The Hero They Needed: Chapter 22

A/N: Since the last chapter was so short, I decided to write another one. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 22

Dora sat on a bench outside the front doors of Hogwarts, reading an advanced Defense against the Dark Arts book. Jenna sat next to her, her quill dancing across the parchment as she did her Herbology homework. After a long week of getting used to a new school with new teachers and new students, it was finally the weekend.

A giggle broke the early morning quiet. Looking up from her book, Dora scowled at the group of girls gathered not too far away, watching Harry as he jogged around the front lawn. Despite the cool air, he wore nothing but a pair of black cotton shorts and a maroon tank top that was damp with sweat. Each time he passed by the front doors, the girls tittered and chattered in hushed tones.

It irritated the hell out of Dora.

Even the Beauxbatons students ogled her boyfriend as they traipsed the path from the carriage to the Great Hall. She even caught Fleur giving him an appreciative glance, and when she realized she’d been caught, the busty blonde simply shrugged and smirked.

“Good morning.”

Dora stopped glaring for a moment and looked up at Hermione.

“Morning,” she grumbled.

“I didn’t expect you to be up this early on a Saturday,” Hermione said as she took a seat next to Jenna.

“Harry wants to go over some spells for the Tournament,” Dora said.

“Where is he?” Hermione asked.

Sighing, Dora pointed.

“Oh.”

“We’ll practice after he’s finished his run,” Dora said, then turned and glared at the giggling girls. “If I can pry him away from his fan club.”

“That’s just Lavender,” Hermione said dismissively. “She’s always like that. It’s why we don’t get along much.”

Dora grunted and crossed her arms over her chest as Harry came to a stop in front of them, panting heavily.

“Whaddya running for?” Ron asked.

Dora glanced over her shoulder and saw he was the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, brooms in hand.

“To stay in shape,” Harry said, interlacing his hands on top of his head.

“What for?” Ron asked, wrinkling his nose.

Grinning, Harry grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Dora huffed annoyedly even as she eyed his ripped abs and chiseled chest. Jenna hid her face behind her book, Hermione blushed, Fred and George wolf-whistled, the girls tittered, and Ron’s ear went bright red.

“That is a very good reason,” Angelina said, licking her lips.

While Fred huffed good-naturedly, Dora rolled her eye, pulled a clean shirt from her back, and tossed it at Harry. Once he’d put it on, she stood up, pushed him onto the bench, and then planted herself firmly in his lap.

“Ew, you’re all sweaty,” she said, wrinkling her nose as his glistening arms wrapped around her waist.

With a smirk, Harry pulled her close and wiped his sweaty forehead all over her neck. Dora squealed and tried to push him away, but he was too strong.

“You jerk,” she said, smacking his shoulder.

“Hey, if you get to mark your territory, I get to mark mine,” he said with a crooked grin. “Any guy that gets near you is going to smell me… or think you have really bad BO. One of the two, but either way, I win.”

Dora snorted but couldn’t stop a pleased smile from dancing across her lips. Giving him a quick kiss, she climbed off of his lap.

“Ready to go train?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said, standing and waving to the Gryffindors as they left for the Quidditch Pitch. “We should get closer to the edge of the forest.”

“Why don’t you use one of the abandoned classrooms?” Hermione asked. “I can show you where they are.”

“The spells I’m learning are too dangerous to practice in a classroom,” Harry said, taking Dora’s hand and walking away from the castle.

Hermione frowned and followed after them with Jenna right behind her, “If they’re that dangerous, are you sure you should be learning them?”

“That’s kind of the point,” he shrugged. “Moody wants me to learn more powerful spells.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, looking less hesitant. “Do you mind if I watch?”

“Knock yourself out,” Harry said.

As they reached the edge of the forest, a shadow passed overhead. A moment later, Lavina landed behind them and laid on the ground. Jenna and Hermione sat down and leaned against her large, feathery body for warmth.

“Right, so what’s first?” Harry asked.

“Well,” Dora said, opening her book, “to start with, we’ve got the Crushing Hex, the Lightning Curse, or the Binding Curse.”

“Let’s try the Crushing Hex,” he said.

Dora flipped to the relevant page and held the book out so he could read it. After reading the incantation and memorizing the wand movement, Harry drew his wand, stepped closer to the forest, and picked a large tree as his target. He twisted his wand in a corkscrew motion and added a short thrust at the end.

“Commino!” he yelled.

A dull purple hex left his wand, impacting the tree trunk with a muffled thud. A few scraps of bark fell to the ground, and a couple of dead branches were shaken loose, but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as he’d thought it would be.

“I think you started the incantation too late,” Dora said. “You’re supposed to finish it a moment before you finish the wand movement.”

Harry sighed, “This is why I hate using verbal incantations,” he muttered.

He repeated the wand movement, but this time, he used the incantation in his head. A bright, sizzling bolt of violet magic leapt from his wand. It slammed into the tree and reduced a three-foot-tall section of the trunk down to the thickness of a pencil with a loud crunch! Large shards of wood were sent flying several feet away. The tree teetered precariously for a moment before the pencil-wide section snapped with a loud crack, and the tree fell to the ground with a crash!

“Holy shit!” Harry laughed incredulously. “That was awesome! What’s next?”

“We are so getting detention for this,” Dora sighed, shaking her head as she reopened her book. “Let’s try the Binding Curse.”

Harry struggled with that spell much more. It took half an hour for him to get it to work at all, and even then, it was far from perfect. The spell was supposed to produce a thick iron chain that wrapped around the target and tightened the more it struggled. He could conjure the chain, but it didn’t animate the way it was supposed to. It flew from his wand and slammed into the tree he was targeting but always fell limply to the ground afterward. After an hour, they decided to move on and ask Flitwick for advice later.

“Alright,” Dora said. “Let’s move on to the Lightning Curse.”

Harry read over the instructions quickly before stepping away from her and raising his wand. He poured his built-up frustration over the last hour as he whipped his wand forward with a slight waggle of the tip.

A searingly bright bolt of blue-white lightning arced from the tip of his wand with a thunderous crack and struck a tree standing what looked to Harry to be forty feet away. The main bolt blasted an inches-deep crater into the trunk while the fingers of lightning around it danced across the bark, causing it to sizzle and pop. As he blinked the stars out of his vision, he saw the edges of the bark had turned into glowing embers.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Fire!”

Quickly, he and Dora doused the tree trunk with water.

“Well, that wasn’t too bad,” Harry said.

Levina clacked her beak derisively and glared at the tree. Harry and the girls jumped when a bolt from the blue struck the top of the tree and shattered it. He brought up a shield quickly to protect himself and Dora from the flying splinters while Levina used her back wing to cover Jenna and Hermione. Once the rain of wood had ended, Levina preened smugly.

“Show off,” Harry grumbled.

“Bigger fire!” Dora yelled.

“Shit!”

~

Harry spent the rest of the weekend studying, finishing his homework, and mastering the spells he’d learned. On Monday morning, he had Charms class, where he talked about how he designed his brooms, and Professor Flitwick tasked the class with enchanting a toy broom by the end of the semester. Once class was over, he packed his bag slowly, waiting for the students to trickle out.

“Professor, do you have a minute?” Harry asked when the room was empty.

“Of course,” Flitwick smiled. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been working on some spells for the Tournament, and I’m having trouble with the Binding Curse,” Harry said.

“That’s quite an advanced spell,” Flitwick said. “What problems are you having?”

“Well, I can conjure the chains fine, but they don’t wrap around things like they’re supposed to. They just fall.”

“Ah, I see,” Flitwick nodded. “That’s because the Binding Curse, unlike the Incarcerous Hex, requires constant focus.”

“Really?” Harry asked. “It didn’t say that in the book.”

“That’s not surprising. The texts that contain those spells are often above Newt level. They expect the reader to know the difference between an instantaneous and a continuous spell just by feel.”

“How do you feel the difference?” Harry asked.

“Here,” Flitwick said, summoning two pillows from a pile in the corner. “Banish the one on the left and focus on how you feel when you do it.”

Drawing his wand, Harry banished the pillow against the wall, but he didn’t really feel much of anything.

“Good, now levitate the other one, but don’t hold it,” Flitwick said. “Just cast the spell and let it go.”

Harry did as he was instructed. The pillow levitated to waist height, and he released the spell. As the pillow fell to the floor, he felt a small but subtle difference to the Banishing Charm. He levitated the pillow again and let it fall. There was a small but continuous tug on his magic that he’d never consciously felt before, which stopped the moment he released the spell.

“Huh,” he said. “I never noticed that before. Thanks, professor.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Potter.”

Bidding him farewell with a quick wave, Harry slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way down to the Great Hall. It wasn’t time for lunch yet, but he had a free period. He was thinking about grabbing a snack and going outside to practice the Binding Curse with his newly gained understanding of how it worked when he spotted Jenna, Ginny, and Luna working on their homework at the Ravenclaw table. Grinning, he plopped down heavily on the bench between Ginny and Jenna, facing backward, and rested his back against the table.

“Morning, ladies,” he said, smiling charmingly. “Need any help?”

Ginny blushed heavily and hid her face behind her hair, Luna blinked and cocked her head to the side, and Jenna smiled.

“We’re working on our Transfigurations homework,” Jenna said. “McGonagall wants eight inches of parchment on turning hedgehogs into pin cushions by Friday. We’re almost finished. Would you mind checking them over?”

“Sure,” Harry shrugged.

“How did you get rid of your Wrackspurts?” Luna asked suddenly, cocking her head to the other side.

“Get rid of my what now?” Harry asked curiously.

“Wrackspurts,” Luna repeated, blinking her wide blue eyes as she straightened her head. “They’re invisible magical creatures that fly into your years and make your brain fuzzy.”

“Huh,” Harry said thoughtfully and shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s my cologne.”

“I don’t think so,” she frowned. “Wrackspurts don’t have noses.”

“No one cares about your made-up creatures, Loony,” Malfoy said as he swaggered over, accompanied, as always, by Crabbe and Goyle.

“Like your opinion,” Harry said.

“Oh, you’re going to care a lot about what I have to say, Potter,” Malfoy smirked. “My father’s close, personal friends with the Minister, you see. He told me in a letter this morning what the First Task is going-”

“Hold that thought.”

Reaching to his left, Harry grabbed an apple out of the bowl of fruit and tossed it at Malfoy, who caught it confusedly.

“Start over and take a bite when you’re done,” Harry said. “It’ll make you look like more of an asshole.”

“What are you on about, Potter,” he sneered. “Have you gone mental?”

“Look, Malfoy,” Harry sighed. “If you’re going to keep doing this whole evil arch-enemy thing, then I need you to at least try to look cool. I’ve got a reputation to protect here.”

Fuming, Malfoy shoved the apple into Goyle’s chest. The larger boy took it and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Are you even listening to me?” he growled. “I’m trying to tell you I know what the First Task is!”

“Really?” Harry asked, casually picking up another apple and polishing it on his shirt. “I doubt it.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Potter?” Malfoy hissed.

“Well, yeah,” Harry shrugged. “Tell you what. How ‘bout we make a bet? You tell me what the First Task is, and if you’re right, I’ll pay you twenty Galleons.”

Smiling, he propped his elbows on the table behind him.

Malfoy scoffed, “As if I’d fall for that.”

“I could always beat it out of you,” Harry said. “We both know I could out-duel you and your friends in my sleep.”

He took a bite of the apple and smirked as he watched the blonde’s cheek turn red. Malfoy aimed a finger angrily at Harry and opened his mouth to speak.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Professor McGonagall asked, approaching quickly.

Harry swallowed and smiled.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Malfoy and I were just having a nice chat. We’re actually getting along great.”

Grinning, he took another bite. Malfoy’s eye twitched.

“I see,” McGonagall said skeptically as she glanced between the two of them. “Still, I think it would be best if Mr. Malfoy returned to his table.”

She gave him a pointed look, and Malfoy spun on his heel with a huff. When he glanced back over his shoulder halfway to his table, Harry smiled and waved the fingers that weren’t holding his apple mockingly. McGonagall sighed and continued on her way to the head table.

“He’s right,” Luna said to Ginny. “Eating an apple made him look most disagreeable.”

Grinning at her, Harry took another bite.

~

Two days later, Harry was having dinner with his classmates, laughing at the twins’ latest tale, when McGonagall stopped behind him.

“Mr. Potter,” she said, getting his attention. “I need to see you in my office for a moment.”

“What did he do?” Dora asked accusingly.

Harry raised his hands innocently.

“He’s not in trouble,” McGonagall said. “Madam Bones is arriving soon to talk to him about some broom tests he wanted to perform.”

“Nice,” Harry grinned, getting to his feet. “It’s been so long I thought they were ignoring me.”

“I doubt that’s the case,” McGonagall frowned. “Follow me.”

He gave Dora a quick kiss on the cheek and ruffled Jenna’s hair as he followed her out of the Great Hall. They walked in silence through the halls to her office on the second floor, just outside the Transfigurations Courtyard.

“Have a seat, Mr. Potter,” she said as he looked around her office curiously. “Biscuit?”

She opened a tin full of cookies and offered them to him. Shrugging, Harry took one and popped it into his mouth.

“Ooh, those are good,” he said, taking a second. “What are they?”

“Jammy Dodgers,” McGonagall replied.

Harry nodded and made a mental note to ask Aunt Andi to send him some when the Floo suddenly flared to life. Stuffing the rest of the cookie in his mouth and wiping his hand on his pants, he watched as an older witch with a monocle over her right eye stepped into the office. She was a couple of inches shorter than Harry, with her dark red hair done in a tight bun similar to McGonagall’s. Her black robes were plain, with the exception of the Ministry insignia embroidered over her left breast.

“Good evening, Amelia,” McGonagall said. “Mr. Potter, this is Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Amelia, this is Harry Potter.”

Amelia straightened her robes and approached him with her hand extended.

“Mr. Potter,” she said. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Pleasure,” Harry said around a mouth full of cookie and shook her hand.

Conjuring a plain, uncomfortable-looking wooden chair next to the desk, she took a seat, and Harry did the same.

“I apologize for the delay,” Amelia sighed. “My office has been overworked and understaffed for the last few months. What sort of tests were you looking to perform?”

“I wanted to do some high-altitude test. See how high I can go,” Harry said.  

“And you can do that without alerting the Muggles?” Amelia asked.

Harry frowned, “No. I wouldn’t bother asking for permission if I could do it without anyone finding out. Muggle radar is good enough that it can pick me up even if I’m under a Notice-Me-Not Charm.”

“They’ve never spotted broom riders before,” Amelia argued.

“That’s because most brooms fly too low and slow to be picked up,” Harry said. “Military radar is designed to pick up fast-moving objects even if they’re as small as a broom.”

“Alright,” she said, pursing her lips. “How do the Americans keep you from being discovered?”

“They talk to the Muggle government and tell them to ignore it,” Harry shrugged.

Amelia frowned and shared a look with McGonagall.

“I’ll have to bring this up with the Minister,” she said after a moment. “I’m not allowed to communicate with the Muggle Government.”

“Really?” he asked, surprised.

“I’m surprised the Americans have such open communication with the Muggle government,” McGonagall said. “I was under the impression they had more restrictions on secrecy than most countries.”

“They do,” Harry acknowledged. “But they pay Squibs to work with the Muggles. It keeps them from revealing the secret because they get two paychecks, and it keeps us up to date on what the Muggles are doing. It’s hard to avoid them finding you if you don’t know what they’re up to.”

“That’s an interesting approach, but unfortunately, we don’t have a system like that,” Amelia said. “I’ll talk to the Minister and see what we can do.”

“Would it help if I asked Sirius to have MACUSA talk to him?” Harry asked.

“I don’t think the Minister would appreciate that,” Amelia frowned.

Harry grinned.

~

Three days later, he had permission to conduct his test flights on Saturday night between eight and midnight. On Friday, Harry took his latest broom to Flitwick for one last once-over before his flight. The Charms master gave him the all-clear, so on Saturday night, Harry and Dora quietly made their way to the top of the Astronomy Tower.

“Do you want to ride on the front or the back?” Harry asked.

“Front,” Dora said.

Mounting the broom, he waved Dora over. She swung her leg over the handle and rested her back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. A quick push off of the ground was all it took to begin their ascent. Harry spiraled upwards, steadily gaining speed as they rocketed through the low cloud cover and into the clear night sky. The stars winked at them against the black velvet background.

Harry leaned over Dora to check the watch strapped to the broom handle as he pushed the broom higher. As he watched the second hand tick clockwise, nearing the seven, Dora patted his arm.

“Harry, look,” she said.

Harry looked over and smiled at the world below them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s amazing,” Dora said in awe. “You can even see the curvature of the Earth.”

Grinning, Harry pushed his broom further until the second hand reached ten. It had reached one hundred thousand feet without issue. The climate and atmospheric Charms were holding perfectly.

“That’s it? We did it?” Dora asked.

“Yup,” Harry grinned. “We’ve officially flown higher than any other witches or wizards ever have.”

“That my man,” she smirked.

Twisting around, she grabbed the back of his head and mashed their lips together. Harry kissed her back passionately for several seconds before she finally pulled away, lips swollen and cheeks flushed.

“So, what’s next?” she asked.

Harry grinned and pointed up at the glowing, full moon hanging in the night sky.

“You want to go to the moon?” Dora asked incredulously.

“Eventually,” he nodded. “I think it’s time wizards and witches caught up with the Muggles, don’t you?”

“Harry Potter, first wizard on the moon. It has a nice ring to it.”

“I have a lot to figure out first, but maybe one day. Ready to head back?”

“Can we just fly around for a bit? This view is incredible.”

Harry and Dora floated high above the Earth for a couple of hours before the time forced them to head back. Grinning, he gripped the broom tightly, nosed over, and flew down at top speed. Dora shrieked as they hurtled back towards the ground, reaching a top speed of Mach 6. When the ground began to grow a bit too large for comfort, he slowed to a leisurely speed and ghosted over the Forbidden Forest.

“What’s that?” Dora asked, pointing to the right.

Harry looked and furrowed his brow when he spotted an orange, flickering light among the trees.

“Is that a fire?” she exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Turning his broom, they flew closer, but Harry slowed to a crawl when he spotted human-shaped shadows dancing in the light. Six witches and wizards sat gathered around a fire. Nearby, there were just as many tents, and a little further than that were three enormous iron cages. Suddenly, a stream of fire spouted from one of the cages and lit up the entire clearing.

Dora gasped, and Harry grinned.

“Dragons.”