King's Aura and Advice

'I could just not go, but then I have to deal with how he'll respond and I've been meaning to have a conversation with him anyway.'

Standing up I made my way over to Professor McGonagall and we walked out of the common room, heading towards the headmaster's office. We walked silently towards his office, with McGonagall staying ahead and looking forward the entire time.

Once we arrived in front of the gargoyle statue, McGonagall said "Sherbet Lemon" and the gargoyle moved out of the way.

"Go ahead Mr. Potter, I will wait out here." She told me, so I made my way down the steps and opened the door immediately, not bothering to knock.

Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, while Fawkes was nowhere to be found. Sitting down in the chair in front of him, I said "What do you want to see me about?"

Dumbledore smiled while replying. "I was wondering how you were doing with being put into the tournament. I know it can be stressful having to compete with people three years your senior."

"Yes because you were very helpful in preventing me from getting put in the tournament in the first place." I said sarcastically.

"I thought my protections would be sufficient." Dumbledore said.

"Ignoring the fact that they obviously weren't, why did you think it was a good idea to use an artifact capable of binding someone's magic. What if someone had decided to put your name instead of mine?" I asked.

"I had full confidence they would not do that." Dumbledore said.

"Did you also have 'full confidence' they wouldn't enter my name too? Whatever, if this was all you wanted to talk about I'm leaving." I said and stood up to leave.

"Wait, Harry there's one more thing. What's this I hear about you no longer sleeping in the Gryffindor dorms. I need to know where you are sleeping, it's a safety hazard."

"You know, if this was a regular school that would be a perfectly fair thing to ask, but with your track record for protecting me, I think I'm better off on my own. You're the headmaster, you figure it out." I said and walked towards the door.

"We are not done here Harry." Dumbledore said and the door slammed shut in front of me. Turning around, I saw Dumbledore with his wand in hand.

"Yes we are Dumbledore. Don't call me back here, I won't come. Stop trying to interfere with my life, I won't take to kindly to it. Now. Open. The. Door." I said slowly and on the last word some sort of pressure of released from me directed at Dumbledore. I could feel it's radius, it filled the room, creating a palpable weight. Dumbledore looked strained, seeming to resist the pressure with visible effort.

'What is this? Some kind of Campione power?' I thought. As I looked at Dumbledore I sensed the same feeling I got from my invisibility cloak. Looking around the room, I zeroed in on the wand in Dumbledore's hand as the cause for the feeling.

'Why do my invisibility cloak and his wand feel the same? And why do both of them feel like my authorities?'

While I was wondering this, Dumbledore's eyes were wide.

"Fine, don't open it. I'll do it myself." I said and turned back to the door, summoning my wand in my pocket and pulling it out.

"Alohomora" I said and overcharged the spell, putting a lot of my Campione reserves into the spell since Dumbledore's spell was definetely strong. The light from my wand impacted the lock and blew a hole in the handle, leaving a fist sized hole in the door.

"Happy accident" I said aloud and pushed the now broken door open, walking out of Dumbledore's office where he stood shocked.

Walking up the stairs and out of the passageway, I found McGonagall waiting for me.

"Your conversation with the headmaster is done? He told me it would take longer." She said.

"Yeah it's done, although he definetely wanted it to go longer. I can find my own way back." I said and turned, walking away from Professor McGonagall. It took her a moment to react, but by that time I had already rounded the corner and walked into one of the passageways I had discovered with my Senjutsu. Walking through the secret passageway I made my way up to the seventh floor and entered the Room.

'With all the stuff that's been happening I haven't had a chance to summon Rias in a while. I'm about ready to get started on the evil pieces, so it'd be good to summon her.' I thought pulling out the summoning paper.

--------------------------------------------------------------POV Change Dumbledore

I sat looking at the ruined door to my office. Minerva had come in and told me Harry had walked away with out her and managed to disappear, after which I sent her away.

"How did he do that" I asked aloud, but I wasn't sure which action I was referring to. There was that strange pressure he released that took all my effort just to stay conscious in it. Then there was the fact that he managed to get through my door. He shouldn't be anywhere near powerful enough to get through the door, especially not with Tom's Horcrux feeding off his magic.

'He's getting too independent. Leaving him at the Dursleys led to the desired temperament. He was shy and not overconfident, their hate of magic meaning they treated him a little worse than he would be in a normal family. He was easily molded, but now he's breaking off friendships, the only person he's interacted with the last few days is Ms. Delacour. Perhaps I can find a way to use her.'

"The nerve of that boy, to not tell the headmaster where he is staying in this castle and destroy the door." One of the portraits of former headmasters said.

"It sounds to me like Albus has pushed him too far with his entrance into the tournament." Another mused.

"Regardless his temperament leaves something to be desired." The first portrait to speak said.

Unnoticed to all of the other portraits or Dumbledore there was one portrait that was silent, with a contemplative look on its face.

--------------------------------------------------------------POV Change Harry

Channeling magic into the summoning paper, Rias soon arrived in her customary red magic circle.

"Hello Harry, it's been a little while since you've summoned me." Rias said in greeting, although I could see that she seemed worried about something..

"Yeah well, things here haven't exactly been great." I answered.

"Want to tell me about it?" Rias asked.

Shrugging my shoulders I made a couch and we both sat down. I then explained to Rias what had been going on, intentionally avoiding mentioning the encounter with Hippolytos. Even if I liked Rias, I wasn't going to tell anyone what my authorities were or when I gained new ones.

After I was done, Rias hummed in thought and said "I think you're missing the obvious thing to do. Just say screw them and don't participate in the tournament. They can't actually force you, nobody is remotely capable of that."

Sighing I replied. "I know that, I just wanted to last a little while longer in normalcy, or at least what counts for it for me. I guess that's a pipe dream now though, with everything that's happened. I also didn't want to reveal my status because I still have one thing to do in the wizarding world and revealing myself would make it harder." I said

Meanwhile I was thinking 'I still haven't made any progress on finding out about what a horcrux actually is. I know it's a soul fragment, that was obvious enough, but Pandora didn't exactly give an explanation. I need to get through more of Slytherin's diary, if anyone knows he does. If I assume that the diary was one too, I don't know how many more Voldemort made. He might not be much of a threat to me, but if he comes back to power he could make my life exceedingly annoying.'

"Alright, I'll stop hiding when the first task comes around, no matter what. That gives me three weeks to make as much progress as I can." I said.

"Well then it sounds like you have a plan, so do you want to start with training or the evil pieces?" Rias asked.

"I think I'm ready to get started with the evil pieces, so let's do that first." I said.

Rias' face became excited at the thought of fixing the evil pieces. She quickly held out her hand and summoned a pawn, handing it to me.

I moved to my desk and put the pawn down next to me. I took some of the books out and opened them to specific pages in front of me, even if I knew all the content in them it was good to have just in case.

Sending my magic into the piece, I began to inscribe tiny runes onto the inside of the piece. It took a lot of focus and fine control to do this small of an inscription, so I went really slowly.

A couple hours passed before I stopped. I had managed to separate the binding aspect of the piece from the reincarnation function. Now it would just take a little more work to completely remove it, but I needed a break. Turning around, I saw Rias sitting with a serious look on her face in concentration.

"Alright, I'm almost done I just needed a little break. Let's train in the meanwhile."

"Just a little while longer than." Rias muttered to herself before jumping up and asking "So what do you want to work on today?"

"Before that, want to tell me what's been bothering you? You were sitting there with a really serious look on your face." I said.

Rias sighed and said "You told me about what you were dealing with, maybe you can offer some insight. First things first, I'm engaged."

"I'd say congratulations, but you don't seem to happy about it." I said.

"I'm not because my fiancé is someone who I hate. He used his evil pieces to form a peerage with the express purpose of forming a harem. He's the type of person who views his peerage as objects. I was supposed to have more time until the marriage, but both our families decided to move it up."

'Devil families still having arranged marriages doesn't exactly surprise me.'

"And there's no way to get out of it?" I asked.

"There is one way, I have to beat Riser, my fiancé, in a rating game." Noticing the confusion on my face, Rias clarified. "A rating game is essentially a match between peerages. First team to defeat the opposing team's king wins."

"So that's why you were training so hard with me. After all the training we've been doing do you not think you can handle him?" I asked, confused. I had been training with Rias for 2 months and in that time she had gotten exponentially better at controlling her Power of Destruction. Before, she struggled to make bigger constructs out of it and it wasn't as compacted or well controlled. Now she could form bigger constructs and her Power of Destruction was much denser than when we first started.

"Normally I would be able to handle him, but he's a member of the Phenex clan, they can regenerate from wounds like a Phoenix." Rias said, roughly sitting down onto the sofa.

Sitting down next to her, I thought about how to deal with that. "Okay, let me ask you something. Would Riser be able to beat your brother?"

"No, he's nowhere near his strength." Rias said.

"Then thinking about it logically, there has to be a weakness to his regeneration. You and Sirzechs have pretty similar skillsets at the moment from what you told me, with him having the edge in experience and outright power, right?" I asked to make sure and Rias nodded her head.

"I can think of a few reasons Riser loses to Sirzechs. Riser might just not have enough outright damage potential to injure Sirzechs. I don't think that is the reason he loses. If that was true it would be a stalemate, since Sirzechs would supposedly not be able to injure him either. The other two possibilities are both exploitable in the same way. Riser either has a mental strain when he is injured, so deal enough damage and his mind will shut down, or his regeneration relies on his amount of magic power or stamina, so do enough damage and he can't heal anymore."

Rias looked at me thoughtfully for a second before facepalming. "Why didn't I think of that? So I just need to improve my endurance with my magic power, so I can outlast his regeneration. Thanks Harry." Rias said and gave me a hug.

"No problem" I said after she released me, not really used to physical affection of any kind. Hermione gave me hugs sometimes, but they were rough hugs. Other than that, I basically never get hugged, so I didn't really know what to do.

Rias stood up and said "Alright, let's get started."

From there we trained Rias' endurance and my ability to dodge. She would focus on sending Power of Destruction constructs at as high of a strength as she could for as long as she could at me. I blindfolded myself and worked on my awareness. My awareness had gotten to the point that I could sense almost all of the attacks coming at me and dodge them. With my awareness combined with Senjutsu, my awareness in battle would be insane.

Rias managed to keep going for about a half an hour before needing a break. We continued to do practice for three hours before deciding it was enough for today and I got back to work on the evil piece. It took me an hour to completely remove the binding part of the evil piece system.

Holding up the finished piece, I turned to Rias and said "I did it. This piece no longer has the binding aspect in it. Anyone reincarnated will not be bound to you in any capacity."

Rias stood up off the couch and made her way over to me. I handed her the piece and she inspected it.

"The connection I feel to it is barely there now." She said.

"Yeah, I kept the part that bound the actual piece to you so you could still summon it. It will go away once it's used to reincarnate someone."

"So are you able to do this to someone who was already reincarnated?" Rias asked with hope on her face.

"Theoretically yes. I need to actually see someone's piece who's been reincarnated to be sure, but I'm almost certain I should be able to."

Rias lunged forward, wrapping me in a hug for the second time today. My hands were awkwardly held down since I wasn't really used to hugs.

Rias released me and stood back. "Should I summon Akeno so you can try?"

Scratching the back of my head, I responded "Honestly, I'm kind of exhausted. It takes a lot of concentration to do it."

Rias looked abashed as she said "Sorry, I got too excited and didn't think about how much effort it took you. Tomorrow then?"

"Tomorrow" I nodded.

"Alright, I'll bring Akeno. See you tomorrow Harry." Rias said and formed a magic circle, teleporting out of the room.

With Rias gone, I moved on to training something else. I tried having the room bring me a rat and suddenly there was a rat sitting in front of me.

'I really need to figure out how this room works. Did it bring a rat from somewhere in the castle, or did it make one?'

Placing the rat in a glass cage provided by the room, I began to concentrate on it. I sat there, focusing on the animal for who knows how long trying to reinvoke the pressure I had created in Dumbledore's office.

'What is different here compared to there? I was angry, but I'm angry a lot of time I didn't do it. What changed about that moment?'

I continued to think about it. Assuming it was a Campione power, I thought about what Campione actually are.

'We're rulers, kings. We bow down to no one and so far I haven't been doing a great job at that. That moment in the office was the first time I really refused to hide and acted like a Campione. I need to get that feeling back.'

Focusing on my state of mind, I concentrated on the rat and thought of pressuring it, forcing it to succumb to my will. I felt it right as the pressure appeared from me. Instead of moving from me in waves all around it focused in on just the rate and I watched as it fell over, unconscious.

'So I'm making my will a kind of pressure. That's why Dumbledore looked so strained, he was struggling to stay conscious and that was when I didn't know what I was doing. If I really practice with it, I should be able to knock out people like Dumbledore or even stronger than him.'

Excited at the prospect, I decided to get some rest for the night. I was drained from the events of the day and needed the rest. It was as I was laying down to go to sleep that I realized I never met up with Fleur for dinner.

'I don't know if anyone went to dinner with the lockdown, but I'll apologize tomorrow.' I thought and drifted off to sleep.