Harry shrugged a bit, "He was torturing Fleur Delacour and her sister. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's casting an unforgiveable on someone else, then they deserve no warning. I didn't stop to take his name. It was just one more death eater dead to me. What's one more death on my hands?"
Draco nodded, without saying anything. Other than occasionally seeing a fight, or hearing about the aftermath of a fight from a frustrated Voldemort or his followers, Draco hadn't interacted with Harry in years, though he knew Harry had killed, and killed a lot. Faced with the reality of his personality was quite a shock to Draco's perceptions.
Harry shook his head, "Anyway, like I said, I need to readjust to this body. So I plan to work it hard. Now that I no longer need a fake eye, and have use of all four of my limbs in working order shifting into either of my animagus forms is actually useful."
Draco opened his mouth, but Harry cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Yes I know. Two forms is impossible. I'm a freak. Moving on."
Draco snapped his mouth shut, and regarded Harry thoughtfully. That statement had been so automatic and said with a level of self-loathing he hadn't expected. That caught Draco's notice as much as the comment about two animagus forms. Instead of saying what had come to mind he just nodded, "That's something I definitely want to learn. Can you teach me how to do it?"
There was a pause and then a sigh "Fine, but don't blame me if your animagus form turns out to be a ferret." Harry smirked at Draco's accompanying scowl before continuing, "I want to get better in fighting one on one, and get better against groups. I want to learn counters to as many dark curses as humanly possible. No one else I know is going to die because I'm ignorant of counter curses."
Draco nodded, "I can easily help with that last part. My father wouldn't object to me taking books on dark magic from our library. My question is how are you going to learn to fight better? You're already pretty damn scary from experience, anything more than that is going to take a teacher."
Harry nodded a little bit, "Yes I know. I was hoping that the room of requirement would be able to help but I don't know if it's capable of making a teacher or anything. I never actually tried it. If that doesn't work, I'll have to think of something else." "If that doesn't work, we could talk to Flitwick, I understand he was a dueling champion, and he took down eight death eaters in a pitched battle before they finally got him in the end." Draco offered up.
Harry chewed on the inside of his cheek. "It's an option. But he would teach dueling, I think he would shy away from the actual fighting tactics. Especially to someone at our age. Not to mention he might report everything right to Dumbledore. Something I'm trying to avoid."
Draco nodded in agreement. "That puts out pretty much all of the professors really."
Harry nodded, "I'll think on it. Let me know if you have any ideas." Harry's voice drifted off before his eyes narrowed and he looked up at Draco. "Malfoy, I would consider it a betrayal if you were to share anything we talked about here with anyone without approval."
Draco blinked in surprise, he hadn't even been considering doing such a thing. Then he felt the magic of his oath squeeze him slightly. Draco realized that while Harry had objected to the oath, he was ensuring his secrets were protected. With that statement Harry had effectively sealed his lips about any of it. Draco merely nodded in assent.
For his part, Harry had no desire to take away Draco's free will, but he wasn't going to just take anything Draco said on faith alone. Harry had learned the hard way that it was necessary to do distasteful things at times to protect oneself.
Iris was sitting in a compartment and looking out the window. She shifted a little bit, for some reason her shoulder had been sore all week, though it seemed like the sensation was finally dissipating. Her mother had thought she must have hurt it during the events of the world cup.
Normally she'd be engaged in a conversation with Hermione, or with her head in a book, or having a conversation with her twin sisters. Though they had left a few minutes earlier to find their own friends. Iris privately hoped that was what they were actually doing. If they went to try and prank the Weasley twins, Iris worried that the Hogwarts Express might not make it to Hogwarts in one piece.
Hermione was currently sitting next to her with her head down in a book, though Iris could tell that Hermione looked over at her in concern pretty much every time she turned a page.
Neville Longbottom was also in their compartment reading a book, he preferred their compartment to the compartment shared by the boys in his year at Gryffindor.. He had been relatively quiet during the trip, beyond normal pleasantries, asking if both Iris and Hermione were alright. Iris had let the quiet boy alone. She and Hermione were both aware that it had probably been uncomfortable at his house for the past week. Neville's father got even icier and fanatical about work whenever there was a major death eater event. His grandmother wasn't much better in the best of times.
The past week had been rather hectic all around. Iris had been right, when her dad had taken she and Hermione home to Potter Manor, her mother had been nearly frantic with worry. Lily had embraced both Iris and Hermione the second they landed via side along apparition.
After the initial worry was past. Lily demanded that the two of them explain how they managed to get separated. Iris was momentarily thankful that her Dad intercepted her mother's, until he had mentioned that the DMLE would want to speak with both she and Hermione, which temporarily turned Lily's ire onto her husband demanding answers. The two girls had taken the opportunity to slip out and head to bed.
The next day they had been at the DMLE bright and early, escorted by both of Iris' parents. James claimed they would be fine, but Lily had insisted on being there none the less. The meeting with the DMLE had been rather interesting, if somewhat pointless in Iris' opinion..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you enjoy reading? Visit my site on Tiendup! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/