Harry Potter and the Druid Pathway

Author's Note: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and am enjoying writing this story. Thank you to all who review and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Also, the next update will be within a week as I promised, but probably not as soon as previous chapters. Note: some swearing in this chapter.

P.S. If you want a copy of the "trio's" timetables, I have made them in an MS word document. If you want me to send it you, then you could email me or leave an email address in a review or something? Any other ideas let me know.


Chapter Five: School Day Inspirations

Harry's enhanced senses could detect Dumbledore's presence from behind the office door as clearly as if they were stood side by side. Dumbledore's whole aura was seeping with positive emotion and Harry was made to wonder just how many times this had fooled his once weak mind. Steeling himself and raising his mental fog so as to disguise his Occlumency progress from the old man's legilimency, Harry knocked politely on the office door.

"Come in," sounded the calm and rational voice of the headmaster.

Harry pushed open the door to the office and stepped in as casually as he could manage. Taking a seat across from Dumbledore, Harry began.

"So, professor McGonagall said you wanted to see me?"

"Yes Harry. In the letter I wrote you towards the beginning of your summer, I mentioned that we would talk once you returned to Hogwarts."

"Mr. Potter," he corrected. "What do you want to tell me then?" he asked, his eyes not once meeting Dumbledore's.

"Well Mr. Potter," Dumbledore continued, sighing wearily, "You sent me back the Occlumency text provided for you. Does this mean you have learnt all you can from it or that you didn't learn at all?"

"I learnt enough. I can handle myself," he finished, sounding somewhat insulted.

A light flicker of a breeze-like sensation caressed Harry's mind.

"Enough to know when someone is doing something they shouldn't be. Do you know how much trouble you would be in if people were to find out about your abuse of power as headmaster? Invading someone else's mind is an offence punishable enough to remove you from all of your high-ranking positions in our world." Harry was really guessing that last part, though he knew that legilimency, although an almost unknown art in contemporary wizarding society was punishable from his reading.

"That is not the issue," he stressed in an authoritative voice. "I need to know if your mind is guarded sufficiently."

"And I told you that I had learnt enough. You don't trust me yet you expect blind loyalty from me?"

"Harry… Mr. Potter, I am looking out for your best interests."

"Well then, you had better get on with what you brought me here to say," he finished lazily, infuriating Dumbledore.

"I want you to continue Occlumency lessons with professor Snape, at least twice a week to ward your mind against the Dark Lord."

"Hell no!" he responded indignantly. "The next time I willingly spend time with Snape outside class is when I have graduated here, and come to give him a piece of what he has been handing me for the past five years!"

"But what of your mind Harry, it must be protected!" stressed Dumbledore.

"I can take care of it! You have already seen that I know when my mind is being probed and I can defend myself well enough. You cannot, and will not force me to take useless lessons with a man incapable of teaching."

"Well then, if you insist upon not taking lessons in Occlumency, then I will have to test your opinion of being well prepared."

With that statement, Dumbledore did something that Harry both never expected and would never forgive; Dumbledore attacked Harry's mind. The brute force used in the attack was unlike the gentle entices Harry had previously been subject to and the power behind Dumbledore's attack was horrifying.

Harry, unwilling to give up, was able to stay within his inner mind-wall as Dumbledore cut swiftly around his unfinished outer-wall and mind-fog. Dumbledore began to assault his inner wall which he could not climb, yet Harry's bricks remained unchanged. As Dumbledore's force increased, Harry placed his hands on his wall and began to attune himself to his 'hum' of magic. He began, not sure how, to charge his wall with his magic and as he did so, Dumbledore began to fail in his attempts. Each time he assaulted the wall, his mind-presence would jump back as if scolded and eventually, Dumbledore gave up.

As the office swam back into view, Harry found himself kneeling on the floor, winded and tired. He looked up at the calm form of the headmaster with anger, contempt and even a sliver of hatred in his ocean-green eyes.

"You… bastard!" he breathed, raggedly.

"I am sorry Harry, I shouldn't have done that. I was wrong… I should have trusted you." Harry however could detect no convincing shred of remorse in his voice.

"If you ever do that again, be prepared for the consequences!" Harry warned dangerously, his face etched in seriousness.

"Yes Harry, please sit. I still have some matters to discuss with you. I want you to attend a lesson per week of magical training with selective Order members. I can incorporate this within your timetable and I think that with Voldemort rising to power, it would be beneficial for you to be trained in duelling and so forth?"

After some careful thought, Harry answered, "I can deal with that, but this is not a compulsory lesson. If I don't want to be there, I won't be."

Dumbledore didn't reply, though he gave a slight nod of the head which didn't reassure Harry that Dumbledore would comply.

"Good, in light of your decision to undertake this training, I think that with your normal class work and training, Quidditch will be nothing more than a distraction. I want you to quit the Gryffindor House team."

Silence greeted Dumbledore's announcement as Harry stared incredulously at the old man.

"Are you being serious?"

"Quite Mr. Potter; we must think of the greater good, many people are unknowingly relying on you in this war."

"Quite frankly sir, you can shove the greater good! How many times have the small-minded citizens of the wizarding world judged me! Too many; and how many of them ran today on the platform from ten people! I am happy playing Quidditch and if I have to give that up, then I really don't think I'll be trying too hard when the time comes for me to square up to Voldemort."

"Would it really come down to that Harry?" he asked in a disappointed tone of voice.

"Yes," replied Harry resolutely.

After that, it was cleared up rather quickly that Harry would attend training sessions with Order members every week and would continue to play Quidditch, though Occlumency lessons with Snape were indefinitely off the agenda. With that done and the rift between him and Dumbledore considerably widened, Harry returned to his dorm and went to sleep after a little time spent checking for damages on his mental walls.

(cut)

The Great Hall was in mass confusion as students ran about collecting timetables for the new term, trying to eat breakfast and socialising with their classmates. Harry was sat at the Gryffindor breakfast table with Ron and Hermione though he wasn't talking much. All three of the 'trio' were viewing their new timetables. Hermione and Ron shared the worst with the most classes, surprisingly followed by Harry with the most 'frees'. Harry's mind though was not really focused on school at the moment as he was thinking on when to visit his vault to organise his possessions; soon he surmised.

Today, Harry was scheduled for charms and then transfiguration followed by a free period. After lunch, the lesson he was least enthusiastic about, Ancient Studies, was set followed by another free. He decided that he would take his free before dinner to find a quiet spot and read up on the legilimency he had been neglecting before Hogwarts. Having one last swig of orange juice and feeding Hedwig some bacon rind (she had flew in that morning), he set off for the Charms classroom where all NEWT students were placed together as apposed to House placements.

Charms class was an eventful and fun lesson for Harry. Professor Flitwick used the lesson to allow students to accustom themselves to casting magic after the long summer break by reviewing their charm-work from previous years (Harry kept smugly quiet at this). Ron and Hermione spent most of the lesson sending dancing teapots into battle against one another; Hermione being the assailed. Harry however found himself engaged in a fascinating conversation with Professor Flitwick as he made his rounds about the class.

"Mr. Potter, your charm-work seems to have improved I'm glad to see."

"Yeah, I practised wand movement over the summer, thought it would help."

"Yes, yes," he squealed excitedly. "Have you tried any advanced charm-work yet? Your mother was exceptional you know," he added fondly.

"No I haven't, though I think I have a good grasp on the subject material. What type of advance charms do you mean, out of interest?" he asked, his curiosity peaked.

"Well, let me see…" he muttered as he summoned an average sized text from one of his many bookshelves. Opening the book to a page covering in standard type script and moving diagrams, Flitwick continued. "Well Mr. Potter, how about this charm here? The Dragon's Breath Charm is highly advanced, but with your record in charms, like your corporeal patronus, I am confident this is within your capabilities."

Harry read the about the charm and discussed it passionately with Flitwick, something he had never thought would happen.

"So, the spell allows for you to control the focus and path of the flame, but not the intensity?"

"Well yes, and no. The spell requires power as the heat of the Dragon Breath flame is incredibly hot; though the conscious application of more power could in effect, amplify the heat, though I think control of the charm would also become harder to maintain."

"Ok, I think I understand now. So what are the practicalities of the charm?"

"Ah, I'm glad you asked. It is used in the fashioning of metal and the cutting of magical hides. It is also a battle charm, used to terrible effect in the Old Wars of our world."

"Right, but why are you showing me this? How would I be able to cast this in Hogwarts; it would be too dangerous right?" he asked, slightly put out.

"Normally, yes, but there are ways around this: if you step into my office, I think we could practise for a short while?" the tiny professor's bubbling excitement near unsustainable.

So, amidst the confusion of a charms lesson, Harry and Professor Flitwick slipped unnoticed into the professor's office. Harry had never been in there before, but found it very comfortable. Exceptional charm-work was evident in the room's construction as it was impossibly large in comparison to the corridor they were on and contained many books and gadgets and the like. It was painted in soothing shades of blue and to the far end of the room was a large space occupied only by a large red circle painted on the floor.

"What's that Professor?" he asked, dazedly.

"That Mr. Potter is a Charm-circle. It is used to practise powerful magic in and contains the magic so as not to harm anything outside the circle. I think we should be safe using this as it is empowered by both Professor Dumbledore and I. Well then… step to, let's not waste time."

With that prompt, Harry stepped into the Charm-circle and felt the protective magic wash over him like he had walked under a gentle waterfall. Standing in the middle of the circle, Harry recalled to mind the instructions and theory of the charm and steeled himself and his mind to cast it.

Steadying himself and taking one deep breath, Harry pronounced the incantation, "Aestus Spiritus!" (I-e-stus Spirit-Ooo-sss) Nothing but a short burst of red fire burst from his wand.

"No matter, Harry, try again. This time, envision the result of the spell."
Once again, Harry steeled himself before giving the spell everything he had, "AESTUS SPIRITUS!" he roared.

Both Harry and Flitwick were temporarily blinded as a huge white-hot flame erupted from Harry's wand with a powerful ferocity. As the flame of incomprehensible heat encountered the containment barrier, Harry's flame was forced to spread across it, encompassing Harry in a circle of white flame until he relinquished his hold on the spell.

Harry dropped to one knee, breathing hard as he recovered from it. Flitwick hurried into the circle and grabbed Harry's arm, asking him if he was ok.

"That… was… amazing!" he breathed, trying to convey the feeling of such a powerful spell, his magic pulsing through his veins.

"I know Harry, I know," reassured the Professor, amazed by his young student.

(cut)

As Harry left the charms classroom, he was still on his 'magical high' from the repeated casting of the Dragon's Breath Charm. After his initial success, Flitwick had Harry practising the spell until, with no small amount of concentration, Harry could control the flame into a single, thin beam of white hot flame (how the spell is used to fashion metal accurately and cut hides). Now though, Harry had transfiguration with his head of house.

The lesson progressed rather well in fact as McGonagall started with a speech on the importance of NEWTS before moving on to a small class project. McGonagall set the class to use their five years of transfiguration education to construct something of their choosing. Everyone was provided with a box of toothpicks and a small mouse and had until the end of the lesson to finish and present their finished product.

Hermione transfigured the mouse into a squirrel and made an imitation of a large oak tree from a mass of the toothpicks; spending the remainder of the lesson shaping it to her liking. Ron made a somewhat shaky and distorted version of a chess set out of the toothpicks; though the board was made from the mouse: not too good an idea.

Harry, calling upon the transfiguration he revised over the summer, managed to create an ornate wooden box encrusted with many 'jewels' that looked very royal indeed. He transfigured the toothpicks into the basic shape of the box and then used conjuring (the only one in the class to think of this) to produce an inner velvet lining and glass shaped as jewels. Since the subjects of charms and transfiguration crossed into one another quite frequently, Harry was cheeky and charmed the glass jewels to contain shifting and swivelling clouds of colour before embedding them into the box. The box was coloured in a light wood with a gold design raised from the wood running around the box.

In the end, both Harry and Hermione received one of McGonagall's rare smiles at their work; McGonagall impressed with both projects and also complimented Harry on thinking outside of the provided materials. That was the end of transfiguration and so whilst Hermione and Ron hurried off to attend to prefect duties which they would not specify to Harry; Harry trailed off towards the wooded area by the lake in the glorious weather for his free period.

(cut)

Harry's free lesson was spent usefully as he read up on legilimency, casting a glamour charm on the book cover to look like he was reading a Quidditch book. He knew that his eye-shield would not last the term and he needed to develop control over his natural progression in legilimency. His occlumency was going well as he was making slow progress with his outer wall, and his new study of the counter mind art was absorbing more of his free time. Harry found that his legilimency could be controlled through him either not meeting anyone's eyes or by the more reliable method of strict mental discipline. He would have to make sure that his mind remained within itself and did not wonder into the unprepared minds of others. However, Harry also wanted to learn how to disable the minds of others and dissect their minds if he so chose and although his book gave great guides, it was something he would need to learn through practise.

Leaving for lunch in the Great Hall, Harry met with Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table. Whilst eating, Hermione began a conversation.

"So Harry, I wanted to talk with you about not writing to you this summer. Both Ron and I," here she looked to Ron for a confirming nod, "thought you could do with a little space and we saw you at the memorial after all so it's not like we..?" she finished in a question-like tone.

When she talked about him needing space, Harry's mind twitched faintly, as a feeling of a sickly taint washed over him. She was lying, if only slightly.

"Yeah, I would have appreciated a letter though. What exactly have you been doing all summer, you didn't really tell me on the train after all?" Harry's voice held a mocking hint of innocence.

"That's another thing that Ron and I wanted to talk with you about. We are… dating now you see. We didn't tell you sooner because we didn't want to upset you."

"Yeah mate, but everything will stay the same you know," piped in Ron.

"I'm happy for you, well, I have to go to Ancient Studies, so I'll see you tonight or something," he finished uncomfortably.

With that he rushed off, feeling a little disgusted at the thought of the two going out and also because as of late, his relationship with the two seemed inexplicably strained. He dismissed it though, as he had to go to his next lesson; one he was approaching with a somewhat defeatist attitude.

(cut)

Entering the small classroom situated in one of the quieter sections of the castle, Harry took a seat by a window that gave a fantastic view of the surrounding countryside. The only other students present were a boy he guessed was in Hufflepuff, and a Ravenclaw girl he had never really spoken to. Before the lesson time was near to begin, a girl with black hair strolled in and took a seat unknowingly next to Harry (the room was a small one, seating maybe eight tops, and was in one of the towers). Harry looked over.

"Blaise?" he asked unsure.

"Harry?" she asked at the same time, and then giggled a little; something that seemed to shock her as much as him. "So, why have you chosen this class, it's like the least taken subject in the school?"

"Not sure really," he replied, relaxing in his chair a little now. "So who's the teacher, I don't remember there ever being one about the castle for this course?"

"Because the course is so unpopular with the kids, they have a private teacher that comes in for the lessons alone."

"Ah, well, sounds like fun eh..." before he could finish, the teacher walked into the classroom.

The teacher was a man of middle years, quite tall with a slender frame. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and short hairstyle of auburn hair. He was wearing a slim pair of glasses and a muggle suit with open robes, as well as a muggle suitcase.

"Good day class, what a wonderful turnout this year," he laughed a little as did the class. "Well, no bother with attendance, I can see everyone is here."

To Harry, he seemed an amiable man with a good humour and he found himself taking a liking to the man.

"Well class, my name is Michael Andar; I am a classicist in the Ancient Studies of the wizarding world and am here to teach you. Well, shall with start with an introduction to the course? Yes, well then. In this class you will learn all about the Ancient wizarding societies of our world, where they lived, how they lived, their customs, beliefs and laws. You will learn all about your past as magicians and your heritage; there is so much colourful history dating back to times when Hogwarts was but a distant future."

Harry gave it to the guy, he could certainly capture his attention and he was actually starting to think that this class wouldn't be too bad after all.

"Magic is something that is your heritage and you should be proud to be witches and wizards! You are privileged to be able to do what you do and those who waste away their lives taking for granted what they possess… well, pity to them eh?"

Harry found himself a little ashamed as he had not really thought about how lucky he was to be a wizard. How he complained about school work when really he was learning how to do things that are innately amazing seemed so childish of him now.

Well, as Professor Andar continued with his introduction, Harry vowed to no longer take for granted his magic and that learning all he could about magic was something he should do as principle. Forget training to simply fight Voldemort, he wanted to be a great wizard! It was his heritage after all… his mum and dad would agree.

That day Professor Michael Andar broke through to one of his students and set him on a path that would affect not only the teenager, but the wizarding world as well!

"Now class, out first module is to study the ancient society of the Egyptian wizards who founded many of the magical theories still in practise today…"


Author's Note: I hope you liked this chapter. Ancient Studies will be a massive factor in this story as it affects Harry greatly throughout his sixth year. PLEASE REVIEW! as I really do appreciate it! Thanks to all my reviewers again and next chapter will be up in a week, maybe next Sunday?