Harry Potter and the Time of Learning

Harry decided he'd take a long bath and try to read some while he was in it. He looked through the few books Tonks left out and decided on a small leather bound manuscript, Dueling with an Offensive Defense. Not wanting to ruin the manuscript, Harry put an Impervious Charm on it and left for the bathroom, making sure to give Hedwig the letter for Hermione.

A bit over two hours later Harry finally got out of the bath so he could practice outside. The book was incredibly handy; it was a handwritten journal about the different tactics the author used to win duels with his friends. Though it was written only for proper duels, several of the spells and ideas were incredible and Harry wanted to test a lot of them. Recolo Tano was a spell that would reflect a spell back upon the caster five times. Unfortunately it only worked if the caster's shield was more powerful than the incoming spell and that the caster had enough power to cast the reflected spell five times. That ruled out any of the serious spells, but it would work for stunners and many lesser spells. Another interesting spell it mentioned was Verus Contego. It summoned a physical shield that floated just beyond your left arm, allowing you the use of your left hand. As long as the shield was more powerful than the incoming spell, it would absorb the magic making the shield stronger.

After five hours, Harry thought he had gone through about half the spells he had read. H arry unfortunately couldn't test out some of the reflective spells yet. The physical shield had taken him a while to get right; he could now summon one that could withstand stunners, but a powerful Reducto Curse could break it unless it absorbed a few spells first. One of the full body shields was incredibly strong, but it wouldn't allow him to cast spells either. Still, he was happy with the progress he had made and couldn't wait for his next duel with Tonks. It had to have been after ten already so he decided to run around the field to exhaust himself and then get some sleep.

Unfortunately, the run didn't exhaust him enough and he found himself waking up from another nightmare at four in the morning. He summoned the book and read from it for another two hours. Once it started to get light he got up and went for his run. He decided to jog around the field and try to practice as many spells as he could from last night while jogging. Most of the spells he managed well, a few took a couple tries but he did them in the end. The physical shield took the most time; he had to stop and concentrate on it in order to make it powerful enough to be useful.

After the run Harry spent some time trying to summon a stronger shield more quickly. He tried a few more of the spells he learned from the book and after about two hours went in to take a shower and make some breakfast.

Tonks had perfect timing and arrived just as he started cooking breakfast. They had vegetable omelets with a few pieces of bacon, toast, potato scones and pumpkin juice. " I may have to be here for breakfast every morning! With Molly back at the Burrow, I'm back to having to make my own breakfast again, but this is so much better than anything I can make." She said enthusiastically, and then added, "Well, actually I can't really make anything, so it's not that hard to beat!"

Harry chuckled as he imagined Tonks trying to cook. "I've had to cook for the Dursley s since I was about eight, so I can make pretty much anything I need to." He thought for a moment and then added, "It's actually fun and kind of relaxing for me, since I don't have the Dursleys around."

Over the rest of breakfast Harry finished telling her about Dobby, having to explain a good bit about the diary, the basilisk, and tricking Malfoy into freeing him. Then he told her about how he helped in the tournament and about his sock and outfits. At that point Harry had to take a break because Tonks was laughing too hard from the description of his outfit.

After Tonks had calmed down some he told her about how Hermione had started S.P.E.W., how she had been knitting h ats, socks and scarves for the House Elves to pick up last year and that Dobby was now the only House Elf that would clean Gryffindor Tower.

When he told her about how he helped to find the room for the D.A., she interrupted by saying; "I wondered how you found that when even Sirius and Remus had no idea. I tried to explain where it was to them and how it disappeared, but they had never seen it."

"How'd you know about the room?"

Looking very guilty, she said, "I, um... well, you see, we were all talking about how you were teaching the D.A. and well... we wondered what you were teaching and all. So, um, I pretended to be a student and followed you till I found out when the next meeting was. I cast a Disillusionment Charm and watched one of your lessons." She then added enthusiastically, "You're an incredible teacher by the way! Oh, and Dumbledore and I started talking about it, you wouldn't believe how proud he is of you! He mentioned how the students in the D.A. had improved in almost all their subject s not just defense. Oh, and he talked about Neville; none of the professors could believe the affect you had on him! They had noticed his vast improvement in almost all his classes, and were really impressed with you when they found out it had been his involvement with the D.A that caused it."

"What? You watched one! How many others times did you follow me? And all the professors knew? How! It was supposed to be a bloody secret!"

Tonks looked sheepish and coughed. "Well, it wasn't really much of a secret after what happened and all; I don't really know how they found out. Well, you know that Mundungus was following you when you went to the Hog's Head, so that's how I found out about it. I only found out that the other teachers knew when I spoke to Dumbledore the other day to ask if I could train you over the summer. And I only followed you a couple times at Hogwarts, and once in Hogsmeade; it took me three times to find out when the D.A. meeting was. That was really smart, by the way, making the times random so you wouldn't get caught!"

After breakfast they tried to practice Occlumency, only this time it went far worse than before. He tried to concentrate only on the one memory of Ron and Hermione but because he was still upset with them, other memories of fights with them surfaced: Memories of Ron ignoring him during fourth year, of Ron fighting with Hermione about Scabbers, of Ron being jealous of Harry's fame or money. Unfortunately, memories of Scabbers brought up memories of Sirius and Cedric, then of all their nightmares. Tonks tried to get him to think of another memory but he couldn't remember a relaxing one that didn't involve Ron, Hermione or Sirius. She apologized to Harry for making him relive the memories, and said she'd try it differently next time, hoping that it wouldn't be quite so terrible. Harry asked her to duel instead; he wanted to show her some of the things he had learned from the book.

The duel lasted much longer this time, and though Tonks was still in control, Harry did much better. Tonks was incredibly impressed with how much Harry had improved since just the day before. The duel had started out with Tonks quickly barraging Harry with spells, forcing him to dive out of the way and use a full body shield that stopped her spells, but the shield wouldn't let him fire any either. He was able to buy himself enough time to Apparate out of the shield and then fire a few curses at her, which she only barely managed to block. When she sent another set of curses at him, he was prepared and used the reflecting shield spell from last night. Tonks was able to put up one of her quick shields in time to catch the first reflection, but it broke after the third. She was able to dodge the fourth and fifth of the first spell, but Harry's shield had reflected both the spells she had sent, and ten curses coming back turned out to be beyond her skill. She had been hit with several of the Jelly Legs Curses but was able to launch a quick barrage of spells in Harry general direction, which he wasn't prepared for, giving her time to undo the jinxes. Harry used the time to summon up the physical shield and to send the Impediment and Stunning Curses at Tonks. Neither hit, but before Harry could even think he saw several curses coming straight at him. His instinct and reflexes worked well and he was able to dodge or block all the curses with the shield. Harry found the shield a bit awkward to use, but it was a great addition and during the next part of the duel he did much better because of it. Tonks was now incredibly impressed; she had never seen someone use a shield like that and had never heard of a shielding charm that could reflect back a curse not once, but five times. Between those two spells, his reflexes and other shielding spells he used, she found that even at her best she couldn't hit him with a curse. She ended up having to set his shield on fire in order to beat it. That gave her an advantage again, but she found that Harry had another spell up his sleeve. Just after Tonks sent a curse, Harry used the Lumos Solaris Spell to produce a bright light that forced Tonks to cover her eyes. While she wasted time with that, Harry had cast a quick Protego Charm to reflect her spell back, and then sent a stunning spell of his own at her. He had read about the tactic this morning, after he woke up from his nightmare, and for the first time he was actually thankful for a nightmare, because it looked like he had just beat Tonks thanks to the strategy he had read about. He started to walk closer to revive Tonks but just as he got to her she moved, and quickly bound him with ropes, using the Incarcerous Charm. Tonks grinned while she stood up and released him from the ropes.

Tonks was ecstatic from the duel and enthusiastically began talking about it. "That was incredible Harry! I've never even heard of some of those shielding spells you were using! To have learned them in just one night like that, that's just amazing! And using that blinding light spell, oh, you have to show me that one. Actually you have to show me all of them!"

Harry found himself blushing more and more as Tonks gushed on about the duel and praising him with how well he had done. They spent the next couple hours going over the duel and what they could have done better and what he could do to improve.

Tonks' main concern for Harry was that he waited to see if his curse hit before he sent another spell. Tonks told him that if needed, she could send four or five curses at a person before the first spell even hit. She then showed him how several of the more common wand movements could be blended together, so that you could send a rapid fire of curses. She had also said that it could also be used as a delay tactic by just aiming in a person's general direction and sending as many curses as you could as quickly as possible.

Yelling the curses was another problem that Tonks noticed Harry had. She told him that one didn't need to shout a spell in order to make it powerful; That with practice you could mutter a spell and have it work, and that it was even possible to do spells silently and still have it be as powerful as yelling it. She still lost a bit of power on spells if she did it silently, but she was slowly improving.

For the next couple hours Harry and Tonks compared the spells that they used and discussed their potential uses against the Death Eaters.

Tonks wanted to read the defense book that Harry had started the night before, so she had Harry work on performing spells as quickly and quietly as he could. Tonks said that muttering the spell was probably the most important thing he needed to learn for two reasons. One was that if you shouted the spell it gave your opponent time to prepare for that attack; and two, no one really knew of the shielding spells he used and it would be best not to give the Death Eaters an opportunity to learn them.

Tonks began to read the book, Dueling with an Offensive Defense, and Harry spent his time casting spells as quickly as he could. Harry found that it was much more work to cast spells non-stop than it was when he had a short time in between each. Though he wasn't nearly as fast as Tonks, he found himself slowly increasing the speed he could cast them; lowering his voice while casting was a different story, however. He could lower his voice, but the spells didn't feel nearly as powerful as they did when he would shout them. Harry did notice, however, that by just saying the spells, he could cast them much more easily and quickly than by shouting them.

Tonks, who was still reading the book, assured him that it just took time to do it and that he'd improve slowly with practice. After a bit over two hours Harry was exhausted; between his early morning practice, the duel, and casting the spells quickly, he felt like he had used more magic today than he usually did in a full term at school.

Tonks hadn't realized it had been so long and was impressed when Harry told her that he had practiced for two hours. She said that she could only last a little over an hour at first and that it had taken half of her first year to work up to four hours straight. She also sheepishly admitted that a lot of the time she would interrupt it by tripping and falling. Harry stifled a laugh when Tonks told him that, and felt good knowing that he could last over two hours.

Over lunch she talked to him about Auror training and how you spend most your days dueling, learning spells, laws, how to conceal yourself, and how to investigate crime scenes properly. She told him that it was a lot more than just dueling; most of what Aurors do is research and investigating; they only fight when absolutely necessary, though she thought they'd be doing a lot more fighting with You-Know-Who back. Over lunch Tonks told stories of her time at Hogwarts, and Harry found out she had been in Hufflepuff. She told him how she hadn't been allowed to change her appearance much during the school year, but that she would use her Metamorphmagus abilities to sneak out at night looking like different students. When she told Harry about how she would sometimes change her appearance to look like another girl to snog the other girl's boyfriend, without either person knowing, Harry laughed, and told her about how Fred and George had once done that to Angelina and Alicia. He also found out that Auror training doesn't leave much time extra for much of a life. It gets better once you have a mentor, she told him, but during the first two years of training you're pretty much studying, healing, or practicing all the time.

Harry learned that most her work for the Order involved pretending to be someone else and going places that most people couldn't to overhear rumors or follow someone. When he asked about Voldemort and the Order, he found she wasn't allowed to say anything, and she told him that it was one of the things Professor Dumbledore and she had the argument about. In the end they agreed that Tonks would not say anything about You-Know-Who or the Order to Harry, and she would not tell Dumbledore anything about Harry. Dumbledore would also be informing Harry a lot more of what has been going on during the summer. Harry was mad at Dumbledore again for not letting him know anything , but was pleased and surprised to hear what Tonks had done for him; no one had ever really argued with Dumbledore over something like that for him before. The rest of lunch he used as a break and chatted amicably with Tonks, trading stories of his time at Hogwarts and laughing at her stories. She continued her teasing of him and made him blush and stutter several times as they told stories. When he told her about Malfoy and the bouncing Ferret she doubled over laughing and fell off the seat. She told him that she'd show him how to do that if he kept on cooking such great meals. Harry eagerly agreed and told her that he'd make her a treat.

After lunch Tonks told Harry to read for a few hours, and that she had to go check in with the Ministry and Order but that she'd be back for more practice that evening. Harry decided to make her a treat first and took a quick look in the pantries and found that Dobby had really outdone himself with all the ingredients. He decided on a pie for dessert and went downstairs to where his a unt kept the cookbooks. After a bit of searching with his a unt's bending around the corner to keep watch of him, he found what he wanted and went back to his tent and prepared the ingredients. A half-hour later, when his pie and cupcakes were prepared and he just needed to wait for it to cook, Harry went back to the table and started to read the dueling book. An hour later he took out his Crunch Top Apple Pie, put a warming charm on it, and put it aside with the Boston Creme Cupcakes.

Harry went out to the main room, lit the fireplace and sat down on the sofa to read more of Dueling with an Offensive Defense. The rest of the book seemed to be about the tactics involved in using the shield spells during a duel: when to use each, how to use them together, and how to only use a few of the spells at first to keep the rest as a surprise against your opponent. The author said never to rely on a few select spells too much, but to always use a large variety of spells, so that your opponent has a hard time figuring out what spell you are going to cast next. Another point the author emphasized was to never just defend; even when defending make sure you're attacking. He also said to never just attack; even when attacking, one should make sure to defend to some extent. The book claimed that most people would switch from pure offense to pure defense, but that it was better to have an offensive defense and a defensive offense. Harry realized that he normally did just that: pure offense to attack and then pure defense. What the author said made sense.

Tonks came back a few hours later and had Harry practice casting spells more quickly and quietly. This time Tonks watched and gave him advice on how to improve. When she told him that it was your will, intent, and emotions that made a spell powerful, Harry started to improve a lot more quickly. By the end of the practice session Harry had improved with how silently, quickly, and powerfully he could cast the spells. Unfortunately, he couldn't make the spells powerful, silent, and quick, he could do any two of them decently, but when he tried to do all three at the same time, he'd fail. Tonks again assured him that it would come with practice, and remarked that he had made incredible progress for only being at it a few hours.

Tonks offered to help with making dinner but Harry, having seen her culinary skills at Grimmauld Place, thought it was better if he took care of dinner, while Tonks prepared the table and talked. She told a few more stories about Hogwarts and growing up in a wizarding family. Harry found the stories amazing, as he had grown up ignorant of magic, and kept making comments and asking a lot of questions about the stories. Tonks, to her credit, was patient with Harry and happily answered and of his questions; she even seemed to really enjoy it when he said something about the story she was telling.

To Tonks, dinner was incredible! Harry had made spicy steak with some tangy sauce that just fell apart in her mouth, mash potatoes, and then the most wonderful cupcake and pie! It tasted better than anything that she would have normally bought. She told him that his cooking skills even surpassed Molly's with that pie, and that she was going to enjoy being spoiled by him this summer. Harry laughed and thanked her; she was the first person to ever compliment his cooking. Although, she was also the first person he'd cooked for beside the Dursley s.

After dinner Tonks had Harry practice a bit more with casting the spells. She watched over him closely, and gave tips on how to make his wand movements more fluid, or be able to go from one spell straight to another quicker whenever she saw something he could improve upon. It took a while, but Harry was slowly getting used to being able to cast spells one right after another. Tonks called a stop to it about two hours later, when it started getting late. She told Harry that they would work on Occlumency again before heading to bed, and that she didn't have to worry about work until tomorrow evening, so she'd stay there for the night, if he'd let her. Harry told her she was welcome to stay. He was rather embarrassed when he added that he would need to use the rest room before they started another long Occlumency session.

Tonks grinned and replied with a laugh, "Sure, stud, just remember any more than three shakes constitutes playing, and we're not scheduled for that 'till tonight!"

Harry once again felt the heat rising from his face, but had already decided earlier that he wouldn't keep letting her tease him and win. He didn't know much about how to tease, but Harry was a competitor, and he wasn't about to give in without a fight. He tried his hardest to keep from stuttering while he replied, " You thought about the bath last night, is that a promise for tonight then?"

Tonks, not expecting Harry to tease her back, was caught off guard for a moment and turned bright red, but then got her act together and replied coyly, "For you, always." She then added in a serious tone, "I'm sure your bath is big enough for several people." And with a wink she left Harry standing there as she went to the couch.

Harry still couldn't use Ron or Hermione as a focus for Occlumency, so Tonks suggested that he use the lunch or dinner memory of today, hoping to prevent a repeat of what had happen the last couple times. Harry found that his memories of Tonks actually worked quite well ; he hadn't realized till then that the easy chatting with her had left him in a good mood almost all day long. Tonks didn't try to search for a memory yet, she just entered Harry's mind and let him try to concentrate on one image. He would get glimpses of Tonks, when she helped him pack and teased him about the wand, in Grimmauld Place talking about his scar, laughing with Ginny at Christmas, and at the at King's Cross, but he was able to redirect all the memories back to the lunch again, with only a little trouble. Several tries later Tonks smiled, congratulated him, and told him that was enough for now, and they'd have an early morning so he should take a bath, and get some sleep.

A few minutes later Harry had just gotten in the bath when the door opened. He looked over to the door and saw a sight he would never forget, Tonks walking towards the bath, completely starkers!