Harry Potter and the Fortress of Woe

a/n: Alright folks, here comes the next chapter. It is huge and it is hot and really hope that you will enjoy it. Be careful, very mild bondage ahead, so you better don’t read a few paragraphs if this offends you. Oh and don’t worry you Ron/Hermione fans, the two of them will definitely have sex in this story, maybe around Christmas… well, anyway on with the story!


Harry was running terribly late. He had missed breakfast and was now dashing along the corridors to still be in time for this first lesson of the day, which happened to be Transfiguration. He did not know why he was hurrying in the first place, Professor Diana would take points from Gryffindor anyway, because the essay he was supposed to be turning in today was lying next to his bag in his dormitory in the Gryffindor tower, but maybe if he arrived at the last minute she would at least see that he had been trying. For the millionth time today, Harry cursed himself for oversleeping.

However, luck was at least partly on his side today, because as he rounded around a corner, still two corridors and one flight of stairs away from his Transfiguration classroom, he spotted Ron’s red-blonde shock of hair some way ahead and his best friend seemed to be carrying both his and Harry’s bag.
“Ron, wait up!” shouted Harry and was glad that Ron froze immediately. He would not had any breath left to call a second time. A minute later, he was standing next to the lanky redhead, gasping for breath.
“Seriously mate, what on earth happened?” Ron asked his best mate. “Hermione and I were worrying about you missing breakfast, so I decided to look for you in the dormitory. You weren’t there, but your bag was, so I thought I should take it with me, just in case you had forgotten it. Well, looks that I was right.”

“Thanks, Ron.” answered Harry after having regained at least a bit of breath. “I overslept and barely had enough time to get dressed, before having to leave for Transfiguration. I wanted to talk to Diana first and then get my bag, but fortunately you have brought it along. I assume that you have my essay with you too?”
“Yep.” replied Ron, producing a roll of parchment out of one of his robe pockets. “It may be crumbled, but its okay. So you overslept, huh? Funny, your bed in the dorm was untouched.”
“Um, yeah, I slept in the Room of Requirements.” said Harry, fighting the blush that was slowly creeping over his face. Ron was obviously suspecting something and he had to be careful now.
“How come?” asked Ron, his eyes narrowed. “What exactly happened after Hermione and I left?”
“You mean after Ginny, Hermione and you followed me after I left the Room of Requirements, dragged me into an unused classroom and bombarded me with questions?”
“Yeah, after that.”

“Um, well as you may remember I told the three of you of the conversation I had with McGonagall and gave you some vague information about what I am going to teach you. Afterwards you and Hermione left and Ginny wanted to spend some time with me alone, so we returned to the Room of Requirements to talk about some things.”
“And what exactly did you talk about?” asked Ron, his voice dangerously low.
“Honestly Ron!” cried Harry, deciding that a part of the truth would be more effective than a bad lie. “Do you really want me to tell you about snogging your sister?”
“God, no.” answered his best mate, his face scrunched up in disgust. “I am seeing more of that than I really want so don’t start talking about it. If that was everything that happened, then I am okay with it. But that still does not really explain why you overslept.”
“I started to plan the next PFT lessons and lost track of time” said Harry, which was partly true, he had thought about the next lesson yesterday evening – for about thirty seconds.
“Fine, then let’s go.” replied Ron, his tone once again light and cheerful. “Sorry for being the annoying bigger brother, but I really don’t want my innocent sister to get corrupted at her young age.”

Harry nearly had to physically restrain himself from snorting out loud at Ron’s words – Ginny was by no means innocent, but if believing so allowed Ron to sleep at night, well then he was not going to correct him. Harry could still remember vividly how things had started yesterday night and Ron’s comment caused the memories to resurface.

- - - - -

It had been Ginny’s idea to return to the now surely empty Room of Requirements to have a little private talk – as she had called it – and Harry was not naïve enough not to know what she was really suggesting. However he would have never guessed how passionate the evening was going to be. He had entered the room behind her and found it bare except for a four poster bed, which happened to be an exact replica of the one in his dormitory and lots of burning candles on the floor, shrouding the room in flickering twilight. With a mischievous grin on her face, Ginny took hold of his hand and gently pulled her towards the bed. Her normally chocolate coloured eyes were shining in a dozen colours in the candlelight and Harry wondered how different the rest of her body would look. The evening was definitely getting better.

After carefully stepping through the waves of candles, which formed a jagged semicircle around the bed, Ginny stopped in front of it and reversed their positions so that Harry was standing with his back to the four poster. She took a small step backwards and just as Harry was about to ask her what exactly she was planning, she pushed him, causing him to overbalance and to land spread-eagled on the silken bedclothes. Just as he had recovered to enough to ask her what the heck she was doing, she had already whipped out her wand and cast two spells. Harry felt his own wand flying out of his robe pocket at the same moment as four silken ropes appeared out of thin air, slipped under his clothing and snaked themselves around his wrists and ankles, tying him to the four bed posts. Acting completely on instinct, Harry tried to wiggle free of his new found shackles, tugging at them with all his might. His efforts were, however, useless, the thin bands of silk binding him to the bed were very soft, probably to prevent him from hurting himself while trying to break free, but as strong as steel.

“Don’t try to break free, Harry.” said Ginny, apparently amused at his attempts. “Honestly, the way you are struggling, you seem to be expecting me to torture you! These shackles are unbreakable and are only here to increase the fun. All you have to do is to lay back and to enjoy what I have prepared for you.”
Harry stopped struggling and managed to nod, not at all surprised to see the familiar mischievous sparkle in his girlfriend’s eyes. He could not help wondering what she had planned and the thought of being tied to this bed seemed more inviting them a few heartbeats before. As Ginny started to undo the clasp holding her robes, the evening grew even better.

“Remember the conversation we had in bed after getting back together?” she asked as her robe fell to the floor, forming a pool of fabric around her feet, exposing the jeans and the tight black t-shirt, she was wearing underneath. “The one about you doing all the work while we are having sex?”
Harry groaned inwardly, not believing that she had taken his joke seriously. But why on earth was she talking to him about this now, after almost two months? And what on earth did she plan to do on this very evening that was connected to this statement? Well, Harry did have a few ideas, but he did not see any point beyond the obvious to do so.
“Well, judging by the look of your face, you certainly do.” chuckled Ginny, while she reached down to undo her shoes and socks. “And you also seemed to be a bit confused, so allow me to enlighten you. Today, I am going to do all the work and you will be the one lying there. I tied you up to ensure that you don’t break this little rule and it also spiced up the whole evening, don’t you think so?”

So she was going to shag him, while he was tied to bedposts on silken sheets? Oh, yeah Harry definitely considered this evening spiced up and his brain was alight with a thousand naughty things he wanted Ginny to do to him. He was hard in an instant. His excitement must have shown on his face, because Ginny giggled and beamed at him, while starting to undress. Tantalizingly slow she removed every scrap of fabric on her athletic body, making sure that Harry had a good view of her at all times. She started with her t-shirt, pulling it over her head to expose the pearl white bra she was wearing underneath. Feeling Harry’s burning gaze on her chest, she unclasped it and was pleased to her him growl throatily as he took in her bare torso. Grinning, she slipped out of her tight blue jeans, pulling her knickers of in the same process and extracted her wand out of the discarded jeans’ back pocket. Ginny pulled off Harry’s shoes and socks, before crawled unto the bed, her nubile body rubbing against his.

God, she was beautiful! Harry could not take his eyes of his girlfriend’s body, mesmerized at how different she looked in the candlelight. Her fiery hair was awash in a thousand different shades of red, starting at strawberry blonde and ending in a red so dark that it could be mistaken for black. Small patches of shadow were shrouding her whole body, shifting every time the candle flames were moved by a breeze, giving her an oddly exotic look. A tiny part of Harry’s mind considered it odd that there was wind in a closed room, but it did not really matter at the moment, did it? However the part of her which fascinated Harry the most, were her eyes, which were still shining in dozens of colour and were looking at him so intensely that it was almost impossible to look away. Their twinkle promised a thousand naughty things and Harry could not wait for the restricting clothes to come off, so he could find out what exactly Ginny had prepared for him.

The redhead moved on the bed until she was eye to eye with Harry, holding her wand casually in her right hand. Her silken locks fell into Harry’s face, tickling him and making him wish to be able to run a hand through them. Subconsciously, he tried to wiggle free again, but stopped, when Ginny reached out to gently cup his cheek. It was odd, so casual a touch but nevertheless it caused a tingle to run down Harry’s spine and into his nether regions and he nearly moaned out loud.
“Impatient, are we Harry?” asked the vixen on top of him. “Do you want me to start taking care of you?”
Harry was still way to affected from her touch to utter a single word, so he only nodded and hoped that it would be enough.

It was enough.

Smiling, Ginny raised her wand and pointed it at Harry’s chest, uttering a single world under her breath. Harry was startled at first when his robe disappeared into thin air, just to appear neatly stacked next to the bed, but then he remembered her using a similar spell at the first time they had made love. She repeated the spell and the polo shirt he had been wearing under his school robes disappeared together with his undershirt. After glazing approvingly at his bare chest, Ginny leaned in to kiss her, her breasts brushing against his chest as she did so. Harry could not remember another moment that erotic. Ginny familiar taste of strawberries and chocolate filled his mouth and the feeling of her bare skin on his chest combined with the fact that he was completely at her mercy drove him to the brink of madness. He was already so close to coming and she had not even done anything then kissing him yet.

Ginny must have been able to feel how excited he was, but she chose not to comment on his current condition. Instead, she abandoned his hot and eager mouth and started to place kisses along his jaw and down his neck, before placing a love bite on his pulse point. Harry knew that he would be marked on the next morning, but he honestly could care less at moment. His neck had always been very sensitive, but in his current state of arousal Ginny’s ministrations were the sweetest possible form of torture. The fire in his mind was burning higher and higher and he knew that it was not enough. He needed more! He needed to feel every inch of her bare skin pressed tightly against his own. He needed to taste every part of her. He needed to feel her squirming beneath him. He needed to feel her tight, wet walls around his cock, while their tongues danced. He needed all of it and he needed it now!

“Ginny, please…” he managed to gasp, before moaning again as the nubile redhead started to lick her way down his chest. She paused and locked eyes with him, a seductive grin on her face, before bringing her mouth close to his right ear.
“Don’t worry Harry.” she whispered and it sounded more like a purr. “I will hurry up, but try not to come till I have, alright?”
At first Harry wanted to protest; there was no way he was going to keep himself from coming if she kept up her current actions. To make matters even worse, even the thought of her riding him in this helpless condition, sent him to the brink of release and he knew that the actual sensation would be a thousand times better. But then he scooped up the tiny rest of his male pride and summoned the strength to nod. He was not going to come first; he had never done so in the past after all! It was going to be easy, he had proven in the past that he had more than enough willpower, had not he? So, holding back for a while could not be so hard, right?

Apparently please at his attempts to control himself, Ginny returned to licking his chest, sucking on each nipple until it hardened in her mouth. By the time she abandoned them and crept even lower, Harry was already gnashing his teeth together in concentration, trying to think of anything else than his beautiful girlfriend doing naughty things to him. He wondered if Ginny was as affected from this little game as he was and he certainly hoped so, because it would make it a lot easier for him to last.

Ginny briefly sucked on his bellybutton, before pausing to examine the small patch of hair creeping into his jeans. Normally, it was as black as the rest of his hair, but now it was blonde with a few stray black hairs in it. She smiled at having found out that Slughorn’s potion did indeed affect all of the drinker’s hair. Ginny never would have believed how erotic it was to be in charge and to have a person trusting you so much to allow you this kind of control. It was exhilarating as it was arousing and already Ginny knew that she was dripping wet with need. She hoped that Harry would last for the thought of not getting shagged tonight was almost unbearable at the moment. To minimize the risk, she decided to get a move on. Snatching her wand, which she had laid down on the bed, she pointed it on Harry’s jeans and muttered the now familiar spell once again. The trick was to think of which clothes you wanted to disappear and Ginny was done with waiting. She wished for Harry’s jeans and boxers to vanish.

The moment Ginny had grabbed her wand, Harry had already suspected that this would happen. Within a heartbeat, all of his remaining clothes disappeared and the sudden contact of burning flesh on burning flesh was mind numbing. His throbbing cock, finally freed from his way too tight confinements was pressing against Ginny’s belly right below her breast, its tip slick with precum and an electric bolt passed through Harry’s body, as he felt his most sensitive skin rubbing against his girlfriend’s. A smile appeared in Ginny’s face as her gaze locked on Harry’ condition. With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, she slowly slid down his body, until her mouth was on the same height as Harry’s member. She was not going to do that, was she? Harry was not sure if he would survive a blowjob in his current state, but before he had any chance to protest, Ginny licked lazily about his purple cockhead, driving all thoughts about protesting from his mind. He started to squirm as she sucked him into her volcanic mouth, torn between the chance to get the release she offer and his male pride commanding him to make her come first. Fortunately for him, Ginny seemed to have sensed his conflict, because she sucked way slower and more gently than she usual did, apparently determined not to let him come yet.

Despite her efforts, Harry would have lost it with ten seconds anyway, had she not stopped her ministrations when she felt him twitching dangerously in his mouth. Harry was both greatly disappointed and greatly relieved at her removing him from her hot and deliciously wet mouth. He had been so close to coming and now his body was burning with need and his breathing was ragged from the efforts of holding back, making him wish that she had allowed him to find release. On the other hand, he was glad that she had not done so, because it probably would have seriously bruised his ego if he had not been able to continue after coming. In each case he definitely needed some time to recover.
“Well Harry, I think both of us could do with a little pause.” said Ginny and suddenly Harry realized how aroused she was. Her skin was flushed, her nipples peaked and as she accidentally or purposely brushed her body against his, he could feel how wet she was. He could not wait to have her, he needed her now! Waiting would not do him any good after finding out that she was as affected as he was, all he would do in the pause they had agreed upon was to stare at her beautiful body, which would not help him to calm down at all. Scooping up his willpower to make his fogged brain form a sentence, which actually made sense, he spoke up.
“Ginny.” he said and was surprised at how pleading it sounded. “Please let me have you!”

Without even bothering to reply, Ginny crawled a bit forward and took hold of his cock, guiding it with her centre as she sat down on Harry. It took every ounce of Harry’s willpower not to come in the moment her hot and soaking wet pink flesh enclosed his penis, but somehow he managed to. He even succeeded in holding back as she started to move up and done, creating delicious friction on his engorged manhood. To make matters even worse, she started to rub her clit and locked eyes with him, while riding him. Harry could not have imagined anything more erotic and he knew that it was over as he saw her pleasuring herself while shagging him, her chocolate eyes dark with lust and pleasure boring into his. He could not help it, he came. The orgasm was so powerful it turned all of his body into jelly, while his brain was turned aflame with pleasure and he could not help to scream her name as he experience the sensation. Much to his surprise, Ginny followed him over the edge only a few seconds later, but Harry was surely grateful for it. For a while they continued moving, riding on their mutual waves of pleasure. As soon as his orgasm was over, Harry felt an enormous fatigue overcoming his body. He was asleep within seconds.

- - - - -

“Hey mate, are you coming or what?”
Ron’s shout caused Harry to snap out of his daze and he hurried along to catch up wit his best mate, hoping that he would never have to tell his best mate about the night he had just shared with his sister. He was now more than five minutes late, but his brain was way too preoccupied with last night’s events to mind much.

- - - - -

“Alright, here we go.” said Harry, trying to push the wooden chest’s lid open, after having cancelled the Shrinking Spell cast on the box, returning it to his original roughly shoe carton sized dimension. It was Saturday afternoon and he was sitting in the Room of Requirements together with Ron and Hermione. The three of them were sitting in comfortable wooden armchairs and were hunched over a round table, on which Dumbledore’s chest was resting. To Harry’s surprise the box swung open immediately obviously somehow recognizing him. Inside, laid a rolled cloth which seemed to be made of black velvet, a small circular bowl and a piece of parchment. Harry thought he could see some runes inscribed in the bowl, but decided to take a look at the cloth first.

He extracted it from the box and unrolled it, revealing the twenty or so small bottles, which had been cushioned in it. The bottle’s contented seemed to be colour coded, for most of them were blue, one green and one bright red. Not really sure what to make of them, Harry picked up the piece of parchment and just wanted to start reading as Hermione gave a startled cry.
“Harry, it’s a shrunken Pensive!” she cried, pointing at what Harry had mistaken for a small bowl. “Here have a look at it!”
Carefully examining the small bowl Hermione had placed into his hand, Harry realized that she was right. It was indeed a Pensive, possibly shrunken to fit into the box. But why would Dumbledore wanted to give him a Pensive? Yeah, it could come handy and was a nice gesture, but how would it make him win the war? Then he had an idea.
“If this is a Pensive then there probably are…”
“…memories in these bottles, yeah mate.” finished Ron, a look of excitement on his face. “Maybe Dumbledore put some of the things he showed you last year in them, you know to allow you to access them again should it be necessary.”
“We will find about that soon enough.” replied Harry and started reading the letter.

Dear Harry,

When you are reading this letter, it is likely that I have met my mature or premature demise. To allow you to continue your task, while I am starting my new adventure, I have filled this box with an abundance of knowledge you may find useful. I assume that you still now how to use a Pensive, so feel free to use the enclosed one, after returning it to its original size, of course. The bottles included in the box contain memories and are colour coded to both of our convenience. The blue ones are filled with all memories about the young Tom Riddle, so that you can search for hints both of us have missed until now. The green bottle contains the memory of me destroying the Horcrux I found in the Gaunth’s house. Maybe Tom has placed the same protective enchantments on all of his most prized possession, so knowing them may make your quest much easier.

Now the red bottle is different to the others. It is a Thought Bottle, a very rare and very prized item, which allows you to store a certain part of you knowledge. If someone drinks out of one of these bottles, he or she will be immediately ingrained with whatever wisdom has been stored in the device. I filled it with the knowledge how to disenchant an Horcrux, because it is a rather complicated process and books dealing with the issue are most often imprecisely written, not to mention really hard to come by. Maybe you are currently asking yourself why you are going to need this knowledge, if you managed to destroy the diary without it. Well, I admit that I do not really know why you were able to do so. Maybe Tom forgot or was not able to place an Indestructibility Charm on the book and therefore rendered you able to destroy the item carrying the Horcrux, which resulted in the annihilation of the enclosed piece of soul. Maybe basilisk fangs have the unique power to destroy Horcruxes on touch or maybe you destroyed it with a subconscious wave of power. As I said above I do not really know, but it is save to say that the spell stored in the Thought Bottle will destroy every Horcrux you encounter.

Good luck Harry, use this final help I am able to give you well and make the world a more peaceful place.

Yours sincerely

Albus Dumbledore, former headmaster of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft

Harry felt the pain of his mentor’s death flare again after having read the letter and for a moment he thought he could feel tears threatening to fall. Taking a deep breath, he fought down the notion; after all he could grief later, when the whole bloody war was over. Now, he needed to prepare himself. And the information Dumbledore had left him would be useful indeed.
“I can’t believe that Dumbledore has created a Thought Bottle.” said Hermione, her eyes filled with the light of excitement she always got when encountering something fascinating. “These are incredibly hard to make, but the effect is worth it! Imaging learning everything within a heartbeat! Think of all the things we could have learned already if Hogwarts had a stock of these!
“Yeah, I am sure it would be fascinating.” replied Ron dryly, causing Hermione to shoot him an evil glare. “Come on mate; drink it, before we have to endure another few hours of her gushing about all the possibilities.”

At first Harry was not sure if he really wanted to try the Thought Bottle now, but as soon as he heard Hermione taking a deep breath, without doubt to reprimand Ron for his lack of enthusiasm, Harry decided that drinking the potion or whatever was in the bottle, was far better than having to endure another argument between his two best friends. Honestly, these two had the most bizarre mating ritual he had ever seen!

He grabbed the red bottle containing the knowledge from the table, uncorked it and brought it to his lips. Harry had expected liquid to gush down his throat, but instead a bolt of energy shot through Harry’s whole body. The unexpected feeling caused him to yelp in surprise, but before he had the chance to doing anything else the most intense headache he had ever felt overcame him. His head was pounding as though it was going to explode any moment and Harry thought that this was probably how a balloon felt like a split second before bursting. The pain reached a crescendo and Harry fell to the floor clutching at his head. As quickly as it had begun it was over.

“Are you alright mate?” asked Ron, helping him off the floor. Apparently his two friends had stopped bickering as soon as he had taken the potion.
“I think so.” said Harry, as a thought popped into his head. “I know how to destroy a Horcrux!”

- - - - -

“So you have returned.” said Harry, his magically amplified voice filling the amphitheatre in the Room of Requirements. It was next weeks’ Wednesday and the first real Practical Fighting Techniques lesson was about to begin. Roughly a third of the students had returned to actually take the subject and they were unevenly divided on the four houses. Almost all of the Gryffindors and half of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had returned, but only one or two Slytherins had bothered to join them. Apparently the thought of getting taught by Harry Potter was unbearable to most members of the house or they were hesitant to join due to Harry promising to find Voldemort’s supporters. In each case it was fine with Harry. The less students the easier it was to teach. It did not surprise him that all members of the DA which still attended school had decided to take the PFT lessons.

“Alright then.” continued Harry, his gaze sweeping over the gathered students. “More of you have decided to take the subject than I had anticipated and even though our side could do with every helping hand in these troubled times, I am glad that we still are a pretty small number. This way it will be easier for my to help each of you should you have problems during the lesson. The small percentage of Slytherin students is not a big surprise either, the house still seems to be connected to Voldemort and his Death Eaters or they are smart enough to stay out of the fighting completely.”
“So you are saying that fighting against You-Know-Who is stupid?” interrupted Zacharias Smith accusingly. Harry however was unfazed.

“Of course it is.” he replied calmly. “If you are fighting the risk of dieing in the process is much higher than if you stay out of the war. Therefore it would be cleverer to either leave Britain or to go into hiding. That’s the easy way out, but it is not the right one. I am by no means encouraging you to run away, no I want you to fight Voldemort to the death if it is necessary, but I think it is only fair to mention the other possible way. The right way is to try to stop this madman and his goons and while not everyone can do what’s right I certainly will try to do the right thing. You can either join or you can save your own hide, I am not going to condemn you if you decided not to fight. But that’s not why you are here. You are here to learn how to fight, so you can actually make a decision! Only very few of you have ever duelled with a Death Eater, most of you don’t really now what a duel feels like at all. And that’s what I am about to change! First question: why is duelling a Death Eater so dangerous?”

Various hands shot up in the air and Harry chose Parvati Patil to answer this question.
“Because they use the Unforgivables.” said the black haired girl.
“So far, so good, but why are the Unforgivables so dangerous?” asked Harry. “I mean it is the same to get killed by a Cutting Charm hitting the throat or by an Avada Kedavra isn’t it?”
“Well, you can’t block an Avada Kedavra, but you can block a Cutting Charm.” continued Parvati after thinking for a few moments.
“Exactly!” cried Harry. “That’s why duelling with Voldemort or his goons is not like duelling with an enemy at school. Shield Charms are not that useful if they can’t actually block a spell. So a single hit in a serious duel may already be deadly and what’s what today’s lesson will be about. I will need a volunteer to demonstrate this properly.”
At first no one moved a muscle apparently all of them contemplating if he was going to really cast Unforgivables at them, but then Ginny’s hand shot up in the air.
“I will do it.” she said, no fear evident on her face. She knew that Harry would never ever hurt her and therefore was not at all concerned of something happening to her during the lesson.
“Very well, come down please.” replied Harry, feeling a smile slip on his face at his girlfriend’s loyalty.

“We are going to duel us.” continued Harry, as soon as Ginny was standing next to him. “I will play the Death Eater and Ginny has to beat me. Of course I am not going to use Unforgivables against her, so let’s pretend that all of my spells would be able to blast through a Shield Charm. That means as soon as I hit with a spell the fighting will be over for she would be dead if it had really been an Avada Kedavra. Therefore she will have to evade getting hit. Are you ready Ginny?”
“Sure.” replied Ginny, a mischievous smile on her face. “You are so dead Potter!”
“We will see about that.” answered Harry, smiling at her carefree nature despite the seriousness of the lesson. “We will start as soon as the countdown reaches zero.”

Suddenly a large golden ten appeared in the air directly between the two soon to be combatants, created by the Room of Requirements automatically adapting to Harry’s needs. It started counting down and speed towards the zero. It was ghostly silent in the room; every student’s eyes were glued to the two persons standing on the circular platform in the amphitheatre’s middle. As soon as the countdown hit zero, the spells started flying.

Ginny started with a Stunning Spells and followed with one of her famous Bat Bogey Hexes. Both her spells failed to penetrate Harry’s hastily erected shield and he answered with two stunners fired with a little delay. One of them flew directly at Ginny, who had to dodge because of the spell was considered unblockable during the duel. She sidestepped to the left, as Harry had hoped, and thereby moved directly in front of the second spell. She screamed in surprise as she saw the Stunner flying towards her face, but managed to create a shield just in time to block the spell. Harry lowered his wands.
“You would be dead now Ginny, had this been an Unforgiveable:” he said quietly, but was nevertheless heard in the whole room. He turned around and addressed all of the gathered students. “Well, why do you think I have shown you this?”

Ron’s hand shot up in the air. “Because you wanted to show us that Shield Charms are not the answer to everything.”
“Right.” answered Harry. “Most wizards and witches rarely dodge spells, but often try to block them. Well, when fighting against Death Eaters Shield Charms are useless, because their preferred spells can bypass them. Therefore you have to change your tactic. You have got legs for a reason you know, use them! Staying immobile in battle means to lose and we are playing with very high stakes! Now be so kind and split into pairs and repeat the exercise I just did with Ginny. You will see that it requires a lot of endurance to fight for a while and you will discover that you are nowhere near a sufficient amount of stamina. I will observe you and point out what you are doing wrongly.”

The class split into pairs and after only a few minutes of practicing Harry realized that he had been right to let his pupils do this particular exercise. Nearly all of them were duelling surprisingly well, but they were not used to physical exercises except for Quidditch and therefore tired very quickly. Harry suspected that the former DA members had taught the new members some tricks. After giving them the homework to practice, he dismissed the class and as he watched most of them streaming out of the door remembering his own training on the same day.

- - - - -

Like he had done for every day since last week’s Tuesday, Harry had walked into the Room of Requirements wishing for a place where he could train. The room had adapted to this needs and formed a huge room filled with everything he might need while training. There was a large library to look up whatever defence spells he was going to need and a few comfortable chairs to read the books stored in them. A door had appeared on the left in the room and Harry knew that it would be leading to the magic resistant chamber designed to train spells with potentially disastrous power. In it a special damping field was active and all spells detonating within it would not be able to affect anything outside the field’s area of effect. This way it was impossible to either damage the room or to damage yourself while practising. Harry had practiced the Starfire Charm during his first week back at Hogwarts and he had lost count how often the damping field had saved him already. This Charm created a small ball of raw, highly compressed magical energy, which extended to more than a thousandth of his original size when hitting a target. This explosion set free tremendous amounts of power, which incinerated everything in the area of effect. It was a spell designed to fight and to kill, because its high energetic structure rendered it very hard to block it with a Shield Charm and the splash damage made it possible to hit a moving target. The spell was not a difficult one, but knowing how much energy one should pour into it in which situation was tricky. Too much energy and you were going to die along with your enemy; too few and nothing would happen. Only a master could use this spell without damaging himself or his allies in combat and this was the reason why the spell despite its effectiveness had been almost forgotten over the years. Despite his efforts, Harry still poured way too much energy into his Starfire Charms, but at least the explosions were slowly getting smaller. Maybe within a month or so he would be able to properly do it.

The room also contained a small, but thick and soft carpet, surrounded by a circle of candles. Harry usually trained using the Focus Arkanum after having finished his workout, allowing his exhausted body some rest and the soft underground and the flickering light helped him to concentrate. He had made huge process in using this method of channelling his power and his new ability allowed him to cast spells way faster than ever before. Of course his spells tended to be weak when fired rapidly, but he was confident that he would be able to fix this with enough time.

However, neither the library, nor the spell testing chamber, nor the small place to train the Focus was the most important thing in the room. The most wondrous and important device was placed in the room’s middle: a large round, featureless platform, where Harry was currently standing. He had been more than a bit surprised as he had found out for the first time what it did and how it was used and had thanked whomever had designed this wonderful room. He decided to start easy today.
“One.” he said to the quiet room, his wand drawn and his eyes scanning the empty room for any signs of activity. The first attack came from behind. Harry felt the hairs on his neck tingle and therefore was able to react just in time. He dodged to the right and saw a red beam sizzling through the air a hand’s breadth next to his head. Harry whirled around and came face to face with his attacker, a six feet tall humanoid without any facial features. It was impossible to see if it was male or female and it seemed to be made of granite. It was one of the room’s training dummies and Harry had been lucky to evade the first dangerous beam.

The dummies were created by the room to help him training and could only fire two spells: red beams and yellow beams. Both spells did not really do anything, but only the yellow ones could be blocked by a Shield Charm. Also the dummy could raise a shield to protect itself from Harry’s counterattacks. Harry would have to slip one spell through its defence to incapacitate it and it would be immediately replaced by another two of his kin. Every time Harry had defeated a wave a bigger groups of dummies would challenge him, either until he willed the exercise to end or until one spell slipped through his defence. It was difficult and tiring but even after only a week of practicing Harry felt his reflexes increase and his stamina building. The dummies were tough enemies and even a single one was still a challenge to Harry. Surprisingly agile for a construct, the dummy currently fighting him evade or blocked the volley of spells Harry had launched at it after turning around and was even able to return fire in the process.

Forced back into defence, Harry decided that a more creative attempt would be necessary. He had learned during his lesson that it was often necessary to outsmart and to surprise an even matched enemy to win the battle and he planned on doing just that again. He whispered a very useful spell under his breath, pointing his wand at the ground under his opponent’s feet, turning it into quicksand. The sudden change of the ground under its feet caused the construct to overbalance and just as it started to tumble Harry’s stunner hit home. It instantly disappeared only to be replaced by two others. Harry’s grip on his wand tightened, he was determined to finally beat to of them at the same time.

- - - - -

Harry tiredly trudged up the stairs leading to the Gryffindor Tower. The weeks had flown by as soon as he had got settled into a rhythm and Halloween had already arrived. He was currently returning from another training session in the Room of Requirements and felt dead on his feet. Having already showered in the magical room, Harry’s body was screaming at him to crawl into his warm bed and to sleep for a month. Unfortunately his stomach was also growling loudly and he would have to attend the feast, which would last at least two hours, if he wanted to get something to eat. Maybe he could sneak down to the kitchens and eat dinner there, but he would still need an explanation just in case someone noticed his absence and Harry did not believe for a second that it would be unnoticed. No, judging by the way McGonagall and the rest of the staff kept their eyes on him, they would be standing in the Gryffindor Tower to escort him to the feast if he was more than five minutes late. This behaviour unnerved Harry as much as it irritated him and he suddenly knew how it must feel to be on the run, like Sirius had been, having to fear every stranger’s gaze. Sirius … R.A.B.! Damn! He should have noticed ages ago!

Harry whirled around and dashed down the stairs as fast as he could. How could he have been so stupid? R.A.B. was Regulus Arcturus Black, Sirius’ brother, which had joined the Death Eaters only to be killed after he had quit working for Voldemort. He must have somehow learned of the Horcruxes and had apparently succeeded in stealing the locket and replacing it with a substitute. Maybe he had hoped to buy more the time for his hourglass by stealing the Horcrux or it had simply been a final act of defiance. And Harry knew exactly where Regulus had spent his last few hours. Sirius had once told him that his brother had returned to Grimmauld Place in the middle of the night and had left barely an hour later. He had not lived to see the sun rise on the next day. And that meant that the Horcrux was most likely still lying in Number 12, Grimmauld Place. It was only a matter of time before stumbled over it and either realized what it was or worse threw it away. He could not let that happen!

Fortunately he had everything he was going to need with him. He had his wand strapped to his wrist and he was still wearing the dragon armour he liked to train with under his robes. He could have asked Ron and Hermione to accompany him, but he had no intention to include them in the Horcrux hunt at all. Tonight one piece of Voldemort’s black soul would die under his hands! Harry ran into the night, his face grim.

- - - - -

“Where the hell is he?” asked Ron, severely annoyed by his best friend’s absence. They should have been down at the feast almost twenty minutes ago, but instead they had been searching for Harry, who had never returned to the common room from training, like he had promised to do. Their search had been futile and they had decided to give up and wait until he would return on his own.
“Language Ron.” scolded Hermione. “Maybe his is outside and taking a flight.”
“Without his broomstick?” asked Ginny. “The Firebolt is still in his dorm and not even Harry can take a flight without a bloody broom. I am getting worried; do you think something happened to him?”
“Well, maybe, but we don’t really know.” replied Hermione. “Listen, I can understand that you are worried about Harry, but maybe he just wants some time alone and went for a walk. I think we should wait for a few hours and alert McGonagall of his absence right now. Maybe she knows something about his whereabouts.”

The three friends finally walked into the Great Hall and Hermione immediately reported the current situation to the headmistress, switching into full headgirl mode. As Ron had suspected, McGonagall seemed not to be overly concerned about his best mate, but it still slightly annoyed him that she could stay so nonchalant about it. Just as he turned to look at Ginny, wanting to verbally abuse his old Transfiguration teacher a bit, his gaze fell on the enchanted ceiling mimicking the sky outside. He saw a green pillar of light appearing on the nightly horizon and the sky turned from inky black to a bizarre mixture of green and black. Silence fell over the Great Hall as the other pupils and the teacher realized it as well. A few heartbeats passed without anyone moving at all, then the headmistress stood up and hurried out of the hall. Ron, Ginny and Hermione shared a look and followed her out into the night.

“What on earth is this?” asked McGonagall, just as the three pupils arrived, clearly speaking to herself. The whole sky was by now lit by the gigantic pillar, which was barely visible on the horizon, turning night into day. Ron did not know what was going on, but his gut instinct told him that it was not good.
“Looks like the Fortress of Woe has been summoned.” stated the dry voice of the ghost teacher, Professor Binns from behind them.

- - - - -

Harry ran the fingers of his right hand over the cool, smooth metal of the locket placed in his left one. He was standing in one of Grimmauld Place’s numerous libraries and had recovered the locket from a sealed wooden box hidden behind books dealing with veela poetry. It had taken him almost half an hour to locate it and he had been only able to do so because the Thought Bottle Dumbledore had left him had also contained the knowledge of a spell, allowing the caster to see magical auras. Despite the cleaning Harry had helped doing during his fifth year, the house was still littered with magical items and as soon as the spell had started working Harry had been temporarily blinded by the amount of vibrant colours around him. Harry knew that he was searching for a dim, grey aura, another piece of knowledge stored in his head by Dumbledore’s Thought Bottle. He had picked a room at random and had started searching.

Now, Harry knew why Dumbledore had not found the locket during the summer Grimmauld Place had been the Order’s headquarter. Some of the poetry books had been magical and their intense navy auras had masked the locket’s subtler one. Harry had only stumbled about it because he had accidentally knocked some of the books from their shelves, thereby unmasking the Horcrux. Harry did not know whether Regulus had placed the books there to hide the locket or if it was only a coincidence, but he truly did not care at the moment.

The only thing that mattered was the piece of Voldemort’s soul now lying in his hand. He could feel the magic throbbing within the trinket and he shivered despite the warmth of the room. He could feel the power promised by the Horcrux, why had he never thought about it before? All he had to do was to create a Horcrux of his own and Voldemort would not be able to kill him. He could turn the tables by destroy Riddle’s immortality and making himself immortal. There were enough Death Eaters to be killed, so he only had to find out how to make one and decide which item he was going to use…

Suddenly, Harry came to his senses, repulsed at his own insidious thoughts. It was this damn Horcrux! Panicking, Harry whipped out his wand and quickly cast the incantation which would dispel the vile magical item. Much too quickly. The trinket exploded in his hand and Harry felt stabbing pain in his left hand and his chest before everything faded to black.

a/n: a knut for your thoughts…