Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.
More Important Than Any Broomstick - Chapter 15 - Training Begins
The next morning, upon hearing his alarm clock start playing a cd, Harry woke up to find his laptop on his chest with a
starfield simulation screensaver in progress. He pushed a button to see that he was about half way through his animagus
book when he fell asleep. The program they used to view books on the computers allowed him to save where he was in the
book like a bookmark so he wouldn't lose his spot. He looked at the time displayed on the bottom right of the
screen to see that it was now seven o'clock. He turned off the laptop, and put it on his desk, and then turned off
his alarm clock. He then took a quick shower, after which he put on a pair of shorts and his new "Broomstick"
t-shirt he'd acquired at 'The Enchanted Earth' amusement park the previous day. He still had about forty
minutes before training was to begin. He walked downstairs to find Dobby make his usual appearance.
"Good morning, Harry Potter! Dobby is happy to be seeing you this morning!"
"Good morning, Dobby," said Harry.
"What is Harry Potter wanting for breakfast?"
"French toast and bacon."
"Right away, sir," said Dobby. Then he snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Before Dobby returned with Harry's breakfast, Sirius came walking down the stairs with a smile on his face. "Morning pup!"
"Morning, Padfoot."
"Are you ready to start your training?"
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "As ready as I'll ever be."
"Moony will be here soon to help," said Sirius.
"That's great!" said Harry.
Sirius looked determinedly at Harry. "You know, he hasn't had it so easy with his 'furry little problem.' I know last year and thankfully this year he's had a job teaching, but he didn't have a job for a long time before then."
"Er, I know that."
"He's doing us a big favor by helping with the training."
"Yes he is," said Harry, not sure of where Sirius was going with this.
"Right now he's renting a place for the summer, and I thought it would be a good idea to invite him stay in one of the rooms here instead," said Sirius.
Harry looked around. "Well, we certainly do have enough space."
"So we're agreed?" asked Sirius. "I can invite him today?"
"Well, as long there's a backup plan for dealing with his furry little problem in case something goes wrong and he doesn't drink his potion, then I don't see any problem with it."
Sirius grinned. "It wouldn't be good to have a werewolf running loose around Potter Manor, would it? Don't worry. He's got a cage at his place that he can move into his room immediately."
"Ok. Invite him."
"Great!"
At that moment Dobby returned with Harry's breakfast. While Harry started eating, Dobby took Sirius' order and returned with it shortly thereafter. Just as Harry finished his breakfast, they heard someone coming out of the fireplace. Harry got up to greet his guest.
"Good morning, Harry!" said Hermione, coming over to give him a quick kiss. She was dressed very much like him, with shorts and her new "Broomstick" t-shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail, which was a bit unusual for her.
Harry said, "I see you've got your hair different today."
Hermione turned slightly pink. "I'm not sure exactly what the training will consist of, so I wanted to make sure my hair wouldn't get in the way."
"It looks nice."
She turned a bit redder. "Thanks. Is Professor Lupin here yet?"
"No, but he should arrive any minute. Sirius and I are gonna invite him to move in for the summer."
"That's great! That should be a big help to him! You certainly have the room for him."
At that moment, the fireplace was momentarily engulfed in green flames as Professor Lupin arrived. "Hello Harry, Hermione!" he said cheerfully. "How are you?"
"We're fine, Professor," said Hemione. "How are you?"
"We're not in school. You both can call me Remus, or Moony."
"Thanks Moony!" said Harry. "Sirius should be about finished with breakfast by now. Then we can start the training."
"Actually," came Sirius' voice from behind a door that began opening, "Sirius is finished. Good morning, Moony."
"Morning Padfoot. What do you think? Shall we go to the exercise room?"
"Sounds like a good idea to me."
They walked into the exercise room, which looked like an average gym. It consisted of one full-size basketball court, complete with hoops, as well as extra space that held a few exercise machines that Harry did not remember being there before.
Moony walked to the middle of the basketball court. "I thought we'd start off with an hour of physical exercise. Most Death Eaters are so spoiled using spells for everything, that they don't even know what running is. You seem to be in good shape, but we want to make sure. In a week or two, once we're sure you're both in shape, we'll add muggle fighting techniques to the workout. For now we'll concentrate on building up your strength and endurance. To start with, we'll do some stretches."
A grueling and difficult hour later, after stretching, running laps, lifting weights, and many other forms of torture, er, exercise, all four of them went to different bathrooms and took a much needed shower. "At least we're all doing the same exercises," thought Harry to himself. He could see that it was at least as hard on the adults as it was on Hermione and himself. They all found themselves back in the torture chamber fifteen minutes after they'd left.
"Now we'll practice fighting with magic," Lupin said. "Get your wands at the ready." They pulled their wands out of the invisible wrist holsters Sirius had picked up the day before. Lupin then taught them several offensive and defensive spells commonly used in combat for half an hour, starting with expelliarmus and ending with the protego shield.
They then started dueling. It was Harry against Sirius and Hermione against Remus. Within ten minutes, both Harry and Hermione were on the ground. Their partners helped them get up, and then Sirius said, "You both actually did well for you're first duel against fully trained wizards. Now let's talk about how we beat you." They spent the next half hour discussing their specific duels and dueling strategy. They then dueled the same partners, and this time both teens lasted fifteen minutes before being beaten. They then switched to have Hermione face Sirius while Harry faced Remus. Ten minutes later, the teens were both stunned and on the floor. Sirius said, "You both got used to one particular opponent. You did do very well for your age, but you'll need to be ready to face anyone."
"As Sirius said," said Moony, "you both did remarkably well, but we want to be realistic. There's a real possibility that you'll end up fighting Death Eaters who are at least as skilled as Padfoot and myself. We're holding back curses that would hurt you, but Death Eaters won't hold them back. They wouldn't think twice about killing you. As useful as the protego shield is, you need to make sure you physically dodge every spell, because spells like the death curse will go right through your shields. You should still raise the shield anyway just in case you don't move quickly enough. Another thing I want you to practice on your own is nonverbal magic. It's very difficult, and a lot of Death Eaters can't do it, but some of them can. Voldemort himself certainly can."
"Er," said Harry. "I don't want to sound stupid, but what's nonverbal magic?"
Sirius smiled while Hermione frowned. Lupin said, "Nonverbal magic is when you cast a spell without saying the words."
"Like when I blew up my Aunt Marge?" asked Harry.
"Yes," said Lupin. "I heard about that. I'm guessing that you didn't use a wand either."
"Er, now that you mention it," said Harry, "I didn't. How is that possible?"
"Everyone can do wandless magic," said Lupin calmly. "That's how almost all accidental magic occurs for children. A wand helps you focus your magic. The more complex the spell, the harder it is to do without a wand." Lupin then looked thoughtful for a moment. "If you could learn some wandless magic, it would certainly be a great tactical advantage if you dropped your wand. One good wandless spell to learn would be how to summon your wand. We'll eventually work on wandless magic as well, but not before you've mastered nonverbal spell casting. If we can get you guys able to duel successfully with nonverbal wandless magic, you'll be practically unstoppable. If you want to practice nonverbal spells on your own, I'd suggest trying it with simple first year spells. If you master that, then go on to second year, and then third."
"All right," said Hermione, with a determined look on her face.
"Well then," said Lupin, "I think I should be headed home."
"Actually," said Sirius. "Harry and I were talking this morning, and we feel that it would be a lot easier for training if you moved into one of the empty bedrooms."
Lupin grinned at them, but said, "Oh no guys. I know what you're doing, and I appreciate it, but I can't..."
"This house has tons of empty bedrooms," said Sirius. "There's no point in wasting all that space. What's the point in renting a place just for the summer when there's plenty of room for you here?"
"I don't want to impose..." said Lupin.
"You're not imposing, Moony," said Harry. "You're doing Hermione and I a great favor by training us. It may very well save our lives! This is the least we can do, and I won't take no for an answer!"
Lupin shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I guess I have no choice then. Sirius, why don't you help me get my stuff?"
"We'll help too..." said Hermione, who had stayed out of the discussion so far since it wasn't her home.
"That won't be necessary," said Sirius. "We can do it a lot faster magically, and you're not allowed to do magic. You'll just be in the way. Hermione, I assume your parents are at work." She nodded. "Then I suppose we should take you with us."
Lupin smiled and said, "Why don't you bring along those laptops of yours that Sirius told me about yesterday and play some games on them while Padfoot and I pack?"
-
Please review.