"How much of the castle has been rebuilt?"
"Effectively eighty percent; the outer walls were the first to be rebuilt, of course, now we have everything except the greater grounds. The forest is of course still intact, the Centaurs have assured me that there was no breach."
He perched himself lopsidedly on the chintz armchair across from McGonagall. Carefully he dragged his finger across the arm. Tad underdone, with a tap of his finger the error righted itself.
"A fat lot of help they were during the battle for Hogwarts, hope it was worth saving some trees," he said irritably as he gingerly brought his cup of tea to his lips. The irritation was in part because McGonagall had been holding his gaze the entire time and he knew he wouldn't get a switching spell out under her nose. The tea was hopeless without fire whiskey and it frankly was like going without his favourite condiment when visiting a chip shop; unsavoury.
"Who's going to replace the giant squid? Bet there aren't a lot of job applications for that." The giant squid as we had come to call it was the oldest resident of Hogwarts next to Severus Snape's virginity, its departing was on account of it being turned into calamari while protecting Hogwarts.
"You'd be surprised," McGonagall's mouth quirked slightly.
"Something tells me Hagrid has outdone himself. What is it?"
"I'll leave that for you to find out, Potter. Now you still have yet to give me your expected courses for approval, I will not hold out on tardiness even for the saviour of the wizarding world." She tapped her finger on the desk, similar to their meeting in fifth year—only her mouth had been quite a ways tighter when he said he wanted to be a Journeyman Magician, like Dumbledore.
"I'm thinking more practical lessons," Harry supplied. "Maybe I'll start a duelling club; something for the little buggers to remember me by when the Jinx inevitably involves me in some scandal. Hopefully that Nundu I brought doesn't maul anybody.
"Kidding," he added at McGonagall's withering look.
"While I encourage a practical approach, I don't think you should be sending Ollivander's new hopefuls on any martial magic displays Mister Potter. The first-year defence class has always been mostly theory."
"I remember fighting a troll in my first year."
"That simply put Mister Potter, is because your idea of theory is attempting to solve Schrodinger's Cat with yourself as the live subject."
"Does it count if I've already resurrected from death once?"
"Not particularly. Just get it done Potter, I'd hate to have to force you to go with SWC but if you don't hand in your customized course work you will be teaching the theory of Vampire Hunting up until the foreseeable future."
"Of course," he got up. "I guess if nothing else I'll see you tomorrow?"
It felt oddly awkward to have a day until Dumbledore's funeral. It was something utterly alien to him to have someone he cared about not die from either spontaneous combustion or having their entrails exposed in one fashion or another. As he climbed down the stairs he felt almost lost.
He knew he'd have to make the relevant preparations beforehand, and that meant learning some Old Magic. This was something that almost made his stomach ache. Nervousness wasn't in the Potter vocabulary but fear most certainly was.
As he made his way towards the dungeons (his home residence given that the current potions professor preferred more elevated potion-making) he couldn't help but stop at the painting of Malkis the Mad and linger towards the sight where it all happened.
Often in his sixth year at Hogwarts and later his final year when he came back to take his NEWTs in an advanced accelerated course for "War displaced Witches and Wizards" he'd stand there under his invisibility cloak. Now his invisibility cloak was lining a coat rack in Grimmauld place. It was ironic how for the first few years of his adventures with Dumbledore, the Deathly Hallows were placed on extreme importance, only to be reduced to a paperweight that helped him commit suicide, a mouldy bed sheet, and a wooden stick that was frankly more trouble than it was worth.
Of course, the Elder Wand's Magic died with Dumbledore, as he had wanted. His description of the wand was that it spoke inside of his head as a sort of guideline when he should use spells, what spells to use, it would even automatically teach him some. But it almost always attempted to mislead the user at some point towards their death. Use a stunner when you should've used a knuckle breaker, cast a disillusionment spell in order to counter a shadow-seeking dagger spell.
Eventually, all users who listened to the voice fell prey to a spell because of some piece of advice that the wand gave that was so utterly stupid it bordered on mind-numbing how some wizards went through with it. Similarly, the Resurrection stone told him who to resurrect in the forest, and his cloak alerted him on where to move to avoid detection. Neither of which seemed to have the same caveat, though the resurrection stone attempted to make you resurrect those who would cause you the most pain to see. He used that to his advantage at that time.
"Blimey."
His office was cold, as was expected of the dungeons and frankly it was slightly devoid of life. With a practised jab from years of phoning in his homework, he enchanted a quill to write a decent coursework write-up for McGonagall. For the moment, he'd be indisposed.
He was currently eyeing the immensely heavy tome on his desk. Of course, it wouldn't be as simple as reading a few pages of a book and doing a couple of neat tricks while speaking in Aramaic. The way old Magic was learned was through a form of scrying known as book-sight.
Almost similar to how he landed face first into Tom Riddle's diary, the book would teach him a bit more practical than one would normally expect. Of course, he wasn't going into the book per se, just simply utilizing it to go somewhere else.
"Dimensions are an important part of Magic, Harry. Often times your destination can be to a separate plane of existence, alternate reality, or my personal favourite a personal projected dimension.
"Scrying is projecting our thoughts into our personal projected dimension in order to look at our linear timeline. Of course, in doing so things are subject to change greatly, but you are looking for what are called anchor points. Or simply put—fate lines that typically must occur unless something goes desperately wrong. I'm teaching you this for later use, you are not allowed to Scry without my permission."
The memory was still clear as he remembered it, it was one of the only times Dumbledore spoke to him in that voice The Commander he dubbed it. What Harry needed was to get to a separate plane of existence rather than look at his timeline now.
Old Magic was a realm, it had rules, entities, and teachers. Merlin learned from a Demon which happened to be the rarest of teachers, but Harry was happy with a simple Wood Nymph, hopefully, an attractive one. It was all dependent on a Wizard's affinity, Dumbledore said he got a Fire Elemental of some sort.
What he needed was a Magical trance, all of the techniques started with that, and the way to do it typically involved a long-form meditation that took hours to get right and would be a stupor destroyed by the slightest gust of wind. The other way was essentially Magically getting high by absorbing a large amount of ambient Magic and opening your magical senses.
This method was exclusive to people with special ingrained powers that had names too long for Harry to pronounce or care to remember.
"Open your mind, Potter," he said to no one in particular. With a wave of his wand, he summoned a carpet on the cold stone floor and sat down as Dumbledore had taught him to. You'd typically see Yoga instructors use this position when "centring" themselves; legs crossed, eyes closed and arms at their sides.
The Magical senses he had, all he had to do was remember they were always there. In a moment and a feeling as if his entire body was engulfed in heat he opened his eyes to view the darkness around him and then as if thousands of lights switched on he had to close his eyes and recoil. His head felt abuzz and his mind automatically began going through the motions of having his Magic reach out to start absorbing.
Often, Wizards don't feel Magic as it flows through their body. If they are feeling it something is either terribly wrong or they took a bad dreamless sleep potion. But with time you begin to come to expect when your spell will work, it's a small feeling of Magic pulling back on you and is only really a mental faculty therefore unexplainable in words.
As Harry absorbed the Magic it felt as if everything he was seeing was becoming two-dimensional, inside his being instead of a heart-pumping or blood running through his veins he felt his Magic closely to him. In some ways it was more inside of him than any bone or vein, it was intertwined with his soul.
The voices soon came.
"Lily, take Harry and run."
"It's not your fault Harry."
"I'm once again asking too much of you."
"Potter!"
His eyes opened to see a chromatic world around him. Various patterns danced across the wall like liquid moving in an odd S shape before changing to different shapes, different patterns and splatters. Colours of varying sorts swirled around him and he could make out a faint tinge of light around his fingers though the colour of which changed depending on which angle he looked on at it from.
In the front it was orange, to the side it was vermillion and to the left, it was emerald green. The feeling of clarity and of peace that washed over him made him almost not want to do what he was going to do next.
He imagined a chord behind himself and soon enough a weight laid itself on the small of his back. Then with a powerful thought, he pulled himself up, his body was left in its Yoga pose and his consciousness flew at breakneck speeds towards some grand unknown.
Focusing on the magic inside of him and around him in physicality he honed in on it and searched for it, floating into an invisible pattern of light. Soon enough his firmly shut eyes opened slowly before they were astounded for what felt like the first time since he discovered the wizarding world.
There was an oasis in front of him, green trees so vividly green that they looked painted into the landscape. Water so blue and clear that you wanted to take a drink just by looking at it. Birds chirped in the vast distance.
"Welcome."
The voice startled him out of his stupor. He got up and brushed himself off though he was currently purely metaphysical in being.
"I seek guidance," he said to the air in front of him.
"Guidance?"
"The old ways, I must learn them if I am going to save my kind—my world. If you teach me I can also save you."
There was a rustling.
"What makes you think I need you to protect me."
Whatever was currently looking at him was more monster than human in appearance. It had jagged teeth and white flesh the colour of curdled milk. Eyes were all across its body, even for an entity it looked to be hideously deformed, it had a mishmash of wings and animal parts in between its thin human limbs.
"The Gods are coming." He hoped Dumbledore was right.
"Then we are surely dead."
"Not if I have anything to say about it. Teach me Old Magic and I'll kill them. All I need is your help."
"Child if a being such as myself fears them I doubt you would even be a speck to them. The flaw in the universe known as Magic will be righted when the Gods come for it, as they have done for thousands of Universes before and will continue to do for thousands in the future."
"Until the one who is Magic comes."
"Fairy tales," it growled lowly. "My kind never believed in such myths, it's why we took it upon ourselves to protect these realms."
"Protect—you mean,"
The sudden cackle felt like it reverberated throughout the entire world. It made the reality Harry was in feel oddly small. He needed to be very careful.
"What was it that called you here, exactly?" Harry was very slow and deliberate with his wording.
"I smelled new Magic, you interested me."
Past-tense, not good Harry.
"I'm the one who is Magic, you have to—"
"I know what you are," it snapped and Harry shrunk away. The sky had gone stormy and a great flash of lightning arced overhead. "You are the one who will end Magic, your meddling is the reason we even have to save it. Don't think you haven't created ripples, Mr Potter."
It was the scrying.
"I didn't do it intentionally."
"No, not the first time. But in order to save people, to change your fate and the fate of your... hm, friends. You decided to have a look at the future. What did you see?"
"That looking into the future was not a good idea." Flashes of his terrible dreams came to him, events that happened but didn't come to pass as well.
There was a dry sucking noise that might have been a laugh, it was very slow and eery.
"Your kind; Mortals, blessed with the full Omnipotence of Magic but none of the knowledge of how to use it or the bodies to house it."
"I need your help with the knowledge. I'm the only one that can stop them."
"What is it that I gain from this... exchange?"
"For starters, the Gods won't come into your domain and snap you out of existence."
The dry sucking noise returned.
"What makes you think I am stuck here?"
"Isn't that the story of the Fae?"
The creature quickly turned its head, all eyes directly on Harry, it began morphing. It was searching Harry's mind, its telepathy was something that Occlumency wasn't equipped to rebuff.
It turned into James Potter.
"You've been to a higher realm before," it said in a perfect imitation of his father's voice.
"The afterlife," Harry confirmed.
"Part of your memory is locked; very strong bond for primitive Magic. It requires your permission to unlock," the creature's unique way of talking was clearly imprinted on his father's voice. It looked expectantly at him, a look that never crossed James Potter's face at King's Cross.
The implications of this would be drastic, but this seemed to be the creature's unofficial price for its services. If they asked something of you it was a good sign, at least according to Dumbledore. But he hadn't expected a Fae, largely because Dumbledore called them a scorned race of the Magical equivalent to Fallen Angels.
Fairly non-interventionist creatures. To garner one's interest was not a good thing because one of the only things Dumbledore hypothesized could kill a Niffin is one of these things.
"You only have my permission if you agree to use it as a contract price."
It clicked its tongue. Clearly, the idea of a powerful enough piece of Magic to stop its telepathy intrigued it. Harry was banking on the fact that it making note of it meant that it wanted to know.
"So quick to suffer a painful death from the Gods, better yet me too. Agreed if you plan to die."
"Then let's get started."