TheFanficGOD
patreon
HP420- Blunt Realities
🕑 Added 2025-05-03 20:47:05 +0000 UTCFollowing weeks passed in relative calm. Hogwarts had slid back into its usual pattern—classes, training, dodging Peeves, bribing House Elves for snacks between meals. Nothing exploded. No surprise duels in the corridors.
Harry noticed the shift around the second Thursday. Breakfast came and went, and Dumbledore didn’t show. That wasn’t strange by itself—sometimes he skipped meals—but by the weekend, rumors started floating. A few said he was meeting with foreign Ministries. Others whispered about a secret summit in Albania. One second-year from Ravenclaw claimed he’d seen the Headmaster turning into a phoenix and flying off into the Forbidden Forest.
The Charms classroom was empty after lunch on Tuesday. Most students were out on the lawn enjoying a rare stretch of good weather, which gave Harry the chance to drop by unnoticed.
Flitwick was at his desk, adjusting the charms on a broken Fanged Frisbee that someone—probably a Weasley—had tried to enchant with a homing feature.
Harry rapped his knuckles on the doorframe once. “Got a minute, Professor?”
Flitwick looked up and smiled, waving him in. “Mr. Potter. Always. Sit, sit.”
Harry stepped in and took the offered seat across the desk. The professor tapped the edge of a cracked Fanged Frisbee, its edges glowing faintly with runes.
“Marvelous Rune work,” Flitwick said, clearly impressed. “It tracks a person based on their magical signature. Requires a proper recording of said signature beforehand, but still—brilliant work. Complex layering for such a ridiculous object.”
Harry leaned back slightly, giving the disc a look. “They probably got the idea from Muggle tech. I had them watch Top Gun last month—Muggle film. One of them must’ve noticed the targeting systems in the jets.”
Flitwick chuckled. “Creative, if slightly terrifying. This could be illegal in about seven different contexts, but academically? I’m impressed.”
“They’re not subtle,” Harry said. “But they don’t waste ideas.”
Flitwick waved the Frisbee aside with a charm that pinned it safely to the wall. “Well, if they start launching these during Quidditch matches, I’ll have to pretend I don’t know who made them.”
Harry snorted, reaching over to flick a loose stack of parchment into order. “Anything interesting on the charm revision front?”
“A few new formulations. The Italians published a paper on kinetic memory retention in enchanted items—only small-scale so far, quills and combs mostly. But the theory’s promising.”
Harry nodded slowly. “Could make wandless work smoother if we figure out how to bind routines into focus objects.”
Flitwick perked up. “Exactly! And you wouldn’t need constant magical feed—just anchor the behavior in the charm itself.”
“Gonna be hard to scale though,” Harry said. “You’d need resonance stability, and I doubt half the suppliers can cut crystal to the precision required.”
Flitwick looked genuinely pleased. “You’ve been keeping sharp.”
Harry chuckled lightly. “I just like to stay informed.”
Flitwick gave him a look over the top of his spectacles, the kind that said he knew Harry was holding back more than he let on. But he didn’t press.
“Of course. Nothing wrong with keeping ahead of the curve.”
They talked a bit longer—Flitwick mentioned a few papers coming out of the Nordic Magical Institute on intent-based spellcasting, something about spell layers responding better to raw emotion than calculated execution. Harry pointed out that might explain why older magic, especially from early wandless forms, was so unstable. The conversation slipped easily between technical and casual, both of them bouncing thoughts off the other without needing to slow down.
“Professor McGonagall seems a lot busier lately,” Harry said after a pause.
Flitwick’s hand didn’t stop moving, but he raised an eyebrow. “She has taken on more responsibilities this term. More correspondence. Some of it from overseas.”
Harry tilted his head slightly. “Any idea why?”
Flitwick set down the Frisbee and folded his hands. “No certainty. But the Headmaster has left the castle, that much is true. Hasn’t said where, but we’ve been told it’s important. Urgent.”
Harry leaned back. “Is this about what’s happening in the east?”
Flitwick didn’t answer immediately. He tapped the desk lightly, thinking. “It’s possible. There are whispers, not official channels. But the sort of chatter that moves between magical scholars. Something dark stirring in the shadows of the borderlands.”
“North Korea?” Harry asked.
Flitwick gave a small nod. “Likely. The area’s magically unstable. Long ignored, long untouched. The kind of place where things can fester without oversight.”
Harry didn’t push further. “Thanks, Professor.”
“Any time, Mr. Potter. And if you do happen upon any of those kinetic-retention quills, I’d love a sample.”
Harry smirked and stood. “I’ll send a package your way.”
Flitwick chuckled, waving him off.
Next stop was Snape’s office. Not for potions. Just a talk. The door creaked open when Harry knocked—Snape didn’t look up from the book on his desk, but he didn’t send him away either.
“If you’re here to help with the seventh-year draught compositions, they’re over there.”
Harry sat, pulled the stack of parchment toward him, and started reading. A few lines in, he was already circling mistakes. It was subtle work—misused properties of root infusion, lazy temperature ranges, incorrect ingredient layering—and it only took him a few minutes to realize how sloppy some of these seventh-years were getting.
Snape said nothing at first, just sat behind his desk flipping through one of the heavier Potions tomes. Occasionally, he made a note in the margins with a sharp flick of his quill. The fact he’d handed the papers to Harry without a second thought said enough—Snape didn’t trust many people to grade NEWT-level work, but Harry had been his assistant long enough to be the exception.
“Gully mixed powdered tentacula with frozen belladonna,” Harry said, not looking up. “That’ll cause paralysis if brewed hot.”
Snape nodded. “He’s one of the more hopeless ones. The kind of student who would explode his own cauldron, then insist the ingredients were cursed.”
Harry moved to the next one, reading faster now. “Samuels tried to use troll marrow as a thickening agent in a healing draught. Didn’t even bother with a counter-dampener. He's begging for a Ministry visit.”
Snape made a faint sound in the back of his throat—could’ve been amusement, could’ve been irritation. “Samuels is planning to apply for Saint Mungo’s. Merlin help them.”
Harry didn’t comment. He kept scratching notes on the side of the parchment. Then, without looking up, Harry asked, “So… Headmaster’s not around.”
Snape didn’t respond right away. Just turned a page in his book and muttered, “No, he’s not.”
Harry flipped to the next assignment. “Been gone a while.”
“Longer than usual.”
Another pause. Harry tapped his quill once, then said, “Think this has anything to do with that string of disappearances in the east?”
Snape didn’t glance up. “Possibly. The headmaster rarely leaves without reason.”
Harry didn’t rush through the rest of the parchments. He read each one, marked what needed to be fixed, and didn’t bother hiding how unimpressed he was by some of the work. Snape didn’t say much either—just the occasional scoff when something particularly idiotic showed up.
By the time Harry reached the end of the stack, the office felt still. The only sound came from the faint scratching of Snape’s quill and the rustling of pages as he flipped through one of the newer alchemy journals.
Harry set his own quill down, leaned back slightly in the chair. “That’s the last of them. The rest need redoing.”
Snape didn’t look up. “Obviously.”
Harry pushed the last essay forward with a flick of his finger. “That one’s beyond saving. If he ever tries that combination in a real brew, you’ll be peeling him off the ceiling.”
Snape barely glanced up from his book. “That’s optimistic. More likely he’d bring the entire west wing down.”
Harry leaned back in the chair. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing. The west wing’s due for remodeling.”
Snape gave a faint snort, then turned a page with a crisp flick. “It’s always fascinating how quickly you slip back into sarcasm when not under immediate threat.”
“I’d say it’s a learned survival skill,” Harry said. “You taught it well.”
After a moment, Snape said, not looking up, “You’ve settled back in quickly. Most students need a week just to find their timetable.”
Harry shrugged. “Didn’t really have the luxury of being slow this year. Too many things moving.”
Snape hummed in acknowledgment. “Your training club. Defense classes. Extra sessions with the younger years. Still playing student, but no longer pretending to be ordinary.”
“I stopped pretending after the graveyard,” Harry said, calm. “Didn’t have much choice.”
Snape closed his book gently. “You walked back into school with explosive news, a cup, new sass and no explanation.”
“Not one they’d believe, anyway.”
Snape looked at him, eyes narrowed. “You dueled him. Voldemort. Face to face.”
“Twice now.”
Snape’s expression didn’t shift much, but something behind his eyes tightened. He didn’t speak for a beat. Then, quieter: “He was whole?”
Harry nodded once. “No tricks this time. Flesh, blood, wand.”
“And he let you walk away?”
“Didn’t let me. I took the opportunity.”
Snape studied him. “You got lucky.”
Harry’s mouth twitched. “Luck ran out the second I portkeyed. The rest was improvisation.”
