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Chapter 10.

Sharing.

Second year.

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Harry and Su approached the entrance to the headmaster's office. 'Lilith,' Harry mentally said. 'Hide.'

The invisible pixie nodded and flew inside Harry's robes. She did not know whether the old Headmaster could sense her. He had never given any sign that he could see her or her pets, but one couldn't be too careful, especially when they stepped in the wizard's den.

Harry stopped in front of the statue that guarded Dumbledore's office. "The headmaster wanted to see me." Harry waited a few seconds before continuing. "Move aside or I will leave."

For a few seconds, nothing happened, and then the guardian statue moved.

Harry climbed the stairs and knocked.

"Enter, Mr. Potter," Harry heard Dumbledore answer.

The two Ravenclaws stepped inside Dumbledore's office. "Headmaster," Harry stated. "You wanted to see me?"

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "Yes. Lemon drops?"

"No, thank you."

Harry and Su sat down and stared at the man before them.

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore began, "I wanted to ask you if you could give me any more information concerning the ... petrifaction incidents." Seeing that Harry was silent, Dumbledore put his grandfatherly look on his face. "Mr. Potter, I know that things between us have been strained, but I think we should put our feelings aside and do what is best for the school."

"I'm confused," Harry sneered. "If you wanted to know more, why didn't you keep questioning me when I was under veritaserum? Before I said things that would make you... uncomfortable, you were quite keen on encroaching upon my privacy."

Dumbledore lost his grandfatherly look and the twinkle in his eyes. "Mr. Potter!" Dumbledore begun harshly, but was interrupted by the calming song of his phoenix familiar.

While Dumbledore was calmed by the song, his visitors felt a shudder of revulsion from it.

Harry and Su turned their heads towards Dumbledore's familiar.

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said in a gentle tone. "No matter how angry you feel towards me, I'm sure you understand that there are more important things at stake here. If you know something that could help us with the petrifaction incidents, please tell me. While until now those who were endangered might not have been the nicest students, there is no guarantee that innocents will remain unharmed."

"Oh, don't worry, Headmaster," Harry replied. "This time only, I took care of your problem. You won't have any more problems with the basilisk. I took care of it."

Dumbledore smiled and his eyes begun to twinkle. Fawkes gave a thrill of pleasure that brought joy to Dumbledore and feelings of revulsion to his visitors. "Harry my boy. I knew that there is more to you than you like to show. The way you protect the younger students from bullying show that despite your cold exterior, you are your parents' son."

Harry smiled slightly, idly noting that Dumbledore was well aware that there were bullies in the school, but did nothing. "Actually, you are wrong," Harry said in perverse pleasure. "I admit that I hate bullies and I might have helped here and there. I find bullies disgusting, but I am not some "Gryffindor forward" wannabe hero. Nor am I the evil Dark Lord in training the ministry and papers say. I am more... neutral. There was no reason against putting some inbred purebloods with delusions of grandeur in their place. They are scum and it took little effort in dealing with them. But," Harry leaned forward, "I didn't kill the basilisk for you."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded as if he thought Harry was actually an angel who would sacrifice his life for the greater good.

"I killed the basilisk because I thought that you or the ministry were going to finally do something about it. Since I've had my fun, I decided that it would be better if it was I who dealt with it."

"And why is that?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry rose to his feet. "That was a one thousand years old basilisk, Headmaster. Do you have any idea how huge they grow? A basilisk of that size is worth a small fortune."

"I see." The light in Dumbledore eyes dimmed. As Harry was about to open the door, he turned around at Dumbledore's question, "One question, if I may?"

"Yes?"

"How did you manage to kill a basilisk?"

"That wasn't too hard," Harry snorted. "The crowing of a rooster."

"I see," Dumbledore nodded.

"I am actually surprised that I am the only one who thought about it."

"Why is that, Mr. Potter?"

"Someone with your power and experience should have been able to take advantage of this. You could have used a few roosters and put them around the school. I'm sure someone like you would have been able to build a defense system against the basilisk. There must be a ward that could detect it. When the basilisk attacked, you could have had something that would make the rooster crow to kill the basilisk."

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Harry, followed by Su and his pixie familiar, stepped into their private rooms to see Daphne and Luna engrossed in a deep conversation.

"What is it?" Harry asked curiously.

"Later," Daphne replied. "First, let's hear about your meeting with Dumbledore."

Harry started to tell Daphne and Luna about the meeting. When Harry told them of what they felt when the phoenix started to sing, Lilith gave them an explanation. "Dark pixies are Dark creatures. Phoenixes are the Lightest of creatures. In many ways, for us a phoenix feels the same way a dementor feels."

"So that was because we have a dark pixie form," Harry reasoned.

"Yes," Lilith agreed. "It is in our nature to... dislike some Light creatures like phoenixes and unicorns. If they sense us they reciprocate."

"Why the dislike?" Harry asked.

"I do not know exactly," the pixie replied. "It is just how it is. It's the same as a human's dislike of creatures like spiders and bugs. Maybe it is just instinct. From what I know, there have always been conflicts between Dark and Light creatures. Maybe in the beginning, there was no difference between us and them. Perhaps in time, as conflicts took a life of their own, they became instinctual."

"If we dislike Dumbledore's familiar, does he feel the same toward us?" Su asked.

"I do not know," Lilith replied. "After all, we only felt like that after he sang. Normally, we don't feel one way or another. I do not know if he can sense what is in us. Other pixies, especially High Pixies, have an advantage in detecting us. If you remember our first lesson with Lockhart, those Cornish pixies figured out that you were dark pixies or something similar. However, I was not felt by them, for I had better control over my abilities. From what I know, few things can sense us if we keep our distance and remain passive. I don't know if the phoenix felt us. I would say that it is unlikely, but I can not be sure."

"That's good to know," Harry said and continued with his story.

When Harry finished, Luna snickered. "You realize that, now that you told Dumbledore that you carved poor Sam into potion ingredients, we'll have to keep him hidden."

"Yes," Harry nodded. "But now Dumbledore will have no reason to look for Sam. And if in the future we need him, we'll have a trump card."

Luna nodded slowly. "Dumbledore will remember this conversation and he'll think it's easy to kill Sam. He doesn't know that he is immune to a rooster's crowing." They had learned about it from one of Salazar's journals. He had performed charms and rituals to make his guardian immune to its greatest weakness.

Daphne snorted in amusement. "As if Salazar Slytherin would have used something with such a weakness to guard his chamber. Nowadays, House Slytherin may be more ambition, little cunning and an unhealthy dose of stupidity and depravity, but it was not always like this."

"So," Harry looked at Daphne, "now that I told you how I disillusioned Dumbledore yet again, mind if you tell me what you and Luna were plotting?"

"We weren't plotting," Daphne replied looking eagerly at Luna. "Luna, show them."

The blond girl shook her head and then, her hair changed its color from pale blond to green. "It looks like I got more than your ability to talk to snakes."

"You're a metamorph like me," Harry said with a grin.

"I believe we all are," Luna stated. "I think that we will gain most, if not all of your abilities to a certain extent."

"The bond I created was from one of Slytherin's books," Harry said slowly. "It is a parsel-spell and I always thought that the ability to give my human familiars the parseltongue ability was something inherent in the spell. I wasn't too surprised by this. After all, I got mine from Voldemort. I knew that as a result of the bond, your power increase will be one of the results and that there would be a chance that you will receive more, but I never thought that you will truly gain the rest of my abilities."

"If that is so, why is it that bonds like these are not more widespread?" Su asked. "Imagine the Death Eaters with Voldemort's power."

"Riddle would never do such a thing," Luna answered. "I know a fair bit about bonds and rituals. The Dark Mark too is a type of bond, but it is very different from ours. The bond we have is one of sharing. We gain many things from Harry, but since he is the master and the strongest, he gains little power from it. There are dark rituals that require the sacrifice of a magical being. These are far more efficient. What we have between us is a bond of love and trust. It could be possible for us to turn against Harry, but we would suffer not only magically, but emotionally as well. Our type of bond gives the master power over the familiars, but it also gives a certain power to the familiars over the master. For us, Harry included, harming each other is," Luna made a pause and looked at her friends.

"Repulsive," Daphne finished.

"Yes," Luna nodded. "But for someone like Riddle and his Death Eaters, it wouldn't be such a big problem."

"What about the Dark Mark? What kind of bond is that?"

"It is a bond of control," Luna stated with distaste. "Mother knew a fair bit about it. He can torture or send his feelings through it. He can also use the mark to find the location of his Death Eaters. He is able to call his followers through the mark and when they call Voldemort, he can apparate to their location."

"Riddle would never have a bond like ours," Daphne agreed looking at her friends. "It would ... pain me, or any of us to do something to harm one of us. Riddle would not have that. He chose to base his power on fear, hate and terror, not love and respect."

"So evil Dark Lords would never have a bond like this," Su said. "What about others? Why is it that this type of thing is unheard of?"

"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "What I did was pretty obscure and difficult. It's possible that there are others like us. But what we have is a very intimate type of bond. Few others would agree to something like this."

"And I think that the bond would be considered illegal and classified as Dark by the ministry," Daphne added. "Actually, most Rituals, even if they are harmless, some branches of magic and a lot of the stronger spells are classified as Dark. In the older days, there was a lot more freedom to use what is now classified as Dark. Even useful magic like occlumency is frowned upon."

"It's like they want us dumb," Harry said in disgust. "Look at our classes," he pointed out and the girls nodded. "We are educated like drones, forcing us to perform magic mechanically. We are not given any form of mental training when even some basic occlumency would allow us to concentrate better. Look at the difference between us and the rest of the students. We pick up spells easier then they do. Part of the reason is that we all have high intelligence and magical strength, but mostly is due to our occlumency."

"Some purebloods have access to books on mind magic," Daphne said, "but usually, few have access to them and fewer bother. It's stupid that we don't learn occlumency at school."

"Yeah, but if everyone did it," Harry said, "it would be harder to Obliviate. Veritaserum would not be as efficient as it is. It would be easier to resist dementors. Anyway, Luna is there anything else you can do?"

Luna took out a feather from her robe, put it on her hand and concentrated. The feather begun to levitate.

"You can do wandless magic!" Daphne exclaimed. "That's great!"

"Just a bit," Luna admitted with a blush. "I am not as good as Harry. He can levitate multiple objects and he can even do a few other basic spells. Unfortunately, this is all I can do for now," she said.

"So you think we can all do it?" Su asked.

"I think so," Harry nodded. "I've always been able to do things without my wand, though I need a wand if I wand to do anything more than simple spells. Since I can do it, and my abilities were passed onto you, you should be able to do it too. Also, after I gained my pixie form, my wandless magic was a little better."

"It's probably because, in a way, we are now partly magical creatures," Luna hedged. "Magical creatures are closer to their magic than normal wizards and witches."

"You should all begin adding this to your training," Harry told the girls. "After I left my relatives, these abilities were extremely useful. When you want to get away from somewhere or someone, there's nothing better than the ability to take any form you want."

Daphne nodded thoughtfully. "You know Harry, the way we train..." the girl paused biting her lower lip.

"We are training as assassins," Su stated.

"Yes," Daphne stared at Harry. "Why?"

Harry shrugged, trying to remember when he changed from the naïve child he once was, to the boy who feels little remorse when he killed. "I told you about the Dursleys," Harry began. "At first, I thought that the way they were treating me was normal. As time passed, I started to realize that they were not good people. So, when I was able to use my powers, I left. At that time I thought that there were no worse people than the Dursleys. That changed when I first went to Knockturn Alley. I changed my shape into that of an adult man and went into a pub. I wanted to learn more about the dangers of the Wizarding World and the best way was to talk with those who frequent Knockturn Alley."

"That was dumb," Daphne stated.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "There was this man I started to talk with. I wasn't that good at legilimency then, but I paid for a few drinks and let him talk with the occasional prompting from me. He complained about the good old days under Voldemort. How they didn't have to be careful about the revels. When he was drunk enough, he even bragged a bit about what they did to the "muggle filth"."

"So, what did you do to him?" Daphne asked. The Harry of now wouldn't hesitate to kill such a man. But what about when he was nine years old?

"I knew that in a straight magical duel, I wouldn't stand a chance against a trained adult. I knew how brutal a magical duel can be. I did nothing, but when I left the pub, He stunned me in the back."

The girls tensed. They all knew what Death Eaters were capable of. Lilith fluttered her wings in distress on Harry's shoulder and placed her hand on his neck. "What did he do?" the pixie asked softly.

Harry smirked. "Nothing. I was wearing battle robes under my robes," Harry answered. "If I didn't, who knows what might have happened."

The girls breathed a sigh of relief. Harry had a tough life at the Dursleys, but being used by a Death Eater would be infinitely worse. They were all aware that the Death Eaters were capable of despicable acts. The perversions of the Death Eaters were notorious and there were plenty of monsters who would have preferred a boy as beautiful as Harry over any woman. And if he had discovered that Harry was a metamorph, it wouldn't have been nice. There are plenty of people who would have spent good money on a metamorph, even if he was male. Maybe not as much as for a female metamorph but then again, Harry was a full metamorph, able to change even in a female form. Coupled to the fact that Harry was the boy-who-lived and Harry Potter, to the girls, the result was unthinkable.

"What did you do?" Daphne asked.

"I didn't need any spell. I just used what I knew best. I threw a couple of these," Harry said drawing one of his throwing knives. "He wasn't too drunk to react, but he was too surprised to defend himself. His injuries weren't fatal, so I took him with me, to Potter Manor. I went back to Knockturn and bought some veritaserum and interrogated him. He attacked me because he thought I was an auror. It took more of a few sessions to ring everything from him. I sat there and listened about the Death Eaters' inner workings; their tactics; their members; their actions; their revels. I threw up more than once. " Harry's face hardened. "After I finished, I practiced my legilimency on him. When I killed him, I only felt satisfaction knowing that the next day was Sunday. Every Sunday, he went into muggle London for his weekly "kidnap-rape-Obliviate," as he put it."

"And Dumbledore wants to give them a second chance," Daphne growled.

"I wonder if at least some of the muggleborns aren't the results of such things," Luna said thoughtfully.

Harry shook his head. "I doubt it. They use contraceptive charms. They don't want to taint their noble lines with the "muggle filth"."

"I think Luna has a good point here," Daphne disagreed. "Contraceptive charms aren't one hundred percent sure. It's quite possible to miscast it. Hell, some of them might forget to cast it."

"One of the reasons for the hate against muggleborns is that their number increased more than was expected," Luna said thoughtfully. "Even with the increase in muggle population, their number is bigger than expected. With the increase in squib numbers, the purebloods extremists started to believe that the muggleborn are stealing the purebloods' magic."

"I always thought that the squibs are the result of too much inbreeding," Harry said.

"I don't know," Daphne said. "I think witches and wizards are far more resistant to inbreeding than muggles. I think we are as closely related as the muggle royal families are."

"But the Wizarding lines are far older than the muggle ones," Harry pointed out. "Maybe the genetic damage accumulated and our magic can't handle it."

"In most Asian countries, powerful muggleborn marry into Wizarding families from time to time," Su said thoughtfully. "It's rare, but it happens. New blood like Lily Potter who was beautiful, smart, well educated and magically very strong, is encouraged to marry into Wizarding lines."

"That makes sense," Daphne nodded. "Purebloods are generally stronger than muggleborns, but there are muggleborn that are very strong. At Hogwarts we have the illusion that muggleborns are stronger, or as strong as purebloods and half-bloods. That's not true. Only the strongest muggleborns are invited to Hogwarts. The rest remain untrained or go to other Wizarding schools."

"It could very well be that the reason for the increase in muggleborn numbers is that the increase are half-bloods born from rape," Luna stated.

"Huh. Maybe Granger is Malfoy's sister," Daphne snickered.

"Doubt it," Harry muttered. "I doubt Malfoy swings that way."

Daphne raised an eyebrow in question. "The father, or the son?"

"Both?" Harry shrugged. "Anyway, going back to our enemies, I've read a lot about Dumbledore and Voldemort. I always knew that one day, I would have to defend myself from one of them. Thankfully, I am not a Gryffindork. I realize that both Dumbledore and Voldemort are far beyond my abilities. I know that magically, I am very strong and one day, I might even be as strong as they are. But that's some time away. To survive until then, I'll have to pit my strengths against their weaknesses. So I'll leave magical brawls to Dumbledore and Voldemort. Voldemort can afford to throw killing curses, fiend-fire and all sorts of nasty spells. Dumbledore can do transfiguration on a whole different level than even Voldemort. The only way to go against them is if I have the element of surprise and they are not in the best fighting form. But even then, I doubt I'll be able to defeat them. Dumbledore has his phoenix that can fire-travel through wards and Voldemort performed so many Dark rituals that I'd have to chop him into pieces and I'd still be afraid that he'd stitch himself together."

"So if they are too strong, what can we do?"

"Against Dumbledore... I am not too sure. My first thought is to let him and Voldemort battle each other, and then fire an AK in their backs or something. I think that Dumbledore would leave me be if there was no need for me to kill his Dark Lord, But Voldemort ... he won't stop until I'm dead. Even if he is a Dark Lord, he is not all-powerful. Much of his power comes indirectly from his Death Eaters, their fortunes and their political clout. Without their support, Voldemort, or any Dark Lord will have considerable trouble with gaining control over the Wizarding World. I can't defeat Voldemort, but I don't think I will have too much trouble dealing with individual Death Eaters."

"Even If you kill ... let's say Lucius Malfoy, there's Draco," Daphne pointed out. "And after him, there are others. You can kill them, but their money and political power will remain."

"Not if we loot their Vaults and homes," Harry smirked. "And I'm pretty sure that Draco is still a few years away from having even a tenth of his father's political power. In the end, if we keep killing his supporters, they'll eventually learn that it's better for their health if they tell Voldemort to sod off."

Daphne smirked at Harry's idea. "If Dumbledore heard us talk about assassinating people so brazenly, he'd need a whole day of phoenix song therapy to calm down." The girl then turned serious. "But are you serious about wanting to rob their Vaults? No one has ever robbed Gringotts," she pointed out.

"I know, but the Potters lost most of their fortunes in the last wars. It's about time to get some of it back... with interest."

"And if we steal their money," Daphne smiled, "we'll be able to afford better protection and our enemies will be unable to influence the Wizarding world."

"Don't forget about the Golems," Luna added. "The magical ingredients needed for a proper Golem are extremely expensive."

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Author's Note: A long time since I updated... but here's the new chapter.

Some people asked about when Harry and the girls will be more than ... friends. Answer is fourth year Yule ball. (Probably.)

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