Dreams of Home

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The remainder of the summer went by all too quickly. Harry had spent his mornings and afternoons training with Charlus, and Dorea, while his evenings were spent playing Quidditch with James and Sirius. It was some of the greatest moments of his life, getting to have those moments with his father, and getting to know the man behind the hundreds of stories he had heard since his admission into the magical world.

James was not as arrogant as Harry had imagined though. He had heard both Moony and Padfoot in his time confess the man was a bit of an arrogant sod at times, but perhaps they were meeting at his turning point. He knew from the pensieve memory he saw in Snape's office that the bullying had reached an eruption by this point in their Hogwarts careers, and the werewolf incident between the Marauders and Severus Snape had already occurred, so perhaps his change in attitude had already started. Something from the story had to have been missing. After all, James had been appointed Head Boy, and the young man knew Dumbledore and McGonagall would not have approved the Marauder if he was not capable.

The day before going to Hogwarts brought an interesting change of pace in the form of a visitor that Harry had not expected. It was late afternoon well into his training day. Harry and Charlus were out in the field dueling, while Dorea had long since retired for some social plans she had that afternoon. Charlus had confided in Harry that he had no idea what the woman was up to, but he figured he would let the woman do as she pleased while they would put in some aggressive work as it was their last opportunity to do so this summer.

Charlus and Harry had come up with something of a game in their afternoon training sessions. Harry had come a long way in just a month of nearly non-stop training, but the war veteran was still in another league, but they found a way to make it competitive. It started with a five-minute timer. Harry's job was to merely survive the barrage of spell fire, and remain standing at the end of the time allotted. If he could do that he would win, and it was usually best 2 out of 3. As his skill increased, so was the time he had to stand.

Today the challenge was fifteen minutes. Harry had won the first, but fell in the final moments of the second. Thankfully, as the third rolled in even Charlus looked more than winded. The man had really pulled out all the stops to take him down in the final seconds of the last duel, and now they had to break the tie.

They were well into the ten-minute mark when Harry felt the exhaustion seeping into his bones. He took a big spin around a yellow curse he didn't recognize, and hastily erected a shield that stopped two blasters from throwing him across the yard. He was drenched in sweat from his exertion, and was doing everything he could to hang on for dear life. He began transfiguring the field around him that had been obstructed during their duels to try and buy him some cover and time, but Charlus wasn't giving him a moment to put a real strategy together.

When he went on the offensive Harry did everything he could to put the man on his back foot, but nothing phased or surprised the man. When he thought he had gotten lucky, Charlus surprised him with a massive wall of fire that he had to apparate out of the way, and in turn, caught a blast to the chest when he arrived at his destination. He was disarmed and bound before he could even prepare to retaliate, and he groaned realizing he had been bested again.

The man gave him a big smile. however. as he came to his side, got rid of the binds, and offered him a hand to his feet, "That was well done, Harry. I thought you might win that one."

The man threw an arm around his shoulder and Harry grinned at the show of affection as they began walking back to the house happy to be done for the day, "I knew I was in trouble when you beat me in the second round. Had I held on a little longer the whole thing could've been avoided. How did you know where I was going to apparate?"