Walking up the stairs to the owlery, as cracked and covered with mouse bones as they were, Harry wondered about what Dumbledore had done with the information he'd provided him. He daydreamed that the man had already gotten rid of all the Horcruxes, went to Albania, and banished the shade hopefully wandering around there somewhere. Of course, the biggest problem would be if Neville was also a Horcrux. James, for all that he was apparently willing to leave his adopted son to pursue teaching, probably wouldn't be too amused at Albus attempting to cast a killing curse at the boy.
Harry had posited all that he knew, and what he thought might be the case with all the changes to Albus, it depended on him what to do with it. It was all finally out of his hands. The ring in the shack, the diadem at Hogwarts, the cup in Gringotts, the diary at the Malfoys, the locket in Grimmauld Place, the scar on Neville's head and the ghost running around in Albania.
He finished his ascension to the owlery and glanced at the only other student present.
Harley looked at him from where she was tying a letter to the foot of a large black owl.
Harry simply nodded at her and started his search for his own owl. "How do you do?" he greeted automatically, not expecting to get anything but a grunt for an answer.
"Classes are fun," Harley mumbled, before throwing the question back at him. "You?"
Harry pepped up. Trying to remember when had been the last time that someone had asked him how he was doing. The question really was one that was only generally posed to strangers so in an odd way. None of the people that actually mattered would usually elicit the answer. Although, to be fair, with friends you could air your grievances, without being asked to do so.
"You know what, I'm actually doing pretty great!" Harry replied enthusiastically. "How's your dad? I met him briefly at the ministry once," he explained.
Harley pet her owl, saying goodbye, as it flew off, before turning to him with a playful smile. "I know. He mentioned you. Said that some kids lived in the library so much that they started treating classes as something to work ahead in. He told me to look at how you studied and to do the opposite, so I wouldn't become a prefect."
Harry huffed. "Considering his rank in the department I hardly think he has ground to stand on. You have to be a real job-ner to get that many promotions."
The girl cracked up. "Job-nerd, I'll have to tell him that."
"Also," Harry added, "being a prefect is the last thing I want. It would seriously eat up into my study time," he explained gleefully. "People bother you about Longbottom, still?" he asked, more seriously, causing the smile to fly off Harley's face.
"Less and less, with time. You set a bit of a statement at the sorting, you know. Maybe I should have thanked you instead of telling you to bugger off," she sighed. "I wish I'd been brave enough to do it. My dad would have loved it, but I guess I'm not brave enough for that, or for Gryffindor."
"You know, the more I hear about your dad, the less seriously I can take him, which is ironic because that's-"
"literally his name!" Harley interjected with a pained grimace. "Please not you too, I thought I escaped hearing that joke every day of my life when I came to Hogwarts."
"Tough crowd," Harry muttered, a comfortable silence entering the owlery. One usually only found between friends. Harry was impressed, quite frankly. Harley was more mature than she'd let on in previous interactions.
"You know, you're not who I expected you to be," Harley eventually said.
"Did me breaking that guy's nose really ruin my image that much?"
The first-year shook her head. "It didn't in my eyes, but the other Hufflepuffs… A lot of people have told me about you, almost as many as have asked me about my brot- Neville," Harley quickly corrected herself.
"People are talking about me?" Harry wondered, he hadn't thought he interacted with nearly enough people for any significant amount of them to have anything to say. "What are they saying?"
"I'm not some sort of rumour regurgitator."
"I'll pay you," Harry offered, drawing a stunned look.
"With what exactly?" she asked.
"I'll show you something cool," he offered, drawing a look of disgust.
"I don't want to see your penis," Harley said, angrily, causing Harry to sputter.
"What?!" he shouted with wide eyes, "I meant a spell!" he tried to defend himself.
Harley twirled a strand of her wavy black hair in her fingers and smiled at him beatifically. Harry realised he'd just been pranked. "Ah, I see. You're funny, you know that," he complimented as his heart rate dropped down to a normal level again. He didn't want to know what James would do to him if Harley had actually thought that, and told the man.
"Which spell?" Harley asked curiously, causing the boy to cross his arms.
"I have several, the hotter the tea, the cooler of a spell that you get," he said, causing the girl to groan.
"Ah, you ass. My curiosity at what you consider impressive is stronger than my desire to see the actual spell," she groaned, before squaring up. "Fine, I'll tell you what I've heard," she conceded. "How big is your ego for you to even want to hear," she muttered in an accusatory tone.
Harry waved her on, telling her to get on with it.
"Well, we already talked about my dad. The next time I heard about you was from that article, about you only getting to advance in classes because the Hogwarts staff was political. Well, he said with who your mother was that it wasn't a surprise you would advance and that the ministry would hate it. He called Crouch an old muppet with more prejudices than brain cells, which he does a lot anyway, but don't tell anyone I said that" she hastily added. "James said you'd make a good auror. I don't see it," she said, looking his skinny form up and down.
Harry knew he was going to hit a growth spurt soon, he better, but a tick-mark still developed on his forehead.
"He always seems hurt when he talks about you. Or wistful. Or angry," Harley added. "Why?" she asked.
"He tried to date my mom when he was in school. It didn't work out, and then she died in the war," Harry explained briefly.
"Sorry," Harley whispered with a pained look in her eyes. "My mum's dead too," she eventually said.
"War?"
"Yeah."
"Fuck Voldemort, may he rot in hell and have his balls tortured forever, if he even has any," Harry said crassly, causing Harley to jump in fright at his mention of the name.
"Don't say that," she hissed, looking around as if there was someone potentially listening in.
Harry's magical sense wasn't that good at sensing people yet, even if it was a skill he was quickly developing, but he was fairly sure there was nobody present. "Any other rumours? Not a lot you're providing might have to show you a Lumos," he taunted to get the conversation back on track.
Harley huffed and put her hand on her hip. "Well, the professors love you. Flitwick constantly has to bite his tongue to not brag about you and I'm pretty sure Sprout has a picture of you on her nightstand. The students…" she trailed off.
Harry meanwhile was sincerely hoping that Sprout did not have a picture of him on her nightstand. It was a disturbing thought.
"The muggle-borns want to be you, the half-bloods admire you, and the pure-bloods are terrified. They express it through criticism. But it's clear they're afraid. Afraid that their agenda will be shown as a sham. The fact that only Neville, a pure-blood, or his mother, a pure blood, were able to stop You-Know-Who, a pure-blood, almost strengthened their beliefs somewhat," she explained.
Harry had to really bite his tongue there, to not blurt out that Voldemort was a half-blood son of a muggle and a squib and that his father smelled of elderberries.
"I'm showing them that the only reason any wizard reaches the heights that Dumbledore did, might have been their effort, instead of their blood. It makes their failure to be anyone of particular importance in terms of magical ability a personal failure, rather than something decreed by a higher deity. They hate me because I am showing them that their lack of ability is their own fault. And by god, do they lack in ability," Harry said with a sigh, not mentioning the fact that while Voldemort had been a champion of the pure-blood cause, killing and terrorising countless blood-traitors and muggle-borns. Well, Harry Evans, with his past, was definitely not going to go against a murderous rampage against anyone but the established pure-blood regime.
Nobody was thinking that far yet, hopefully. Harry was just a student, not a dark lord in the making. If anyone thought that, they might decide to eliminate him before he could defend himself. Perhaps his patronus would convince everyone in the other direction. The general consensus he'd read about people who could use the Light Arts was that they were too soft to do anything truly bad.
Which made sense. Practising the Light Arts was basically an exercise in making positive emotions more readily available in one's mind. It was for the same reason that dark arts practitioners usually ended up as sadistic monsters. It took a strong mind to practise hateful magic and not become a hateful person.
"If you're waiting for more, that's it, you egomaniac," Harley said, interrupting his thoughts.
"Thanks for the deets, babe," Harry said automatically, before cringing and his word choice.
"For your information, after today, I think you're a weirdo," Harley said bluntly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Harry mumbled. "Let me show you the spell now. I need practice anyway." He pulled out his wand, carefully not aiming it anywhere near the tense girl's direction, before bringing up the requisite happiness. Chatting away on a tower with a beautiful view. It was nice, wasn't it? The only thing missing was a glass of wine and a cheese platter.
"Expecto patronum," he cast to the side, a bright ghostly raccoon immediately ejecting itself out of his wand and starting to swim around in the air. No really, it was doing the back-stroke. Not wanting to exhaust himself too much, Harry dissipated the spell and went for the door.
"It was nice meeting you," he said to the stunned girl. "I think it's the first time we talked long enough to justify saying that," he said, before opening the door and starting to make his way down the stairs.
-/-
Harry sidestepped a blisteringly fast disarming jinx and wordlessly fired off his own, with minimal wand movement. Flitwick simply batted the red beam back at him at double the speed, causing the student to have to dodge again. This game continued for a few more exchanges, before a deflection came right at the middle of Harry's torso, causing him to have to throw himself to the ground to dodge.
This uncoordinated scramble meant that it was his loss. No real duellist would lose against someone struggling around on the ground. Harry lay there panting, as he heard the gentle taps of Flitwick coming over.
"Your disarming jinx has improved once again," the man remarked. "Quite remarkable speed. If you continue like this you might even get it up to adult duelling standards before the tournament."
"What's that standard?" Harry asked curiously as he sat up and straightened his back, essentially coming eye to eye with his short mentor.
"No wand movement, execution in under half a second. Speed?" Filius twirled his moustache. "About the same speed that I'm sending them back at you."
"That's still double," Harry grimaced. "We've been focusing on just one spell though, professor. But with it being the most commonly used one, aren't I just walking into the trap of learning the one thing everyone will be able to deflect?" he asked.
"I've been thinking about a good and reusable strategy that I can impart to improve your chances of passing at least the preliminaries. Once you master that, we'll look further, but it's always better to start with the basics. Will you complain once you realise that a big part of being a professional duellist is shaving off milliseconds of your best spells, rather than learning more of them?" he asked.
Harry just shook his head. "Filius, I haven't even participated in a duelling tournament yet. Currently, you have my unconditional trust."
"Good," the professor nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Now, the simple answer is, just because you know which spell is coming, doesn't mean you're capable of deflecting it. Let's say I wanted to deflect a disarming jinx sent at me by… Grindelwald, let's say. Do you think I would be capable of doing so?"
Harry scratched at his chin. "Well, as a professional duellist deflecting disarming jinxes seems to be a bit of a speciality. So I'd say, yes, but with great difficulty."
"Yes, but with great difficulty indeed. The spell would likely come with such power behind it that deflecting it would cause my wand arm to be blown askew, opening me up completely for the follow-up spell. Let this be a lesson. Spell deflection only works between people either on your level or one stage above it. If they're on an entirely different planet, just forget about it." Filius cautioned
"I'm afraid I don't understand. What strategy?" Harry asked, a bit frustrated. What was the duellist getting at?
"patience, I'll get to it later. Regardless, I've started up a correspondence with some old acquaintances who have stayed in the field, rather than leaving it as I did. I asked them about the level we are to expect in the U17 circuit. From them, I learned that spell deflection was uncommon and that those who used it only knew how to do so for a select few spells. Disregarding naturally some of the prodigies who've been trained by their families since they could walk and who will likely win the whole thing in the end. Anyway, a disarming jinx at the adult circuit level is at the adult circuit level because those beneath it can't replicate it. If you manage to reach such heights, then you can mostly barrage the unprepared into submission. Those whose eyes will gleam at your seeming reliance on the spell and who know spell deflection will try to deflect it, only to find that your skill at the jinx is higher than their skill in deflecting it, thus opening them up to be struck down before they've reset," Filius explained. "Come on, stand up, let's do a demonstration," he said with a clap of his hands.
"Now, I will barrage you with disarming jinxes not at my level, but at those of the average adult duellist," he said as they set up into their stances, about twelve metres apart. Seemingly not interested in giving a warning, Flitwick started swiping his wand through the air, sending the red beams at Harry at a pace that he frankly just wasn't able to deal with. He could dodge one, two, three, before the fourth one clipped his elbow as he was forced to spin out of the way, throwing him to the ground. His wand flew out of his wand and towards his vanquisher.
"You're not at the level of the average foe that you'll encounter yet. But most you'll face should have no issue with just this level of assault," Flitwick lectured as he came over to hand Harry back his wand.
"Now, for the second part, send an expelliarmus at me, and I will fumble its deflection to the best of my ability. Then send a second one as quickly as possible. Remember, if you miss by too wide a margin they will just dodge, you have to aim to where they will be tantalised to deflect and show off," the man reminded as they once again took their positions.
Harry nodded and unceremoniously sent out the spell at the man's upper body. Slower than he'd ever seen him do so, Flitwick swiped out his wand in a grandiose diagonal gesture from upper left shoulder to right hip, smashing the spell weakly into the ground, during this time Harry's second spell was already hurtling at the man whose wand arm was now mispositioned. Nevertheless, Flitwick simply side-stepped, before calling to a stop.
"Do you see what I mean? Had your second spell been faster, you could have won right then and there. If the stars align properly for you, you can put on their ass the first slightly competent opponent you meet, if you play on their desire to deflect your jinx. This will be your homework for next week, practice rapid-casting expelliarmus. I don't care if you have to do it four hours a day to get it to the requisite level, just do so as quickly as you can. The faster that happens, the faster we can work on the next strategy," Flitwick requested harshly.
He'd been falling more into the role of a drill instructor with impossible demands. Harry quite liked it, as this was the environment that he thrived in. Other children might not have been able to just cast one spell for several hours straight. First, they'd get exhausted, but Harry had been using magic for more than a decade now. He could probably just about manage. Second, they would lose their motivation. Harry would just put on some music and enter the flow state with his experience in meditation. Maybe even have the hat on his head to attack him with random mental probes so as to simulate the distraction of a real duel. In the end, it also helped that Harry was training for the sake of survival purposes, not just glory.
"Are we already done?" he asked, confusedly.
Flitwick also seemed confused by the question. "Of course not," he said and looked down at his watch, "it's only been an hour. There's just no point in wasting our valuable time together on just one drill. No, we'll also work on the protego. There is a specific technique in which you can let go of the shield, and it stays up for just one more second. This allows you to bring it up to deflect an area of effect spell, while still being free to reposition and retaliate."
"Does it also get rid of that horrible backlash you feel when your shield is destroyed?" Harry asked and received a nod. "Good, I really hate that."
"Well, let's get to work then," Flitwick said as he rubbed his hands together. The man really liked teaching, Charms and duelling. While he'd been teaching the former for a few decades now, it seemed like teaching the latter again for the first time in a while had unlocked something in the man.
As long as Harry reaped the rewards, he was fine with being the test subject of a manic instructor.