Chapter 71: The protector of Hogwarts

Harry walked in between the rows of Gryffindor students practising the disarming charm and watching over their progress. The younger students of third-year and fourth-year students needed far more practice on the spell compared to the fifth-year students and above. It primarily stems from the fact that they had never gotten a competent DADA professor to teach them. The only competent DADA professor they had met was the fake Moody. Still, owing to their lower designation in the year system, they were not adequately instructed in using the disarming charm.

Therefore, it fell to Harry to train them quickly to shorten the wand movements and perform the spell as fast as possible. He didn't mind it, though. After all, he had the bright idea to involve his senior Gryffindors in accelerating the learning process of the younger students. Teaching someone else a spell was the sure way to master said spell in his experience. After all, it was pretty recently that he learned to tweak the simple disarming charm to disarm multiple opponents at the same time. He was still developing the spell to be more effective, but he deconstructed the disarming charm to the basics and built up a new spell because he was teaching the basics to his fellow Knights.

"All right, everyone." Harry clapped his hands, attracting the group's attention as he took centre stage. "Most of you now know to perform the disarming charm. We'll practice it more under different circumstances and settings in the coming days to increase its effectiveness and binding speed. However, I plan to introduce you to another useful but simple spell today."

Harry brandished his wand facing the training dummy in the Room of Requirement. Harry made it a point to shout out the spell for the crowd's benefit.

"Stupefy."

A red ball of energy exited the tip of his wand, striking the immobile training dummy in the chest, knocking it three feet back.

"This is the stunning spell. It's a spell commonly used by Ministry aurors to apprehend a hostile wizard or magical creature safely. The spell, once hit, renders the wizard unconscious. As you can guess, a spell to knock an enemy unconscious is handy in a magical duel. There is also a simple counter spell to cancel the effects of the Stunning spell."

"Rennervate."

A lighter shade of red-coloured ball of energy hit the dummy without any marked effect.

"If someone were to volunteer, I can show the spell's real-life performance." Harry said, belatedly realising that showing the spell's effect on a dummy was not exactly a sound idea for a demonstration.

Thankfully, there was no shortage of volunteers as Harry saw several hands being raised in the air. The session continued from there on out smoothly, with Harry showing the natural effects of the stunning spell and teaching them the wand movements. When he was done demonstrating and explaining the basics of the spell, he let them practice it on each other.

"Neville. Hermione. Let's start with you two. Come over here." Harry beckoned them and made them stand across from each other.

Harry flicked his wand and conjured a cotton mattress behind Neville.

"To cushion your fall." Harry explained at the curious look from his friend.

"All right, Hermione. You may use the spell."

Hermione performed the stunning spell flawlessly. He was not surprised as he was quite aware of the spell beforehand as she was quite involved in his preparations for the Tournament last year. Neville fell on the mattress, unmoving once the stunner hit him head-on.

"Rennervate."

Harry waved his wand over Neville, and his friend woke up with a gasp.

"You all right there, Neville?" Harry asked, pulling Neville to his feet.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Neville muttered, rubbing his eyes as he climbed to his feet.

"Okay. Now you stand in Hermione's place and use the spell." said Harry.

Neville looked a bit troubled as he raised his wand against Hermione.

"Just visualise the spell's effect as you go through the wand movements. Make sure that you intend Hermione to fall unconscious. Keep that intent in your mind as you utter the spell." Harry advised.

Neville nodded in understanding. After taking a deep breath, Neville gathered himself and performed the spell.

"Stupefy."

A red beam of light hit Hermione square on her chest, knocking her out. Harry revived her just a moment later and pulled her to her feet.

"Good work, you two." Harry nodded at them before turning on other members of the group.

"So, who's next?" Harry asked.

Many hands were raised in the air, eager to master the spell.

After nearly half an hour passed, Harry decided to wind up the session and let the Gryffindor students return to the tower. However, he made the senate members stay back as there were certain issues they needed to discuss in the privacy of the Room of Requirement.

Once all the regular members were out of the RoR, Harry opened and pulled a lever on the side of a sculpted dragon head on the wall. Suddenly, a portion of the wall fell away to show a small chamber housing a round table with six chairs.

"Please come in and take your seats." Harry welcomed the elected senators into what he called the Senate chamber.

Harry took his seat and waited until Dacey Lyn, Ginny Weasley, Dean Thomas, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet took their seats.

"This is our first official meeting, and I suspect we shall have many such meetings in the days ahead. But first, we must pledge our oath before the commencement of the session." said Harry, looking intently at Dean Thomas, who had brought up the idea of a verbal oath for the Knights.

Harry knew Dean took up inspiration from the oath of allegiance given to the British monarch with some changes here and there. Harry and other senate members had some minor corrections to suggest. After much debate, there was a verbal oath they all approved. But this would be the first time they'd use it in an official sitting of the Senate. As the prime creator of the oath, Dean went first to recite the oath.

"I, Dean Thomas, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to magic and adopt the responsibility of safeguarding magic's might in the world."

The oath was quite simple and to the point. Harry also knew it was a bit vague towards the end, but that was purposefully designed that way. In two years, he suspected the nature of the oath could be changed to reflect the role of the Knights of Avalon. For now, this oath was more than enough for a secret club to learn defensive magic. Everyone else recited the oath, including Harry, and then they were on the issue at hand.

"Umm, Harry. What's that?" Dacey Lyn pointed at the fast-moving quill furiously scribbling down everything on a piece of parchment.

"That is a charmed quill that'll transcribe everything said on the Senate floor. These records will be safely stored in this room for future reference." Harry explained.

"Oh." Dacey Lyn looked at the quill apprehensively as if it was going to do something horrible.

"Anyway, I've called you all to inform you about establishing a mass communication method. We won't need it for now, as the Knights only have members from Gryffindor. But before the month is out, we'll slowly induct select students that the senate approves into the Knights. We'll need a secure communication method with all our members when we do that. My current plan is to use the Protean charm on an object like a ring, coin or locket and pass on the message of our meeting place." Harry explained.

"Is it essential, though? We could inform the members by word of mouth." Katie suggested.

"It could help us communicate instantly with all members even when we are not in Hogwarts." Harry pointed out.

"If we happen to conduct a meeting during the summer holidays, we could communicate easier if we have this capability." Ginny said, looking thoughtful. "I approve."

"If we are getting communication channels open to all members of the Knights, then I suggest we create a separate one exclusive for the senate members." Alicia suggested, earning several curious looks from everyone around the table.

"Uhh…If we want to conduct a meeting during the summer holidays and can't conduct it, then a communication channel connecting all senate members could be quite handy." Alicia explained somewhat awkwardly.

"She's right. It also must be considered that Alicia and the rest of the seventh-years will not be at Hogwarts next year. Keeping them in the loop is also important." Harry mused aloud.

"So, what will we use for this Protean charm to work? As a matter of fact, how does that charm even work?" Dean asked, leaning forward in his seat and looking curiously at Harry for an explanation.

"The Protean charm allows objects to be connected and make changes on it through changing one object, which reflects the change on all the other connected objects. This allows the charm to be used in mass communication. In fact, it's used in connecting the Floo network of wizarding Britain. Think of it as radio waves in muggle terms." Harry explained the charm as best as he could.

"Oh, okay. Thanks, Harry." Dean gave him a thumbs-up with a grin.

"So, what object will we use it on? It must be discreet and protected from outsiders accessing any information we pass through this channel." Katie pointed out.

"We could use it on a locket. We can tie it on a chain around our neck. With the locket under our shirt, it'd be hidden from curious eyes." Ginny suggested.

There was a murmur of agreement on Ginny's suggestion.

"A coin is also a good option." Dacey Lyn commented, twirling a lock of her sandy blond hair between her fingers while her green eyes looked thoughtful.

"A coin could get easily misplaced. If we keep it out of our usual coin pouch, it'd stand out and let's not forget that anyone can access the coin if they search our pockets or bags for some reason. As Ginny said, a locket would remain safely hidden underneath our shirts." said Dean.

"Won't lockets be small for our use? I assume we communicate with written letters on the locket, right?" Dacey asked.

"That's right. But we can use enlarging charms and other sophisticated charms to make it function to our needs." said Harry.

As there was no further objection to the idea, they unanimously agreed to use a locket as their communication device. After that issue was settled, Harry suggested establishing a three-layered hierarchy within the Knights of Avalon. He wanted the group split into three; senators, squires, and knights. Then the knights had to be further divided into defenders, attackers, and healers. But that suggestion was not accepted as there was no immediate need to establish a hierarchy within the group. There were also differences in opinion about what constituted earning the designation of a knight, senator and squire because the designations could overlap. A knight could become the senator in an election, and there was uncertainty in the term of an elected senator and Harry's position.

In the end, Harry was about to conclude the meeting so the senators could discuss some of the issues raised with their fellow year mates and formulate a consensus. But just before Harry called off the meeting, Alicia raised a question.

"Harry. What's our next plan with Umbridge? I don't think she'd ignore what happened on the pitch."

"You're right, Alicia. Umbridge would not bow down to our show of strength without a fight. I suspect she's trying her best to get us expelled through the Board of Governors." Harry said truthfully.

There was a round of gasps and worried looks exchanged between the five senators at the prospect of facing expulsion.

"You don't need to worry. She's going to find that it's quite hard to expel even a single student from the school. Trust me. It's been taken care of." Harry said confidently.

"What did you do?" Katie asked curiously.

Harry just smirked and winked at them all.

XXXXXXX

Dolores was livid. No, not livid. She was frothing with anger at the Board of Governors.

She had gone straight to the Board with her grievance, assured that her treatment at the hands of Potter and Potter's public display of dark magic as well as rebellion, was grounds for expelling the boy. She had even prepared a long list of Gryffindor students who raised their wands against her to be expelled from the school. She was even quite sure she'd dislodge Dumbledore from the Headmaster position when she could connect Potter's rebellion and actions to Dumbledore. After all, the old headmaster was complicit in the crimes of Potter and refused to act.

The old man even had the gall to suggest that she bow down to the demands of a delusional teenage boy!

Yet, nothing of the sort happened. She had presented her demands and grievances before the Board. She had formally appealed to the Board to take disciplinary action against Potter and Dumbledore. Instead of acting against those two and the Gryffindor students, the Board rejected all her demands and said an emphatic no. She had screamed in rage and threatened them with the might of the Ministry, but the Board refused to budge.

Instead, she was given advice! Advice! She was 'advised' to make amends with Harry Potter!

She could still hear the words of one of the governors ringing in her ears.

"We did not take action when your discretion was brought forth to our attention by Harry Potter. For that reason, the situation has developed to a stage where the entire House of Gryffindor has declared open rebellion against you. You should've treaded carefully when you brazenly walked into the lion's den Madam Umbridge. Your influence at the Ministry shielded you last time from our action, but that doesn't mean the Ministry has blanket power or influence over us, Madam."

Another governor had this to say,

"There is a storm coming your way, Madam Umbridge. You are playing with forces beyond your reach. Talk to Mr Potter and resolve the issues speedily. Otherwise, you'll be swept away by the whirlwind that's forming around you."

Those cowards were speaking as if they were afraid of Potter.

'No, it was not just fear. The Board must be under Potter's influence somehow.' she reasoned as she walked back and forth in her room stewing in anger.

But the real blow came when she asked for Lucius Malfoy's help. The man had abruptly cut off the floo network after warning her not to bother him with issues related to Potter. She could've sworn she heard fear in Lucius's voice. She could not fathom why Lucius would fear Harry Potter so much.

Dolores looked at the floo once more and thought about taking her grievances to Minister Fudge. But she thought better of it. Cornelius had warned her not to annoy Potter and that her target should be Dumbledore. She had tried to convince the Minister that Potter was also a problem that needed to be tackled early before the boy grew too powerful. Yet, Cornelius refused to listen to her sound advice. The boy was already frighteningly magically powerful. She could still feel goosebumps when she thought of that day with Potter performing such dark magic in front of the whole school.

She paused in her step as she wondered whether Potter was using some obscure dark magic to influence the Board of Governors.

Maybe, the Potter boy was using the Imperius curse, she mused.

A thought suddenly struck her. She'd have trouble seeking the service of the aurors if it were to suppress Potter's rebellion in Hogwarts. But, she could coerce a few aurors to apprehend Potter for practising dark magic in the open. Maybe, she could even go a step further and have Potter thrown in Azkaban.

Her giddiness, however, stopped as she realised she'd have to go around Cornelius in this matter. She was sure the Minister would never approve. Nor did she think Amelia Bones would help her in this particular matter. Bones had always been too cautious in the Ministry. It was one of the reasons why the woman got to keep the DMLE all these years.

'No. I'll have to be discreet. Once I have the Potter boy under custody, I'll have him under Veritaserum and force the blasted boy to confess all his crimes. That'll be enough for Cornelius to act.' Dolores nodded to herself at the plan she devised on the spot.

She immediately used the floo, connecting it to the Ministry atrium. She needed to find two loyal aurors without tipping off anyone in the ministry. And Dolores knew just the two people who'd be perfect for the job. She only needed to find John Dawlish and Robert Emerson.

XXXXXXX

Harry was sitting at the Gryffindor table reading the Daily Prophet. There was an article about some more werewolf attacks happening around the countryside. But the attacks did not leave many casualties, mostly because wizards were apparating away at the first chance they got. But the Prophet was leaving out what happened to the muggle victims of the werewolves. He supposed muggles were not counted as casualties, or maybe the Ministry was quietly disposing of some newly created muggle werewolves before they became a problem.

Suppose the latter was the case, kudos to the Ministry. From a pragmatic view, it made sense for the Ministry to cut down the werewolf population, especially the muggles who became werewolves. The threat of the Statute of Secrecy being broken was too high, with muggle werewolves running around in the muggle world. The only other solution would be to hold muggle werewolves imprisoned for life which was far worse than death, in his opinion.

Harry made a mental note to reach out to Rita Skeeter. He did not find any of her articles in the Prophet but hoped the woman didn't get skewered to death by Grindelwald. She had taken quite a sum of galleons from him to buy her way into Nurmengard prison to visit Grindelwald for the ultimate weapon he was preparing for Dumbledore. After that, there was no sign of Skeeter. He was starting to get worried about her.

'Skeeter was not the only woman going missing.' Harry thought, looking at the staff table where Umbridge's seat remained vacant.

Even Dumbledore was missing, but that was common throughout this year.

Umbridge was not seen in Hogwarts for a few days. Rumour was that she had packed up and left the castle, but he knew she was trying to arm-twist the Board of Governors to act against him. Unfortunately for Umbridge, the Board would not be of much use in her fight against him. He had secured that front before he took action against her. The advantage of a corrupt system was that it was corruptible to all influences. All he had to do was find the correct leverage to make the wheels of bureaucracy turn in his favour. In this case, he cut deals with the Board members using Sirius and Daphne's father as proxies to secure majority votes in his favour. Then adding in the Board's inherent dislike of Umbridge, who was cutting into their sphere of influence, was all he needed to get a majority consensus from the Board.

'I suppose I'll learn how the Board meeting went through from Sirius tonight.' Harry mused.

With a sigh, Harry changed the page of the Prophet when the great hall doors were opened noisily with a bang that reverberated across the hall. Harry leaned away from the table to take a good look at what was going on. To his immense joy, Umbridge stood at the hall entrance with two aurors behind her back.

"Dolores! What is the meaning of this?" McGonagall thundered from the high table.

Umbridge turned up her nose and completely ignored McGonagall. Dressed in an unholy amount of pink, Umbridge strutted forward like a victorious general as if she had won some great war and looked at everyone imperiously.

"Aurors Dawlish, Emerson. Arrest Mr Harry Potter for using dark magic and exposing said dark arts before the eyes of these misled children." Umbridge declared for all to hear.

The gasps that rang out through the hall were quite fascinating to hear. Harry fought so hard to keep the grin off his face as this was something that he hoped the unhinged woman would try. He was not sure she'd manage to pull this off, but he had to give her points for sheer foolishness. He could use this most splendidly in the days ahead to tear down the Ministry to its last leg and leave the rest to Voldemort and Dumbledore. And in the chaos that'd follow, it'd be his time to commandeer the sinking ship that was the Ministry of Magic.

Harry stood up from his seat, turning many heads in his direction.

"All of you, stay." Harry whispered to his housemates as he stepped into the gap between Gryffindor and the Hufflepuff table.

"I find myself curious. It requires a certain type of courage or stupidity, in this case, to bring them into Hogwarts to arrest me." Harry said as he leisurely walked towards Umbridge.

"Why, Mr Potter? You never thought I'd bring aurors to take you into Ministry custody after you attacked me?" Umbridge sneered.

"Yes. I never thought you'd bring so few." Harry said coldly.

Harry acted swiftly as he brought up his wand and batted away the two stunners that were sent his way.

"Attack him. Bring Potter down!" Umbridge screamed at the top of her lungs.

The students on both sides ran for a safe place to hide as spells rained down in the hall.

Harry put up a shield using the Protego charm as more curses and hexes rained down on him with impressive speed, as expected of aurors like Dawlish. One particular spell broke his shield, which made Harry assume his spirit form to evade the spells that followed, as he didn't have much room to dodge. His body dissolved into silver-grey smoke, and he flew into the air zooming around the hall, and he settled away from the house tables.

"Okay. This is better." Harry shouted, firing off chains of spells that forced both aurors into defence.

He kept a steady barrage of Reducto-Stupefy-Bombarda combination that forced the two aurors to defend using transfiguration and evasion rather than shield spells. While his eyes were on the two aurors, that doesn't mean he was ignorant of Umbridge trying to take a potshot at him from the side.

So, he switched straight to elemental spells where his true strength lay.

"Expugno." Harry said in his mind.

A fierce storm was spat out of the tip of his wand that swept his three enemies back. Harry used the opening the spell created to quickly disarm Umbridge, followed by trapping her.

"Ebublio."

A yellow jelly bubble enclosed Umbridge, which trapped her on the spot making her immobile and unable to speak. This made aurors Emerson and Dawlish focus on Umbridge to get her out of the bubble. And Harry didn't let that chance go to waste.

"Fulmen Fulminata."

Harry crowed that spell out for his satisfaction as it was his favourite spell. A long arc of white condensed electrical energy struck straight for Dawlish. The auror's instincts might have kicked in because the man put up a strong shield that managed to keep his spell at bay. But Harry only grinned and flicked his wand to the side, and a thin arc of lightning broke off from his spell and struck down Auror Emerson. The brown-haired auror was blown off his feet and fell unconscious on the floor.

"Your mistake Dawlish was thinking you were here to arrest an orphaned fifteen-year-old boy. When in fact, you were here to take on the destroyer of the Dark Lord Voldemort." Harry shouted as he pushed his magic to greater heights strengthening his spell beyond the norm.

His lightning spell roared with power, and it smashed through Dawlish's shield submitting the auror to a painful few seconds. Harry abruptly cuts off his magic into the spell lest he kills the auror in front of hundreds of witnesses. He sauntered towards the immobile Umbridge while he waved his wand, summoning the wands of the two aurors into his hand.

"You think you can act with impunity in these halls? You think you can torture one of the Gryffindors and walk away without any consequences?" Harry thundered as he neared Umbridge, who was struggling inside the bubble with her eyes wide with fear.

"Hogwarts and everything in it is under my protection." Harry declared in the spur of the moment.

Suddenly, Harry felt a weight settle in his free left hand. Looking down, he saw the Sword of Godric Gryffindor materialising in his hand. For a moment, he was stunned, but he didn't waste time thinking about the sword and rolled with it.

"I'm the last Potter. The line of Gryffindor has not yet broken. So, until that happens, scum like you have no place in my school." Harry snarled and swung the sword of Gryffindor but not at Umbridge but at the spell that was coming towards him from his blind spot, which he could feel.

Harry didn't know how, but he instinctively coated the sword with a dense layer of magic that acted as a deflecting shield which deflected the spell right back at the castor. Only when he turned around did he see a wand flying high in the air, soaring towards him. Thanks to his quick reflexes honed by years of Quidditch practice, Harry caught the wand in his hand. The wand let out bright white sparks once it joined his Holly wand in his right hand. It took a moment for Harry to recognise the wand, and when he did, he looked at its owner with wide eyes.

He found Dumbledore's bright blue eyes shielded by half-moon spectacles. The headmaster was just as surprised as Harry and was looking at the Elder Wand that was comfortably sitting in the palm of his hand with wide eyes. For a moment, no one spoke, and only the soothing trill of Fawkes broke the silence. The Phoenix took flight from Dumbledore's shoulder and settled on Harry's head, nesting comfortably inside his black hair. Then Fawkes bit him with its sharp beak on his forehead, making Harry yelp.

"Ow!"