Harry awoke in a chair in the middle of a bright room. He felt slightly
nauseas and sickly; his head was throbbing worse than ever, and he reached
up gingerly and felt his head and received a shock; there was an ostrich
egg bump on his forehead. He reached for his wand and pointed it at his
head, muttering, "Reducio," and felt the bump shrink back into his head.
"Ah, feelin' better, are yah?" asked a deep, rich voice, though especially rich in some strange mix of Scottish and southern American accent, making him extremely hard for Harry to understand.
"Yeh'd be Mr. Potter, naow, wouldn't yah? That's some bonny bump on ya' fore'ead."
"Yes," answered Harry slowly, in case he was answering the wrong question. "I am,"
"Ach, Ah thought ye' were." came the reply, as an old man with a face split in half by a large smile that never disappeared even when he talked walked into view. "Sorry for not introducin' mahsel', Ah'm the Laird Kirkun, Derek tae you, laddie."
Derek certainly seems happy, thought Harry.
"Aye, that I am, that I am. Vera' happy," said Derek.
"Y-you're a Legilimens?" Harry asked, surprised.
"Why, er, Ah suppose yeh could call me that. Mah kind can read yer mind like you can read a book, do yeh ken? Ah'm not human, maybe yeh've reco'nized. Nope, Ah'm a not-exactly-true 'n blue Scottish Elf. Birn here, but me mam was from the states. Pre'y rare, yeh may say, but Ah've got some family."
"Er, Lord Kirkun — Derek, sorry, how did I — er — get here?"
He didn't know much else to say, as Kirkun's English was hard to follow, especially at the rate he spoke.
"Ah brought yeh mahsel', laddie. Though Ah thought that yeh knew already,"
"How should I have known?" asked Harry, bewildered, "I was knocked out by something." He paused for a moment. "Wait a minute, you knocked me out! Why did you do that?"
"Ach, well, 'twas an accident, y'see. Ah wiz on'y goin' tae bring yeh here, but Ah saw Voldemort and Ah tried killin' him. Spell hit you, though. Then Ah decided tae— "
"You sent a spell to kill Voldemort and it hit me and I didn't die?" asked Harry, shocked. Why didn't he die? What defense did he have that Voldemort did not?
"Well, yeah, tha's how it turned out, didn' it, laddie? Maybe you've got somethin' special. . . .
"Well anyways, you're here righ' now, and I am goin' tae train yeh up to fight darkness. If I do say so mahsel'" he chuckled, "there ain't no one better to do that than me or mah kind. Ah can teach yeh for the start o' your term here, but mah cousin, Slasgov, from Germany might have to continue your lessons. Oh, his English, unlike mine, is very accented."
Harry raised his eyebrows, then lowered them and nodded in mock agreement to his last line. Derek obviously did not realize just how horrible his English must be.
Derek showed Harry his living quarters, which were as royal-looking as any self-respecting king would like to keep, and Harry fell asleep on his bed as soon as he hit the pillow. He slept for fifteen hours and dreamt about learning from Scottish and German monks how to pray in church, and then tried praying to Voldemort, who had suddenly appeared at his doorstep. . . .
He woke up to yells of, "Up, laddie! UP!" reminding Harry forcefully of Aunt Petunia. Harry clambered sleepily out of his warm bed, and found himself staring up at his dresser, where seated was—
"Hedwig!" Harry gasped. "How did you get here, girl?"
She eyed him, and Derek came into his room, smiling and saying, "Your owl here flew over just this afternoon, while you were sleeping. Seemed to know you were here, beats me how she did, though.
"And Yeh'd bette' get up sharp, now; we're startin' yer lessons in half an hour! Breakfast fast, and meet me at the entrance of the castle in twenty five minutes."
He rang a bell that had magically appeared near Harry's bed, and a waiter appeared with some food and drink.
"He'll show yeh where the entrance is, okay Bill?" he asked the waiter.
"Yup," drawled Bill in a lazy voice.
American for sure, Harry thought, a grin playing on his face. Probably also from the south.
Harry ate a few pieces of French toast, drank some orange juice, and followed Bill out of his room.
Harry wished he had about ten more eyes so he could see everything the castle had to offer. Passages and doors led off to just about everywhere, there was not ten feet of space without a passageway; windows leading out of rooms glowed with an unearthly light, and some of them had flashing lights and bangs, sort of like a few sticks of dynamite put together and blown would have roughly the same effect; and there were large walls with tapestries depicting battles and feasts and inscribed in languages that Harry did not understand.
After what seemed like walking through a huge maze with thousands of branches, Harry and Bill arrived at what could only be the entrance. Entrance Hall was more appropriate, thought Harry, who was completely blown away by the entrance.
Large golden statues of moving hippogriffs and lions flanked a grand, sweeping marble staircase, and growled as Harry and Bill passed them. The ceiling was at least sixty or seventy feet tall, and covered in intricate designs and patterns. It was made of dark wood and gold, but mostly gold.
The walls were composed of something like marble, and had shapes that constantly twisted and swirled in different shapes, reminding Harry of the Ministry of Magic's lobby.
Lord Kirkun was standing at the bottom of the steps with a staff and a cloak in his hands. He was wearing a dark blue tunic without sleeves; Harry could see his bare arms bulging with muscles, he was also sporting tight pants that made Harry think of a circus outfit, and Kirkun had moccasin- like shoes that most certainly made no noise when he would walk.
"Come 'ere, Harry," said Derek, "let's take a walk while Ah tell yeh about what we're goin' tae be doin' t'gether."
He beckoned with his free hand, and Harry walked down the beautiful staircase to him.
They strolled out through huge oaken doors that wouldn't have looked out of place in Windsor Castle and descended some more marble steps (flanked by golden phoenixes) out onto the grounds.
The grounds turned out to be the most beautiful garden Harry had ever seen. There was a small, hard-packed earth path winding merrily through dozens of varieties of trees and plants, and there were occasional statues of people whom Harry did not recognize, and the path ended in a courtyard.
Derek led him through an arched doorway into it, and Harry was surprised to see an arena, something akin to a boxing ring in the center of the courtyard. The ring was about thirty feet long and about half as wide, and covered on all four sides by tautened ropes.
Derek snapped his fingers and an entrance appeared in the center of the ropes, and he led Harry through it. Harry heard the ropes snap back shut as they passed through it.
"Let me start mah introduction. Every man has their purpose in the world. Mebbe Dumbledore's purpose is to fight off Dark wizards and mebbe it ain't. We know what yer's is though, laddie. It's to rid this braw world of Voldemort and his idjits.
"Mah job, though, is tae teach people how tae achieve their jobs. Ah've been alive for hundreds o' years, quite a bit more than I care to remember, anyway. What Ah am goin' tae do now is just teach you mah method. We kin make any changes yeh wish. We also got alot o' time; yer world moves very different from ours. Supposing yeh spend a couple o' years here, you'll only miss mebbe about a week in your world.
"Now," he clapped his hands together, "yer lessons. What Ah am goin' tae do is teach you the basics first, and that is usin' your mind.
"The mind is the most complex part of the body, and most powerful, too. It controls your body, but with the training Ah am goin' t'give yah, you'll learn to focus and take control of most things with your mind. Muggles have a gig like this where they put the vic'im into a kinda trance, call it hypnotizing, they do.
"This is much more. More like the Imperius curse than anything, but it ain't dark magic, it's light. Usin' your mind also makes yer muscles much stronger, because you can bend them to your will, so to speak. It's really all focus; like if you take a piece o' glass and focus it, it'll make whatever the light falls on smoke. Many Muggles do that too. Now watch,"
Kirkun suddenly jumped high in the air and flipped, and Harry watched him, almost in slow motion, raise his arm and point a finger into space. A jet of hot light burst from it, and lit up the courtyard like a flash of lightning on a dark night. It was so strong that Harry felt the heat it gave off. His immediate thought was that he would not want to have Derek as his enemy.
Derek landed lightly on his feet and gave a short bow.
"Y'see the mind controllin' my movement and helping me in wandless magic. Wandless magic is the most powerful magic there is when learned properly. Tha's because the mind has more power than the magical elements used in wand-making. The only problem is that most humans dae not have enough natural power in their body tae enable them tae harness and use tha' magic.
"For instance, most wizards harness the mind with the wand by sayin' a spell. Let's say — er— Wingardium Leviosa. The wizard uses his wand and the object floats. But Ah can do it plainly, watch."
He waved his hands in the swish and flick method Flitwick had taught Harry many years ago, and pulled a face of concentration, and suddenly some rocks from the ground lifted off it, as if suspended by invisible strings. Derek waved his hands and they dropped back to earth with a small thud, and he looked at Harry, a trace of a grin just visible on his lips.
"When yeh can do that, then you're on the righ' track, Mr. Potter."
And so they practiced. It was the hardest thing Harry had ever tried doing. He had never stretched his mind to its fullest before, and it was excruciatingly painful, but Harry actually enjoyed this pain in a sense— it meant his mind was growing, and Harry liked to grow.
Parts of Derek's lessons were also physical, strengthening Harry's muscles and bones so much, that every night Harry would go to sleep with burning and pulled muscles, and every morning wake in the shape he had been practicing last, and would need one of Derek's massaging spells to enable him to change positions at all.
But Harry still enjoyed it. Though physically pushed to the limit, Harry was having fun for the first time in over a year, excluding the D.A.., and when he strained and pushed his mind and body to the limit, there was no room left in his brain to think about Voldemort— what he was doing, where he was currently, or the brief torture he had given to Harry.
He also had gotten much stronger. No longer did he look like the same broken, tortured teenager that had entered this castle; he was taller, at least five eleven or six feet high, and he had gained a lot of weight.
Harry's body now had well defined muscles everywhere from his back to his lower legs— the outcome of several months' hard work and strain, and his eyes seemed to glow occasionally with sparkling, inhuman light.
After several months of this work, Harry had gotten the hang of it, and was able to produce magic in many areas that he would not have dreamt of accomplishing before this year, areas that no student in Hogwarts (except maybe Voldemort and Dumbledore themselves) would hope to achieve.
Derek had started to teach him also about dimensions and traveling between different ones.
"Most dimensions," began Derek, "are simply wards into which you can travel into. They are purely magical, and most are so simple that they can take hold of somebody, even forcibly, with words.
"The only hard part is speaking the words, and understanding the power under them. That can take years, even decades, for most Elves, though some have natural skill at it, and can do it in a matter of months. Any mind at all canna' do it, Mr. Potter, but with the right training, Ah think. . . Ah know," he amended, "that yeh'll do perfectly fine.
"It happens to be very like Apparatin'. And Ah sense that yeh have sumthin' special about yeh in this field. O' course yeh don't believe it," said Derek amusedly, looking into Harry's eyes, "but Ah perceive it tae be true. It's really rare, even in the Elfish world, but 'tis plain true."
He Disapparated suddenly, and appeared with a pop on Harry's other side.
"See, 'tis just like that. Ah won't explain to yeh the exact theory of the skill; yeh'll be learnin' it at Hogwarts this year, but once you get the concept you'll be able to— ahem— have lots o' — er— fun. . . ."
Harry and Derek did a run-through of everything they had learned together, in the form of an obstacle course.
On the whole, Harry thought he did pretty well; he performed perfectly on the pressure parts of it, which were designed to test his knowledge of magic in an on-your-feet play-it-by-ear way, which Harry was good at even before he had come here.
He did less well on the mind challenge, which was basically Occlumency and Legilimency in more advanced forms, and managed to block out Derek from his minds for a few moments, but Derek pushed through his weak defenses almost without trying, it seemed. Derek wasn't too pushed about that because, as he told Harry afterward, humans were much less apt at Legilimency than Elves, and Harry's current Occlumency was at least strong enough to block Voldemort for some time.
He also did okay at the strength tests, which were probably the hardest after Occlumency; Derek had put Harry on a very inconvenient bread-and- water diet for the past three days, and Harry was not feeling up to his peak performance just then, but he still managed to pass okay.
The strangest test though was the last one.
"Come here, sonnie, Ah've taught yeh about usin' yer mind to think ahead of time for obvious and mebbe a few not so obvious things, have Ah not? Siddown and let's play a game of chess."
Harry took a seat at the table Derek suddenly had Conjured and so they began.
Harry remembered playing wizard chess with Ron, directing pieces like soldiers, but nothing (except perhaps McGonagall's giant chess set) would get him used to this chess.
". . . Queen to G three,"
Harry's queen moved forward one square onto the one occupied by Derek's knight.
BANG!
A blast of light and heat exploded from the queen's brilliant white sword as the blade bit deep into the live horse's chest, creating a miniature explosion.
"Ach," said Derek, "but Ah had to let that happen— er— Rook to C six. Check,"
Harry blocked it with his bishop, and looked hard at the board, trying to let his mind relax the way Derek had taught him, and focus entirely on the chess game he was playing.
"Aha, laddie! Ah knew yeh would do that; 'tis unwise tae block with the rook because it leaves your king's flank open. So . . . Queen to E six, checkmate!" He dropped his voice and looked at Harry and said, "Ah'm sorry to beat yeh, Harry, yeh played a braw fine game, best Ah've played in years, Ah must say."
He looked sharply into Harry's eyes and added, "Nay, laddie, Ah do not say the tae everyone who Ah play."
* * *
"Ah, feelin' better, are yah?" asked a deep, rich voice, though especially rich in some strange mix of Scottish and southern American accent, making him extremely hard for Harry to understand.
"Yeh'd be Mr. Potter, naow, wouldn't yah? That's some bonny bump on ya' fore'ead."
"Yes," answered Harry slowly, in case he was answering the wrong question. "I am,"
"Ach, Ah thought ye' were." came the reply, as an old man with a face split in half by a large smile that never disappeared even when he talked walked into view. "Sorry for not introducin' mahsel', Ah'm the Laird Kirkun, Derek tae you, laddie."
Derek certainly seems happy, thought Harry.
"Aye, that I am, that I am. Vera' happy," said Derek.
"Y-you're a Legilimens?" Harry asked, surprised.
"Why, er, Ah suppose yeh could call me that. Mah kind can read yer mind like you can read a book, do yeh ken? Ah'm not human, maybe yeh've reco'nized. Nope, Ah'm a not-exactly-true 'n blue Scottish Elf. Birn here, but me mam was from the states. Pre'y rare, yeh may say, but Ah've got some family."
"Er, Lord Kirkun — Derek, sorry, how did I — er — get here?"
He didn't know much else to say, as Kirkun's English was hard to follow, especially at the rate he spoke.
"Ah brought yeh mahsel', laddie. Though Ah thought that yeh knew already,"
"How should I have known?" asked Harry, bewildered, "I was knocked out by something." He paused for a moment. "Wait a minute, you knocked me out! Why did you do that?"
"Ach, well, 'twas an accident, y'see. Ah wiz on'y goin' tae bring yeh here, but Ah saw Voldemort and Ah tried killin' him. Spell hit you, though. Then Ah decided tae— "
"You sent a spell to kill Voldemort and it hit me and I didn't die?" asked Harry, shocked. Why didn't he die? What defense did he have that Voldemort did not?
"Well, yeah, tha's how it turned out, didn' it, laddie? Maybe you've got somethin' special. . . .
"Well anyways, you're here righ' now, and I am goin' tae train yeh up to fight darkness. If I do say so mahsel'" he chuckled, "there ain't no one better to do that than me or mah kind. Ah can teach yeh for the start o' your term here, but mah cousin, Slasgov, from Germany might have to continue your lessons. Oh, his English, unlike mine, is very accented."
Harry raised his eyebrows, then lowered them and nodded in mock agreement to his last line. Derek obviously did not realize just how horrible his English must be.
Derek showed Harry his living quarters, which were as royal-looking as any self-respecting king would like to keep, and Harry fell asleep on his bed as soon as he hit the pillow. He slept for fifteen hours and dreamt about learning from Scottish and German monks how to pray in church, and then tried praying to Voldemort, who had suddenly appeared at his doorstep. . . .
He woke up to yells of, "Up, laddie! UP!" reminding Harry forcefully of Aunt Petunia. Harry clambered sleepily out of his warm bed, and found himself staring up at his dresser, where seated was—
"Hedwig!" Harry gasped. "How did you get here, girl?"
She eyed him, and Derek came into his room, smiling and saying, "Your owl here flew over just this afternoon, while you were sleeping. Seemed to know you were here, beats me how she did, though.
"And Yeh'd bette' get up sharp, now; we're startin' yer lessons in half an hour! Breakfast fast, and meet me at the entrance of the castle in twenty five minutes."
He rang a bell that had magically appeared near Harry's bed, and a waiter appeared with some food and drink.
"He'll show yeh where the entrance is, okay Bill?" he asked the waiter.
"Yup," drawled Bill in a lazy voice.
American for sure, Harry thought, a grin playing on his face. Probably also from the south.
Harry ate a few pieces of French toast, drank some orange juice, and followed Bill out of his room.
Harry wished he had about ten more eyes so he could see everything the castle had to offer. Passages and doors led off to just about everywhere, there was not ten feet of space without a passageway; windows leading out of rooms glowed with an unearthly light, and some of them had flashing lights and bangs, sort of like a few sticks of dynamite put together and blown would have roughly the same effect; and there were large walls with tapestries depicting battles and feasts and inscribed in languages that Harry did not understand.
After what seemed like walking through a huge maze with thousands of branches, Harry and Bill arrived at what could only be the entrance. Entrance Hall was more appropriate, thought Harry, who was completely blown away by the entrance.
Large golden statues of moving hippogriffs and lions flanked a grand, sweeping marble staircase, and growled as Harry and Bill passed them. The ceiling was at least sixty or seventy feet tall, and covered in intricate designs and patterns. It was made of dark wood and gold, but mostly gold.
The walls were composed of something like marble, and had shapes that constantly twisted and swirled in different shapes, reminding Harry of the Ministry of Magic's lobby.
Lord Kirkun was standing at the bottom of the steps with a staff and a cloak in his hands. He was wearing a dark blue tunic without sleeves; Harry could see his bare arms bulging with muscles, he was also sporting tight pants that made Harry think of a circus outfit, and Kirkun had moccasin- like shoes that most certainly made no noise when he would walk.
"Come 'ere, Harry," said Derek, "let's take a walk while Ah tell yeh about what we're goin' tae be doin' t'gether."
He beckoned with his free hand, and Harry walked down the beautiful staircase to him.
They strolled out through huge oaken doors that wouldn't have looked out of place in Windsor Castle and descended some more marble steps (flanked by golden phoenixes) out onto the grounds.
The grounds turned out to be the most beautiful garden Harry had ever seen. There was a small, hard-packed earth path winding merrily through dozens of varieties of trees and plants, and there were occasional statues of people whom Harry did not recognize, and the path ended in a courtyard.
Derek led him through an arched doorway into it, and Harry was surprised to see an arena, something akin to a boxing ring in the center of the courtyard. The ring was about thirty feet long and about half as wide, and covered on all four sides by tautened ropes.
Derek snapped his fingers and an entrance appeared in the center of the ropes, and he led Harry through it. Harry heard the ropes snap back shut as they passed through it.
"Let me start mah introduction. Every man has their purpose in the world. Mebbe Dumbledore's purpose is to fight off Dark wizards and mebbe it ain't. We know what yer's is though, laddie. It's to rid this braw world of Voldemort and his idjits.
"Mah job, though, is tae teach people how tae achieve their jobs. Ah've been alive for hundreds o' years, quite a bit more than I care to remember, anyway. What Ah am goin' tae do now is just teach you mah method. We kin make any changes yeh wish. We also got alot o' time; yer world moves very different from ours. Supposing yeh spend a couple o' years here, you'll only miss mebbe about a week in your world.
"Now," he clapped his hands together, "yer lessons. What Ah am goin' tae do is teach you the basics first, and that is usin' your mind.
"The mind is the most complex part of the body, and most powerful, too. It controls your body, but with the training Ah am goin' t'give yah, you'll learn to focus and take control of most things with your mind. Muggles have a gig like this where they put the vic'im into a kinda trance, call it hypnotizing, they do.
"This is much more. More like the Imperius curse than anything, but it ain't dark magic, it's light. Usin' your mind also makes yer muscles much stronger, because you can bend them to your will, so to speak. It's really all focus; like if you take a piece o' glass and focus it, it'll make whatever the light falls on smoke. Many Muggles do that too. Now watch,"
Kirkun suddenly jumped high in the air and flipped, and Harry watched him, almost in slow motion, raise his arm and point a finger into space. A jet of hot light burst from it, and lit up the courtyard like a flash of lightning on a dark night. It was so strong that Harry felt the heat it gave off. His immediate thought was that he would not want to have Derek as his enemy.
Derek landed lightly on his feet and gave a short bow.
"Y'see the mind controllin' my movement and helping me in wandless magic. Wandless magic is the most powerful magic there is when learned properly. Tha's because the mind has more power than the magical elements used in wand-making. The only problem is that most humans dae not have enough natural power in their body tae enable them tae harness and use tha' magic.
"For instance, most wizards harness the mind with the wand by sayin' a spell. Let's say — er— Wingardium Leviosa. The wizard uses his wand and the object floats. But Ah can do it plainly, watch."
He waved his hands in the swish and flick method Flitwick had taught Harry many years ago, and pulled a face of concentration, and suddenly some rocks from the ground lifted off it, as if suspended by invisible strings. Derek waved his hands and they dropped back to earth with a small thud, and he looked at Harry, a trace of a grin just visible on his lips.
"When yeh can do that, then you're on the righ' track, Mr. Potter."
And so they practiced. It was the hardest thing Harry had ever tried doing. He had never stretched his mind to its fullest before, and it was excruciatingly painful, but Harry actually enjoyed this pain in a sense— it meant his mind was growing, and Harry liked to grow.
Parts of Derek's lessons were also physical, strengthening Harry's muscles and bones so much, that every night Harry would go to sleep with burning and pulled muscles, and every morning wake in the shape he had been practicing last, and would need one of Derek's massaging spells to enable him to change positions at all.
But Harry still enjoyed it. Though physically pushed to the limit, Harry was having fun for the first time in over a year, excluding the D.A.., and when he strained and pushed his mind and body to the limit, there was no room left in his brain to think about Voldemort— what he was doing, where he was currently, or the brief torture he had given to Harry.
He also had gotten much stronger. No longer did he look like the same broken, tortured teenager that had entered this castle; he was taller, at least five eleven or six feet high, and he had gained a lot of weight.
Harry's body now had well defined muscles everywhere from his back to his lower legs— the outcome of several months' hard work and strain, and his eyes seemed to glow occasionally with sparkling, inhuman light.
After several months of this work, Harry had gotten the hang of it, and was able to produce magic in many areas that he would not have dreamt of accomplishing before this year, areas that no student in Hogwarts (except maybe Voldemort and Dumbledore themselves) would hope to achieve.
Derek had started to teach him also about dimensions and traveling between different ones.
"Most dimensions," began Derek, "are simply wards into which you can travel into. They are purely magical, and most are so simple that they can take hold of somebody, even forcibly, with words.
"The only hard part is speaking the words, and understanding the power under them. That can take years, even decades, for most Elves, though some have natural skill at it, and can do it in a matter of months. Any mind at all canna' do it, Mr. Potter, but with the right training, Ah think. . . Ah know," he amended, "that yeh'll do perfectly fine.
"It happens to be very like Apparatin'. And Ah sense that yeh have sumthin' special about yeh in this field. O' course yeh don't believe it," said Derek amusedly, looking into Harry's eyes, "but Ah perceive it tae be true. It's really rare, even in the Elfish world, but 'tis plain true."
He Disapparated suddenly, and appeared with a pop on Harry's other side.
"See, 'tis just like that. Ah won't explain to yeh the exact theory of the skill; yeh'll be learnin' it at Hogwarts this year, but once you get the concept you'll be able to— ahem— have lots o' — er— fun. . . ."
Harry and Derek did a run-through of everything they had learned together, in the form of an obstacle course.
On the whole, Harry thought he did pretty well; he performed perfectly on the pressure parts of it, which were designed to test his knowledge of magic in an on-your-feet play-it-by-ear way, which Harry was good at even before he had come here.
He did less well on the mind challenge, which was basically Occlumency and Legilimency in more advanced forms, and managed to block out Derek from his minds for a few moments, but Derek pushed through his weak defenses almost without trying, it seemed. Derek wasn't too pushed about that because, as he told Harry afterward, humans were much less apt at Legilimency than Elves, and Harry's current Occlumency was at least strong enough to block Voldemort for some time.
He also did okay at the strength tests, which were probably the hardest after Occlumency; Derek had put Harry on a very inconvenient bread-and- water diet for the past three days, and Harry was not feeling up to his peak performance just then, but he still managed to pass okay.
The strangest test though was the last one.
"Come here, sonnie, Ah've taught yeh about usin' yer mind to think ahead of time for obvious and mebbe a few not so obvious things, have Ah not? Siddown and let's play a game of chess."
Harry took a seat at the table Derek suddenly had Conjured and so they began.
Harry remembered playing wizard chess with Ron, directing pieces like soldiers, but nothing (except perhaps McGonagall's giant chess set) would get him used to this chess.
". . . Queen to G three,"
Harry's queen moved forward one square onto the one occupied by Derek's knight.
BANG!
A blast of light and heat exploded from the queen's brilliant white sword as the blade bit deep into the live horse's chest, creating a miniature explosion.
"Ach," said Derek, "but Ah had to let that happen— er— Rook to C six. Check,"
Harry blocked it with his bishop, and looked hard at the board, trying to let his mind relax the way Derek had taught him, and focus entirely on the chess game he was playing.
"Aha, laddie! Ah knew yeh would do that; 'tis unwise tae block with the rook because it leaves your king's flank open. So . . . Queen to E six, checkmate!" He dropped his voice and looked at Harry and said, "Ah'm sorry to beat yeh, Harry, yeh played a braw fine game, best Ah've played in years, Ah must say."
He looked sharply into Harry's eyes and added, "Nay, laddie, Ah do not say the tae everyone who Ah play."
* * *