Disclaimer: not mine of course.
Chapter 8"Right-o" he said as the class began to quieten down. "I've been getting a lot of requests to learn the ghost knife charm. So today we're going to do it. Wands out."
"Oh goodie!" Mandy whispered gleefully, pulling her wand out. As the teacher, Professor Gordon Harry soon found out, began to coach the class Harry realised that these people weren't really like him. They were only powerful in their elements. They still needed wands to perform spells and they still needed incantations.
Harry quickly mastered the charm with his wand; a flick, a swish and the muttering of the words Cloudus Knifus made several real looking daggers shoot from his wand tip and into the desk in front of him. When he ran his fingers through them they turned to smoke and wafted away.
He soon put his wand down and tried it by using the same movements with his hands.
"How'd you do that?" Mandy screeched, watching in awe as five neatly made knives drove themselves into the table.
"That's how I use magic," Harry muttered as a few people turned to stare.
"Lets see what you can do, Potter" Gordon came striding over to his desk and perched on the edge of it to watch. Harry made the daggers again and looked up just in time to see Gordon's eyebrows shoot into his hairline.
"Wandless magic?" he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "We haven't seen one of you in quite a few years. Tell me, do you use it much?"
"Not really. I don't like people knowing about it." Harry looked around to see the whole class watching. "When people see it they think I've joined the dark side or, more specifically, Voldemort's side."
Nobody flinched. Not one single soul in the room registered that Harry had used that name. They weren't afraid. For the first time in his life, Harry had been in a room with strangers who didn't shy at the mention of Voldemort.
"Have you been using it for long?"
"Since last Christmas. It's hard to explain how I got it. Some magical force of love and trust or something."
"Have you ever met a god?"
"Uh…" Harry looked around again. By the looks of it, quite a few people had met some form of god or another. "Yeah. But I cant…"
"You can't say it" Cyril said. "I met a god. And I can't say his name to anyone who hasn't met him."
"Right." Harry nodded, completely understanding what he was talking about.
"Ok, everyone back to work. If you get it right today then next time I will be able to teach you how to change the type of knife you throw. Harry…" Gordon leant forward slightly as the rest of the class went back to throwing knives at inanimate objects.
"Have you ever done your… type of magic without any incantations?"
"Sure. I can do things without speaking but I don't know if what I'm doing is magic or not."
"What can you do?"
"Throw lightening…um… some of the more simple spells like summoning from a short distance…oh and I can do an invisible grabbing thing."
"Yes there is a quite few students in this school who know how to do the invisible grab. Can you cast these spells with your mind?"
Harry frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"You're the most powerful wizard I've come across in a long time. There is very few who can do wandless magic. In fact there is only two wizards under registration. Sometimes, if you practice enough, you can cast a spell by simply using your mind."
"How do I do that?"
"Try casting the ghost knives again. But this time, just imagine that you are doing the movements."
Harry did as he was told, concentrating very hard on seeing his hands move, and his lips, without them even moving at all.
By the end of the lesson he was able to conjure a few puffs of smoke.
"Keep trying, Harry" Gordon said encouragingly as he filed out of the class behind Cyril.
Mandy and Cyril took Harry to the dining hall after that for lunch. The dining hall consisted of three long tables. Two were already filling with Teenagers and adults while the third, slightly smaller than the others, was being filled by children aged three to twelve. Ladies in matching green dresses were assisting the younger children with their food.
"Look at Tobias" Mandy whispered, nudging Harry in the side and pointing to the other table. Harry looked over to see a man with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail raising his hand above a plate of steak. He bought it down and his flesh sliced neatly through the meat. Several people around him clapped as he put an empty butterbeer bottle in front of him and sliced that as well.
"Cool" Harry said, looking around to see what other people were doing. The majority of them were eating lunch eagerly but there were a few people, mainly children, who were doing magic tricks.
When lunch was over Harry followed Mandy, Cyril and their friends, Luke, Tim and Carla down to the oceans edge where the started up a game of kickball. It didn't last very long, though, because Luke accidentally turned the ball into nitric oxide and the six of them had to make a run for it before they were poisoned.
"I thought you learnt to control it!" Carla gasped as they collapsed in a laughing leap further up the beach.
"I did… well I think I did…"
Harry picked up a smooth stone from the sand and held it in his palm. Seconds later it began to levitate. The others watched in awe before scrabbling for their own stones to try the trick.
"Shit!" Mandy said after a about an hour or so of levitating objects. "We're late for Transfiguration!"
The group of teenagers dusted themselves free of sand and headed back to the castle.
Dumbledore, Jui and a strange man with slick black hair and a droopy moustache were waiting outside the main doors for Harry.
"I'll see you later" he muttered to Mandy before focusing his attention on the three men.
"Harry, this is Robin. He's a highly trained psychic." Jui explained. Harry looked the man over. "He'd like to speak to you and hopefully this will give us some insight into how to control your powers."
"Yeah… ok"
"Great!" Robin said and gestured for Harry to follow him into the castle. Harry did so without looking back and soon the two of them were walking along corridors alone. Robin led Harry into a long hall held up with pillars. The walls were covered in framed pictures of all the students who had ever passed through the school. Harry slowed down and began looking at them. Robin waited for him at a door at the other end of the hall.
Harry looked intently at each of the pictures. He recognised none of them until…
"Dumbledore" he said under his breath. He'd found a picture of Dumbledore at about the age of twenty. He had short, auburn coloured hair and the same, sparkling blue eyes. Harry stared at it for a moment, wondering why Dumbledore had come here, before he moved on.
Several pictures down he found the one he was looking for.
Tom Riddle.
Harry tilted his head and stared into the vacant face of the handsome Tom.
He began to wonder if, Had Tom been able to keep his mother, he might have turned out different? Maybe a respectable person. If Voldemort still had his mother would Harry still have his?
"Harry?" Robin's voice, though very gentle, bought Harry back to reality with a jerk.
"Sorry, sir" Harry mumbled and, with one last glance at the handsome boy who had become the most feared and resented man on earth, he followed the psychic out the door, down one last corridor and into a spacious study.
"Well, Harry" Robin smiled and gestured for Harry to sit. "Tell me, what's school like?"
"Fine, I guess…" Harry muttered. Then, realising the Robin was waiting for him to explain, said. "It does get a bit annoying with people staring and whispering but I learnt to control it long ago."
"And your home life? Tell me about that. You live with your aunt and uncle?"
"I did." Harry glanced down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. "Until my uncle started bashing me. I live with my godfather now."
"How do you feel about people when they mention your parents?"
"Not really bothered. I do get angry if they say something bad, but who wouldn't get mad?"
"Right. Do you have a girlfriend?" Robin gestured at the print on Harry's shirt.
"Yes."
"And how do you feel about her?"
"I love her."
"And Voldemort. I saw you looking at his picture for a while. Does he scare you?"
:"Not as much as Abu Kahim"
"Abu Kahim?"
"Yeah. The Sand Demon."
"Ah. How did you find out about him?"
"I bought him back to life… accidentally, of course" Harry added hurriedly when Robin raised an eyebrow.
"Ok. Do you have any… well not siblings… but other children threatening your home life?"
"Yes. My godfather recently found out he has a daughter. She's sixteen and she just… turned up one day."
"Do you fight with her?"
"Yes."
"Do you hurt her?"
"I try not to but I do use magic on her"
"Well that's all I need to know"
"It is?" Harry was shocked. Robin hadn't even asked about his magical abilities.
"Yes. By finding out about your life style, I can tell what makes you angry,"
"And what is it?"
"Living a normal life."
"Huh?"
"You cant live a normal life. You do need to relax more but when you do get to be normal you become too normal. And when you are suddenly thrust back into the middle of things you become mad and therefore a danger to yourself and those around you. Start using your magic a little more. Have some fun. Cause some trouble. You'll find you feel better."
"Ok" Harry stood up to leave. "Uh… thanks"
"Not a problem"
Dumbledore was waiting for Harry out on the grounds.
"It is time for us to leave." He said after Harry shook Jui's hand.
"It was wonderful of you to visit, Albus" Jui beamed before turning to Harry. "And Harry. We'll be seeing you here again a week before Christmas holidays."
"Great!" Harry smiled.
"Sir?" Harry asked once they were back in the carriage and being pulled through the air.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Why did you go to that school when you were young?"
"Excuse me?"
"I saw your picture. Why were you at that school?"
"Ah" Dumbledore smiled as if he were remembering back all those years ago. "I was an over achiever, Harry. Then one day I achieved something so great that I was shipped off to Oakenshire immediately."
"What did you achieve, sir? If you don't mind me asking…" Harry added hastily. Dumbledore's eyes sparkled mischievously.
"I created immortality"
"What?" Harry uttered in disbelief. He knew Voldemort was on his way to immortality but Dumbledore invented it? "Horcruxes?" Harry asked as he tried to digest it. "Was it horcruxes? Or the philosophers stone?"
"No, Harry. It was neither of those. Those are simply branches of immortality."
"So what is it then?"
"You will see soon enough"
Harry turned and stared out the window for a while, trying to figure out ways for Dumbledore to become immortal. Suddenly an image of the ghost knives sprung into his mind and he grinned. Focusing extremely hard on the window frame, he made the movements and said the incantation in his mind. Several hazy looking knives shot out of the air and stuck themselves in the wood.
"Extraordinary!" Dumbledore said. Harry turned to see the headmaster looking extremely surprised. "Where did you learn that, Harry?"
"In charms today" Harry replied, grinning and casting the spell again. Each time he did it, his knives would become more defined and more lifelike.
"You have been able to manage mind spells in one day? I'm extremely impressed." Dumbledore studied Harry as he made the knives again. "It usually takes years to master those kind of spells. And that's only in the most powerful wizards."
"Why don't they teach these kind spells in class?" Harry asked.
"Harry! Think for a moment! If my staff started teaching students the ghost knife charm and such… well you could just imagine the havoc that would cause!"
"I s'pose" Harry blinked and several knives appeared in Dumbledore's beard. The incantation and movements were now etched into his thoughts so deeply that he barely had to think about it.
"Well don't try and do it with all spells. Especially when in a duel. Mind spells are extremely draining and you don't want to be collapsing in the middle of a fight."
The Thesterals made their decent at that moment and less than a minute later Harry was climbing out of the carriage and following Dumbledore back up to the school.
The rest of the school was eating dinner in the great hall and Harry started feeling nervous about going near the other students. Dumbledore pushed him through the doors none the less and Harry soon found himself sitting between Hermione and Claire.
"How'd you go?" Ron asked from across the table. He was sitting next to Lavender and Harry wondered briefly if they were dating again.
"Great." Harry replied, not sure how they knew where he had gone. "I met the seeker of the Chudley Cannons and played against him…"
Ron's jaw dropped. "You played against him? Did you win?"
"I did actually."
"Oh my god!" Ron groaned. Harry decided not to tell them about his new placement on the English team. He would save that for a while and surprise them.
The rest of the weekend went by peacefully. So peacefully that it was almost boring.
Harry was looking forward to a double of defence against the dark arts the next morning. He had only been to about three of the lessons and he wanted to torment Tweed for a while.
He arrived half a minute late to class and managed to seat himself beside Ron before Tweed saw him. When she did she smirked.
"Why have you been missing my lessons, Potter?" she asked in a snotty voice.
"That's my business" Harry replied hotly.
"When your missing my classes it becomes my business!" she sneered. The rest of the class held its breath.
"Fine!" Harry suddenly smiled brightly. "I've been doing some work for Dumbledore. Highly confidential. You'll have to ask him about it."
Tweed glared into his smiling face for a moment before hissing, "ten points from Gryffindor." She then turned to write that day's lesson on the board. Harry continued to smile, his hands folded neatly on the desk. Suddenly several knives appeared in a ring around Tweed's head, their shining silver bladed forced deep into the wall. She looked at them, startled, for a moment before turning furiously to face Harry.
"What kind of dark magic are you playing here, Potter!" she spluttered. Harry bought a look of deep offence to his face.
"Why do you instantly assume it was me? I don't even have my wand out? How could I do it?"
"You- you used your other magic!" she screeched. Harry was quite amused to see her face was turning purple.
"Other magic?" Harry looked around the room innocently. "Did anyone see me use 'other' magic?" he looked over at the Slytherins but none of them seemed to be able to say anything. Harry turned back to Tweed with a smile playing on his lips. "Sorry Professor but I think it might all be in your head. You may have to go see madam Pomfrey…"
"Detention!" she screamed, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Detention for a week! No-body backchats me, Potter! Here…" she scribbled a note furiously and gave it to Harry. "Take that to your head of house! I don't want to see you back here this lesson!"
Harry shrugged, collected his belongings and strolled out of the classroom. It was only a short walk to McGonagall's office and when Harry reached it he was halfway through humming a song.
"What do you want, Potter" McGonagall asked in a harassed voice. She had just finished marking a stack of below-average essays written by third-years and was feeling quite stressed.
"I got kicked out of class"
"Let me guess" She muttered, taking the note from Harry. "Tweed?"
Harry nodded and sat down opposite her desk. McGonagall fell silent as she read the note. Suddenly, to Harry's surprise, she let out a short laugh.
"What?" Harry asked as she tucked the note into her drawer.
"Have you been using your 'other' magic in Tweed's classes, Potter?"
"Only a little bit. It's really advanced. Do you want to see?"
McGonagall nodded slightly and Harry effortlessly filled her hair with ghost knives. She glanced up before whirling around to look in a mirror.
"Mind magic!" she said in an impressed voice. "How long have you been practicing that? Did Albus teach you?"
"No. I learnt it on Saturday when I went to Oakenshire."
"You-you learnt to do that in one day?"
"Yes…"
McGonagall pursed her lips in thought. "Have you ever considered Animagi?"
"Course I have but I thought the ministry banned me from it because… well you know."
"Potter" McGonagall leant across the table and looked him straight in the eye. "When has the ministry ever stopped you from doing something you want to do? And they haven't banned you yet. They're still thinking about it. If you can become an animagus before they put the ban in order then you wont have a problem."
Harry's eyes began to sparkle in delight. "Do you think I could do it, Professor?"
"I think you could ace it. I have a special class starting tomorrow night for anyone over seventeen who is interested. I suggest you come along."
"I will." Harry assured her. She smiled lightly at his enthusiasm.
"Now about your punishment." She tapped her quill on the desk in thought before reaching into a drawer and pulling out several posters. "These are for the class tomorrow night. Just put them up around the school. Don't worry about common rooms, I've already done them."
"Right" Harry collected the posters and got up to leave.
"Oh and Potter?"
"Yes, Professor?"
"I suggest you start thinking about what animal you want to be."
"I will."
For the next hour or so, Harry wandered around the school sticking up posters and thinking about what animal he would like to transform into. He straightaway thought of a stag, like his father, but then he realised that he needed to turn into something that would work to his advantage. Something that would help him out of a tight spot, like a bird or a small dog. Maybe even a snake like Voldemort.
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