In Every Darkness
Chapter Fourteen: Finding the Centre
20.7.1996(Morning)
Harry went outside into the early morning sunshine, greeting Tatsu happily as the other man appeared for the morning jog.
"How are you?" Tatsu asked him. "You look more cheerful than normal this morning."
"Oh, I got some letters from friends that I hadn't heard from yet this holidays," Harry replied, smiling slightly.
"Ah," they jogged in silence until they reached Tatsu's house again.
Inside they moved straight to the kitchen, using the estapol stuff that they had been using the day before.
Once this was done, they went back to the entrance hall and set about putting up pictures, mirrors, plants, and putting reed mats over every bit of floor there was to be seen.
Harry enjoyed walking on the mats, it felt odd, but nice odd.
Once they'd done this, they moved into the living room so that Harry could do some more meditation.
"Ok Harry, relax," Tatsu murmured, his voice soothing. Harry let himself calm down, feeling his mind freed by Tatsu's words. His breathing deepened and let himself fall deep within his mind.
His thoughts slowed down, and perhaps even stopped, he wasn't sure. Harry Potter seemed to be a completely different person. Here, in this place, was peace. This was where he should have always been.
He opened his eyes. The world seemed bright, sharper, than ever before. He could hear the breeze ruffling the trees and testing the cracks in the house walls.
He could taste the pollution on the air, and also the rich, beautiful scent that was Tatsu's.
The stench of the estapol from the kitchen and the entrance way was overpowering, and he felt light headed, as if he might faint. Which turned out to be exactly what he did.
"Harry! Wake up!" Tatsu told him, shaking his gently.
Harry groaned and opened his eyes. "What happened?" he asked blearily.
"You found your centre place a lot faster than I thought you would," Tatsu replied. "You were not ready for it, but that was my fault, not yours."
"Oh. What's my 'centre place'?" Harry asked curiously.
"You should not have had to ask that. You wouldn't have if I'd known you'd find it so quickly," Tatsu remarked with a sigh. "You should have known what it was long before you found it.
"Well, your centre place is the place where you mind truly belongs. It's hard to describe it in this language – I'm more used to Japanese. But anyway, it is the place where you mind was before you were born, away from thoughts, away from whatever pains might exist in your life.
"Once you learn properly, you will be able to think and move from your centre place. It in this state of mind that you will learn to fight," Tatsu explained.
Harry nodded, not really getting it.
"Go home now, you should probably sleep. Finding the centre place will tire you out the first few times. Do not attempt to find your way there without me – many students have been killed trying to find the centre place on their own," Tatsu told him, shooing him out of the door.
Harry glanced over his shoulder, startled by what Tatsu had said, but the man was already closing the door, heading back towards his kitchen.
Harry sighed and walked back to Privet Drive. By the time he reached the front door, he could feel the weariness that Tatsu had mentioned.
He only just made it to his bedroom, and once inside, he fell onto the bed and drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When Harry woke it was night time, there was no sound from the house, which meant that Dursley's were probably in bed.
Hunger drove him down to the kitchen, since he hadn't eaten since breakfast, and that had been far to long ago. Making a large plate of food, Harry headed back upstairs, switching on his light and looking over his very clean room.
Sitting down at his desk he gulped some of his lunch/dinner down, then took out his wand and got out all of the shrunken things that were still under the bed from before he knew that Tatsu knew about magic.
A muttered spell and they were all their normal size again. Harry hunted through his things until he found his transfiguration books. Flipping open the first one, Harry began some revision of transfiguration, starting in first year and working his way up.
He smiled at some of the spells from first and second years, remembering how difficult he'd found them once. Now they seemed to be almost second nature.
He smiled over the memories that he had of Hogwarts. Back then it had seemed so innocent … Even in his second year, with the Chamber of Secrets open, he had still been naïve. Third year, that had begun to fade, and by the end of his forth year, his innocence had been lost forever.
Was it such a bad thing? He didn't know. How might things have been different, if his forth year had never happened? Voldemort would not be back, Sirius would probably still be alive, Cedric would still be alive, Umbridge would have never come to the school … there were too many things that would have been different to even really think about.
Shaking his head to clear it of such thoughts, Harry focused his mind on learning the transfiguration spells.
In the dead of the night, he practiced, changing clothes into different clothes, quills into the Muggle pen, paper into pineapples.
It was fun, but very difficult. With a sigh, Harry put down his wand at around three thirty in the morning and collapsed on the bed, tired again.
He let himself fall asleep, hoping that this time, Sirius would come again.
"Hey Harry, how ya doing?" His godfathers voice came from behind him.
Harry spun around and grinned at his godfather, hugging the man tightly. Sirius laughed and hugged back. "I'm great!" Harry replied. "Have you talked to Remus often?"
"I have been, these last few nights, the full moon is coming back," Sirius replied.
"Oh, I'd almost forgotten about that," Harry felt bad about this, but there was nothing he could do anyway.
"Doesn't matter, you've been busy with Tatsu," Sirius replied, shrugging.
"I suppose so. He's teaching me how to find my centre," Harry said.
"Is he now? That's pretty dangerous stuff, but I guess Tatsu wouldn't let you learn anything else until you could," Sirius remarked.
Harry nodded in weary agreement. "That's what he said. He said that he'd teach me to fight from my centre, or not at all."
"So kid, what do you want to do tonight?"
"How about some more Occlumency?" Harry asked.
"Sounds good, you need to be pretty good at this before you go back to school," Sirius replied, grinning. "So get up a mind shield and tell me when you're ready."
Harry concentrated, and was delighted to find that it was much faster getting a shield in place now. "Ready," he said.
Not long after Sirius was prodding lightly at the shield, searching for a place where he could get through. Harry focused on making the shield as strong as possible, doing his best to ignore Sirius's questing.
"Well done kid!" Sirius's voice jerked Harry's attention away from his shield. For a moment it held, then faded away into his mind again. "You're really getting this stuff now!"
"Thanks Sirius. Now I just need to learn how to keep it up all the time," Harry sighed. "Wait, wont this stop you from talking to me in dreams?"
"It might, for a little while. I can teach you how to 'key' it into accepting me as a part of your mind though. This has to be done with your minds consent, so Voldemort can't do anything to get into your dreams, that I can assure you," Sirius responded. "Wanna practice some duelling?"
Harry laughed and raised his wand, getting ready for a fun night with his godfather.
When Harry woke in the morning it was with a smile. He had disarmed Sirius! Of course, after that, Sirius had insisted on being allowed to use the more the powerful spells that he'd been avoiding. After that Harry had lost. Badly.
Oh well, soon he would be able to match his godfather at seventh year Defense Against the Dark Arts spells … Then they would be moving on to 'Death Eater level'.
It would most assuredly take Harry a while to learn this level of fighting! Shaking his head slightly, Harry pulled himself out of his bed and dressed in black t-shirt and full-length, baggy blue jeans.
Thrusting his wand into a pocket, Harry strode from his room downstairs for breakfast, wondering what he and Tatsu would be doing today.
Estapoling the Living room, one of the bedrooms and the bathroom, it turned out. Tatsu advised Harry to try and meditate while he was working, but not to actually go into the centre.
Harry worked alternately on this and his mind shield, trying to keep the mind shield up without concentrating on it too much. This was proving to be somewhat difficult.
By the time they'd finished the rooms, Harry had a distinct headache, but he wasn't sure if this was from his mental activities or from the stench of the estapol.
(AN: Believe me, it gives you a head rush if you smell it for too long … I've had the misfortune of having an estapol obsessed father …)
"Ok Harry. It's time for meditation. We are going to try and find your centre again today, but."
"But what?" Harry asked, curious as to how they were going to do things differently.
"You are going to place a Warding Charm on this room – I think you've learnt yow to do those, haven't you?"
Harry did know – they'd learnt them last year. He'd revised them a few days ago. "And yes, I know that you can do spells outside of school," Tatsu added. "That silencing spell on your room was cast with your own wand."
Harry blinked. Tatsu had said this before Harry had even considered that idea. He raised his wand and muttered the words to the spell.
Tatsu, Harry noticed, closed his eyes for a moment as the spell was cast, but he thought nothing of it. Perhaps magic hurt the eyes of Muggles? Who knew.
"Now, settle in a comfortable position," Tatsu ordered quietly. There seemed no change in him, so Harry forgot about that tiny detail.
He sat with his back straight against the wall. "Breath in, and pull your thoughts in," Tatsu murmured. Harry could tell that the man had already found his centre, just by the tone of his voice.
Harry did as commanded, breathing in and in and in until, "breath out." Now he was letting his breath fall away, back into the world. "Cast your mind around any loose thoughts, and breath in. Pull in those new thoughts …"
Harry's eyes drifted closed as he followed Tatsu's command. Briefly, he wondered if he would keep breathing in or out until he ran out of air if Tatsu stopped talking to him, but the thought was gone as Harry breathed in again.
Slowly, his mind slipped further and further away from the physical world, until suddenly, Harry was there. He knew it was his centre place. He felt calm now, completely at peace. There were no thoughts here, no anger, no pain.
Harry opened his eyes. Once more the world was over-bright, everything was enhanced. But, where the day before it had been enhanced to the point of pain, today it was much less so.
"Well done. Now try to stay there," Tatsu murmured peacefully, and Harry looked at the man. He could almost see something … but then it was gone.
"What was that?" Harry asked, for a moment not realising that he'd spoken aloud.
"In this state it is often possible to see things about people. Sometimes the future, some times the past, sometimes the present … Sometimes something like an aura … It differs from person to person, day to day …"
"Oh."
Harry continued breathing, remaining in his centre. He'd never felt so at home, not even at Hogwarts. He did not want to leave, ever.
But leave he must, Harry knew. Something would soon happen to jerk him from this place.
Suddenly his mind rebelled. It wanted to be free, to think, to be able to act fast. It did not want to be contained in this place.
He blinked, at he was away from the centre. Tatsu looked at him and smiled. "Well done. You are learning this fast. Perhaps you haven't quite lost touch with your centre, as many people do."
"Lost touch?" Harry repeated, confused.
"The centre is the state of mind that you are in when you are in your mothers womb. I said that last time, I think. But as you are born and grow in this physical world, your link to that place fades through misuse.
"I am not sure exactly why this is, but I know that if the mother dies, the child often loses all ability to return to the Centre, but if they do retain the link, it is stronger, and fades less quickly than normal people. It would seem that you are one of those who retains the link."
"Oh. I think I get it," Harry replied, trying to process this information.
"Go back to your home, Harry. You'll need to rest again," Tatsu told Harry, showing him to the door.
Harry went straight to his bedroom and, once more, collapsed on the bed.
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Next chapter, OWL, the chapter you've all been waiting for! OWL results!
REVIEW PLEASE!!! You know you wanna find out what happens with the OWLS!!
~WolfMoon~