Chapter 13: Shape up, 'yer landlubber!
*** August 9th, the Villa's gardens, late afternoon. ***
"Prime –Seconde – Tierce – NO! Harry, the other way!" Tonks yelled as she put Harry through the paces with his sword. Hermione had asked to join that session, and was given a conjured smallsword with a colichemarde blade, after a short assessment by Tonks.
She argued that since precision, not strength, were Hermione's forte, she didn't need a cutting edge for chopping. And the ten inch shorter blade was much easier to wield for a girl of her proportions. Despite the fact the shape of the blade was odd Hermione quickly fell in love with the weapon and its astounding grace. Though she knew she would have to learn to wield it carefully to make full use of the weapon, as the lower third of the blade looked like a normal sword, but then it lost half its width in a 'shoulder' and then tapered off to a sharp point at the end. The 'forte', as the broader part was called, would be used for parries, and the rest - more or less a slim poker with a fine point, sharpened at the last four inches - was used for lightning-quick attacks. It would be a challenge but then again she always loved those.
And to prove Tonks right, Hermione had caught up on the parry drill within seconds, while Harry still had problems remembering the correct sequence. Not that he was that bad in execution, anyone who had learned to wield a wand could do reasonably well in fencing with some practice, but unlike Hermione, he always was sloppy with correct positions.
When both started complaining about their arms being tired, Tonks made them switch weapon hand. After all, you never knew if you had to use your sword as primary weapon or to support magical combat.
Tonks kept them busy until early evening, which meant that their arms felt sore enough to fall off at a moment's notice, but at least they now had the eight parries just about right. Under clinical training conditions, at least. Tonks told then that they might be reasonable fencers in a year or so if they didn't slack off like the lazy bums they were.
Hermione was fit to strangle her for that comment, now if she only could raise her hands…
ooOOoo
After a reciprocal back and shoulder rub and a reasonably good night of tired cuddling only - Hermione once more was considering a gruesome death for their teacher for that reason - in the Villa's Master bedroom, both were refreshed enough to start the new day. They stayed in the villa, since neither would be able to climb up a boarding ladder today, nor would Harry be able to row them over to the Revenge.
Both teens were looking forward to the day ahead, the main reason being they got to skip training that day. They were only supposed to visit a few places and people, the most important visit being the trip to Grimmauld Place and then a short stint to talk to the twins.
Maybe they would finally get to use their beach below the cliff for summertime purposes. Apparently Hermione's parents had already gotten around to doing so while the kids were put through the grinder by Tonks - a fact that made Hermione's hands once again flinch at the imagined throat of her instructor. The only thing that stopped them from doing so as well after training was that Matty had warned them not to enter the water at night, because apparently sharks would assemble in the bay during that time. During dinner, Remus and Hermione had come to an agreement to try warding the small inlet against them, which was highly appreciated by Hermione's mum.
Neither Remus, nor Hermione, nor Margret knew that either of them did want to do that because of their secret intentions of a late night skinny-dip with their partner.
Harry had earned himself his first plus points with Hermione today even before breakfast, when he asked her whether they should commission her own sword at Lenny's after they had returned from Britain.
He upped his score later, when he started a discussion about warding one large room against the heat and humidity, so they could transfer the Black library to the island. Hermione nearly forgot that they had company that morning when he mentioned it during breakfast. After having expressed her gratefulness adequately - for now, she immediately started to confer with Remus about the move and whether to move the books in bulk or by criteria.
Their plans for the day were interrupted when Lenny turned up at the Villa with a request for a test run of a wand prototype.
They went out into the lush jungle behind the Villa and quickly found a suitable large tree stump from a toppled tree. Being satisfied with the test area, Lenny rummaged in his bag, and then proudly showed them the wand. Or at least what he meant to be one.
It was a crude piece of bent wood, with a rich, dark honey colour. It was about one and a half inches in diameter and had a sharp bend about one third of the way from the handle end.
Lenny noticed the questioning look Harry gave his work and commented accordingly. "Don't worry, this is only a crude shape, I didn't want to spend hours fancying up a useless piece of wood. That's why I want a test run. I lack the juice to make this baby work," he said with a broad smile lightening up his face
"Oh great, I was afraid that this was the final shape," Harry laughed in relief as he eyed the thick, crude wand over.
"What is this wand made of?" asked Hermione, while giving the wand-shaped object a very through visual examination. "I've never seen such a design before. Looks like a pistol without barrel. Did you do this to aid aiming?"
"Well, while it really worked out that way and I would like to take credit for this innovation, the sad truth is that I needed some seasoned wood. You see, because of the foci to be included, my wandwood stock didn't fit," Lenny chuckled in his deep voice.
"So I went through my piles of wood for other purposes. Sadly, all my straight wood of acceptable size, the material destined for gun shafts, consisted of walnut, a wood notoriously prone to fail as wandwood," the man remarked as a side comment.
Hermione gave him a critical eye at this statement. She considered it heresy to point something out without explaining the reasons behind. Not knowing her 'you better tell me why, NOW!' look, Lenny obliviously continued.
"At first, I was devastated, but then I did the obvious. Since a pistol is hand-held, too, I went through that stock and finally settled for that piece, which was the only one long enough to contain the length of the core materials we chose. Let me tell you, it was hell to split it properly and bed the cores. That's why I wanted to have a test run before I invest all the work to finish it up properly," Lenny concluded.
"I beg your pardon, I thought you said cores? As in plural, multiple? I didn't think that was possible," Remus quipped. Margret and Henry started looking intrigued, as this was proving to be even more interesting that they thought.
"Not impossible, just highly unusual. You see, most wizards or witches aren't even taxing their single cores. Only a very powerful person would be limited by a single core," Lenny waved the question off.
"And how many cores did you use for this wand?" Tonks asked.
"Four."
"Four? Why in Merlin's name did you use that many?" she screeched in shock, some parrots joining in as they vacated the trees surrounding the clearing.
"Well, it began with a theory. I thought that if I were to combine different kinds of foci in a wand, they would share the load. And since in Magic one and one usually equals to more than two, any number of cores should be able to handle a more than their number times the magic of a single core," Lenny started talking, waving his hands around while he explained his theory.
"You refer to the Rockford law?" Remus inquired. Hermione and Lenny nodded immediately, while Harry and Tonks shared a blank look and a shrug. They were clearly out of their league. Henry didn't even attempt to make sense of this and chose to watch in silence, while Margret proved Hermione's parentage by listening closely, soaking up the information, although it was of no use for her.
"Since I had four working cores left, I decided against being cheap and for using all of them. But that left me with the problem of wood compatibility. Since I had four different kinds of foci, each with affinities to special kinds of wood, it was impossible to find a perfect fit."
"Sounds complicated, why not simply use four of the same kind?" Harry outed himself as complete layman. Henry was glad that Harry shouldered the blame for a question he would have uttered a second later too, as Hermione took it on herself to educate her boyfriend.
"Because Rockford's law states that multiple foci of the same kind do block each other while different materials amplify their usefulness."
"Yes, Miss, that is correct. So, since a perfect wood would be impossible, I took a risk and ignored it," Lenny conceded.
"I assumed that the interaction of the various foci would generate enough of a magical field to overcome the resistance of a less then perfect wood. The only question was what kind of wood I should use. I finally settled for Black Locust, a very easy to work wood which is very durable and hard to set on fire, which I thought important, given your special problem. It didn't hurt that I had lots of it in storage."
Having said all that was worth saying, Lenny then pointed at the massive, still standing trunk of the toppled tree in the distance. "So, if you allow, I think we should commence testing."
ooOOoo
"Holy mother of FUCK!" A yell was ringing across the clearing, not scaring any wildlife, for the simple reason that everything living had already moved the hell out of there.
"Language, Tonks!" Remus scolded his girlfriend off-handedly. "And just for the protocol, I agree!" He added as he tried to blink the spots from his vision. The Grangers were standing a bit away, with their mouths wide open, their ears ringing, and utterly speechless.
Even Hermione was standing motionless, as was Harry, both blinking wildly at the sight of the watermelon sized hole in the six feet diameter tree stump they had used for target practice.
In prior testing, Harry was able to hold his Patronus practically indefinitely without any noticeable heat-up occurring, but then Lenny wanted to test the maximal power Harry could push through the wand in one concentrated blast.
A regular reducto, as provided by Hermione, Remus, and Tonks as benchmark, while excellent to blast objects into pieces or bring down walls, should only have managed to create a fist-deep indention in that tough hardwood timber. Harry was able to do about half again as much damage with his normal Osage wand, while his wandless blast was more like a children's fist.
But with the use of Lenny's customized wand, Harry had not only bored a three feet deep, over one foot wide hole into the tree. Also, the whole back half had splintered away, leaving a wide funnel at the other side.
Henry once more came to the conclusion to not meddle in the kids' relationship. In accordance to his own prediction a few weeks ago, Harry could in fact smite him where he stood.
While Harry was alternating looking at the tree and his wand in his still outstretched arm, Hermione shuddered at the thought what carnage a blasting hex or bone-breaker would cause with that wand.
"Did you just see that?" Harry asked his teachers, while slowly turning around to face them.
"Will you stop pointing that THING at us!" Tonks shrieked and jumped aside as his wand came to point in their general direction due to Harry's movement. Remus kept quiet, but even he had to fight the urge to get the hell out of the way of wherever that wand was aimed at.
Lenny was clapping his hands, proudly. He already knew that his wand worked for Harry, but these results were amazing.
"Very well, now that I know the wand will work, let me take it back to the shop to finish it. Give me another day or two, and it will be all done," he said, gently taking the bent piece of wood from Harry, and left the stunned group to fend for themselves, whistling a song and walking with a spring in his step as he navigated his way through the now deserted flowery jungle back to the villa, and to town.
*** Grimmauld place #12, 9 am local time. ***
"Master Harry!" The elf's war cry echoed through the study before Harry's sight had stopped spinning. It had taken the elf only a blink's time to arrive at the study where the portkey had dumped the group.
"Hello Dobby. Are you well?" Harry replied as soon as he had recovered his bearings.
Naturally, this lead to a lengthy proclamation of Harry being "The Bestest," because of him caring for a lowly servant like Dobby. This, while already nearly a normal occurrence for Harry, amused the adults of their group to no end, still. While Harry silently cursed the necessary decision to take everyone back - since he was the only one able to operate the portkey - Hermione left Harry to fend with Dobby and called for Winky.
"Master Harry's Grangy, Miss has called?" Winky replied dutifully upon arriving; only wrinkling her ears slightly at the sight of Dobby doing his improper antics, again.
Suppressing the urge to shudder at this honorific - at least the elves thought it to be one - Hermione asked the question Harry won't be able to ask for a while longer, as he still was consoling the weeping Dobby.
"Did anything of interest happen while we were away?"
"Only the Double Ginger Mischief Makers being calling a lot over the Floo, but Winky only did tell them that you is being away. Winky is not being telling Master's secrets, Winky is a good elf!" the small elf told her, prompting Hermione to tell her that she indeed was a very good elf, lest they had two crying elves to console.
"I have one question for both of you, Dobby and Winky. Can you pop over to the Black island?" Harry asked, having calmed Dobby down to only occasional sniffles.
"Winky is being sorry, Master, but we be knowing that island is over the ocean. Elves do only being able to pop a few hundred miles per pop. We is having no place to stop in between," Winky replied, and both elves were looking very contrite about having to disappoint their master. Their hanging ears and huge eyes gave them a very sad puppy-like look.
"No problem, I only asked. But you can travel by portkey, can't you?" Harry asked, and received a positive reply by both elves. "Ok, that settled, does anyone of you know how to make a room in a humid climate suitable for a library?"
Dobby was jumping up and down in joy at this request, causing the adults in the background to finally lose it over the elf's antics. "Dobby is being caring for Malfoy library a lot. Dobby knows what to do. Is island being as wet as Wiltshire?" the small creature continued eagerly, either not noticing, or ignoring the reaction of his Master's friends.
Harry was looking around, lost for an answer. Hermione and the Grangers shrugged, not being accustomed with that area. Remus came to his aid. "Yes, about as humid, but it has at 20 to 40 degrees all year round," he said while wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.
Dobby nodded enthusiastic at that news. "Dobby can do, Master Harry, Sir."
Harry ignored a squeal, suppressed to near silence, from Hermione at the last obstacle to moving the library being cleared, as he walked towards the Floo. He knew she already pondered which book to read first, down at the beach.
While Hermione went to look for Crookshanks - who probably would be in the attic, catching rodents - Harry went to Floo the 'Double Ginger Mischief Makers'.
"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!" he called out while throwing a pinch of powder into the fireplace. As soon as the flames turned green, he dropped to his knees and stuck his head in, secure in the knowledge that a Floo projection can't be jinxed. 'Although if it could,' he thought, 'the twins would be the ones to find out how to do that'.
"Harry! Where the hell have you been?" Was the instant response by one of the twins as his vision stopped spinning and the cluttered back office of the shop came into view. Harry couldn't say exactly which one, especially because the twin in question was wearing a horrible lime-green jacket, probably extremely expensive by the sheer ugliness of it, and horribly crashing with his red hair and the purple pants.
"Here, there, an island in the Caribbean..." Harry joked, savouring the annoyed expression of the twin before being shouted at.
"Wait a moment, Harry, you went to the Caribbean and didn't tell me or Gred?" While grinning like a maniac, Harry filed away the fact that he was probably talking to Fred, or Forge, like he called himself since Harry's second year or thereabouts.
"Gred! Come back here this instant and help me yell at our investor!" Fred yelled out of the door. A few seconds later the second twin entered, dressed exactly the same. "If only they were to share two pairs of suits, like Dobby does with his socks, then there would be a way to tell them apart," Harry thought.
"Harry? Where the hell have you been?" George asked him, giving Harry the usual feeling of deja-vu everyone now and then has around the twins. Sometimes it was amazing how they managed to always say exactly the same things.
"He's been cavorting around on a Caribbean island while we were working our asses off," Fred answered. Harry didn't like the way they turned and were glaring at him. Not. At. All.
"You see, I found out about that island and after checking if it is inhabitable, I called you to officially invite you two over, but since I now fear to be the recipient of an all-out prank war, I don't think it's a good idea any longer," Harry began evasively backing off, but was of course interrupted by them.
"Harry, mate, you got us completely wrong," Fred purred in a low voice, which made Harry a bit uncomfortable when George continued in the same manner.
"We would never, ever do something so reprehensible,"
"So vile and evil, "
"To our distinguished investor,"
"Our adopted brother,"
"And overall best friend out of our year."
Harry thought the overall performance to be quite nice and nearly believable, only the halos around their heads were a bit over the top.
"Well, I'll show mercy this time, and will even hand you an olive branch and grant you both entry to Grimmauld Place. Can you get some hired help and be over in an hour or so to talk?" Harry played along, and received their counter-timed double nod, again. It was even faster then last time, showing that they actually practiced that move. Shaking his head, Harry bade goodbye and withdrew from the Floo.
After Harry had added the twins to the wards - under protest from Remus and Tonks - Harry instructed the elves to start packing the library into trunks for transfer. Hermione of course, but unnecessarily, reminded the elves to correctly seal the trunks to protect the books until the new library room would be prepared. She then decided to better supervise the elves and rushed to the Library after they had popped away. Harry just chuckled silently at his girl. He knew she loved her books nearly as much as him. Ok, he at least hoped that he came before the books, but he wouldn't try her and was rather glad of what he had right now. No need to make things even more complicated, right?
By the time they had packed all their things from their rooms and fetched the Granger's trunks containing their household, the elves - with occasional help by Remus when they noticed a book to be cursed - where a good quarter into the library. There were already ten transfigured trunks standing around, full to the brim with shrunken tomes. While Hermione painstakingly checked the sealant charms, the others retired to the drawing room, waiting for the twins to complete the talk Harry had begun.
Ten minutes later, the sounds of Floo arrival were heard, twice, and then voices and the squeak of an elf talking. A moment later, the door flew open and the twins strode in. Most eyes in the room immediately started to water when the multi-coloured floral print shirts, left unbuttoned to leave some hairless, pale skin visible came into view. The colour-changing shorts completed the outfit and bared a lot of spindly, pale leg to the public. Harry briefly thanked the gods that at least they didn't do the sunglass, hat and white nose combo that Aunt Petunia did whenever she went into the garden in summer.
"We're ready! Let's move!" They proclaimed in unison.
"You know I asked you over to talk, don't you?" Harry carefully asked.
"Island now, talk later," one twin said, the other nodding fervently, grinning from ear to ear.
"We have thrown a week's worth of clothes into our trunks and got some employees to work under Lee,"
"Who is now managing the place while we are ready to permanently retire to an island,"
"Concentrating on research and innovation,"
"In a more inspirational environment!" They finished, beaming at the audience, who were collectively glaring at Harry, who was currently hitting his head against the table, repeatedly.
With a sigh, Harry faced the unavoidable. "One condition - you will behave with the islanders," he said.
Remus had other plans. "Come on, Harry. You know how boring island life can be. Let them bring some entertainment into the town. You know that the people would appreciate it," he said, causing everyone to smile, most because of being 'in the know', and two because of not being.
"At least they won't have problems with the dress code, I presume," Margret gave the final comment before the exodus, mark two, began.
About half an hour later, everyone including the elves and ten lightened trunks of various stuff and books were portkeyed half across the world. While the elves started to prepare the new library, which Hermione wanted to supervise, they all quickly changed into their now customary clothes. Hermione was the quickest by far, since wearing fewer articles than anyone else, much to Harry's pleasure. As she passed them by, the twins were eyeing her approvingly, which led Remus and Tonks to take them aside, telling them the law of the lands. Harry smirked amused as he overheard the words 'broadside' and 'keelhauling' in that hushed speech across the room, while he was sliding his rapier sash over his shoulder.
Soon they convened in the bigger sitting room, which was held in a mint green and had space for about ten people to sit and chat at leisure.
Of course, the twins had opted for those horrid red-white ringed tights, under brown knee-length trousers. A garish coloured hotchpotch of shirts, vests, sashes and a tricorne, each, was completing their outfits. One of them had a huge gold hoop, probably via sticking charm, dangling from his left ear, the other one from the right. They looked like, well, like having spent like a sailor in a clothes shop.
"In case you noticed," Tonks told them, "the hoops are to tell them apart. Whoever wears the earring at the right side is Fred, no matter which one it is. If they wear them at the same side, they will be keelhauled, end of story. I, for one, am fed up with not knowing who is who."
"This place is cool, Harry!" the twins chorused, and then only - 'one moment; hoop at the right side, that's his left ear, so it's George,' Harry deducted - continued. "Now do you always wear that stuff here?"
Henry answered before Harry managed. "Well until now, we have, since these clothes are very appropriate for this climate, and we only packed for an overnight, so they came convenient; but we only have to wear them when on board or in town. In the Villa - that's this building - or down on the Skull Beach, we usually wear normal clothes. The villagers always wear them."
One of the twins had a question. It was Fred, according to the hoop. "What do you mean with 'on board'? Remus mentioned keelhauling, so there is a ship?"
"Yes, two actually," Margret explained," the Pathfinder belongs to the town, while the Revenge is Harry's personal vessel."
"Cool, your own yacht? Tell, how big is it?" Fred addressed Harry in his seat across the room, who answered with a sly smile, while buffing his nails. "Oh, not that big, only about 150 feet, and 48 guns…"
Laughter ensued when the twins threw themselves at his feet bowing and canting that they were unworthy, over and over again.
ooOOoo
"Oh, get up, you are worthy! Ok, now that you are here, would you be so kind to tell us what you wanted to tell us so badly," Harry said when they finally had ended their antics.
"Well, actually," Fred said, letting himself drop onto the couch.
"we..." George continued, while falling into place next to his brother.
"STOP!" Harry yelled as he jumped up and stomped over to them. "Just one of you talks, the other one stays silent. I don't need another headache. So, can you do this?" He said, fingering his sword as he squinted at them.
"You are no fun, Harry, we expected more from a man with a really big gun," Fred lamented.
"Yes, entirely too touchy for a man with so much wood," George agreed, much to the amusement of the people sitting with them, minus Harry.
"We get it! We get it!" Harry groaned, his face turning a vibrant shade of red. "Now would you please come to the point?"
"But we haven't even commented on the size of your mast," Fred grumbled and held his hands up in a protective gesture when Harry moved forward with his hand on the hilt of his blade, ready to draw.
"Actually, we wanted to find out where you had gone, and warn you, since Dumbledore knew that you were gone within minutes," Fred quickly changed the topic as if were his intention all the time.
"He had?" Henry asked, surprised at the news.
"Yes, he had an emergency meeting by nine o'clock on the eighth. He told us that you had left an hour ago. Had everyone running up and down the country looking for you; he was completely up in arms because he couldn't find you anywhere," Fred reported on his own as demanded, while George resorted to sign language and expressive dance to complete the experience. Harry grumbled, but he had only told him to keep silent, so he could only blame himself.
"But how could he know that?" Henry asked curiously, only to get his answer from everyone around him at once.
"Moody" and "Mad-eye" echoed through the room. Everybody magical knew that only that man could be the reason.
Fred nodded, while George assumed a champion pose.
"That walking scar tissue guy? Why him?" Henry asked. He remembered that man with his peg leg well. Everybody would remember a man like Moody.
"You remember his eye - that electric blue one? He can see through everything with it," Tonks told him. While Henry nodded at that, Margret flinched and wrinkled her face in disgust.
"So when he was talking to me, he was probably peeping beneath my clothes?" she said, making Hermione flinch, too. She never had thought that Moody might do that. She turned to face Tonks, who had worked a lot with Moody and had to know.
Tonks ruefully shook her head. "You know, you learn to ignore that over time. I know for fact that he scans everyone he sees through all layers to find hidden weapons. So he certainly has," she said, and ignored the disgusted faces all around, especially from the twins. "But he checks so many people at once that his eye barely stays long enough to notice much detail. And he has grown so accustomed to it that he doesn't even register it anymore. He once told me that it would distract him if he would care for what he sees, and he could never let that happen," she told them, which made all the kids yell "Constant vigilance!" in unison.
"Ok, that means the cat is out of the bag," Remus began, smiling faintly. "But at the other hand, it is great for us that he knows."
Harry and the twins gave him a baffled look and the Grangers looked like deep in thought. Hermione looked intrigued, and Tonks smiled knowingly.
Before anyone else could reach a conclusion, Harry already asked for it. "Why exactly?"
"Oh cub, don't be so dense! He now knows that you can leave and disappear to somewhere completely out of his reach. And he needs you. That leaves us in a very good position if we ever need to talk to him."
"Whatever," said, Harry, slapping his thighs with both hands. "Sounds great, but I had some plans for today, and those include a beach, my girlfriend, and a very small bikini suit on her. So, I don't know about you, but I want to get into the ocean before the sharks assemble."
His proposition not meeting any opposition, they all went to change into beachwear and soon assembled in the foyer. They went down the path leading down the cliff to Skull Beach, and it was very hard to keep the twins from storming down and maybe injuring themselves as they saw the ship out on the water.
While the adults were using the time to tan themselves on loungers Tonks transfigured from some seashells and chatting about this and that, Harry and Hermione used the opportunity to frolic in the waves and the deeper water, just being teenagers in love for once.
All this time, the twins were just standing chest-deep in the water, grinning at the Revenge in a most disturbing manner.
ooOOoo
As the group returned from their swim, everyone went to change and agreed to meet in the sitting room. When Harry returned, he went straight to the bar and poured himself some fruit juice.
Turning around, he yelped and dropped the glass, already half way into casting a spell before he stopped himself. Out of nowhere, the twins were standing before him, probably having apparated in right as he turned around. Deep inside, Harry was sure that they didn't make a popping, but more a 'sproing' sound when doing so, like the spring of a jack-in-the-box. He seriously could imagine them like that.
Both were looking at him with puppy eyes. He took a calming breath and asked them what they wanted.
*** Later that evening, the Villa, Master bedroom ***
"I can't believe you really allowed them that!" Hermione railed as she renewed the silencing charm on the window for the tenth time or so. "They are going on for hours already! Couldn't you at least take the charm off?"
"No, that charm is integrated in the guns, and silencing doesn't work on them," Harry sighed.
"Matty said even if you managed to remove the cannon blast charm runes from the gun without destroying it, the sound they make without is nearly as loud, but at least twice as annoying, like Styrofoam was being rubbed or a nail on a blackboard, depending on the shot. It took a cannon blast charm to mask it with something you could live with. I'll go and talk to them, alright? Or maybe Remus or Tonks know a good sound barrier shield."
"Do this - I'll try to make sense of this warding book here. I want this shark repellent ward be done as soon as possible," Hermione smiled, and again bowed over her book, trying to make sense of the Runes and Arithmacy involved.
ooOOoo
AN:
"Hmmm, that's not right either," DerLaCroix huffed as he threw another crumpled piece of paper in the direction of the wastebasket, missing because of the heap of balled up papers it was already overflowing with.
Tentatively, embirsiphonelilathia stepped closer to hand over today's reports on the Greek hostile takeover in progress. "What are you doing, boss?" she asked as she saw the various drawings of costumes scattered all over the desk.
"I'm working on a secret persona to get some fun occasionally," he huffed, shifting papers in search for one in particular. "This one is the best I came up with," he said.
Embi raised an eyebrow at the picture, which showed someone in a red/green Hussar's uniform, wearing what looked like a Venetian mask.
"Very dashing," she commented. "Do you have a proper name lined up already?"
"Dunno," DerLaCroix sighed. "For some reason, all I came up with was Gary Stu…"
ooOOoo
I am sore from putting up fences all weekend, and have sunburn all over my back. I had to get up early to repair the corral, noticing I haven't got the right material anymore and have to improvise. I then tried to have breakfast when my cat ate too fast, again, and got sick all over the carpet. I cleaned that up and then drove two hours to work. Tonight, I'll have to put in more fencing before sundown, while being eaten alive by various bugs.
Happy birthday, me…
PS: All negative repliers will be summarily shot.
Chapter 14: Storm ahead!
Over the next few days, things changed.
The most notable being, Tonks' knowledge of a Barrier spell. After she taught them Harry had managed to cast it well enough that the sound of a cannon was muffled to a small pop at the beach and could scarcely be heard up at the villa.
The Twins weren't slacking off either, they had actually practiced with the guns. Though the initial feeling of their friends and the crew was wary suspicion they quickly proved that they could be serious about anything involving explosions. The conjured up bright red balls for targets, charmed them to swim off at a certain distance and released them into the water before proceeding to shoot every last one of them.
And since guns were things that made noise and made other things go boom, the twins not only fell in love with them, but were practically born to use them. They even tried to figure out the runic enchantments to make one for themselves, for their lab they had started constructing over at an unused beach at the islands eastern side, which Harry assigned them.
Harry and Hermione continued their training with magic and swordplay, soon though their night began to include studying a sizable part of the Black Library that Dobby had been able to set up within a few days. They had to return to Grimmauld place twice more, fetching a total of 12 trunks full of 'reasonably safe' books shrunken to paperback size. These trips netted them a respectable stack of knowledge to have on hand. Most of the books concentrated on the different areas of spell work, though there was still many left at Grimmauld that focused on the darker side of magic. Those books wouldn't be touched until Remus could go through them and check thoroughly for curses and other nasty traps.
ooOOoo
With a flick of his finger, a red wedge of magical energy impacted on the piece of wood, cleaving it in two, with one half falling off. Harry quickly flicked his finger again, turning the half that was still standing on the block ninety degrees before cutting it again. Then he took a sip from the butterbeer next to his seat and levitated the other half onto the cutting block.
"You know..." Henry's voice sounded from behind him, making the boy jump slightly. "When I heard that you were out to chop wood for tonight's bonfire, I thought I should go out and help you with the hard work. I definitely didn't expect this..."
Harry had the decency to blush in his recliner. "Honestly, I tried! I volunteered to do it so the elves could concentrate on the food, and thought I could lose myself in the work and thought, but it didn't work. The axe only got stuck," he told the man closing in on him in a near whine that made Henry shake his head in mirth. The boy still had huge problems dealing with people he had respect for. Henry liked the fact that Harry did show him respect as Hermione's father, but he felt it was time to try getting a better relation started between them. In his opinion, working together was the best way to bond, and this was the only kind of work he could help the boy with.
"Maybe it was too small," Henry admitted as supportive as possible. That was the usual problem with people, trying to cop down trees with a kitchen hatchet.
"Well, I copied the biggest axe I ever saw," Harry told him, with a quick point in the direction of the axe.
Henry shot a quick glance in the direction of the axe leaning on the pile of wood and gave a snort. Harry had obviously tended to the other far end of the spectrum.
"Harry, this axe would be fine in Conan's hands, but not for chopping wood," he laughed as he pointed at the double-bladed battleaxe. "You need a thicker axe-head to split the wood," he told the highly embarrassed teenager.
"What would that look like?" Harry asked, and Henry drew a shape into the ground with some wood splinters, explaining the design to Harry, who listened intently to the man. Thirty seconds later, Harry had the tool transfigured from his old axe, and gotten the design approved by Henry.
While Harry made a few test swings, Henry walked over to the pile of wood and placed the first piece onto the block. With a big overhead swing, Harry cleanly bisected the wood, both halves falling off the block. Henry immediately placed another on it, before picking up one of the halves.
"Wow, that's much better," Harry said with a smile as he now could work his surplus energy off. "Too bad the Dursleys only had an electric fireplace. I wouldn't have minded this for a chore!" he laughed, while Henry placed another log on the block and shook his head at the heresy of an electric fireplace.
"What exactly did you want to think about? I've noticed you've looked lost lately, more sad than anything," Henry asked as Harry again had sent the halves flying, putting one of the prior split halves on the block.
Harry frowned and paused mid-swing, before swinging so hard that the axe got firmly stuck in the block. When Henry quirked an eyebrow, Harry wrenched the axe out and gave a sigh. "I had a talk with the twins. They told me that Voldemort is supposedly back to his old, nasty self," he said and sent another log flying in two directions. Henry decided to let him talk and just replaced the logs as quickly as the boy hit them.
"His Death Eaters are roaming the country again, and while they haven't done much to the wizarding public, yet," Harry huffed as the axe dropped with considerably more force then before, "the Order is well aware that they are killing Muggles again," he said through clenched teeth as he pulled and pushed to pry his tool loose.
Henry nodded gravely, and gave the axe-handle a shove to help Harry. When Harry stepped back and got ready again, Henry picked up a log, but held onto it instead of placing it on the block right away. He turned it in his hand with a few light tosses as he brought his thoughts into order. "Let me guess, you feel like you should go there and do something instead of sitting here and hiding, don't you?"
Harry lowered the axe and leaned on it. "Of course - I'm the only one that can stop this monster, and I'm hiding on an island instead of fighting him. There are people dying in Britain, and I'm sitting here and doing nothing, instead of going back and start working on bringing him down."
Henry weighted the log in his hands for another long moment before raising his head and looking Harry straight in the eyes. "Aren't you are a bit harsh on yourself? You're not exactly dragging your feet, and doing nothing but tanning and dancing the night away, Harry - you study most of the day, and I know you can already duel Tonks to a tie."
"That stuff you both do while fighting looks amazing, by the way," he added with a smile as he noted the boy blush lightly under the praise.
"Still, ask yourself, even with your new power, what chance would you give yourself to win? Fifty-fifty?" he dug deeper, watching the boy carefully.
"Or even less?" Henry asked as he noticed Harry looking down at the mention of the odds. As Harry sighed sadly, Henry set the log down on the block and reached out to grab Harry's shoulder.
"Son, I know how hard this is on you, but right now, the only thing you can do is to learn as much as you can so you are ready to face him one day. Just be patient," he said and stepped back, indicating Harry to continue chopping. Harry gave him a thoughtful nod, and soon they fell into a comfortable rhythm, chipping the wood in silence.
ooOOoo
The next morning, they got a Toucan from Lenny. Harry remembered the strange bird that brought him the post from Sirius - after all, owls weren't native to the Caribbean. Lenny's note sounded excited, he would like them to come over, at once, because he had a proposition for Harry. After a short discussion, all agreed to go together, since they were curious. Especially the twins were; they missed the first demonstration of Harry's 'battlewand' and had only heard about it second-hand.
After everyone was dressed and the twins were nearly oath-bound to behave, the group departed down to the village. At the workshop, they found a locked door, and only after hard knocking and yelling, Lenny opened and rapidly ushered them in. As soon as they were in, he locked the door and picked up a heavy looking iron bar, which he placed across the doors, barricading them. He then inserted a huge, rune-covered padlock into some massive loops in the bar and the doors, locking them. Hermione and Harry exchanged some meaningful looks as the padlock started glowing violet, the glow expanding to the bar and then to the doors.
As he started to activate some rune clusters on the wall and hinges, which Harry could at least identify as Norse by now, people started to get nervous. Except for Remus, who had to keep an eye on the twins who were standing dangerously close to the hearth and the fires, and thus had missed most of Lenny's strange behaviour.
Finally, Lenny had powered all the wards on the door and turned towards them.
"Hello, I'm sorry if I seem a bit paranoid, but what I have done is so revolutionary that I don't want anybody to hear about it."
Everybody nodded, as that made sense, in a way. Giving the door another wary glance, Lenny went to the counter and rummaged a bit under it. He started tapping patterns of the wooden mosaic on a drawer of his desk with his wand, and a quiet tune started playing. As Lenny tapped a few more patterns on the wooden inlays, a bell started sounding, seemingly somewhere in the distance. This made Lenny tap the inlays in a frantic way, until finally, the bell and music ceased with an amazingly loud click, and a very relieved looking Lenny reached into a compartment and fetched a box, of which everybody assumed that it contained the finished wand.
Their surprise was great when Lenny opened it and revealed a muzzle-loader handgun. It was a fantastic piece of work, with and octagonal brass barrel, a fine carved flint lock and silver inlays all over.
Everybody was examining the gun when Hermione gasped. "These inlays! These are runes!" she said, bending over to have a closer look.
Harry also took a closer look and had to agree. Those fine lines formed various runes, along the barrel, the lock and all over the gun. "What are those for?" he asked, awed at the sight of fine workmanship. Remus would have liked to study those as well, but he was stuck watching the twins, who had turned to look at the shelves of guns for themselves, after no wand was presented, yet.
"These look like a warding of some sort, like an impervious rune cluster, but there is some difference I can't read properly - they're too small," Hermione prompted as she examined the lock and pan, her nose nearly touching the gun as she tried to decipher the tiny symbols.
"They are something I have come up with over the years. These are to protect the powder chamber and the charge from water, and guarantee it to only be ignited by the spark of the lock," Lenny proudly admitted.
"So this really uses powder?" Henry asked. "I would have thought that it would work with magic, like those guns!"
Lenny looked at him disbelieving. "It would be impossible to enchant a wand that way. These small rune additions are the most you can do. Those and the featherlight runes to make this wand only twice as heavy as the Captain's other wand," he said in a voice as if Henry just had asked him to teach Flobberworms to fly.
Silence reigned after this statement, as everybody alternated between staring at Lenny and the gun.
"Wait a moment - this is my wand?" Harry gasped as these words finally had fully registered with his mind.
"Wicked!" the twins intoned with broad grins. The mention of this gun actually being a wand had them leave the rack of pistols they were perusing right then and coming over, giving Remus a chance to look at the thing, too.
"Yes, of course," Lenny told him, raising an eyebrow at him. "Why else would I do all this mystery-mongering?"
"But... You made my wand a gun!" Harry blurted, his mind still not grasping the situation entirely.
"Yes!" Lenny cheered. "Can't you see it? It's fantastic - a feature that makes this wand extra dangerous. The form makes targeting very easy, especially if you point-cast, like you do. And when I started to clean up the wood, the idea came to me to mount a gun onto it. It's fantastic. If you are exhausted or need an advantage, you just cock the gun and pull the trigger, maybe even while casting a spell. There is no shield that can stop a spell and a bullet the same time!"
Tonks nodded approvingly. "That is promising. The form would certainly make a wand better in combat. I would say that I definitely would like to have a normal wand with this kind of grip, if you agree to make me one."
"Me too," Remus added before Tonks could continue. The twins were not far behind.
"But I see a problem with that gun on it. Even with the charm work, it makes the wand heavy and thus slow. And I bet that the metal barrel interferes with spell casting," Tonks insisted after a bit of examination, but without touching the thing. She still was intimidated of it.
"Well, yes. That would be the case," Lenny granted. "I had to use brass to minimize the disturbance. But with this wand, it wasn't much of a concern, since the multiple cores are more than able to counter the metal interference. So maybe that wouldn't be a practical option on a normal wand," he conceded with a slight sigh.
In the background, Fred rose an eyebrow and mouthed the word 'multiple' to his brother, who replied by making a series of rude gestures with his hands, both laughing.
Tonks eyed the wand-gun-chimera closely. "Still, everybody can see the gun barrel, which negates the surprise effect. Can't you disillusion it?"
"Regrettably, no, I can't. It would take a very powerful enchantment to keep working on a wand. Disillusion charms won't hold long."
"How about using a Fidelius?" Hermione asked curiously. Everybody else turned and looked strangely at her for that. "What? You have still enough space on the barrel to carve the runes necessary, and could protect the secret that it looks like a gun, and no one would notice it anymore," she protested the insinuations held in those looks.
Lenny looked at Hermione a little longer, before a smile split his face. "That could work! And if you share the secret, others could use that secondary feature too, since the wand has nothing to do with it. The secret would probably fail to everyone who sees it fired, but you would certainly have a surprise effect," he babbled on, while Hermione put her hand on her hip and shifted to rest her weight on the other foot in an overly saucy way, tilting her head and smirking at the others in her 'I-told-you-so' manner.
"Why not go even farther?" Margret asked. "You could make it a secret that it looks different from a normal wand. People wouldn't even notice the strange form anymore," she proposed, bringing the light in Lenny's eyes up a few more candelas.
"OK, enough theory. Can anyone here actually cast this charm?" Harry asked eagerly. "No need to discuss this if we can't do it," he stated.
"For something of this size, I can," Remus volunteered after a short moment of consideration, and raised his hands in a protective gesture. "And yes, Hermione, I'll show you how to do it," he added rapidly, anticipating her question.
Harry clapped his hands and smiled. "Then let's try - I'll be the secret keeper, myself."
Five minutes of carving and a very long spell later, the wand looked for the entire world as like a normal wand would; in fact, it didn't have any description other than 'It looks like a normal wand.' Only those in the room knew the secret, for obvious reasons. Harry wanted them to be able to use it in case they needed to, and Lenny was the only one able to service it.
It shouldn't have to be said that Lenny received orders for five more wands with single core and pistol grip. While all the wizards were measured and tested for core materials, Henry and Margret chose pistols for their own self-defence, a long and very well made double-barrel model for Henry and a small hold-out gun for Margret to keep in her bag. Remus took it onto himself to block the twins from procuring guns.
While everyone else was busy testing for cores, and looking for guns, Harry surreptitiously called Dobby and made him fetch Hermione's blade. The transfigured sword was already showing signs of fatigue and would probably reverse form completely in month or two, and Lenny promised to take the measurements and make a magnificent copy, and of course, to keep it secret. After all, Harry had netted him a few months' worth of income this day. Dobby was tasked to return the blade as soon as Lenny was finished measuring, and to stay unseen until then.
Later that day, Matty found them lunching at the 'A'. Nobody knew the name of the bar anymore, so everybody just called it 'the bar', 'A' or 'Red A', since someone claimed that the writing once was red, many decades ago. Matty had news for him. Basically, it was about growing up and taking over the family business.
ooOOoo
"All hands, ready on braces and sheets! Prepare to tack!" Harry yelled over the deck of the Pathfinder. He was here to learn the ropes, literally, and Matty found it would help him if he would act as First Mate, relaying the orders to the crew.
"You see, Captain Potter-Black - the right way to tack with square sails is to have the sails assist in the turn. So we will brace or back brace those sails in an angle that will push the bow in the desired direction, and then use the rudder to speed up the turn. If we had square sails at the main mast or a full rigged mizzen mast, like the Revenge, we could use them to support that manoeuvre, too," Captain Cobbs, the captain of the Pathfinder, explained Harry patiently, mimicking the sail's position during the manoeuvre with his hands like Ron would show Quidditch moves, while the crew was rushing to their stations, awaiting the next orders.
He then gave the commands for Harry to relay, and when the ship was on its new course, he took his time to explain the timing once more in more detail, since the boat lost a lot of speed during the poor execution.
All in all, Harry didn't do too bad for his first day, and only rarely stumbled over the correct names of all the stuff on board, due to his prior studies of the Hermione Manual, which did include a pirate plot, after all. Hermione had spent her time on board writing in a large notebook, now filled with all the things Harry had been taught during the day, and enjoying the trip with her parents and the other members of their group, all of them eagerly helping and learning to sail, themselves. Even the twins behaved for a while, after being threatened to get marooned, and eagerly ran from station to station when called out, having a good time on board.
Especially Margret and Henry fell in love with sailing, and were talking about inquiring at the wharf about a small touring boat for two. An early retirement was looking enticing if you had a tropical island to move to.
ooOOoo
But not everything was all orchids on the island.
Three days into their second stay, Harry had noticed Hermione starting to act strange. The first thing that baffled him was when he once saw her in the library, pulling a book from a shelf. She opened it, read a bit and then closed it again, sighing. She than gave the book a caress and put it back, sighing again.
He didn't think too much about it, it was Hermione, after all, and wrote it off as her maybe having kinky thoughts from having all those books; he could certainly imagine her masturbate with a book - now that was a thought to hold on to, maybe he should bring that up sometimes. Her unbroken fervour in the sack, as they now alternated between sleeping at the villa and the ship every other day led him to believe that it was just something like that.
The training with Tonks, their studies and the training with the Revenge filled their timetable enough that he didn't really notice it at first, and only thought she was just as tired as he was.
But then, she started slacking in her studies.
In training, her swordplay was getting sloppy, so much that Harry started looking good in comparison. Her spellwork was getting worse, too, she had started slipping incantations again, although she had a firm grasp on wordless casting for weeks.
He started worrying when it became common that he would find her sitting somewhere, a book in lap, but staring into the distance with a yearning look. He tried to ask her about it, but after he got the third "It's nothing!" from her, he left it be. He still worried about her, but knew that she would come to him in her own time.
***August 15th, the town square***
"HARRY! HELP!" one of the twins yelled as the mob dragged them across the street and towards the harbour.
"You must stop this!" Harry told Matty in concern, as they all hurried to catch up with the sailors, who were carrying, pushing and hauling the tied-up twins towards the harbour under raucous laughter, while clinking their mugs and firing their guns. More and more people were leaving their work and joined the procession.
"Why? They tried to poison someone, and that's the punishment," Matty chuckled.
"That was no poison," Hermione wheezed from Harry's side, as she tried to keep up with their large strides. "It was only some prank!"
"HAAAARRRYYYY!" one of the twins shrieked in a rather girlish way.
Matty just shook his head with a broad grin. "Doesn't matter; get caught doing foul, you get a 'haul. That's in the codex!" he shouted, and the crowd eagerly picked it up and canted along.
"Is this really necessary?" Margret asked. "I know they can be annoying" - she stated, to which Henry added a "True, true!" as the twins were carried aboard the Pathfinder - "but isn't this a bit extreme?"
ooOOoo
True to form, the twins had invented a new treat, which they called Parrot Cracker. Also true to form, they introduced the public to this new invention by slipping it to a bunch of people in the 'Red A', when everybody was sitting together after the daily lesson on board of the Pathfinder. They were currently discussing the differences in handling between the Pathfinder and the Revenge, as they planned to take the bigger ship out on the ocean tomorrow for the first time.
To be fair, the effect of six man-sized parrots squawking in the inn was hilarious, and the treat worked exactly the ten seconds the twins had intended, giving everybody a good laugh. What they hadn't intended to was to be found out and caught while slipping some more of these.
ooOOoo
"You know that these were only joke articles, don't you?" Harry asked nervously, while the twins yelled frantically for help as some ropes were tied to their wrists and a few man pulled two ropes under the boat and up the other side, all under the cheers of their friends and the spectators.
"I think this has gone far enough," Remus added, grabbing Matty's arm and pulling the man around. "It was just a harmless prank! You are under an oath not to harm a friend of Lord Black!"
"Hey, don't worry; in this case, we are just pranking them back. We do this a lot - they won't get a scratch - these ropes are charmed to keep at least five feet distance to the hull. If they start a prank war with pirates, they have to play by our rules," Matty said with a smirk as the men took the twins and started to give them the heave-ho, swinging them as high as they could.
Harry had to admit that the girlish screams of the twins were funny. Tonks was just grinning broadly. She was one of the people who got a cracker slipped, so she thought it was only fair game. Even the Grangers nodded their consent. Now that they knew the boys wouldn't be harmed, they could approve of this educational measure. And maybe enjoy it a wee tiny bit.
'After all, you don't witness a keelhauling every day,' Hermione reasoned silently, as she stepped closer to embrace Harry while she watched the show.
"We don't mind a good prank, but it's tradition that if someone gets caught during a prank, they get keelhauled. You know, like the old saying: If you can't stand the heat, stay the hell out of my gun deck!They won't be harmed; this is just a good bit of fun, like a good dunking. But it might quench their antics a bit," Matty admitted while the men and the crowd started counting down from three, and laughing out loud as the twins were released in upswing, thus thrown overboard in a high arc. They landed with huge splashes, and the men quickly took the ropes to pull them through in astounding speed.
Gasping for breath, they surfaced at the other side no more than five seconds later, to be hauled aboard under laughs and back slaps from the pirates, who quickly undid the ropes. Immediately, the same guys who were keelhauling the twins only seconds ago started placing orders for these crackers, inquiring about other stuff the twins had in store, as if they were kids in Zonko's.
ooOOoo
"Everything alright?" Harry asked them as the crowd had returned to the inn and whatever they did before, leaving the dripping twins and their friends on the Pathfinder.
"You know, Harry - apart from the being scared shitless part," Fred started.
"And the wetting your pants part," George continued.
"This keelhauling thing was rather fun!" they chorused with a set of really disturbing grins.
"We might use this for something," George proposed, turning to his twin.
"Maybe another daydream series?" Fred replied thoughtfully.
"How about this, guys..." Remus said as he approached them and pulled them into a conspiratorial huddle and whisper, from which one of their heads occasionally emerged, looking appraisingly at Harry, before dipping back.
This was the day Adventure Dreams, the version of the Patented Daydreams targeted at a male audience, was born; a series Harry would contribute many a memory to.
*** August 17th, the Villa, early afternoon. ***
"Harry? Can we talk?"
Harry looked up from his transfiguration book. He was currently sitting in the library couch, as it became his habit after lunch while it was too hot to be outside. Hermione often retreated for a short kip, claiming the heat made her drowsy. Today, she had obviously cut that short and sought him out, standing meekly in front of him.
Recognizing that this probably meant that he would finally get to know what had been bothering her the last week - although he already had a suspicion - Harry placed a parchment scrap into the book to mark his place, shut it and wandlessly levitated it over to the table.
Hermione smiled at him, she hated it when he dog-eared books to mark the spot. Granted, he never would have done that with such an old tome, but she loved him showing effort. She knew he was also showing off a bit for her, but her inner voice rationalized that the tome would be in the way on the couch, anyway, and such a valuable book should be handled with reverence.
When the book was placed on the table, Harry gave her a vague hand motion, indicating her to join him and start talking. It was something she knew after their long years of friendship. Normally, she would just flop down beside him and start talking, but this time, she wanted to talk him into something that he wouldn't want to do. The last time she did that, it resulted in her giving his Firebolt to the professors behind his back, something she still regretted.
"Harry? I know you already have made up your mind, but…" she started, and her courage left her for a moment. Anxiously, instead of sitting next to him, she knelt in front of him, taking both his hands in hers, making him raise an eyebrow. Taking a deep breath, she continued.
"Can we please attend Hogwarts?" she begged, cringing and expecting him to be incensed and shout at her.
Taking a long look at his lover, her beautiful hazel eyes pressed shut in fear, Harry gave a deep sigh. Didn't she know him at all? He already had guessed it would be about that, and he never would blow up at her because of something as simple as that. A bit saddened, he asked her a simple "Why should we?"
Hermione's eyes shot open wide. She didn't expect him to actually talk it over with her. Hectically, she brought her thoughts in order to present her reasoning.
"Well, although we do learn a lot here, and Tonks and Remus do a very good job at this, there is still so much we have to learn. She's an Auror and he's a Defence Master, but…"
"I know," Harry interrupted her fast-paced stream of conscience. "I've been trying to make sense of that book here for days, and both couldn't help me. There is a lot of theory behind human transfiguration they don't understand entirely, neither," he admitted.
Hermione felt like a weight had dropped from her chest when Harry mentioned his struggles with the advanced topics. She had been terribly afraid that he would just accept it and keep using the simpler spells. But now she knew that they shared a motivation to get better education.
"Yes, exactly that - you know Remus and I wanted to ward the beach against sharks, but neither of us understands those books I found about warding. Remus said while he knew some temporary stuff and standard stuff that is defence related - he didn't know enough about those to set up new ones. He never took Runes at NEWT level, only Arithmacy for spell construction," Hermione told him in her happy rapid fire mode while she got up and cuddled into his side.
"And there is still Riddle. We need to be prepared to fight him, and the longer we take, the more people get hurt. Right now, he's weak, but the longer we wait, the more he recovers," she waved the guilt trip card expertly, just in case his new study habits didn't completely override his innate laziness. She had been prepared to get in a blazing row with him to beg and weasel him into going back, so she wasn't above using a little psychology to enhance her chances. Especially as she was right and knew he already felt the same.
"I know, I know," he sighed. "Everything in me screams to get over there and blast his scaly arse into oblivion. But I don't know how to deal with Dumbledore," Harry stated in a pained voice as he leaned his head against hers and closed his eyes to relax them from the strain the tiny scribble of the old tome had proven to be.
"Harry, please. We will find a way to deal with him. Remus told you that we could. We just need to put our heads together and make a plan. But please," she pleaded, glad that he was at least a bit willing, before changing her tune and switching to seductive voice. "I'll make it worth your while, I promise. Wherever, whatever and whenever - I'll do it. I'll even let you bugger me and all," she whispered into his ear, nibbling at his earlobe, knowing how much that affected him.
Harry tensed when she did so, just like he usually did when she teased him that way, and so she turned her head and smiled at him.
"Are you trying to bribe me?" he asked her with a strained voice that sounded a bit off. She could hear the deep emotion laced in his voice, just below the surface.
"Does it work?" she replied saucily, batting her eyelashes at him. Suddenly, the world started spinning for Hermione. Sadly, it was not for the reason she had wanted it to do.
Instead, Harry had stood abruptly, throwing her off to the couch, and stomped to the door, yanking it open. "No!" he yelled from the hallway as he threw it close.
ooOOoo
"Harry?" Margret's voice penetrated the sound of the jungle near the gardens, where Harry was sitting on a low, but strong branch of a tropical tree.
Harry didn't really hear her; for he wasn't really in the mood for talking. 'How dare she do that?' He thought, still seething inside. 'I was willing to go along, but she tried to manipulate me!'
He suddenly noticed the branch of the tree he used as makeshift bench bending a bit further as a weight was placed next to him. Turning his head in surprise, he identified it as Margret. She had silently approached and sat with him.
Now that she finally had his attention, Margret started speaking in soft tones.
"Would you like to talk to me?"
"Not really."
Unnoticed by Harry, Margret performed a perfect Hermione-style roll of her eyes at the teenager's response.
"That's okay, but I would really like to know why my daughter is currently bawling her eyes out in her bathroom and refusing to open. I won't ask if you had a fight - that much is obvious. But what happened?"
"She asked me to return to Hogwarts with her," was the huffed reply.
"And you declined, I presume," she said with a knowing nod.
"No! I would have gone along if we came up with a solution for the old coot, but then she went and tried to manipulate me," he huffed, and glared angrily at Margret when she started to chuckle.
"Let me guess, she promised you some 'favours' if you went along with it?" she made a wild guess, shaking her head and growing serious as he confirmed it with a frown.
"Harry, Harry… Sometimes it astounds me how much growing up with these vile people has damaged you," Margret said with another sad shake of her head, gently hugging him. Harry's response was an accusing glare as he didn't understand what she was hinting at, but assumed the worst.
"I mean, you see something good dangling right in front of your face and still keep looking for the barbed hook hidden inside, Harry. While I can't say that this was the most sensible idea my daughter ever had, did you really think that she would have done that just to manipulate you? She just offered a treat. She wouldn't have offered anything she wouldn't have given you anyway. It's called teasing, banter, jollying. Henry and I do it all the time," she admonished the boy in a motherly way.
"But she did it to make me do something. That's bribing. I don't like being manipulated," Harry insisted with a manly huff.
Margret laughed out loud. "So you never promised her a back rub or snog if she were to put a book aside and go swimming with you? Or promised to go book shopping?"
Her laughter turned into a wide grin as Harry blushed hotly. "Hypocrite," she called him teasingly as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders for a hug to take the bite out of her comment.
"I've really buggered that thing up, haven't I?" he sheepishly asked when she finally released him.
"Yes, pretty much," Margret responded, nodding with an overly broad grin on her face.
Harry shook his head and stood. "Thanks for the kick in the pants, but if you excuse me, I have some serious apologies to deliver," he said and went off into the jungle.
ooOOoo
Completely spent from crying for nearly an hour, Hermione picked herself up from the tiles of her bathroom. She couldn't believe how stupid she had been. He was going along already and she still had pulled all stops to make him do what she wanted. While his reaction was well over the top - and he would pay for that - it wasn't as if she couldn't tell that Harry might react badly to manipulation, even in jest. She'd have to put things straight when he came back, but not now. All she wanted was to crawl into her bed and sleep. A brief sob overcame her as she remembered that she would probably have to sleep alone tonight. Biting down on her lip to stop herself, she pulled herself together to make it at least to the bed. Shuffling forward, she avoided looking into the mirror as she passed it. She knew that she probably looked a fright. She didn't care.
Approaching the door she remembered to remove her spellwork to keep it locked and silenced, and then she pulled the door open. To immediately throw it shut again with a high-pitched yelp. Frantically, she ran her hands through her hair and wiped her face at a towel hanging nearby, cleaning up the worst mess before taking a deep breath, and slowly pulling the door open again.
"I'm sorry," Harry said from his kneeling position and handed her the bunch of beautiful flowers he picked for her. She absentmindedly noticed that some colours didn't go well with each other, but squished that thought at once, and took a deep sniff of the intoxicating smell of the exotic blossoms, before remembering to look at the messenger still kneeling in front of her. Briefly, her anger at how he had stormed off welled up and she pondered whether to shoot him or not, but he looked so miserable himself that her anger evaporated quickly.
"Your mother explained to me how normal people behave. I was a stupid git. My reaction was totally unwarranted. Of course we will return for sixth year. Forgive me?" he asked in a small voice.
Hermione shot him a brilliant smile and laid the bouquet aside on a low chest of drawers next to the bathroom door, which contained towels and her 'unmentionables'. Harry took this as an invitation to stand up again; after the fifteen minutes waiting in front of the obviously silenced door his knees were getting a bit sore.
She then started pushing him back across the room and onto the bed, where he fell onto his back. Like a cat, she slowly crawled on top of him and bowed down to kiss him.
Before their lips touched, she paused and rose back to a sitting position. "You didn't agree to go back with me just to make it up, didn't you?" she asked with suspicion laced in her voice.
"No," he smiled, shaking his head. "I would have gone along with it anyway."
Satisfied by his response, she proceeded with the loving kiss she had stalled. After some time of gentle exploration of their oral cavities, she sat back up on his hips and smiled saucily at him. "Come on, let's make up. Maybe I'll even let you try buggering me."
"But you don't have to bribe me anymore," was Harry's confused reply at her offer.
She licked her lips and gave him a randy grin. "I would have gone along with it anyway."
ooOOoo
"We should do something for your mum, don't you think?" Harry stated as he pulled Hermione closer into his shoulder. She had ended up there fifteen minutes ago, after they had completely exhausted each other, cuddling in the afterglow.
"Hmm?" was all that Hermione uttered as she continued trying to burrow herself deeper into her lover.
"You know, she did so much for us. Helping me, bringing us together, settling our disputes…" he ticked off at his fingers, and yelped as Hermione nipped his chest.
"Not to forget keeping Dad at bay," she whispered into his armpit, making him flinch away from the tickle with a giggle.
"But what could we give her?" He asked after a few more moments of lying blissfully in her embrace.
"I remember she once asked for some Polyjuice potion after she heard about my mishap in second year," Hermione giggled, drawing some intricate circles on his ribcage with her finger.
"Hmm? What for?" Harry purred, completely focussed on the lines being drawn on his skin.
"She found it cute to be a cat-girl. And she hinted about Daddy liking such things very much."
"I can't follow you."
"Well, cat-women do have their fans. That soft fur, the cute muzzle, the purring - although the tail was something irritating, it always flicked and waved of its own accord," Hermione told him, frowning at the memory. "Oh! And another thing - did you know that cats have six tits? It was a weird feeling," she told him as the thought hit her. She just finished saying that as she felt some motion against her thigh. "Did you just twitch at me?" she laughed.
"Guilty," he chuckled and kissed her head. "I love your bits. But I do like them better without hair on them," he chuckled as he groped around for them blindly. "Yeah, much better without hair. The 'girls' being all furry sounds entirely weird to me. But who am I to judge," he said mirthfully as Hermione playfully slapped his hands away.
"What a pity that Polyjuice doesn't work on Muggles," Hermione sighed and shrugged. "She wouldn't want to be stuck looking like that for a month, anyway."
"Hmm. Did I mention that my current book is about human to animal transfiguration? From what I read, there are some intermediate forms possible," Harry mused.
Hermione pushed herself up and let herself rest on her arm, half reclined. "Really? I wonder if we could pull that off," she said, worrying her lip, while Harry's attention was focused on something delightfully dangling a couple of inches further down her chest.
"You know, it feels kind of weird talking about getting your mother laid," Harry retorted after prying his eyes off the sight and nipped at her lip, trying to help her worrying it.
Hermione snorted and switched to her 'nagging' voice. "We are wizards - weird comes with the job. Honestly, HarreeeeEEE!"
She nearly peed herself before Harry stopped tickling her.