Magic Knows No Boundaries Chapter 37 (Patreon)

Chapter 37:

An Uncomfortably Quiet Month

-

“So let me go over this again.” Fred said as he looked over the notes he took on what Harry said. “You need one each of devices capable of hearing, vision, smell, taste and touch deprivation?”

“Preferably two of each, actually. One I can use on myself and turn off on a dime, one to effect others.” harry corrected.

In order, he had in mind Mandrakes, basilisks, trolls, trolls and the cruciatus curse. Every Halloween something happened to ruin his life, creatures chief among them, and while he had no intention of going down into the chamber to fight Slytherin’s pet, it was still there and Voldemort still had the power to set it loose at any time. If he decided to do so hoping to drive Harry out, he’d happily kill it again. In fact, he’d been procrastinating going down there because he was almost certain one of the horcruxes was down there.

“Okay, we can whip up some glasses, earrings, nose rings and tongue rings for all of those for personal use. Not sure about how to make your whole body numb.” Fred said. “For the others, best I can think of is a flash bang grenade for sight and sound, maybe a stink bomb or pepper spray for smell and taste. Maybe an aerosilized icy hot to make the whole body go numb.?”

That was a funny idea. Would also take away sight, smell and taste for a good long while and bring about a whole lot of burning to the corresponding sensory organs.

“Make that but a flash grenade and I’ll take ten.” Said Harry.

“Oh, we got another commission?” Katie asked, entering the front lobby. “And from the big boss?”

“Another? You’re working on a commission? And I’m not your boss. Just your landlord. Treat me like anybody else.” Harry commanded.

They both scoffed at the idea of treating him like anybody else.

“Yeah. Working overtime to make it work. Tricky pit of charms and transfiguration work. Here, let me show you.” Katie said.

She led him into the room behind the counter, where the guests during a full moon would sit around and wait, and there in the center was a mannequin. Every inch of it was the kilt of a knife embedded deep into its wood. It looked like a gruesome kitchen knife set holder.

“That’s a bit macabre.” Harry criticized.

“The goal is to make the entire surface deform into little pocket spaces, like a mokeskin pouch, so the knives can be buried into it without actually stabbing the think underneath.” She said. “It’s kind of working.”

Harry could see the use in that. Especially if she made the little pockets that take in the knives spurt blood, real or fake, when stabbed. With it being a Halloween commission, he was certain she would.

“Getting the cloth to deform and create such pockets no matter where it’s stabbed from does sound tricky.” Harry consoled. “I’d recommend weaving it from separate materials that deform to spacial expansions differently. Wool for linear deformations, Kevlar to resist deformation entirely and prevent cutting through, nylon for concave deformations and maybe coat it all with rubber or something for convex deformations. Charm them all separately then weave them together.”

Katie looked at him.

“Are you also somehow a charms and enchantment master, because that’s brilliant!” She declared.

He shrugged.

“I just like tinkering, you know?” He said defensively. “And I know my materials, is all. Former wandcrafting apprentice, remember?”

-

Harry arrived at the Hog’s head to find everybody else already there. Poliakoff, Cedric and Viktor were boxed inside of a book by Fleur and Bellatrix on either side, leaving one available seat for him next to Bella. Clearly, she wanted him to sit as far away from the Veela as possible.

“Welcome love. Thank you for not keeping us waiting too long, I know you have a bad habit of doing that.” Bella greeted him with a peck on the cheek as he say down beside her.

Did he have a habit of being tardy? He didn’t think so. In fact, he was fairly certain he wasn’t he was timely more times than not. What was she on about?

“So, food.” Cedric said. “And drink.”

“It’s a bit early for that, is it not?” Asked fleur.

“Hey, five PM was eighteen hours ago.” Said Harry jokingly.

They ordered a platter of deep-fried appetizers. Chips, crisps, onion rings and chicken sticks came served with enough dipping sauces to hold them all over until dinner. Really, Abe needed to stop serving American sized portions. He liked living in a country of people with healthy waistlines.

“So, how has the first week of club activities gone?” Harry asked.

“Great. Only a few bruises from the wrestling club, and a few dropouts from people uncomfortable with having other people’s crotches in their face.” Viktor said. “Understandable, it’s not for everybody.”

“I had far more injuries.” Said fleur. “Nothing severe, just cuts that are quickly bandaged. Most of my members didn’t even bother going to the hospital wing to have them properly healed.”

Harry wondered for a moment why she didn’t mend such simple injuries herself, knowing full well she had the ability. Then he remembered the documents he signed at the beginning of term swearing to not do any healing magic on students, except in life or death situations, and to leave it to the mediwitch on staff. Insurance reasons and all that.

“Mine was spectacular.” Said Cedric. “Not a single fall or tumble, though I lost a few who didn’t feel comfortable riding thestrals that they couldn’t see. Best steeds we have since we didn’t register the club beforehand and request proper horses.”

Harry shook his head. Thestral riding was a joy. Those kids were missing out.

“Any problems with the boating or jousting clubs?” Poliakoff asked.

“Nope.” Cedric and Viktor said at once.

“Well, we haven’t started on the jousting yet.” Said Cedric. “Gotta ride before you can joust. So both are essentially one club at the moment.”

“Is nobody going to ask Poliakoff or me if we’ve had any injuries in our clubs?” Harry asked.

“What? Did anybody sprain their ankles? Get a splinter from a checkers piece?” Fleur teased.

“Yes. Several.” Harry said.

“Same.” Said Poliakoff. “Poor mister Weasley may need to have his thumb amputated for it.”

If “poor mister Weasley” had made that joke, Harry would have been concerned. Hell, he was concerned that Ron hadn’t come to him for extra tutoring on exploring his newfound abilities. He expected him to have done so by now. If his friend waited much longer he may have to write Molly into giving him a tongue lashing for not pursuing such a talent.

“Well, all things considered, this may be the best part time job I ever had.” Said Cedric. “It’s a good break from Quidditch practice.”

“And from dueling.” Said Viktor, to which Fleur nodded.

“I expect it’ll get less busy as people drop out for the holidays, then get busy again in the new years when nothing else is going on.” Harry advised.

“Speaking of holidays!” Said Cedric, withdrawing some pamphlets. “Halloween!”

Right. That holiday. That horrid, ill-omened, holiday.

Harry took one of the pamphlets and raised his eyebrows in appreciation of it. It detailed the riding clubs plan to put on a rendition of Sleepy Hollow with a headless thestral rider for the event, to be performed at the jousting stands near the east end of the Black Lake on the Monday before. Harry already liked it.

“And what will your clubs be doing for Halloween?” Cedric asked.

They all gave him the same deadpan look. Clearly, none of them had thought to have their clubs prepare special events for the occasion. And now Harry was thinking about what Christmas activities they might have.

“I guess that’s what we’ll be talking to them about for the next week.” Said Harry. “Best my club could do is decorate the trails, maybe prepare a hayride type event with all the spooking and scaring it entails.”

“And of course, you’ll be inviting your girlfriend along for both it and the headless horseman

“I got nothing for the boating or wrestling clubs.” Said Viktor. “I’m sure they’ll come up with something. The boat house at night could be made into something, I’m sure.”

“I’ll have to ask too.” Said Fleur.

“My members will probably just make all of the carnival games. Bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving contests, that sort of thing.” Poliakoff said. “But who knows? They may surprise us.”

And so Harry had even more work to do.

-

The shooting club got approved surprisingly quickly. To the point that the first Monday after getting Jacob on board for it had him supervised his bitch. He was fresh from his morning hike and yawning compensatorially.(AN:1) Their group was made to gather in a large sub-chamber of the dungeons, one with thick enough walls so as to not scare the whole castle with the sound of gunshots.

He was fairly certain the area was once used as the Slytherin dueling pit, as there were chambers identical to it near the Hufflepuff common room, Gryffindor common room and Ravenclaw common room. That and the Slytherin common room was a thirty second walk from its doors.

“Alright kids, pay attention.” Jacob said to the contingency of mostly Gryfffindors and Hufflepuffs. “The first rule of firearm safety to treat all weapons as if they are loaded. It is equivalent to treating your wand like it might the killing curse by itself on accident, a good perspective to have for some wands. The second is to never point a weapon at another person unless you intend to kill them. The third is to keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.”

A few students actually took notes along with his words.

“And if I catch a single one of you breaking these rules, you can expect a detention of writing them over and over again until they sink into your bones. Compliments of Professor Morrigan, of course.” Jacob warned.

Harry nodded and even more students began taking notes.

“Now. Let me introduce you to the different types of firearms. Not guns, firearms. Do not call them guns in my presence.” Jacob continued.

He removed the tarp covering the long table to reveal a whole host of guns, er, firearms. Every variety Harry had ever seen and a few he hadn’t. For a moment, Harry wondered where Jacob had gotten them, before a quick once over with his expanded senses showed them to be conjurations. That was damned good conjuration work, rivaling Marchbanks’ conjuring of a model T back when he retook is practical newt exams. They were fully functional conjurations, save for the gunpowder which was real and Harry had paid for out of pocket.

“There are pistols, rifles, submachine guns, shotguns which are also known as trench guns.” He explained. “They can be further subdivided into revolvers, break action, semi auto, bolt action and so forth, but only those of you who actually fall in love with firearms will care to learn them all.”

He went to the leftmost area, where a host of pistols of different makes and models sat.

“All of these are loaded with rubber bullets, on account of I don’t trust British children with live rounds. But when they fire they are just as loud as firing real bullets, and almost as painful.” He warned. “As such, I had Professor Sprout provide us with hearing and eye protection. Which is the fourth rule of firearm safety, protect your eyes and ears.”

All of the students wrote that down.

“Collect a pair of protective glasses and earmuffs, and we can begin. We will start with the nine millimeter.”

And so they spent the rest of their morning learning how to properly hold, carry, and fire pistols. Jacob had to transfigure his other conjurations into identical Steyr M1912s. Those kids riddled those dummies at the other end of the dungeon with rubber bullets, which then vanished when their conjured forms were too damaged to maintain their shapes.

Harry appreciated the ear protection with how much the stone walls echoed, before opting to just muffle the walls with an anti-echo charm. He kept the earmuffs on anyways.

Their aim and grouping were excellent. Came with the territory of having to aim with wands whenever you cast a spell. Said aim translated nicely to gun, er, firearm aim. And later that week, he learned it also translated to aiming with a bow.

-

The next two weeks flew by in a blur. Both were as quiet as weeks ever were at Hogwarts. By the twenty fifth all of his club members under Jacob knew how to fire rifles in the form of Henry Lever Action Octagon Frontiers, shotguns in the form Mossberg 500 SPCs, and sub machine guns in the form of the Tec 9. Harry didn’t know why he chose those out of every type of rifle, shotgun and submachine gun, but he suspected they might have simply been the simplest to conjure, having the least number of parts.(AN:2)

With the last Wednesday and Friday leftover to teach them, he also had them practice with revolvers in the form of the Nagant M1895 and, most concerning of all, gave them M79s.

“Don’t worry!” Jacob assured him. “They’re dummy grenades, not even rubber.”

That wasn’t exactly Harry’s concern in teaching children how to use grenade launchers, but he did recognize that was the only field of firearms he hadn’t taught them yet, save for heavy artillery, which wasn’t going to happen. Either way, the M79’s were the students favorite, save for maybe the Tec-9s.

“Well, you’ve all learned the basics of every type of firearm, starting next week we can start competitive shooting. We will stick with pistols, rifles and shotguns for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Seeing as Tuesdays and Thursdays are for archery.”

The groans and complaints from the students at this let down was legendary.

“Fan we just drop the archery and do firearms all week, every week?” Complained Seamus. “Or at least have one day for the grenade launchers?”

Damnit Seamus! Why did you have to be such an Irish stereotype?

“Go take it up with your heads of houses, if you guys all want to drop the archery club and go with five different types of firearms every week, I’ll happily comply.” Jacob told them.

Harry groaned and knew they would do just that. As if Dumbledore wasn’t suspicious enough of him, now he was essentially having any student who wanted to become a fully trained Muggle soldier! He was expecting it to just be a rifle sharpshooting club, maybe shooting bird plates with shotguns. Not all this!

But he had to admit, he was having fun shooting with the American too.

-

Friday night saw him sitting down on one of his office balconies looking out over the school grounds.

While the shooting club opted not to do anything for Halloween, his hiking club decided to decorate all of their trials with jack-o-lanterns. Lit from the inside by ever-burning candles. Safety candles, of course, no chance of causing a forest fire.

At night he could look out and see them glinting on the hill and mountainsides and flickering orange stars.

There was a chime from the wall holding the secret passage for the staircase entrance.

“Come in!” Harry called out, re-entering his classroom.

In strolled Sinestra, Hagrid and Remus. He wasn’t expecting to see them today.

“Uh oh. Has something happened?” Harry asked.

“Course no’! Just felt like spendin some time with our loner.” Hagrid said.

Harry scoffed. He wasn’t avoiding anybody, he just spent so much time teaching, managing clubs and doing the homework study hall that he’d been neglecting his relationship with his fellow teachers. He really ought to focus on fixing that.

“I also wanted to thank you for the lovely work you’ve done on the trails.” Sinestra said, taking a seat on his desk. “It made for excellent night hiking, it is quite nice.”

“Aye. Scared some of the centaur children though.” Said Hagrid.

Harry looked between them.

“Do you guys usually go out for night hikes together?” He asked.

“Indeed.” Said Sinestra. “My classes are at night, and while I strive to be present for meals, I sleep between them. Night time is when I come to life.”

He supposed that made sense. And it was unsafe to to go out on the grounds at night, which was the only time she could do so. She wasn’t exactly a fighter, so having a gentlemanly half giant as a personal guard was appropriate.

“So. Full moon Saturday. The second ever for your sanctuary. Do you feel better prepared?” Remus asked.

Harry thought on that.

“Less actually. I have four times as many werewolves wanting to come and almost as many new volunteers and prospective beneficiaries that want to come see how things are done.” Harry said. “I expect it will be much busier than the first.”

Remus hummed.

“Have you even been able to vet the prospective volunteers?” Remus asked.

“Didn’t have the time.” Harry said. “But I do need the extra hands. I plan to have you other volunteers vet them over the next two days, allow in the ones you approve of.”

“That’s probably the most you can do.” Said Remus. “Perhaps the students who volunteer to take the extra credits again can be put to more tasks this weekend?”

“Maybe. I would have to check and see if they legally can.” Harry told him.

“I see, I see… And are you allowed to tell us what you think is going to happen on Halloween?” Remus said.

Ah. So that was the reason behind this meeting. Word of his commission and reasons for such omissions got back to Dumbledore and the others and now they were paranoid. It made sense, he knew Fred was still in the order.

“I’ll probably get attacked by some creature or have a nasty accident.” Harry said honestly. “Happens almost every year. I think it’s a curse.”

They all looked at him suspiciously.

“Would you please elaborate?” Sinestra coaxed.

Harry listed them off on his fingers.

“Parents were murdered on a Halloween. I came face to face with a troll on another Halloween. I came across a dead cat and got blamed for its killing another Halloween. Had an escaped convict break into my bedroom on another Halloween. Got pranked by somebody tricking a magical artifact into taking my name into a binding contract that fucked up my life for a whole year on yet another Halloween… would you like to have more elaboration?” Harry asked.

They all raised their hands defensively and shook their heads in the negative.

“So it really is just personal paranoia on your part? Not a prediction of anything major happening on that day?” Sinestra confirmed.

“That is correct.” Harry said.

“You’ve had Albus twisting himself into knots these past two weeks. Between training so many students with firearms and your ominous request to the Weasleys, he seems to think World War Three is going to break out on the thirty first and you’re preparing for it.” Remus told him. “But didn’t see fit to tell the rest of us about whatever divination lead you to the conclusion.”

Now Harry was feeling really defensive.

“What! But... I... It was the students who wanted the shooting club, not me! I just wanted the hiking club.” He groused.

“Yeah, but looks a lot like yer training an army.” Said Hagrid.

“Well, I’m not. Those kids, as they are, would make shite soldiers.” Said Harry. “No, whatever fighting is to come should be shouldered by us adults. I want to keep the students away from any fighting, and I’m hoping to end this war before they become the adults shouldering said responsibility.”

He realized he might have said too much there, but they all nodded in understanding and seemed pleased with his explanation.

“So, why were you three sent here to interrogate me on this in particular?” He asked.

“Oh, we weren’t.” Said Sinestra. “I came here hoping to offer to take over the hiking club, seing as I go to bed just after it usually ends. Remus and Ruby wanted to offer their help again for your sanctuary. But they couldn’t contain their curiosity over Albus’ concerns.”

Harry turned on Hagrid.

“You want to volunteer?” He asked.

“Aye. I’m surprised you haven’t tried to recruit me yet, what, with me being a half-giant and immune to the werewolf curse.” Hagrid said.

Presuming one could bite through the mans thick hide anyways. Yeah, he was worth at least five volunteers on his lonesome.

“Well, you’re definitely hired. I figured you’d be too busy as a teacher and groundskeeper.” Harry said.

Hagrid waved the concern away.

“The roles overlap. I tend to get the latter done while doing the former. Got plenty o time to give.” Hagrid assured him.

-

(AN:1) Hey! It’s a real word now.

(AN:2) I literally selected them all based on their difficulty level in World of Guns Disassembly(Great game, by the way. Highly recommend.) These were all the very easy ones of different categories. And I’m sorry for the chapter devolving into gun porn, I AM an American, you know?

I kind of let an entire weekend of socializing go to waste in this chapter, between the two weeks, and left out a Sunday. Would have been great opportunities to have more interactions with the older folks of the Harry Potter universe.

Maybe tomorrow instead of a new chapter I’ll just write another 3k words for those scenes and label it chapter 36.5? Collapse it into this one later? I know you guys want more Bella, Fleamont and Granpappy Crabbe/Goyle.

Thoughts?