Harry Potter and the Mind Mage

By James Milamber

A/N: So much for the 'tomorrow' mentioned in the last chapter…this one took a little longer than I though it would. Oh well, enjoy!

'About time you lot showed up,' James grinned at the group of Gryffindors as they filed into his classroom at seven o'clock sharp that evening. His keen eyes immediately picked out an addition to the group, and he raised his eyebrow at his daughter.

'I don't seem to recall requesting your presence, Cass,' he said mildly.

'I know you didn't,' she said calmly. 'But you're up to something, and I want in.'

'I should have known,' James chuckled, ruefully shaking his head. 'You're far more like your mother than you'll ever know.' It would take a trained listener to hear the slight catch in his voice as he spoke, and only the most aware observer would notice the very small tightening around his eyes.

'Right,' he said crisply. 'I'm sure you're all curious as to why you're here. As you may have gathered, the detention is only a cover story, as I know very well that it was only Harry, Ginny and my darling children involved in that prank – and no punishment will be given, as I also know why you did it.'

'That was you!' Ron gaped at Harry.

'It was mostly Ginny's work, actually,' Harry shrugged. 'She's the one who's good at Transfiguration, not me.'

'And what are we, dragon liver?' Alex demanded with a quirky smile.

'You mean Norbert liver,' Cassie added with a grin.

'Yes, well,' James interrupted, 'when we've all stopped making bad jokes, we'll get to work, hmm?' Everyone silenced immediately. 'Much better. Now, I suppose at least one of you has made the connection…'

'Everyone you summoned is entered into the duelling tournament,' Hermione answered immediately.

'…and I should have known it would be you,' James laughed. A small, pleased smile crossed Hermione's lips, and Ron grinned at her. 'So, as Hermione pointed out correctly, with the exception of Miss Tag-Along…' At this Cassie stuck her tongue out at her father, '…you're all entered into the tournament. Now, does that suggest anything to any of you?'

'Isn't that against the rules?' Hermione frowned.

'Isn't what against the rules?' Ron asked in confusion.

'Now really, Hermione,' James said in an injured tone, 'do you really think that I of all people would go about breaking rules?'

'Yes,' Alex and Cassie said simultaneously.

'Exactly,' James grinned at them. 'Now, do you want to be trained to beat the snot out of Malfoy or not?'

'You're going to train us for the tournament?' Harry asked incredulously.

'Of course I am,' James said airily. 'Besides, the whole point of this thing is to help you train for battle with Death Eaters, right? Well, I've had enough first hand experience to show you how it's done properly, and if it helps you win the tournament, well…'

'Bending the rules, rather than breaking them,' Alex smirked.

'Now you're getting it,' James smirked back. 'Convenient timing, that's all it is – pure coincidence. Of course, if Dumbledore wasn't such an overprotective old codger, I would have started this months ago – but he's off at an Order meeting tonight at Headquarters.'

'Brilliant!' Ron said enthusiastically. 'Where do we start?'

'Simple,' James raised his voice. 'Tonks!'

'Will you stop doing that!' Tonks glared at the Mind Mage in frustration as she let the Invisibility cloak slip down to her shoulders.

'Probably not,' James said blandly. 'I need you to work with this lot while I have a word with Harry, fair enough? You do want them prepared for any eventualities, don't you?' he added, seeing Tonks hesitate.

'Fine,' she sighed. 'But if Dumbledore finds out, I'm blaming all this on you, buster.'

James shrugged. 'Whatever makes you happy, Nymph. Now go play with the children while I speak to Harry.'

'Children?' Alex said in an outraged tone as Tonks herded the group, minus Harry, to the other side of the room. 'Oh, you'll pay for that one, Dad!'

'Right, Harry,' James said in a quiet voice, ignoring his son's outburst. 'I'm sure you haven't forgotten the snake living in your head, yes?'

Harry thought that was stating the obvious just a bit – although his Basilisk Familiar had quietened down over the last few months, there were still occasional random incidents. The last had been only a few days ago, when Harry had inadvertently Summoned Ginny from across the Common Room to land squarely in his lap. Harry could still feel his cheeks burning just from the thought.

'Now, Dumbledore thinks you've had enough time to adjust to it's presence, and it's about time you started to learn to harness the power it possesses,' James went on, his intensely blue eyes watching Harry carefully.

'How do I do that?' Harry asked. As if on queue he felt that odd stirring within his mind that signified his Familiar was "awake".

'It's not something you'll ever have direct control over – the human mind cannot handle that much power, which is why we have Familiars,' James explained.

'What about your own power?' Harry had to ask. 'I mean, you're more powerful than me, so why can you handle so much?'

'An interesting question,' James granted. 'It works a little differently in my case, though. In the simplest terms, it's not just my mind that handles my power, it's my whole being. But that's not what we're talking about; we're talking about you and your Familiar. Now, to put it simply, all you'll really be able to do is give commands, and leave it up to the Basilisk to follow them. Even though it's a part of you, it's still a separate entity, and it will use the power it has been granted in the best way it sees fit – which should mean however will benefit you most.'

'Should?'

'Well, it's not the most exact thing in the world,' James said wryly. 'I knew a wizard years ago who had a Familiar that decided the best way to keep him alive was to encase him in solid stone in the middle of a duel.'

'He died?' Harry gasped. His skin crawled at the very notion.

'I never said that,' James corrected. 'I said he was encased in stone. Luckily I got there before his supply of air ran out.'

'Oh,' Harry said weakly.

'Don't worry, that sort of thing doesn't happen very often,' James dismissed his worries. 'My point is you won't be able to predict exactly how a Familiar will react in any given situation. That, incidentally, is why I stopped you from trying the wall-running exercise earlier today. I didn't particularly want your Familiar to decide the best way for you to run along the wall would be to pull it down. I've seen some rather bizarre reactions to very normal situations before, so I thought it a good idea not to start experimenting with unusual circumstances.'

Harry agreed wholeheartedly – he had no wish to be buried under a pile of rubble.

'Besides, you probably won't need that sort of trick, anyway,' James added. 'A Familiar is allowed to bend all sorts of rules – like being able to teleport inside the wards of Hogwarts. You'll find it will come up with all sorts of interesting ways to protect you from danger.'

'Hang on,' Harry objected, a thought occurring to him. 'What about the battle?' He hadn't thought about it before, but when he had been fighting the Death Eaters that had penetrated the Wards, there had been no sign of his Familiar.

'My fault,' James admitted. 'I thought it might make things a little unpredictable in the heat of battle to have you running around without training, so I temporarily cut your link to your Familiar.'

'You can do that?' Harry asked, startled. 'What's to stop Voldemort from doing the same thing?'

'The spell can only be performed by someone whom you trust without question – thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way,' James flashed Harry a grin.

'Well, you're about the only adult that hasn't lied to me yet,' Harry muttered under his breath.

'Look, Harry, I know you've heard this a million times before, and I know it doesn't make things any better, but Dumbledore had his reasons for keeping things from you,' James said seriously. 'Just remember that hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but foresight isn't nearly so reliable. Heck, look at Trelawney!'

Harry had to chuckle at the thought of the batty old Divination Professor, whose favourite pastime was predicting Harry's death in a new and gruesome way every Divination lesson. Harry was immensely grateful that he no longer had to put up with her.

'Right, I think we'd best join your friends before young Nymph gets carried away,' James said with a chuckle, breaking Harry from his thoughts. With a quick nod Harry followed the Defence professor across the room, his mind preoccupied with what he had just learned.

'Alex, Cass, your father is a slave driver,' Isabelle groaned as the seven Gryffindors staggered into the Common Room hours later and collapsed into seats before the fire. 'Merlin, I don't think I've ever felt this tired.'

'Try living with him,' Cassie said with a wry smile. Of the seven, only she and Alex seemed to be relatively unaffected by the rigorous training James had just put them through. 'You get used to it pretty quickly, trust me.'

Harry tuned the conversation out – he was absolutely exhausted. He laid his head down on Ginny's shoulder, his mind whirling with what he had learned over the course of the lesson.

While Tonks had attempted to teach the others how to cast spells without their verbal component, James had tried to teach him how to 'teleport', as he called it. It was harder than it looked – every time he had done it in the past had been on instinct, and to actually sit down and attempt to explain to his Familiar exactly what he wanted was incredibly difficult. His problem had culminated when he had been distracted at a critical moment, and instead of teleporting himself five feet to the left, as he was supposed to, he ended up almost on top of Ginny – right as she was practicing casting her trademark Bat-Bogey Hex without words. Thankfully, the lack of a verbal component lessened the effects of the spell, and James managed to reverse the effects, all the while laughing fit to burst. Ginny herself had been wavering between mortification and amusement. One thing was certain, however – Harry was NEVER going to annoy Ginny again. Ever.

Of course Hermione had mastered the art in a very short time, culminating in her hitting Ron from across the room with a Tickling Charm. The rest of them, however, had not fared as well. Harry smiled as he remembered Isabelle's reaction.

'This is silly,' she had announced after nearly an hour of trying to cast even the most simple spell. 'If I want to blow up the bloody bottle, I'll do this. Reducto!'

The butterbeer bottle they had been practicing on had quite literally exploded, leaving a very smug looking Isabelle – until, of course, Tonks caught her completely unawares with a Body-Bind curse. She had toppled over with a loud thump, her startled oath cut off as the wind was knocked out of her.

'That, my dear Isabelle, is why this is useful,' James had said urbanely as he removed the curse and pulled her to her feet. 'If you don't know a curse is coming, you can't block it. Understood?'

Harry glanced over at the ex-Slytherin – she had her head resting on Alex's chest, and her eyes were closed. It suddenly struck him how much she'd changed since she had been re-sorted into Gryffindor. The hard edge had gone from her face, and the slight tightness around her eyes that had been perpetually present had disappeared. Harry glanced up and caught Alex's eyes. Without changing expression, Alex glanced down at the girl half asleep in his arms, and then back up to Harry. He nodded slightly, and mouthed the words, 'Thank you.'

Harry grinned at him in response, returning the nod as best he could with his head on Ginny's shoulder. The redhead caught the motion, and her eyes opened. She glanced across the room at Alex, who was now stroking Isabelle's hair softly, and then looked down at Harry.

'What?' she whispered under the sounds of Cassie and Hermione discussing the relative merits of non-verbal spells, while Ron tried his best not to look bored.

'Nothing,' Harry replied quietly. 'Just…something. Isabelle.'

'Harry,' Ginny laughed softly, 'you're incredible, you know that?'

He smiled up at her. 'Hardly.'

'How many other people can honestly say they've managed to convert a Slytherin into a Gryffindor?' she asked pointedly.

'I didn't do that,' Harry objected quietly. 'She did all the work, not me.'

'But you're the one that showed her the way, and helped her when no-one else would,' Ginny returned. 'If it wasn't for you including her in that photo, she'd still be a Slytherin outcast.'

'Yeah…I suppose,' Harry sighed.

'It's nothing to be ashamed of, silly,' Ginny shook her head. 'I can guarantee you, she's happier here than she ever was in Slytherin.'

Harry didn't reply. He sat in silence, his head still resting on Ginny's shoulder, watching Alex gently lift Isabelle into his arms. He muttered something as he got close to the girl's staircase, and disappeared up them without a word.

'Why does he get to know that password and we don't?' Ron complained as he watched the pair's retreat.

'Because, Ron, my brother has a knack for getting into places he's not supposed to be anyway,' Cassie said. 'Trust me, if he didn't have the password, he'd find some other way up there.'

'Still not fair,' Ron grumbled.

'Oh, Ron,' Hermione scolded. 'What on earth would you want to go up there for anyway?'

He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she immediately turned beet-red. 'Do you really have to ask, love?'

'You're impossible,' she said, smiling in spite of herself.

'And on that note,' Cassie said, standing, 'I'm going to bed before this gets any more cloying. I'll see you all in the morning.'

'Yeah, we'd best get to bed too,' Ginny said quietly to Harry. 'I have Potions first thing in the morning, and you know how much Snape would love for me to fall asleep on the side of the cauldron.'

Harry chuckled and, on impulse, copied Alex's earlier movements and swiftly gathered her up into his arms. Ginny squealed as he twirled her around a bit, clasping her arms around his neck.

'I can walk, you know,' she said as he started up the stairs to the boy's dorms.

'Not when I'm around, you can't,' he grinned at her.

'Prat,' she said affectionately, pulling herself up to kiss him.

'Keep that up, Weasley, and I might just drop you,' Harry swung her around so her head nearly hit the stone wall.

'Don't you dare!' she squealed. 'Harry James Potter, if you drop me, I swear I will never forgive you!'

'Probably a good thing I'm not going to, then,' Harry grinned down at her, planting a kiss on her forehead as he carried her over to his bed.

She scowled at him, pulling her wand from her pocket and transfiguring her school robes into a nightdress. 'What?' she asked at Harry's inquisitive look. 'I'm too tired to be bothered going all the way up to my dorm, okay?' She separated the curtains, and he deposited her onto the bed then climbed in after her, firmly pulling the hangings shut behind him.

A/N: Next chapter might be the start of the tournament, if you're all good…I for one am much looking forward to seeing Malfoy get flattened…:D

Review Responses:

Windcall: As a fellow Sirius fan, I know where you're coming from – don't worry, you'll find out why he came back…eventually.

JackO: Mate, if you're a loser then so am I! I spend a ridiculous amount of money on books.

hpgirl7777: I seem to have a knack for picking the right names… ;)

harry/ginny4eva: Hey, rambling is good, so don't worry. The Tests were great, it's just a pity we lost out on the One-Dayer, though…stupid sheep fu…whoops, did I say that out loud? ;) Let's hear it, Go, Aussie, Go!

Talix: The fics where Harry pushes everyone away just piss me off, because I really can't see Ron or Hermione EVER letting him get away with it. I hope the differences between the Weasley Twins and the Milton twins became a little more pronounced as the story went on. And if they haven't, well…they will. And it's not the first time I've been called 'ludicrously odd', and I'm guessing it won't be the last.

Elmire: Wow…I think that's the first time I've been complimented in French… :D The speed that everything is developing is quite deliberate, and was commented on by James quite some time ago, at the Ball – they don't want things to progress this fast, but they can't really stop it. The comments about Australia being the best were tongue-in-cheek, mostly designed to tweak the noses of any Americans. A bit of fun, nothing more.

Crimson Jenn: I can take the rebuff for my anti-Americanism, but if you insult Cricket again, I will hunt you down. ;p Just kidding…

kazziedal: Wow…flattery much? I have a seventh year sequel planned, and might take it further if people are really keen. Might be interesting to do a fic about James…

andburn1: You might want to go back and read the author's notes at the top of last chapter, mate…

HermioneGreen: All will be revealed…eventually.

Dree: Hey, who else am I going to get to do it? CQ writes a brilliant Molly…

Mistress-Genari: That was one of my favourite lines in that chapter… ;)

shotgunn: Lets just say that without you, it probably would never have occurred to me. Cheers, mate!

George Heichelheim: Erm…thanks, but I already knew how to do italics and bold, mate. Why did you feel the need to explain it?

Merusa: 'Twas a rather good idea to get CQ to write that chapter, if I do say so myself… ;) Still going on Brethren of Ares…

HarryGinny: I wouldn't be too sure of that…

MsMissProngs: Erm…you said what with a who now?