Harry Evans Chapter 174: Down and Dirty

Magical portraits were a fascinating hodgepodge of potions and enchanting.

Harry had started reading up on the specifics of the subject after realising that it might provide the necessary intelligence for his enchanted book project, and so far, he had to say that he’d been spot on.

He closed the large potions tome he’d been reading, feeling dizzy from the complexity of the potion one needed to add to the paint to imbue it with the required characteristics.

Pulling out his notebook he dutifully wrote down a synopsis of what he’d read and where he’d read it alongside a phrase that could be used to query for the book if he ever needed it again.

He tapped his quill on his chin as he looked out of the window in Penny’s potion laboratory, which she was back to using now that the threat of the basilisk had passed.

“Any progress?” Penny asked after putting the finishing touch on the purple concoction she was working on. Something about finding a way to shorten the incubation time of chicken eggs.

“A portrait’s personality is partially influenced by the painter’s perception of the subject,” Harry replied briefly, swinging off the window sill he’d been sitting on and starting to pace around the room. He idly put his synopsis of the potion he’d been reading up on into Penny’s hands. She started reading while Harry continued explaining. “However, after the portrait is painted, the subject can keep it around and interact with it so that it absorbs more of their personality.”

A snap of his fingers as his mind raced. “Let’s assume the infinite pages of the book all serve as one canvas. That meant that an appropriately intelligent portrait could interact with the words inside its ‘painting’ and thus serve as a librarian. Problem solved. As for the painting not being a proper reconstruction of my personality, what if I just paint myself? People’s self-perception is limited, but there’s hardly anyone that knows me more than I do, is there?”

“Can you even draw?” Penny asked doubtfully.

“I can just put a large photograph behind the canvas and trace the lines,” Harry said dismissively.

His blonde friend continued giving him a sceptical look.

“Alright,” Harry admitted, annoyed. “It’s going to be a bit impressionist, but the purpose is the librarian function, not the aesthetics.”

“I can make the potion,” the girl eventually said with a sigh, returning his notebook. “You helped me catch up with classwork after the petrification, it's the least I can do.”

“We all have our talents,” Harry said demurely. 

“Until then though!” Penny said with a raised finger. “Practice, your, drawing! You knew full well the magic works better if the painting actually looks like the subject!”

Harry crossed his arms and looked outside the window at the budding and flowering forbidden forest. “Ok, ok,” he grumbled quietly. “I’ll practice drawing and painting and find a way to make the magical painting enchantment coexist with the copying and the infinite pages enchantment.”

“Good,” Penny said with a satisfied nod. “The potion shouldn’t need longer than a month to practice and brew correctly. Probably I can showcase it on my O.W.Ls for an extra grade!”

Harry shot his friend a defeated look. “There are a dozen N.E.W.T level potions you can showcase for an extra grade.”

“Yes, but none of them are related to magical paintings, are they?” Penny asked triumphantly while Harry checked the time.

“We’re going to be late for the Quidditch match if we don’t leave now,” he said brusquely. “Cedric will throw a fit if we don’t watch him fly around like an idiot chasing a little ball for half an hour.”

Penny rolled her eyes at him. “You’re the worst spectator I’ve ever spectated with,” she complained, before turning around and going for the door.

“Ah, but you have spectated with me,” Harry exclaimed as he followed along.

-/-

“Ruckeburst throws it in, another ten points for Hufflepuff!” Jordan screamed into the microphone. “Is there even a point in playing this match, Slytherin is done for, the score is 120:30 and they’re nowhere close to catching the snitch! It seems Hufflepuff has this cup in the bag just like the previous too, what is Gryffindor even about anymore!?” the boy shouted as the complexion of the transfiguration professor sitting next to him got worse and worse.

Gryffindor hadn’t won the Quidditch cup in two years. It was a hard time for a game-loving head of house.

Harry tutted, shook his head and focused back on the sketchpad on his knees while the yellow and black crowd around him cheered.

He held up his pencil with his thumb on it while squinting and moving it around, before putting down the next line.

A regal self-portrait emerged on the paper, looking 

“Merlin’s balls Evans, it’s Saturday morning, why are you already doing next Friday's homework,” someone suddenly complained from behind him.

Harry paused and turned around to tilt his head at one of his fourth year Hufflepuff compatriots. A skinny boy with large glasses.

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.

The skinny boy waved at the sketchpad Harry was holding. “The sketch of a troll professor Kettleburn assigned in class yesterday. I’m trying to enjoy a Quidditch match, not think about class. Have some consideration!” the Hufflepuff said, before looking up and screaming in excitement along with the rest of the Hufflepuff stands.

“He’s got the snitch! Diggory! Diggory! Diggory!”

“270:30. What an absolute blowout!” Jordan complained loudly into his microphone.

Harry for his part looked doubtfully at his drawing. The face was a bit misshapen. 

And the teeth… were a bit crooked, and disproportionate. 

He sighed, crunched up the paper and ignited it with his mind, burning it to nothing in his hand.

“You can’t win them all, Harry, you can’t win them all,” he said sadly with a shake of his head.

He stood up while his housemates were still celebrating to get ahead of the crowd. It was either leave early or leave late. No point in getting crushed on the stairwell going down from the elevated stands of the Quidditch pitch.

It was as he was making his way back to the castle that someone shouted his name and ran up to him.

“Harry, Harry!” the person exclaimed, halting the afore-mentioned wizard’s brisk walk.

Harry turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Neville, where’s the fire?” he asked.

The younger blonde blushed, looked at his feet, looked up at the sky, before eventually blurting out. “I can’t come to duelling practice today!”

“Alright?” Harry asked slowly, while shaking his head. “Why?”

Neville looked around, they still had a few seconds of privacy before the students now vacating the Quidditch pitch reached them. He took a step closer and stood on his tippy toes to whisper something to Harry's shoulder. The height difference would likely remain considerable until the boy reached his growth spurt. “Dumbledore,” the boy said in a low voice. “He told me to come to his office for lessons today.”

Harry furrowed his brows. He had told Dumbledore in his guise as Charon to start teaching Neville. Was the man actually about to do it? That was… good, no? They’d probably start with occlumency.

It was good that Dumbledore was starting now, when he still had some free time, not in Neville’s year five as in canon, when Voldemort had already been resurrected. 

“That’s good, Neville,” Harry said. “I’m sure the headmaster has something important in mind. Are Harley and Hermione still coming though?” 

Neville nodded rapidly. “Harley said that no amount of quidditch will drain her energy. She wants to lay her dad on his ass again this summer. Hermione, well,” the boy looked around cautiously. “She’d rather die, you’re kind of, uh, her hero.”

“Alright, alright,” Harry said while waving his arm. “You have fun with the old man, as for me, it seems I still have a lesson to prepare.” He paused. “Do come whenever you’re done, I don’t think Dumbledore will keep you that long. He’s a busy man.”

“WIll do Harry, bye!” Neville exclaimed, before promptly running off while the mass of students off the pitch finally approached.

Harry watched him go while shaking his head. “Ah, to be young again,” he said with a sigh.

-/-

“Good job on that bludger,” Harry told Harley, who’d recently joined the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as a beater.

The curly-haired girl grinned and threw her hair over her shoulder. Hermione followed inside the abandoned classroom one step behind.

“He looked unwell after, maybe you gave him a concussion,” the frizzy-haired Ravenclaw commented.

Harley for her part simply rolled her eyes. “Please, you need a brain to get a concussion, the only thing Flint has going on up there is a black hole.”

Harry laughed as he waved his wand and caused all the tables and chairs in the room to fly off towards the corner.

“We haven't met in a while, have we?” he asked rhetorically as he went to lean at the wall. The sessions had been suspended during the basilisk debacle for obvious reasons.

“I still haven’t forgiven Neville for not bringing us along, that little traitor,” Harley spat, literally, on the floor in front of her while Hermione looked on, affronted. “He’s been avoiding me ever since, he knows he’s going to get an ass-whooping of a century.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, I’m sure a third year and second year was just what we were missing against Voldemort and his pet snake. I’ll be sure to call you guys next time.”

“Those are fighting words, old man!” Harley shouted while pointing a finger at the so-called old man.

The adrenaline from Quidditch had clearly gotten to her head.

Harry put his hands together and cracked his knuckles one by one before doing the same to his neck.

Hermione was looking at her friend with wide eyes, slowly backing away from her.

“Oh yeah? I guess you’ve forgotten who’s boss here, so maybe we should have a little duel to remind ourselves,” Harry said menacingly.

He had been feeling a bit frustrated lately…

Getting sweaty with two young girls was maybe just what the doctor had ordered…

Wait, cut that.

-/-

It was after an hour or two of non-stop action that was only possible for people under the age of twenty that Harry finally stopped tormentin- teaching the two girls the difference in power between them.

“And that’s why I always say that the disarming charm basically becomes a new spell once you can use it wordlessly,” he explained with a satisfied nod as he looked at the two unmoving forms laying at his feet.

Two sets of groans rose to meet him.

“Youth these days,” Harry complained quietly. “Why back in my day we practiced 12 hours a day and were happy it wasn’t 13!”

The door to the abandoned classroom suddenly creaked open and a blonde head peeked inside. Neville briefly looked around the room, saw his two friends seemingly knocked out on the floor, before shutting the door again without hesitation.

Harry twitched his hand and wand at the same time. The hand opened the door and the wand dragged the boy who lived twice right into the room by his robes

Neville struggled against the spell at first, before eventually giving up.

“Dumbledore must have lost his touch,” Harry said. “You can still walk, let’s remedy that!”

Neville whimpered.

-/-

It was after the younger years had absconded again that Harry was one again leaning on the window sill and looking outside.

His fourth year at Hogwarts.

It was almost done.

Time flew too fast.

He sighed.

Creating tsukuyomi with Snape and finishing the Book of Eibon.

That and exams.

Officially speaking, his time at Hogwarts was more than halfway done.

He almost wished that it wouldn’t end.

Unfortunately, he was just a few more exams away from summer vacation.

Sixth year N.E.W.Ts in Transfiguration and arithmancy and an O.W.L in Charms. Hopefully he’d get to keep the time turner next year.

He paused as he realised something, furrowing his brows.

“Wait,” he muttered.

Twix in year one, Greyback, Charlie Weasley and some people from Hogsmeade in year two, Quirrell in year three. 

“Nobody died in the castle this year?” Harry realised slowly, then paused.

“Slughorn died during vacation, outside of school, does that count or not?” he wondered.