~Queen of the Jungle~ Hello everybody!! (Gulps as angry readers glare at her) I'm really VERY, VERY, VERY sorry that I took so long to beta this!! DON'T BLAME WOLFIE!! IT'S MY FAULT!! (Looks scared as readers reach inside their clothes for items she'd rather not identify) I have been sick, and trying to catch up at school, that's why I've taken so long. Once again, I'm very very, very, VERY SORRY!! (Queenie runs away screaming with a crowd of readers pelting her with rotting vegetables hot on her tail) SOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chapter Five:
A week later the owl that Harry had sent to Ron and Hermione at the Burrow returned, weighed down with gifts for him. He felt somewhat overwhelmed by his friend's affection.
There were several books, a cake, a load of practical jokes from Fred and George, and a wizard radio from Ron.
Harry wrote a quick note back saying that he loved all of the gifts and that he and 'Peter' were safe and well.
The next day the Shadow Master came to Harry's room, to wish him a happy birthday, of all things. "You may keep the radio," he told Harry when the boy asked. "It is always useful to know what is happening elsewhere."
Two weeks after that, Harry and Sirius both moved on to Level Two in the Seekers Academy, and began really learning what they were about.
The thing that Sirius disliked about this was that they began learning the assassins trade, and the spying one as well. "Oh well, it'll be useful, I suppose," he granted, but he didn't like it in the least.
The first that was learnt was that you couldn't trust anyone, especially not your classmates. To help spread dissention, the class all reported to someone on the activities of the other members, and the more the teachers found out about you, the harder they worked you, so no one trusted anyone else.
Only Harry and Sirius were different. Both calmly informed their teachers that they would not spy on one another, that they been together too long, gone through too much to simply turn their backs on each other now.
Surprisingly, the teachers agreed, and that was how Harry found himself settled back to back in a large mazelike structure made of thorny bushes.
They were both armed with a sword and dagger tipped with a mixture that would make anyone cut with them fall unconscious immediately. They were at a corner, waiting for unsuspecting classmates to come to close.
Some of the others had teamed up for this, they would guard each others back now, but tomorrow when they did a similar exercise, they may well being trying to kill one another.
Harry cocked his head suddenly, there was a sound, coming from Sirius's way, both he and Sirius heard better than most, because their animagus forms were hunters and sharp senses were required.
He touched Sirius's shoulder lightly, and his godfather nodded. So Sirius had heard them too. Harry's emerald-gold eyes shone for a moment, catching a stray ray of light.
The gold sheen was much more visible now, but not so much that it cut off the green, and they seemed to change a little, it was much more in evidence if he had just transformed, but at other moments too it was brighter.
Neither he nor Sirius understood what did it, but the gold was always there to some extent now, though now it was bright and fresh, but Harry had no way of knowing that.
He touched Sirius's shoulder again and held up two fingers, indicating that there were two people approaching. Sirius tilted his head and listened for a moment, before nodding in agreement.
Harry made a slight gesture with the dagger from his belt, and raised an eyebrow. Sirius frowned for a moment, and then nodded his head in agreement. They would each take one, with daggers not sword.
Harry and Sirius melted back around the corner, instead of crouching just before the turn on either side to wait for their prey to come within their grasp.
A moment later the pair came around the corner, keeping to either side of the walkway to avoid coming to close. That was the problem with not trusting anyone; you couldn't work as a team even when you had to.
Harry bounded forwards, neatly tripping his opponent and opening a small gash on the others flung up arm, Sirius kicked out, catching his in the chest and sending him reeling backwards before the dagger took it's bite.
Together they dragged the limp bodies over to a growing pile. Ten of their classmates were already defeated, all in a similar fashion, which meant that there was another six around the place still.
Making sure that there was no one within earshot, Harry spoke aloud to his godfather. "I think we should move around a little, this is a big place, who's to say that anyone will come this way again."
"Good idea kid. Let's go," Sirius agreed.
They weren't allowed to change to animagus forms because otherwise some would have an advantage over others, from having a larger, stronger form, or if they were a bird they would be able to fly above the maze and search out all of the others.
Moving quickly but silently, ears and eyes searching the way ahead at all times, Harry and Sirius moved away from their corner without looking back.
They kept to the sides of the path, signaling one another to keep up to date with what was happening, they'd developed a primitive set of hand signals in the first week, and it was evolving since then to a fairly complicated mode of actual speech which they used through classes and in situations like this one.
Thirty minutes later they'd found the other pairs and defeated them. This happened quite often, because they could work together so well, but at first they'd had almost as much trouble as the other groups, and were 'killed' as often as they 'killed' others.
Now though, they had a seventy-five percent chance of 'killing' everyone else, and the rest was that someone would get to one of the others first. This hadn't happened today, however.
It was around now that Harry and Sirius finally left the confines of Shadow's Keep, as the school itself was called, to learn the outdoor parts of fighting, which mainly included horse riding, tracking and fighting on all terrains.
Both Harry and Sirius were glad to be in the open air more often, the castle grew dark and stuffy after a short time, and it turned out that Harry, at least, was a natural at horse riding.
Sirius, on the other hand, hardly knew one end of the animal from the other and edged around the creatures with obvious wariness, which caused Harry no end of amusement.
It turned out that Harry was not so quick a learner when it came to spells, most of which Sirius already knew, so he had an advantage there.
He was better than most of the people his age, but found himself struggling to keep up with the older group of people that made up his class.
In dueling, Harry learned with a speed that surprised his teachers, who'd seen how slow he could be to learn many of the other spells that they were taught, but Sirius knew that fighting was a Potter family trait, and Harry had inherited a double share from his parents, both of whom were incredibly good at fighting.
Luckily, Harry had Sirius to help him get through the more difficult spells, and just had to expend huge amounts of effort and spare time to mastering the spells that Sirius did not have the time to teach him.
Back At The Weasleys:
September the first was approaching fast, Hermione was fully prepared, and, thanks to her presence, Ron had completely his homework on time and had all of his school things packed.
Both he and Hermione had somehow managed to become the new Gryffindor Prefects, much to Ron's surprise, on his account, and Fred and George's disgust, also on his account.
"That's the third prefect we've had!" George muttered angrily.
"Shame. We thought you might have a chance of evading fate," Fred added, a look of pretended sorrow in his eyes.
Fred and George seemed happy to be in their last year of school, and immediately after the year ended were going to set up a joke shop in Diagon Alley to rival Zonko's.
Now all that they had to do was wait.
"It feels weird to be going back to school without Harry," Ron remarked with a sigh. "Malfoy will probably be completely uncontrollable, and with Snape as well … we really don't stand a chance."
"No, but we will be prefects, so we can take points off Malfoy if he tries anything. Won't work with Snape, of course, but we can do something about one of them," Hermione replied. "There are advantages to being prefects, whatever Fred and George think."
September the first dawned bright and clear, and the Weasley's piled into the car, miraculously, no one had forgotten anything, and they made it Kings Cross without any trouble at all.
Entering Platform Nine and Three Quarters was a breeze; Arthur came with Hermione as the first people through, then Ron and Ginny, Fred and George and finally Molly to make sure that there was always someone to watch in case of attack. No one else was quite as paranoid, but no one else really believed that the Dark Lord had come back.
Once on the Platform, the family said quick goodbyes before Ron and Hermione moved to the prefect compartments at the front of the train and settled in to wait for the train to leave.
Five minutes later, just before the train was due to depart, they received some bad news: Malfoy had been made a prefect as well, and they would be spending the entire journey in compartments next door to his.
Of course, he wasn't about to be in the same compartment as them for the whole ride, so he just went next door without a word, this time. Ron and Hermione supposed that there were too many people around for him to feel comfortable about baiting the Gryffindors.
Ernie McMillan and Hannah Abbot turned out to be the Hufflepuff prefects, and they joined Ron and Hermione, running quite late, just as the doors began to close.
The other prefects would be on the train, talking to friends and would head up as the train began to move. Their bags were already stored in the compartment.
Ernie broke the silence as the train began to move, leaning towards them earnestly.
"I don't believe a word of what Fudge said in the newspapers," he told them fiercely. "I made the mistake of doubting Harry Potter once, and thinking that he might be the heir of Slytherin. He wasn't, and he's as good as they come. I just wanted you to know that if you ever need help, or a friend, just come to me, or Hannah."
Ron and Hermione looked slightly surprised, they knew about what had happened back in second year, and knew that Harry had been quite friendly with Ernie after that, but they'd never expected anything like help from him.
"Thank you. We don't know where Harry is, but he must be safe, we'd have had word if anyone had seen him, or if they'd found him dead or something," Hermione said. "But if we get word from him, we'll let you know, he might try and contact us, being his friends and all."
"That's cool," Ernie replied with a smile. "We won't ask you anything, we just wanted to know if we could help."
Hermione smiled back at him. "You've helped just by offering to be friends," she told him. "And by believing in Harry. But if we do need any more help, you'll be the first we ask."
Ernie nodded, and they both moved back to where the other Hufflepuff prefects were seated.
A moment later the thing both Ron and Hermione had been waiting for happened. Malfoy came out of his compartment and walked towards them with a sneer. Pansy Parkinson was the other Slytherin prefect; they could see her in the doorway, watching Malfoy. Pansy practically hero-worshipped him.
"Missing little Potty are we?" Draco asked, sneering. "Well, it won't be long before he's dead, whether at the hands of your precious Ministry, or the Dark Lord, then you won't have to worry anymore."
"Go away Malfoy," Ron said absently, looking out a window and not appearing to really notice the Slytherin any more than an annoying fly buzzing around his ear.
Malfoy looked furious, which was the plan that Ron and Hermione had figured out over the holidays so that they could deal with Harry not being there, and the taunts that Malfoy would give them at every opportunity.
Pay no attention to him, or just dismiss him as nothing if you had to speak with him.
Hermione turned to look out the window as well, watching the fields sweep past the train windows. "Haven't died yet, Mudblood? Heard from your parents lately? You won't, not ever again. It's dangerous to know Potty, and be a mudblood as well."
"Really Malfoy? Whatever you say, don't forget to shut the compartment door on the way out," Hermione replied.
Malfoy's mouth worked in surprise, and then he turned and stalked out of the compartment into his own, eyes full of fury. The moment she was sure he was not still watching, Hermione let the tears she'd been holding back fall.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" Ron asked her, concerned.
"He's right, I haven't heard from mum and dad in ages, they sent a letter every week, up until two weeks ago. I'd just thought that they'd assumed I'd be busy with getting ready for school and hadn't written to take my mind of that."
Ron rested a hand on her arm. "There's nothing to say that isn't what happened," he told her firmly. "You have to believe they are alright until you get evidence that they aren't."
Hermione nodded and wiped the tears away. "Come on, let's go and see what our classmates have been doing over the holidays."
Finally they reached Hogwarts and the train stopped. Ron and Hermione got into a horseless carriage and where soon followed by Ernie and Hannah.
"We saw that Slytherin kid, Malfoy, talking to you, he left in a right fit of temper! Well done for that," Hannah said, speaking for the first time in their presence.
Hermione smiled wearily. Ron looked at the Hufflepuff's and sighed. "He said that her parents were killed, and she can't stop worrying about them," he told them, sadness in his own eyes.
Two shocked gasps came from the Hufflepuffs and Ernie's eyes lit up with a fierce light. "How could anyone sink that low?" he demanded in disgust.
"His father was a Death Eater, managed to escape justice when You-Know-Who fell last time, but Malfoy's as much as admitted that he'll be one too," Ron said coldly. "And you have to be pretty low to join the Death Eaters!"
"Again, if you need help with dealing with Malfoy, just come to us, four prefects against two, and we can talk to some of the older prefects as well. You should do that with your own year, we might be able to get his prefects badge confiscated for breaking the rules if we're careful."
"You need three witnesses to that, and they can't all be from the same house, but we have a friend in Ravenclaw, she's a prefect too, and she'll come, that way we can come with you whenever you aren't in classes, since we have mostly the same work anyway, so we need the same books, and we can keep him in line," Hannah said.
Ron and Hermione smiled at them. "Thanks for the offer, we accept!" Hermione said, as the carriages lurched to a halt.
"See you later!" Ernie called, jumping down and hurrying over to join their Hufflepuff year mates.
Ron and Hermione where about to enter the hall with the rest of the older students when Dumbledore appeared nearby, motioning them to come with him.
A quick look passed between them, and then they hurried after the headmaster, following him up to his office, where Dumbledore spoke the password (he seemed to have run out of wizard candy to use, and the password was now mars bars).
"Come in, please," he told them gravely.
They walked in and took a seat, watching the headmaster with wary, expectant faces. They were very surprised when instead of beginning with some grave news; Dumbledore's first words were to offer them sherbet lemons.
Hermione blinked. "We will be going to the feast soon, Sir," she reminded him.
"Ah yes, of course. Well, we'd best get down to business, I've never missed a sorting yet, but this time I suppose I'm going to have to. I don't think that I should miss the feast, as well though, that wouldn't be good.
"Now, first off, do you know anything that might lead to Mr. Potter's whereabouts?"
"No, I'm sorry we don't know anything other than that he goes by the penname James and Sirius is Peter. He's sent a few owls, but has said that he cannot tell us anything about where he is, because it's forbidden," Hermione explained.
Dumbledore sighed. "Could you bring me the letters he has sent you tomorrow, please? And when he sends you another one, once you've read it, I would like to see it. I will give them back, eventually, but it could be important."
"Of course Professor," Hermione said immediately. "Was that all?" She sounded almost hopeful.
"Unfortunately, no, it was not. Miss Granger, I'm sad to inform you that your parents were killed in a plane crash caused by Voldemort a few weeks ago. We have only just been able to identify the bodies."
Hermione looked at him and burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Dumbledore reached over and patted her shoulder gently, turning to Ron.
"Perhaps you and Miss Granger would like to head up to Gryffindor Tower, I'll ask the house elves to bring you some food in a few moments, I'm sure your year mates can tell you what goes on at the feast," he told the boy, who nodded his head and led Hermione out of the room.
Dumbledore sighed sadly and walked down to the Great Hall to address the students when the feast was finished.
"I know that some of you liked Harry Potter, so did most of your teachers. You will all have heard that Voldemort is indeed back now, and one of our number has been struck by this more than most the others. Miss Granger's parents were killed a short time ago, and I must say that if I hear of anyone saying anything to her that might be deemed as hurtful, they will have their house points cut in half, and if that person is a Prefect, their badges will be taken away. Suspension will also be used as a punishment, depending on what was said."
Back With Harry:
Harry crouched against the back of the giant black stallion he was riding, urging the magnificent creature onwards with his heels, eyes fixed on the upcoming turn – there would be someone or something behind that turn he would have to fight, he knew there would be.
As he rounded the turn, one hand on the hilt of his sword, a block of stone was falling fast on a rope towards his head. He pulled the sword from its sheath and swung it firmly, there was a ring of metal and the stone shuddered sideways, Harry continued at a gallop.
A short time later he rejoined his classmates after successfully completing the course. They had training courses like this all the time, and it would get a little repetitive, if the courses weren't always different.
He and Sirius, who had already had his go, moved apart from the others in their group to talk quietly, putting up a listening ward so that no one could hear what they were saying, even if it wasn't important.
"You didn't get hurt?" Sirius asked anxiously.
"Of course not! Have I ever gotten hurt since the first time?" Harry replied with a smile.
"No, but that doesn't mean you didn't this time," Sirius told him firmly. "How are you going with that transforming a mouse into a cat?"
Harry made a face. This was the latest spell that his class was learning, and even with Sirius's extra help, he couldn't do it at all. He let the expression tell his godfather the answer to the question.
"Keep working on it kid, it'll work sooner or later," Sirius said, resting a hand for a moment on Harry's arm. Harry smiled at his godfather for a moment, and they joined the others without saying another word.
That night, in Harry's rooms, they were practicing yet again when there was a knock on the door. Harry passed a curious glance in his godfather's direction, before calling for the knocker to come in.
It was Shadow Master, Harry hadn't seen the man for some time now, not since they had been raised to second level. "Padfoot, would you mind leaving so that I can talk to Panther alone, please?" Shadow Master asked calmly.
Sirius glanced at Harry, who quickly made the motion 'go, I'll be fine', and his godfather left the room quickly.
"Hello Panther," Shadow Master said, smiling faintly at the boy. "How are your lessons going?"
Harry just scowled at him, he knew perfectly well that Shadow Master knew everything that happened in the school, and would therefore know the exact state of Harry's learning.
Shadow Master noted the expression on the
boy's face and smiled faintly. "I know that you are having trouble with
spells, but that's not why I came around. I want to know if you see better at
some times than others."
"Yes, I'm seeing better in the
dark," Harry growled out. He didn't like Shadow Master much, the man made
him feel stupid and was always teasing.
Shadow Master nodded once and stood up, wandering out of the room without another word. Harry sighed and threw himself down on the bed, falling asleep quickly. He didn't notice Sirius glance in to check he was ok, in fact, he knew nothing until the next morning when he woke up to eat breakfast.
"Sirius, are you dueling with me?" Harry asked his godfather later that day in dueling practice.
"No kid, sorry, the teacher said we have to split up for this lesson," Sirius replied with a sigh. "I don't want to, but hey, can't change it."
Harry nodded warily. Wolf turned out to be his partner. Wolf had a grudge against Harry dating back from the first day that Harry had been in the castle, and Harry was really not looking forward to going up against him.
The duel progressed relatively well, Wolf started out a good partner, blocking and attacking with the perfect amount of force, but suddenly he used stronger spells, breaking through Harry's defenses and getting his wand.
Harry cursed under his breath, and wished hard that his wand were back in his hand, to wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his opponents face. To his surprise – and Wolf's – the wand did just that, leaping from Wolf's hand into Harry's again.
Nobody else had noticed, and Wolf was determined to beat Harry without a teacher's aid. Harry, however, was thinking about what he had done, and when Wolf yelled, "Stupefy!" Harry concentrated on it going back at him.
Much to his surprise – and Wolf's – the curse did just that, knocking Wolf out cold. Harry quickly performed a simple memory charm that would make sure Wolf did not remember a thing that had happened besides Harry beating him with a stunning spell.
"Well done Panther," the teacher, known as Lynx, said with a look of clear surprise. While he was good, Harry had never been that good. Harry nodded his head in acceptance of the praise and settled down to watching Sirius laid into his opponent, a young man named Hound.
When Sirius had beaten Hound, he and Harry headed to a private practice classroom. Once you reached level two you went to whichever class you wanted to go to, when you wanted to, and could take the whole day off, if you wanted to.
"What happened?" Sirius asked the moment he knew the room was secure from listeners.
"I have no idea," Harry replied, and described the events that had happened, throughout the explanation, Sirius's eyes got wider and wider, until he was finally finished.
Taking one look at his godfather, Harry had to laugh. "Why do you look like that?" He asked him curiously.
"That was wandless magic. A lot of it," seemed to be the only thing that Sirius could say. When Harry asked what he meant, he was answered by the same phrase.
With a sigh, Harry sat down to wait for his godfather to get over his surprise and explain what the hell he was going on about. This took quite a while.
"Ok. Wandless magic is magic used without the aid of a wand. Therefore the person using it is acting as the wand and calling raw magic, which is very powerful and has pretty much the same effect as a bolt of lightning.
"It doesn't require the motions and incantations that we have been forced to adopt in order to channel magic through wands, and it is highly dangerous. Some people might master a few basic charms with wandless magic. Such as being able to create light, maybe call a small object, such as a pen, to themselves, or create food. In most cases it will kill you.
"Magic on it's own is incredibly powerful, and it is far to easy to lose control, and the moment you do that, it rebounds on you and destroys you."
Harry looked at his godfather with a pale, frightened face. "But," Sirius continued, "I'm not completely sure how much this applies to you. You called magic itself without even having to study it; indeed, you didn't even know what it was. We'll have to see how far we can take this, because it will be to our definite advantage if you can keep doing this."
Harry nodded his head for a moment, then stopped. "But it could kill me," he said, frowning.
"For some spells that you do, another wizard can set up wards to prevent that happening," Sirius replied. "In this case, me."
Harry nodded after a moments thought. "Ok, let's do the spell," he said. Sirius smiled reassuringly and took out his wand.
It took several minutes for Sirius to get the wards in place, but he assured Harry that, once there, nothing would get rid of them unless another wizard knew the counter spell, which they probably wouldn't, if they had only studied here at the Seeker's Academy.
"Ok, kid, now try that transformation with the cat and the mouse," Sirius suggested. The whole room was warded and he'd placed a lock spell on the door so that he would know if someone was trying to come in, and act accordingly.
Harry nodded, and took out the shrunken cat and mouse for two different pockets in his bag. Each was contained within a miniature container, and each was happy in it's miniature world.
After unshrinking them, Harry lifted the cat out first, and then continued to hold onto the mouse, because the two creatures didn't exactly like one another, and it was best to keep them apart.
"Ok, now try and turn the cat into a mouse," Sirius instructed. "You don't the incantation, or movements any more, just try and picture it happening, and will it to happen."
Harry looked at the cat, and Sirius noticed that immediately his godson's eyes went gold. Could it be that the gold came whenever Harry used wandless magic? He'd have to ask after this.
He turned his attention back to the cat, and smiled proudly as it morphed into a mouse. "You did it Harry!" Sirius said, excited.
Harry smiled. "And it felt… right, doing it that way," he told his godfather, trying to find the right word.
"Harry, your eyes went gold," he told the boy. "I think that it might happen when you do wandless magic, it's already fading again, but it does that when you change to a panther. And I still don't get how you did that with very few problems, yet couldn't manage this until now…"
"I think that I can answer that, Sirius," Harry said after a moments thought. "I didn't use a wand to perform the animagus transformation. I used thought, or wandless magic, though most animagi obviously haven't realised that's what makes their transformations happen, otherwise I suppose they wouldn't be allowed to do them. That's why it's so dangerous to do without proper wards."
"I have a genius for a godson," Sirius remarked. "Of course that's what it was! Why didn't I think of that? God, I can be dumb sometimes …"
"I know," Harry sighed in agreement, and, to his surprise, his godfather didn't even notice.
"Ok, Harry, now try the mouse to cat spell," ah, that was why, he was concentrating on something else. Best not repeat that remark then.
Harry turned to the mouse and pictured the smooth transformation that happened whenever Sirius performed the spell. To his surprise and delight, this worked.
Sirius smiled happily. "I don't think that we should practice this too much, it's very powerful forces we are working with, and it'll tire you out like nothing else will," he told Harry.
Harry, who was feeling somewhat dizzy and only wanted to sit down for a while, nodded in complete agreement, and they headed for Harry's room.
Once there and sure that the wards were still in place – to stop anyone entering and to stop eavesdroppers – they went inside and Harry immediately fell onto his bed, while Sirius took the chair.
"I'd always wondered, when you told me that you often had difficulties with spells when they weren't for Dark Arts purposes," Sirius began. "Your mother and father were two of the best Hogwarts had ever taught. I knew you must have inherited their power, because they had a lot of it. I never thought that all that power put into you would magnify, as it has, and require wandless magic to channel it.
"That's why you've had so many problems. The wand, rather than amplifying your magic, as it should, it has limited it instead, because you have too much power to draw on it all through the wand, and without working to your best potential, the magic doesn't work right for you," Sirius explained the real difficulty behind Harry's magic.
Harry smiled faintly. Even Ron often managed to learn a spell faster than Harry did, and he'd often wondered why that was, when, as Sirius had said, his parents were very powerful people.
"Well, we know now, you just have to learn to control your power, and I'm warning you, Harry, do not attempt to use it, except in animagus transformations, because it could easily kill you!"
Harry nodded his head. "Ok Sirius, I promise," he said.
Sirius smiled. "Ok, I'm going to head for weapons classes, since that's on now, you don't need to come to that, since you're already better than I am, so you should get some rest, maybe do some studying!" With that he was gone.
Studying. Harry hadn't read any books for the sake of just reading them in a long time. He remembered that he often got out books from the Hogwarts library simply because they looked interesting, and read passages from various parts of them.
He unbuckled his sword from his side, because it was uncomfortable to have there while he was lying down, and frowned at it a moment, recalling the day he had got it.
Harry had finally progressed far enough in sword fighting to get a proper blade. This made him very happy, but when he looked at the blades that were on display, none of them seemed right.
He told this to the teacher, who frowned slightly. "Well, the sword chooses the wizard, and if none of those are right for you, then you'd best see the other selections," the man said, leading Harry into a smaller, darker room off the main fighting hall.
Harry followed him in, and looked at the swords around the walls. A few he lifted up and moved a little, but still none felt right. "None of these work either," he told the instructor.
The man sighed and led him into yet another room, but the same thing occurred. For a moment the instructor was undecided, and then he sighed to himself. "Those are all of the swords that I have here, I can only think that this means none are the right blade for you. Therefore, I'll have to ask you to take the one that feels the most right to you. That is not how I would like to do this, but I do not have a choice in the matter at the moment, since you need a proper blade.
This blade was alright, Harry could use it, and use it well, at that, but it still didn't feel right, just like using a wand didn't always feel right, although in this case it wasn't that Harry didn't have the right wand, only that he didn't need a wand.
Tossing the sword down to the floor, Harry opened his Hogwarts trunk and looked through it, a small gold book catching his eyes. What was that? He didn't remember it being there before.
Quickly, he took out the book and looked at the front cover, which was engraved into the gold binding of the book. Elementals.
Of course, it was the small book that he had picked up in Diagon Alley! Harry flipped through the pages, and stopped at one that looked interesting.
Humans are made up of the elements, and, as such, can control an element to some extent. It is most likely that they will be able to control that which is the element that they were born under, though oddities have occurred.
The control of this kind of magic is limited, and difficult to attain, because first you must have some sort of control of wandless magic, as Elemental magic is very close to this. The more control you have over wandless magic, the more you will have over Elemental.
Maybe he could learn to use Elemental magic, Harry thought to himself. If wandless magic was going to turn out to be the easiest way for him to perform spells, then he would surely have a good control of it, and therefore Elemental magic as well… according to this book.
He sighed and put the book down beside his sword. He'd read more a bit later, right now he thought he should probably get some sleep, as he was quite worn out, and he wasn't going to miss the classes on magic later that afternoon, since it was his weakest point.
The moment he closed his eyes, he was asleep.
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Count yourselves lucky, you lot! Not only is this the longest chapter so far in this story – 5765 words – I didn't even leave a cliffy! See you next chapter, and don't forget to review!
Thanks To:
Wquad, Songbreeze Swifteye, brion, Jordan, Clare, Polvyn, Katy999, PR LUCKEN, Mr. Happy Java Man, Them Girl, Maxx77, Melissa, Old Fawkes, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, Queen of the Jungle, CR, CR, syd, Bob33, Rachel A. Prongs, and By Remy. That's 33 reviews for this chapter!
~WolfMoon~