Harry was doodling on the mock test that Vector had given the class. For once it wasn't because he'd solved the entirely quite easily and now had extra time until the time ran out. Oh, sure, such had been the case for nine of the ten questions, but for the tenth one he didn't even know how to start. So he just left it out and started waiting. Of course that had gotten boring at some point so there he was, doodling little birds on the side of the paper.

"Time's up," Vector announced after a few more minutes of tense silence and excited scratching of quills on parchment. "That was a simulation of the final exam of the year, with material that we've already covered. Do try to keep in mind that the length will only become more extensive," she warned. "Exchange your parchment with your neighbour. Your homework is to grade each other, honestly, and to complete the tasks you didn't manage to do now. No, I won't be checking, it's your future you're playing with if you don't do it," she finished.

Sounds of shuffling resounded through the rather barren classroom, and Harry exchanged his parchment with his bench neighbour. A heavy-set Gryffindor who liked Gobstones, and Arithmancy. He was the only one in class who regularly did better than him at the exercises and mock exams. He tended to throw Harry a condescending smirk whenever he did so. The boy looked down at the exam, saw that the tenth question was left blank, and sent Harry one of his smirks, to which the second-year could only roll his eyes.

"You won't have much to correct," the Gryffindor boasted, before packing away his things and leaving.

"Evans, stay behind," Vector announced once most of the students had left. Harry and a few others were still there, being slow in their steps. But the others quickly shuffled out at the professor's announcement.

"What's up, professor?" Harry asked as he stepped up to the woman's desk, behind which she'd sat down, observing him. Not having any delusions about the common school-boy fantasy of being told to stay behind for 'remedial lessons', by the hot young teacher, he knew that the topic of conversation was likely to be annoying.

"You've been slacking," Vector accused and frustratedly tousled her brown hair, removing even more of it from the bun that she seemingly only applied once per day, in the morning. "What's this about duelling? Flitwick recently came and asked me about your grades."

"I haven't been slacking, professor," Harry defended himself. He hadn't indeed, and had a work schedule more brutal than ever, especially with Flitwick now about to add to it. He even had a short session with James right after this.

"Please, we both know the steady stream of EEs you've been getting is much below your actual ability. They certainly don't Exceed my Expectations," Vector huffed.

"Considering I advanced two grades, instead of one, I think an EE is a perfectly acceptable grade," Harry retorted, at which Vector rolled her eyes.

"We're both filthy half-bloods, boy, with a muggle education to boot, one that most of them don't have... Be honest with me. Why aren't you putting in the effort? I won't be mad," she asked, angrily puffing at her cigarette.

Entranced for a moment by the way her lips pressed around the tip of the thing, and how her mouth opened to let out the smoke after, Harry decided to be truthful. It wasn't like it mattered.

"I thought you knew of my muggle academic record. Grades good enough to pass, but nothing out of the ordinary, other than my age."

Vector waved him to go on.

"Well, that's just my attitude to subjects that aren't my priority at the moment. I study enough to comfortably pass, which for arithmancy is about an hour a week, and then I focus on other stuff."

"That's sad, Evans, very sad, you have talent, you know."

Harry's eyes glinted with some anger, he always felt like he was being treated like a fool when other people felt that they had the right to tell him what to put his focus on. "With all due respect," he thus began, "when one has as many talents as I, one has to be selective as to which ones to focus on."

The professor blinked at him, before throwing her head back to laugh. "I think it's the first time I see you being openly arrogant about your academic achievements," she said with a tight smile that indicated her enjoying him doing so. What does your schedule actually look like, I wonder, if you claim you don't have the time? Flitwick hasn't even been teaching you yet."

Harry frowned.

"Relieve my curiosity," Vector prodded.

Harry considered how his average day looked before answering. "Well, classes usually last from morning until the afternoon. I always try to finish the homework in the breaks in between, or before, and after lunch. If that doesn't work out I spend about an hour in the library after the last class finishing up and shortly revising my notes, reading a few sentences of any recommended literature. Then I usually practise some extra-curricular stuff until dinner. For dinner, I eat with my friends and hang out with them for a bit, and then until curfew, I again go back to my extra-curricular activities until I go to sleep.

Vector blinked, some ash gently floating from the cigarette in her mouth onto her sleeve.

"Weekends?" she asked.

"Well, some time with friends, a bit outside and sometimes a quidditch match, the rest of this is magic."

"So, what. One hour a day during the week and four a day during the weekend. You only give yourself 13 hours of free time a week?" she asked.

Harry frowned. "Of course not. Any time not studying or working on magic is time off. I sleep for eight hours a day, eat for cumulatively one and a half, and walking between destinations in this huge castle takes me at least another hour a day. Then I hang out with my friends, making my life perfectly balanced. 12 hours of free time, twelve hours of work. The whole thing is flawed anyway, I don't consider magic to be work, it is also my free-time activity," he argued. Although, he did have to admit that while he was learning to really love magical combat, the practice itself was quite difficult.

Vector just stared at him, having abandoned her cigarette with a vanishing wave of her wand.

"And all of this extra-curricular activity, it's currently being focused on?"

"Duelling and some specific Charms," Harry answered.

"I was really hoping you'd try to make another spell this year, it would have been great fun," Vector eventually said with a sigh.

"Maybe next year," Harry said non-committedly.

"Well, I'm curious how far you'll go with duelling if this is how much time you're willing to invest in it," Vector mused, before waving him off. Harry took the cue to leave, he had a session with James, and it was time to focus on attacking, rather than defending for once.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Go then, I'm sure that in your calculation this talk was put under the free-time category, I'm happy to have been your respite," the woman joked.

-/-

Harry entered the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom as if he owned it, without knocking. It was the first time he'd done so, which was why perhaps it was specifically this time that he caught James sitting at his desk and looking intently at some sort of large parchment spread across it.

"Harry, I wasn't expecting you quite yet," the man said with a fake cheer as he quickly folded the parchment and stuck it into his pocket, standing up.

Had that been the Marauder's Map? Harry wondered with a tilted head. It would make sense for James to have it, considering that it was probably something very useful for exploring Hogwarts, and presumably looking for the source of the curse upon the defence position, which the man was here for.

"You look like shit." Was the first thing that came to mind upon looking more closely at the Auror. Bags under his eyes, haggard and a distant pained look in his eyes. James looked like he'd seen better days.

"Thanks," James drawled sarcastically, before looking Harry up and down, no hint of the pained look that sometimes accompanied the gesture. "You look the same as always?" the man muttered.

"Well," Harry started with a sad sigh. "I'm really grateful you have someone like me to trade in an hour of instruction in return for two hours of correcting essays. I don't know how you'd manage without me."

"Truly, I don't know, you truly are the annoying little brother I never wanted," the man joked. "Continue the drill again?" he followed up.

Considering his answer, Harry thought of the progress they'd made with the basic drill that forced him to explode, untransfigure and dodge at an ever-increasing speed. He wasn't deluded enough to think that he was pushing James to cast anywhere close to his full potential, but he thought that he'd gotten quite far.

Far enough to face some kids who hadn't even graduated from their respective academies yet at least. He considered the session he was to have with Flitwick quite soon. It was unlikely that the man would send many transfigurations at him, so perhaps it would be a smart move to learn something that might surprise the man.

"Can we do something offensive today? We've been working on defence for a very long time now," Harry proposed.

His instructor idly cleared the tables and set up some shimmering wards, which were invisible to the naked eye, but Harry could start to feel the constant thrum of magic and youthful spirit coming off of the castle itself.

"Flitwick recently came to me to ask about your progress in class. Told me about your desire to be a duellist," James started, while he tapped his foot. "Is that what you want to do after Hogwarts, duel?"

Rolling his arms to prevent any stiffness from impeding him, Harry walked into the created circle and shrugged. "Seems like a fun thing to try at least. I don't know what I want to do directly after Hogwarts yet. Travel, probably."

"You know, I think you'd make a good auror. Although, from what I hear, you'd have to get your Potions grades up," James mused.

"I'm sure the academy would make an exception for someone with a duelling trophy."

"It's become a very prestigious profession, it might not be that easy."

"I'm sure I'll find some high-ranking auror to write me a recommendation letter if I choose to apply."

"Maybe," James muttered, before shaking his head. "Anyway, to the lesson." He started pacing around the area he'd cleared, tapping his wand against his chin. "As you've seen, Transfiguration offers some very powerful avenues of attack. You can use it to create a variety of autonomous combatants to attack your opponent. It can be used to create very powerful golems, which, if you're any good at Charms, can become quite indestructible, or, if you're good enough at Transfiguration, self-regenerating. Anyway, the possibilities are endless."

"Issue is I can't do anything like that yet," Harry said.

"Issue is also, that if you want to use Transfiguration in the duelling circuit, you're not going to have any material, so you'll have to conjure whatever you want to use," James added.

The second-year frowned and wondered if he should bother wasting the precious time he had with James on something he likely couldn't even do yet. He decided to let the man tell him his own conclusion, however.

"Do you understand why some people have a preferred animal which they transfigure in high-stress situations?" James suddenly asked.

Harry considered the variety of animals the man tended to throw at him, before coming to the conclusion. "Familiarity, if you feel a particular connection with an animal it's easier to create it. Also, if you spend a lot of time studying it, you can spend less magic to get faster results."

"Yes, you can probably see where I'm going with this. If we can find an animal that you have a particularly high affinity for, we could perhaps squeak out some possibility of success. Teaching a second-year conjuration is quite unprecedented, to be honest, perhaps only Albus was capable of such a feat when he was your age…"

"How do we figure out what that animal is?" Harry asked with furrowed brows. He liked dogs, but it wasn't like that was the definite answer in this situation.

"One's animagus form is usually a safe bet," James mused, causing both of them to laugh.

"Would a patronus also work?" Harry suddenly asked, causing the professor to open and close his mouth.

"It should, yes." He shook his head. "Of course, the whole thing is useless if your symbolic animal is a bear, because we'll never get you to the point of actually conjuring one in time. I wouldn't even expect someone in their seventh year to be capable of such a feat.

"What do we do then?" Harry asked.

"Do you know what a transfiguration challenge is?" James asked and received a shake of the head.

"It's an official duel between two practitioners of transfiguration, in which both receive the same amount of material to work with and have to transfigure it into beasts that then fight. It's an outdated way to receive a mastery in the subject, beating someone who already has it in this manner. There was this Austrian who somehow managed to transfigure himself a dragon every time someone challenged him. Herzog, or something. He was undefeated for the longest time before the most unexpected riposte made him lose his first duel in decades a few years ago," James mused.

"How did he lose?" Harry asked.

James closed his eyes in concentration. "I think it was an Egyptian witch, yes. I wasn't present at that particular conference, but instead of trying to beat the dragon with brute force, she transfigured her material into a swarm of scarabs, which poured down the dragon's mouth and ate it from the inside. Due to her magic being present in her enemy's construct Herzog was unable to change it. He was quite mad, I heard. Anyway, ever since then it's been customary to close any orifices in a construct, to prevent such a thing from happening."

"Interesting," Harry muttered, thinking about a swarm of flying piranhas, and how fast they could technically eat a human alive. Of course, before he started transfiguring chimaeras, he would have to start with something smaller, which actually existed.

"Anyway, what I was thinking for you is, that the only way we could make you use transfiguration would be if you conjured something small. Something close to heart, to make success more likely. On the NEWT level they start you off with birds and snakes, which are easy for Hogwarts students due to the symbolism," James said.

"I could do insects?" Harry mused.

"I could probably help you manage to create at least one in the forty minutes we still have," James agreed. "After that, you'd have the homework to capture some of the same species, get familiar. Then we could start working on a swarm. After that, we can quickly cover the requisite animation and defensive charms to make the swarm into an actual threat, rather than something which just needs a small heat-wave spell to down. Any preference for the insect you'd like to work with?"

Harry tapped his chin with his wand as he considered the different species of insects he was familiar with. He couldn't really say he was close to any of them, but if he were to think of one that he would hate to get swarmed by, it would be either mosquitos or hornets. Although, between the two of them hornets were likely more deadly, due to their toxin. There existed some species which could kill with just a few stings.

Overall they were painful anyway, even without venom. They also had sharp incisors and he didn't want to imagine how it would feel to be bitten by more than one at once.

"Can Transfiguration replicate toxins?" Harry asked. James just shook his head.

"It's so incredibly advanced that it's not worth considering for another decade, even for you."

"How about hornets then, you know, big, angry, stingers and sharp teeth," Harry suggested.

"We should try it, the first answer is usually worth at least attempting," James agreed with some distaste at the suggestion, at the insect, not at Harry. "Now, there isn't a specific conjuration spell for creating hornets, but there is one for insects. Practise the incantation for a bit, and then I'll show you the wand movement. It's 'Animacreo,'" James said.

"Animacreo," Harry repeated and the two of them got right to work. Harry realised that perhaps he wasn't as ahead in the auror defence drill as he'd thought if James could have sent a swarm of bees at him at any moment. He decided to thank god that he was learning to master such a dark power himself before it could be used against him.

By the end of the session, Harry was able to create a blurry hornet and was excited to end the session on the small victory of having created something that could actually fly, even if it did so badly.

Soon, the world would tremble under his hornet-summoning powers.