10 Chapter 10
Although, being the son of a psychotic mass murderer was not that big of a deal to me, others might not agree. Therefore it was in my best interest that this should be kept a secret and since I was the only person that can tell anyone about this, the secret was safe. I saw Ginny in the mess hall and spent a good deal inside her recent memories and thankfully there was not a single mention of name or face. I left as soon as I felt her flinch in pain and proceeded my day as per usual.
Time passed and as usual I spent nearly all my free time in either the library or the RoR and just as usual I waa running late for dinner. I was walking the hallway and saw Ginny rushing about in a very robotic manner.
"Petrify him." She hissed in parcel tongues and I turned around to see a huge Basilisk.
I felt magic invade my body and was soon neutralized by my draconian nature. Not willing to test my luck, I apparated away from the hallway in front of the library. Luckily,the corridor there was empty and I slowly walked towards the place where I encountered Ginny. I saw a huge group gathered around the golden trio and Snape admonishing Malfoy.
"Mr. Enigma, I happened to notice that you were absent at the dinner. Would you mind explaining yourself." McGonagall asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, I do mind." I said and saw her wand appear in her hands. "Okay, fine. I was in the library reading and didn't realise the time. Also, I am always late for dinner."
"His is always there, professor. I have seen him many times." Hermione vouched for me.
"Watching me, haven't you?" I said with a smirk and she blushed much to the ire of Ron.
"While we search for the culprit of these actions, I do urge precaution while walking these halls." Dumbledore warned us all in a grave voice.
The rest of the month was spent in creepy silence as students rushed across the hallways. That got much worse as the first student was petrified, a first year with a camera. Every month a victim fell and soon, there were rumors of Hogwarts shutting down for good. More towards the end of the year, I even had to put up with the new sleeping arrangements that Dumbledore had devised. I then began setting up a ward at the girls barroom where Myrtl lived or stayed. Another month passed and the ward lit up. I immediately apparated to the bathroom just in time to see them jump down the hole. I waited till I heard a phoenix cry as Fawks pulled the four from the hole. The rest of the day I spent a decent time harvesting as much as I could from the basilisk. I could have waited for a more optimal time to harvest but my presence here may have changed a few subtle things, so I rushed it and voila. Now, I am in possession of one of the most ancient Basilisk carcass. Naturally, I began to eat the flesh on a daily basis adding to my natural strength in both human and Dragon forms.
Dumbledore returned at the end of the final month and swiftly averted any claims about Hogwarts safety as he now possessed a very dead Horcrux. I spent the holidays inside the Ministry of magic under the junior apprentice programme learning the intricacies of dealing with magical crimes. It was a weird day when I first came for an application. The Auror on the front desk led me to another Auror who then led me to another Auror and the cycle continued about 18 times until I was left in an empty room. While I waited inside the waiting room, I felt a build up of magic just outside my peripheral vision and jumped out of the way as I pulled out my wand. There was scarred beauty standing in the doorway looking impressed and nodded at.
"Good reflex boy. Follow me." She said and led me to an office. "Now, As I believe there are only 3 types of idiots that take up this junior apprentice program. The first one are nitwits with illusions of grandeur. The second one are idiots who think they can stand up to take revenge for their fallen. And finally there are the ones who have something to prove and have some mediocre ability. Tell me which ones do you belong to."
"The third." I said and she nodded looking at my reports.
"Hmm, magically weak but that can be remedied. Strong in theory and nice reflexes." She said and looked back at me. "Did you learn to duel?"
"Not formally but I do know 9 spell chains and protego charm." I said and she narrowed her eyes at me.
"The spell chains would be from first to third years, right?" She asked and I nodded.
"Yes." I looked down with a red face, keeping up the act.
"Mmm, okay then. Report here every day at 7 AM. Not a second late. Wear muggle clothes or something easier to move in." She said. "Look for Tonks in the Auror department tomorrow."
I nodded and bid my farewell soon afterwards. Inside, I was cursing my luck again. Why do I have to interact with main Canon characters? The next day, I stood in front of the Auror department with a letter and was waiting for Tonks. She arrived in a hurry and rushed right in ignoring me completely. I sighed and followed her inside the office only to dodge a file that was coming at me with great velocity.
"Boy, what in the bloody curses are you doing here?" Alastor Moody glared at me with both his eyes.
"I was sent here for the jun. . . " he cut me off as he summoned the letter from my hand.
"Blasted budgers. I now have two incompetent little shits to endure." He yelled, throwing a paper weight at me. "Girl, you will teach him the ropes but don't let him near my desk or show him any sensitive stuff or let him enter my office again or BE LATE TO WORK. I swear if I even hear you messing up, I will have you do paper work for the rest of your goddamn life." With that final yell, he threw our asses out of the door magically.
We quickly got up and dusted ourselves before looking at each other weirdly.
"Hello, there. How have you been?" I started with a smile.
"Just jolly mate. First day?" She replied with a smile. ⁷
"So, how do things work around here?" I asked and she handed me a huge book. "By learning that book in under a month."
She said looking smug and I grinned back as I handed the book right back, confusing her.
"I already did that." I said and she smiled back.
"Now, you write a test." She said, leading me to a quiet room and handing me about 30 parchments and a huge set of questions. "You have 3 hours." She said and sat down in front of me.
Three hours and a half hours later, we were inside a training area and I was uncomfortably lying on the floor out of breath and bruised. The next step in the auror training programme was to last about 5 minutes in a duel with an apprentice Auror and some other technical stuff but combat is the main focus. Tonk looked impressed with my performance despite mine lying on the floor.
"I am surprised you last so long." She said as she straightened her clothes.
"Something, I find many ladies saying about me." I said with a chuckle and felt a sting on my stomach. "Hey."
"Prat." She said and fired another stinging hex at me.
"Ouch." I groaned for a bit. "I have been meaning to ask you about Moody."
"If you think that was a bit too much then you wouldn't be able to stand near him on a bad day." She sighed. "Anyway you won't be dealing with Moody, as you will be too busy with tax checks and classification of confiscated goods of darker origins at the office next door. Good luck and we will continue this next week." She said and walked away.
I casted as few episkey charms and drank a healing potion to get my strength back and walked myself to the apartment. Slimy helped me clean myself and I transformed in the dragon form allowing me to heal rapidly and in about 2 hours, I was as good as new. Before I had casted the episkey in parsel tongue for the greater healing effect and a bruise that should have taken about 3 spells was healed in one. I smiled at this and began to practice a few other healing spells including a famous one vulnera sanentur or as I like to call it 'the Snape spell', which heals even deep gashes. It was really surprising to see the effects of such spells after being amplified. To practice the spells all i needed to do was to kidnap an unsuspecting muggle and obliviate them after the practice sessions.
The next day, Nymphadora was waiting for me at the appointed doors. She walked me in and introduced me to everyone. Everyone including the elf cleaning the floors promptly ignored me and only one chubby man stepped forwards to receive me. Mr. Flint was quite a boring man as he was having the time of his life crunching numbers. It was seriously hard to concentrate with him constantly giggling over calculations which took way too long as they simply avoided calculators here. We kept at it and during the entire day, we caught no errors in the taxes and sales records. I was surprised as there were definitely a few names from the Knockturn alley popping up but the record was immaculate. The next day, I was led by another thick spectacled weirdo as he guided me through the process of identification of confiscated goods. This was somehow worse than crunching numbers because the confiscated goods kept here were considered dark of origins because they were stored near some dark artifacts or were nearby items that were exposed to dark magics for brief periods. The darkest item we found today was a sneezing potion that had gone bad. I could have tolerated that but the man showing me the ropes kept moaning and groaning randomly. I alternated between the two tasks for the rest of the week and on Monday of the next week, Tonk took me to the training area for the test. I lasted about three and a half minutes. Tonks then gave me a high quality healing drought and taught me the correct way to deflect spells which I already knew but appearances had to be kept and I made the worst possible small range protego and used it to bat away a stinging hex away from my chest to my shoulder. I groaned at this because ever since I had mastered the protego totalus which covered my entire body in a body shaped bubble. A variation from the common variety of course but it was convenient and didn't need to be constantly recast.
Entire summer I had to endure God awful boring tasks after another and as a show for my efforts, I was handed a certificate stating that I had enough experience not immediately die when faced with a battle which apparently was more than what could be said for many of my age and even above my age. When the sixth year started, I was again hounded by Professor Filtwick to take up dueling after he heard about my certification. I had finally relented and he offered me 26 books from his personal collection about dueling and all sorts of nifty tricks and what not. There were a few points regarding the body movement and footwork that really struck a chord in me. The books stated many times over, that constant movement is the way to go about any sort of magical battle and how deadly it was to keep still and try to tank any spells which could have been avoided. I was really intrigued. About a few spell chains and how many wand movements flowed from one spell to another. Nearly one month of tutoring from Filtwick, I was given a chance to duel with him. He used two spells for the entire duel which only lasted about 3 seconds and he had fired off a chain of stupefy and flipendo. He had fired a total of 12 spells during that time and got me with a flipendo at the 12th spell. While he was impressed with my protego charm, he had pointed out how predictably I had moved and that my wand movements weren't as precise as they could have been. Despite that total wipe out, the shit eating grin never left his face.
