Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters whose names can be found in the Harry Potter books.
Harry was escorted to his room by the vampire; unlike Hogwarts there weren't any houses where the students shared a dorm. In fact Harry found out he had a room to himself. On the walk down the vampire talked about how the school worked.
"Students all have their own rooms as some of the students have needs that require this." The vampire said as he walked down the flight of stairs in front of Harry. "There are eighteen main wings in the castle and several minor ones. Three major wings are used for dorms, you've had been assigned to the East wing. Altogether there is east wing, west wing and north wing. The wings are then divided up into section. As you already know all the students have a mentor and depending on your mentor you'll be assigned a section in the dorm. You're East wing and section A because Meric is your teacher. Then inside your section of the wing there is another section, this depends on your year level. Since you are only a first year you will be in E."
"Sorry to interrupt." Harry said. "But I don't know much about this place. How many year levels are there?"
His companion laughed. "Not to worry Mr Potter, you'll learn soon enough. There are in fact five year levels. Students graduate at sixteen."
"What happens next?" Harry asked. "Is it like wizarding society where you get a job?"
"Oh no," the vampire laughed. "After graduation most of our students return to their own colonies. As I'm assuming you are unaware I'll tell you a bit more about our students. Our pupils are sent here for an education, just as wizards are educated, but each specious has their own colonies and cities and life styles. Once the students have graduated they return to their own cities and yes they may get jobs there just as wizards do after school but we don't all live as one community. Ah here we are."
The vampire stopped before a wall and spoke calmly to it.
"Forest imp."
The wall faded away to reveal a large room, bustling room with activity. Walking into the room Harry noticed doors lining the walls. Each of the doors had a letter engraved on them. The room looked very much like the Gryffindor common room, couches scattered across around and a fire in one corner, lighting up the room. Creatures of all sorts were moving around the room, most looked fairly human but there were noticeable differences. As Harry and the vampire entered the room several of the creatures looked up from what they were doing. Many looked very shocked and Harry could only look around a bit shyly.
"A shadow phoenix." One creature whispered over the silence. "Shut up Damien." Another voice called and this seemed to prompt the common room back into life, though Harry found many curious glazes were shot his way.
"Hey professor!" One creature called, coming forward to greet the vampire and Harry. Assuming she was a student, Harry took the time to observe the girl who was talking to the vampire. She had wings, as it seemed most of the students did, hers were blue and quite large. Her hair was brown, falling to about her back and her eyes were also brown. She had tanned skin and a pointed nose. From her appearance Harry assumed her to be some kind of nymph.
"You must be new then." She said, turning her attention to Harry. "My name's Fia, I'm a fire nymph."
Harry had been right in assuming she was some sort of nymph.
"My name's Harry."
"Nice to meet you Harry" Fia said. "Do you know who your mentor is?"
"Meric?" Harry said questionably.
Fia raised her eyebrows. "Wow. You're in for five hard years. Meric is really tough. I think he's only got two apprentices at the moment, which means he'll have plenty of time for teaching."
"Great." Harry sighed.
Fia laughed. "You'll be great though, any student that Meric turns out becomes very powerful. Who knows, he might even like you.
Harry snorted, "not with my luck."
"Well seeing as you two seem to be getting on so well." The vampire interrupted. "I think I will take my leave. Fia, can you take Mr Potter down to dinner?
"Sure professor." Fia said warmly. As soon as the vampire walked away Harry turned back to Fia.
"What's his name?" Harry asked.
Fia laughed. "He always does forget to introduce himself. That's professor Niostra, he's my mentor. For a week I didn't know what to call him until I got up the courage to ask and he just laughed at himself and apologised for not saying earlier. He's one of the best teachers, and the most lenient. It's very hard to get him angry."
Harry smiled. "Well I'm glad I know what to call him now. So if he's your mentor what year are you in."
Fia smiled slyly, "trying to work out my dorm, are we? What could you want that for?"
"No, I didn't mean that." Harry said hurriedly.
Fia just laughed at his blushing face. "I know you didn't, I just couldn't resist. It's not like you could get in or anything, you have to know the password. I'm going into my fourth year."
"Wow," said Harry. "So you've been here a while then?"
"Sure have," Fia said. "Graduate next year. Then I'm going to try and join the healer's court back home. What about you? I know you're first year and all but you must have some idea where you're going."
"I don't know much about this place." Harry said, gazing around the room again. "I don't really know what I want to do yet or even what I can do, but I'd like to go back to Hogwarts in my last year and just finish up there then I don't know. I'd always wanted to become an aura but I don't know if they'll accept me because I went to school here and everything."
"Aura? Why do you want to be controlled by a system that's as bias as the rest of the world?"
"I've got a twin brother." Harry said. "He's at Hogwarts and he's pretty much destined to fight Lord Voldemort and I want to fight too."
At the mention of Lord Voldemort's name Fia face turned ugly and she got a very vicious look in her eyes. "Lord Voldemort. Phft, scum of the earth. He killed an entire colony that used to live near ours, murdered in cold blood. He deserves to rot in hell."
"Yeah," Harry said, his own face turning dark. "He does."
Fia looked very upset for a moment before she seemed to throw it off and brightened. "We can't let that deter us though, if you want to fight him you'd be better to go to one of griffin colonies. They're really angry and it's been heard they're building an army, they'd accept you with open arms."
"I'll think about it." Harry said. "But I've still got a few years left before I have to decide."
Fia smiled, "yeah you've got a while yet. Anyway I'd better show you to your room. We can set passwords on them, so only we can enter. You're in section A, subsection E right?"
"Yeah." Harry confirmed. "Subsection, sounds so important."
Fia just smiled, "yeah, you get used to it though. I'll show you where you are." The brown haired nymph led Harry over to a door on the left with the letter A engraved in the wood. Walking through the door the pair found themselves in a corridor lined with more doors and at the end of the corridor was a bigger door.
"That's Meric's room." Fia said, pointing to the door at the end. "Yours will be along here."
Looking at the doors Harry quickly saw a door with the letter E craved into it. Walking over and entering Harry was met again with another corridor.
"That's yours" Fia said from behind him. Pointing to the door on the right side of the passage way. Walking over Harry went to turn the knob on the door but found it locked.
"You'll have to create a password. You write it on blood on the door. From then you can just say it and the door will let you in. All the teachers can enter at any time though."
"Got it." Harry said.
"I'll just go back to the common room." Fia said. "I'll wait for you there."
Harry watched her walk out of the room before observing the room. There were no other doors. It appeared he was the only new student to be apprenticed to Meric.
"Ow!" Harry said, more in shock then pain as Aidan pecked him hard on the finger, causing it to bleed.
"What was that for?" Harry asked.
"The nymph said you needed to write your password in blood. Would you get on with it so we can go to dinner." Aidan remarked smartly.
"Jeez," Harry said, "some warning would have been nice."
Aidan snorted as best a phoenix could.
"What should it be?" Harry asked. "I can't really think of anything. Why is it only when I need a password I can't think of anything."
"What about dragons?" Aidan asked.
"No, someone would guess it." Harry said.
"Norbet?" Aidan asked.
Harry snorted. "Please don't remind me, alright, how about sun child? That's what the unicorn called me."
"Sounds good" Aidan said. "I like it."
Carefully Harry wrote the words on the wooden door and he watched in amazement as the moment he lifted his finger he words sunk into the wood.
"Sun child." Harry said and he heard the door click and this time when he reached for the door handle it turned easily.
Walking into his room Harry's first thought was it looked nothing like his room at Hogwarts. The room looked about five metres by three. The walls were stone and a bed sat in the corner of the room. The desk sat near the bed in the corner and there was a set of drawers on the opposite wall to the desk, but the rest of the room was fairly blank. Harry's trunk sat on his bed.
Gazing around his room one more time Harry stepped out and closed the door.
"Unpacking can wait till later." Harry said to Aidan, walking back down the passage he had come form.
Emerging in the common room Harry found it sufficiently emptier then when he had last been in it. Fia was standing by the fire talking to another girl who also appeared to be a nymph. The girl next to her also had brown hair but her eyes were blue while Fia's were brown. The girl's wings were also slightly smaller and purple. When Fia caught sight of Harry she waved him over.
"Hey Harry." Fia said as he approached. The girl standing next to her seemed to have lost the ability of speech and could only stare blankly at Aidan.
"Hey." Harry said.
"This is my best friend Heather." Fia said turning to the girl next to her and elbowing her in the ribs.
"Ow! Oh, sorry." Heather said, sounding slightly guilty for staring. "It's nice to meet you Harry. Sorry about staring it's just really amazing to see a shadow phoenix after they've thought to be long dead."
"Yes." Fia said. "Anyway we'd better hurry, most people have already left and we don't want to walk in late. I was late in my second year and I never want to have that happen again." The two girls broke into a jog, going straight through the illusionary wall.
"Why, what happened?" Harry asked, jogging to catch up with Fia and Heather.
"Professor Hawtrich had a go at me." She said. "I had detention with her for three weeks. That's something I never want to live through again." She pretended to shudder and Harry laughed.
"Sounds like Snape has a female counterpart." He remarked.
"Who?" Heather asked.
"Never mind," Harry said. "He was a teacher at my old school." Even to Harry, calling Hogwarts his old school sounded foreign.
"Well he must be really bad if you think he can compare with Hawtrich. Just wait till you meet her. Now that's one teacher you don't want to cross under any circumstances."
The small group made their way quickly through the corridors. Harry trying to take in every detail so that he wouldn't get lost on his way back but he knew it was inevitable that if he didn't have a guide he would end up hopelessly lost.
The group walked into the dining hall and Harry felt a pang of longing, the hall reminded him strongly of Hogwarts. The hall was filled with tables but not the long tables that stretched the length of the room like Hogwarts. There were about sixty tables scattered all around the room. Each table seated about eight people. Most of them were already filled, but there were a few that were still empty.
Fia and Heather started to make their way over to one of the tables that had three people sitting there already and Harry followed, his gaze flitting around the room. He noticed that a lot of the conversation had stopped and students were staring openly at Aidan, sitting proudly on his shoulder. The black haired boy hurried to sit down next to Fia to escape the stares. Quickly glancing around the room he spotted Arashi seating on the other side of the hall. Gazing around Harry saw, that like Hogwarts, a section of the hall was raised and the teachers were seated there. Their table was much longer then the student's tables as there were almost four times the amount of teachers here then at Hogwarts. Looking at the teachers Harry spotted a few that he knew and some that he'd met but couldn't put a name to.
A centaur was sitting at the head of the table. He looked to be of a middle age, but one could never tell. Very soon all the table began to fill up till no more people were coming through the double doors leading to the hall. Then the centaur stepped forward.
"Good evening students." He said. "As many as you will know I am headmaster Postaf, but for those who do not know me you may call me Professor Postaf. I hope you had a safe and enjoyable holiday and I trust your brains are nice and empty again."
A few of the students laughed.
"But I have kept you waiting long enough. Please dig in." Professor Postaf waved his hands and food began to appear on the tables.
Harry was shocked to find there was a much wider selection then at Hogwarts and there were some things he had never seen before. He soon learned however that some of the food was served for specific species. For example any red liquid was not wine but in fact blood and the food wasn't always dead as some of the students preferred their food living.
Harry looked critically at a piece of meat before him, after having tried the blood and then having his food run off his plate he was hesitant to try anything else. Aidan seemed to have enjoyed some of the insects and was happily eating.
"Don't worry about that one Harry." Heather said, she was sitting opposite Harry. "It really is a piece of meat."
"But from what?" Harry said, carefully using his folk to lift it up.
Heather laughed. "I believe that particular piece of meat is from a cow. Though that one there," she said gesturing to another piece of meat on the table. "I think that one is from an acromantula."
"Urg." Harry said, pulling away quickly. "Please don't tell me where my food is from, I've tried some of that."
Heather laughed, "don't worry you'll get used to it. On my first night here I tried that," she said, gesturing to a goblet filled with murky, bubbling liquid.
"What is that?" Harry asked, leaning closer to the goblet.
"Flobberworm mucus," Heather said, looking slightly sick at the thought.
Harry jerked his head away quickly.
When dinner had finished and everyone was dismissed Harry, Fia and Heather made their way back up to the common room.
"So what do you think of Flaeria so far Harry?" Heather asked.
"It's both different and the same as Hogwarts." Harry said. "I don't think I'll ever be able to find my way around though."
Fia snorted.
"But I think it's a good school. Oh I was wondering. I don't have a timetable. What do I do tomorrow morning?" Harry asked.
"Oh don't worry." Fia said. "They'll drop off your timetable in the morning; just make sure you're out of bed before five. They say Meric wakes all his students up at five and starts them on their morning work out. I guess we can find out if it's true."
"Well this should be interesting," Harry remarked as the group reached the common room. "I'd better unpack, see you later."
"See you," the two girls called.
Once he walked into his room Harry flopped down onto his bed next to his trunk.
"Aidan, what am I meant to do? This place is nice and everything but it's nothing like Hogwarts, everything is so different here. At least at Hogwarts I knew where I stood, here, well everything is different."
"You'll learn Harry." Aidan said, fluttering over to the desk chair. "There's no point worrying over it, I think you'd better unpack and get ready, from the sounds of things. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day."
Aidan had been right at his prediction that the next day was going to be very busy. Like every other day of his life Harry woke before dawn and as soon as he got up he noticed his timetable sitting on his desk. Upon examining he was surprised at some of his classes.
Monday: 8:00-9:00 Fire elemental training
9:00-10:00 Fire elemental training
10:00-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Magical creatures
11:30-12:30 Spell casting and creation
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 History
2:30-3:30 Strategy
3:30-4:30 Healing
4:30-6:00 free time
6:00-9:30 dinner
10:00 curfew
Tuesday: 8:00-9:00 Magical creatures
9:00-10:00 Potions
10:00-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Herbology
11:30-12:30 Herbology
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Runes
2:30-3:30 Fire elemental training
3:30-6:00 free time
6:00-9:30 dinner
10:00 curfew
Wednesday: 8:00-9:00 Transformation
9:00-10:00 Spell casting and creation
10:00-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Physical training
11:30-12:30 Physical training
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Runes
2:30-3:30 Strategy
3:30-4:30 Healing
4:30-6:00 free time
6:00-9:30 dinner
10:00 curfew
Thursday: 8:00-9:00 Spell casting and creation
9:00-10:00 Spell casting and creation
10:00-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Strategy
11:30-12:30 Strategy
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Runes
2:30-3:30 Fire elemental training
3:30-6:00 free time
6:00-9:30 dinner
10:00 curfew
Friday: 8:00-9:00 Runes
9:00-10:00 Fire elemental training
10:00-10:30 Break
10:30-11:30 Transformation
11:30-12:30 Transformation
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 History
2:30-3:30 Potions
3:30-6:00 free time
6:00-9:30 dinner
10:00 curfew
He still had some of the same classes but there were less of them. He only had history twice in the week and he had new subjects like Strategy.
"Good to see you're up." A gruff voice called to Harry from the door.
Turning quickly Harry saw a man standing in his door way. The man had long curved horns poking from his forehead and his hair was short to the point of being bald. The man reached over six foot and had a solid build, muscled from a life of hard work. His brown eyes were narrowed and watching and he looked ready to pounce at any second. Out of his back grew a pair of dark brown wings.
"If I may ask," Harry said cautiously. "Who are you?"
The man laughed, his laugh was harsh and almost cruel sounding. "I am your mentor, Mr Potter, you may address me as Meric, though around others you must call me professor."
Harry nodded.
"What did you say?" Meric asked.
"Nothing professor," Harry said, sounding confused.
"That's what I thought," Meric said. "Do you see the problem? I expect you to answer me when I speak. Do we understand each other?!"
"Yes professor." Harry said sharply.
"Get dressed and meet me in the common room in 2 minutes!" Meric roared.
"Yes professor." Harry said as Meric marched out of the room, shutting the door sharply behind him.
Hurrying to his drawers, Harry produced a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Pulling them on as he stumbled towards the door Harry wrenched it open just as he pulled his T-shirt on and he sprinted down the corridor towards the common room, fearing his mentor's wrath.
Sliding into the common room seconds later, his hair askew per normal, Harry found three other people in the room with him. One of them was his mentor, the second one was a bay centaur, his arms were heavily muscled and his eyes watching. He had medium length blonde hair and greyish blue eyes. The other occupant of the room was a catlike creature that resembled a leopard, a cratach. Its hind legs, body and head were that of a cat's but then its front legs were that of a horse. It also had a long tail that looked to also belong to horse.
"Good to see you can get up on time." Meric remarked, his face still expressionless. Turning towards the illusionary wall without another word, Meric stepped through, followed closely by the centaur and cratach, with Harry bringing up the rear.
The walk to the grounds was brisk and in silence. Neither Meric nor his students made any attempt at conversation; they seemed quite content to walk in silence. Walking into a large hall Harry's steps slowed to give him more time to take in the splendour that was the entrance hall. The roof looked to be at least three stories high, the ceiling glinting white in the distance. Huge black marble pillars stood proud, holding the structure upright. The walls appeared to be made out of white marble and the floor was polished sandstone.
"Amazing isn't it?" A voice said next to Harry, looking over Harry saw the cat like creature walking next to him. "I never get tired of looking at it." He said.
"Yeah," Harry agreed, gazing up at the ceiling.
"I'm Tobias by the way, Toby" the cratach said. "Well that's my name here, my real name, not all that many people can pronounce. It's," Tobias let out a series of yelps and whines.
"Nice name, I think I'll just stick to Toby. I'm Harry."
"Cool." Toby said, "Oh we better hurry up, Nath will have my kill if we're late, I don't want to hear another speech."
"Nath?" Harry asked.
"Centaur," Tobias said, indicating Meric's other student and braking into a slow run as the entrance hall door's closed behind them. "He's really serious about training and well, he never gets sick of hearing himself talk."
Harry snorted, speeding up his jog to keep up with Toby's powerful limbs. "I know the feeling."
Flaeria's grounds were very different to Hogwarts. Instead of the hills of lush grass and the wide lake, Flaeria's grounds had wide sweeping plains. It appeared to be built near a mountain range, the huge cliffs reached hundreds of metres in height.
"That's the Great dividing range." Toby said, seeing where Harry's gaze was fixed. "We can go up there in free, as long as you get back on time. There are really beautiful places up there, waterfalls, snow, forests. People think this whole place is a desert, and then they see the mountains."
"We can go up there?" Harry asked, looking in amazement at the peaks.
"Sure," Toby said. "We do some training up there."
"Sorry to interrupt." Harry and Toby both jumped to attention at Meric's voice. "You're running! Ten laps of the grounds. Stop and I'll make it twenty."
Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. While he may have run Potter grounds five times every morning, they were no where near the size of Flaeria.
Toby looked at Harry sympathetically, he and Nath had been born to run, with four legs it came easily to them, Harry however wasn't. The warm-up would be very trying.
"Go on!" Meric roared and the boys started to jog.
Harry was quickly left behind, unable to keep up with Toby, after two laps Harry felt like he was going to collapse. Toby had already over taken him and only looked to be breathing hard. Harry later found out that the path they took around the grounds was two and a half kilometres long and that even Toby found the run hard and he had been doing it for years.
Harry managed to complete four laps at a jog before his pace slowed down to little more then a walk. After seven laps Harry couldn't feel his legs, he just kept putting one foot in front of the other. As Harry passed the starting place going into his ninth lap he saw Nath, bending over, panting hard but trying to maintain dignity and Toby lying on the ground, not bothering. Both had finished.
"Hurry up!" Meric roared. "Tomorrow there's going to be a time limit. For the minutes you go over, that's how extra laps you do!"
Harry felt his entire body shaking when he stumbled back. It looked like the others had long since given up waiting and Harry only just made it over to where he had started before he collapsed.
Something shook him, after what felt like only minutes later to Harry. "Come on Harry, wake up."
"Toby?" Harry moaned, his head feeling like it was weighed down with lead.
"Yes," the voice sounded excited, "you're awake. Come on we need to get to class."
Harry just moaned.
"Up," Toby said and Harry felt himself being pushed to his feet.
"Alright, alright," Harry said, stumbling upright then promptly falling over because of the sudden dizziness moving caused.
"Oh man." Toby groaned, as Harry collapsed back onto the ground.
"I'm right," Harry moaned, standing up slowly this time. When the world had stopped spinning, Harry took the time to look around.
"How long was I out?" He asked, the sun had risen long ago.
"About two hours." Toby informed him.
"What?" Harry asked.
"We don't really have time for questions." Toby said, looking anxiously around the grounds. "Class starts in two minutes. We don't have time for breakfast either. We've got to go now."
"What?" Harry said in bewilderment as Toby began to run slowly towards the caste, Harry's own legs felt stiff and unusable.
"We got to go." Toby called, then sighed. He ran back to Harry, grabbed the black haired boy gently with his teeth and threw him onto his back, the cratach began the run up to the castle.
This continued for weeks; Harry got up, got dressed, trained, went to class, ate then collapsed into bed. By the end of the day Harry had slept through most of the classes and gotten in trouble at least twice because he was clumsy, but there was a notable improvement in his performance. He found he could run six laps before he had to walk and even though he still passed out once he finished, it was only for half an hour and Toby no longer needed to drag him to class. He was also finding he could stay awake in classes.
The classes were very different from Hogwarts. For one thing, the students didn't have classes in year groups, but in skill groups. There were three skill levels; beginner, intermediate and advanced. Inside those levels there were ranks from one to eight, eight being the lowest. The levels had been abbreviated down to the first letter of the level and the number of the stage. In most classes Harry was in either B-8 or B-7 but for fire elemental training he had made it to I-8 and for potions and herbology he was in B-4. Out of all of his classes Harry enjoyed spell casting and creation the most, he loved the way he could weave something out of nothing and though he would never admit it, even to himself, he loved that there was something he could do, that Matt couldn't.
"What's the best way to approach a fort, guarded by twelve armed wizards?" Harry asked, sitting in the common room on Tuesday night and doing his strategy homework.
"Air," Fia answered lazily.
"You've said that for every question." Harry remarked, a smile tugging at his lips.
"Then it's obviously a good approach." Fia said, like she was talking to a stupid child.
Harry just snorted but copied it down nevertheless.
"But seriously," Fia said. "Best way to approach anything guarded by wizards is in the air. They never look up, you could be sitting in a tree three feet away from you and they wouldn't even know you were there."
"Yeah," Harry said, trying to cool down by pulling his shirt a bit to get it off his skin, the evenings were much more humid then in England.
"What's with all your long sleeved clothes?" Fia asked. "Aren't you dying in that?"
"Yeah," Harry said, fanning himself. "But I've got nothing else."
"Why not?" Heather asked.
"My letter came kind of late and I didn't really know what the weather was like over here. Plus I didn't own any clothes for this kind of weather."
Fia's face broke out in predatory grin and Heather pulled her face into one of horror.
"Now look what you've done." Heather pretended to scold Harry. "She'll make us go shopping now."
Harry laughed, "I'm sure it's not that bad, I didn't even know they had shops around here."
It was Fia's turn to laugh. "They don't. Well at least not around here. If you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of a desert."
Harry looked very serious, "yeah I had noticed."
Heather snorted. "We can go into one of the muggle towns. Just ask the dorm master for permission."
"Do we need a form signed or anything?" Harry asked.
"Nah," Fia remarked.
"What about," Harry gestured to their wings.
Heather and Fia laughed, "Concealment charm, it's easy."
"Right," Harry said, grinning despite himself.