Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing: After the war - could be canon…
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First Training
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Harry was staring at the wall.
It was a nice wall, all green and… wall-y.
Oh, look! There even was a little hole in the wallpaper, showing the off-white colour of the wall beneath.
Oh, look! There was a darker patch on the wallpaper, just at the end of Harry's vision.
Harry started to count the minuscule, slightly darker dots that sprinkled the wallpaper.
One hundred fifty.
Two hundred.
Four hundred thirty-five.
Six hundred.
When he reached seven hundred he was totally bored out of his mind – and yet still standing there, in the corner of the room, staring at the wall.
How long had it been since he started it?
How long would it be until he could stop?
In the end, Harry couldn't keep staring at the wall. He was totally sick and tired of it.
"How long do I have to keep standing here?" Harry finally whined, feeling like a toddler instead of the grown man he was.
The answer was a huff from Pater.
"Until you've learned what you should be learning," he said.
"But what am I learning that requires to stare at the wall?" Harry whined, but didn't turn around or change where his eyes were looking. He might be feeling like a toddler in time-out, but he was not that far gone to stray from his 'punishment' to turn around. That would just mean to have to start all over again later. Harry knew how parents punished children. He had done it often enough after all. The sharp pain in his heart at that thought took his breath away for a moment, but he worked through it and kept staring at the wall. He might be punished like a toddler, but at least he knew what not to do if he wanted to get out of the punishment without extra time, or at least that's what he thought...
"Patience," Pater replied dryly as an answer to his question. "Now silence. You're starting over."
Harry's eyes widened and this time he turned around to stare at his instructor.
"But why?" He asked horrified. "I didn't look away or some such!"
"You interrupted your learning by talking," Pater replied. "You're starting over."
"But -!"
"No 'buts'," the red-eyed man said. "The moment you have learned to keep silent and staying focused on one thing, and one thing alone, you will be able to leave the corner and return to the living world."
"Wait!" Harry said with dread in his voice. "You want me to learn to focus on a wall?"
The red-eyed man sighed.
"You have to learn to blend out everything around you. You have to learn to calm your thoughts until there's nothing there but the calmness itself. Until then you will stay in this corner and stare at the wall – do you understand?"
"But I'm not a child! You can't treat me like one!" Harry objected. "I'm an adult – a trained auror! I'm trained to observe things – and being forced to look at a wall doesn't help at all when I'm used to observe anything and everything around me!"
"Hmm," Pater said at that, while looking at him in contemplation. "I guess you might be right, youngest son of Erich Grey," he finally relented. "I guess that means that I should have higher expectations of you."
He nodded.
"Alright – you keep standing there until you're able to sense everything around you even without seeing it."
"What?" Harry cried. "That wasn't what I meant! I mean… I can't keep standing here! What about the Blacks and Percy? They will be worried if I don't wake up soon!"
Pater just waved it off unconcerned.
"Your body is currently dealing with the change in its magic I initiated so that I could add you to my family. You wouldn't wake for at least the next twenty-four to thirty-five hours anyway," he replied. "That's plenty of time to at least teach you the basics for now without you being missed at all."
"The basics of what?" Harry asked irritated.
"The basics to survive, idiot boy," Pater replied. "And now – back to your learning!"
Harry stared at the man incredulously, but turned around to the wall anyway.
"I wouldn't call this learning," he muttered to himself. "Torture maybe, but not learning!"
"Silence," the red-eyed man admonished him. "Or I will have to start you all over again."
Harry rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut. He had no intention of having to start over again.
"Sadistic bastard," he thought to himself.
"No thoughts as well," Pater added unimpressed as if he had heard what Harry had been thinking. Considering that they were currently within Harry's mind, Harry guessed that that possibility was more likely reality.
He grimaced at that thought and then hurriedly returned to his task.
It was a nice wall.
A green wall without any patterns on it.
It was a really, really nice wall, all green and… wall-y.
Oh, look! There even was a little hole in the wallpaper, showing the off-white colour of the wall beneath.
Stop! – He had seen that one before. He had looked at that spot just minutes ago, hadn't he?
His attention drifted further.
Oh, look! There was a darker patch on the wallpaper, just at the end of Harry's vision. No, that one wasn't new as well. Harry was quite sure that he had seen that spot before as well…
So, on with it. He went on to the next thing he could do.
Harry started to count the minuscule, slightly darker dots that sprinkled the wallpaper.
One hundred fifty.
Two hundred.
Four hundred thirty-five.
Six hundred.
Seven hundred ninety-nine.
Eight hundred.
Eight hundred eighty-seven.
Nine hundred…
Harry didn't know how long he was staring at the wall, he just knew that in the end he was so bored out of his mind that his brain simply decided to shut off. A pleasant haze started to fill his thoughts until he drifted in a state between wakefulness and sleep.
Harry didn't know how long he drifted in that state, never able to do the final step and fall asleep, never able to return to the dullness of being awake. It might have been hours he drifted, or years or moments. He had lost all thoughts of time and place and whys and hows. He was only drifting.
It was then that other things suddenly seemed to pop up all around him. One moment he was drifting in a haze between wakefulness and sleep, the next he felt things around him he had never felt before. There was a dull buzzing sound that surrounded him and everything around him. There was a warm, friendly hazy construct of nothingness right by his right side. There was another warm construct, filled with black haze and the feelings of soft fur and grey, a lot of grey – not that Harry could explain what the grey consisted off, he just couldn't explain the feeling with any other word but 'grey' – right next to the warm nothingness.
Then his odd senses stretched further.
He could taste the lingering feeling of blood and black and haze just behind the solid feeling of stone. He could feel two more warm and friendly black hazy constructs beneath him – one of them free and wild, the other one oddly empty – and beneath the feeling of a barrier tasting of wood.
Then his senses stretched further until he could feel the buzzing surrounding him and everything around him directly. It was shielding him and the other hazy constructs. It was a warm buzzing, build out of feelings of good and protect and shield and family.
Suddenly, something warm and unreal and not there touched him, pulling him back from the haze and nothingness he had been in, tucking on him until he was back inside himself, back in his head.
Like a sledge hammer the touch hit him and pulled him out of his self-induced flight from boredom.
Harry whipped around, just to stare in the red eyes of the man who had forced him to stare at the wall in the first place.
"Well done, youngest son of Erich Grey," the man said, his mouth curling into a mocking smile.
Harry's eyes widened.
"Until you sleep again," the man said and then he shoved Harry.
For a moment Harry expected to hit the wall behind him, but when he simply started to fall, he knew that he wouldn't.
Then his eyes flew open and he gasped.
"Eridanus!" His new mother cried relieved.
"You alright, Eridanus?" Percy asked while leaning in, but Harry couldn't answer.
The moment his eyes opened, he felt as if something had hit him over the head. His eyes burned, his stomach clenched and for one terrible moment his lungs refused to cooperate.
Then he managed to draw in a first, shaky and burning breath.
His skin pickled. It felt as if someone was poking him with a thousand needles.
"Perseus, call your father and uncle," Susanna Black instructed her oldest son, the former Percy Weasley.
Percy nodded and then hurried out of the room, calling for Pollux and Marius.
"Take some slow breaths, Eridanus," Susanna said. "Your father and uncle will be here to help you in a moment."
Harry couldn't even nod.
He was far too focused on the sensations he was swamped with.
There was a buzzing sound all around him. Susanna was a construct of nothingness, Percy one of black haze, fur and grey.
His vision swam.
Then the stone wall to his right seemed to fall away and he could feel the remains of the ritual. Feelings of blood and black and haze. Beneath him he could feel Percy and what had to be his new uncle and father – two hazy feelings of black, one wild and one oddly empty.
Then he drifted further until he could feel the buzzing around the house.
"Wards," his mind supplied helpfully. "Those are wards."
Then he felt himself drifting further.
He gasped and tried to reel in his feelings. For a moment the fight seemed to be a fruitless one, then the image of a patch of green wall came to his mind. A wall with thousands of darker dots sprinkled on it, a wall with a darker patch just outside of his vision, a wall with a little hole in it, showing the off-white colour of the wall beneath.
Like a security blanket, Harry grabbed the image and wrapped it around himself – and like when Pater had touched him, the image slammed into him and forced him back into his body, back into his mind.
He blinked.
"Eridanus," he could hear a voice through the dizziness that had started up thanks to his rapid return into his body. "Concentrate on my voice. Take deep breath for me, will you? Come on, child, inhale… yeah, that's fine… now exhale. Again. Inhale. And exhale…"
Harry found himself listening to the voice, following the instructions without asking.
"You're doing well," the voice told him before again instructing him how to breathe.
Finally, the dizziness started to vanish.
Harry blinked again, now noticing that he was shaking and half-buried in the arms of his mother who was sitting behind him, keeping him upright. In front of him knelt his father, his father's hands on his knees while the man was instructing him how to breathe.
To his right, a little bit away from him, stood Percy and Pollux.
Percy was pale as a ghost.
"Wh… what's happening?" He asked the older man next to him with a whisper. There was no way that his voice should have carried to Harry's ear, yet Harry heard him anyway.
"His mind is fighting with the magic he has gained by being named the heir of that unknown family," Pollux replied as quietly as Percy. "I'm not yet sure what this inherited magic entails since I have yet to determine which family he actually comes from, so I can't tell what exactly he's fighting with…"
"That sounds dangerous," Percy said concerned.
"It is," Pollux said. "If he doesn't find a way to control it, it might take him down and kill him."
Harry shuddered inwardly at that exclamation, his body still following Marius' instructions.
"Don't worry," Pollux added when he saw the fear in Percy's eyes. "He's reacting to your father which means he's already gaining control. Give him a few more minutes and he will be able to interact with us again."
"The basics to survive, idiot boy," Harry could hear the remembrance of Pater's voice telling him when Harry had asked what looking at a wall would teach him. Suddenly, staring at walls didn't seem such a high price anymore…
"Guess I will have to find some time in my day to simply stare at walls," Harry concluded shuddering. But then, if staring at walls would help him to control whatever magic he suddenly had at his disposal, staring at walls he would do.
"Eridanus," he heard his new father's voice in that moment. "Are you with us now?"
Harry blinked again and then took another deep breath.
"I… am," he finally said and his father smiled.
His mother's hand caressed his hair.
"How are you feeling, darling?" She asked him and Harry wondered if that was what it meant to have a mother. Ginny had also always called their children with pet-names. Harry swallowed hard at that thought before forcing himself away from it.
He concentrated on the answer to the question instead.
His skin still pickled, his face hurt and his eyes burned while his stomach felt as if it had been wrung out and hung up to dry. His lungs still burned and his breathing was a little bit laboured.
"Good," he said.
Pollux, Marius and Susanna exchanged a concerned look.
"No lies," Percy said darkly. "If you hide anything it might be overlooked now just to bite up you in the ass later."
Harry guessed that his former brother-in-law turned brother might be right this time around.
"Face hurts," he said. "Eyes burn, skin pickles; hard to breathe."
"Thank you," Percy said, sarcasm wrangling with concern in his voice.
"Let me take a look," Pollux said frowning before pulling out his wand and doing a spell.
Susanna, Marius and Percy looked at him expectantly.
Pollux just sighed when he got the results of his spell.
"He's mostly alright," he said. "I guess that his face hurts thanks to the burning. That will at least take another day or two until it's fully healed. The eyes… I guess that maybe his eyesight was corrected thanks to the magic he gained. The skin is thanks to the magic overload he had when he inherited his new family's magic. The only thing that concerns me a bit is the breathing. I guess it has to do with the fire, but I don't know what we can do about it for now. I guess we should simply monitor it. I don't dare to give him any internal healing potions for at least another day, yet."
"It's… fine…" Harry pressed out. "I'll… live…"
Percy snorted at that and rolled his eyes.
He said nothing, but Harry could see his… brother's thoughts quite clearly in his eyes.
It was clear that Percy wondered how his sister had put up with Harry. Harry sometimes had wondered the same thing in the past…
Then Percy grimaced and a pained look came to his eyes when he remembered that his sister was gone.
Harry reached out to him. He was just near enough to pat Percy's leg, pulling the older boy out of his memories.
"Eridanus," Susanna said in that moment, sounding half-concerned, half-amused. "That's not a matter to joke over."
"Of… course," Harry relented. "Sorry."
His mother just patted his hair before looking at Pollux and Marius.
"I'm going to continue monitoring him," she said. "You can go back to your research."
The men nodded.
"Do you want to go research with us or do you want to stay here?" Marius asked Percy.
For a moment, Percy looked torn.
"Can I… help as well?" Harry asked then. "Don't… wanna sleep."
The adults exchanged a glance, then Marius nodded.
"As long as you don't strain yourself and stay in bed," he relented.
In the end, Harry and Percy both stayed in Harry's new room reading and researching. Marius and Pollux had brought their research as well – they all were looking into Harry's prediction, his unknown family and the reasons of his burns – and Susanna was puttering around the house while making sure that everyone was fed and watered and didn't strain themselves.
Later that evening, Harry paused in his reading, put his books away and instead focused on the white wall behind his bed.
Percy was the one who noticed that odd behaviour first.
"Er… Ha… Eridanus," he said confused. "What are you doing?"
"Staring at the wall," Harry answered him without looking away from his spot. "It's a nice wall, all white and… wall-y."
Percy raised an eyebrow.
"Alright," he said, figuring that his… brother needed a break. "Have fun with that."
Harry just waved at him.
"Now I have to start all over again," he thought a bit annoyed. "Oh well…"
It was a nice wall, he was staring at, all white and… wall-y…
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Well, it took me some time. I didn't actually know how to start the whole thing for a while.
Also, I actually wanted to take Harry's training further, but it shouldn't be… ah, well, I hope you liked it anyway.
Ebenbild