reasons. For one, the stunner was a common spell that she had thought would be an excellent specimen to polish up for the NEWTS, so the additional practice would be welcome. Second, it was a moderately draining spell, making it an excellent choice for the endurance exercises: strenuous enough to make for short sets, but not so arduous that she might risk true magical exhaustion, which could put her in a hospital bed for days.

And, speaking of short sets, it seemed the older girl had just reached the end of her endurance for this one, since she had holstered her wand and turned away from the range.

"Good work, Abigail!" the young dragon congratulated his friend brightly, prompting a tired but genuine smile from the winded girl as she walked over to the cheap folding chairs Harry had pulled together for them to use. He turned to his other companion, "Hermione, you're up next, right?"

The bushy-haired girl so addressed nodded in acknowledgement before groaning at the effort of rising from her own chair and getting back to work.

The group had been running through the exercise in shifts, since its structure — short, intense activity followed by a slightly longer resting period — was well-suited to such a schedule. For the first few rounds, Suze had even joined in on the fun, using her rifle to get in her customary range time for the day while enjoying the company, though she had finished her routine and returned to her woodworking practice nearly half an hour previous.

As Harry settled in to watch his human damsel, he was distracted by the rustling of fabric at his side. Turning his head towards the noise, he caught sight of Abigail in the process of removing her outer robe. The currently human-shaped young dragon pauseed for a moment to take in the oddly fascinating sight of the older girl's blouse riding up, exposing her midriff as it did so.

As she tugged her blouse back into place and set about folding her robe, Harry cocked his head curiously at his own reaction. He still wasn't sure why that sort of thing seemed so weirdly cool, but he eventually filed it away under the same mental heading as he did his memories of Suze at full not-gallop. He was sure he'd figure it out eventually.

While he had been lost in thought, Abigail had finished folding her robe and was now in the process of removing her Slytherin tie and undoing the top few buttons of her blouse. This seemed a bit unusual to the young dragon, who frowned contemplatively as the thought sparked a memory. He was fairly certain Mrs. McGonagall had said something about situations like this when he had first carried Hermione off... something about him not being in the same room when such things were going on lest he invade a girl's privacy, if he recalled.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked the older girl curiously.

It'd probably be best to make sure she remembered he was there, just in case.

"Trying to cool off," she said absently as she conjured a hair-tie and pulled her thick, sweat-dampened brown hair up and off her neck into a high ponytail. "Magic is hard work, you know."

Harry nodded at that, eyes glued to the movements induced by that change in posture, barely concealed by the thin, almost transparent material of her sweat-dampened white blouse before quickly shifting to the newly revealed curve of her neck as soon as those movements died down. He frowned thoughtfully.

That was another one for the weirdly cool file, he supposed.

"What are you doing?" came the voice of Hermione, sounding just short of shrill.

Harry dragged his eyes away from the pleasant scenery and turned to face his human damsel who was shooting a look at Abigail that might have been a glare were she not utterly exhausted from her exercises.

"Oh, hey Hermione! You're done already?" He frowned in concern. "Are you okay?"

Narrowing her eyes at the older girl in the room one last time, Hermione turned to face the young dragon.

"Yes, I'm fine," she snapped. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you finished really early," Harry said defensively. "Abigail went more than twice as long on her last set, and I wanted to make sure you were okay! You didn't hurt yourself or anything, right?"

The bushy-haired girl sniffed at that and turned away.

"Don't worry about it, Harry," Abigail interjected. "Hermione's younger than I am, so she doesn't have the reserves to go for so long. She'll get there eventually. Now, get on with your own set; you're up next."

"Right!" Harry nodded emphatically, shelving the issue and turning to the range for his own exercise, which, while functionally similar to the endurance exercises the girls were doing in that he was casting large numbers of stunning spells downrange, was actually intended to improve his aim rather than his magical endurance.

Harry's endurance was already exceptional after all, but his control and accuracy remained perennial works-in-progress.

4.3.8 Low-key

"To answer your question," Abigail addressed Hermione conversationally as their mutual friend launched a withering storm of brilliant rods of burning red light downrange, "I was trying to cool off. This is hot work, you know, especially under multiple layers of wool."

"I suppose that makes sense," the bushy-haired girl allowed, grimacing at the thought of her own rather swampy condition under her woolen robes. "It certainly is hard work."

To be sure, Hermione knew magic was always hard work, in one way or another. That had been stressed enough in her classes, even in first year; though that hard work could be expended in any number of ways. For most routine wanded casting, the lion's share of the work went in during the spell-creation and wand-making phases, with the final caster supplying simply a bit of direction and a relatively tiny portion of energy to fuel those two highly optimized machines.

Endurance casting, on the other hand, made that hard work more immediately apparent than most, intended as it was to serve as a form of magical exercise. It strained the caster by design, much as physical exercise did for more mundane pursuits, and as a close analog of physical exercise, she supposed it stood to reason that endurance casting would have similar physiological consequences.

The caster's metabolism would struggle to kick out enough energy to support the heavy magical activity, and with that struggle would come the usual sorts of side-effects: elevated body temperature, both from the high metabolic activity and waste heat from imperfect casting; heavy breathing to supply enough oxygen to keep up; and eventually, exhaustion. In practical terms, it meant a lot of exertion, sweat, and heavy breathing, which the bushy-haired girl had to admit, were not the sort of things the normal Hogwarts winter uniform, a heavy woolen ensemble layered for warmth and modesty and topped with a full-length woolen cloak, was well-suited to accommodating.

Hermione sighed in exasperation, sneaking a sidelong glance at her friend while the older girl was fully absorbed by the admittedly formidable spectacle of Harry's furious barrage of spell-fire.

She probably shouldn't have been surprised that the thoroughly practical Abigail had dealt with the mismatch in a thoroughly practical manner, stripping off her outer robe, cardigan, and Slytherin tie in an attempt to stay cool, and unbuttoning the neck of her blouse to ease her breathing. It was a sensible choice, effective and comfortable, and Hermione could sympathize with her older friend. After all, she was no less uncomfortable; the only difference between her outfit and Abigail's was the color of the trim. For that reason, if nothing else, Hermione would have liked to follow suit, and she would have if not for one, not-so-minor complaint.

Why did Abigail have to look so bloody good like that? The bushy-haired girl thought with a scowl.

The change in outfit was a sensible choice, to be sure, but it was also a choice which had transformed Abigail from a much beloved, friendly figure into a rather intimidating one in the eyes of the just barely teenaged — and rather homely, in her own considered opinion — Hermione.

The healthy seventeen-year-old's exposed skin sported a healthy flush and glistened with a sheen of perspiration under the artificial lamps of the range. Her chest heaved and shifted as she breathed heavily while wearing only a soaked and nearly-transparent-in-places white blouse, a damp — and therefore more figure-hugging than usual — pleated gray Hogwarts uniform skirt, and a pair of black thigh-high stockings — woolen, in deference to the Scottish winter.

Hermione knew full well that she would never be able to make that ensemble look anywhere near as good as Abigail did. For that matter, she'd look utterly ridiculous if she tried, especially with Abigail right there to compare against.

So, as Harry finished up his own turn and Abigail once again stepped up to the line, the bushy-haired girl clutched her uncomfortably hot — yet comfortingly concealing — woolen robe closer to her chest and hunched in on herself defensively.

It was even worse when the older girl was moving around!

The older girl's heavy breathing and energetic arm movements combined to set certain portions of her anatomy — portions that were much more generous in their development than Hermione's own — moving in ways that she knew most boys would zero in on in a heartbeat.

Harry certainly noticed, and, just as certainly, Hermione noticed him noticing.

The bushy-haired girl scowled at the situation in general. It was thoroughly distressing, and the fact that Abigail was objectively better at the exercise simply added insult to injury!

Hermione's distress grew quickly as Harry spent the next few minutes avidly watching their mutual friend as she went through her exercise routine, until the bushy-haired girl finally reached her breaking point and quietly made her excuses to leave.

She had no desire to be compared unfavorably to the Abigail — especially not by Harry, of all people — and she refused to put herself in a position where she would be.

Now, if only it didn't feel like she was running away.

4.3.9 Taking care

Harry cocked his head in confusion as his human damsel walked out of the range and down the tunnel on her way to her private suite.

That had been awfully sudden.

The bushy-haired girl had claimed that she was too tired to keep up anymore, so she was going to bed. On the one hand, Harry supposed that had made sense; Hermione had been having more and more trouble keeping up with Abigail over the past few sets, after all. On the other hand, though she hadn't really seemed to be on the verge of falling asleep or anything.

He frowned thoughtfully as he reviewed his memory of recent events. To be honest, Hermione had seemed kind of agitated at the end there rather than tired.

The young dragon gave it a few moments' thought before shrugging it off and returning to the oddly riveting sight of Abigail bouncing through the remainder of her exercise routine.

Hermione was a smart girl, and if she said she was just tired, then he'd take her at her word. Though, speaking of being tired, it seemed Abigail had reached the end of her rope once again.

"Good work, Abigail!" the currently human-shaped young dragon congratulated his friend warmly, prompting a beautiful, if very tired, smile from the young woman in return... a smile which quickly shifted to a concerned frown.

"Where'd Hermione go?" the seventh-year girl asked her friend.

"She left a couple minutes ago," Harry answered. "Said she was too tired to do another set."

That prompted an exhausted nod of acknowledgement from the young woman who then slumped down in her chair as Harry stepped up gamely for yet another turn, sending a veritable hail of brilliantly glowing red bolts of magic racing downrange. Now that he had put some more work into his stunning charm, Harry no longer had to concentrate quite so hard on casting successfully as he had to during that embarrassing duel during the previous term, which allowed his mind to wander somewhat even as he practiced.

Closest to mind was a topic which had played a surprisingly prominent role in his recent meeting with Madame Marchbanks, his continuing haphazard inquiries into the nature and behavior of magic. While the meeting had focused heavily on his work with runes to create that neat-looking but otherwise useless tree thing, the elderly witch had not restricted her recommendation to that topic alone. Rather, she had promoted the spirit of inquiry in general, and Harry had collected a long and forever-growing list of things he was curious about.

Perhaps he ought to pursue some of them, as well?

There was that stamped-rune method he'd come up with that needed refining. That'd be a good place to start, but there was also the magic-pumped laser for which he had originally developed it... as well as the holographic projector he had originally set out to make, of course. The young dragon frowned thoughtfully as he considered that. Based on how much trouble he'd had so far, that promised to be a long slog of a project.

It might be better to save that one for later.

There was his magic-to-electricity idea that'd hit a snare a few months back. He was still trying to come up with a new lead on that. The young dragon unconsciously shrugged at the thought, accidentally throwing off his aim even more than usual on the next casting. He didn't have anything right now, but it was something to keep in mind. There was also that question that'd come to mind at the conclusion of his talk with Donald all those months ago which was still hanging in the back of his head alongside half a dozen other odds and ends.

Things were really starting to pile up in there, to be honest.

Harry nodded to himself as he surveyed the devastating aftermath of his target practice. He probably ought to start up something to keep track of it all... maybe some notebooks? Those seemed to work pretty well for Hermione. The human-shaped dragon stepped back to take another break as the splintered remains of the enchanted targets slowly began to pull themselves back together, their wooden forms rather less resilient to the amount of magic he could throw downrange than an equivalently-sized magical person.

For now, though, Harry thought with a sigh, he really ought to seek out some advice on how to cast more accurately. Sure, he'd hit the targets eventually, but most of his magic had still expended itself on the increasingly pockmarked stone wall at the end of the range... another unacceptable performance.

Who was the best person to ask, though?

Harry frowned thoughtfully, the expression going unnoticed by Abigail, who had slumped over in her chair against the wall, eyes closed and still slowly catching her breath.

Much as he respected the man's talents, Harry's usual go-to, Mr. Snape, was probably not the best choice. In his stories, Mr. Snape seemed to rely on subterfuge to get close enough that he couldn't really miss; spell accuracy wasn't strictly speaking in the potions master's purview.

On the other hand, Harry's other go-to, the goblins, didn't really fit either. They were really good at shooting stuff accurately, but as the young dragon had learned recently much to his own embarrassment, accuracy with firearms and accuracy with wands were two entirely different animals.

Harry supposed that left the other professors to consider.

Mr. Dumbledore would probably be able to help. The elderly wizard was pretty good at pretty much everything, but he was really busy most of the time, so that might be a problem. He could barely find time to oversee Harry's alchemy lessons every month or so; trying to schedule something else would likely be a nightmare.

Harry tapped his currently human-shaped chin thoughtfully as he ran through the rest of his friends, assessing each in turn.

To be honest, Mr. Flitwick was probably the best choice, now that he thought about it. The young dragon nodded. The half-goblin was a really good duelist, so he'd know all about spell accuracy and speed, and he was a really good teacher, so he'd probably know how to teach it too, unlike Professor Lockhart.

Plus, there was another one of those magic-related questions — the kind Madame Marchbanks had been talking about — that he'd been meaning to look into ever since that duel with the annoying blond kid. Since it was a question about a charm, the resident Charms master would probably be the best choice to answer it, too.

Harry nodded decisively. That'd be the way to go then.

His train of thought completed; the young dragon turned his attention back to his surroundings only to realize that the room had been unusually quiet for the past several minutes. He turned to Abigail and found her asleep, draped over her chair in an undignified sprawl.

The young dragon-in-human-form cocked a brow in surprise. She must have been more tired than he'd thought.

"Abigail?" he called quietly, attempting to wake her gently, only to be answered by a loud, decidedly unladylike snore.

"Huh," Harry frowned before gently nudging her shoulder. His only response was a slight shift and a sleepy grumble.

Well, she had been working hard, so he supposed she had earned a nap, the young dragon thought; though that chair looked really uncomfortable.

He considered the situation for a moment before nodding decisively.

Bending to pick up the sleeping girl as gently as he could manage, Harry carried her out of the practice range and down the hall, gently depositing her on one of the couches in the main room of the Lair and tucking her in with a blanket to stave off the winter chill. Straightening, the young dragon surveyed the situation and nodded in satisfaction; now, she'd be able to finish her nap comfortably.

"Well, that's sorted," he murmured even as he absently reached down to brush a stray lock of Abigail's chestnut hair away from her sleeping face. It was pretty obvious his friend was going to be out of it for a while.

"Now, what should I do?"

Looking about at the chaotic mess that comprised the living quarters of the Lair for inspiration, it didn't take long for him to catch sight of a pile of blank notepads still half-contained within their plastic packaging — extras left over from his attempt to get some work done during his multi-weekend stakeout at the end of the previous term — which reminded him of his earlier idea to make a research notebook.

That'd do nicely!

Picking up one of the notepads and a spare pen, he settled down in one of the nearby chairs after a quick stop to stoke the fire in the Rayburn; he'd noticed Abigail shivering in her sleep as the winter wind picked up and occasionally managed to find its way in through the Lair entrance to lick at her still sweat-damp skin. Then he got down to the business of recording some of his plans for future research projects while keeping watch over his sleeping friend.

The notepad would be more than half-full by the time he set it aside for the day.

Later in the evening when the young dragon looked back on the day, he concluded that it was time well-spent. Neither he nor Abigail had gotten as much done as they had hoped, but Harry did learn that looking after his exhausted friend for the afternoon had been surprisingly rewarding.

Abigail's beaming smile when she had awakened and realized what he had done had been even more so.

4.3.10 On the nature of conjuration

Late afternoon saw Hogwarts' resident dragon walked purposefully through the halls of a portion of the castle he didn't often visit. The Ravenclaw dormitories were nearby, but Harry didn't actually know any of the Ravens very well. Of the current crop, he was perhaps most familiar with Luna Lovegood, of whom he was rather unfond, and Su Li, who had proven to be a friendly and capable lab partner in potions since the beginning of the current term.

Neither had given him cause to visit the Ravenclaw tower so far, and that state of affairs had not changed. Instead, Harry's current destination was Mr. Flitwick's office. Harry had some questions, and he rather hoped the diminutive half-goblin professor would be able to answer them for him.

Arriving at the charms master's office, the young dragon in human guise knocked gently, "Um… Professor, are you there?"

"Come in!" the diminutive teacher welcomed him gladly. "Come in, take a seat. What brings you here, Mr. Potter? You do not call on me very often, my young friend."

"Well, it's a couple things really," Harry began. "Um, first, you remember how much trouble I had actually hitting anything back during that dueling club thingy?"

"Indeed, I do, Mr. Potter," the half-goblin said with a nod.

"Well, I've been trying to practice and get better," the young dragon told his professor, "but it's real slow going, and I was hoping you had some tips on how to do better."

"I see," Flitwick said. "Firstly, I must congratulate you on your commitment to self-improvement, Mr. Potter. Such is always a worthy goal! Unfortunately, I can only advise that you keep practicing; it really is the only way to improve, I am afraid. Do not be discouraged, everyone is bad at aiming a wand when they first start."

"Oh," Harry said, sounding quite crestfallen. "There's no tips or anything then?"

"I suppose you might try reducing your wand movements to a minimum," the diminutive professor said after a moment's consideration. "Keep the necessary gestures as small as you can make them. The lion's share of inaccuracy with a wand comes from the wand movements themselves, after all. Oh, and start with piercing charms, they are an excellent way to practice your timing. That final horizontal sweep is tricky to aim properly, and if you can get that right, other charms will be much simpler by comparison."

"Thanks, I'll try that, then!" the young Potter sounded much reassured.

"I am glad to have helped, Mr. Potter," Flitwick said with a smile. "And might I inquire as to your other question?"

"Oh, right!" the currently human-shaped dragon acknowledged. "I had some questions about a charm I saw at the dueling club. It called snakes…"

"Ah, serpensortia, I am familiar with the charm." Flitwick said. "It summons one or more snakes which will then follow the caster's commands. Not terribly useful in real combat because commanding the snakes requires concentration from the caster, but good showmanship for the stage."

"Well, I was wondering; does it conjure a snake or pull it from somewhere else?" Harry asked.

"I… I must admit that I am not entirely certain," the small man frowned. "As far as I know that family of spells was always assumed to be a branch of conjuration; though I don't know if anyone has had cause to ask that particular question before," Flitwick replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, the summoned snakes spoke parseltongue, and I'm pretty sure that annoying blond kid doesn't know how to speak it," Harry explained. "I thought conjurations could only do what the conjurer told them to do, and this one couldn't tell it how to speak parseltongue. If it were pulled from somewhere else though, I'd have thought it would have left a body when I killed it, and it didn't. So, I'm not sure which one it was."

"That is an intriguing bit of evidence, Mr. Potter, evidence which calls into question the accepted assumptions about that family of charms, as you have so ably pointed out," Flitwick said thoughtfully as he processed the new information. "I can see why the situation wasn't encountered before. No competent caster world ever consider using that charm against a parselmouth if they didn't also share the gift; it would be a terrible tactical decision. Yet that is the only situation that would call the accepted theories into question."

"Hmm," The diminutive charms professor trailed off for a moment as he paused in consideration before he continued, his voice swelling with excitement. "I do believe you have hit upon some new ground, Mr. Potter, new and unexplored territory! There's only one thing to be done," the half-goblin paused dramatically.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"We will have to find out!"

"How do we do that?"

"We must devise an experiment!" Flitwick explained enthusiastically. "That is, we will attempt to create a scenario from the outcome of which we can draw a certain conclusion regarding the nature of the charm. Our current observations are inconclusive because they could support either option; thus, our experiment should be designed such that the results will eliminate the confusion."

"So, we want to design something so we can tell for sure whether the snake was conjured or summoned?" Harry confirmed.

"That is one way to go about it," the half-goblin nodded enthusiastically.

"So how would we do that?"

"Why don't you work out an experimental design and then bring it back to me?" the small teacher proposed. "Then we will go over it. I will help you refine it, and once we have a good one, you will carry it out. It will be a good exercise for you; the ability to learn through experimentation is an important skill in life."

"Okay!"

4.3.11 A teacher's musings

The charms master practically vibrated with glee as Harry Potter left his office. The diminutive man's expression was filled with a burning zeal which would have sent his lazier students running for the hills had they beheld it. His young student was only halfway through his second year, yet he was already producing research ideas like this one! To be sure, it was an idea the young dragon had stumbled upon rather than sought out, but he had been observant enough to see something was off about the situation and, more importantly, was curious enough to ask about it!

Filius knew perfectly well that that spark of curiosity, more than anything else, was the mark of a great magical researcher. Far too many wizards, upon seeing something strange or unexpected were all too willing to simply dismiss it as 'magic' and inquire no further. He had even immediately grasped the concept of testing through experimentation — another concept that was depressingly rare in the magical world.

That essential curiosity, when taken in combination with the young dragon's raw intelligence, literally inhuman magical endurance, and dogged determination, made the boy's potential for greatness hard to miss. Only slightly less obvious was the potential for his own career as one of that boy's mentors.

As for the specific question the dragon had posed, it was the sort of thing that was practically made for a mastery. It was a new approach to a topic the field was already reasonably familiar with, the topic met the novelty requirements while remaining prosaic enough not to be dismissed out of hand by the more… staid members of the profession. All told, it was an excellent choice for an upcoming young researcher's debut.

Properly executed — and Filius would ensure it was properly executed, by hook or by crook — such an investigation could see the boy through to a charms mastery before he sat his OWLs! He could be the mentor of the youngest charms master in recorded history! Even aside from the potential for academic advancement, Flitwick was looking forward to seeing what the work would produce — success or failure, it was sure to be fascinating.

The half-goblin chuckled, thinking back on that conversation with Severus, several years previous. Filius had made a teasing comment regarding the man's uncharacteristic enthusiasm regarding the young dragon's bio-alchemy. At the time, his disagreeable colleague had issued a challenge to wait and see how enthusiastic he was when the boy revolutionized Flitwick's own field.

Admittedly, the situation wasn't yet to that point, but it was an exhilarating experience even now, in its admittedly humble beginnings. Though, Flitwick had to admit, at least some of that was simply his normal enthusiasm bleeding through. He was an educator at heart, and teaching was what got him up in the morning. Yet after seeing how Severus had fared over the intervening years… well, the master of charms suspected he was in for interesting times to come. The half-goblin bared his slightly sharpened teeth in a vicious-looking smile at the thought.

They promised to be interesting times, and he was looking forward to every minute.

4.3.12 Unfair comparisons

Late afternoon at the Lair found Hermione sitting in her favorite chair on the library mezzanine, taking a moment to sit back from her reading and stretch. It had been a productive afternoon so far, despite the muted sounds of spell-fire that still echoed down the tunnel from the shooting range.

Harry was yet again working on his practical casting skills alongside Abigail. Those sessions had been a frequent occurrence over the past week; though ever since that first evening, Hermione had begged off on joining in. That first taste had been all Hermione needed to decide that Abigail's study plan wasn't to her liking.

However, that wasn't to say the studious girl had given up on her early preparations for the NEWTs. Hermione smiled as she looked down at the arcane tome on the table before her and at the half-full notebook of handwritten notes that lay open beside it. She had simply chosen to take a different tack, one more suited to her own talents.

After all, it was never too early to start preparing, not in Hermione's books. And while it was true that she would also have to sit the OWLs long before the NEWTs came into the picture, if she prepared properly for the NEWTs, then the OWLs ought to be simple enough. Classes usually built up to harder things over time, so she figured that was a safe bet, so prepare she would... if in her own way.

Despite her choice to go her own way, Hermione fully supported the conclusion Abigail had drawn, namely that practical skills were the name of the game for the NEWTs. It was the reason she had initially joined in for that first practice session; Hermione sighed. It had made good sense at the time, and she had thought it would be nice to spend more time with her friends.

The bushy-haired girl scowled as she thought back on that first session. It had made sense, before the harsh reality of the situation had kicked in.

Abigail had chosen to work on perfecting her ability to use the standard spell curriculum, a choice which involved a great deal of thoroughly exhausting practice. Hermione had agreed with her choice; for that matter, she still did. It was the right choice for Abigail's situation. The older girl was already halfway through her seventh year, and there was simply no time to take any other, more leisurely, approach, not with any expectation of success.

However, the right choice for Abigail had quickly proven itself entirely unsuitable for Hermione.

The bushy-haired girl scowled. As a normal witch in her second year of schooling, Hermione simply could not keep up with the harsh pace the older girl had set. Her body and magic were not developed enough to handle the strain, and she knew of no way to rush that sort of thing along, no matter how much she might wish otherwise. She'd quickly been left behind.

Of course, the bushy-haired girl couldn't find it within herself to blame her friends for not slowing down to let her keep pace, not that she had given them a chance to offer. Abigail was on a tight schedule for the approaching exams, and quite frankly the bookish second-year student would never forgive herself if she was responsible for holding her friends back from being all they could be. She knew it wasn't their fault she couldn't keep up.

Hermione sighed ruefully. That knowledge did nothing to make her feel better about the situation.

Being outperformed by Harry was nothing new for the bushy-haired girl; by this point, she was already well-used to it. Harry was so absurdly overpowered that he spent most of his time as a massive super-dragon because he couldn't manage to contain himself into a human shape. Hermione couldn't find it within herself to feel bad about coming in second-best to that. It would be like feeling inadequate about being shorter than a mountain; it simply wasn't a meaningful comparison.

Third-best was an altogether different matter.

Unlike the walking amalgamation of condensed absurdity that was Harry Potter, Abigail was an ostensibly normal witch, just like Hermione herself. The bushy-haired girl didn't have a ready excuse for why she couldn't keep pace... not one that she could convince herself with, anyway. It was true that her older friend had five full years of magical training and physical development on the just barely teenaged girl, and thus she couldn't reasonably be expected to keep up with that kind of disadvantage. Hermione knew that, and it was almost convincing enough... almost, but not quite.

And in this case, that "not quite" meant that the bushy-haired girl also knew that excuse was just that: an excuse.

As far as Hermione was concerned, magic was an intellectual pursuit; it was something to be studied. To her mind, that meant she was supposed to be able to keep up with people years ahead of her, just like she always had before. Hermione knew she wasn't the pretty girl, not with her hair and teeth; she knew she wasn't the athletic girl, as she'd always preferred reading to sports; and she certainly knew she would never be the popular girl, because that just wasn't going to happen; but she'd be damned before she gave up on being the smart girl!

That was her thing, and no one was going to take it away from her!

So, after that first discouraging practice, Hermione had retreated to her room to rethink her strategy and search out another path, one better suited to her own strengths. It was a search which had led to her current situation, holed up in the library, safe with her books.

It was a practical decision on her part, a strategic choice to aimed at getting maximal return on her investment.

It certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with a desire to escape the simmering feelings of inadequacy stemming from her significantly older friend's impressive performance and well-developed… ah, talents.

It had not one thing to do with that.

Honest.

In any case, rather than following in Abigail's footsteps and banking on her sheer competence with the standard spells to impress the examination committee, Hermione had decided to take a rather different tack.

Variety.

Oh, she had kept up some of her earlier routine. Her morning target practice with Harry had continued mostly unchanged, both because he had insisted and because she enjoyed spending time with her friend. The only difference was a recent switch from stunners to piercing spells for some reason he hadn't bothered to share. It had been an odd change, but Hermione hadn't been terribly bothered by it. Accuracy practice was accuracy practice, as far as she could tell, and since Abigail wasn't there in the mornings for the younger girl to compare herself to, Hermione didn't have any compelling reason to kick up a fuss.

For the rest, though, she would dedicate her time to learning as many spells as she could, so that when the time came for her NEWT practicals, she would overwhelm the examiners with her spectacular versatility.

It had seemed a decent choice. Hermione was not blessed with spectacular magical power as Harry was, nor was she particularly enamored of the idea of putting as much sweat into things as Abigail seemed to prefer. Rather, she was a smart girl with a prodigious memory who loved to read, and those were traits that fitted her chosen course perfectly.

And, if that course led to her spending a great deal of time researching obscure magics among her beloved, comforting, and ever reassuring books, rather than working hard, sweating, and putting herself in a position to stack up unfavorably against a girl five years her senior, then so much the better.

At the moment, Hermione was working her way through the first-year curriculum, spell by spell, looking up any and every equivalent she could find within the wealth of written references Harry had managed to accumulate. Along the way, she had learned twenty-seven distinct divination spells designed to help search through written material within a specified spatial volume, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Using those, she had managed to locate four-hundred and fifty-seven distinct spells designed to perform roughly the same function as the basic light spell, the first one they had learned during the previous year.

Not bad for a week's worth of work.

So far, Hermione had successfully learned to cast eighty-five of them, and she fully intended to master them all. They were low-impact, easy to cast spells, but, at the end of the day, the bushy-haired girl figured the sheer breadth of her repertoire would have to count for something. After this, she would move on to the basic levitation charm, then to other basic utility charms, and so on and so forth, so that, by the time NEWTs rolled around in five and a half more years, her range would be second to none.

Bending back to her work, the budding young witch smiled at the prospect. She was going to learn a tremendous amount of magic; she was certain she would enjoy the process thoroughly; and the end results would definitely be more impressive than Abigail's excellent grasp of the basics.

In the face of that, what did it matter if her older friend was prettier than she was? the bushy-haired girl thought with a scowl. She was fine with that.

Honest.

4.3.13 Clandestine

"That's everyone," a sixth-year Gryffindor boy said, his firm voice ringing sharply in the dusty, normally abandoned classroom. He shot a hard look at a similarly aged boy in the blue and bronze trim of Ravenclaw. "Now I think it's time you come clean about just what's going on with our project."

"Yeah! What did you do with our money?" another boy piped up angrily. "We gave you all that so we could get rid of Lockhart and the girls would go back to paying attention to us, but he's still here, and the girls are still all a-flutter about the blond pillock!"

A cacophony of similar demands arose from the rest of the room. There were perhaps two dozen boys in attendance, hailing from every House but Slytherin. The age cohorts were not quite so evenly represented, as not a single boy there was younger than a fourteen.

"As you all know, I hired a private investigator from Knockturn over the winter break to investigate Professor Lockhart's background," the sixth year Ravenclaw addressed the inquisition.

"Yeah, yeah, we know! You told us that last time," came an annoyed demand. "Why did you call this meeting, if that's all you have to say?"

"I'm getting to it!" the Ravenclaw growled defensively. "Anyway, the investigator got back to me, and he found something! He suspects Lockhart used mind magic on people to cover something up!"

The room went silent for a beat.

"That's it?" the first Gryffindor said incredulously. "You wasted all our money on that?"

"It was not wasted," the Ravenclaw protested, sounding a little nervous in the face of an increasingly hostile crowd. "He thought it was important enough to forward a copy of this to Law Enforcement!"

He brandished a small stack of parchment as if it were a talisman to fend off the ire of his fellows.

"Let me see that," an older Hufflepuff growled, stepping up to rip the parchment out of his hands. His fellows crowded around to see for themselves as he read it. The room fell silent again for a few minutes, broken only by the rustle of parchment.

"I guess that's something, at least," he acknowledged grudgingly, his compatriots nodded in reluctant agreement.

"Do you mind if I take a look at that?" came a question from someone sitting quietly at a desk near the door.

"Huh? Oh, sure," the Hufflepuff said agreeably, absently handing the report off. "Now, what else do we need to do? I don't want my investment to go to waste."

"Yeah, that looked really suspicious," a younger Ravenclaw piped up. "Maybe we should tell the Headmaster?"

"No!" the Ravenclaw who had hatched the scheme interrupted vociferously. "We just need to wait for the DMLE to do its thing. I don't even want to think about how the staff would react to this. It'd be one thing if we had something solid, but just suspicions? Not happening!"

When one of his year-mates gave him a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, he hurriedly elaborated. "We hired a private eye to dig into the past of one of our teachers looking for something to get him fired. How do you think Snape would react to that?"

There was a round of reluctant nodding. Snape would make their lives unutterably miserable for that if he found out, if for no other reason than preemptive revenge for the possibility that they might do it to him in the future. To be honest, they couldn't even really blame him.

Merlin knew they'd thought about doing it often enough.

"Just let it run its course, it'll work out," the Ravenclaw assured his fellows. "And don't tell any of the staff, especially not Lockhart."

"It had better work out," the seventh year Hufflepuff warned him darkly, "or it'll be on your head."

The affirmative murmur throughout the room was not reassuring to the sixth year Ravenclaw who had arranged it all, and he sat quietly until the last of his co-conspirators filed out of the room, before letting out an explosive sigh.

"It had better turn out, or my seventh year is going to be mightily unpleasant."

"Do you really think they'll hold that much of a grudge?" the person sitting near the door asked curiously.

"At the price we paid?" the sixth year scoffed. "You bet your arse they will!"

"I see," blond hair bobbed as the person nodded agreeably. "Well, I suppose you'll just need to hope for the best then. Best of luck to you!"

"Thanks," the sixth year said. "Um, can you pass me the…"

"Oh, certainly!" he handed the investigative report back to the teenager. "There you go. Have a nice day!"

The Ravenclaw nodded distractedly as he ambled out of the room.

"You too, Professor."

4.3.14 Ruminations

It was a troubling development, Gilderoy Lockhart thought, still under his concealment charm.

An advanced variant of the common notice-me-not charm, his current choice induced a strong sense of 'there's nothing out of place here' in anyone caught within the area it affected. It was a common tool in the obliviator's toolbox, and it was a particular favorite of Lockhart's. It did not prevent others from noticing the caster, a common property of other methods which made navigating crowds quite difficult. Rather, it made the caster seem completely unremarkable.

As he listened to the retreating steps of his student echoing in the deserted hallway, Gilderoy mused on the implications of what he had just learned. He hadn't known what to expect going in, but he had never anticipated finding this.

To think, two dozen of his students had banded together in the interest of getting him fired, not because of his actions, not because they thought he was a poor teacher, but rather because the girls they were interested in apparently had crushes on him rather than the boys their age! Lockhart scoffed at the very idea. He certainly hadn't done anything to encourage that sort of thing; they were children, for crying out loud, and his students besides!

The very idea...

Gilderoy shook his head in disgust. And the price they had paid! The blond dandy couldn't help whistling at the memory of the price quoted on that cover letter. His students had pulled that much together? For this? He didn't know whether to be impressed or appalled.

Had he been that much of a horn-dog at that age?

Blond locks swayed as the young professor dismissed that line of speculation. Whether he had been or not, he certainly had never hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on one of his professors. That was a new one in his experience. The real irony was that they could have just waited a few months and the problem would have fixed itself! Now there were going to be all sorts of problems to deal with.

Impatient brats.

Lockhart knew that the case against him, as presented in the report he had read, was far from airtight. There were too many gaps and alternate explanations for it to carry weight in court. Despite that, the former obliviator couldn't help but admire the unnamed private eye's work. The man had managed to make something out of one of Gilderoy's own cover-ups, and he had some idea of just how difficult that sort of thing was.

The inconsistencies the man had latched onto were ones the former obliviator had left deliberately. To an experienced investigator, a perfectly uniform story screamed of manipulation: witness accounts were always a little bit spotty, and perfect agreement meant that they had rehearsed the story. Still, for the as-yet-unnamed private eye to have taken those deliberately spread crumbs and put together as much of the story as he had was a remarkable feat.

The man had accomplished something Lockhart would never have thought possible, and he didn't know whether he wanted to shake the man's hand in congratulations for his remarkable feat or punch him in the face for all the trouble that feat might cause him.

Speaking of trouble, the blond former obliviator now had to reconsider other potential outcomes that he had previously deemed impossible. The evidence presented wasn't enough for a conviction, but it was probably enough to spark official interest. What if someone at the DMLE could dig up more evidence he hadn't considered? Gilderoy was confident in his skills, but what if that confidence was misplaced?

That eventuality could get very messy, very quickly.

The blond man frowned. He had considered many times the possibility that his lies might be found out, that the elaborate house of cards might come tumbling down. In doing so, he had thought through the measures he would have to take should he be discovered. They were measures he did not like.

Not at all.

His dislike of those measures was, in fact, the main reason behind his attempt to become Harry Potter's mentor rather than staying his previous course and running the risk of discovery by attempting to take credit for any other, more prominent, heroic incidents. The life of a fugitive was not a life that Gilderoy Lockhart wanted to live, but the life of a prisoner appealed to him even less. Now, both possibilities seemed all too real.

The footsteps of his students had long-since faded, and the former obliviator abruptly stood up, absently dispelling his concealment charm as he walked toward the door. He would have to make some preparations, he mused as he left the classroom. If the worst happened, having a few things in place beforehand would be invaluable; they might be the difference between freedom and captivity, or possibly between life and death.

Given the nature of Azkaban, the frigid, demon-infested hellhole that wizarding Britain used as a prison, Gilderoy wasn't entirely sure which was the more terrifying prospect.

For now, Gilderoy would quietly prepare while laying low. It could just blow over with no further issue, after all. If so, the only cost would be a bit of time.

A bit of wasted time he could live with. Azkaban he could not.

What to do in that case?

If the DMLE did manage to find something substantial, they'd send aurors. His eyes narrowed as he ran the scenario in his head. Given the location, they'd likely try to disguise it as something else... something innocuous, both to avoid panic among the children and maintain control of the Ministry's public image. Lockhart nodded as he rouded the corner and entered the main stairwell.

Yes, that was how he would have played it, were he in their position.

A Ministry official, probably from Education, would quietly request a meeting played off as some bureaucratic nothing in front of the children. When the time came, he would come accompanied by a few plainclothes aurors to make the arrest. Aurors rather than normal law enforcement would be overkill, to be sure, but they'd want to take him quietly, and that meant overwhelming force to make sure he couldn't kick up a fuss. With him in custody and safely sequestered, the Ministry would have time to set the propaganda machine running to cover the its collective arse well before the trial. It would let them mitigate the impact of the scandal that would come from arresting a teacher they'd presumably vetted before hiring.

The blond dandy's expression hardened as he considered his options. At least he didn't have to worry about being disappeared rather than tried, cold comfort that it was. He was facing the Ministry, not the oligarchs; they'd come for him with officers rather than assassins. Dumbledore's reforms had guaranteed that much, at least. Imprisonment would still mean Azkaban, though, and he shuddered at the thought of being locked in that place. In all honesty, the assassins might well be the kinder option. They were certainly the less frightening one.

At least assassins had the basic decency kill you, rather than give you to the dementors.

As he opened the door to his office and made his way to the attached apartment suite, Gilderoy shivered before deliberately shaking his head and pasting on his usual smile, attempting to dismiss the horrifying train of thought. If worse came to worst, he would just have to ensure he was ready to strike first, without hesitation. He'd only have one narrow window of opportunity.

He'd have to make it count.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Kinda figured you were editing some stuff. Glad to see ya here. Personally I'd say move the new thread mark up and post the old in the extras. Not exactly sure where extras section is located but yeah. I will say some of the long speeches by characters other than Harry did seem out of place early on. Don't worry about editing them too much. Just try to avoid it in the future. Breaking it up with character movement or facial expressions might help a bit but ultimately it's your writing style to do as you please. This is just a suggestion.

other than that I'm just glad to be reading an enjoyable fic that remains active. Not sure which scenes are original writing by you and which were influenced by doghead extras and possibly tsu doh nimh's addition. Either way keep up the great work!

nothing better to the day than a smile and a laugh.

PS: kinda glad I haven't finished reading to chapter 3 yet considering you're editing it a bunch. Mind saying which sections are safe from heavy edits and therefore safe to read?

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Glad you've been liking the story!

As you should be able to see, you should be safe to continue now, the only section that was under heavy revision was the last one, which I've now reposted.

 

[stads]

nice chapter thx for writing it
poor hermoine wonder when she will break down

 

[Korfayron]

If there is a document of the changes highlighted could you post it? I only ask because it's a long chapter of stuff I read most of already and I probably won't notice the differences.

 

[Demonfir]

Thanks so much Dunkelzahn!

 

[naarn]

I'm pretty sure I've read that chapter before. Also:

even more so.mce-anchor

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My, what punctuation you have grandma.

 

[The Unicorn]

Spoiler: Author's Note

This is the second version of Section 3.17. It has changed substantially from the originally published one which is still available on the extras threadmark collection at the original post.

3.17.0 Postal Reprieve

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Very nice chapter and much improved, I especially liked Hermionie acting like a stupid teenager and quitting the stamina exercise, pretending she had far less stamina than she did, to cover up the fact she had less stamina than Abigail
Abigail shedding her robes was also much better than I recall, and while I didn't spot any changes in Lockhart and the Ravenclaw's meeting scenes they seemed even better on a second read through.

The discussion with Flitwick also seemed improved, however
1)Given that they're planning an experiment to determine if the snakes are conjured or summoned, and the situation is not conclusive yet, this

no competent caster world ever consider using that charm against a parselmouth if they didn't also share the gift — it would be a terrible tactical decision — yet that is the only situation that would call the accepted theories into question.

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Seems a bit too contrived and talking to the reader rather than Harry (especially the bolded bit) since obviously there are other situations where the theories would be called into question.
2)You have Flitwick going from "I don't know and I don't think anyone ever asked the question" to "This is the accepted theory and you just discovered evidence that calls it into question" in seconds, which doesn't seem to make sense.
3)While Harry obviously is capable of Mastery level work at his young age, and Flitwick knows that so him planning to have Harry achieve his Mastery of Charms before reaching his OWL year makes sense, this:

The young dragon was only halfway through his second year, yet he was already producing research ideas like this one! Filius Flitwick saw the potential for greatness in that boy — and for his own career as one of that boy's mentors.

The question the dragon had posed so innocently was the sort of thing Mastery-level work was made from, his reasoning had been solid, and he immediately grasped the concept of testing through experimentation — a mindset that was depressingly rare in the magical world. Properly executed — and Filius would see to it that it was properly executed, no matter how hard he had to ride his young student to ensure it — that research proposal could see the boy through to a charms mastery before he sat his OWLs!

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Makes it sound like Harry asking the question, and needing to be told about putting together an experiment to falsify the theory, are somehow evidence of Harry's genius.

EDIT: I suggest you put the old chapter in Spoilers, or at least add a note about it - not everyone follows the Threadmarks when they read a new thread, and the Threadmark name is very easy to miss.

 

[Komrade Comrade]

nice chapter thx for writing it
poor hermoine wonder when she will break down

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I think she'll take it in the other direction and suddenly find magical beauty treatments a worthy scholarly pursuit. And oh no, what do you know. A pleasant side effect that was in no way the central point of her studies, she's now very attractive and no longer feels inadequate.

 

[Carrow]

Either I'm having a severe case of Deja Vu or that chapter was posted before. I'm a little confused, not gonna lie.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Either I'm having a severe case of Deja Vu or that chapter was posted before. I'm a little confused, not gonna lie.

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See the author's note at the beginning of the post.

FYI --- I made some major edits to 3.17 (added six scenes and about 3000 words with various other edits throughout), and rather than editing in place, I posted it as a new chapter, per the suggestion of several others on the thread. I moved the old version to an Extras threadmark.

The long and the short of it is, the events described are essentially the same, hence the familiarity, but they are now written in a hopefully better form, hence the new post.

 

[Charles]

I love this story so much, and I am always excited to read a new chapter. It always makes my day, or in this case my midnight.

Love the impending confrontation between Madam Marchbanks and Lockheart. Will be funny to see the fallout of that misunderstanding.

 

[The Unicorn]

Love the impending confrontation between Madam Marchbanks and Lockheart. Will be funny to see the fallout of that misunderstanding.

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There isn't going to be a confrontation, The people Marchbank is planning on sending are going to look just like the DMLE plainclothes officers he's preparing for so he's going to run as soon as he sees them, and given they they aren't DMLE officers I doubt he'll have any difficulty escaping.

 

[Carrow]

See the author's note at the beginning of the post.

FYI --- I made some major edits to 3.17 (added six scenes and about 3000 words with various other edits throughout), and rather than editing in place, I posted it as a new chapter, per the suggestion of several others on the thread. I moved the old version to an Extras threadmark.

The long and the short of it is, the events described are essentially the same, hence the familiarity, but they are now written in a hopefully better form, hence the new post.

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Ah! Gotcha.

Must have missed the announcement, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Drake]

Ah, but who will she send? Wouldn't it be an insult to Lockhart if she didn't send a master dueler or retired master auror to help him with the practical preparation for the NEWTS? So the team might not be there to arrest him, but chances are good that they're no less qualified than such a team would be.

Anyway, Dunkelzahn, I've enjoyed this story when you started writing it and am very happy to have found it again - and so much awesome new stuff since then! Thanks so much for writing and sharing. The world building is some of the best I've seen.
There are just two points that I think you might have lost track of:
1) Magic background level. They talked about how it changed over time, but is seems that nobody really cared to check how it changed when Harry opened the last node. That seems odd.
2) Flamel seemed very interested in Harry and how his body worked. Now he might be a loner at heart, but it still seems odd that he doesn't check in even once. Not with Snape for more info, not with the team when they went to Stonehenge, nothing. Not impossible, but odd.

 

[Skjadir]

Ah, but who will she send? Wouldn't it be an insult to Lockhart if she didn't send a master dueler or retired master auror to help him with the practical preparation for the NEWTS? So the team might not be there to arrest him, but chances are good that they're no less qualified than such a team would be.

Anyway, Dunkelzahn, I've enjoyed this story when you started writing it and am very happy to have found it again - and so much awesome new stuff since then! Thanks so much for writing and sharing. The world building is some of the best I've seen.
There are just two points that I think you might have lost track of:
1) Magic background level. They talked about how it changed over time, but is seems that nobody really cared to check how it changed when Harry opened the last node. That seems odd.
2) Flamel seemed very interested in Harry and how his body worked. Now he might be a loner at heart, but it still seems odd that he doesn't check in even once. Not with Snape for more info, not with the team when they went to Stonehenge, nothing. Not impossible, but odd.

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we know pretty well how will be sent:

Perhaps she could arrange something more discreet.

Griselda frowned in thought. She had been around for a very long time, and she had contacts in almost every field of endeavor in the wizarding world, including a more than a few former aurors. In fact, come to think of it, several of those were former or current instructors as well.

Perhaps she could prevail upon one or two to step out of retirement for a time and provide some subtle assistance to the beleaguered Defense professor — just a bit of advice on topics to cover and teaching methods?

She smiled, pleased at the thought. Yes, that seemed to be the way to go. The elderly witch nodded decisively.

Now, to decide who to approach…

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from 3.16.6

He will get help from former aurors.
Now I personally don't think he will get very far if he tries to run or try to take them out with an ambush and then run considering that he was more on the cleanup side of things and not heavy combat,arrest of violent wizards/witches and tracking of said wizards/witches.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

Very nice chapter and much improved, I especially liked Hermionie acting like a stupid teenager and quitting the stamina exercise, pretending she had far less stamina than she did, to cover up the fact she had less stamina than Abigail
Abigail shedding her robes was also much better than I recall, and while I didn't spot any changes in Lockhart and the Ravenclaw's meeting scenes they seemed even better on a second read through.

The discussion with Flitwick also seemed improved, however
1)Given that they're planning an experiment to determine if the snakes are conjured or summoned, and the situation is not conclusive yet, this

Seems a bit too contrived and talking to the reader rather than Harry (especially the bolded bit) since obviously there are other situations where the theories would be called into question.
2)You have Flitwick going from "I don't know and I don't think anyone ever asked the question" to "This is the accepted theory and you just discovered evidence that calls it into question" in seconds, which doesn't seem to make sense.
3)While Harry obviously is capable of Mastery level work at his young age, and Flitwick knows that so him planning to have Harry achieve his Mastery of Charms before reaching his OWL year makes sense, this:
Makes it sound like Harry asking the question, and needing to be told about putting together an experiment to falsify the theory, are somehow evidence of Harry's genius.

EDIT: I suggest you put the old chapter in Spoilers, or at least add a note about it - not everyone follows the Threadmarks when they read a new thread, and the Threadmark name is very easy to miss.

Click to shrink...

Perhaps this would be more palatable

3.17.10 A teacher's musings

As the charms master watched Harry Potter leave his office, the diminutive man practically vibrated with glee, his expression full of a burning zeal which would have sent his lazier students running for the hills had they beheld it.

The young dragon was only halfway through his second year, yet he was already producing research ideas like this one! To be sure, it was an idea he had stumbled upon rather than sought out, but he had been observant enough to see something was off about the situation and, more importantly, was curious enough to ask about it!

Filius knew perfectly well that that spark of curiosity, more than anything else, was the mark of a great magical researcher — far too many wizards, upon seeing something strange or unexpected were all too willing to simply dismiss it as 'magic' and inquire no further. That essential curiosity taken in combination with the young dragon's raw intelligence, literally inhuman magical endurance, and the dogged determination that was so readily apparent in his classwork, made it hard for the half-goblin to miss the potential for greatness in that boy — and for his own career as one of that boy's mentors.

He had even immediately grasped the concept of testing through experimentation — another concept that was depressingly rare in the magical world.

As for the question the dragon had posed so innocently, it was the sort of thing that was practically made for a Master work. As a new approach to something the field was already reasonably familiar with, the topic met the novelty requirements while remaining prosaic enough not to be dismissed out of hand by the more… staid members of the profession — an excellent choice for an upcoming young researcher's debut into the field.

Properly executed — and Filius would see to it that it was properly executed, no matter how hard he had to ride his young student to ensure it — such an investigation could see the boy through to a charms mastery before he sat his OWLs! And aside from the potential for academic advancement, Flitwick was looking forward to seeing what the work would produce — success or failure, it was sure to be fascinating.

The half-goblin chuckled, thinking back on that conversation with Severus, several years previous, in which Filius had made a teasing comment regarding the potions master's uncharacteristic enthusiasm regarding the young dragon's bio-alchemy. At the time, his disagreeable colleague had issued a challenge to wait and see how enthusiastic he was when the boy revolutionized Flitwick's own field.

Admittedly, the situation wasn't yet to that point, but it was an exhilarating experience even now, in its admittedly humble beginnings — though, Flitwick had to admit, at least some of that was simply his normal enthusiasm for teaching bleeding through. Yet after seeing how Severus had fared over the intervening years… well, the master of charms suspected he was in for interesting times to come.

The half-goblin bared his slightly sharpened teeth in a vicious-looking smile at the thought.

They promised to be interesting times, and he was looking forward to every minute of them.

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On the other point, I've now edited the old post to be spoilered.

Ah, but who will she send? Wouldn't it be an insult to Lockhart if she didn't send a master dueler or retired master auror to help him with the practical preparation for the NEWTS? So the team might not be there to arrest him, but chances are good that they're no less qualified than such a team would be.

Anyway, Dunkelzahn, I've enjoyed this story when you started writing it and am very happy to have found it again - and so much awesome new stuff since then! Thanks so much for writing and sharing. The world building is some of the best I've seen.
There are just two points that I think you might have lost track of:
1) Magic background level. They talked about how it changed over time, but is seems that nobody really cared to check how it changed when Harry opened the last node. That seems odd.
2) Flamel seemed very interested in Harry and how his body worked. Now he might be a loner at heart, but it still seems odd that he doesn't check in even once. Not with Snape for more info, not with the team when they went to Stonehenge, nothing. Not impossible, but odd.

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I'll get back to them eventually. Both topics are rather central to some ongoing plot lines.

 

[The Unicorn]

Perhaps this would be more palatable

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"palatable" isn't the word I'd choose but that works quite well.

 

[Demonfir]

Still not caught up but just finished reading tom's second scene.

ive always hated that the basilisk was outright killed and this one seems to have some semblance of intelligence rather than being a simple beast. How amazing would it be to befriend that magnificent beast and find a way for it to live elsewhere or just live?

then again maybe I've just read too much fanfiction! :O

well back to reading and life as usual

EDIT: well I'm up to xmas now. RIPieces Basilisk. Now to see how things go with Tom and the discharge attempt. Happy July the 4th!!!