Harry spent the rest of the two months before Christmas working himself to the bone both physically and magically as magic was like a muscle, the more you trained it the more it grew and Harry knew that in order to match Dumbledore and Voldemort in combat he would need both incredible magical reserves as well as impeccable control over his magic and also a vast arsenal of spells and intimate knowledge of the dark arts in order to counter them. Harry knew that he would need the help of rituals to close the nearly seventy years of age gap between himself and Voldemort in experience and he was sure that Voldemort had ritually enhanced his body as much as he could, so Harry had with the help of the Room of Requirement decided upon a set of 13 rituals to be done after he turned 13, which would give him a solid foundation that he could build upon to make himself a great wizard as rituals only eased the difficulty in learning something and not immediately grant you everything, you would have to build upon it. By the time he turned 13 Harry would have a solid understanding of Runes and
Arithmancy so that he would not make a mistake during the rituals as that could be disastrous to him, and also 13 is the most magically powerful number so a set of 13 rituals after turning 13 would give incredible results according to his research.
After he was confident in his spellcasting and accuracy Harry approached Tonks on a fine morning after breakfast nearly a month after Halloween.
Harry casually approached Tonks who was going off somewhere after having her breakfast and said
" Hey Dora, do you think I could practise duelling with you, I know that you are practising for your Auror exams and you will also get practice, please please pretty please, " Harry pouted cutely giving her the full blast of his emerald green doe eyes with a puppy dog look.
Tonks immediately hugged Harry ,tightly pressing his head into her cleavage cooing at him, " oh, ickle Harrykins you look so cute, I don't see a problem with your request but we continue duelling only if I am convinced that you can keep up with me as I don't want to waste my time during my last two years of Hogwarts as I will be incredibly busy preparing for my NEWTS. So, meet me in the abandoned classroom on the second floor after dinner and we will go from there. " Harry readily agreed and both of them went their ways.
Tonks was surprised to see that Harry had arrived before her and had moved the benches in the abandoned classroom to the sides and cleared a space to duel. Tonks decided to quickly knockout Harry and sent a chain of expelliarmus, incarcerous and stupefy which Harry neatly sidestepped and returned fire with a spell chain of the jelly legs jinx( tarantallegra), scourgify and expelliarmus all nonverbally. Tonks was shocked
at the speed at which Harry had evaded her spells and returned fire nonverbally which was a feat a that even she had not managed as it had just been introduced in he classes and she was just beginning to get a hang of it, Tonks quickly got out of her shock and quickly erected a Protego shield to block Harry's spells and quickly bombarded him with stunning and disarming spells. Tonks was flabbergasted when dodged all her spells like he was dancing through her barrage of spells and then she was suddenly knocked off her feet as she saw that Harry had silently levitated and summoned a desk from behind her, she hastily cast the Protego charm to block any spells Harry cast at her while she recovered from her fall but Harry cast a Bombarda maxima breaking her shield and she was immediately disarmed and tied up in ropes.
Tonks was dumbfounded, she had gone into the duel feeling that she was just patronising her little brother but instead got her ass handed to her buy a first year student because she underestimated him and forgot to mind her surroundings but as per agreement she agreed to duel with Harry during the weekends and now she had a feeling that even she would benefit greatly from this arrangement as she would get an incredibly talented duelling partner out of the deal.
Tonks immediately hugged Harry tightly when she remembered something saying, " Harry, please don't tell my mom that you won a duel against me, she is already against me joining the Auror corps and if she learnt that I lost a duel to a first year there is no way she would let me join the aurors, " Tonks pleaded by pressing his face into her cleavage. Harry immediately agreed as his face was turning blue due to lack of oxygen.
Thus for the next month Harry and Tonks duelled in the same abandoned classroom during the weekends and Harry never won another duel against Tonks as she took him seriously and Harry didn't have the power yet to cast higher level transfiguratons and use animation charms and higher level hexes and jinxes and also his shield spells couldn't hold out for long as he was still an eleven year old boy regardless of how talented he was, another thing this helped was Tonk's nonverbal casting as they agreed to only cast nonverbally as it would help them master nonverbal casting and also help them to get a feel for the magic being cast even when incantations weren't being shouted by your opponents.
Harry also visited Hagrid for the first time three weeks before Christmas, when he accidentally bumped into him in the entrance hall and Hagrid invited Harry to visit him as he was friend of his parents and Harry gladly accepted the invitation.
Harry knocked the door of Hagrid's hut and Hagrid opened the door and invited him in his booming voice and Harry as soon as he sat down on a comfortable armchair was st upon by an enormous boarhound. Hagrid greeted him saying , " glad you accepted my invitation Harry, I was just about to make myself a cuppa tea and don't be afraid of Fang he is just a big baby . "
Harry agreed with Hagrid's assessment of Fang who kept slobbering all over his robes as he kept petting him. Harry spent a pleasant few hours chatting with Hagrid about his job and all the fascinating creatures in the Forbidden forest finding out that there were herds of centaurs, griffins further up in the mountains in the forbidden forest and also thestrals and unicorns along with many other fascinating creatures in there. Hagrid was really a fount of information on magical creatures and Hagrid even told Harry about a few incidents regarding his parents during their study in Hogwarts much to Harry's delight. Harry bade him goodbye as it was time for dinner and it became a norm for Harry to visit Hagrid at least once a week with Padma in tow as she kept hounding Hagrid about all sorts of magical creatures much to Hagrid's delight at finding another person who shared his fascination with magical creatures.