"So, you are saying we need a spell that can seek out the position of eyes of every viewer in the vicinity to adjust the projected imagery in such a way that they get a frontal view rather than a slanted one." Daphne looked curiously at Harry while discreetly munching on a chocolate bar Harry generously gifted her.
"Yes. Otherwise, our project won't be that attractive. We need to look for a charm that encompasses detection and targeted image projection." said Harry.
"I know a book that can be of help on that front." said Daphne, immediately disappearing into the Charms section of the library.
Harry looked around the library to see whether anyone was in the immediate vicinity. Madam Pince was sitting behind her desk near the entrance, reading what he assumed was a magazine of some sort. Standing up from his seat, he followed Daphne to the Charms section. He found her climbing a ladder to reach for the top shelf. He waited beside the ladder keeping an eye out for any intruders the whole time, until he heard a muffled "Aha!" from Daphne.
"Look, Harry! I found the book." Daphne said excitedly, climbing down from the ladder with a thick time in her hands.
The cover read, Detecting the Undetectable by Veronica Moon.
"I think I have a copy of this back home. I've seen it in passing in my mother's study." Daphne continued to ramble without realising the changes around her.
Suddenly, she found herself cornered with her back against the bookshelf. She took note of how close Harry was to her, with his hands on either side of her against the bookshelf.
"Daphs," Harry murmured against her lips, just a hair's breadth between them.
"Mmm." Daphne moaned, her eyes fluttering as Harry pressed against her.
A pair of warm lips pressed against hers stealing her breath away. She could no longer keep her eyes open as she dissolved into the warm sensation that was blanketing her whole body. Her whole body was tingling as Harry sucked and prodded her lower lip. She distantly felt the book in her slipping down from her grasp. Her hands, now free of the task of holding the book, went into threading through Harry's black hair. In the throes of passion, she accidentally sunk her nails into Harry's skin near his neck, earning a hiss from her boyfriend.
They broke off from the kiss, making Daphne silently protest in her mind.
"Sorry." she muttered dejectedly.
Harry only chuckled, and she was immediately forced to bite her lip as Harry dipped his head and began leaving a trail of kisses and sharp nips all along her neck. It was like her skin was set afire, but instead of drowning in pain, she was consumed by pleasure. She felt Harry push her robe to the side, exposing the skin of her right shoulder before pressing kiss after kiss. She could feel the buttons of her shirt slip away one by one as Harry explored more of her skin. She'd have enjoyed it more if Harry was entirely successful, but they froze upon hearing footsteps drawing closer to their location.
Daphne looked down at Harry, who was just shy of a few inches from her right breast. Their eyes locked for a moment before suddenly they sprang into action. Harry was quick to comb his hair with his palm and adjust his robes, while Daphne quickly adjusted her white shirt and green robes. She acted quickly by pressing her wand against her blonde hair and applying the grooming charm that set her dishevelled hair smooth and curly. She could do nothing about her flushed face or even her reddening lips. Harry immediately pushed into her hand the charms book she took from the shelf. She quickly caught on to what Harry was thinking, and she quickly hid her face behind the book. Harry meanwhile went about climbing the ladder and made a show of browsing the books on the shelf. The footsteps suddenly came to a halt, and Daphne peeked from behind the charms book.
It was none other than Madam Pince!
The Hogwarts librarian looked at them suspiciously for a long moment before walking away. It was only when the footsteps of Madam Pince became a distant echo that Daphne let out the breath she was holding. Her whole body sagged in relief that she was not found in a compromising position with Harry in the library. She would have been the talk of the school should something like that was to happen. Not to mention she couldn't bear to think what her mother would do to her should she bring shame to the House of Greengrass and Regensburg.
Daphne let out a gasp as Harry pressed a chaste kiss against her hair just right below her left ear. She felt his hands against her waist and steadily climbing up. Before she got immersed in pleasure, she immediately stopped Harry's hand just as he reached her ribs by hitting his hands with the charms book.
"Stop that." Daphne muttered and tried to wiggle out slowly from his grasp.
Harry once again tried to move his hands up while nipping at her skin on the neck with his teeth. She resisted the urge to give in and managed to wiggle out from his grasp.
"No." she said sharply, but her eyes softened when she noticed Harry froze at her tone.
"No." she said much more softly, reaching on her tip toes to press a kiss against Harry's cheek. "Let's go, Harry."
"Fine." Harry let out a frustrated sigh but, with silent acquiescence, followed her out of the library.
They walked through the corridors of Hogwarts in relative silence until Harry chose to break it.
"Hey, Daphne. I'm sorry if I was too forward. It was not my intention to put you in an uncomfortable position." Harry came forward and apologised, making Daphne look at her boyfriend with wide eyes.
"You weren't too forward." she immediately said before she could control herself.
"Oh." Harry now looked intrigued, while Daphne felt like she dumbly jumped into a pothole and got stuck.
There was no other recourse for her but to plough on.
"I just don't want anyone to see us…you know…" she stuttered out lamely, searching for words to adequately describe what she was feeling.
"Oh, I get it." Harry smiled brightly, taking her aback, but then, he leaned in close and whispered into her ear, making her blush. "You just want us to get frisky when we are all alone, huh? I think there are a few broom closets on the way to the dungeons."
Daphne looked scandalised at the suggestive undertone.
"Shut up." Daphne whispered, blushing up a storm at Harry's insinuation.
"Hey. If you don't prefer broom closets, we can spend some quality time in Slytherin's Chamber." Harry wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
The scandalous look on Daphne's face set Harry off into peals of laughter.
"All right. Not the Chamber because you seem to worship Slytherin. Then how about another secret place that only I know? It can be another date." Harry smirked, throwing his arm around Daphne's shoulder. "So, what do you say?"
Daphne merely hid her blushing face behind a veil of her blonde hair and muttered under her breath about how much of a rogue he was.
Harry chuckled heartily at the reaction he garnered from Daphne, and he didn't let up on the flirting till he escorted her to the dungeons.
XXXXXXX
"Ow!" Harry yelped as Katie Bell applied a healing salve on his forearm.
"Stop trying to move the arm too much, Harry." Angelina fussed over him like a mother hen.
"Hey, it's just a small injury. I only have a slight pain, and I'm sure it'll pass within a day. You don't need to make it a big issue." Harry complained.
"If my Seeker is injured when we are so close to the match, then it is a big issue, Harry." said Angelina.
Harry stared at the Quidditch captain incredulously.
"What are you talking about? Our first match is weeks away."
"Weeks, not months." Angelina emphasised with a deranged obsessive look that set both Harry and Katie on edge. "Which means we have fewer practice sessions. I want you playing more interference to give our chasers an edge because, frankly speaking, I don't have much hope for our Keeper recruit. And you can't do that if you're injured."
Harry exchanged a look with Katie, but the older girl just signalled him to shut up and go along with Angelina's wishes. Giving in to Katie's wisdom, he stayed still and allowed Katie to treat his 'injury', which was nothing but a product of a Bludger grazing his arm when he was trying to play interference with the Quaffle against the opposing Chasers.
"I'll look after Harry, Angie. You can focus on the Keepers." Katie offered.
Angelina sped away on her broom, muttering about having to focus on the keeper trials.
"It seems our Queen bee is on fire today." Harry muttered.
"Angelina is just under a lot of pressure. I think she's still second-guessing her choice of keeping Ron Weasley as Keeper."
"She made the right choice given the options." said Harry.
"I agree. She's just trying to outdo Oliver." Katie chuckled at the thought of anyone surpassing their former Quidditch obsessive slave-driver Captain.
"I'm told professional Quidditch is a cutthroat sport. Oliver will most likely thrive now that he's in Puddlemere United."
"Don't be so sure, Harry. I think Oliver is dead, and his ghost is possessing Angelina." Katie joked.
Harry promptly burst out into peals of laughter.
"Why're you two slacking off? Join us now before time runs out. We need to practice your coordination a bit more, Katie." Angelina shouted at them, making them scramble to get their brooms and take their positions up in the air.
Harry took a good long swim in the Room of Requirement after the Quidditch practice session as he was barred by Angelina from participating in the evening football matches. He had tried to protest, of course, but Angelina was pretty much adamant about keeping him out of the game to preserve his 'Quidditch spirit', whatever that meant. After getting freshened up, he decided to spend some quality time in the RoR to get some training done. His spell repository had been rather stale ever since the academic year began. He hadn't learned any new spells that could prove helpful in the wars to come. He was sort of busy with animagus training, researching Horcruxes, Quidditch and school work.
However, he decided it was better to spend the little free time he managed to squeeze out by circling back to what he learned last year. Last year, he had mastered two shield charms, a select few hexes, and some spells from three elements. He started with the shield charms. The first was the standard Protego charm, then the more powerful Indomitus. Then he went on to practice with the disarming charm and stunning charm with the practice dummy provided by the RoR. After a few bouts with the dummy testing his speed and precision, he went on to practice elemental spells, conveniently skipping spells like Confringo, Bombardaand even the Patronus charm.
He started with fire when it came to the elemental spells, as Harry found it almost as easy as using water spells nowadays. At first, his affinity to master water-based spells were prodigious, but now he was gaining a sort of grudging competency in fire spells as well. Harry had a theory that elemental spells have a certain connection to mindset as well. It was not just simply a combination of magical energy and imagination that perfected elemental spells. A certain mindset was also crucial for elemental spells to function properly.
Water requires fluidity in mind. The more flexible he was with his imagination and allowed water-based spells a certain freedom, the more the spell gained power and precision. The impression of going with the flow was quite useful in the context of water elemental spells. It was like sacrificing control to gain greater control. The concept was hard to put into words, and Harry only noticed this from his continuous training with water spells throughout last year. Wind element spells were also somewhat similar to water, but he had sparingly spent time or effort to master wind-based spells. He knew two spells but other than that, he didn't pay much attention to wind spells simply because he had yet to find many lethal spells when it came to the element.
Finally, there was the fire element. Fire spells were tough to master because they required a disciplined mind to control the output of fire. The initial stage of a fire spell requires unleashing strong emotions, mostly passion or anger, but then the emotion needs to be brought under immediate control to exert full control over the fire. Harry was able to quickly master this aspect of fire elemental spells, probably thanks to his Occlumency training. Even now, as he was using the fire spells he learnt last year, he was nearly there for finesse. Not at the same level as using water spells, but he was nearly there.
'Perhaps, with more training, I might be ready to tackle the Fiendfyre curse.' Harry thought as he blew a hole through the obstacles prepared by the RoR using the Fiery ram spell.
The next two elements on his bucket list to master were earth and lightning. The earth element remains the most unattractive element from the perspective of defensive and offensive magic. The spells are too complex to perform, and they are energy intensive. The earth is far more saturated with magic than any other element in the world because of its connection to old magic. For this reason, the earthly element always tends to resist a wizard's will, making it unattractive for battle magic. Most earth element spells he came across in the RoR library were performed by using a wizard's staff. He didn't know the exact reason why this was the case, but there were alternatives for earth element spells. The most prominent one was transfiguration spells. Instead of using complicated elemental spells, one can just transfigure a small rock into a giant boulder or a wall of granite. It serves the purpose of earth elemental spells from a battle perspective, and it was easy to master, comparatively speaking.
For this reason, Harry had decided to give a pass on earth elemental spells. He'd rather focus on Transfiguration or even straight-up conjuration, which was restricted only by the imagination of the castor.
But one element that eluded him so far was lightning. It was the most dangerous element of the five elements. Unlike other elements, there was no comprehensive, diverse set of spells graded by its power when it came to lightning. There were no low-tier spells when it came to lightning. So far, he had come across only two lightning spells, and both were listed as dark magic by the Ministry because of their lethality. No matter the case, he took up the resolution that before this year ends, he'd master the Fiendfyre curse and the two lightning spells. He supposed if he was to war with Voldemort and his Death eaters, then he needed some 'unforgivable' curses up his sleeve.
"I'll just add training with a pistol to the list." Harry muttered, quickly drawing his notepad from his bag and making a note of his three new resolutions for this year.
While he was at it, Harry crossed off the second resolution in the list as he had completed the ritual to attain magically sustained flight. Now, there was a total of four resolutions on his list for the year.
1-Become an animagus.
2-Complete the ritual to attain magic-aided flight.
3-Create a spell to remove the Horcrux from the scar.
4-Master Fiendfyre.
5-Master lightning elemental spells.
Putting the notepad back into his bag, Harry checked the time. He was just five minutes away from starting his patrol duty, and that made him cancel training with his flight ability in the Room of Requirement.
'Some other time then.' he thought before taking his leave.
XXXXXXX
Harry was walking through the hallways of Hogwarts with his silver prefect badge shining under the candlelight that lighted the dark pathways. He whistled a jolly tune as he was in a good mood. Unlike the last 'few' times he was cajoled by Hermione to finish his assigned rounds, he had yet to meet a troublesome bunch of junior students sneaking around. If he managed to wind up catching someone like that, he'd have to report it to the house heads of the students, which was no fun. The whole thing was a bother, and it'd eat into his sleep time. But today was one of those days when lady luck was showering him with her blessings.
'Just a little bit more, and I can take a long nap.' Harry thought with a wistful sigh.
His jolly mood came crashing down like a castle of cards when his ears picked up a whimpering sound coming from a nearby classroom.
'Oh, come on. Please don't this be a first-year girl crying her eyes out because she's lost.' Harry prayed earnestly as he slowly approached one of the abandoned classrooms from where the sound was coming.
"Hey, you all right in there?" Harry asked, pushing the doors open and looking inside.
To his surprise, no lost first-year girl was bawling her eyes out. Instead, it was Colin Creevey, the mousy little fellow who functioned as the resident paparazzi and his most obsessive fan suffering from a bad case of photography compulsion syndrome. Even if that was the case, Harry had learned to tolerate Colin Creevey. He even found the little guy useful because Colin helped him get a lot of cool photos of him attempting the Tasks of the Triwizard Tournament.
"Colin. What're you doing here?"
"Hey, Harry. I was just lost." Colin said lamely, trying to wipe his tears away.
It was then Harry noticed an angry red scar on Colin Creevey's right hand right below the knuckles.
"What is this?" Harry asked, taking Colin's hand into his own, already getting an idea of what was going on.
"It's nothing…" Colin trailed off as Harry looked at him coldly.
"I'll have the truth. Tell me everything." Harry commanded, and Colin spilt the beans.
Colin began narrating the incident that happened in his DADA class and the altercation that cropped up between Colin and Umbridge.
"I was just…(hic)…minding myself and keeping my head down as everyone said we should in that woman's class. Then she said bad stuff about Professor Dumbledore and Professor Lupin. She called Professor Lupin a freak, and she…(hic)…"
Harry didn't know how, but he somehow managed to perform a passive form of Legilimency on Colin Creevey. It was quite an experience because he was suddenly assaulted by a wave of impressions alien to his senses. He became instinctually aware of what Colin was trying to articulate. He could feel as Colin felt when Umbridge just casually demonised muggles and other magical creatures. He could feel and see in his mind the exact moment Colin snapped, unable to get chafed under the verbal diarrhoea, abuse, and bigotry that vile woman spewed. He saw the hour-long detention where Colin was forced to write lines with the blood quill. What enraged him further was the sick look on Umbridge's face when she gave a week's detention to Colin. He could see the vile creature adorning the face of a witch, enjoying the pain she was inflicting on Colin.
"I must obey my betters." the angry red scar on Colin's hand read.
Taking a deep breath, Harry clamped down on his emotions and adopted as much stoicism as he could muster. Lashing out with emotion was not going to do anyone any good.
"Come, Colin. We must go to the hospital wing to get this treated, and then we'll be seeing someone." Harry muttered.
"Huh? Meet who?" Colin asked with large brown eyes with dried tears.
"Professor McGonagall. We'll move through proper channels…" Harry said, with steel in his eyes. "…for now."