On the Path of a War Mage
Disclaimer
Anything you see and you recognise, namley Harry Potter and characters from his world, dont belong to me. Anything you see and don't recognise most likley comes from my rather odd imagination so is belongs to me (poor poor things).
Summary
Harry needs to get away from it all this summer but finds himself taken away from it all far sooner than he expected. H's quickly pulled into another world and forced to master new powers and skills just to survive... Post HBPChapter 6 - Meeting the Chosen
A soft light woke Harry growing until it reached the level of daylight. Not one to linger in bed having never been given the opportunity to in his early life he opened his eyes and rolled out. Spherical glowing walls greeted him and he nearly fell off his shelf in shock as the memories of the night before poured back in. He was still here, it hadn't been a dream. Or he was in a coma from the crash and still dreaming.
Whichever it was he decided to get on with it and face whatever the day threw at him, for once he'd had a strangely peaceful nights sleep and he felt remarkably good for it. In fact his dreams had been empty of the usual spectres and ghosts, instead filled with happy childish things he couldn't really remember. Maybe Voldemort couldn't reach him hear. Maybe things weren't so bad after all.
He looked for the clothes he's discarded on the floor the night before only to find they'd disappeared. Joy, did they expect him to run around in shorts, or worse, nothing. Merlin's words of the night before '…ancient cultures and disciplines...' rang ominously in his ears. He supposed he could always make a tasteful toga out of his thin blanket. He didn't really need it to sleep anyway, the room was the perfect temperature, Morgana was definitely efficient.
On that thought he remembered where he got his first clothes from and said tentatively "Morgana, could I have some clothes please". A bulge on the wall suddenly shimmered and he reached out to touch it thinking strongly 'open'. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly considering it had worked before, it did what he asked and he found a set of neat clothes folded in a pile and to his delight his wand lying on top.
Popping the new set of clothes on and tucking his wand into his belt he held his worn shorts not quite knowing what to do. Oddly enough he didn't think laundry worked normally around here. Experimentally he tried putting them into the wall bulge/cupboard and was surprised when it promptly closed up and disappeared in a swallowing motion. Uttering a nervous "Thank you" and sitting back on his bed shelf which had risen to a more comfortable sitting height he wondered what was going to happen next.
A few minutes later he heard a knock on the door, with a nervous 'come in' he stood up and moved towards the door. It opened revealing the Tren he was almost considering his friend, he was frankly desperate for anything familiar at that point. Moving towards the cheerful face he felt his stomach let loose an almighty growl. This caused Kyara's face to stretch into an even wider grin as the Tren's stomach echoed the grumble.
"You sound as I feel Harry, I swear I could eat a Grroma. What say I show you to our feast. Its best to get some food in you before I introduce you to your masters." The brawny Tren chuckled as he led the way, oblivious to Harry's flinch.
Harry hesitated momentarily before following. He'd learnt how to adapt, how to survive in his life, and though things were far from perfect he knew he'd be better off getting on with it rather than just freezing.
"What will I be learning and what are these masters like?" He asked stoically.
"You'll be learning all manner of things, though to be starting with Merlin's picked out a few classes he thinks you'll suit. You've got Training every morning before food, though that be nothing odd as everyone's having that. Then you be getting an introduction to the Divided Lands, yer lucky you be getting here this week, half a pass later and you'd have had to wait 3 for the new class to start. That be taught by Master Frin, he be of the Corrin race and be much fun, far better than my teacher, he was being an old goat." At this Kyara burst into laughter clutching the nearest wall for support at his own joke. Harry was completely lost at this and decided that it must be a Tren joke. The Tiger man finally managed to reduce his hysterics into mere twitches and pushed himself back upright. Looking back at the confused human set him off again and Harry got nothing from him for the rest of the noisy and tad annoying journey.
By the time they reached what Harry assumed was the right wall he was feeling decidedly grumpy and definitely hungry. Kyara's roaring laughter had calmed to insistent giggling which was slowly driving him mad. Thinking calming thoughts he was relived when the Tren shut up and grinned at him before placing his hand gently on the wall.
As before it opened smoothly and revealed a large hall only this was unlike any hall Harry had seen before. Organic columns rose smoothly out of the pearlescent floor with colourful lights swimming gently on the surface. Long humps in the ground formed tables at which a multitude of different and strange looking people sat cross legged. At one end of the room there was a huge globe of light pulsing gently. A snake of people wound there way past each putting a hand into the light and removing it with plate attached. Most removed a bowl of what appeared to be steaming porridge but others took platefuls of exotic looking food or fruits Harry had never seen before.
Kyara gently pushed Harry towards the queue and whispered quickly in his ear, "you picture what you'd like as strongly as possible and Morgana should do the rest."
Harry nodded but was slightly worried by the grin Kyara tried to hide. Bracing himself for the worst he moved slowly towards the light. When it was his turn he hesitantly put his hand in and imagined a full cooked breakfast, Hogwarts style. To his surprise and delight it appeared in his hand. He stood there for a moment feeling the reassuring weight in his hand slightly stumped. A loud Hrrmmph from a bear-like man jolted him out of his trance and a nudge from Kyara sent him on his way. Kyara quickly grabbed a bowl of the porridge stuff and led Harry across to the furthest table.
"I must be leaving you here Chosen Harry, I must be sitting with the accepted. These here be your fellow chosen, I hope you be enjoying you breakfast." And with that, and a cheeky grin, he left to set at the table across from them.
Harry scanned the table in front of him before sitting down towards on side. At one end sat what was obviously a female, a tall graceful female with large quite unnerving eyes. They were a vivid green, not unlike his own, surrounded by golden tendrils of braided hair. Her ears, petite but slightly elongated, peeked through the gilded curtain. Her face sat atop a long willowy neck adorned by an expensive looking medallion… and then Harry very quickly looked up blushing, for the beautiful girl, much like him and Kyara, and indeed most others in the room, was wearing the regulation waistcoat. This wouldn't have been a problem had she had something on underneath, but she was displaying her tattoo proudly along with a lot of skin he really wasn't used to seeing. Not that he minded but he suddenly didn't know what to do with his eyes.
He made the mistake of glancing up at her eyes which immediately met his, holding his gaze there. She looked at him with a half smile, interested, judging him. Harry blushed and looked away, determined to think of something else. There was a snort from someone else at the table and he glanced round to see another of what Harry assumed to be the same species but this time a male.
Mildly annoyed by the snobbish boy he shovelled a spoonful of beans into his mouth only to end up coughing and wondering what on earth he'd just eaten. Staring at the beans he prodded hem experimentally. They looked like beans, they tasted more like … well he wasn't really sure what but it wasn't beans. He heard barking laughter and hunching his shoulders firmly ignored what he knew was Kyara and experimentally speared a sausage. Taking a tentative bite he screwed up his face. It tasted bland with a squishy consistency very like porridge. There was a further snort from the boy at the end of the table and he immediately started to talk to the pretty girl in derisive tones. When the girl laughed back he couldn't help but blush and stare miserably down at his food, poking it angrily.
"Don't worry about it" a high pitched squeak commented. It came from a miniature sky-blue skinned boy in front of him. The boy had no apparent ears and a strange growth of fronds of skin decorating his head like large pale blue leaves. "All the food here tastes the same unfortunately, apparently Morgana can only do nutritious not tasty. She makes it look pretty though, and if you use your imagination you can almost taste the real food." At this the imp like boy paused his rapidly jabbered words to glance longingly at the strange looking fish stew in front of him.
"I can't wait till they let us outside so we can get some real food, even if I have to eat that burnt nonsense the Solan eat." He continued grinning broadly. "Who are you any way, my names Irik, you look even greener than me and I'm blue." With that the boy dissolved into fits of giggles far higher pitched than the grumbling of Kyara.
"My names Harry, I'm a human and I am new, I arrived yesterday," there he paused trying to work out how to be polite, he wasn't used to this there was far too much to look at. It was like starting Hogwarts again.
"Well of course you're a human, it's not like there's not a couple of Humans around here though you are rare. Karin over there says its because your weak but then he's an idiot and thinks anyone who's not Solan shouldn't really be here." He chirped nodding towards the snobbish boy Harry had noticed previously.
Harry paused wondering again how to phrase it but before he could open his mouth Irik burst in once more.
"Oh you want to know what I am, I guess you don't know much at the moment, I've been here a few weeks and picked up a lot of things though its nice to have someone newer than me to tell things to. I'm a Corrin, we come from a different place than the Solan, Lunette and the Tren you came in with. There's also the Nagelet that come from our earth, they're the only other species considered intelligent enough to come from home though we've never seen that much intelligence in them. They spend all their lives out of the sun working away, so very very dull" He added speaking quietly as he nodded towards a thick green skinned giant, with flared webbed ears, bulbous eyes and no apparent nose, sitting across the table from them.
"Is that a Lunette?" Harry asked in a whisper nodding towards the final member of there table, a blonde furred delicately shaped feminine figure with to long flaps of skin looking suspiciously like rabbit ears drawn back into a ponytail. The object of his interest turned to him and bared two very rabbity teeth in a rather scary smile.
"No," Irik managed to get out amid the laughs, "that's a Tren too, they come in all shapes and sizes depending on which cult they follow. Plus they have excellent hearing, especially from that cult, haven't you Lena." He finished addressing the woman far down the table. She nodded and grinned again, far more unnerving than when Kyara smiled despite her lack of pointed teeth.
Harry shook his head and turned to his food in despair, this was going to take a long time to get used to. He really didn't need this right now. Hunching his shoulders he flinched as a hand whacked him over the shoulders.
"Don't worry mate, its not so bad you get used to it fairly quickly. Plus you can introduce me to your Tren guide, he's cute, I really like the stripes…" At this Harry managed to spit out half the squishy sausage goo he was presently eating in shock. Irik was a girl…
A/N
Thought I'd leave it at that for now. Thanks for reviewing everyone, I really appreciate it, I didn't really think anyone would like this story enough to bother. In response to you all I'll try to update as much as possible but it'll be hard when I'm back at work as things will get fairly hectic. I'm off work at the moment with a random random infection called Labrynthitis, which is apparently an inner ear infection which makes me nice and dizzy and house bound. Will try to write as much as possible to take advantage of it though.
Thanks especially to David305 for the useful hints, I am looking for a beta as I know my spelling and grammar are far from perfect. Anything people feel like pointing out I will try to correct but if you want me to write more its probably easier for me to not go through things myself (as I miss loads anyway) right now. When I need a break I will though.
Hope you enjoy this chapter, anything you particularly want to see in or happen, I know it's early in the story but my ideas are still fairly loose so I may add in some interesting ideas.
Thanks again
Finger Fish