CH 21

October came fairly quickly, despite Harry managing to slip in an extra four hours each day in the Chamber of Secrets with his newfound time-turner. Scottish summer was short at best and the light, warm rain gradually transitioned into heavier, cold rain. The leaves of the Forbidden forest began to change, the Whomping Willow moulted and an autumn mist began to settle over the Black Lake in the mornings.

No matter how swiftly Harry felt the month had gone it seemed it had not been fast enough for Ron. The coming of October was synonymous with the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament this year and its approaching advent had been all anyone was talking about.

Gryffindor Tower had separated into three groups: Ron, Seamus and the majority of the house who had already decided to enter their names and were looking at previous tasks from before the tournament had been cancelled, Hermione, Neville and those who had been unable to resist the growing interest, but had no desire to actually enter, and Harry, whose desire for eternal glory had permanently died at the age of eleven.

Today was October the first and according to many, especially Ron, the beginning of the legend of the coming and inevitably glorious Hogwarts' Champion. Harry had had severe reservations about that and had tried to warn his friends by pointing out that most of the old Prophet articles they were using to research the old tasks were about the death of a champion, but they refused to listen.

He had given up after Seamus told him that most of the creatures were fairly harmless until provoked in a manner so like Hagrid Harry had to shake his head in disbelief. His scepticism hadn't been particularly helped by the fact they were looking at a piece about one of the final years of the tournament. The first event had resulted in all three champions being killed by an irate sphinx.

Harry reassured himself that the organisers would have learnt their lesson and it was unlikely they would include some form of large, dangerous magical creature in the opening round this time. It made it marginally less likely that whomever was foolish enough to get selected would die straight away.

'The other schools are coming today,' Seamus crowed excitedly from a little way down the table where he, Dean, Neville and Ron were enthusing as normal. Harry returned his gaze to his book, pausing only to glance down the table to where everyone else was sitting and dodge Katie Bell's best attempts to spill pumpkin juice over everything nearby. A deft touch she might have with a quaffel, but goblets seemed to be a long way beyond her if the trail of juice that was edging its way towards him was indicative.

Harry vanished it distractedly, registering Katie's surprise and gratitude at his use of a vanishing spell, before re-burying his head in his transfiguration book.

Salazar had told him he had something a gift for transfiguration. The founder's portrait had been quite tetchy about his aptitude for one of Godric's favourite subjects, but encouraged him to spend time on developing and practicing the art nonetheless. Harry's ancestor's own areas of study lay mostly in quite obscure fields, most of which the Ministry now considered dark.

The painting had taken that piece of news quite indignantly, but assured him had Rowena been told her response would have come with far more vitriol. Magic was about power and intent and he had accepted that so as long as his intent was good, no deliberate harm could be done. Neville had done his best to shake Harry's belief in this ideal, normally in potions, but with a burgeoning knowledge base that had swelled to encompass a small selection of some quite nasty curses Harry had quite firmly stuck to his justification.

His newest project was to adapt a spell of his own. Salazar had suggested something to do with snakes and conjuring, no doubt having a smaller version of his basilisk conjuring feat in mind.

Harry had chosen a butterfly summoning spell, something he would develop from the bird conjuring spell he had seen and learnt out of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration. His choice had given the portrait of Slytherin a fit of apoplexy before he had explained that a swarm of butterflies would make an almost impervious shield to the Killing Curse that had its roots in soul magic, the Cruciatus Curse that he was keen to never re-experience or any of the other dark curses that caused no physical damage. A blasting curse would tear through his butterflies like paper, but most such curses could be deflected with practice, unlike the Unforgivables. His ancestor had eventually agreed, but was still begging him to reconsider his choice of creature every time they discussed it. Harry had relented only so far as making the butterflies black.

'Papilionis,' he said firmly, drawing a very narrow, close-bottomed vee in the air with the tip of his wand.

A single, rather lopsided looking butterfly, more grey than black, lurched in comical spiral around his head.

Not quite what I was hoping for.

The tragic creature corkscrewed across the table, narrowly avoiding Ron's fork, to collapse in front of Hermione who poked it curiously with her wand. It burst into a wisp of black smoke. Harry frowned and scratched his head, for some reason the spell just wouldn't work no matter how he tried to visualise the movements of the insects.

Hermione shot him a rather smug look from where she sat. His failure to complete this spell had coincided with the aftermath of their spat over Harry's behaviour in classes. She felt he should be paying attention and trying harder and voiced as much, normally loudly in the presence of the teacher, but when she did force him into the limelight of the professor she got annoyed about his seemingly effortless success. Something he found rather hypocritical of her considering she often accomplished the same feat. Matters were made worse when he refused to answer how he was growing so much better in all of his classes, but it wasn't like he could tell her had an illegal time-turner and was spending an extra handful of hours a day learning. She'd made enough of a fuss over his surprise firebolt from Sirius last year, let alone something as serious as an illegal time-turner.

'Papilionis,' he repeated pushing more magic into the spell.

This time he was rewarded by an extra butterfly and a shriek from Katie Bell who had not expected to be accosted by an insect in the midst of her conversation.

They were a little better formed, Harry decided, as he watched Katie vengefully set his conjurations alight. The wings had been a better shape, and they'd actually managed to flutter rather than corkscrew listlessly. Hermione remained unimpressed.

I'd like to see her try and adapt something to make a new spell, he fumed. Between everyone else's obsession with the Triwizard Tournament and her reaction to his apparent sudden change in behaviour he had found himself with a lot more time to himself, just like things had been before; when he had been nobody.

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