Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling, not me.
More Important Than Any Broomstick - Chapter 27 - Missions
The pathetic, hideous, tiny form that was Tom Marvolo Riddle was sitting in a chair in his room at Riddle Manor. His faithful servant had just finished milking Nagini and feeding his master. This servant was now asleep. Voldemort heard the stairs of the manor creaking, indicating someone was approaching. He hoped that it was his other servant, the one that he didn't trust as much as the other. If he was back from his mission, then Voldemort would finally have a healthy body that doesn't need to be nursed. Whoever was on the other side of the door knocked. "Who dares disturb Lord Voldemort?"
"It is your servant, Severus Snape, master," came the voice from the other side of the door.
"Enter."
The door opened and Voldemort saw a man with two black eyes and a hastily-set nose. He bowed before Voldemort, not saying anything.
"Did you retrieve the boy's blood?" he asked coldly.
"No, my master, I…"
"Crucio," said Voldemort, pointing his wand at the writhing figure in front of him. After about a minute, the Dark Lord released the spell. "Why?"
"I used Sectumsempra on him, but it didn't hurt him. Then I dropped my wand and he…"
"Crucio." While Snape was still writhing in agony, Voldemort yelled, "You clumsily dropped your wand, and then the boy beat you up like a common muggle! You, who call yourself the `Half-Blood Prince?'"
"Y-Y-Yes M-M-My L-L-L-Lord," said Snape, still under the curse.
He released Snape, who lay panting on the floor. "The boy has no talent, you said. It will be easy, you bragged. Obviously you overestimated your pathetic abilities! You will try again, with a better plan, and will find allies to join you!"
"Yes my lord," said Snape, as he got up off the floor and turned to leave.
"By the way Snape," said Voldemort, causing Snape to turn, "CRUCIO!!!!"
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Harry woke up, clutching his slightly irritated scar. This was the first Voldemort dream that Harry almost enjoyed. He knew he should have strengthened his occlumency shields before bed, but he didn't. Part of him was actually hoping to see Voldemort's punishment of Snape for failing in his mission. He was as mad at Snape as Voldemort was, albeit for different reasons. At least Dumbledore finally admitted that he had been wrong about Snape rejecting Voldemort. He remembered the conversation they'd had about ten minutes after Snape had escaped.
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"I'm sure that Severus was simply trying to give us a message about Voldemort."
"He snuck up and sent a spell that sounded like `secumsepra' at me that cut through my robes. He was shocked when it didn't cut me!" shouted Harry. He, Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Hermione were in Dumbledore's office.
Dumbledore's expression turned grave. "Do you mean sectumsempra?"
"Yeah, that's it!" said Harry. "I'll bet it would've killed me if I weren't wearing my armor."
"Yes Harry," said Dumbledore, "If it's not properly treated within a minute, the victim bleeds to death. There are very few people who know how to heal someone who's been attacked with that curse. You see, Severus Snape invented it. What exactly did he say when he was leaving?"
"The Dark Lord will have your blood," said Tonks.
Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Your blood? He must know that your protection is in your blood! Probably because of your encounter with Professor Quirrel. There are many dark spells that require blood, and I'll bet that there is a spell for rejuvenating a body that involves blood, although I haven't studied many of those. I'll have to research that."
"Could I help you with your research?" asked Hermione.
"Certainly Miss Granger, though I doubt that we'll be able to find a book at Hogwarts that contains the spell we are looking for."
"I wonder if one of Riddle's old books contains it," said Lupin. "I'll make studying them a top priority."
"I say that killing Snivelus should be our top priority!" barked Sirius.
"I am afraid that Severus Snape is indeed helping Voldemort," said Dumbledore, "and must be stopped before he succeeds in acquiring Harry's blood. And now onto other matters. Harry, you mentioned that you are wearing some type of armor that blocked sectumsempra."
"That's right, Professor," said Harry proudly, "Basilisk hide."
Dumbledore looked astonished. "Basilisk? You went back down to the chamber. Remus, is that where you found those books of Riddle's that you mentioned?"
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore."
"Auror Tonks, I understand that you have been helping to train Harry and Hermione in combat. How are they performing?"
"Well," said Tonks, "There's not much more that I can teach them. I just try my best to keep them on their toes. They are performing better than most seasoned aurors. Of course their wandless magic makes it hard to fight them. I can't tell when or what they're doing."
"Wandless magic?" said Dumbledore.
"Yes," said Harry while causing Dumbledore's half-moon glasses to rise off of his nose and stay in the air until Dumbledore grabbed them, smiling broadly.
"It is indeed a coincidence that Mr. Malfoy would become so clumsy as to trip or drop his books almost every time he is near one of you two," he said with a twinkle in his eye to Harry and Hermione, whose ears turned pink. "It may be better to go easy on him. After all with his father in prison…"
"Lucius attacked Hermione!" shouted Harry, interrupting Dumbledore, "What should I have done?"
"What should YOU have done?" asked Dumbledore, "but according to the Daily Prophet, it was Auror Tonks who…I see. Wandless magic?"
"Yes," said Hermione. "Although Malfoy's attack didn't get me, Harry petrified him on the spot. Tonks was nearby and took the credit to cover for us. Malfoy doesn't even know Harry did it."
"Very well. Now, if the rest of you excuse me, I'd like to bid you a good evening and speak privately with Mr. Potter and Miss Granger." Everyone else left, although Sirius waited for Harry to nod at him.
"Your training is proceeding far faster than I could've imagined. I believe you are both ready for my personal training. Unfortunately, with the Tri-Wizard Tournament, I will not have the time to train you until the summer. Normally, the training I have in mind will take at least a year, but I suspect it will take much less time, especially if I let you read certain books over the course of this year. I believe that I can train you both by the end of the summer."
"Would we have to spend the summer in the castle?" asked Harry. "I'd really miss Potter Manor."
"Well, what I have to teach you must be taught where it cannot be detected. Hogwarts is one such place. I also believe that Potter Manor is another such place. Am I correct?"
"Yes sir," said Harry.
"Then if I may visit there daily during the summer, then I could conduct the training at Potter Manor."
"I suppose I could give you floo access this summer," said Harry.
"Then it's settled," said Dumbledore. "I shall speak with you before the school year is out to arrange exact times. In the mean time, I'll loan you a few books." He took two old thick dusty tomes off of his shelf. "Be very careful with them. They are ancient, and have been magically protected with a spell that protects the books from certain curses, also protects them from being magically repaired."
"Does that spell stop the text from being magically scanned?" asked Hermione.
"I'm not certain, Miss Granger. I've only attempted to copy the book as a whole, but it wouldn't work. Why?"
At that moment, Hermione's laptop flew into the room from the window, straight into Hermione's hands. "If I can scan the text, I can put the books on our computers, so we won't need to take those books out of your office. Let's see." She opened up the computer and turned it on. When it was loaded up, she started wandlessly scanning the text into the computer and onto the network. She smiled. "It worked. Where are the rest of the books you want us to read?"
"Ingenious! All of the books on this shelf." He indicated the shelf he'd pulled the others off of, twenty in total. "You wandlessly summoned your computer from Gryffindor Tower while talking to me?"
"Yes sir," she said, "and so can Harry." Then she turned to her boyfriend. "Harry," said Hermione, "I think you can go now. This will take a few minutes. You should have Madam Pomfrey take a look at you."
"Yes," said Harry sarcastically, "Snape's assault on my hands was merciless. The way he slammed into my right hand with his nose, and then his eyes. And then he attacked my foot with his crotch." He chuckled. "I know neither of you will approve, but it was fun beating that greasy git Death Eater up after I wandlessly made him drop his wand."
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After he'd left, he started reading the first book off Potter network through his laptop. It was about medical curses. It was a way to affect the health of your opponent. Give them a sudden allergy attack or a bad case of the flu in the middle of a duel. The book had spells to do something as simple as making someone loose control of their bladder, to things far more serious, like causing a heart attack or stroke. He'd never thought about that before. Although his wandless magic didn't work the same as his wand magic in that it didn't need magic words, he decided to memorize them in case he wanted to let someone know he'd been the one to perform the spell (take credit for the bad case of diarrhea that Malfoy was about to suffer the next time he called Hermione a mudblood). Harry decided that he'd first have to practice with Crabbe and Goyle, to make sure he got it right.
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He now lay in bed, knowing Snape had been properly punished, and looking forward to punishing Draco for everything he's done. He smiled to himself, reinforced his occlumency shields, and went back to sleep. He was going to have fun in the morning.
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The next day Harry and Hermione walked hand in hand into the Great Hall for breakfast. They sat down in their usual seats and began to eat. It wasn't long before Malfoy came strutting up toward their table (Crabbe and Goyle at his two sides) sneering. "I heard that you were attacked yesterday, Scar-Head, and that a female auror had to protect you! You're so…WHAT??!!" At that moment, a yellowish liquid flowed out from the left leg of his pants, over his shoes, and down on the floor, leaving a puddle that everyone in the Great Hall could see. He turned bright red and ran out of there toward the Slytherin common room, presumably to change his pants. In the mean time a terrible stench was coming from the direction of Crabbe and Goyle. They both clenched their backsides and ran out after Malfoy.
A moment later, Fred and George walked up on either side of the couple. "We couldn't help but notice," said Fred.
"That Malfoy and his stooges suffered their little problems," said George.
"While they were insulting you," said Fred.
"Ok guys," said Harry, "It'll cost you ten Galleons." They each gave him five. "Here are the spells." He then wrote out the Latin words on a piece of parchment. "Just remember that I know a lot worse spells than them."
"Thanks Harry," said Fred, "You should be the school champion."
"Too bad you're too young," said George.
"Now we'd like to speak to our brother Ron," said Fred.
Harry chuckled at he imagined what they were gonna do to Ron. Although he'd warned the twins not to use those spells on him, he was glad he was wearing that armor, just in case they did it anyway. Once the laughter over Malfoy and company had died down, Harry noticed that the conversations around him had gone to the approaching tournament, but he realized that he didn't really have any interest in it. According to Tonks, both he and Hermione could take out any student in the castle, and many aurors at the ministry. Because of their training, both he and Hermione were probably much more qualified to enter than any seventh year. But the fact was that he didn't have the time to train for a tournament, and it would be stupid to risk his life for a trophy and money he didn't need. He had much more important things to do with his life. When Snape returned, it would be with more people and better planning. He had to be ready for them, not in the hospital wing because of some stupid competition. He had a mission.
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