Disclaimer: Harry is not mine.
A/N: this is a one shot unless I get significant reviews saying otherwise.
Harry Potter and the Green Way
The first thing Harry Potter did when he returned home after his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was snap his wand in half.
Angry with himself, angry with Dumbledore and the Wizarding world, Harry abandoned his trunk, which contained the few possessions allowed to him by his mother's family, walking quickly; he slipped out of the pristine and mundane house of number four Privet Drive.
Slinking through the bushes Harry made his way to the small tool shed in the backyard unnoticed. Leaning his head against the door, he turned his back so the neighbors could not see the doorknob as he picked its lock. Slipping inside he quickly shut the door before falling to his knees and tearing at the dirt floor with bitten fingernails.
After almost ten minutes of frantic digging his fingers snagged on a metal handle that was thick and decorative. Slowing down Harry carefully uncovered an unusually large, heavy kerosene lantern, the metal was fashioned into thick Celtic knots, and the glass was thick and slightly curved outward. Opening one of the glass domes, the only one that was hinged, Harry reached inside with an outstretched hand. Not with the intension of lighting it, at least with a flame, but instead he positioned his hand over a sharp spike that poked out of the place where the wick should have been, and with a shuddering breath he pressed down, impaling his own hand.
"Show me the way." Harry gritted out between clenched teeth as he removed his profusely bleeding limb from the lamp.
Quickly, while clutching one hand to his chest, he used the other to close the small glass door. When he moved to stand something flickered within the lantern, causing a bright emerald light to fill the small room.
Harry released a shaky sigh as he used his injured hand to lift the ridiculously large lamp. Surprisingly enough, at least to Harry, the lamp seemed to weigh nothing in his hand and the blood from his wound that flowed freely onto the handle somehow kept it steady in his grip, and though the blood continued to flow his wound stopped hurting and throbbing to the beat of his heart.
With light footsteps, Harry stood and walked to the door, which opened with out a touch or a sound. However, it did not open to an English summer. No the path that lay before Harry now was a thick and lush forest trail.
As the youth walked through the wood, he felt eyes watching him, following him. Nevertheless, he did not slow his sure gait, moving like a possessed being he placed one foot in front of the other, until the doorway he had come through was hidden from sight by the thick limbed and moss covered trees.
Harry did not slow nor did he stray from his path, in fact, he avoided looking around at all. So he did not notice as his own cloths twisted around his body changing unexplainably into a loose white robe buttoned down the front and slit down the sides passed the hips and baggy harem pants. Nor did the boy notice that all along the path beautiful creatures appeared out of the trees and flowers, Satyrs pushed at each other to gain a better view of the strange humanoid being and a centaur; more reminiscent of the ones depicted by Greek scholars than the star gazing creatures that could be found in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, carried a longbow in hand and a sword strapped to his back, gazing after the mortal with coal black eyes.
Without warning Harry stopped, lifting his gaze to the dark cloaked figure that obstructed his way. A slow smile spread itself across the youth's sharp features even as his deep green eyes lost their glazed look.
"I knew I'd find you." Harry whispered
"It took you long enough to accept my offer brat." came the gruff response
"Don't snark at me Old Man, five years is nothing to you or yours."
"Don't contradict your Master, Apprentice."
"So you will accept me, a lowly human, as a student?"
"That is why I gave you the lantern boy; I knew you would come to your senses one day."
"And lucky for you I did, they almost made me into a sacrifice, and if that happened then where would you be?"
"Sleeping most likely. Well we might as well get this over with. I offer to the mortal Harry James Potter an Apprenticeship that will last for a year and a day, so that this mortal might learn a better path with which to guide his life by."
"I Harry James Potter accept the Apprenticeship and The Green Man as my Master for a year and a day. So mote it be."
"So mote it be."
The hooded man said, blessing the spoken contract with his new pupil. Slinging an arm around the boy's shoulders, he propelled the younger man forward.
"Welcome home Harry." whispered the man, those words seemed to echo in their wake as they moved forward, and this time the boy did look around gazing in wonder at his new world, feeling the magic humming happily around him, healthy and strong, so very different then the failing power of his own sad corrupt world.
