Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Tricky Maneuvers (1)
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I could describe the next week in detail, but as interesting as they were, they had a certain routine to them. I would wake in the morning and find Hermione naked and draped over me, her bushy hair all across my face and chest. After that, she and I would have a little… spar. First with spells, then with fists until it devolved into a passionate love-making in the shower. With every passing day, it became painfully clear that Hermione was developing an inhuman physical strength — she had bruised a pair of my ribs just by wrapping her legs around me when I made her cum — and was getting faster too, given how she could just dodge through my attacks without bothering with a shield. The only thing she lacked was magical power, which I supposedly had in spades, but her inventiveness and enormous arsenal of spells was more than enough to bend the odds in her favor.
It was humiliating at first. But I persevered. The amazing facilities that the Outlander perk gave me would eventually, elevate me to degrees that most witches and wizards couldn't dream of, but Hermione, for all her strength and skill, would reach her apex. The combination of werewolf physicality and her Eidetic Memory would grant her a higher apex than most, but eventually, it'd reach a plateau.
But for me? It was exponential. Infinite. The only resistance to my ascension would be my demise and… my arrogance. Which was a far more dangerous threat than people gave it due.
A part of me was actually thankful that Hermione was too busy trying to cope up with her own troubles. Or else she'd have probably tried to force me through her long-winded lectures about the perils of keeping feelings bottled up. That I was way more casual and relaxed than the brooding Harry Potter of fifth year helped matters, a good thing since I did not particularly enjoy being talked over.
After our morning exertions, I'd leave Hermione in her room and get to the Third-Floor corridor– my hideout so to say, and start firing out spells non-stop until I was too tired to cast anymore. The constant sex I had been having with Romilda in the unused classrooms, and of course, with Hermione in her room, my stats were growing. And then there was Ginny who liked to surprise me, sometimes in the Gryffindor showers, sometimes in the broom cupboards on the corridors and even once in the Great Hall during breakfast. Ginny was a mischievous and daring little pixie, I was learning.
But as is with all things, this was coming to a close. The results would be out sometime later today, and by this time tomorrow, we'd be boarding the Hogwarts Express, traveling back to our homes. I had just gotten back from the Quidditch gym — yes, Hogwarts had a gym for the Quidditch players to keep themselves in shape, not that the stauncher purebloods used it, claiming they didn't need filthy muggle facilities to keep them in shape when they had magic. I had hiked about two miles up and forward on the elliptical machine and could barely walk straight. Sweaty and exhausted and thinking about a shower, I almost didn't see it when a pair of hands grabbed me from my left and pulled me into an abandoned classroom.
It probably said something about me that despite my exhaustion, my wand was out there in my palm, a blasting curse on my lips.
A pair of very familiar brown eyes blinked at me, the aggression in them wiped out by having my wand pointed between them.
"Ginny!" I asked, flabbergasted, putting my wand away. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Me?" Ginny yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Fooling around with Hermione like that?"
This… wasn't how I expected things to happen. I mean, Hermione knew about my dalliances with Ginny and Romilda — which I continued under the official cover of 'needing positive impulses to counter the dementor exposure', but Hermione was a special case. Ginny, on the other hand, was an entirely different bag of worms.
"What are you talking about?"
Her eyes blazed. "You know what the fuck I'm talking about. I visited your bed twice this week, and you weren't there. Romilda did the same, and she said you weren't there either. And Hermione, her face lights up whenever we talk of you. You, you're fucking her, aren't you?"
"Hang on a minute," I replied, trying to make sense out of the entire conversation. "You know I've been fucking Romilda, and by your words, you two set up some kind of schedule between yourself. So why do you care if I've been… spending time with Hermione?"
"I care because she's my friend." Ginny snapped back.
"And Romilda isn't?" I asked. "Is that why you're taking turns with her to fool around with me?"
Ginny only glared instead of replying. I knew exactly why she had come to my dorm room for two nights during the past week, and why Romilda had done the same. Ginny had been fooling around with me, flirting and teasing me and doing anything to get a reaction out of me. She hadn't minded when I was fucking Romilda, but something about Hermione ticked the hell out of her.
Could it be…
I crossed my arms. "I think you're just jealous."
"Fuck you," she whispered. "I didn't think you'd be the playboy type. Fucking around with girls because it's fun!"
"Haven't I been doing exactly that with Romilda?" I asked, matching her gaze, only I was calm and composed compared to the smoldering flints that were her eyes.
Ginny folded her arms under her breasts and continued to glare at me for a dozen seconds before replying. "That's… different."
"How?"
"Because…. Because…" she stammered.
"Because you don't see her as competition," I finished for her. "I can mess around with Romilda all I want, and you wouldn't bat an eye. But Hermione's my best friend. The person closest to me in this entire world. Seeing me fucking her makes you feel jealous. Anxious. Like you're a second choice."
It was probably my easygoing and friendly tone that made it even more effective. Ginny faltered, as if physically struck. I wasn't seeing the self-assured sexy girl that got whatever she wanted out of others. I was seeing someone afraid of rejection. Could her infatuation with me be more than just pure sexual attraction? Did she still have lingering feelings for the 'Boy-Who-Lived' in her dreams?
It'd certainly explain why she was acting this way.
"Maybe you just want me all to yourself."
"Get fucked!" She replied, but it lacked a lot of hostility. "And stay away—"
I interrupted Ginny's sentence by grabbing her hips and pulling her towards me. Our lips met, and I felt a bit of resistance before her mouth welcomed mine. Her tongue darted into my mouth and we fought for dominance as I slid my hands over her hips to grope at her impressive orbs. Ginny moaned and pressed her whole body into mine as her hands ran under my shirt and she raked her nails across the flesh of my back.
She melted into my body as we continued to make out in the unused classroom without a care in the world. I lifted the back of her skirt to get a better feel of her ass, and my hands ran over bare hips to cup her exposed cheeks, before putting two of my fingers into her mouth. This girl had come down here to confront me wearing no panties. Had she been hoping I'd notice and take advantage of the situation? Ginny was a smart girl, so she must have had that in mind.
"Stay away from you, is it?" I whispered into her ear, "is that what you want?"
Ginny looked like she wanted to retort, but before she could, I walked her across the room—my fingers still in her mouth—and pressed her up against the wall. I felt every curve of her chest against mine as she pulled me against her like a starving woman getting her first meal in days. And I planned to give her more than just a taste.
I released my hold on her arse with one hand and slipped it between her spread legs. Her pussy was so smooth and incredibly wet. I teased her clit gently and stroked her labia to spread her lubricant around her pubis before slipping two fingers inside her. She moaned loudly as our lips parted and clung to me tightly as I worked my fingers in and out of her. Her moans were loud, but before I could tell her to keep it down, she bit into my shoulder and growled in pleasure. I didn't mind a little pain, so I let her go as I continued to fuck her with my fingers. I felt the walls of her sex constrict around my fingers as her body started shaking with her climax. She bit down harder into my shoulder and all but screamed in pleasure.
"You are years late to the party, Ginny Weasley. I already fucked Hermione. Several times. Every single day of the last week. Way more than I fucked Romilda. You want me to stay away? Maybe the other girls will appreciate what you don't."
"No,"she grabbed my wrist, panic vivid in her eyes. "No, I didn't mean—"
"Didn't mean what, princess?" I asked, pulling my fingers, now soaked in her cum, and pushing them into her open mouth. Ginny sucked on my fingers, employing her tongue to lick her own fluids off them.
"Don't. I don't want you to stop this."
"Even if I keep fucking other girls?"
"You don't need to—-"
She whimpered as I slapped her right breast.
"Oh sorry, I thought you're commanding me."
I grabbed her left nipple and pulled. Ginny screamed.
"I—" She whimpered, "I'll prove myself better than the others. Better than all of them."
I smirked. "Well, that counts as boldness, I suppose. I'll have so much fun breaking you."
"So…" I asked, "which will it be?"
Ginny calmed down enough to release her hold on my shoulder, and she slumped against the wall. I pulled my fingers from her mouth and brought them to my lips to have a taste. There was a musky, forceful tone to her that when mixed with sexual arousal made it even more appealing to me. When I was done, I held my fingers to her slightly parted lips, and she gobbled them in her mouth to clean them off. She even moaned as she tasted herself.
"Come to my room tonight," I whispered. "I want to have all of you."
I expected a retort. Instead, she only nodded in response. Her eyes were filled with lust and desire.
"And don't say a word about this to Romilda," I whispered, "this is our secret."
I gave her one last kiss before I turned and left through the door, leaving a drenched and utterly spent Ginny Weasley behind.
The burst of white light had blasted out of my wand slammed against the chair-sized three-by-three rubix cube I had painstakingly crafted as a transfiguration practice project. I watched as the energy beam vanished into the slab, stayed in there for like half a second before the individual cubes popped out with tremendous force in all directions. All twenty-six cube components fell apart, with none of them harmed in the slightest.
A perfectly controlled execution of the Confringo spell.
"Yes!" I pumped my fist into the air. No really, believe me when I say this, spells are hard to learn. They weren't something you learnt over the course of an afternoon or during your weekend off. They were stupidly complex things that could end up killing you if you so much as made a single mistake.
There was a reason Hogwarts didn't so much as teach a single elemental charm, or anything more than a low-powered flipping jinx for the lower years. Hell, even Everte Statum was taught to fourth years as part of the Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons. In that light, that Malfoy had learnt a fourth-year spell back as a second year was more than a little surprising.
After you memorized the correct pronunciation of a spell's incantation, the theory behind its execution and copied its wand movements, you had to practice it. Not just once or twice but literally hundreds of times, repeatedly till it became a reflex. You didn't have the time to stop and think in a fight, since even a split-second wasted could get you defeated or worse, killed. You had to act without thinking so any spell that you cast needed to be called upon instantly, and it was only then that you could claim to have mastered it.
Harry Potter had an unnaturally high attunement to Martial Magic, or as they called it, Defense Against the Dark Arts, which made those particular types of magic easier for me to learn. Even the high-level spells in that territory weren't out of my grasp. It was why Harry, as a third year, had grasped the Patronus, a spell that even Aurors found difficult to cast.
Yeah, I was absolutely not looking forward to applying it on people.
Well, maybe a little.
The point is, even with all those advantages, it took me an entire week to fully learn this curse. For two weeks, I had spent hours every single day, working on this single spell and it still took me seven days just to cast it successfully without fail. The next week I spent throwing this curse at boulders, slabs, doors, walls, broom cupboards — you get the idea, and then practicing my Reparo charm and getting them back together.
Stretching my hands and legs a bit, I prepared myself to cast the other variations of the curse. Turns out, there were three registered spells, which while working on the same basic principle of explosion, were created for specific purposes. I had mastered Confringo—commonly known as the Blasting Curse in dueling circles. Its execution lay more like undoing the forces of attraction within objects, causing individual bits to split apart. The second variant Bombarda — operated by creating an actual explosion of energy, and then directing the blunt force from it to directly affect an object. The third, and perhaps the most popular variant because of its use in dueling, the Reducto spell, aka the disintegration curse, operating on the principle of pure disintegration of the object to the tiniest possible fragments.
I leveled my wand at one wall and yelled, "BOMBA–"
"Please stop destroying parts of the castle. I'm rather attached to it."
I was so caught up in the spell casting that the sudden interruption caught me flat-footed, causing the gathered magic within me to go all haywire, exploding out of the wand and throwing me back against the floor. Coughing, I pushed myself up and glared up balefully, only to meet an amused Albus Dumbledore looking down at me through his half-moon glasses.
"Profess–"
The grimace from Dumbledore's visage abated for a moment as he peered at the books I had set upon the table. "Confronting the Faceless? Extreme Incantations? Those are rather advanced books for a third year. Perhaps you could ask Filius to lend you some advice before trying to perform these spells?"
I kept my eyes down. "I'm just trying to do something I'm naturally good at before my time goes out."
Dumbledore frowned. "I'm afraid you have me at a loss, Harry."
I stood up and dusted my robes. "Tell me professor, say you wake up one morning, and find yourself transported into your favorite story."
The imagery I was using was too close to the truth, but for Dumbledore, it was so bizarre coming from the mouth of a child that he'd never consider how close he was to hearing the factual truth.
"My favorite story…" He began, but I cut him off.
"You wake up. Maybe even as a character you like. Or dislike. Doesn't matter. There's an almost guaranteed fact that you are never getting out. So what do you do? You know the story, and you know how things end. So do you try to make the best of it, despite knowing very well what happens in the end? Or do you laugh at the stupidity of it all, and just do whatever the hell you want?"
I picked up my wand that had rolled off the floor. "Because that's what I feel, Professor. Professor Trelawney said the Dark Lord will rise again. So whether I fight him, or run away and save my life, it doesn't matter. No matter what I do, he will rise again. And he'll come for me. You know he will. So what does it matter? When everything is prior ordained through prophecy?"
Dumbledore flinched, albeit for a moment.
I chuckled. "Except this isn't a story, and yet, I'm aware of how things end. The Dark Lord will rise once again, and he'll be more powerful than ever. And I, like an idiot, let his servant go free. If it were just my fault, I'd understand. But if it's prophesied, then that means– that means that I don't even have free will. That my successes and my failures only exist because someone up there wanted it to happen, and nothing I say or do will change that."
My voice had gone so bitter that I could actually taste it. I was no Master of Mind Magic. But words, as Dumbledore had himself quoted in the books – words were a source of magic too. With the right words, I could make someone laugh and someone else cry. I could turn the tides of the world by saying the right things to the right man, and the wrong things to the wrong. And for Albus Dumbledore, who used idle chit-chat to disarm people, this was my counter.
"And if that is indeed the case, then am I really to blame for whatever wrong I do? Is Voldemort? If all our actions are the product of some higher force, making us do things– then are we even responsible for our own actions? Should I instead not… hate this higher force that decided it was necessary for my parents to die just so Wizarding Britain could get a Boy-Who-Lived?"
"You underestimate," Dumbledore spoke at last, "You underestimate the power of choice, Harry. The consequences of our actions are always complicated and diverse. But believe me, you did a very noble thing in saving Pettigrew's life."
"A noble thing that will help Voldemort return to power." I spat.
Dumbledore shook his head. "Pettigrew owes his life to you, Harry. You have sent Voldemort a deputy who is in your debt. When one wizard saves another's life, it creates a certain bond between them… and I'm much mistaken if Voldemort wants his servant in the debt of Harry Potter."
"Wonderful!" I retorted, "I had a connection to the man that murdered my parents. And now I have another with the one that betrayed them."
Dumbledore shook his head. "This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust me, the time may come when you'll be very glad you saved Pettigrew's life."
I couldn't help it. I looked Albus Dumbledore in the eye. "How do you know that? How can you be so sure about it?"
The moment I did that, Dumbledore stiffened, and I cursed myself inwardly. Dumbledore raised his wand, and an invisible barrier formed around us. I did not know what the barrier did, but I was certain I couldn't fight my way through it if it came to that.
I swallowed. Had he seen through my deception? Had that moment of brief eye contact been enough for the man to delve into my memories and find out everything about me? The holly and phoenix wand in my hand almost slipped through my fingers, as Albus Dumbledore raised his wand in my direction, probably realizing that the boy he was talking to was not Harry Potter.
Damn it. And things were going so well too.