Episode 7: "Hogwarts Lessons"

In the final week of September, or rather to be more specific on the final weekend of September, Harry was overseeing the training of the few who remained that were still having trouble with the basics. Mostly that was just Ron though.

"Come on Ron, move faster!" he called to his friend. Currently he was helping Ron with running up and down the mountains outside Hogwarts. Unlike most of the other trainees, Ron found himself capable of completing all the numerous exercises Harry had set up for them without raising his power level enough to make a difference.

Whether that meant that Ron was slow at generating ki, or he was just that far behind everybody else when it came to available life force, Harry didn't care to guess. What he did care to do was build up his friends power level to the point where he could actually perform with his peers. Heck, Neville and Hermione and Justin all had passed the point where they were beginning to work with creating stable energy blasts and also augment their strength, speed, and other physical abilities.

Meanwhile, Ron was still running the lake and climbing mountains. He was up to three (mountains) a day now. Except it was the weekend, so they were now running up their fifth (mountain). Well, Ron was running it, Harry was floating along providing encouragement.

"H-how... am... I... s-sup...posed... to do... that...?!" Ron gasped between steps as he ran up the small incline. Only about thirty to forty degrees.

"For one, stop gasping and wasting your breath like that," he advised. "I know it hurts, believe me I do in fact know. But you have to take deep, filling breaths, hold them for one to two seconds and then let them go through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. You're going to probably feel like you're not getting enough air for a bit, but it'll pass. Just keep breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, deep filling breaths."

"How do you do this?" Ron asked in a rush as he exhaled. Harry could see him fighting the instinct to breathe short, shallow and as quickly as possible. But he was fighting it. That was good.

"Training," Harry answered, easily keeping pace beside his friend. He wasn't even sweating. "I regularly do double, sometimes even triple the amount of work you're doing at a hundred times the pace, in conditions that are a lot worse that some high elevation and cold mountain air. You think you have trouble breathing now? Try it in a hundred Gs in temperatures hot enough to boil the sweat off your body, in humidity so thick that you could probably drink the air itself. Only did it for a couple days though, and I only survived in the first place thanks to my magic. After that we did keep it as cool as we could and the humidity as low as was possible in an artificial environment. After surviving I don't know how long under one hundred times normal gravity, stuff like this really doesn't bother me. At all. In fact this doesn't even count as a warm-up for me."

"What... do you do to warm up?" Ron asked, still visibly struggling to control his breathing, but as a result his running had improved some. For one, his hands weren't shaking and his footing was sure.

"Oh, I still do running, and stretching and some basic calisthenics," he answered. "I just do it with heavy weights and like I said at a hundred times this pace. Deeper breaths, Ron."

He'd started panting again, apparently losing his concentration. Now that he thought about it, that did seem to be Ron's biggest weakness. He really couldn't concentrate on anything he termed 'boring' for longer than a few minutes. And very early on he had indeed marked meditating and breathing exercises as boring. Very boring in fact, which made his commitment to the training all the more surprising, to Harry, to others, and perhaps most of all to Ron himself.

There had to be something that he could do to help Ron in bringing forth his ki, Harry thought as they continued up the mountain, across a small brook of melt water.

'But what?' he asked himself silently.

By this point, they'd reached the peak of the mountain, or rather the highest point that wasn't just a bit of rock. Just as they reached the cliff, Ron collapsed to the ground, perilously close the cliff, but he didn't look like he was going to roll off it any time soon. Looking down at his friend laying there, exhausted, his chest fully inhaling and exhaling with each breath, a thought occurred to him.

Reaching out, Harry charged a small spark of ki at his fingertip and held it to the young wizard's forehead. The moment the spark touched his skin, Ron's eyes snapped open.

"Whoa...!" he breathed, almost forgetting to inhale.

"Feel that?" Harry asked.

"Y-yeah..." he answered, eyes still wide and not blinking. He couldn't describe what he was feeling, not in words. Something, energy, had entered him and he could feel it racing throughout his body. And everywhere that... that energy went, something was left behind. Something... awoke inside him. It had been there all along, he just hadn't recognized it.

It felt like... it felt like power!

Sitting up, his breathing under better control, Ron brought his hands together and focused on the meditations he'd been learning for the past month. Before, they had never made any sense, he couldn't even imagine what they were telling him even when they had dumbed it down as much as possible. But now...

Ron stared at the space between his hands, feeling the power, the energy racing through his body. And what's more, as easily as he did with magic when holding his wand, he focused that energy to the point between his hands and channeled it through his body to his hand where...

"Nice Ron, very nice," Harry said, a smile on his face.

There, between his hands, an orange-red spark of light began to glow. Focusing more of his power, the glow became brighter and a small marble-sized ball of energy began to shine. Ron just stared at it, hypnotized. After so much effort, so much work... it was worth all of that for this one moment he realized.

Exhaustion snuck up on him and the light disappeared as the energy supporting it was cut off. Moments after that, Ron fainted, falling forward, and almost off the cliff if not for Harry catching him and dragging him back a bit. He patted the redhead on the back and let him sit up on his own.

"That was great Ron! You finally did it! You found your ki! I must say, I am impressed!" said Harry.

"Wow, thanks Harry!" said Ron, smiling enthusiastically. "But... can I keep doing it?"

"Doesn't work like that, mate," Harry told him. "Can you hold a marble in front of your eye forever? Can you hold up a heavy weight forever? Can you hold a pose forever? You're not supposed to create a tiny spark like that, or even a huge ball and have it stay around for the rest of your life. When I shoot energy blasts, I'm not focusing on creating it, and then forcing it to move every micrometer through open space until it ignites. No, I just channel the energy and let it fly, same way that you would throw the marble, or lift and drop the weight, or move through the pose into the actual motion you were doing in the first place. It is all just energy anyway, this just happens to be a new way of applying it. Trust me Ron, you're off to a fantastic start!"

"Thanks! So, uh, what's next?" he asked, nervous. "It took me almost a month just to get this far. Everybody else had it by the middle of the second week!"

"Hm," Harry considered, leaning back as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think, and feel free to disagree with me here, but I think the reason that you had so much trouble is that you aren't really the meditating sort. I think you're more of a doer than a thinker like Hermione and the others. So... the way I left it with everybody else was that I explained the basics of what one can do with ki once they learn how to properly channel it."

Harry got to his feet and started pacing. "Now I could do that with you, basically talk about all the cool things that you can do if you just work at it, but like you're guessing that would probably take you a few years to even start working on the basic tricks. Or..."

"Or! I like or! Let's do or!" Ron exclaimed, his eyes wide with panic at the thought of it taking years!

"...Or we can try something fast, messy, and dangerous. More dangerous than anything you've ever faced before. Dangerous enough that if you aren't extremely careful, Ron, you could die. I could kill you. By accident of course, but still." Harry stared down at his friend, trying to convey the seriousness of what he was proposing.

"Harry, please, there's no way I'll be able to ever figure this stuff out on my own! I need your help! PLEASE!" Ron begged.

Arms crossed, Harry considered his options, finally coming to a single conclusion and hoping for the best. He exhaled sharply though his nose, not quite a snort, but more than a sigh. "Fine," he said.

"YES!" Ron crowed, getting to his feet, arms raised.

"Run," Harry said.

"Whuh?" Ron stopped mid-celebration.

Harry pointed to the largest peak in the area. "Run. To there. As fast as you possibly can run. Use your ki. Don't try and make energy blasts, just focus on it and run!" He then held out his right hand and charged enough energy to make it shine with yellow-red light. "I'm going to be firing energy blasts at you and around you. You won't know which, but I'll try to make sure I only fire them at you when I'm sure you're going to dodge. OK?"

"Wait, are you being serious right now?" Ron was still holding up his hands, but this time with fear.

"Ron? Run."

An energy blast, an extremely small one, was shot at his feet. There was a pressure wave, a flash of light and some smoke, but nothing more. It was enough to get Ron running though.

"How is this helping?!" Ron screamed as he ran/fell/slid downhill.

Harry replied with a larger energy blast to the boy's right. He cowered from the explosion, but kept running, though now heading more towards the left. Harry shot another blast, this time to his left, straightening him out a bit.

"Focus on your energy! You were feeling it before!" he called out. "It's still there. Just remember how it felt! Don't do anything with it, just feel it! And let your instincts take it from there!"

"WHAT INSTINCTS?!" Ron screamed, running flat out. At almost three times the speed he'd been running before he'd exhausted himself. Harry smirked and shot his next blast, lower than the last two, right at the wizard's backside.

Ron felt every hair on the back of his neck go stiff and he knew he was being targeted. He could not begin to say how he knew, but he knew! He dove and rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding the energy blast that was little more than that first one that was nothing but light and smoke. But it told Ron just how serious this new level of training truly was.

The only thing going through his head right then was Harry's advice, to hold on to that feeling of power, of energy flowing through his body. And he was doing his absolute best to follow that advice. Such as it was, he was succeeding. By focusing on his ki, and by feeling it flow through his body, that was all the conscious trigger that was needed to bring forth his power. The rest was done by his body responding to what his mind demanded of it. His mind said he needed to run, his body, augmented by his ki, made him run faster than he'd ever run before in his life. There was more to it though, and Harry decided that he was going to show his friend, rather than bore them both by just telling him.

They were coming up to a stream flowing down the mountain, little more than water running through a channel of dirt and wet rocks. Harry shot another ki blast off to one side, the explosion directed Ron towards the stream. The next few blasts were closer, pushing Ron closer to the wet rocks and the stream, but he was trying to stay on the more stable soil as much as possible while running. Then, just to change things up, he shot three blasts right in front of him, the first the furthest and then moving closer, leaving Ron with no where to go but across the stream. Unfortunate for Ron, the point where Harry chose to spring this little trap was pretty much nothing but sharp rocks with at least an inch or more of water running over them. Given a few more years, they'd probably be smoothed away to rounded stones, but for today they made it all but impossible for a normal human to cross.

Harry targeted Ron directly this time, taking his time in charging the energy, making sure Ron would feel it and feel himself being targeted. Looking around frantically, Harry saw him start to panic, looking for a way out. Harry unleashed the energy blast. Ron jumped across the stream, no other choice open to him.

He cleared five maybe seven feet in height, and the distance was more than enough to get him across to the other side. Smiling, Harry flew ahead a bit faster, seeing what else he could show Ron how to do.

For the rest of the afternoon, Harry chased his friend all over the mountains of the valley surrounding Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. By directing Ron with well-placed explosions here and there, he got the lazy redhead to perform feats of athleticism and sheer physical prowess that not even wizards with all their magical powers could imagine, let alone duplicate!

In addition to running real fast and jumping real good, he also showed him how to land safely from a great height, how to climb fast aka run up walls, how to catch and throw boulders that were bigger around than he was tall, how to walk—er run on water, and a dozen other little things that may not have been impossible but would certainly be more difficult, and slower, to do without ki. Perhaps the most important thing that Harry had shown Ron how to do—well he'd shown him entirely by mistake, and it certainly wasn't the only mistake he'd made during their run through the mountains, but it was perhaps the one that stood out the most because it could have had lethal consequences if it hadn't worked out the way that it had—was how to flash-step.

They were on a sharp incline, ascending. Harry, hoping to get Ron to figure out how to use his energy to better dodge, other than just moving before he attacked, charged a large energy attack and fired it before the boy wizard would have the full amount of time needed to properly dodge. At least based on the past few other attacks he'd used and spent some time charging up and focusing on him before firing. This time he fired it in less than a second. It wasn't until it had left his hand that he realized, while it would not strike Ron head-on, it was still too powerful. The explosion it would cause, though not on his body, would be close enough to seriously injure him. Like standing off to one side of where a claymore is facing, but still in the 'enemy' direction.

"Ron! Look out!" he cried, terrified at what he'd just done. He knew from experience that he wasn't fast enough to outrace his own energy blast, at least not this one, and it would be even more dangerous to try and blow it up mid-air with another one. He raced after it anyway, hoping for the best after warning his friend.

On Ron's part, he'd felt that same tingle at the back of his neck that had always thus far been the primary indicator of Harry firing another ki blast. Except that it was more than just a tingle this time. He had no comparison for it, but it felt like something hot was bearing down on him and was going to explode or something, if not on him than near enough to hurt. Not that any actual thoughts went through his head. Even afterward, analyzing every second of events, perhaps even years after today, he could not properly segment his thoughts and emotions from his actions. Or perhaps it's better to phrase them as reactions.

All Ron knew, both during and after, he felt Harry fire, heard Harry shout, and then knew that he had to dodge to the left. He also knew, after, that he couldn't make his body move fast enough, even though he was already using his right leg to push sideways along the ground rather than continue with his forward momentum, it was not enough and it wouldn't be enough. Knowing in his gut that he had to get out of the way, he did the only thing he could do at the moment, and so while he was channeling his energy into his body, he wished as hard as he could for his body to go to the left and his energy responded. Part of it 'pushed' against the ground where his foot was already pushing sideways, but the bulk of it, that suddenly and immediately cast itself to his left, creating momentum and force through sheer energy manipulation.

The end result, when the explosion hit, the only thing within range of it was an after-image.

After the dust settled, Harry saw Ron running away to the left. It took him a few moments to realize what had happened. Just to test it out, he tried the same trick himself. From where he floated above the smoking crater, Harry vanished, flashing away in a movement so fast no untrained eye would be able to discern it. At the same speed, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, he reappeared right in Ron's path, less than a few feet in front of him.

"Ahh!" Ron screamed, willing his energy to take him to the right this time, without consciously being aware of it of course. Same as before, the only thing left of him was a hazy after-image that would fool all but the best trained fighters. Harry smirked and continued the chase.

There were a few other close calls, but that one definitely stood out the most in Harry's mind. The hard part, he knew, was going to be training Ron in how to consciously control these skills that he was turning out entirely by accident and on pure instinct. But that was for later.

Nearing the late afternoon/early evening part of the day, Harry finally stopped Ron from running and let him cool down for a bit, at the peak of the northernmost mountain in the valley. Technically speaking, they were somewhere within the bounds of the Forbidden Forest, at least if they were to go straight back to the school, but the mountains sort of circumnavigate the Forest. Besides, the Forest, like everything else in the Valley that is not within the limits of the village of Hogsmeade, all of it is still on the school grounds, despite the castle proper being the only part that was properly warded. Legal claims and all that. Harry had checked, it was in Hogwarts, A History.

"So, ready to learn how to fly?" Harry asked once he saw that Ron had gotten his breath back.

"I'm almost afraid to ask," the redhead groaned.

"You still remember what I told you about it?" he clarified.

"Yeah, one time I've actually listened to a lecture. Helped that it was about something I wanted to know about anyway," Ron acknowledged. Then, without being prompted, "Way you described it, I use my energy to push down and then it sort of pushes me back up and I just ride the wave of energy as it lifts me up. To move in any direction, I just provide thrust, pushing the energy against the opposite direction of where I'm wanting to go."

"Close enough," said Harry. "How's your energy levels?"

"I... I'm not really sure," he admitted, blushing with embarrassment. "It feels... dimmer, slower than it was when we first started, but also like it's getting brighter the longer I rest. I kinda figured out that the more I did those impossible moves, jumping and dodging real fast, all that. Well, that made it go down, like... like when I actually get stuffed eating, I can feel how little room I have left. Only I guess it's sort of the opposite here. I'm still about uh, half-full if you pardon the expression."

"Good, should be enough," Harry nodded. "Got a pretty good gauge of your power level by now. You're not going to be shooting energy blasts all over the place, but you've finally got plenty of ki to handle actual flight. So, ready to try flying back to the castle?"

"What? Are you serious? No way am I ready for that! Harry, I'm the dead last in the class, or group, or whatever it is you want to call it! I am not ready!" Ron protested.

"Ron," Harry laughed, taking his friend by the shoulders. "More than half of what you just finished doing, not one single person has been able to do all of it, and most certainly not continuously like what you've done today. And to top it all off, you say you still have more than half your energy left!"

He started walking the boy along, looking him in the eye the whole time.

"Ron, remember the other part of what I told you about flying? Keep a happy thought in your head. Negative thoughts interrupt your ki flow and that would pretty much mean you drop like a stone. So I want you to remember one thing and one thing only while you're flying back to the castle."

"Wh-what is that?"

"That you can finally do things that none of your brothers can do," Harry told him. "Or did you really not notice that both Fred and George and Percy are part of the group and they haven't even been able to augment their speed or strength yet in general training, let alone everything else that you just did. And after today, you will be able to fly, while they still have to use brooms."

Ron's face lit up.

Then Harry threw him off the cliff they were standing next to.

Ron was still smiling for the first three feet that he fell. Unfortunately he hadn't just been shoved over the edge, but actually thrown a good dozen yards into open air, so there was absolutely nothing to grab hold of. After the first three feet, which equated to the amount of time it took his brain to even begin to comprehend what had just happened, fear and the fight-or-flight responses started to kick in. Another five feet after that, he started to scream, even as his mind hyper-rationalized what it was he needed to be doing. The screaming wouldn't stop though, and the fear was clouding his mind.

"Happy thoughts, Ron," Harry said as he passed him by, a white flaming aura around him, shooting down at four times the speed Ron was falling. "Happy thoughts!"

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts!" Ron chanted, eyes shut tight.

'Quidditch! Chudley Cannons winning the World Cup! Making Head Boy! Winning the House Cup! The look on—on, heh, on, hahaha, on my brothers faces when they see me!' Ron thought desperately, not actually believing any of it until the final thought there.

After imagining the images of Percy, Fred, George, and even Bill and Charlie's faces when they saw him flying through the air without a broom, well that changed everything. He finally relaxed and opened his eyes, the smile back on his face. Looking around him, he saw practically the whole valley laid out before him. There were trees below him, rushing up at him, but they may as well have been a green carpet. His energy responded to his will like he'd been doing it for years. Less than twenty feet from the forest floor, within the treetops themselves even, he began to slow. By the time he hit ten feet, he may as well have been a feather falling gracefully in the wind. Before the tips of his toes had reached the point of his own height from the forest floor, however, a similar white aura exploded around Ron's body as he concentrated harder than he ever had before.

Ki flame flaring wildly, Ron stayed there, hovering, the force of his own energy making his clothes and hair flutter like a wind was blowing out from his center. His fists were clenched tight at his sides and his feet were arched, pointing downward. His face was a mask of intense concentration. Despite his happy and confident thoughts, it was a lot harder than he'd thought. Then he stopped pushing so much energy towards just staying aloft and followed Harry's advice and just rode the wave of energy he was putting out.

At that point, the white flaming aura disappeared, but he stayed precisely where he was in the air, not moving so much as an inch.

"Whoa!" he couldn't help exclaiming aloud.

"Not bad, Ron, not bad at all," Harry called from above the treetops.

Looking up, Ron could see him 'standing' there above him. Wanting to join his friend there, he started considering ways of increasing his altitude, and then realized he already knew how. Without having to reignite his ki flame, Ron slowly raised himself in the air to above the treetops. He couldn't even begin to explain it himself, but in thinking things over, he realized that he somehow had these instincts of what to do with his energy. And flying just seemed to be one more thing to do with said energy. It was as natural to him as it was walking, running, or climbing a tree. Or using magic!

"This is... wow, Harry!" he said once he was at the same altitude as the dark-haired fighter. "Thanks for showing me how to do this!"

"Oh, your training for the day isn't done yet," said Harry, a challenging smirk on his face. "Now you have to get back to the castle. I've got some training of my own to do, so I'll see you at dinner tonight. Good luck, mate!"

With that said, he rose up about another ten feet and then ignited his own ki flame and shot back towards the school, just under Mach 1.

"W-wait! H-Harry! Hey!" Ron called after him, starting to wobble in the air as his ki energy became unstable, fear and anxiety rising within him.

Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. Ron knew that even if Harry could have heard him, it was unlikely that he'd come back for him, especially after giving him the next hurdle he'd have to overcome in his training. Resolving himself, Ron took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. He then angled himself parallel to the ground and started flying back toward Hogwarts. It was slow going, and despite hanging onto his 'happy thought' his ki energy kept destabilizing at various points, making it hard to stay aloft, but he always managed to get a handle on it. Nevertheless, he did try and make sure that he stayed at a high enough altitude that he could 'catch himself' if he did start to fall for real.

Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts, Harry quickly sought out and found his other friends; Hermione, Justin and Neville specifically.

"Hey guys!" he called, landing beside them where they were sat meditating. Well, Hermione was meditating, Justin and Neville were silently competing to see who could do the most push-ups it would appear. To the surprise of all, once he got out of his shell, Neville was a real exercise nut.

"Hullo Harry," they all replied without stopping what they were doing.

"So, anybody figure out how to fly yet?" he asked, sitting down beside Hermione.

"No!" they all answered at the same time, equally frustrated.

"Ron has," he told them, struggling to contain the smile on his face.

Hermione's eyes snapped open so she could glare at him. Justin and Neville already had their eyes open, so there was no delay in their glares. Harry just grinned and folded his hands behind his head, leaning against the stone column behind him.

"You said that you were going to give him a few POINTERS!" Hermione screamed in his face. "NOT give him one-on-one training to put him weeks ahead of the rest of us!"

"I didn't put him weeks ahead of you," he corrected her, smirk firmly planted on his face. "He was, in fact, weeks behind the rest of you. I spent a few hours catching him up to the rest of you. Not my fault if you took my warnings about taking it slow and careful as instructions to stop trying."

"Fine!" she screamed, throwing her hands up in the air, getting to her feet. "Fine! Then what am I missing, huh? What tiny little nugget of a clue have I overlooked that you could teach Ron—RON!—in an afternoon that I could not figure out for myself in a weeks time? Tell me that, if you so please!"

"Have you tried just powering up and following my advice?" he asked with a shrug.

They all blinked at him, a bit stunned at the simple and straight-forward retort. Justin and Neville both got to their feet beside Hermione. They all exchanged looks, expressing their disbelief, confusion and other emotions non-verbally amongst themselves. Then they moved a small distance apart and started concentrating, the boys unconsciously clenching their fists, while Hermione merely flexed the digits of her own.

Within moments, Harry felt all three tap into their power and bring forth their energy. As he watched, their hair and clothes started to move as though some unfelt wind was coming out of them in a rush of energy. Perhaps just as surprising as her power level, was the fact that when she really powered up, Hermione's bushy hair, normally wild and untameable, actually straightened out and began to flow like some kind of teen actress's wavy styled locks being blown about by a fan.

Less than a minute after powering up, each of them were hovering more than an inch off the ground. Albeit, not much more than that. Harry couldn't help it, he laughed.

"Do you mind!" Hermione snapped at him. "I'm trying to concentrate here!"

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized. "It's just that Ron started higher off the ground and he was able to fly off immediately. Although, I suppose it had something to do with me throwing him off the cliff..."

All three stared at him, incredulous. Then they glanced at each other when they realized that he wasn't making a joke and in fact was being entirely serious about it. Justin and Neville then clenched their fists tighter, the muscles of their arms bulking out as they struggled to bring out more power, not that said muscles were all that impressive compared to Harry's. Hermione, however, took a deeper breath and the flowing locks of hair started waving about even more wildly. Slowly at first, all three began to rise into the air. When they were about ten feet however, something changed.

Hermione's face suddenly relaxed and at the same moment she shot into the air like a rocket. She turned and arched toward the nearest tower and flew around it in a corkscrew, going faster with each passing second. When she reached the top of the tower, she shot over to the next highest one and began to corkscrew up it, still accelerating. When she reached the highest point of the castle, she began to climb, going high into the sky, above the clouds—well, some of them. From there, though she looked like a tiny black dot to those on the ground, she began to cartwheel and flip and do all manner of tricks in the air. Harry smiled and leaned back against the stone pillar once more.

Neville and Justin, however, seeing Hermione suddenly 'get it' shared another look. One of competitiveness actually. Both boys powered up as much as they could, each manifesting a mostly clear, almost white ki flame in the process. They also immediately shot into the air uncontrollably and began zipping about like flies on a sugar high. Harry ignored them, closing his eyes for a bit.

Only to have them snap open as something very unexpected came across his senses.

On the other side of the school grounds, some of the Sixth Years that he'd trained along with everyone else were powering up and slowly taking flight. Across the lake, a number of those he'd trained that were in Slytherin were also powering up, but more impressive was that he also sensed the rising powers of practically the entire First Year Slytherin class. Good to see that Draco was finally doing some real training, but as impressive as all of that was, like fireworks of different and unique colors going off, that wasn't what got him to his feet.

Like any sense, energy sensing was unique and could not be explained to those that did not have the same sense. The best one could do would be stretches of metaphor and imaginings, alluding to the other senses shared. For example, the firework metaphor is actually a combination of sight and sound sensory input, as fireworks are both colorful and loud and distinctive and also easy to imagine. Going with that same metaphor, at all times of day and night, since he was four, almost five years old, and learning from Piccolo and Gohan about energy, Harry has been able to sense it all around him without end. It wasn't unnatural or forced, like stories of telepathy and other 'extra senses'. If anything, it was like being taught to read and listen in a different language. The sense was always there, he just didn't know how to interpret it until taught. The same was true of everyone really.

Of course, now he did know. And so, at all times of day and night, Harry is constantly sensing energy all around him, the same way that he's always feeling the air and temperature and hearing everything within the human auditory range and smelling and tasting the air with every breath. Therefore, same as with tracking something with the eyes or by sound, he can focus on familiar and distinctive energy patterns around him. The various students around the school powering up, while impressive firework displays, is not the kind of thing that he would notice beyond much of a slight shift in attention, a raised eyebrow or a tilting of the head. This... this was a bolt of lightning as wide across as the sun in the sky, shooting across said sky, but instead of instantly dissipating, it just hung there, and the thunder was constant and getting steadily louder the longer it went on.

The major problem though was that Harry actually had no idea who, or what was causing it. Looking for it wasn't doing him much good unfortunately. He tried focusing, trying to determine the source at the very least, but it was so... intense that it was all but impossible.

After a couple minutes, with no fluctuation or movement, it suddenly disappeared. Not fading, like it was going out of his range, more like it had abruptly cut off with no natural dissipation. Even light switches held a brief, fading residual charge that he could sense. The only reason that he could fathom was some kind of magic that blocked sensing abilities.

He settled back against the pillar, but his eyes stayed open this time. He would keep an 'eye' out, but seeing that there was no trace of the unusual energy, and how thoroughly he hadn't sensed it before now, he had no doubt that he wouldn't be sensing it again until whatever magic protections that were on it were taken down again.

Evening, After Dinner

Hogwarts Grand Staircase

By the end of the day, everyone that had learned how to use ki had learned how to fly. Some better than others, those others barely managing to hover and slow low level flights on par with Madam Hooch's flying lessons, but regardless, by learning to fly, Harry acknowledged that he had completely taught them all the 'basics' as he'd said he would, and so he decided to keep his promise to Dumbledore and would no longer be training anybody. After all, Ron had been the 'dead last' when it came to the training, so having Ron make it back to the castle under his own power was the cut off point for the son of Goku.

Even if he'd only made it back just a few minutes before the end of dinner. Thankfully the kitchens were always willing to provide decent meals, even long after meal time officially ended, so Ron got an opportunity to replace the energy he'd exerted the whole day through.

"So, you finally caught up with the rest of us, eh mate?" Justin teased Ron as he handed him another platter of food. They were the last ones in the Great Hall, save for one or two that were studying or doing other things that none of the First Years were paying any attention to.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ron mumbled around his mouthful. He swallowed, thankfully, and said, "So I took a bit longer to figure out this ki stuff. Turns out I'm a natural at it. Once I'm properly motivated that is, ain't that right, Harry?"

"If you call me running you ragged up and down every mountain surrounding this valley, followed by throwing energy blasts at you, before throwing you off a cliff properly motivated—then yeah, you're a natural wonder all right, Ron." They all laughed.

"What can I say, I'm not the best person at studying or meditation and all that mind over matter stuff that you've been teaching us. Put something in front of me, show me how to do it enough times, and I can do it just fine!" he said.

"You shouldn't just accept it like that," the lone Ravenclaw at the Gryffindor table said. "Believe me or not, Ronald, but just because it's not as easy as some other things, does not mean that it's not worth doing. And news flash, Mister Weasley, many of the things in the world that are worth doing are not easily done."

"Case in point, learning how to fly," Harry supported Hermione's statement. "You all wanted to learn, and pretty much all agree that it was worth learning how to do, right?"

They all nodded, agreeing.

"Ron, it took me throwing you off a cliff for you to figure it out and then it took you more than six hours to get back to the castle, when you could have run the distance in two and expended much less energy." The redhead blushed and ducked his head. "Neville, Justin, you two are barely able to reach the highest point of this castle for any length of time and on top of that I taught you the same time I taught Ron and Hermione. And Hermione... It took Ron tapping into his power for you to finally put everything together and piece together the clues enough for you to unleash your power. When actually you should have been able to do it the day after I moved you to the advanced training group. There are some of the older students that I trained that actually managed to figure out how to fly and shoot energy blasts on their own from the basics that I taught everybody, no help from me whatsoever. I could sense it, right when you took off earlier today, Hermione."

They were all looking down at their laps by now. Harry smiled at them and continued.

"Now that your egos are sufficiently deflated and none of you are thinking that you're geniuses and whatnot, I'll say this," his smile became more genuine and a twinkle of pride shone from his eyes, "You've all done excellent. You actually exceeded my expectations. I fully expected that I would end up training everybody for the rest of the school term. Now... well..." his smile disappeared.

"What is it Harry?" Hermione asked, concerned at her friend's sudden drop in mood.

"I know I already told you this, I told everybody at the time in fact," he sighed and sat back against the table, staring up at the night sky/ceiling. "I made a promise to Professor Dumbledore. Only the basics, enough to make sure that nobody would wind up killing themselves or others by mistake. My original intention was to teach you all martial arts, share one of the things that I love about my family."

He looked back at all of them and leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin in his hands. "With Ron, the admitted dead last of everyone I was teaching, finally figuring out how to control his energy and everything else I've shown you... I now have to keep my promise. No more training."

"What?!" they all exclaimed.

"But I just got good at this!" Ron protested.

"I'm finally good at something!" Neville likewise spoke out.

"Harry, that's not fair!" Hermione huffed, arms crossed, angry pout on her face.

"Look, Harry, we're all with you, you don't have to..." Justin started to say, but Harry interrupted them.

"It's OK."

They stopped talking and looked at their friend, surprised.

"Really," he assured them. "It's OK. I happen to agree with the Headmaster's arguments, and I have noticed one or two in the group that might actually try something if they found out that they could be stronger than all the Professors, and could destroy and defend themselves against practically any kind of magic that would get thrown at them. Some of you, even out of you four, could probably one day be stronger even than Professor Dumbledore. And some of those that I've noticed, well they might actually be the sort to genuinely threaten our teachers."

"I would never!" Hermione hissed.

"Did I say that you would?" he countered, eliciting an uncontrolled blush from the bushy-haired girl. "No, I said that I had noticed one or two that have a tendency to bully other people. I probably don't even have to name any in particular for you lot to make a couple guesses."

A beat or two later, almost immediately given a second or two to think things through, the four of them all said together, "Parkinson."

"And one or two others," he added with a shrug. "Regardless, I made a promise and I intend to keep it. To train everyone that wanted to. And now that I've trained them, I'll keep my promise to Professor Dumbledore and won't train them beyond the basics."

Grumbling, they all acknowledged his points, nodding their heads despite not exactly liking the fact that training was now over.

"Of course," he said, drawing their attentions back up.

He smiled mischievously. "Of course, I can't do anything to control anybody once I stop training them. So there is nothing stopping them from continuing to practice and train on their own."

One by one, they all began to smile, their grins slowly matching the same mischievousness of his own. Then he stood up after a brief shrug to pull his arms off the table. "Well, I train most days just before breakfast, and in the hour before dinner. I've been doing some of my own training while I had the rest of you lot running laps, so I didn't fall behind or anything like that. And I just noticed that it's getting close to curfew. We'd better get to back to our rooms, eh?"

"Oh, you're right!" Hermione exclaimed, also getting to her feet.

"What! But what about my..." Ron looked down even as he was protesting and noticed that all the food and even the plates that held them had been cleared away and the table wiped clean, "... food? Hey! What gives! Why I oughta...awta...ooohh..." suddenly Ron keeled back on the bench and landed on the floor, flat on his back.

"Ron!" Justin and Neville dove to help their friend, helping him up.

"Huh, took him long enough," Harry commented.

"What happened to him?" Hermione asked.

"He's crashing," he gave the short answer.

"I'm-mmmwhuh?" Ron slurred, having trouble keeping his eyes open as his head lolled back and forth while Neville and Justin supported most of his weight.

"Crashing," Harry shrugged. "It's the common term for it. Used to happen to me and Gohan all the time. Well, me more than him, but that's for later."

"But what does it mean?" Hermione questioned, eyes wide with fright for one of her friends. "Should we take him to Madam Pomphrey?"

"You can if you want, but she'd say the same thing. Bed rest and a good nights sleep. Well, and food, but that's already been taken care of. In technical terms, his body has exhausted its nutritional reserves and perhaps even burned up as much of his fat cells that his metabolism can handle. The thing is, you did that while you were running up and down the mountains. Then you tapped into you ki and brought out your energy. That increases your metabolic conversion even more than heavy exercise does, and on top of that, it takes energy from your very nervous system, rather than just straight up bio-chemical energy like what happens in your day-to-day."

"Oh, I've heard about that, and I know what you're talking about from my science classes!" she exclaimed. "Athlete's call it 'hitting the wall' when they're physically exhausted and they have to push themselves even harder! But why is it only affecting Ron now? Why not when he was still flying back, or before dinner?"

"Because ki works differently," he answered, leading them out of the Great Hall and up the Grand Staircase. "Ki isn't just the energy your body makes from eating food and converting it in your digestive system. It's like I said, the energy from your nervous system, but also the electrokinetic field from air moving through your lungs, and the blood being pumped by your heart through your veins and arteries. All of it creates and is created by energy, which we can control, or at least channel by altering how those energies react to each other inside our bodies. Most do this via using the electric energy in their nerves and muscles to alter the electromagnetic fields throughout their body. And while the energy doesn't exactly stop flowing or moving once you use it, there are consequences to channeling it the way that I've shown you to do."

"Oh!" Hermione squeaked, her eyes alight with understanding. "Like when an electric current is run through a wire and it heats up as a consequence!"

"One very fine example," he grinned at her.

"Uh, I don't get it," Neville mumbled from one side of Ron as he and Justin helped the boy up the stairs. They were just passing the second floor by now, though it was still slow going.

"Oh, uh, well," Harry paused, scratching his head in thought. "Oh! I know! It's like using your wands! When a spell fizzles or backfires, you've noticed how the wand gets either really cold or really hot? Well, what's happening to Ron right now is the same thing that happens to your wand when you stop putting magic into it and it stops being hot or cold or whatever."

"Ohhh!" The other three boys nodded their heads.

"So... I'm... outta... magic...?" Ron slurred slightly, panting despite doing very little.

"You're ki is... reacting to the actions you put it through earlier," he answered. "One or two tricks, and the... reaction you're experiencing would be absorbed by the rest of your ki, the rest of your energy. Only problem is that you've exhausted all that extra energy, so there's nothing to keep you from feeling it. In the aftermath of the hot, the cold takes over after it passes. This would be the 'cold'. But again, common term is crashing."

"Will this happen to all of us?" she asked, concerned.

"Probably already has," he answered with a casual shrug. They were waiting on a staircase to move into place, waiting on the edge of a platform with no where to go. When it finally arrived, they found themselves coming out near the Trophy Room. "But like I said, unless you exhaust yourself, the most you feel is a bit out of breath and maybe some hunger pangs and some aches and pains. Again, crashing like this only happens when you exhaust all your reserves, which Ron has."

The clock struck the hour. The clock in this case was the school clock, which was big enough it had its very own tower and everybody in the entire valley could hear it when it struck the hour. After it was done, Hermione began fretting and Neville and Justin exchanged worried looks. "Curfew!" they all whispered.

"Meow!"

They all turned and looked behind them where the sound had come from. Standing there, glaring at them with her red glowing eyes, was Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris.

"Sniff around, my sweet," they heard Filch say from around the corner, "They're in here, probably hiding. They might be lurking in a corner."

Everyone's eyes, except for Harry, filled with fear and horror.

"This way!" Harry mouthed silently, gesturing down the hall opposite from where Filch was coming from. They all hurried after him, after having been petrified by fear. It was only due to their training that they managed to creep along as silently as they did, which unfortunately wasn't that silent.

They hurried down a long gallery full of armored suits. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run—he tripped—and because he was holding Ron around the waist to help him move along with Justin, the lot of them toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

"Run!" Justin yelled as he helped the other two to their feet, and the five of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following—they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, with little idea as to where they were or where they were going—they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was virtually miles from the trophy room.

"OK, that's just plain weird," Harry commented as he oriented his position within the castle. The place was even more convoluted and maze-like than the Lookout! And despite having already lived here a month and staying up late exploring the castle and training in that awesome training room, he still hadn't come close to finding and figuring out all of the secret passages that went pretty much everywhere throughout the place.

"Is... he... following... us...?" Ron gasped, the only one out of breath.

Harry shook his head. "Nope, he's still that way," he pointed up at a forty degree angle and to the left of the tapestry on the opposite side of the hall from it, "A good fifty or more meters away. This place is an Escher wet dream."

Hermione giggled, the only one to get the joke.

"Let's get back," he said.

Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight. "Shut up, Peeves," Hermione begged the poltergeist, "Please, you'll get us thrown out!"

Peeves cackled. "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please," Justin added his voice to Hermione's.

"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, one could almost imagine a halo over his head, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get... outta... way..." slurred Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves, which was of course a big mistake. For the first part, it drained Ron of what little strength he had remaining, and for the rest...

"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for it, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door, and of course, it was locked.

They could hear footsteps echoing off the stone corridor behind them, Filch racing towards the source of Peeves's shouts. Hermione stepped forward, wishing to avoid getting caught as much as the rest of them, and said as she pulled her wand, "Oh move over! Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and silently the door swung open on its own. They piled in and shut the door behind them, the four pressing their ears against it to listen while Harry stepped back farther into the room they'd found themselves in.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say please!" Peeves said, teasing.

"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?" Filch shouted.

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.

"All right! Please!" Filch growled.

"NOTHING! Ha haaa!" Peeves roared with laughter. "Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaahaaa!" And then they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

"He thinks this door is locked still," Justin whispered. "I think we'll be OK. Neville, help me with Ron here, we need to—Neville? Neville, what is it?"

Together, they turned to see what Neville and Harry already had, though seemingly only one of the two was frightened by what they saw, and it was very clear on what it was.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and the children knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

Harry, however, was the only one that did not seem to understand the angry rumbling noise coming from the giant beast, as he was walking right up to it, no sign of fear at all.

"Harry!" Hermione hissed, trying to call him back while Justin tried for the doorknob. Between Filch and this beast, he'd take Filch any day of the week!

"Well aren't you a cute little puppy," Harry spoke in a gently 'talking-to-animals' voice.

"Harry?!" they all called out, wondering if their friend had lost his mind.

All three heads were growling like thunder now, baring teeth, anger in the eyes. Harry, ignoring all these warning signs, just smiled and walked right up to the unholy beast and stretched out his hand, most likely with the intention to pet it. It let out a deafening bark, made more so by the 'surround-sound stereo' of three heads.

Instinctively he recoiled, because even though he knew that it could do little to hurt him compared to a giant dinosaur, let alone a pair of dragons, or horde of aliens, or any of the villains, criminals, or creatures he'd fought throughout his life, it was still instinct to recoil when barked at or surprised. Frowning, he lowered his hand and glowered up at the hell hound.

"That's not nice," he reprimanded it. "You'd think he didn't remember me," he said, turning back to look at the others. Unfortunately it was the wrong thing to do.

All three heads struck, swift, sure, and very violently. The left one tore into Harry's right side, grabbing his arm and shaking it until it came loose from his body, while the right head tore into his left leg, intending on doing the same thing, while the middle latched onto his head, hoping to get the bulk of the meat. Except...

… Except that wasn't happening, it realized all at once. Yes, all three heads had bitten down, but to them it felt like they'd tried to chew through their chains (again). Except with the chains there had been at least a little give as the links bent under constant pressure. There was no give and there was no bending. For a creature that could crush stone in all three of its mouths, this was very alarming indeed.

"Did somebody forget to feed you today? Is that why you're cranky?" they all heard coming from inside the middle head's mouth. And then the impossible—which tended to happen quite often around members of the Son family—happened.

Using his free hand, Harry reached up and the same way a normal person would pry a ball or a stick from a normal dog, he released himself from the hell hound head covering his own, before quickly moving to free his other arm the same way and then using both arms together to free his leg. Other than stains of hell hound drool, there was absolutely no sign that he'd just been bitten by a monster dog from the underworld at all!

"You must be hungry, eh boy?" he said as he wiped the drool off his face. "Give me a second here..." he then stepped back and opened the trap door the hell hound was standing upon.

Whimpering, the three headed hound backed up off it and sat back on its haunches, very confused. Harry then dove down into the floor trap door and it slammed shut with a very final sounding bang. Collectively, Hermione, Justin, Neville and Ron gulped rather audibly. They were too scared to move, and deep down they each knew that they wouldn't leave Harry behind anyway. Thankfully, the hell hound was still too confused and alarmed by its encounter with Harry to try its luck with the other four also being impossible to bite.

A couple minutes of extremely tense silence later, it was finally broken by the trap door slamming open and Harry floating out of it with three feed bags. Without any explanation as to where he'd gone, where he'd gotten them, or even what they were, he tossed each to one of the heads, which enthusiastically tore into them. Soon it was merrily feasting on what looked to be rotten meat, oddly insect free.

"We should go now," Harry told his friends as he closed the trap door. "Let him eat in peace."

"OK!" they all agreed and there was a scrambling for the door.

Thankfully Filch had gone by this time, and the adrenaline of their encounter had boosted Ron's energy enough to walk normally for a bit. Justin could not let what had just happened pass by in silence, however. While Neville, on the other hand, looked like he would never speak again.

"Do you think they know that thing is there?" he asked as they started ascending the Grand Staircase once again.

"Of course!" Harry replied.

"What do they think they're doing... keeping a... a thing like that... locked up in a school?!" Ron exclaimed, starting to get out of breath again as the adrenaline started to wear off.

"Harry," Hermione said, a bit of trepidation to her voice, "What was in that trap door you went down into?"

"That's what you're concerned about?!" Justin exclaimed at the Ravenclaw.

"Nothing much," Harry answered Hermione's question with a shrug. "Another corridor filled with even more fun house stuff, oh, and a really nice troll! He's the one I got the feed bags from. I met him when I went down there my first week here, traded him some sanitary supplies for free passage through his room and to get him to show me the other way out."

"Other way out?!" they all said at once.

"Yeah, the other way out of the dungeon that the trapdoor leads to. There's a secret passage at the end of the corridor, on the other side of this mirror they put in the middle of the room, and ironically it's on the floor, takes you out near the kitchens. It's how he stays fed while staying on guard duty. Unfortunately they forgot to allow him bathroom breaks and a time to shower when setting up his schedule, and trolls, while very temperamental, when you make a contract with them they will stick to the letter of the contract. Believe me, I know. So I got him some soap and worked with the elves on getting him buckets of water delivered before and after his sleep time, and also informed them that he'd need a waste bucket. Basic sanitary stuff. Good thing too, because it was already starting to stink up down there, I'd hate to think what it might be like a few months from now!"

"Why is there a three headed dog..." Justin started to ask.

"Hell hound," Hermione automatically corrected.

"Excuse me?"

"It is a hell hound," she replied, being hyper-rational after her fright. "In the Greek myths of the Underworld, there was a hell hound guarding the gates of Tartarus, Hell. It was named Cerberus, if that helps you any. Thankfully this one did not breath fire or drool venom."

"Yeah, well," Justin shot her a concerned look before shaking his head, "Anyway! Why is there a hell hound and a troll guarding a dungeon in this school in the first place? Why would they let things like that around children at all?"

Harry laughed.

"Hey!" Justin snapped. "We're still learning this ki stuff Harry! We didn't grow up with this stuff, we're not as invulnerable as you and your family!"

"Sorry," the adopted Son said, trying to control his laughter, "Sorry, sorry! You're right. You are right. It's just... compared to dinosaurs and the other kinds of creatures running around right outside my house most days, something like that really is like a puppy. A small puppy. As for your comment about letting them around children, well, Gohan and I grew up for a year in the wilderness, and both before and after that, our dad often took us out to play with those same dinosaurs and various other creatures. My brother has a dragon he's named Icarus as a pet. We're also neighbors and good friends with a family of Pterodactyls. And I've told you that Hagrid is my Mom's cousin, right? Which means that we have..." he trailed off, expecting one of them to finish the sentence for him.

"G-g-giants...?" Neville stuttered, surprising them and himself at speaking at all.

"Exactly right," Harry nodded. "Plus a MerTribe, and herds of every magical creature in the books. No werewolves or vampires though. They tend to keep to themselves and never entered our territory. Bah, that's for a later time. Here we are, Ron, Neville."

"Oh, uh, I-I-I... I forgot the password," Neville whispered, looking downcast.

Half-unconscious by this time, Ron lolled his head back and said to the Fat Lady portrait, "Pig snout..."

"Oh dear, is he all right?" the Fat Lady asked, even as she swung open to reveal the passage to Gryffindor tower.

"Don't worry," Harry told her. "Have you got him Neville?"

"Y-yeah," the Gryffindor nodded as he helped Ron through the portrait hole.

"Some rest is all he needs," Harry finished telling the Fat Lady once she'd closed up. "Well, good night!"

"Good night, Mr. Son!" she called as the trio turned the corner to go across the Castle to Ravenclaw Tower next.

Having been stunned and emotionally traumatized enough for one evening, Justin and Hermione were both oddly quiet as Harry escorted them back to their respective dormitories. After Justin was squared away, he almost immediately ran into Filch.

"Ah hah! Student out of bed!" he screamed, pointing at Harry's face.

"And this is different from how many other nights this year so far, Mr. Argus?" Harry responded, arms crossed.

"I... oh, it's you," the caretaker grumbled and lowered his arm. "Out for another run, are we Harry?"

"Just heading back for warm-up actually," he answered. "But if you need help with anything, I'll be more than happy to..."

"No, no, I'm good lad. Thanks for the offer though. Come along, Mrs. Norris," he said down to his cat and they continued their patrol. Harry gave the greasy, red-eyed cat an affectionate scratch, eliciting a loud purr from her, but soon she was chasing after her human and Harry was heading back to the First Tower.

Harry had run into Argus Filch his second night at Hogwarts, while on his warm-up jog to spend a few hours in the hidden training room. At first, the caretaker had called him out and chased him down. Harry hadn't even been aware that he was being chased at first, but when the same cat kept appearing right in front of him every time he turned a corner, he finally slowed down enough to allow Filch to catch up to him.

After a rather interesting conversation, with Harry using pure rational logic to counter each and every one of Filch's shouted accusations, interspersed with the student offering quiet, gentle inquiries into the caretaker's life, position, and general well-being, the two found themselves in somewhat of a camaraderie. After a week of such conversations, usually had in the post-midnight hours when Harry was on his way to the training room after warming up in his quarters, Filch didn't show up one night.

So Harry went looking for him and found him cleaning up a rather extreme mess made by the Weasley twins earlier that day. Because it was magical, it inhibited the House Elves ability to clean it, and so Filch was using a mop and brush while the House Elves were busy cleaning the rest of the castle. Seeing the situation, Harry hadn't said a word, while Filch just glared at him and scoffed, continuing to work. And then Harry had gotten another mop and brush set and silently started to work alongside the caretaker.

What had really impressed Filch though, more than just Harry helping him out without being asked, was that the boy, not once, used a lick of magic to make the job go faster. Oh, he used that enormous strength of his, and moved at least a hundred times faster than the fastest elf in the world with their own unique magic, but by this point Harry had made it clear that his skills were not in fact actual magic. That made all the difference to Filch in the end. So any time he caught Harry out of bounds or out after curfew, rather than take points or get the lad into more trouble, he chatted him up and sometimes asked his help on cleaning some of the more stubborn messes littered about.

Tonight, thankfully, there was no mess, so Harry hurried along his way to his training routine.

Great Hall

Next Morning

Harry was eating breakfast when he felt it. It was like a shot of lightning right in front of his eyes, but a very familiar shot of lightning just the same.

He was eating at the Ravenclaw table this morning. Getting to his feet, he looked straight up and then a bit to the East. There, in the ceiling of the Great Hall, where one could see the outside sky instead, was a sight that no wizard at Hogwarts had ever seen before. That of a young boy riding on a yellow-gold cloud like it was a skateboard.

Everyone else, seeing Harry standing and staring, soon looked for themselves and noticed the unusual sight. Whispers started to fly around the room like buzzing hornets.

"Ha-hah!" Harry laughed out loud, fists on his hips. "Well, it's about time he got here!"

With that said, he took off out of the Great Hall, actually flying at a considerable speed, something he'd never done before. Fly indoors that is. Outside, he set himself down in the open court yard where he'd done most of his training with the other students. Then he shouted as loud as he could, "GOHAN! HEY GOHAN!" He then whistled as loudly as he could, even trying to push a bit of his magic and ki toward the action to make it louder.

It seemed to work as the gold cloud changed course from where it seemed to be circling the valley and headed straight for him. When it looked like he was about to pass over again, he called out one more time, "GOHAN!"

The cloud stopped and a small figure jumped from it, flipping through the air like a maple key in the wind. The figure was soon revealed to be a small boy of about 10-11 years of age in a violet gi with a red belt across his waist, and some thick white padding around his collar. His mane of wild black hair, which fell to his shoulders, was held back only by a slim white headband. His face was expressive, but also clearly Eastern in origin, with dark eyebrows, and dark eyes the same color as his hair. He was currently smiling, which lit up his whole face. He landed lightly on his feet and charged straight at the young wizard.

"HARRY!" he shouted as they met and hugged each other.

"What took you so long?!" Harry shouted back, thumping his brother on the back, hugging him tighter. It had been a rare thing for the brothers to be seen apart growing up, and most often when it did happen it had almost always been because things were really bad. Thus they'd each grown accustomed to seeing one another at least a few times a day and when they didn't, a discomforting feeling of unease and anxiety usually lingered about them. Which probably explained more than anything else why Harry had bothered with training the students of Hogwarts in the first place, to try and dispel that sense of disquiet he had from being separated from his brother for so long.

All that immediately went away the moment they saw each other once again.

END "Episode 7: Hogwarts Lessons"

(AN: Wow. Lot of Lengthy Reviews in recent days. I truly love those. And just in time for my Birthday no less! As such, they certainly deserve an adequate response, so; "Loki's Tongue", "KingKong94", "God-King Ghidora", "Manda's Priest", and "Zwarrior4Life", Thank You!

… Although I'm thinking 'Loki', 'Ghidora' and 'Kong' might be the same person considering both left nearly identical reviews, and those facts were practically carbon-copied from the HPWiki. Not even the HPLexicon, the HPWIKI. Needless to say, to keep myself from getting sued, or have fingers pointing at me for plagiarizing, this Harry is somewhat... very different from the canon Harry Potter described in the HPWiki. :)

To Manda; Interesting ideas all around. Didn't know that about the Animagus process, although it sounds made up, parts of it do line up with some of the 'process of magic' that JK displayed in her books (making of the Polyjuice Potion for example). So I do appreciate the information and undoubtedly will make use of it at some point. Now, as for Merlin...

Minor rant here; most other fanfic authors seem to take for granted or forget the role that Merlin has on the British Wizarding World. He's essentially their, (pardon my expression), their *"Jesus Christ"*, their Saviour. And then Fanfic writers have him going to Hogwarts in the Gryffindor House. Unh-uh. No. If Merlin was *taught* by the Founders, they'd be swearing and etc *by* the Founders. In this (and all my other HP fanfics), Merlin *trained* the Founders, and then they went and started Hogwarts using his teachings.

Now, even with that being said, Harry is an exception, as the rule of DBZ (as evidenced by Babbidi and other "magicians") while magic is potent, it is essentially useless for fighting and thus wizards and the like are not as strong in a fight as dedicated ki-fighters. Merlin, his legacy, and any relationship to his "power" will not be a part of this story. Sorry. I do have something planned along the lines of where you were going with that, but that will have to wait until later on in the story. Not to worry though.

To Zwarrior4Life... I think you might've double-posted there. Not that I mind, just want to be careful of that sort of thing in the future. Sounds like a very interesting story, and a fascinating premise. Drop me a link when you have the story posted, I'll be sure to leave at least as long a review as what you've left for me here. :)

To all other Readers and Reviewers, as I'm sure you've noticed by now, I've been posting at least one chapter a month for this story. If you've *really* been paying attention, you'll note the days that I've posted the chapters; Chapter 5 on May 5th, Chapter 6 on June 6th, and now Chapter 7 on July 7th. I intend to keep to the trend, at least until the New Year. I have enough prewritten to at least make it to next March, and hopefully more by then. Although I may have to rethink what days I post on. Please Enjoy and drop Reviews when you can! And I'm always open to new ideas and suggestions. Some suggestions may even make it into the story due to writer's block on my part. Thanks For Reading!)