Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction based on the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling. All rights remain with J. K. Rowling and her publishers. This is posted for pleasure and without any claims of originality or expectation of material gain
The Janis Order
Chapter 7
The Gryffindor first formers noisily poured into the common room with even more then their usual enthusiasm. Professor Quirrell had unexpectedly dismissed the class after only a few minutes. He started and stopped his lecture several times before finally giving it up as a lost cause. Most of the students thought that they could make better use of the extra time anyway. Harry and Hermione, unimpressed with the quality of Professor Quirrell's lessons, for once found themselves agreeing with the majority of their schoolmates.
"I wonder what the matter with Professor Quirrell was," Hermione mused as she paused at the base of the girls' wing stairs. "He didn't particularly look ill although he never really looks all that well."
"I'm not sure," Harry said. "It was as if he wasn't completely there in essence. When I tried to focus I couldn't get a bead on him but that may some sorta defense method that I don't know about."
"Speaking of ill, you sound a little down, Harry," Hermione said grasping his forearm. "Is anything wrong?"
"It's just the change of season," he replied. "Back home the snows are melting. We'd finally be able to get out of the house. Usually, Uncle Sirius, J. R. and I would take to the hills on our horses. Just ride around goofing off really. Sometimes we'd run across a bear hardly awake from hibernation stumbling from his cave."
"I've heard enough," Hermione said firmly. "No library today. We're going for a walk. Go get your coat on and a hat, too. I won't have you catching cold on me."
Twenty minutes later, the bundled up pair were walking hand in hand across the still brown and muddy grounds of Hogwarts. Thick blue gray clouds billowed hundreds of meters upwards into the sky. The lake was covered with tiny whitecaps as a stout wind lashed at its surface. The only spot of colour was the evergreen bushes along the north wall of the castle.
"A far cry from the Mediterranean, eh?" Harry said ironically.
"Days like this I wonder if there are any magic academies on Malta or at least in Provence," Hermione replied. "But I bet you think that this is perfect weather."
"Now swoops the wind from every coign and crest
Like filaments of silver, ripped and spun.
The snow reels off the drift-ridge in the sun;
And smoky clouds are born across the west,
Clouds that would snow if they had time to rest." Harry quoted.
Hermione laughed richly. A sound that Harry thought was perhaps the most pleasant sound in the world.
"Harry, you continue to surprise me," Hermione said bumping him with her shoulder. "Now you add poetic to the lexicon of words to describe Harry Potter."
"As I keep telling you," Harry responded in good humour as he bumped her back. "The winters are very long back home and we have a huge library. I have read an awful lot. There's not much else to do."
"Every time I listen to you, I believe it more and more," Hermione said.
"But to answer you original question," Harry replied. "No, this isn't perfect weather. I'll take a warm, sunny day every time."
"Like it was where ever we were?" Hermione asked in a sober tone.
"Yes," Harry answered frowning at her sudden mood change. "What's wrong?"
"There's so much about that entire episode that I am just unable to square away," Hermione said.
"I'll answer any question you have the best I can," Harry said. "What's the first question?"
Hermione walked in silence for a few moments. Harry could tell that she was organizing her thoughts by the way she bit her lower lip. He waited for her.
"How did you know where to find your parents?" she finally asked.
"How did you know where to find me? Harry asked in return.
"I followed the cord, of course," she said. "But that cord connected your body with your spirit, if that's the correct term."
"It's as good as any word for it," Harry said mildly.
"Accepted then," Hermione replied. "But you could have hardly followed such a cord from your parent's bodies to their spirits. I'm sorry to put it so frankly but your cord was connected to a living being."
"True but I could see the bonds that tied me to my Mom and Dad," Harry said. "Love binds us in a manner that physical death and the corruption of the flesh can not destroy."
"I remember one of my science lessons was on magnetism. The earth puts out all of these magnetic fields but we can't see them or feel them but scientists think that maybe some animals do notice them and navigate using them. In an astral state we can see and feel the connecting bonds in the same sorta way."
Hermione slowly nodded. "Okay, I can comprehend that."
"Anything else bothering you?"
"Why were you able to project yourself and move about so easily yet Dumbledore, who is a much older and far more experienced wizard, had such a difficult time?" Hermione asked.
"Dumbledore is a great wizard and I have learned a lot from him," Harry answered. "The problem he has is that he looks at projection as barriers to be overcome. It is a European idea. The native peoples of North American view the different planes as coexisting peacefully and so move a little more freely from plane to plane."
"I had the good luck of having a Cree shaman notice me staring at a hawk one day when I was seven. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was trying to become the hawk. I guess he thought it was a good answer because he sat down beside me and began to teach me about the bonds that connect all living things and how a man could connect through those bonds and see through the eyes of other creatures. I got to see him three times over the nest two years and every time he would show me a little more. I guess that because of all of that, astral projection didn't seem all that difficult to me."
"Did you become the hawk?" Hermione asked with a smile.
"No but I connected with her and saw what she saw," Harry answered. "It was exhilarating."
"I'll take your word for it," Hermione said.
Harry stopped walking. Slowly he scanned the mountain that rose on the far side of the lake. He found what he was searching for sitting on the remains of a lightning blasted oak tree.
He sat down on the driest piece of ground he could find and patted his knees.
"Sit down on my lap," he said. "Lay your legs along mine."
"Mother warned me about men like you," Hermione joked.
"Your mother never met anyone like me," Harry replied.
"Good point," Hermione as she carefully sat down. Harry wrapped his arms around her midsection.
"I want you to look at that eagle," Harry said. "Empty your mind of all thought but that eagle. Just relax and look at the eagle."
The minutes ticked away. Errant thoughts had to be continuously fought back. Physical discomforts (and some physical comforts) had to be dismissed from her consciousness but Hermione had a disciplined nature. She worked through her memory and tried to follow the paths along which Professor McGonagall had guided her. Her heart and breathing slowed. The eagle gained greater and greater clarity in her mind.
Suddenly her vision shifted. Hogwarts and its grounds came into incredible focus. She was seeing what the eagle was seeing and with the eagle's incredible vision. She even saw herself and Harry.
"I wondered how far I could see from the astronomy tower," Hermione thought.
The eagle took to wing as soon as the thought was complete. He flew directly to the astronomy tower and perched there.
"He went where I wanted him to go," Hermione thought excitedly.
Movement caught the eagle's/Hermione's eye. Professor Quirrell was hurrying across the lawns. He sped past the charred remains of Hagrid the groundskeeper's cabin, which had burnt to the ground two nights previously under rather mysterious circumstances, and into the Forbidden Forest. The eagle took flight again. He soared over the wood.
Hermione was able to catch glimpses every so often of her lecturer but as he got deeper into the forest the intertwining branches, even bereft of leaves as they were, proved to be effective camouflage. Hermione released the bird and returned her mind to her own skull alone.
"That was incredible," she exclaimed as she bounced up. "Not only could I see through its eyes; I could have it go where I wanted it to go."
Harry stood and stretched.
"That's great, Hermione," Harry said. "To be honest I wasn't sure that you could do it what with you being a city girl and all but I guess I was wrong,"
"What in the world does living in a town have to do with this?" Hermione demanded.
"I wasn't sure if a closeness to nature was needed or not," Harry replied.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him but upon reflection it was perhaps a logical consideration.
"You are forgiven but never doubt me or my abilities again," she said with mock haughtiness.
"Never again," Harry promised in feigned submissiveness.
"Furthermore, I grew up in Oxford which by English standards isn't all that big of a town being somewhat less the 140,000 people," Hermione added.
"Practically a hick," Harry said. "So I gathered that you enjoyed being an eagle if only second hand."
"It was fantastic," Hermione gushed. "But the oddest thing; I saw Professor Quirrell run into the Forbidden Forest like he was being chased by a jilted bride and her four brothers."
Harry rubbed his scar. "You know, he's getting weirder by the day."
"Shall we continue our walk?" Hermione asked dismissing her professor's unusual behavior from her thoughts.
"No, I think we have hounded the blues away but now my pants are wet," Harry said wiping the dirt from his backside. "Let's go in and find some hot tea and dry clothes."
They linked hands and trekked back to their dormitory.
Author's Note: The lines of poetry that Harry recited are from a poem titled March by Duncan Campbell (D.C.) Smith (1862-1947) who was part of a group of Canadian literary lions known as The Confederation Poets. Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Archibald Lampman (my personal favorite of the four) were the other members of that group.
March originally published in the volume
Labour and the Angel
By D. C. Smith
Boston: Copeland and Day
1898
