Bag of Depravity
patreon
Professor Potter: Chapter 16
🕑 Added 2025-02-26 05:35:54 +0000 UTCA/N: Was originally going to cram the smut onto the end of this chapter, but I've really enjoyed writing Hestia as a character, and I want to give her an entire chapter with Harry to herself, so expected a pretty comprehensive lemon for Chapter 17.
Chapter 16
Gaining Experience
“We’re going in,” Harry said.
Hestia squawked. “That’s too extreme! Maybe he just slipped up and used a bit of magic… Maybe he got lucky with his TV… There could even be a real person in there, talking about food!”
“All of that is possible,” Harry said. “But…”
“But what?” Hestia said, pulling on his arm as he walked toward the door.
Harry looked back. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“But I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said. “And after everything I’ve dealt with, I learned it’s never a good idea to ignore those.”
Hestia lost her grip, his hand slipping from her fingers. Harry turned away, walking through the front door.
“But… Aren’t you a Muggle studies professor?” Hestia muttered behind him.
Harry entered the hallway. Mrs. Oliver across the hall had come out to investigate, but a single compulsion charm sent her straight back inside. Another spell ensured that no more neighbors would wander out into the crossfire. Harry faced the door of Oliver’s apartment.
“No wards,” he muttered.
So why did this feel so dangerous?
“Hestia?” Harry said.
“Yes?”
Despite her misgivings, Hestia had followed him. She’d even drawn her wand.
“Sorry, but I think I’m going to do something reckless,” Harry said.
He banished the door off its hinges.
The wood tore away. Hestia jumped. She screamed, but not because of what Harry did. The instant the door was torn aware, six foot-long metal spikes launched into the hallway.
Harry stopped all of them with a momentum-halting jinx often used by Quidditch referees. His eyes flicked over the metal spikes, assessing them. Their tips were rusty despite showing signs of having been transfigured. Purple liquid glistened on the tips, likely poison. They had been positioned at specific heights. None of them would’ve hit anywhere vital on an adult human. Instead, victims would be left pinned to the far wall, bleeding out as poison coursed into their veins.
That was when Hestia did something unexpected. She entered the apartment first.
Harry was right behind her, ready to cover her back, but there was no need.
Hestia’s wand darted in an intricate pattern, repurposing the spikes hovering behind her. They turned into small metal birds, flapping in circles around her the way moons orbit a planet. When a white curse lanced toward her, the first of the birds dove into the way. The metal melted inside a blinding flash.
Hestia banished the metal scrap, sending white-hot droplets scattering around the room. Wherever they landed, they started to glow like pearls, providing ample light to see the apartment by.
To Aurors, the Three Second Rule had nothing to do with fallen food. It was a baseline for how fast they had to be able to assess their surroundings. Old habits die hard, and Harry picked out every key detail in front of him in just two-and-a-half.
The TV was a fake, nothing but an old analogue recorder that had audio saved to provide white noise, covering up any other sounds that might have come from the apartment. The apartment’s floorplan was identical to the one Harry and Hestia were staying in. However, the kitchen was a mess. The stove had food spilled across it, while someone had bashed in the glass on the microwave seemingly out of rage. It looked like it had been used by children, nonstop, with no cleaning for over a month. The oven had been yanked open, while the racks inside had been repurposed as stands for a vat of light-blue potion.
Illuminated in the light Hestia created were three people. Two of them bore a striking resemblance, despite one being male and the other female. They were both short and stocky, with pudgy faces and upturned noses. The man was dressed in the clothes they had seen Oscar wearing earlier that day, while the woman was standing next to the real Oscar with her wand drawn. Harry recognized them. Of course he did. It was Amycus and Alecto Carrow, the Inner Circle Death Eaters who plagued Hogwarts while he was on the run in his seventh year.
More important than the sudden appearance of two of Voldemort’s key supporters, Harry found that Oscar didn’t look at all the way he remembered seeing. It wasn’t just the boy’s clothes, which were wrinkled and raggedy. He was tied to a wooden rocking chair, restraints covering his wrists. His skin was pale, far too pale for someone who went on daily walks with his dog, while he looked as skinny as an Azkaban prisoner. His hair was oily, and clumps were missing where it had been torn out at the roots. But by far the most chilling thing was when he opened his mouth.
“Waaaaaaah!” he groaned. “Awawawa!”
Drool trailed from the corner of his mouth. There had never been a baby from the very beginning. It was just Oscar Smith, reduced to an awful state in his own home.
“What have you done to him?” Hestia demanded.
“Less than we’ll do to you, Order scum!” Alecto spat. “Crucio!”
Her spell flew at Hestia, but Hestia knocked it aside with a casual gesture of her hand. Harry spotted a blue outline around it. In less hectic circumstances, he would’ve stopped to be impressed. It was a duelist’s shield charm— a more complex variant of Protego that clung to the caster’s body, greatly increasing flexibility in an active duel.
Amycus Carrow followed his sister’s example, attempting to curse Hestia by targeting her right side. Harry put a stop to that with a shield of his own, stepping forward to engage the male Carrow twin. Angered, the man lashed out with a blasting hex, but was hindered by Oscar’s clothing which was a size too small for him. His sleeve caught his wrist, diverting the spell past Harry where it struck the oven.
The potion that had been stored inside fractured and flowed out. Harry caught a whiff of something like overcooked cabbage.
“So it is Polyjuice,” he said. “I take it one of you has been posing as Oliver. There’s easier ways to hide out, so it must have been about infiltrating the ministry. He might not have been under the Imperius, but I fancy you two have cast a couple while pretending to be him.”
His only answer was a Boring Hex designed to drill holes in heavy objects (or chest cavities, when used like this). He blocked it with another shield, bumping up his defenses up to a ‘Protego Maxima’ from a simple Protego. Alecto was even less likely to answer, as she and Hestia had begun exchanging spells of their own. A nifty use of a Concealment Charm on Hestia’s part hid a stunner that nearly caught the Death Eater in the chest. Again, Harry found himself impressed with Hestia's confident, flashy, and highly competent approach to dueling.
“Normally, I would try to talk to you,” Harry admitted. “That’s a habit I force myself to keep. But I know you two too well. You’re sadists. You’re only members of the Inner Circle because Voldemort liked how well you can torture the weak. I can tell the position didn’t come from your dueling abilities.”
“Shut up already!” Amycus snapped.
They really were poor at this. Harry didn’t doubt they could overpower average or untrained wizards, but all they did was rely on dark magic. The angrier they got, the nastier the curses they used. But what did that matter when they couldn’t hit their opponents with any of them?
It was Hestia who broke through first. Somewhere during the fight, Alecto began using nothing but the Cruciatus. It was a testament to her sadism that she was capable of mustering the foul focus needed to cast so many Unforgivables in a row. However, just as Harry had said, there was more to dueling than just slinging your strongest spell.
Hestia still had two metal birds left from the metal spikes she transfigured earlier. They flew forward now, diving at Alecto’s hands. Alecto Banished them as soon as they came close, beginning to cast another Cruciatus.
But Hestia was quicker. She had read what Alecto was going to do, and had a banishing charm of her own already on the tip of her tongue. The metal birds reversed directions, hurtling back where they came from and smashing into Alecto’s knuckle.
The Death Eater dropped her wand, but not before casting one last Unforgiveable in the wrong direction. Her hand had been knocked toward her brother, and Amycus fell to the floor with a brief scream.
“How’s that?” Hestia said boldly, swishing her wand. The timid woman Harry had grown used to had been replaced by a brash, grinning persona that was utterly unbothered by the awful spells she’d seen thrown her way. “I expected better to be honest!”
She turned to Amycus, the brother being the only one with a wand now that his sister had been disarmed. Amycus had staggered up, ready to continue fighting, and Hestia was about to take him up on it when Harry bellowed a warning.
Alecto Carrow had charged Hestia, heedless of her missing wand. The longer the woman ran the faster she became. She grew shorter, her arms bending forward until she was moving on all-fours. Her mouth opened in a snarl, and by the time she leapt at Hestia it had become a canine snout filled with wicked fangs.
For the first time in the duel, Hestia panicked. She tried to cast a spell but wasn’t fast enough. She had let her guard down, assuming it was over as soon as she disarmed her opponent.
Oscar’s apartment had Anti-Apparition Jinxes on it. But they were old and weak, something that was likely on purpose to avoid short circuiting the electronics within. They could keep others from Apparating into his living room from far away, but they were a lot less equipped to stop a powerful wizard who was already inside.
There was a crack like a gunshot as Harry disappeared.
Apparition was all about the Three D’s— deliberately moving toward the destination with determination. That’s how Apparition instructors always taught it. But as with so many things when it comes to magic, the stronger you became, the more compromises you could get away with.
Harry’s destination was clear: the space directly in between Hestia and Alecto’s jaws. He was determined to arrive in time. But he didn’t do it all that deliberately. Instead of going straight there, he followed a curved path.
For a tenth of a second, his body rematerialized. His hands grabbed Amycus’s arms. Then Harry was gone again, Amycus dragged along for the trip.
For the others it must have looked impossible. One second Hestia was going to be tackled by a deadly Doberman. Then Harry was there, Amycus Carrow’s face being shoved straight into his sister’s maw.
Alecto Carrow bit down. Her brother shrieked.
They both fell to the floor. Alecto jumped back, reassuming her human form while her brother rolled on the floor, horribly disfigured. Blood was spreading out around him. Hestia stumbled back, falling onto her butt. She turned away, retching on the carpet. Alecto was frozen. Despite transforming back, she still had blood smears around her lips. She could probably still taste her twin’s flesh.
“NOOOO!” she screames.
Harry stunned her. He looked down at her writhing brother, watching him and listening to the whimpers. Then he stunned Amycus as well.
He turned around, going down on a knee. He blocked Hestia’s view of Amycus with his body. Reaching out, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head against his shoulder. He felt her breathing even out.
“I’m getting your shirt dirty,” Hestia murmured, trying to wipe her lips.
“S’alright,” he said. “It’s all alright.”
They stayed in that position for as long as she needed.
O-O-O
“Did you figure out what’s wrong with him?”
Harry paused, scratching his head. He’d just stepped out of the Hospital Wing back at Hogwarts. Behind him, baby-like cries echoed through the wall, while ahead of him Hestia awaited his answer with a nervous look.
“I think so,” Harry said softly. “Made Pomfrey wasn’t sure at first, but it looks like his mind has been turned to mush. I think the Carrows Obliviated him to keep him docile, then realized they needed his memories in order to impersonate him. So they smashed through their own memory charm to tear out what they needed. There’s a good reason why mind work is supposed to be left to professionals.”
It was the fate that Bertha Jorkins met, the unfortunate ministry worker who first discovered Barty Crouch Jr was alive. Crouch Sr Obliviated the truth about his son out of her mind, and Voldemort later dug it out, turning her into a vegetable. The Dark Lord killed her immediately after, but Oscar Smith had been kept alive by the Carrows for access to his hair to fuel the Polyjuice. If he were being honest, Harry wasn’t sure which of them were better off.
“Do you think he’ll ever get better?”
“I’d like to hope he will,” Harry said carefully.
Hestia sighed.
They were still dressed in the clothes they wore to the cafe. It seemed incredible to think that meal had been earlier in the same day. They walked through the halls of Hogwarts, leaving behind Oscar’s babbling. Between the late hour and the time of year, it was little wonder they didn’t encounter anyone else.
“Do you know what I do for a living?” Hestia asked.
“Don’t think I ever got around to asking.”
“I’m a duelist,” Hestia said. “A professional one.”
“Really?”
Hestia hung her head, smiling sadly.
“Can’t believe it, right? I wouldn’t either, after watching how I froze up today.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Harry said calmly. “It’s just not what I expected with your personality.”
“My parents always thought Sis was the competitive one,” Hestia said. “Turns out, I’ve got the same streak, it just took me longer to find it. I won’t pretend I’m the best duelist out there, but I don’t lose easily to anyone. So when the war started again, I thought, I can do that! I chose to leave the dueling circle behind, taking my talents somewhere they could do some real good.”
A lot of things were beginning to make more sense. Hestia was clearly a talented witch with plenty of tricks in her arsenal. She fought with confidence, creativity, and above all, style.
That’s why Harry immediately understood the situation. Professional dueling was a sport. It came with its own set of rules, including points for aesthetic beauty. Take the birds Hestia transfigured for herself. Lumps of misshapen metal would’ve served her purpose just as well. But by making small, well-shaped animals it looked much better. That was the kind of thing a judge would note on their scorecard.
But today hadn’t been that kind of duel. There was no judge. It didn’t end as soon as one party was disarmed. No, the only thing that stopped a fight like that one was when one side physically could not fight anymore. Nothing less would do.
“What’s wrong with me?” Hestia asked. “The Carrows weren’t even good fighters. But if you hadn’t been there…”
Harry put his arm over her shoulder the same way he had when they were watching the movie. He patted Hestia’s arm.
“You’d think that the better duelist always wins, but that’s just not how fights work,” he said. “Sometimes, they’re decided because one side is overconfident. Occasionally, it’s because a person got lucky. It can be about who’s willing to go farther, and how many lines they’re willing to cross. But more than anything else, it just comes down to experience. How many times have I been there before, and how many times have they? Experience helps you perform to the best of your abilities and keeps you from freezing up. Congratulations!” He squeezed Hestia’s shoulder. “You’re officially more experienced than you were yesterday. Be proud.”
He started to slide his hand off of her, but Hestia showed off her duelist’s reflexes by catching his hand and holding it in place. Smiling, Harry stopped trying to pull away.
“You aren’t a professor, are you?” she said, peering at him.
“At the moment I am,” he said. “Harry Potter, Muggle Studies. Lovely to make your acquaintance.”
Hestia shook her head. But her smile didn’t look so sad anymore.
“What do you think will happen to them?” Hestia asked.
“The Carrows? Not sure. That’s for Dumbledore to decide, honestly.”
They left the twins at Longbottom Manor, where Kingsley Shacklebolt took the two off their hands. For now, Harry expected the Order to hold onto them as prisoners. Azkaban was always an option. However, not only would they have to fabricate a way for Aurors to catch the Carrows, Harry had seen in his past just how weak Azkaban’s defenses were to the Dark Lord. Dumbledore now knew that as well as he did. No, if they wanted the Carrows to stay gone then it would be best to—”
“I’m sure the Order will do what’s best,” Harry said.
“Do you think Amycus is going to survive?”
“I’m not sure. And I won’t lose sleep over it either way.”
“How?” Hestia asked.
Harry smiled. He remembered what it felt like when he’d been young and less jaded. Even Quirrel’s death haunted him, despite the man practically committing suicide in an attempt to claim his life.
“I’ve got classes to think about,” Harry said. “I have to figure out how to keep good people safe. I’ve got less important worries, too. Like what I’ll do when the war ends. The point is, I’ve got enough to worry about without wasting time on what’s going to happen to a horrible person.”
“Is that something else that comes from experience?”
“I found it to be, yes.”
“I’m glad,” Hestia admitted.
As they talked, the two of them had covered a significant portion of the castle. They moved from the Hospital Wing all the way to Harry’s quarters on the third floor. Smiling, he finally slid his arm off of Hestia’s shoulder.
“This would be my stop,” he said cheerfully. “No matter what you think, you did very well earlier, Hestia. And I have no doubt you’ll do even better next time. Good night.”
He turned away, only for Hestia’s arms to wrap around him from behind.
“To be honest, it’s still bothering me,” she whispered. “Can I sleep with you tonight… Honey?”
Harry relaxed into her grip, loosening his muscles as she hugged him. Now that it came to this, he didn’t think twice before entering his room. Hestia came with him, shutting the door behind them.
Comments
jp9901
Come on Harry, console your "wife"
