15 Chapter 15

Sitting crosslegged on his bed Ravenclaw Tower after the welcome feast was finished, Harry pondered.

The Tri-Wizard Tournament was going to be held at Hogwarts this year. He'd come across some peripheral mention of it in a book somewhere before, but hadn't investigated beyond the basics. Why read about a practice that had been abandoned for centuries?

The prize money or the 'Eternal Glory' didn't interest him much, but he was still curious about the tournament itself now that it was actually going to be happening. Perhaps some investigation was required after all. Fortunately, he had someone else to do it for him now. He'd have felt guilty about dumping all his errands and curiosities on Penny if he wasn't paying her for it.

Rummaging around in his Bag of Holding, he took out the mirror that connected to Penny's. He had another two, one for Sirius and one for Dora.

He wished that he could just use one mirror for all of them, but the magic involved made that extremely difficult. It was a variant of the Protean Charm that allowed them to function as a communication device and also what made multiple links so hard. Creating a 'master' object and many 'slaves' was relatively simple, but that would only allow the master to send out a signal. The mirrors were two master objects linked together. Harder, but doable. Creating a network of master objects started becoming exponentially more difficult with every new one added. Worse still, once the enchantments were in place, trying to add another mirror into it destabilized the whole thing.

Harry knew that if he could figure out how to do it, he would very quickly become the wealthiest wizard in the world by a ludicrous margin. The advent of mobile phones had certainly proved how much money there was in that field. Magical video calls would be infinitely superior to sticking one's head in a fireplace, not to mention more convenient.

Alas, a project for the future. For the moment, he still had to carry around three mirrors.

"Harry?" Penny questioned, obviously confused that he would contact her so quickly after coming to Hogwarts.

"Hi, Penny. I've got another job for you." He said with a wry grin.

"Alright, lay it on me." She said easily. There was still little enough work for her to do that she had no problem with taking on something else.

"I need you to research the Twi-Wizard Tournament for me."

"The Tri-Wizard Tournament?" Penny repeated in confusion, having never heard of such a thing.

"Apparently it's some kind of dangerous competition between Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons that was abandoned centuries ago because the body count got uncomfortably high. Someone decided that it would be a good idea to bring it back. They've been keeping it secret up to now, but it'll probably be in the papers tomorow." Harry explained.

Penny nodded thoughtfully and seemed to write something down before turning back to look at him. "How quickly do you need this done?"

"Not too quickly." Harry said. "The champions won't be chosen until the other two schools arrive, which is at Halloween, so you've got plenty of time."

"Shouldn't take me anywhere near that long." Penny said. "I'll get back to you when I have something."

"Thanks, Penny."

His mirror returned to showing his face and Harry put it away, still thinking. He knew that he wasn't old enough to enter the tournament since the rules were changed to prevent minors from entering, but he was still kind of tempted, if only to do something dangerous and do it well.

His recent encounter with the Death Eaters bothered him. He'd not acquitted himself well in that confrontation. Sirius had pegged them as the dregs of the Dark Lord's forces, bottom feeders blaming muggles and muggleborns for their own who had either lost their wealth or never had it to begin with, hoping to have some scraps thrown their way once Voldemort won. Parasites.

That was what had nearly killed him. The equivalent of street thugs that would have spent most of their days sitting on a couch in a grease stained shirt, living off social support, guzzling beer and yelling at politicians on a telly if they'd been born as muggles instead of purebloods.

The humiliation still burned long after the flames that had scarred his arm had gone out. He should have been able to crush all eight of them as if they were nothing, or at the very least make them rethink the idea of attacking him. But he hadn't been able to, because he hadn't bothered learning how to fight. Sure, he knew some pretty good spells and he had significantly cut down on the time it took to cast them without a wand since he'd started learning magic, but he didn't know how to actually fight .

He needed to learn before something like that happened again, before someone that wasn't dumb enough to gloat for an hour tried killing him.

Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody was the DADA teacher this year, Dora's mentor when she was still in training. She'd only had good things to say about him. Well, mostly good things. Harry would have liked to ask him for training on how to fight, but Sirius had told him that Moody was an old friend of Dumbledore's. How many pies did that old man have his fingers in anyway? Too many for sure. He'd just have to muddle through it for now and ask Dora if she was willing to share some Auror training over the holidays and the summer.

He was brought out of his thoughts when the door opened and Luna strolled in.

"Hello?" Harry said, bemused by her sudden entrance.

"Hello, Harry." Luna returned, walking up to his bed and starting to strip.

"Spending the night?" Harry asked.

"Yes." Luna nodded, putting her panties on top of the small pile of clothes that now took up a nearby chair and slipping between the covers, completely naked.

Harry rubbed a hand over his chin, unable to quite stop the smile that pulled at his lips. There was something about Luna's utter obliviousness to societal taboos that he just couldn't help but admire.

"Do you think that Durmstrang or Beauxbatons will bring any crumple-horned snorkacks with them?" Luna asked once he had settled into the now familiar spooning position.

"I don't know, maybe." Harry said lightly, sensing that Luna's mood was turning sad despite her idly vacant tone.

"Daddy really wanted to find one." She went on.

Harry held back a sigh. Luna had been making less mentions of her probably-nonexistent creatures since her father's death, leading him to think that maybe that had been Xeno's way of coping with the death of his wife and Luna had simply adopted it.

"I was thinking about asking Dora if she wanted to go on a trip with me next summer. You could come along if you want, maybe we'll find a snorkack." The original idea had been for just him and Dora to go somewhere, but taking Luna along too wouldn't be all that disruptive. She wasn't a needy child that had to be constantly supervised.

He might be, technically speaking, encouraging her delusions with this, but Luna was a big girl and he wasn't going to patronise her. If she wanted to look for snorkacks, nargles and blibbering humdingers, then he wasn't going to tell her that she shouldn't.

"Where would we go?" Luna asked, perking up with interest.

"I don't know yet." Harry shrugged. "Somewhere out of Britain."

"I'd like that."

Breakfast the next morning was a time of furtive glances and poorly veiled interest. People hadn't noticed his newly scarred arm during the welcoming feast, busy as they were with stuffing their faces and the Prophet hadn't mentioned it(indeed, the Prophet had mentioned the altercation at the World Cup as little as possible), so it was now garnering a lot of attention.

Harry knew that it was only a matter of time before someone couldn't keep their curiousity in check any more and would blurt out a tactless 'what happened to your hand?!'. Alternatively, the whispers would circulate through the Great Hall until they reached the Slytherin table, where a particular member of that house would think that he could somehow use this.

And here we go. Harry thought to himself sarcastically, seeing that Malfoy had gotten up along with his two bookends and the surprise addition of Pansy Parkinson. Draco Malfoy was one of those rare people that prefered their humiliations to happen in public.

"Don't you have any decency, Potter?" The Slytherin demanded.

Harry raised an eyebrow in silent query, wondering where the blond was going with this.

"People are eating and here you are, showing off your disgusting mangled arm." He went on with a sneer.

Harry lifted up his sleeve to and turned his scarred limb over a few times, looking it over carefully. Yes, the scars were quite noticeable, but he would hardly call it mangled. The Ravenclaws around him honestly looked more intrigued than disgusted.

He finally looked back to the smug looking Draco and replied. "If they can eat with your face present, then my arm isn't likely to faze them."

Draco flushed angrily as the listening crowd burst into laughter at his expense. He'd been expecting Potter to try hiding his deformity, but instead he was treating it with complete indifference, as if there was nothing ugly about the scars.

"You can't talk to Draco like that!" Pansy snapped, glaring at Harry.

"And what are you going to do about it?" Harry asked coldly, quite deliberately projecting menace towards her.

Pansy went pale with sudden dread and stammered something, none too subtly moving to stand slightly behind Draco. For all her petty viciouness and sense of pureblood superiority, Pansy was still a child and a rather unremarkable one at that. Harry was both much stronger and had sent four souls screaming into the Void. She may not understand why the thought of butting heads with him filled her with a nameless fear, but that mystical sense that all magical beings possessed recognized danger even if she didn't.

"How'd you get the scars, Harry?" One brave Ravenclaw second year took the opportunity to ask.

"I was playing with fire." Harry answered unhelpfully.

"Did it hurt?" The same Ravenclaw asked.

"What do you think?" Harry asked back caustically, making the twelve-year-old boy shrink back into his seat as his face turned with shame.

Luna took a moment away from her food to pat Harry on the leg. This was why Harry didn't have many friends. True, it had been a stupid question, but there was no need to be mean about it.

"At least it matches your forehead, I suppose." Draco butted in, once again sneering.

"Why are you still here, Draco?" Harry asked with a put upon sigh. "You're not going to win anything here, so why don't you just take what little dignity you have left and limp back to the Slytherin table?"

The peanut gallery laughed again, clearly amused by how one-sided the exchange was. This had been a form of amusement for Hogwarts ever since Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had been first years. Harry would be minding his own business, Draco would come looking to make an issue of something every so often and a verbal spar would ensue. It had been more even at first, but Harry had quickly outgrown the Malfoy scion in wit and now tended to shred him in moments.

Draco was well aware of the fact that he was coming off worse in these exchanges, but his pride wouldn't let him leave well enough alone. He was a Malfoy, and no halfblood with delusions of grandeur had any right to be better than him. The fact that Harry was consistently getting the best of him flew in the face of everything he believed in.

That was why he couldn't do as Harry had - however insultingly - suggested and back down. No, he had to retaliate somehow, even if it was just to get the last word in.

"Watch yourself, Potter or you might end up like Loony's father." He threatened.

"POTTER! WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Came the enraged yell from the staff table.

Harry didn't really have anything in mind when he'd stood up. He'd felt the spike of pain and grief from Luna at Malfoy's threat, seen her jerk as if she'd been electrocuted and simply acted. Now there was a slight sting of pain in his hand, Malfoy was moaning on the floor with a broken jaw, Crabbe and Goyle had been sent flying and Pansy seemed to have lost control of her bladder.

His temper had gotten away from him again. He'd really thought that he'd handled that problem already. Though he was admittedly a bit overprotective of Luna right now, so that might be the real issue. Or it could be because he already had a bone to pick with Malfoy over what he'd done to Penny. Or maybe it was because the Sun was up. He was always more temperamental during the day, when the Light's fire was strong. Probably all of the above.

He didn't answer Snape's bellowed question. It was rhetorical anyway. He looked down at the Malfoy scion instead. It was kind of funny how the blond idiot managed to do this to himself at the start of every year. It was almost like all sense of caution was wiped from his mind over the summer.

"A hundred points from Ravenclaw and detention with me for two months!" Snape raged, looking over his Slytherins.

"No." Harry said blandly. He had better things to do than serve detention, especially over a worthless sack of shite like Malfoy.

"No?" Snape repeated dangerously.

"No." Harry confirmed, undaunted. Snape had been intimidating a few years ago, with his hateful glares, the authority of his position as a teacher and most of all the hateful feel of his magic, but things were different now.

Now Harry was just as tall as him, had little use or respect for him as a teacher and had recently survived a brush with death. Snape was simply not that scary anymore.

"You don't seem to understand how things work around here, Potter." Snape said in a deadly whisper that belied his rage. "You don't make the rules, no matter how famous you are. If I say that you'll be serving detention for the rest of the year, then you will be serving detention for the rest of the year."

"You can serve it yourself, I have better things to do." Harry said bluntly, not even bothering to acknowledge the change in length. It made no difference since he wasn't planning to attend anyway. It was really too bad, he could have almost liked Snape at one point, but the man had serious anger management problems and clung to his grudges with near fanaticism.

"I'll see you expelled." Snape growled, his sallow face turning a blotchy red as all his buttons were pushed.

"That'll be the day." Harry snorted, knowing full well that it wasn't going to happen with Dumbledore around. Even if it did, he wouldn't be entirely displeased. Sure, he'd have to pull Luna out too because he didn't want her to be here without him, but there were alternatives. Sure, they'd snap his wand and tell him that he was not to use magic anymore, but he would simply move out of the country and do it anyway. The chances of him getting expelled were pretty much nil though, even with Malfoy senior on the Hogwarts board of governors. Dumbledore wouldn't want him removed from his influence.

Snape's face went an even more unhealthy color as he most likely realized that last truth.

"I never want to see you in my classroom again, Potter." The Potions Master growled and started levitating his unconscious student to the infirmary.

"Agreed." Harry called after him, genuinely pleased by this. He'd been thinking of blowing off Potions and several other classes anyway, which was why he was so well informed about the likelihood of expulsion to begin with. Potions was a useful skill, but Snape didn't know how to teach for shit. He'd learn on his own. The only benefit to going to his classes was having someone around to keep cauldrons from exploding, which Snape often deliberately failed to do anyway when he wanted to humiliate some non-Slytherin.

Albus Dumbledore had not been present at breakfast that morning, but word of the altercation reached him quickly. He needed to talk to Harry about it, but first he had to find him. Albus had a hunch on his whereabouts.

As suspected, Harry was standing on top of the Astronomy Tower. Again. The young man's fascination with that spot was really quite perplexing, especially as he knew that Fawkes occasionnaly went to join him.

"Headmaster." Harry greeted once Dumbledore came close enough, keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon.

"Harry." Albus returned, moving to stand next to the student and noting with some surprise that he was actually a little shorter than the younger wizard. Harry had certainly grown quickly through whatever magical means he had employed. Perhaps an inch over six feet and with a lean build and a face that held a greater hint of Lily's sharper features than it once did now that the softness of youth was receding. A handsome young man that his parents would undoubtedly have been proud of.

"Here to get the other side of the story from this morning?" Harry asked.

"I believe I can guess at the truth." Albus said musingly. "Mr. Malfoy likely said something provocative, causing you to lash out violently. Professor Snape then assigned you a detention which you refused to attend."

"Why are you here then if you already know what happened?" Harry asked.

"Mostly to tell you that you cannot simply refuse to attend a detention when you have clearly earned it." Albus chuckled.

"Snape and I have reached an agreement about that." Harry said calmly. "I won't attend his detentions and in return he will not teach me Potions anymore."

"Harry, you shouldn't allow this enmity between you and Professor Snape to damage your education." Dumbledore chided gently.

"I'll learn Potions on my own. Snape isn't much of a teacher anyway."

"My boy, you were allowed to stop attending Charms and Transfiguration because the normal pacing of the curriculum was clearly too slow for you, but if you refuse to attend classes simply because you dislike the teacher, then perhaps I gave your maturity too much credit." Dumbledore sighed.

He didn't like stooping to what was essentially blackmail, but Harry needed to learn that he couldn't simply do as he pleased.

"Then you will probably be displeased to learn that in addition to my electives, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions, I won't be attending Herbology, History of Magic or Astronomy anymore either."

Dumbledore blinked in surprise. That hadn't been the reaction he'd been expecting. "Harry, that would mean that the only class you will be attending is Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"I'm aware of that." Harry nodded. "I'm simply not interested in Herbology or Astronomy and I doubt that I ever will be and Binns is even worse than Snape as a teacher."

"Strange that you would claim to have no interest in Astronomy yet spend so much time atop this tower." Dumbledore commented, trying to see if there was anything important about that.

"I like the view." Harry smirked.

"Am I to take it that you will refuse to attend any detentions given as well?" Dumbledore asked, getting back on track.

"I'll do my best to avoid any detention-worthy behavior." Harry replied in lieu of a confirmation.

"Except for skipping classes?"

"I can get a note from Sirius stating that he supports my decision if it makes you feel better." Harry offered.

Had he been a younger man, Dumbledore would have rolled his eyes in exasperation. Of course Sirius would support Harry's decision, he was exactly the sort to find his godson's rebelliousness amusing.

"Dare I ask how you intend to pass your OWLs if you will not attend classes?" He asked instead.

"I'll manage, and if not then I'm sure that I can bribe the examiners into giving me a passing grade."

"Harry." Dumbledore said with deep disapproval.

"What?" The younger wizard asked, looking unmoved. "That's how things work in Britain, isn't it?"

"The fact that some people take advantage of their wealth to get around the law is not a good reason for you stoop to their level." The old wizard sighed again. Harry was far too cynical. He wasn't wrong, but he was too cynical.

"I will gladly stoop to that level if it keeps me from wasting time on things I don't care about." Harry argued back stubbornly.

"Do you care nothing about the example you are setting?" Dumbledore asked. The boy was being most unreasonable.

"That's really not my problem." Harry reasoned. "I don't owe it to anyone to be an example."

Dumbledore frowned minutely. The lad didn't seem to realize, or perhaps didn't want to realize, that he was always going to be an example.

"You have chosen the path of the powerful wizard." He countered. "As such, there will always be people looking up to you."

"Their choice, not mine." Harry said with a note of finality. "Was there any other school related matter you wanted to discuss?"

Dumbledore paused, easily seeing the implication that Harry was done talking about anything that didn't fall under his purview as Hogwarts Headmaster. Few people were willing to shut him down so blatantly. Something in Harry had hardened since the last time they'd spoken, but he supposed that it only made sense. Killing never made people softer. Never. He had the sense that all hope of having Harry see him as a mentor was lost. That was unfortunate, as he would now have to work towards the greater good the hard way.

"No, that was all." Dumbledore said genially. "Have a good day, Harry."

Once the old wizard was gone, Harry smirked to himself. He'd been right. Not a single word said about expulsion, no great argument about his cavalier atitude towards class, not even any real mention of how irregular or against the rules it was. Dumbledore didn't actually care what he did in Hogwarts as long as he was in Hogwarts.

Dumbledore was starting to get a little bit predictable. Only a little bit though, there was still no telling what he'd try in the future. He would need to be watchful. Perhaps he would have been better served to lie low, but he just couldn't do that anymore. Life was too short to waste time on things he didn't care about. He was most certainly not going to let the manipulative old bastard guilt trip him into anything. The nerve of him to imply that it was up to Harry himself to deal with Snape's attitude problem instead of Dumbledore's.

Shaking those thoughts off, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing intently on the sunlight shining down on him. Ever since his accidental discovery of the dementor effect he'd produced by focusing too deeply on the Dark during the World Cup, he'd been carefully exploring both that and the other end of the spectrum.

Inhale . Slowly pull Light into himself.

Exhale. Release, let it settle.

Inhale. Draw it deeper, washing over his soul. His runes tingled warmly.

Exhale. Release. The Light began to drain out of him through Arhain, the small but bottomless spot of Dark, seeking balance as dictated by Yen'Lui .

Inhale. Pull on more Light. Enough to make his runes heat up painfully in warning, enough to become restlessly energetic, enough to know that his eyes were glowing like emerald torches in his skull, enough to feel as if he could eat fire and shit lightning.

Exhale. Release.

A small burst of flame and a familiar phoenix appeared on his shoulder.

"Well if it isn't my favorite sunbro." Harry said dryly as Fawkes started rubbing his head into his neck, jaw and any other place he could reach, almost like a cat actually. "Today, we are both so grossly incadescent."

Fawkes burst into joyous phoenix song as a response.

A wild exhultation rose up in him and Harry stumbled to his knees as rationality fought against the mad desire to take a running leap off the Astronomy Tower, for no other reason than to feel the wind rushing past him.

"Don't do that." He snapped at the phoenix as he got back on his feet, receiving an ambiguous chirp from the bird in response.

This was the problem with Light. Whereas Dark muted emotions and made him feel detached from the world, Light drove them wild. Had he been in this state when Draco had made his blustering threat, he'd have fried him without even thinking about it. If Dora was here and did so much as smile at him, he would have torn her clothes off and taken her on the spot. Might have done it with any woman actually. Might not even have cared if they were willing. He wasn't intending to find out.

On the upside…

He tensed and a ring of fire billowed outwards from his body. He barely even had to focus to do it. It was in some ways even easier than with a wand, though his compromised state of mind didn't allow for a particularly varied spell selection. It was all brute force and no finesse. Fire was especially easy. That probably had something to do with why phoenix feather wands were so well suited to sharp bursts of power, the firebirds being so closely linked to the Sun.

It was at once both wonderful and terrible. Such a feeling of power and drive, of life unrestrained. It was as if there was nothing that he couldn't do, nothing that he couldn't survive. At the low, low cost of any semblance of impulse control. And the sense of invincibility was deceptive on top of it.

Harry slumped as the last of the excess Light was sucked out through Arhain like water down a drain, leaving him feeling a bit tired and lethargic but blessedly calm. Both Light and Dark carried the risk of overindulgence. The aftermath of indulgence in Dark made the world seem so very loud and needlessly difficult and Light made him feel lethargic and empty, as if he'd just come down from an adrenaline rush.

Fawkes trilled sadly as his second favorite human stopped blazing with Light.

"Don't give me that, you mcnugget." Harry chided and ruffled the firebird's chest feathers. "I'm all ears if you know how to control this, but I've got no interest in becoming some kind of magical berserker that will kill anything, fuck everything and can't think more than three seconds in advance."

Fawkes sang something that sounded remarkably like a shrug. He had no idea how the bird had managed to do that.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Harry muttered.

Fred and George hadn't known quite what to think when Harry Potter had asked to talk to them in private. The last time he'd asked to talk to a Weasley in private, it had been to buy a pet rat that was actually an Animagus.

"I want to hire you." He said simply, causing the twins to look at each other with raised eyebrows.

"Hire us?" Fred repeated.

"To do what?" George finished.

"To prank the ever loving shite out of Draco Malfoy." Harry answered.

"You may have come to the right place." The twins chorused with wide grins.

"Excellent." Harry drawled with a smirk. "Just so we understand each other, I don't want this to be something that he can laugh off. I want him to be afraid of leaving his common room at the start of every day."

The grins faded a bit as they realized that there was some real malice behind this.

"You don't think that breaking his jaw was enough for what he said the other day?" Fred asked.

"Oh, this has nothing to do with that." Harry explained. "You remember Penelope Clearwater?"

"Of course, Percy's ex-girlfriend." George nodded.

"Perfect Percy really dropped the quaffle with her." Fred added.

"Well it would seem that Malfoy junior couldn't stand the indignity of being put in detention by a 'mudblood' and got his father to ruin her chances of ever getting a decent job in magical Britain. That's why I want him to suffer some real indignities."

"When you put it that way it does sound like he needs a good pranking," Fred admitted.

"I'm glad you agree." Harry said. "So will you do it?"

"I'd like to know why you care so much about Penny first." George said with a smirk.

"Could it be that not-so-ickle Harriekins has a crush on our uptight brother's ex-girlfriend?" Fred continued with the same smirk.

"Yes, Harry. Are you in loooooove with Penny?" George finished, wagging his eyebrows.

Harry raised an eyebrow at the rather sad attempt at flustering him, though he had to admit that it would likely have worked if he hadn't artificially sped up his maturation.

"She's a friend and she works for me." He replied simply.

"Works for you?" The twins asked in surprise.

"Yes. I needed a personal assistant to handle my mail and finances and Penny has been doing a great job of it so far. In that respect, the Malfoys actually did me a favor, but I still want Draco to suffer for it, which is why I'm now asking you if you're up for it.

The twins were silent for a long moment as they digested this, but then George spoke up with an interesting gleam in his eye. "You said that you wanted to hire us, I assume that means payment?"

"I wouldn't expect you to spend your time pranking someone for free." Harry said with a completely straight face.

"Brother mine, I do believe that not-so-ickle Harriekins is sassing us." Fred said.

"I was indeed getting that impression myself." George concurred.

"I was going to pay you, but I won't say no if you're willing to do it for free." Harry said idly.

"We will be glad to accept this commission, Mr Potter. Now let's talk numbers." George said with a faux pompous accent.

"I'll pay for the supplies you need plus a galleon for every prank you pull on Malfoy."

The twins' eyes widened slightly in surprise but they got themselves under control with admirable speed.

"That's very generous of you, but seeing as we are the only dedicated pranksters in the castle, perhaps we should be getting five galleons for every prank." Fred said.

"Supply and demand." George added sagely.

Harry looked at them flatly at the ridiculous number. "What are you, goblins? One galleon per prank and five for the ones that are especially humiliating." Still pocket change for him, but it would provide incentive.

They looked pensive for a moment and then nodded, apparently deciding that it was the best they were going to get. "Alright, we can go with that, but what would you say to ten galleons for the ones that are especially creative?"

"I don't care how creative you are." Harry said bluntly. "For me, this is about making Malfoy suffer. As far as I'm concerned, you can walk up behind him, smash him over the head with a beater's bat and call it a prank."

The twins exchanged another look, perturbed by the open malice that Harry was showing. They didn't like the idea of picking on someone like this even if Malfoy had clearly earned himself a little payback. This went beyond pranking and became bullying.

But they really needed the money if they were ever going to open their joke shop. The materials weren't cheap and Bagman had cheated them out of their savings at the World Cup. With Harry's offer, they could experiment with someone else's money and get paid for it. Short of someone just up and giving them a huge chunk of gold, it was exactly what they needed.

The only problem was that it required them to single someone out and make their lives miserable with a constant stream of pranks. It wasn't really like them to focus on someone like that.

But in the grand scheme of things, their dreams of owning a joke shop weighed much more heavily than an easily disliked blood purist like Draco Malfoy, so they accepted the deal.

Harry was surprised to discover that he actually enjoyed Moody's class. Sure, the man was a paranoid nutcase exactly as bad as Dora had said, but he definitely knew his stuff. He tended to focus rather heavily on the combat side of DADA, which made sense given that he looked as if he'd been in quite a lot of it. Not that Harry was complaining about that.

It also helped that the man did know how to teach, no doubt due to having trained Aurors in the past. Lupin hadn't been a bad teacher by any stretch, but he had been a bit on the timid side, not to mention his constant akwardness around Harry. It would appear that DADA would finally be enjoyable. That was good, as this was the sort of subject where practical experience was much more valuable than textbooks.

He wished that he could have asked the man for private lessons on how to fight. But Moody had been more a friend to Dumbledore and a member of his Order of the Phoenix than an Auror even twenty years ago. He'd probably be too busy anyway.

But there were alternatives. Perhaps it wouldn't be as good as being trained by a legendary Auror, but it would work well enough for a start.

"What is this place?" Luna asked curiously, looking around the room that Harry had led her into.

"It's called the Room of Requirement and it apparently shapes itself to the desires of whoever uses it. The house elves told me about it." Harry explained.

"Neat." Luna said with a dreamy smile, still looking around at the mostly empty space that the room was currently configured into.

"Now I want you to take out your wand and cast stinging hexes at me." The dark haired wizard said.

Luna took out her wand and cast a stinging hex at him without batting an eyelash.

"Ow!" Harry yelped, more in surprise than any real pain. "I didn't mean right away."

"But you said now." Luna pointed out reasonably.

Harry rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed, ruefully admitting to himself that he had indeed said that. "Let me just explain the how's and why's and then you can start, okay?"

"Okay."

"Right. I've decided that I need to learn how to fight and this seems like a good way of doing it." He noticed that her eyes became a bit more vacant as he said this, no doubt reminded of her father's death, so he hurriedly went on. "You'll cast spells at me and I'll try to dodge and maybe throw a wandless spell back at you if I can manage it. Ready? Go!"

Luna might not be an Auror or even a combatant, but this should work just fine for now. Moreover, Harry knew that he could trust her implicitly and this would allow them to do something together. Luna for the most part didn't grieve in the same way as other people, but she was hurting all the same. Spending time with her and giving her something to do was the only thing that Harry could think of to help her.

"Stop!" Harry gasped, greedily gulping down air.

Luna obliged and tucked her wand behind her ear.

The past couple of hours had been most enlightening in several ways and Harry had discovered quite a few things.

For example, he had learned that dodging a barrage of spells wasn't as simple as it seemed on paper. He'd taken more than one spill across the ground because he'd lost his balance. It didn't help that his prolonged growth spurt had left him a touch clumsy. It wasn't a problem on a day to day basis since the growth had still been gradual even if it was unnaturally quick, but it had certainly come into play when trying to do something more balance intensive than walking.

He could finally sympathise with his girlfriend, though her clumsiness had more to do with her unintentionally adding or taking away an inch or two of height with her Metamorphmagus ability and discovering it the hard way.

Another thing was that he lacked stamina. Oh sure, his runes, magic and the low fat foods he'd asked the elves to bring him had prevented him from getting pudgy despite his intake, but he'd barely done any exercise in his life. He hadn't lasted fifteen minutes before needing a short break to catch his breath. He knew that Aurors were expected to keep in shape - barring any crippling injuries - and now he knew why. Jumping around in the middle of a fight was fucking tiring. Dora has asked him if he wanted to join her when she went jogging, but he'd turned her down. She was going to be insufferably smug about that when he broached the topic again.

Next was the fact that he couldn't cast wandlessly and dodge at the same time. Not yet at any rate. The focus required to properly cast a spell was simply too much to be able to do it while dodging. Practice would no doubt make it possible, but it would probably restrict him to quick and simple spells that he could weave together without needing to devote his full focus to the task. Shortcuts like wands and emotion powered magic were also viable options, but they had their own drawbacks. The former being stiff and inflexible and the latter volatile.

At least he'd gotten to test how well his runes worked. The magic resistance they gave him meant that Luna's spells had barely stung and been quickly flushed out. It was honestly about time that he got some tangible benefit out of those aside from his enhanced growth.

"Should I start again?" Luna asked after a few minutes.

Harry considered it. He knew that they'd have to do this for quite a while before he'd get any good at it… but he was pretty tired and it was almost time for dinner.

"I think we'll call it a day." He finally said.

"Oh, okay." Luna said, honestly feeling a bit disappointed. It had been fun.

"We'll do it again tomorrow if you're up for it." Harry said, wanting to cheer her up. Since he was taking only one class, he had plenty of time.

"I'd like that." She smiled.

"And now I'm going to take a bath. I stink." He declared with a theatric sniff of his armpit.

"I'd like to take a bath too." Luna said dreamily. Usually it was only the prefects and head students that had access to genuine baths instead of showers.

Harry simply nodded and willed the Room of Requirement to create two bathrooms for them. It really was an amazing piece of magic.

Much to his consternation, Luna went into the same bathroom as him insead of the extra one.

"Errr, Luna?" Harry began awkwardly.

"Yes, Harry." Luna asked, pausing in the act of undressing.

"You know that there's another free bathroom right next to this one, right?"

"Yes." Of course she knew, but that one didn't have Harry in it.

"Just checking." Harry sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable. Luna had spent every night so far in his bed instead of her own and now she was apparently going to do the same with the bath. He could tell her to no, but that would involve actually looking her in the eye and saying no. Besides, he knew that there was nothing sexual about this for his blonde friend.

"Will you wash my hair?" Luna asked with an eager smile. Her mother used to wash her hair.

"Sure." Harry agreed. He might as well if they were going to be sharing a bath.

"Luna, why did you come out of the boy's side of the tower this morning?" Ginny asked as they made their way to Charms class.

"I spent the night with Harry." Luna answered. The two of them were still friends even if Ginny and Harry weren't anymore. That was a bit sad, but some people just don't fit well together.

"You spent the night… with Harry?" Ginny repeated numbly, her opinion of her former friend plummeting even further than it had when she'd learned that he was fooling around with those upper year girls.

Oblivious to the conclusions that the redhead was jumping to, Luna nodded. "Yes, it's very nice."

Ginny had no idea what to say to that, so she simply scowled.

This conversation was meant to be private, but this was Hogwarts so they were naturally overheard. Before the day was out, it was known that Harry and Luna were an item and already having sex. The fact that they often disappeared together was taken as confirmation.

The following days passed more or less uneventfully. Word inevitably got around that Harry wasn't participating in the majority of his classes, which caused some envious muttering from people who didn't want to attend either, but little else. A few confronted Harry about it, but only got a dismissive 'I have no parents to make me go' as a response, which quickly shut people up. The dead parents conversation killer continued to be useful.

Oddly enough, both Harry and Luna remained mostly insulated from the rumors going around about them. Neither was exactly socially connected and everyone just sort of assumed that they knew everything already and didn't bother asking them about it. Harry spent most of his time away from the general student population anyway and Luna mostly tuned out the whispering. Ginny had been the one to tell them about pertinent rumors the previous years, but she was the unknowing instigator in this case.

Currently, the two were giving more fire to those rumors with what had become their almost daily sessions in the Room of Requirement.

Harry had built up some endurance and gotten enough of a handle on his footwork that he wasn't crashing to the floor all the time, but he still got hit with plenty of spells. The fact that Luna's accuracy and speed were improving alongside his dodging skills also had something to do with that.

He still had trouble getting off a spell while staying in motion though. The mental flexibility required to think of offense while evading attack simply eluded him.

Harry clenched his jaw as another stinging hex hit his thigh, frustrated more than in pain. He barely felt the sting through his magic resistance, but felt it he did. This would be so much easier with a wand. Just wave it through the air and think about what you wanted and it would happen, barely any thinking required. No wonder wizards had become so dependent on them.

The next three spells he dodged, but found himself too unbalanced and out of position to manage with the fourth. He instinctively used his arm as a shield. The stinging hex bounced off his arm as it hit and went sailing back towards Luna, forcing his friend to jump out of the way of her own spell.

Harry grinned at the event as Luna righted herself. That kind of thing had been happening with increasing regularity. He may not have managed to cast anything offensive while dodging, but it had done wonders for his ability to conjure up shields. At this rate he'd be soon able to wandlessly create shields with ease. It was limited to his arms for now since that was the first bodypart that came to mind as a means of shielding, but he was sure that he would eventually be able to manage it elsewhere. It wouldn't make him invulnerable to spells since some were too powerful to block like that, but being able to deflect low tier offensive spells like this would still be useful.

"More?" Luna asked with a smile as she righted herself.

Harry brushed a few rebellious strands of hair out of his face and nodded, preparing himself for another round of dodging.

Then both of their heads snapped towards the side when one of the communication mirrors began vibrating.

"Timeout I guess." He said and went to answer. "Hey, Penny."

"Was I interrupting something?" The former Ravenclaw asked with a raised eyebrow, seeing that Harry was a bit flushed and had a light sheen of sweat on his face.

"Good evening, Penelope." Luna said as she sat down next to Harry so that she could see into the mirror.

Penny blinked, seeing that her fellow blonde had a similar look of slight dishevelment to her. What in the world had they been up to? Probably best not to ask.

"Hello, Luna." She said and got right to the point. "I have the information you asked for on the Tri-Wizard Tournament."

"Nice, let's hear it.

"It was first conceived just over seven hundred years ago as a peaceful means of determining which of the three magical schools of the time was the best." Penny began, her tone turning wry at the end. "Apparently, relations between Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons was quite a bit more hostile in those days and it wasn't unheard of for arguments to be settled with violence. The winner of the tournament would essentially get bragging rights and the prestige of being known as the next up and coming witch or wizard."

"But then it got cancelled because of the death toll." Harry said with a nod, having heard that much already.

"Yes, once the Ministries of Magic started showing up, regulating magic use and making the separation between the magical and muggle worls more stringent, the number of random magical duels started declining rapidly. When all three champions got killed in 1792, it was determined that it was too brutal a competition for the times."

"So why would they bring it back?" Harry asked.

"No idea." Penny shrugged. "I asked a few people in the Ministry and they essentially told me that Ludo Bagman had gotten it into his head to resurrect it and managed to convince the right people."

"Did you learn anything about the selection process?" Harry asked, an idea forming. Dumbledore had only said that the choosing would be impartial.

"I did actually. They use a magical artefact called the Goblet of Fire to determine who's worthy to be chosen as a champion."

"Goblet of Fire?"

"A joint project between the Headmasters of the three schools for the fifth tournament to ensure that only the most capable would be able to compete. They used a lottery system of sorts before that, but decided that a better arbiter was needed since it got weak wizards picked more than once. Entering your name constitutes a binding magical contract with the Goblet to compete on pain of losing your magic, or death in other words. It's also been considered as a rite of adulthood in the old days because you're essentially taking your life into your own hands by entering your name." Penny explained.

"So if I were to enter my name, I'd be considered a legal adult?" Harry asked contemplatively. His status as a minor hadn't been a huge problem lately since he now had Sirius to act in his name if he needed it, but he was getting antsy to take a look at the Potter family vault in Gringotts.

"Only if your name gets picked, and you'd still exist in a sort of legal limbo until the tournament is finished. Apparently it doesn't come into effect until the end to avoid unnecessary paperwork just in case you die before that." Penny explained and then frowned at him. "You aren't actually thinking of entering are you?"

"I am." Harry admitted.

"But isn't entry restricted to people who've already had their seventeenth birthday?"

"So?"

"Harry, don't do anything stupid." Penny sighed, looking worried. "This tournament is dangerous."

That just made it more attractive for him. Doing something dangerous in a semi-controlled environment sounded exactly like what he needed if he wanted to be more prepared for the next group of belligerent wizards with a grudge. He might not be getting XP points from it, but experience with dangerous situations was certain to be even more valuable.

"I'll be careful." He assured her.

"But you're still going to enter." She said flatly.

"Yes."

"Fine." Penny sighed. She'd gotten quite fond of Harry lately and didn't want to see him getting hurt, but she knew that he was a lot more stubborn than you'd give him credit for at first. "I also have the details for transfering money out of Gringotts."

Harry's eyebrows climbed up his forehead at Penny's terse tone as she said that. She must have found something unpleasant, which wouldn't be a surprise with goblins involved.

"So, how is it done?"

"It isn't." She said flatly. "Gringotts money isn't a valid currency anywhere except for places with another Gringotts bank, which means anywhere outside of Europe, India or Egypt. Places like the United States, Australia, South America and basically any magical country that isn't a member of the ICW have their own currency. It's even considered an international felony for anyone but a goblin to melt down the coins."

"You have got to be shitting me." Harry stated, stunned. He'd expected that the diminutive little bastards would have some kind of crap going on, but this? "But wait, couldn't I just turn all the gold into muggle money and transfer it that way?"

"You could, but you'd have to do it a rate of a hundred galleons per day unless you want to be charged a 80% fee for the service."

"80%!?" Harry exclaimed in shock. "What kind of insane rate is that?!"

"From what I can tell it's a transparent ploy by the goblins rob anyone that tries to stop using their services." Penny said with a slight scowl of her own. "You can withdraw all of your gold if you want, but large scale transactions always go through Gringotts and have unreal fees attached to them if only one side has their gold inside the bank, plus you don't get the benefit of having it protected. And of course, it's illegal to conduct any transaction larger than a hundred galleons without Gringotts as a middle man. The people in the Goblin Liasons Department won't openly admit it, but the goblins have had a deathgrip on the European magical world's economy ever since the last war. The entire system is designed to maintain the goblin monopoly on gold."

"Awesome." Harry sighed sarcastically. That explained a lot. The little fuckers were a hundred times worse than the dwarves in Lord of the Rings. They'd have kept digging even if they knew there was a Balrog waiting for them. He hadn't realized the true depth of their greed until now. No wonder that Gorefist had been so angry when he'd threatened to empty his vault back at the end of first year. Even if the gold had nowhere else to go than Gringotts, it wouldn't be in Gorefist's keeping anymore. Damn goblins would probably sooner sacrifice their firstborn than a pile of gold. The Americans had definitely been on to something when they'd wiped them out on their shores.

The second Saturday after the start of term.

Harry had a problem. He was debilitatingly aroused.

He knew it sounded funny, but it was true. It hadn't been a problem at first, but the longer he went without sex, the more distracted he was getting. He couldn't sit still long enough to read a book. He couldn't focus enough to brew a potion. His runes itched all the time, his magic was restless and he was sporting a semi-permanent erection. Luna wasn't helping the situation at all by crawling into his bed every night.

This wasn't exactly a new problem. He'd had the same issue in the period between the end of third year and the first time he'd slept with Dora, it just hadn't been this bad. The difference was that he was rather more attached to his girlfriend than he had been to Bryanna and Tiana. His occasional attempt to harvest the power of the Sun without losing himself was also supercharging his runes. And of course, he now also had a girl who was not quite woman but not quite a child either snuggling him every night. Naked.

Talking to Dora over the mirror didn't really help. In fact, it was making things even worse since she'd caught on to his problem and started teasing him over it a few days ago.

It was for these reasons that a raven flew out of the Hogwarts wards on this particular evening. He knew where a certain Metamorphmagus lived and wasn't afraid of dropping by unannounced.

Nymphadora Tonks was not having a great day. It had been exhausting from start to finish.

She'd had the morning shift and as a result been up far earlier than she would have liked. Then she'd spent a sleep inducing hour finishing a report that she should have done yesterday. Then Robards had sent her to break up a domestic disturbance between a pissed off witch, her husband and their attractive and lonely muggle neighbour. Telling a pissed off witch that she couldn't turn people, especially unaware muggles, into slugs was always so much fun. That stupid tradition of giving the rookie all the shit jobs was also grand. It had taken hours to do the paperwork from that debacle, what with the violations to the Statute of Sececy, the illegal use of magic and the need for Obliviators.

When she'd finally gotten home, she had just enough energy to grab a plate of yesterday's leftovers that she'd put under a stasis spell, plop herself in front of the telly and let it lull her into a state of torpor as she ate.

A few hours later, she woke up with a crick in her neck and a head feeling like it was wrapped in cotton. She got up with a groan, knowing that she was going to have a devil of a time falling asleep later when she actually needed to.

I wonder what Harry's doing? She thought and briefly considered using the mirror he'd given her to call him before dismissing it. She'd just talked to him yesterday and had no desire to be one of those clingy girls who used every spare moment to badger their boyfriends, doubly so since she was so much older than him. And it wasn't his job to keep her entertained anyway.

But she missed the cheeky brat. She didn't really have an abundance of friends thanks to her choice of career and she'd gotten used to having him around. None of her coworkers were also friends outside of the job and her Hogwarts friends had long since drifted away to do their own thing while she was training with Moody. Harry was young enough to not be a stick in the mud and mature enough to not be childish. And it helped that he was great in the sack. Very important that.

Despite laughing it off a couple of weeks ago, she was a bit worried that he would find someone else to keep him company at night. There'd be no shortage of willing witches throwing themselves at him if he let it be known that he was looking, that was for sure. The fact that he'd turned down two such offers before did a lot to assuage that concern, but it didn't get rid of it. Harry certainly wouldn't be the first or last person whose libido got the better of them during a long separation.

I need to stop moping. Tonks decided only to continue the thought sarcastically. But the day is just so perfect for it!

And it was. Aside from a more tedious than normal day at work, the weather had stayed at a dispirited drizzle the entire time. It was the kind of weather that could make you fall asleep out of sheer lethargy.

Maybe I really should get a computer, if only to see what the hype is all about.

Harry had mentioned that he was considering having Potter Manor renovated and electrical wiring installed. The problem with that idea was that it was warded to keep the non-magical away and he wasn't sure if there was enough magic around the old manor house to make electronics go screwy like they did in Hogwarts over time. It hadn't happened to his laptop so far, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn't happen to the wiring.

Tonks didn't have that problem since she lived in a perfectly mundane apartment complex in London. It wasn't the best of living spaces and paying the rent and picking up her owl post in Diagon Alley was a bit of a chore, but it got her out from under her parents roof and she liked the various perks of the Muggle World too much to live in a purely magical household. You couldn't get Chinese takeout delivered for one thing.

A knock had her head snapping towards the door.

"Coming!" She called out cheerily, moving towards it. It was too early for the landlord to be collecting rent, which meant that it was probably one of her parents. Or both of them. They could be annoying sometimes in the that typical way that only parents dropping in unannounced on their adult children could manage, but right now she was just glad for the distraction.

She was almost at the door when she started feeling strangely… horny. Hardly the typical reaction to having your parents come over and Tonks shifted akwardly in an attempt to tamp down on the heat blooming between her legs before she opened the door.

"Harry?" She blurted out in surprise, seeing her boyfriend standing there when he should have been way up in northern Scotland. He was slightly damp, clearly having been exposed to the rain for a short while.

He didn't say anything, electing to simply grab her and pull her into a kiss.

Tonks made a noise of surprise into his mouth that quickly turned into a moan. The earlier arousal that had come seemingly out of nowhere flared in strength, leaving her feeling as if a thick blanket of desire was pulled over her.

It didn't matter anymore how he was here, all that mattered was that he was and that he wanted her. She barely registered anything as he kicked the door closed and they stumbled their way towards her bedroom. She'd been handling their separation just fine despite missing him, but now that he was here she was desperate to feel him inside her again.

By the time that they reached her small, one person bed they were completely naked and fell into it eagerly, more than ready to skip right to the main event.

Which was why Tonks was extremely irritated to feel something digging into her back and forcing her attention away from the impending sex.

"Just a sec." She grunted and reached under herself to remove the offending object. "Aha!"

Her triumphant expression swiftly turned embarrassed as she realized that she was holding up Mr. Purple as if it was some kind of prize. To compound the situation, the enchanted dildo started wiggling around and vibrating.

"Impressive." Harry deadpanned. It was a rather large dildo.

She just knew that her hair and face had to be tomato red about now, so she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into another kiss. Sex was a surefire way to get past an akward situation.

Later.

The sweaty lovers lay on the small-ish bed, Tonks on her stomach and Harry on Tonks, taking deep, calming breaths as their lust abated for the moment.

"Bloody hell, I needed that." The Metamorphmagus sighed, cheek pressed into the matress and just enjoying the feeling of having her young lover on her and in her.

"You aren't the only one." Harry murmured, nibbling on her ear and delighting in the shiver it elicited from her. "I was getting so horny I could barely think."

"I noticed." She chuckled. Her earlier concerns about him cheating on her seemed so silly now. "You skipped right over the foreplay."

"That's what you get for jilling yourself over the mirror."

"You could've looked away."

"As if!" Harry scoffed.

"Then don't complain." Tonks laughed.

"I'll show you a complaint." Harry growled playfully and began focusing.

"What are you on about?" She asked warily, feeling… something.

"You'll see." He said mysteriously. It was almost sundown, but he could still draw in a bit of Light.

Tonks felt herself flush with sudden arousal, far too sudden and powerful to be natural.

"What is this?" She gasped, subconsciously bucking her hips towards him in the hope that he would put his revitalized erection to good use.

"Just a little trick." He murmured into her ear, continuing to mingle his Light infused magic with hers, knowing exactly what effect it would have. He'd seen it happen with the veela at the World Cup, though that had been subtler and much longer ranged.

Tonks began wiggling insistently, barely holding back a needy whimper as her loins burned with desire. She had no idea what he was doing, but if he didn't start moving soon she might just have to get violent.

"Get on with it already!" She panted out with a growl half a minute later, bucking her hips back at him with all the force she could muster. The pleasure of the act made her gasp in surprise despite expecting it.

That was the end of Harry's self-control, which had been hanging by a thread at that point anyway.

Later.

"Dora?"

"Hmm?"

"You've heard about the Triwizard Tournament, right?"

"Mmm."

"I'm thinking of entering."

That got the Auror to snap out of her indolent daze and give him a queer look.

"Why would you do that ? You hardly need the fame or the money."

"For the challenge. I don't want to be unprepared the next time I'm attacked." He admitted.

"Next time?" Tonks repeated with a frown. "You're expecting to get attacked again?"

Of course he was. The prophecy that he'd inadvertently tricked Dumbledore into revealing at the end of his first year now loomed over him constantly. Back then it had been a distant thing, like a thunderstorm on the horizon, not really something worth getting excited about. The recent attack had been like a smack across the face. The problem was a lot closer than he'd thought and the other side way playing for keeps.

Harry considered telling her about the prophecy and Voldemort's Horcruxes, wanted to even, had considered it before… but caution stopped him. He liked her, but he had no idea what would happen if he told her that. Would she want to help? Would she tell Amelia Bones like she was no doubt obligated to do? Secrets had a way of spreading once you started telling them to people and he definitely didn't want the Ministry catching wind of it. Best case scenario would be a constant Auror guard following him around. Worst case scenario would be Fudge panicking and doing something idiotic, like taking him into 'protective custody' somewhere and training him up as a weapon to get rid of Voldemort if he resurfaced. He might even get charged with some sort of crime for keeping that locket around instead of turning it in. And that wasn't even mentioning the numerous Death Eaters that still had high positions in the Ministry, or what Dumbledore would do. Too many variables.

"Yes, I am." He said instead. "I hear plenty of Death Eaters walked free. There's no telling when one of them will decide to take a shot at 'the Boy-Who-Lived'."

"You sound like Moody." Tonks huffed, both amused and exasperated. "Speaking of which, why don't you just ask him for help? He's your DADA professor this year and he'll like your sense of constant vigilance."

Harry made a face. He had a feeling that this next part of the conversation wouldn't go over well.

"I thought about it, but I don't trust him."

"Don't trust him?!" Tonks burst out, incredulous and indignant on behalf of her mentor. "Why the hell not? You think he's after you too?"

"No him specifically." Harry clarified. "It's Dumbledore I don't trust, and Moody is an old friend of his."

"Dumbledore?" She repeated, looking at him strangely. "Why wouldn't you trust Dumbledore? He's the greatest wizard in the world."

Harry sighed, slightly disappointed that Dora had bought into that bullcrap too but not really surprised. The old man knew a thing or two about public relations, that was for sure.

"I've got reason to suspect that he doesn't have my best interests in mind. He was Chief Warlock when Sirius was tossed into Azkaban but didn't bother arranging a trial for him and that's just one example of him doing things that make me wonder about his motives."

Tonks opened her mouth to question him further, but he preemted her. "I'll tell you about the others later if you want. I don't want to waste our time together talking about Dumbledore."

That conversation would require some preparation if he wanted to properly put a crack in the myth of 'Dumbledore the Infallible'.

"Oh? And how do you want to spend our time together?" She asked with a smile.

"I'm sure I could think of a few ways…"

Sunday morning.

"Good morning, Harry." Luna greeted. "You look much more relaxed today."

"I am more relaxed today." Harry agreed. Weekly booty calls - at least - to his girlfriend were a necessity. He'd go crazy otherwise.

"I'm glad Nymphadora was able to help, I was starting to get worried about you."

"How did you know where I went?" He asked curiously. He'd told her that he was leaving the castle for a night, but not where he was going.

"You were obviously desperate to put your penis in her vagina." Luna stated in that almost eerie calm tone that was uniquely hers.

Harry paused for a moment and then nodded with a sigh. There was no point in being shocked at Luna's bluntness anymore and she was right anyway.

"I wish I could have seen it." She continued with a pout.

Harry sighed again. It was too early in the morning to deal with Luna's voyeuristic streak and he was too hungry.

"Let's go get breakfast."

"Okay."