Chapter 16- Declaration

Friday

The next morning Harry very nearly failed to wake up. When his alarm went off it was still so dark that he thought it must have been a mistake. That, and the lack of a fuzzy creature jumping on him, resulted in Harry spending almost thirty more minutes in bed. It was Neville that woke him up properly leading to a few frenzied moments of packing their bags and rushing to the common room. They barely made it in time.

Upon arriving in the Great Hall Harry discovered why it was so dark. It was cloudy. Low dark clouds that promised rain slowly drifted across the sky and Harry was very grateful he was a Hufflepuff. The day before had been beautiful- perfect weather for flying- but the Gryffindors and Slytherins, who had their class on Fridays, would have no such luck.

As Harry and Neville were loading their plates with bacon, eggs, and roast tomatoes, they suddenly found arms around their shoulders as Yuri plopped down between them.

"So, how are my favorite firsties doing this morning?"

Neville's reply was a very coherent "sfineghvi*yawn*."

"I see, I see. So I heard you had some excitement in your flying lesson yesterday."

Neville continued to pile food on his plate. Between one link of sausage and the next, his plate was suddenly empty. He blinked owlishly at the plate uncomprehending, his brain still not fully awakened. Looking to his right he found Yuri eating from a plate piled high with food, his food. Neville leveled his baleful gaze upon her; she returned a single piece of bacon completely unrepentant.

With a sigh, Neville began to fill his new plate and mumbled "almostfelltomydeathbutmadamhoochsavedme."

"What was that? I can't hear you."

"I fell off my broom from high up and nearly died."

"Huh?"

"I said"

"I still can't hear you. Louder please."

"I SAID I LOST CONTROL OF MY BROOM, FLEW FAR TOO HIGH, FELL OFF AND NEARLY DIED!"

The room was silent. Then the Slytherin table broke out in raucous laughter.

"He nearly died?"

"Wow, what a loser!"

"That's the funniest thing I've heard this year!"

"Ha! I knew Longbottom was a real wimp, only a baby would fall off their broom."

Neville turned pink and seemed to shrink in his seat. He was mortified, and a little angry too. A pair of arms wrapped around him from his left. It was Tracey.

"It's alright Nev-Nev. I'm just as bad at flying as you. We earth-elements are meant to stay on the ground."

"…Nev-Nev?" Neville's brain seemed to be malfunctioning and latched on to the odd nickname like a shipwrecked sailor to a plank of wood in an attempt to change the topic.

"Yup! Do you like it? I thought it up just now."

"Aw," Yuri said joining in on the hug, "I think it's cute."

Neville turned bright red. You could almost see the steam coming out of his ears as his brain melted.

"Don't worry," Yuri continued releasing him and turning back to her food. "Although the Slytherins can be jerks," "Hey!" "I said can, not are. In a few years you will be looking back at this experience and laughing right along with them."

Neville hunched forward and mumbled something into his tea. The back of his neck was also red.

"Now then, how about I tell you about my first time flying? I assure you that it was at least as bad as yours."

He didn't respond, which Yuri took as permission to continue.

"It was a little after I was selected to be the next Jahad, the next ruler of magical Korea. I was about eight and a half. We were out back in our family's garden and I had just been gifted a top of the line broom and was eager to get started. I didn't wait for all the instructions from my tutor, thinking them unnecessary. Now I was a precocious little brat to whom everything had come easily so I kicked off hard and shot forward like a rocket. I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn't steer or slow down, and ended up careening off an ancient oak tree straight into the middle of my family's famed rose garden.

"So there I was, stuck upside down in the center of the bramble surrounded by massive inch-long thorns about ten feet off the ground. The gardeners came running over and I thought they were going to scold me for messing up their precious roses and started crying. They saw where I was and were relieved that I wasn't injured beyond a few scratches, and then they started laughing at me. That made me cry even harder, which made them laugh harder until eventually my tutor arrived and helped me get loose. At the time it was the most horrifying experience, but looking back at it I can't help but laugh with them. It really was a funny scene."

Neville looked at her with wide eyes, taking in her grin and confident posture. "H-how'd you go through all that without being hurt?"

"Well my feelings and confidence were certainly hurt, and probably a good thing too. My head had been getting too big for my body after I was chosen as the next heir and the accident did a good job of deflating my ego."

"Well clearly it didn't do enough!" Tonks yelled from the other end of the table which seemed to be in agreement with her.

"You are all terrible!" Yuri said with a pout, leading to a chorus of laughter.

Turning back to her young audience, she continued. "Anyway, as I was saying, physically I took almost no damage. I was scratched a bit and had a bruise or two, but came out of it none the worse for wear. My family is very sturdy; it generally takes a lot to hurt one of us. Halmoni, grandma that is, says that our family has 'giant's skin'. It makes us tough, strong, and magically resistant. It can be quite difficult to injure a member of my family, and my abilities are greater than the norm.

"Now, the real reason I came to sit with you today was to invite you all to my club. We meet Friday evenings and I think you might enjoy it. I've already invited the young grasshopper here, but he hasn't given me an answer yet," Yuri said, eyeing Harry.

"We'll come to your club if you come to mine," Harry responded, speaking up for the first time after quietly polishing off his plate.

"Oh? What club is that?"

"Well, it's not a club per se. I'm meeting with professor Velvet on Saturday mornings to continue my magecraft studies. Several others have also been invited to attend and I am extending that invitation to you. I think you will find it very beneficial, especially if my suspicions are correct."

"Magecraft? All right, when and where?"

"Before that, Tracey- are you and Daphne going to be joining us? Where is Daphne by the way?"

"Yes we'll be there. As for Daphne, I was unable to wake her so she may end up late for class."

Daphne, as it turned out, was not late to class, but she did miss breakfast. Fortunately, Professor Tonks took pity upon her growling stomach, summoned a small meal for her via house elf express, and used that opportunity to tell the class a little about them. She did not go into detail because it was Friday and they were going to focus on muggle culture. A specially warded T.V. was rolled into the room, the curtains closed, and they spent the rest of the period watching and then talking about an old episode of Dr. Who. Harry found himself watching the reactions of those from purely magical backgrounds rather than the show itself as he found them quite amusing. Before they left class that day, they were all invited to attend a movie club that Sunday at 3pm.

Herbology followed culture and was much the same as before. They spent their lesson repotting the aconite plants and inevitably ended up being covered in dirt. Professor Sprout also began to teach them a spell that helped to protect the roots of a plant so that the shock of being transplanted wouldn't injure it.

After washing up they all went to lunch, which was thankfully quiet compared to the past few days. Everyone was a bit worn out by the week, with the exception of the ever energetic Tracey who promptly kidnapped Neville and forced him to produce ever more elaborate sandwiches to sate her hunger.

Potions was quickly shaping up to being one of Harry's favorite classes. He was well versed in chemistry and the creation of various concoctions with mystical properties from his time in the Clock Tower, but potions was new and exciting. You tossed together a few magical ingredients with little apparent rhyme or reason, boiled and mixed it, and hey presto you can now breathe ice! Unraveling the secrets behind potion making was going to be fun!

Today's class was a reversal of the previous. Instead of preparing ingredients unknowing of how to do so, they found the ingredients all neatly chopped, sliced, diced, mashed, crushed, powdered, and juiced for them on their desks.

"Your goal this afternoon," professor Heath began after they had all settled themselves, "is to follow the instructions upon the board using the ingredients that the third years graciously prepared for you earlier today. We will have a competition at the end of the period to see who's frost breath potion was brewed the best. All ingredients are of the proper quality and will not affect the final product as it did on Monday, only your ability to follow the instructions provided will. Knowledge and technique- the application of your knowledge- are of supreme importance in this discipline. The winning team is exempted from this weekend's homework."

There were some cheers at that announcement, the stakes had just been raised.

"You are allowed to use any resources at your disposal in this task- there are a number of books on potion creation along the back wall if you need them. Do be careful when creating your potions as you will be working with boiling water and an open flame. I do have a burn salve in the event that something goes wrong, but I would prefer it if it wasn't necessary so no tomfoolery will be allowed. If I see it, you get a detention. Now, before you all get yourselves settled, I'm going to pull names out of this hat to create your teams."

Harry found himself paired with a black-haired Ravenclaw boy named Michael Corner. The class passed quickly in a rush of activity. One cauldron, belonging to Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot, even managed to explode due to the overzealous addition of snowcrest berries creating a spectacular pillar of ice and coating the rest of the room in frost. In the end, the winning duo were Hermione and Susan Bones as their potion created a pale-blue frost nearly a quarter-inch thick.

Transfiguration was much the same as it had been earlier that week. During the first half of the class professor McGonagall lectured them on theory and had them working on the matchstick-to-needle spell for the second half. Much to Harry's frustration, he once again failed to complete the spell and this time had the opposite issue: it still looked like a match, but felt very much like a needle and even pricked his finger despite not appearing to be very sharp.

Harry had no class the next period, and failing twice in a row like this had made him rather cross so he marched to the library to study. Hermione followed him as, despite having made some additional progress with her own needle, she hadn't gotten very far on the spell. Soon the two of them were buried behind a pile of books trying to figure out where they had gone wrong.

Ninety minutes into their impromptu study session Harry was growing frustrated. "Hermione, maybe we're going about this wrong," he said putting down yet another book.

She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Wrong? But surely the answers will be here, we just haven't found the right book just yet."

"Not all answers can be found in books."

Hermione stared at him in confusion, as if his previous statement just didn't compute. Harry continued. "While it would be nice if all knowledge could be found written down and it was only a matter of finding it, that's not always the case. There are few things more annoying than trying to research a subject and finding next to nothing published about it. It is irritatingly common for this to happen when dealing with magecraft as people are so secretive with their research."

"Harry," Hermione said in an exasperated tone as if she were berating a slow child who really should know better by now, "we're wizards. We just need to look harder."

"But maybe-"

"Look. Harder."

"Very well," Harry said dubiously putting down his current tome before picking up another. After flipping through it for several minutes he snapped it with a sigh and put it aside. "Yet another book that is nothing but spells for various transfigurations, and most of them are absolutely pointless. Why would anyone want to turn a teacup into a flamingo is beyond me."

Hermione did not respond past a brief glance followed by a pointed look at the pile of tomes beside him, so he picked up the next book in the stack and continued to search for answers.

Another thirty minutes went by before Harry spoke up again. "Hermione," he started before being cut off.

"If you are going to start complaining again, I'm banishing you."

"No, just what if the thing we are missing was so obvious to people raised by wizards that they didn't bother putting it anywhere? If everyone knows something, why bother writing it down?"

"Not everyone knows that thing, so why wouldn't they?" She asked missing the point.

"From what I understand, wizards are rather insular. They don't much think about non-wizards or those who don't have wizarding backgrounds. There's an odd lack of sense I've noticed about wizards so simply expecting them to realize that they have something we don't and ensure it was put to parchment is a little… foolish."

Hermione glared at him for a moment, then shoved another large tome into his hands.

Thirty minutes later and they were starting to risk coming to dinner late. Harry felt that he should speak up about it, but given the nasty looks Hermione would shoot him whenever he tried to open his mouth, he decided to keep quiet. Hermione suddenly gave a (suitably quiet) cry of triumph, before turning to Harry and reading: "When casting a transfiguration spell, be sure to maintain the image with utmost clarity in your mind… keep the flow of power steady spiking it at the key points… understanding when and how to modulate your power is of utmost importance if one aims for maximum efficiency… to turn a rug into a sofa use the…' Argh darn it all! I thought I had found something there, but that is more or less what professor McGonagall was saying to us in class today! What exactly are we supposed to do here? What are the 'key points' to spike our power output? What specifically does it mean to maintain the image with 'utmost clarity'? It's all as clear as mud."

Taking that as his cue to end his silence, Harry commiserated with her. "What a pain. 22 books later and we still haven't figured anything out! They talk a lot about what to do, but say almost nothing about how to do it. There are a bunch of incantations and wand motions, but if that was all it took we would have both gotten it the first class." Harry sighed, stood up, and stretched. "Well I think I've had enough bashing my head against a wall for the day and really feel the need to go blow something up."

Hermione closed her book and looked at him with interest. "Oh? You know how to make things explode?"

"No, but maybe if I keep the image of an object exploding with utmost clarity in my mind maybe it'll just magically happen! Now I don't know about you, but I'm hungry and dinner is starting in 5 minutes so we should go and eat. It's no good trying to solve a problem when hungry and frustrated like this, we'll just have to try again later."

"Ah, Harry there you are! I was wondering if you would make it," Cedric said when he finally made it down to the great hall and sat across from him.

"I got caught up in trying to figure out the basics of transfiguration with Hermione in the library, but we didn't get anywhere," Harry told him as he began loading chicken onto his plate.

"Already? I didn't get fed up enough with the class to seek out the library until almost a month into school."

"You have any luck?"

"No more than you just did. For transfiguration at least there is a dearth of instructions for beginners in print. Then again, it's not really a subject that easily lends itself to the medium. It's somewhat different for everyone and figuring it out really depends mostly on experience, practice, and intuition- things that develop over time."

"I don't see what you're complaining about," Justin interjected glumly from beside Harry, "you can at least make some sort of change to your matchstick but I can't do diddly squat!"

"Oh? You managed a partial transfiguration in your first week?" A sixth year student by the name of Rebecca cut in. "Does this mean we've got a little genius among our new students?"

"Yeah… to the partial transfiguration bit, not the genius bit," Harry added hastily.

She chuckled and ruffled his hair, "Aww, how cute!" Harry felt his face burn.

"So, what's the problem you've been having?"

"Well I feel like I should have gotten it by now, but I did worse today than I did on Tuesday!"

"We really do have an overachieving little genius among us!" Rebecca crowed. "Hey Cedric, do you think we might snag the Cup this year?"

"So what was different?" Cedric asked, completely ignoring Rebecca's question.

"Well on Tuesday I made it look correct, but it felt like it was a needle made of wood. Today it's appearance didn't change any but it felt like a matchstick made of metal."

"To do so well so soon… you must have quite a lot of mental fortitude," a fifth year named Henry chimed in. "If I had a guess… it would be that you focused on your image wrong."

"We saw a bit about that in a book but it didn't elaborate any. How are you supposed to focus on the image?"

"Well, it seems to me as if on Tuesday you focused on the appearance but forgot about the texture and composition but did the opposite today. You've gotta keep the whole image in your mind all at once for transfiguration."

"There are some tricks to making it easier," Cedric added. "But it's known as the most difficult base branch of magic for a reason. While your end goal should be to hold the entire image at once in your mind so you can cast the spell nearly instantly, when you are learning you need to break it down into pieces. Split up the transfiguration into components- such as shape, texture, composition, and appearance or color- and focus on those one at a time. Start with one, make that change, then move on to the next and build your way up until the spell is complete. It'll start off taking a long time, but you'll get better with practice."

"To add to that," it was Rebecca that was speaking again, "I find it helpful to visualize the change you want to make. If all you do is imagine the final outcome the spell can sometimes fizzle out half way, but if you imagine whatever it is you started with smoothly shifting to its new form it tends to be easier. Of course, it's a difficult image to maintain and concentrate on so not everyone uses it."

"And that's why you're in the N.E.W.T. Transfiguration class instead of me," the girl sitting next to Rebecca said to some laughter.

"So if you can figure out the visualization bit, mostly through practice in class and finding what specifically works best for you, you should have no trouble with transfiguration this year." Cedric said. "Most of the practice you'll be doing for at least the first half of the year will be in building and holding your mental image as well as getting used to accessing and controlling your magic. McGonagall is a good teacher, but she generally doesn't give out much in the way of explicit advice about this, preferring students to figure it out on their own. Seems to be that the common wisdom about it- and what I've found in books appears to enforce this belief- is that figuring it out on your own will in the end make you a better wizard."

"Well sod that!" Henry exclaimed to a round of laughter. "You can all figure out specific techniques and how to do it best once you've got the basics down. Firsties have enough trouble gathering the willpower to create and maintain the image in the first place, especially while trying to figure out how to channel their magic correctly, that being cryptic for the sake of building character is just bloody stupid."

An hour later found Harry in the Hufflepuff common room with a good portion of his year playing a very silly game that was essentially magical charades. The twist, that which made it magical rather than mundane, was that rather than scoring points for guessing correctly within the time limit one would avoid a penalty affecting the person who had just failed to convey what the card was. The random magical penalties stacked until it became very difficult to both act and guess. If a team was unable to guess correctly three times in a row, they lost. At the moment Harry was finding it very hard to act out Scottish Troll Ballet when he was stuck moving in slow motion, continuously tap dancing, making random animal noises every 10 seconds, and levitating 3 inches off the was the most fun he had had in years.

Just after his unsuccessful attempt (he now had to speak entirely in limericks), Tonks came for him as it was time for Yuri's club. A pair of particularly adventurous girls in his year- Hannah and Susan- joined them while Neville chose to remain. They were brought to a rather big and open room with large mats covering the ground on the fourth floor. There were around twenty others already present, mostly Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, as well as professor Flitwick who was, Harry soon learned, the faculty supervisor. Tracey and Daphne were already there, and while Daphne looked a little uncomfortable Tracey was happily chatting with an older student. No robes were being worn and Harry, Hannah, and Susan were soon given a set of clothes and told to go change in one of the side rooms. This set of clothes, called a dobok, was loose, flexible, and comfortable. Harry noticed that the others wore a variety of colorful belts. His was white, as were the belts of the other first years, while Yuri's was black with floral patterns in green.

Soon, everyone was ready and Yuri took position before them. "Welcome back to MMA club to most of you, or simply welcome to our adventurous new members. While you are in this room I am in charge and you will call me 'Sabum'. Understand?"

"Yes!"

"What was that?"

"Yes, Sabum!"

"Good. Now, we will begin this week with some simple warm ups starting with stretches to ensure no one injures themselves and then practice a few simple forms. Hopefully, those of you who attended last year practiced over the summer and will be able to participate in a few half-speed spars at the end. Any questions?"

"What's with the belts?" Susan asked.

"Good question, your belt's color denotes your rank or skill in the art. It begins at white for total beginners, goes down the colors of the rainbow from red to violet, and then ends at black. There are further levels once one attains a black belt with your specific level, or dan, indicated by the color of your trim which progresses in the same manner as the normal belts. A 1st dan black belt has a white trim while a 9th dan black belt- a Saseong or grandmaster- is a deep black that seems to absorb light. I'm a 5th dan black belt as can be seen by the green trim on my belt. Any other questions? Yes, Harry."

"When do we begin learning the mystic part of this class?" Harry asked.

"When you reach the third level, orange belt, you will begin to be taught the magical part of this martial art. You need to learn the basics of martial arts and build up some muscle memory before you attempt to add magic to the mix. You will probably reach this level sometime in the winter. Any other questions? No? Then let's begin."

When Harry went to bed that night he was both very sore and very satisfied. There were aches in muscles he didn't know existed, but they were good ones. The culmination of the day had been a full speed spar with magic between Yuri and professor Flitwick (a 2nd dan black belt). It was amazing. They had moved so quickly he could barely follow them and each strike or kick crackled with magical energy. At the end he had thought Flitwick was about to win as he landed a three-hit combo that knocked Yuri's guard wide open. This, however, turned out to be a trap. Believing victory to be in his grasp, Flitwick struck out with a palm sheathed in electricity, and overextended himself. Yuri flowed around the strike like water ending behind the diminutive professor in a single smooth motion that made Harry's head spin before catching him in an unbreakable hold and ending the match.

Oh the things he'd be able to do if he could combine Yuri's style with reinforcement! Those stupid Einzbern jerks wouldn't know what hit them! His last waking thought as he imagined ever more implausible scenarios where he stormed the Einzbern castle and rescued Illya was: 'I wonder where Prim has gone…'

Harry rose early the next morning leaving his softly snoring roommate behind. The great hall was nearly empty when he reached it. Only those with a love of mornings or those who would be joining him in learning magecraft were awake. Harry sat next to Hermione, who was talking at Tonks about something or other.

"Morning squirt, how are you feeling?" Yuri asked as she sat down across from him together with a red-headed boy he had seen the night before.

"Like a herd of elephants spent the night tap dancing on me. It hurts to move."

"You'll get used to it," she said while grabbing an omelet. "Anyway, this is Percy and I've invited him along this morning. He's a bit too serious for his own good but you won't find a harder worker. Hopefully it'll turn out that he has some sort of magecraft potential." Percy nodded in greeting, his mouth currently full of toast, blushing slightly at Yuri's words.

A few minutes later Tracey appeared with her usual exuberance quite literally dragging Daphne along with her.

"Why did I ever agree to this? My bed is calling for me," she protested.

"Because you're too curious for your own good? Because of your fear of missing out? Because you are secretly a maso-mmph!"

"What was that Tracey?" Daphne said sweetly, her hand over her friend's mouth. "I want chili peppers in all my food for the next week? Ok, no problem." Tracey's eyes widened comically and she shook her head desperately. Daphne released her.

"You are an evil, evil person," Tracey said with a shiver fleeing to the other side of the table.

"Only to those who deserve it my dear. Now, I need some coffee, black like my soul."

Hermione recoiled from her in utter horror. "Why on earth would you drink that horrid stuff when you can have tea like a proper Brit?"

"Caffeine."

"That and she's a-" Daphne glared at Tracey who shrunk back from her. "Ok, ok, I'll stop now. But really, try getting her to do anything early on a weekend without it and she'll spend the rest of the day making bad-tempered zombies look like saints."

Harry's Saturday morning magecraft lessons were held in a circular room near the top of an unused tower. When they entered they found professor Velvet finishing off a set of familiar circles while Cedric was unpacking a couple of boxes filled with various materials.

"Good morning," Cedric said to them once he had finished in response to Harry's questioning look. "I've volunteered to help out with the professor and see what you all will be up to. I may not have any magecraft potential myself, but I've decided to work with professor Velvet on seeing how it affects wizardry and if it's possible for wizards to use formalcraft."

"Ah, well I'm sure he'll appreciate the assistance. Just don't overwork yourself," Percy said.

"Well from what I've heard 4th year isn't too bad, it's 5th and 7th that are particularly stressful," he responded, pointedly looking at Percy and Tonks.

"All right, that should do it," Waver said from the other side of the room. He stood and walked over to the students. "Why don't you each grab a chair and we can begin." Once they all had, and Waver had grabbed himself a chair also, he began the lesson: "Now, before we begin I need to clear up a misconception some of you may have. In class I told you all about the hard limit to a magus' ability that is quite literally written into our souls and how a magus with less cultivated circuits will never overcome one with generations of cultivation from a powerful family. I lied." Hermione gasped in shock. "I did this to drive home the point that the limits within magecraft are set in stone as opposed to wizardry where there are no clear limits to one's ability, it's a more malleable system. While there are strict limits to the amount of prana one has available and the type of… spells… one can make use of, with sufficient skill even a weak magus can overcome a powerful one.

"If your opponent has twice as much power, simply be twice as efficient as them! If they can use twice as many spells as you, simply be twice as clever as them! Powerful magi are arrogant, especially when faced with one they deem inferior. Use that to your advantage! Allow them to waste their power, squander their talents, and beat them through skill, strategy, and effort! There are limits, but they are not absolute.

"Of course, if you are both equally skilled but the other has double your strength things are much trickier. And there is a point at which the gulf in power becomes for all intents and purposes insurmountable. Lorelei Barthomeloi, Harry's master, is among the twenty most powerful beings on the planet- if not the top ten. She is skilled beyond reason, has monstrous power, and a drive to succeed that puts all others to shame. I could never in a dozen lifetimes measure up to her."

"Who exactly are the top ten most powerful beings in the world," Yuri asked.

"It's hard to say. It's even harder to rank them in any given order. A good place to start would be the first ten members of the Dead Apostle Ancestors. But that misses out on several very powerful individuals such as Arcueid Brunestud," everyone looked at Harry questioningly, Waver ignored this and continued. "The top members of the burial agency, a few scattered phantasmal beasts, true magicians like The Blue, and Servants should one be summoned. I suppose it's also possible that some members of the wizarding world would also qualify for a position on this list, but I don't know enough about it to be sure. All told, trying to create some sort of definitive top ten is pointless as there are more than ten beings that easily qualify for that position, and even if person A can easily beat person B who can easily beat person C, person C may in turn be able to crush person A. Regardless of the exact details, I do believe that Harry knows four of the members of this elite group, five if Lorelei is also among them."

"As interesting as this digression has been, you really should get back on track, you have students who haven't even been tested for their potential and a limited time to work with."

"Are you offering to assist Miss Brunestud?" Waver was absolutely his normal calm and collected self, his voice was most certainly its normal pitch and volume. He very carefully did not turn around.

"Certainly, if you would have my assistance." She stepped out from behind the magus with a demure smile patting him on the shoulder as she passed him. His skin was nearly as pale as hers.

"Hello class! I am Altrouge Brunestud, Harry's adoptive mother, and member of the aforementioned top-ten list." She smiled, exposing her fangs. "And that," Altrouge continued gesturing behind them, "is my beloved sister Arcueid."

The young wizards turned and found her standing directly behind Harry. She beamed at them, then picked Harry up and gave him a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh, so this is Hogwarts? Interesting, it looks like fun! Hi Harry, I came to visit!"

Harry tried to respond with "I can see that," but couldn't as he was being slowly suffocated by his overly enthusiastic aunt.

"Please don't destroy the castle miss Arcueid," Waver said in a dead tone.

"Why would I do that?" She asked in confusion. Harry was flailing about, she didn't notice.

Altrouge sighed, dug around in a pocket, and tossed her a necklace. Arcueid caught it in one hand, allowing Harry to breathe again. "Put that on and then go have fun exploring the castle, just make sure not to bother anyone and try not to break anything valuable. You may also enjo… and she's gone. Well, that takes care of that, so how about we get started? But first, I'm going to have to ask you all not to tell anyone about our presence. Think of it as an ongoing prank we've been playing on them. I will be most displeased if one of you spoils it."

The light was sucked from the room as she loomed before them, seemingly growing larger as her eyes glowed and the shadows writhed. There was a whimper from among the wizards. Harry bopped Altrouge on the head. "Stop being overly dramatic, they understand your request. It's nearly 9 so we really do need to begin." Altrouge pouted at him.

"Now to begin," Harry said stepping forward while the others were still petrified, "Two of you have not yet had your potential tested so we will do that first. Percy, would you step up to the first circle please."

Percy did so, which broke the rest of the group out of their stupor. Upon activation the circle glowed a deep purple color for a few seconds.

"Single element, ether," Harry said writing it down in a notebook. "All right, move on to the next circle please." Once Percy was in the center or the second circle Harry activated it and it didn't glow at all, appearing as if it had not worked. "No magic circuits. Last circle please." It too did not glow indicating Percy had no sorcery trait. "Thank you. Ok, Yuri it's your turn."

Yuri materialized in the center of the first circle. One second she was across the room, then Harry blinked, and she was within the circle positively vibrating with excitement. Upon activation the circle first gave a warm brown-green glow, and then switched to a vibrant red-pink color.

"Ok… two elements. The first is earth and the second is non-standard. We'll check for exactly what it is later. Pleas… how do you move that fast?" Yuri was already in the center of the second circle.

"Family secret!"

This time the circle lit up a bright white and glowing pink lines looking almost like circuitry appeared on her body.

"Well, you must have someone with a magus background in your family as there is no way you are a first generation magus," Waver said coming over and looking at the results. "26 circuits of high quality means you have nearly double the capacity of the average magus. One more test to go."

The last circle, to no one's surprise, also glowed a bright white.

"And that appears to confirm it; magical traits in the wizarding world are equivalent to sorcery traits. Tonks' ability as a metamorphmagi also showed up in this test, so I believe this is your family's 'giant's skin'. We'll have to do a few more tests later to discern exactly what it is along with the non-standard element, but now it is time to begin." Turning to the rest of the students Waver continued, "Half of you have no magic circuits, and therefor can only use wizardry. Daphne, Cedric, and Percy you will be working with Altrouge to see what effects your elements have on wizardry, if you can substitute magic for prana to power magecraft, and if it can't we'll see if we can reverse engineer some magecraft into wizarding spells. Between Cedric's wind, Percy's ether, and Daphne's fire and water we've got most of the elements covered."

"Those of you with some degree of magecraft potential and no training- that is everyone else except Harry- will be working with me for today," Waver said stepping forward. "I have to warn you that magecraft is both difficult and dangerous and could lead to serious injury if you are not cautious. We'll be working on the basics: on activating your circuits, basic magecraft theory, mental discipline and self-hypnosis, and a few simpler mysteries. Your actual elements and capacity mean little at this early stage in learning magecraft, so don't worry about them right now. If you perform well enough you may be offered an invite to the Clock Tower after graduating.

"Tracey and Hermione," he said turning to them, "we'll be doing some of this work in class. If we are simply rehashing what was already done with your class, I'll have you join the other group. Harry, I'd like you to start by preparing the additional tests for Yuri. After that I have your assignments for the next week and you can get started on those."

The morning quickly passed. It turned out that Yuri's second element was rose and her sorcery trait was called "unbreakable". While they had a decent idea about what her sorcery trait entailed, no one had any clue what could be done with her second element. Nevertheless, Yuri was quite happy about it.

It was nearly 11 o'clock and Harry was just about to complete a delicate hour-long experiment when Arcueid burst into the room, grabbed him by the arm while yelling something about a three-headed dog, and left as suddenly as she had appeared dragging him along behind her.

Before Harry could get his head to stop spinning at the suddenness of it all, he found himself released. They were in a large stone chamber with a vaulted roof lit by flickering torches. In the middle of it all was a massive three-headed dog. A Cerberus. It was glaring at them. And then it noticed Arcueid, lay down, and rolled over, its tail wagging happily. She smiled at it, walked over, and began to scratch its ears.

Harry was frozen where he had been left. Then, with a sudden cry, he charged the beast.

"FUZZY!"

That day at lunch, the students at Hogwarts were treated to a very odd sight. Some sort of fluffy doglike thing was strutting through the great hall as if it owned the place, ignoring absolutely everyone. It was not alone. Directly behind the odd creature was a well-known and much reviled animal: Mrs. Norris. The malicious cat was glaring at any and all that dared to look incorrectly at her charge. One particularly adventurous Gryffindor ignored all warnings and attempted to pet the white ball of fuzz, but only received a claw to the face courtesy of Mrs. Norris. The adorable white beast trotted right up to Harry, made a sound that can only be transcribed as "Fou", jumped into his lap, and demanded food.

"Well I did wonder where you had gotten to," he said to Prim while absentmindedly petting her, "But I never imagined you would end with a minion."

His fuzzy companion stared at him as if he was an idiot. "All right, another minion then," Harry amended while feeding her a piece of steak.

Mrs. Norris sat on the floor behind Harry for the rest of the meal attempting to turn all who so much as glanced in her direction to stone through the power of spite. Following lunch Harry returned the now napping Prim to his room (Mrs. Norris left when he entered the Hufflepuff common room), and then went looking for his friends. He found them still in the great hall a few minutes later.

"So, what's the plan for this afternoon?" Daphne asked him.

"Well, we have astronomy tonight- 9pm for us and 11pm for you- but otherwise the day is free."

"Ugh. Don't remind me about astronomy. It's discrimination that us Slytherins have the later class, discrimination I tell you!" Tracey yelled, shaking her fist at the ceiling.

"There, there," Hermione said patting Tracey on the shoulder, "I'll be sharing in the misery with you. No need to get so worked up about it."

"Still, what should we do for the next six hours or so?" Neville asked. "The other first year Hufflepuffs are going to be playing games in the common room, but that's not really something we can all join in on."

"Well, well, what have we here?" A voice suddenly spoke up from behind them.

"A bunch of bored firsties who can't figure out what to do?" A second voice asked. Turning around they found two redheaded Gryffindor boys. They were identical.

"Well now, we can't have that can we Fred?"

"No, this won't do at all will it George?"

"Here we have-"

"This magnificent magical castle-"

"A place of wonders and secrets-"

"Mysteries and treasures-"

"That is just begging to be explored!" They wore matching grins as they circled Harry and his friends like sharks.

"We, that is-"

"Fred And George Weasley-"

"Will take it upon ourselves-"

"To take you on a tour of this magnificent castle!" Harry had no idea who was Fred and who was George, their constant circling and adding to each other's sentences (that had to be practiced!) had thoroughly befuddled him.

"Great, well then let's begin!" The one on the right said after a brief pause.

"But we didn't…" Daphne started.

"Excellent idea, come along!"

"Come now, we don't have all day!"

And so the twins trooped off, five first-year students in tow. Their attack had been so sudden and unexpected that it was over before any of them could collect themselves. Soon they were blitzing through the castle and had gone through so many secret passages that Harry was completely lost. Throughout the whole tour the twins maintained a constant narration about their surroundings.

"You do realize, of course, that half the suits of armor you see adorning the halls originate from Camelot."

"Indeed. It is said that King Arthur's armor can be found within these very walls!"

"The location of the suit has, unfortunately, been lost to time."

"But just think, you could be the one to rediscover it!"

"In fact, Excalibur can also be found within the castle."

"No way, that's…" Hermione tried to interject.

"It's a little known fact, but the Lady of the Lake once resided here in the Black Lake." One of the twins said, completely ignoring her like they had the last six times.

"I'm pretty sure we got a glimpse of it once."

"Yeah, it was stuck in this massive rock in a room deep in the dungeons."

"We never managed to find it again though…"

"Anyway, as we were saying, the moors upon which this castle stands were once the primary source of kneazle wool for the British Empire."

"In the distant past there were massive flocks of kneazles grazing upon the heather."

"But flock is for sheep or goats, not cats! That's a clowder!" Hermione said speaking up once more, unable to take the mangling of the English language.

"Indeed. These enormous floofs covered the hills and provided the magical sweaters for which the Scots are so well known."

"Have you ever heard the saying 'herding cats'? This is where that saying came from."

"See, look at this painting here! It portrays the majesty of the Scottish floof of kneazles in the time before hogs had warts!" It did nothing of the sort, but they were already moving on again before they could get a good look at it.

"Ah, here we are at last!"

"The heart of Hogwarts!"

"The jewel of Scotland!"

"The floof of Floofs!"

"Welcome to the sanctum!" They exclaimed together melodramatically pointing to a door.

It was a rather ordinary looking wooden door, no different than the hundreds of other doors they had passed during their tour. Fred and George opened it with theatrical bows and gestured for them to enter. It was dark, very dark, and then the lights came on. Suddenly it was blindingly bright and threatened to sear their eyes out of their skulls.

"Have fun in the pink room!" The twins hollered. The door slammed shut behind them. Harry and his friends were trapped and all they could see was an ocean of neon pink. Pink walls, pink tables, pink chairs, pink cushions, pink light, pink lamps, pink floors, pink ceilings. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, PINK! Everything in the room was the exact same shade of kill-me neon pink. It was seared into their brains. It was seared into the very core of their beings. It was horrifying. There was no way out.

An hour later the door swung open on its own releasing five incredibly bedraggled first year students. They collapsed on to the stone floor and shivered violently. Eventually, they came back to their senses. Harry was the first to speak swearing revenge:

"Of course you realize, this means war!"

-End Chapter 16-

Author's Note:

And with this, we are finally at the end of week 1. Now that you all have an idea of what Harry's time at Hogwarts will be like as well as how it is different from canon (some of these things should have been there anyway, but no child reading a book about magic wants to hear about math class). The story should move forward more quickly now that the stage has been set. In other news, Altrouge is up to her usual shenanigans again of appearing in my story whenever she feels like doing so, and this time brought Arc along.

For those of you interested in knowing the exact details of Harry's schedule, here it is:

Breakfast: 7:45-8:45

Morning periods: 9:00-10:20, 10:35-11:55

Lunch: 12:00-12:45

Afternoon periods: 13:00-14:20, 14:35-15:55, 16:10-17:55 (some days)

Dinner: 1830-1915

Clubs: 20:00-21:30 on weekdays, any time on weekends.

Monday & Thursday: Morning (w/ Gryffindor)- Writing, Math; Afternoon (w/ Ravenclaw)- Charms, Defense, Art Monday and Flying Thursday

Tuesday & Friday: Morning (w/ Slytherin)- Culture (focus on wizarding Tuesday, muggle Friday), Herbology; Afternoon (w/ Ravenclaw)- Potions, Transfiguration, Music Tuesday and free period Friday. MMA club is Friday evenings.

Wednesday: Morning- History & History of Magic; Afternoon- Magecraft, theoretical then practical (all 72 students, all Waver all day, though they may opt out of the practical portion of magecraft class).

Saturday (morning, 8:30-12:30): magecraft tutoring. Night: astronomy (w/ Gryffindor)

Sunday: Movie club 3-6pm for years 1-4 and 8-11pm for years 5-7 led by the two Tonks women.