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"That was close," Harry murmured as he looked at the exhausted body of Hermione, deliciously spent yet beautiful after their last explosive dance. Outside, he could see the sun slowly climbing. Harry had to admit, Hermione had shown an incredible performance, once again proving that she was special.

And, her success finally allowed him to get rid of the latest tendrils of dark magic, the aggressive climb of darkness and death defeated by the intense dance of their bodies.

Harry felt exhausted, yet refreshed at the same time, so instead of staying to sleep, he decided to apparate into the private training room of the Black family. With the war going on, he decided to ignore the opportunity to rest and instead focus on his study once more.

He was tempted to invite Hermione to his training, but after some consideration, he decided against it. Hermione always had an incredible work ethic, and while it was mostly an advantage, sometimes, it worked against her.

The time she had received a time turner just to attend muggle studies and divinity, and pushed herself until she had actually experienced a nervous breakdown was still vivid in his mind. He didn't want to risk the same with dark magic, not when even he managed to avoid its side effects through sheer accident — with occlumency for detection, and his newest hobby to relieve himself from its dark grip.

"It's time to train," he murmured as he walked toward the library shelf, trying to decide which book was the best target to focus on. After some consideration, however, he decided to pull a collection of spells, one that included the various spells and curses that Blacks had collected during centuries of violent adventuring and other illegal ventures.

"Not bad," he murmured as he read the spells, committing the most interesting ones to his memory before starting to experiment. He was reading this instead of some of the stronger compendiums, and only partially because he was afraid of the effects of the stronger dark magic.

The main reason was the excuse he had used to interrupt the death eater raid. He had claimed to be a remnant of the Grindelward's minions, and if he wanted to continue that charade even half-believable, he needed to use spells he would never use otherwise … preferably coming from Europe and even from other areas.

Those spells, he could never use in his true identity.

He had to hide his achievement, because he didn't trust the magical world in the slightest. They had already proved that they were willing to throw him under the bus at the slightest opportunity. Harry doubted killing death eaters would be the exception to that rule, especially when Dumbledore, in an absurd display of stupidity, actually let every single death eater live and rejoin society.

Harry knew that, with that example in place, any attempt of using lethal magic would be met with incredible backlash even without secret death eaters fueling it further — which they would be doing.

Compared to that horrible scenario, learning a bunch of spells he wouldn't be using anywhere else was a sacrifice he could make easily.

He might have tried a different path if he still had dreams to become an auror after graduation, but that dream had already died. He was barely an adult, and he was already responsible for saving the magical world.

He had no intention of actually joining law enforcement and spend the next twenty-five years risking my life constantly while every two-knut thief targeted him to make a reputation, the necessity of following idiotic pureblood bureaucrats tried to give him useless orders while their rich friends just throw around some bribe to save themselves.

No, once he got rid of Voldemort, he was going to enjoy his life … maybe take a few years to travel around on a yacht, Hermione and a few other lady friends accompanying him to keep things fun… Maybe he would make his yacht a clothing-forbidden zone, but it was a tough call, because then he wouldn't see them wearing many different sexy swimwear.

He sighed as he focused on his book. Dreaming about the rules of his non-existent yacht was fun, but he needed to survive the war first, and to do that, he needed to learn a lot of magic. He quickly went through the book, selecting several impressive ones that could hopefully be linked together in an effective assault.

"Maybe I should reveal it to Hermione," he murmured. Her help would have made it much easier, but he didn't want to risk her on that. Instead, he bit his lip, and started practicing.

First, an elemental spell, one that was useful in redirecting some weaker curses as well as most of the physical attacks. He waved his wand, and a bubble of water appeared around him, loaded with enough magic to imbue it with an unnatural heaviness for extra momentum.

"Not bad," he murmured as he watched the water dance for almost a minute, though the occasional water drops were annoying. The spell was stable enough to stay in place. But, it was not flexible enough. "Maybe a distraction," he murmured and apparated away, waiting to see if the spell would hold without him.

It didn't last long. The magic lost its smooth flow without his presence inside and collapsed. Still, he wasn't unsatisfied. Five seconds was nothing in most circumstances, but in combat, it might as well be an eternity. More than enough for him to reverse an ambush while they tried to understand what was going on with his spell.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the next spell. Unlike the defensive spell, the next one was another dark magic, and required his intent to kill to operate efficiently. He stayed focused, and soon, a cone of fire burst out of his wand, hitting the target wall. The defensive enchantments stayed strong, but the fires stuck on the surface, slowly worming forward.

A beautiful spell against people who got stuck behind their shields, hoping to avoid the crisis easily. Even as he stood, he could feel the flickers of flame, making him warm to the bones, to an uncomfortable degree.

He did his best to ignore the discomfort from the after-effects and he moved to the next spell, a thick ray of molten energy, perfect for shield penetration. Then, a bolt of lightning, a sandtrap, a rush of stone cones…

It wasn't an accident that he was focusing on the elemental spells. They were not the most efficient spells, requiring a lot of mana to cast successfully. For any extended encounter, they would have been an incredibly poor choice.

But, he didn't care much about that advantage. His new dark elemental choices were uniquely for his new hunter persona. And, if he found himself in a lengthy battle he couldn't avoid, he was screwed either way.

And, the advantages were equally clear. The spells hit hard, and they were unique enough that they were hard to defend. The dark nature of the spells made it easy to break through the shields, and their wide-area impact made it hard to dodge. He doubted he could take down truly elite death eaters with those, but against those, he still had his legimency-assisted dueling to handle.

But they would be devastating against the weaker recruits… Just what Harry needed. Take enough of those weaker recruits, and maybe the rest would learn that joining Death Eaters wasn't the safe way of rebelling they thought it to be.

"Not for free," he murmured as he could feel his magic flow faster under his skin, draining him … yet leaving him with a weird, persistent energy that made him feel giddy despite the exhaustion. Another sign of dark magic addiction, but this time, he didn't bother looking for help. Without the weight of actual murder to feed its weight, all Harry needed was to keep his eyes closed while he focused, easily dispelling the insidious touch of the dark magic.

And, with all that gone, all that remained was pure exhaustion, with his muscles burning, his breath hard, and his bones felt like mush. He summoned Kreacher, asking for food. Kreacher returned with a full plate, the quality of food enough to rival Hogwarts. Even as Kreacher disappeared, Harry chuckled, amused at just how much Kreacher's attitude changed due to his sudden change of approach toward lethal force.

He was certainly warming up to that madhouse elf.

Even as he enjoyed his food, he waved his wand, summoning four elements around himself. Earth, water, fire, air… They all danced around him, each darker than their natural variants, forced into a state of chaos due to the touch of unnatural magic … yet somehow, fascinating. It was a good way to test his control while he continued to eat.

His new spell list was ready. All that was needed was another news about Death Eater activity. He warned Kreacher to wake him up if there was any incursion … and if not, he could always go out and see whether he could use his legimency creatively…

He had a war to finish…