The Years of Adventure: Atlantis
Chapter Seven – Life in Atlantis Year I
Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.
Author's note: Thank you so much for my faithful reviewers, this one goes out to you! Enjoy!
With the help of magic and intelligent minds, both Harry and Sorianin were fluent in Latin, Harry in Atlantian and Sorianin in English by the end of the second month. Harry had also decided that 'Sorianin' was a very long name and had asked if there was a nickname he could use. Harry was relieved to find that he went by 'Sorian' as well. As soon as he had finished learning Atlantian, Harry approached Lady Aella about teaching and learning in the Knowledge Center of the city. She couldn't have been happier to re-introduce Harry to the senior Keeper of Knowledge, the senior Scholar and the head Professor. The three of them were absolutely thrilled that Harry had been serious about teaching but were really nervous when they realised he was serious about learning as well, they didn't seem to think that Harry should be a Student.
"Why do I get the impression that you don't want me as a student?" Harry asked.
The head Professor answered him, "It's not that we don't want you to be one, just that you'd have to wear student robes."
Harry looked at them like they were crazy, "And how is that a problem?"
"They're not solid robes!" The Scholar exclaimed, as if that were the worst thing in the world.
"Yeah, I know. I finally remember what all the clothing means, robes included. What I don't understand is why it's a bad thing to have transparent robes." As far as Harry could remember, transparent robes just meant that you were young, an apprentice or student, or not decided on a job. Which didn't seem like a big deal to Harry, especially since he fit into all three categories. Maybe I was wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. He thought.
"Transparent robes are usually only worn by young people." The Professor said, obviously forgetting the rest of Harry's attire mainly his lack of a shirt.
"Well, so is not wearing a shirt, but I can't wear one of those because I'm not devoted, engaged or married." Harry responded.
The Professor looked at the Scholar and then back at Harry. "It's just that once someone gets solid robes, they never go back. It's a rite of passage. No one has ever worn both, also, as a Visitor, you would never be asked to wear Student robes. You wouldn't even be a Student at all."
"Or a professor, come to think of it." The Keeper of Knowledge muttered.
Harry frowned at the two men and the previously silent woman. "Let me ask a question. Has a Visitor ever done anything other than visit? I know there's only been three, but have they ever really interacted with anyone other than their Speaker? Did they ever learn Atlantian? Did they ever talk to the people of the city?"
The Keeper looked at him with her old, deep eyes. "No. They have only ever been interested in the power of Atlantis. I've checked the records, they always kept to themselves, only talking with the Council, the head Scholar and Keeper, their Speaker and the Lord or Lady of the time."
"And there's my point." Harry said emphatically. "I know I'm a Visitor, but I'm also a traveler, an explorer. In my life I've been a student and a teacher, many times both at the same time. I'd like to do the same here. You know so much about the powers, and not just the ones of the city, you know what my people call magic, a lot of it. I cannot remember a happier time in my life than when I was studying magic, or even teaching it. I know I'm considered a bit too old to be a Student and a bit too young to be a Professor, but I'd like to be both."
The Scholar, Keeper and Professor all looked at Harry and he knew he'd won.
"Then we will do that." The Keeper said decisively, as the oldest and highest ranking person in the room, she was allowed the final word. "The Professor here will take care of your schedule." Then she left and the Scholar followed her out.
It took them the rest of the day to figure out how to fit Harry into both the Student and Professor schedules but they managed it in the end. The Professor even came to like Harry and Sorian, enough so that he allowed Sorian to take some of the classes with Harry. When Harry asked if Sorianin could be his assistant for his English class they both looked extremely confused.
"What?" Harry asked, looking at their faces. "Teaching a language is hard, or I think it will be. Sorian is the only other person who speaks it!" They still looked confused. "What?" Harry asked again.
"What's an assistant?" The Professor asked.
Harry was shocked, no assistants? He'd never heard of a higher-level education institution that didn't have teachers' assistants for the bigger classes (this one was projected to have three classes of 30 students). Muggle universities always had assistants for classes like this, even the auror school had assistants. "It's someone who helps the main teacher when the class is really big."
"Oh." Sorian and the Professor said in unison.
Harry paused. "So, can he be my assistant? 90 students is a lot. I don't really want to be on my own for that one." They agreed and Harry could just see the Professor thinking about the possibilities of assistants for other classes.
As they walked out, Harry muttered to Sorian, "I can't believe that my becoming a student was questioned because of clothing."
As the months passed, one thing that both worried and fascinated Harry, was where the power of Atlantis came from. He knew that there were some magical buildings or places, such as Hogwarts, but Hogwarts had become such a magical and almost sentient castle because of all the magic being used inside her. While people were performing magic in Atlantis, it wasn't anywhere near the scale of that at Hogwarts. To keep a city like this powered and to keep it and the area around it from collapsing under the water pressure, there must be a huge power source. Harry was fascinated with how such a large power source could exist but worried about what would happen when it ran out. So, he decided to meditate and use his magic sight to see if there was a specific direction the magic came from. If there was, then he would go searching for it.
That evening, Harry checked his occlumency walls and remembered that he had put up extra ones to keep the overwhelming magic of Atlantis from seeping into him. Now that he was paying attention to it, he could swear that the magic itself was fighting to get in. He felt the pulses of magic that were coming from all around him and decided to take a peek with his mind. Then things got a bit out of control.
This was like the feeling Harry got when he was diving straight towards the ground on his Firebolt going top speed, that same rush, but multiplied exponentially. At the same time, however, it was the calmest calm, a thousand times better than laying by the lake on a warm summers' day with a light breeze floating across you. Then it felt like the blood in his veins had turned to fire only to be frozen solid immediately. He was hearing the roaring a million dragons only to be followed by the trill of a phoenix. The darkest black and the brightest white surrounded him, there was no end and no beginning, they did not fade into one another, they just existed as one. Smells of the most putrid brimstone and the sweetest flower washed over him, the driest sand and the clearest elixir vied for dominance in his mouth. It was as if every opposite was working in unison to fill his senses. All of a sudden, it changed. Harry felt as if every sense went dead, he could neither see nor hear, he couldn't smell, taste or feel, there was nothing. He was existing in a vacuum outside time and space. He felt nothing as he faded from existence because there was nothing there to feel. Then, he was whipped around and he began rushing towards a brilliant light, it was the everything to the nothing he was leaving behind. He arrived an instant later, or was it an eternity? Then he was flung both into and out of the everything at the same time and felt as if he were being ripped apart only to come together again. Then suddenly, he was with a million others, all at peace, floating in a vast blackness. Finally, it all stopped and Harry found himself back on his bed in Atlantis.
"Why the bloody fucking hell does all this goddamn shit happen to me?" Harry yelled as he tried to convince his body that it was a body and yes, that meant he needed to breath again after saying that. Then he had to convince his eyes to blink when they got dry, his mouth to swallow when- Fuck, I thought I told you to BREATH! Harry leaned back on his bed and wondered what had happened, and why he was hav- BREATH you bastard! Fuck it, BLINK you idiot! No, don't breath and swallow at the same time! AHHHHHHH! Harry would have screamed out loud but he was afraid that his lungs would end up never breathing again. He tried to calm down, telling himself to take deep breaths (actually telling himself to do this) and think, to figure out what happened.
Okay, I cracked a tiny piece of my mind to open it to the magic. Yes, that went fine. I was nearly blinded, but I was fine. Right, then I waited until I was used to it and opened it a bit more. Again, that went fine. Okay, I kept doing that until it was completely open, again, fine. Then I opened my magic sight...that hurt, a lot. But still, fine. Then I followed the magic to it's source with my sight...no...I was pulled. Oh! Well, thanks Atlantis, you pulled me to wherever the hell you get your magic from and now I've got a- Hold on, it forgot to breath again. BREATH! Anyway, now my body won't work on it's own. Fuck you, Atlantis. Harry realised he wasn't going to get anywhere cursing Atlantis, except maybe sucked back to that place, whatever it was. Instead, he slowly analyzed each and every step he'd taken before the whole everything began. Deep breath. Oh hey! You were breathing on your own! Good boy, keep it up. Now you, eyes, BLINK! Okay, I followed the magic. Woah, back another step. I sat on the bed – best decision I ever made. Opened magic etc. that was fine. Looking around the room, all good. Saw that the magic was swirling up from somewhere below me, hmm, not looking so good, but still fine. Found that I could see the swirls even through the floor, probably should have stopped there. Didn't stop. Followed magic down, again, probably should have called it quits. Figured out that I was under the city and the magic was going into the ground, fuck you, curiosity, don't you know you've killed cats world wide? Ah well, followed my own stupidity, could see myself going through layers of earth and rock, ah shit, I'm not liking where this is going. Saw a really big glowing white thing. Again, bad call, going towards the light is a universal sign of NOT GOOD! Whatever, genius Harry Potter approaches white ball, sees that it's filled with every colour imaginable. Genius Harry Potter touches said NOT GOOD white ball. Shit hits the fan. Harry felt like hitting his head against the wall but decided against it, his body – eyes, lungs and throat at least – had finally started working on it's own again and he didn't think it would be a good idea to piss it off. He would test the appendages later. Judging by what he had just remembered, Harry came to the conclusion that Atlantis drew it's power, and magic, from the center of the earth. He really didn't know what to make of what had happened after that, he felt like someone turned every single one of his senses on and then off. Then time stopped and he turned into nothing, then he was a part of everything, then he exploded, for lack of a better term. Exploded. Oh. Exploded. I went kaboom. I went bang. A BIG bang. Now his head felt like it was going to go bang; this was worse than trying to figure out the Atlantians' clothing system, and Binns' reason for existing, at the same time. Only just then did Harry think to check the time, 9:30pm. He had only sat down to start at 9:00, well, he wasn't 'gone' for more than a minute considering how much looking around he did before being stupid and the time he'd since spent trying to figure out what the hell happened.
But what the hell DID happen? Harry had a vague idea but it didn't really seem possible, then again, he was Harry Potter, shit like this just happens. His far-fetched guess, that sounded completely insane even when he was telling it to himself in his mind, was that he had followed Atlantis' magic, which came from the very center of the earth, and managed to go to the end of the universe, then the beginning and then back to now. It was crazy but Harry really couldn't think of another explanation. However, when Harry thought about it, it really didn't matter what had happened to him in that minute or less, his main purpose of doing this was to figure out where Atlantis' magic came from and when it would run out. The answer was quite simple; the magic came from the earth itself and it would run out when the earth did. Long story short, Atlantis has nothing to worry about. They can live down here till the end of the world, literally. Hey, it's kinda cool. I've been to the center of the earth! Well, my conscious and my magic has. Oh, speaking of my magic... Harry did a quick check of his magic, his emerald green was there but it now had little swirls of pure white in it. All I need is red and then it's Christmas in Harry! Was the random thought that passed through his head as he realised that he now had some of Atlantis', or rather, the Earth's magic in him.
Harry had been in Atlantis for four months when he realised why the other visitors had left so soon. Personally, he had no intention to leave, he just understood why they had. Harry didn't know whether it was belated homesickness from his travels (he had been gone almost a year) or a small hint of isolation from the freedom of the open air, but he began to feel a little depressed. He found himself thinking more and more about the people he had left in England (and Egypt). Up until this point, he had been able to basically forget about them, he had shoved feelings and memories behind special occlumency walls and lived in the moment. His time here in Atlantis was the longest he had ever spent in one place during his travels and he had fallen into a rhythm, meaning he had more time to just think. Harry had built a sort of life here in Atlantis and as familiar habits returned, so too did he begin to miss the familiarity of his friends and surrogate family. Sure, he had Sorian, but his young friend was really the only one who had scratched the surface of him as a person. It also didn't seem like Harry was going to be getting any other friends, Sorian was the only one who didn't treat him with 'the reverence he deserves' as Harry overheard his mother telling him once. So, Sorian was the only one he could really talk to, and he couldn't even tell him everything. First of all, the kid only just turned 13. Second, technically speaking, they weren't even supposed to be friends and third, Atlantis was as close to a pure city as you can get; Harry couldn't risk spreading any of the darkness that he had experienced in his life. Yes, Harry was feeling lonely, and for the first time in his life, Harry wanted to open up to someone. Ironic that when he had plenty of people around, he made sure that no one knew everything about his life, and now that he didn't have anyone he wanted someone to. Life's a bitch. Harry sighed, there really was nothing he could do about this now so he closed his official journal and opened his personal one. When he slipped his personal journal (he refused to call it a diary) into his nightstand, his eyes fell on Bill's letter and conversation that he had slipped into the back of the drawer. He knew moving it from his tent to his room here in Atlantis had been a bad idea, especially because he was supposed to be trying to forget and move on, but he hadn't been able to stop himself (or so he reasoned). At least once a week he had re-read both papers and was going to do it again. He kept telling himself he would stop but the worn, yet cared-for state of both papers was a testament to his lack of self-control, Bill was a bit of an addiction. Reading through the letter again, Harry wished he had brought more than two pictures with him; he had one of the trio at graduation and another of him, Sirius and Remus. Harry crawled out of bed and padded into his study, he found a large, empty sketchbook and a few of his favourite pencils. He went back to his bed, curled up with his sketchbook and started drawing his friends. He started with Ron and Hermione, using his active imagination and now considerable artistic talents he drew them as they were now, together and in love. Then he did a detail of Sirius' face, he paid special attention to his eyes, Harry could remember exactly what his godfather's eyes looked like; they were sparkling and full of life and mischief, but there were still traces of Azkaban in their depths. By this time it was two in the morning and Harry was completely awake, so he worked on the one that gave him this idea in the first place; Bill. Harry could remember every single minute detail of Bill's face, every freckle – not as many as his other brothers – every hit of a line, the spark in his eyes, the exact contour of his eyebrows, how his eyelashes curled just slightly more than other people's, the tiny smile that always seemed to be playing around his lips, Harry probably knew Bill's face better than his own. He worked slower than ever on this drawing, he made sure that it was perfect. The finished product was almost lifelike, it really was a work of art. Finally satisfied, at least for now, Harry slipped everything back into his nightstand and drifted off to sleep only to wake up two hours later for class.
Harry would add a drawing to the sketchbook at least once or twice a week, he put all sort of things in there. Most were the things he couldn't, or wouldn't, talk about; his life before his travels. There was everything from the fire in the Gryffindor common room to a Dementor. After a few weeks he had given up trying to forget Bill, it just wasn't going to happen, he was perfectly happy to pine in peace.
One night, about two months later, Harry worked on a drawing of Bill playing Quidditch, it had been the August before seventh year and they were all gathered at the Burrow to celebrate something or other. It was one of the few times Harry had spent more than a few days at the Burrow, he hadn't really expected Bill to be there. It was scorching hot and everyone ditched their shirts, even the girls switched to tight, half-size tank tops. Harry and Charlie had been the Seekers and Harry had spent most of the game watching Bill fly around shirtless; the only reason he didn't miss the snitch for the first time in his life, was because it had flown right above Bill's head, at least that gave him the opportunity to be in close proximity with a half-naked Bill. Harry didn't finish this drawing until three because half of the time he was daydreaming of Bill in various states of undress. He was so tired that he didn't put the journal away and it lay forgotten on the other side of the bed.
Sorian looked at the clock, Harry was going to be late, again. He sighed, Harry was notorious for always arriving at the very last minute and sometimes the only reason he got there at all was because Sorian went to wake him up. Harry had given him free access to his room for precisely this reason, that and he was tired of having to keep walking back with him when Sorian asked for another book. When he walked into the room, the first thing he notice was that Harry seemed to have fallen asleep while propped up in bed, then he saw an open sketchbook about to fall off the bed with a few pencils scattered over the duvet and a piece of paper resting in Harry's hand. Sorian nearly laughed, Harry had been up all night drawing, he carried a sketchbook with him wherever he went and now he was taking them to bed with him. Sorian thought it was hilarious, he also loved to look through Harry's drawings, they sometimes spent hours looking through them together. Sometimes Harry would let Sorian take one home with him so he could look through it even more – this came with the stipulation that it be kept out of the fingers of his seven year old sister. Curious as to what had captured Harry's attention in the middle of the night, Sorian looked at the open page. What he saw took his breath away; it was an amazing drawing of a man on what he knew to be a broomstick, it was only the top half of the man, it stopped just above the man's thighs. The detail on the drawing was unlike any Sorian had seen before. He was also surprised because this was the first drawing of a person that didn't have anything to do with performing magic. The only other people drawings Sorian had seen Harry do were of groups of people, sometimes just two, or a magical person doing something. Sorian's favorites were the one of two girls playing with blue and purple fire and an older man speaking with animals. This drawing, while still magical (broomstick) was first and foremost a drawing of the shirtless man. He wondered what else was in this book, when he flipped through, Sorian found pictures that could only relate to Harry's life before his travels. Sorian recognised things like Hogwarts, Quidditch, an invisibility cloak, Diagon Alley, a snitch, piles of books, a house elf, a centaur and a few plants but there were many others he didn't recognise; all the people, a man with red eyes and a face that didn't look human, a burning building, a girl bleeding on the ground, a boy screaming, a dark, hooded creature that made a foreign feeling stir in Sorian's heart, a dead body with an unrecognizable expression on her face, a horse that looked like a skeleton, a giant snake that had hundreds of teeth and bloody eyes, something that might have been a baby, massive spiders and people with white masks, the book was filled with things Sorian had never seen or heard of before and they made him feel...scared. But more than that, there wasn't a word to explain the oddness that he felt. It was disturbing.
One thing that really confused him though, was that in the hundreds of various sized sketches and drawings in the book, many of them were of the same man, and those seemed to have been drawn with more care that the others. Some of the others had very harsh or solid lines, but these were drawn almost...lovingly. Sorian also felt that there was something missing from this book, if it was about Harry's life, then why were there no drawings of him? Why were there none of people who looked like him? Where were his parents? His siblings? And there weren't many girls, there were only three that appeared more than once, and they were either older or with another man or group. This didn't make sense to Sorian, Harry wasn't looking for someone down here, so he had just assumed that he had someone on the surface. If this was Harry's life, where was his girl? He was 18, he should have had a girl for a while now. And who was this man? Sorian's young mind took a while to put the pieces together but when it did, he was shocked. Was this man, Harry's girl? Was that even possible? Maybe that was how things were done on the surface, the men had men and the women had women. No, Harry had told him about different ways of getting married and how some countries did it differently, there were always a man and a woman in those stories. Sorian was an extremely confused 13 year old, and he didn't know who else to ask other than Harry. But Harry had obviously not shared this sketchbook with him so...that was when the guilt hit. He had looked at something private! Harry hadn't shown him this, he wasn't even supposed to be in here! Sorian panicked, would Harry be annoyed? Sorian put the sketchbook back exactly where he found it and retreated to the door, then he opened and closed it loudly and called to Harry.
"Harry, get up! We're late!"
Harry shot out of bed, "Goddammit! I have GOT to stop staying up so late!" He yelled, mostly at himself, then he looked at the clock, "Shit! I have six minutes, that's two more than it takes to get there!"
Sorian stepped back as the crazy Visitor raced around his room; he dashed into the bathroom, returning 30 seconds later, whipped open the closet, magically swapped his sleeping pants for his day ones and grabbed a robe.
"Ah, crap. Am I teaching or learning today?"
Sorian sighed, Harry never ceased to amaze him. "Teaching."
"Right, thanks." Harry whipped out the nearest solid robe; waved his hand at his hair so it tied itself back, dashed into his study, grabbed his bag and slid to a stop at the door. "Thanks Sorian, you're a life saver." Then, right as he was going to close the door, he noticed the stuff left on his bed. He shot a glance at Sorian but he had already started off down the hall, Harry flicked his hand and everything raced back to the nightstand. He really hoped that Sorian hadn't seen the book, that would lead to awkward questions. He had drawings from his whole life in there, including Voldemort and Death Eater related stuff, not to mention the heaps of Bill-related drawings.
As they ran to the room where Harry would be teaching those Atlantians who were affiliated with animals about those on the surface, Harry vowed to keep a closer watch over the very few physical things he actually needed to keep to himself, and Sorian tried to think of a way to find out about Harry's life without revealing what he had seen.
Later that afternoon, Harry had pushed the sketchbook incident to the back of his mind and was thinking about his robes. They were boring, even though he probably had the largest variety (formal, solid and transparent), they were still plain.
"Hey, are there any rules as to how you can decorate your clothing? I mean, I know I'm stuck with blues, greens and the occasional cream or white because my Lady likes me but that embroidery, are there rules?" Harry asked Sorian as they ate lunch.
Sorianin shook his head, "No, not really. Just that you can't copy someone else."
Harry took this as a personal challenge and searched for someone who could teach him to stitch, it turned out that Sorianin's aunt was actually the seamstress who made all of Harry's clothing. So he went to her for lessons. He really enjoyed his time learning to embroider and they found that, like many things, Harry was a natural. He developed a few simple patterns that he put around the waist and hem of his pants, and on each of his robes he depicted one of his adventures or life events, it was a good thing that he had a few sets of formal (for meetings with Lady Aella) robes, solid robes and transparent robes, most in greens but quite a few blues as well. At least once a week, Harry could be found with either a needle, thread and a robe or a special sketchbook that he used for designing patterns or laying out new ideas for yet another robe. By the end of his time in Atlantis, Harry probably had decorated more robes than anyone. Ever. He named each of the robes that he designed; he had a Quidditch robe (a personal favourite), a kraken robe, an ocean robe, a Voldemort robe – this was a mocking robe, he basically used this to taunt the snake man and wore it on days when he was feeling particularly vindictive (but it wasn't graphic, no need to taint the purity of Atlantis), a sailing robe, a Weasley robe (he dedicated both front borders to Bill), a Hogwarts robe, a food robe, a forest robe, the list went on and on. Harry was quite proud of his work and Sorianin often told him that they were works of art, almost as good as his drawings. When he heard this, Harry started working on a robe for Sorianin, he made it as beautiful and intricate as possible. He knew that when he left, Sorianin would end up teaching, even though he was still quite young, so he made it a solid robe. He also wove a hair tie for Sorianin because he knew that he would someday be a very high-ranking member of Atlantian society and need to grow his hair out.
Over the next year, Harry learned and taught and learned some more. The magic of Atlantis as a city, was literally incomprehensible, especially seeing as it was actually an offshoot of the magic of the earth, Harry had looked into that, literally, and wasn't about to do it again. So instead, he focused on the different 'gifts' that the 'power' of Atlantis gave it's people, Harry became a bit of a celebrity not only because he was The Visitor, but also because he had the ability to learn almost all of the gifts. When they found that Harry had more than one, some of the Professors suggested that maybe Atlantians had more but because they tried to identify the gifts between ages 10 and 14 they might have missed some. Turns out that most Atlantians had two or three. Harry was just happy that he got to learn all this new stuff and could help them find something new.
He learned Atlantian history and mythology, one thing that really interested him were the stories of a land called 'Lemuria', it was supposedly a sunken or hidden continent in the middle of the Indian Ocean. He took copious notes and put it on his mental list of places to find. Maybe it would be magically powered the way Atlantis was? Harry also learned about the magic of the ocean. The first step to this was knowing elemental water magic (Atlantians called it knowing the power of the water), something Harry was not a natural at. He had to work tirelessly to reach the level of a ten year old Atlantian and it was only through hard work and determination that he even figured it out at all. The Professor theorized that the only reason he could learn it fully was because of where Atlantis was. Namely, the bottom of the ocean. Harry knew it was because he somehow managed to lace his magic with the white magic that flowed from the earth to Atlantis. Once he knew elemental water magic, Harry moved on to learning about the magic of the currents (aka 'power of the currents') and harnessing the sea. This Sea Magic took Harry a year to learn.
During the first year Harry taught many different classes at the Knowledge Center, some of these were more like special lectures where he told stories. Correction: he informed them about the surface world in an engaging way. More specifically he taught English and Latin, Animagus transformations, occlumency for organizing your mind (not protecting your mind from invasion because then he'd have to explain why someone would invade you're mind in the first place), drawing, some potions (mostly healing) that could be made from what they had in their greenhouses, a bit of relevant Herbology, and some simple spells that were approved by Lady Aella. One of the drawbacks was that there weren't any wands down here, so this was all done wandlessly. Harry was pretty good with wandless magic when he arrived but by the end of the first year was basically an expert, he hardly used his wand these days – but that didn't mean he left it in his room. And that was just the first year learning and teaching, there were many other things that happened in Atlantis beyond learning magic.
Once the people of Atlantis started seeing Harry as more than the untouchable Visitor and Student/Professor, they started allowing him to spend time with them. He was a real favourite of the younger citizens, they began to see him as an older version of themselves. This was mostly because of the fact that even though he was older than them, he still dressed like them, there was also the fact that he was fun. In fact, many of the Adults were shocked when their children, and even some of the teenagers called him Dani Dani, Dani Harry, Dani H or sometimes just Dani. Dani Dani is an endearment usually reserved for an older brother. The first one to use it was Sorian's younger sister, then it was her and her friends, then their class, then that year in their school, then the surrounding years and then other schools until quite a few of the children were using it. By the time it got back to the parents, there really was nothing they could do about it. They also didn't know that Harry held impromptu story time/semi-classes/playtime after school let out. It started when Harry was teaching Sorian chess in the park one afternoon and his sister and her friends arrived and wanted to know what they were doing. Harry ended up 'teaching' them English because they kept asking him how to say this word and then a phrase, and Harry really couldn't say no. He showed them how how to draw, the joys of hopscotch, ring around the rosy, bubbles and hula hoops and how to play chess. It was testament to how bad Harry was at chess when a nine year old beat him after learning for a week. The kids thought it was great fun to keep this a secret from their parents (which Harry didn't know), when they said they were going to 'play with a friend at the park', the parents assumed it was someone their own age, not the Visitor. Then one of the kids said they were going to play with Dani Dani, which made their mother frown, then someone said it was Dani Harry and she freaked out. When the parents arrived and saw Harry pretending to mourn his loss at chess while his fellow player did a victory dance, they realised that the Visitor was actually just Harry, or Dani Dani if they asked their four year daughter.
But it wasn't just the kids that Harry befriended and taught outside his official classes. He also managed to get roped into a few mothers' circles, to this day he really has no idea how saying "Oh I love asparagus, especially steamed with garlic and salt" made him the mothers' new best friend. The fathers, on the other hand, didn't really like Harry outside of his role as Professor, Student or Visitor. He was obviously like by their wives and children – especially their teenage daughters – and that annoyed them for the longest time. Then Harry found out their opinion of him and introduced them to playing cards (he very carefully left out poker, blackjack and other betting games, that could get bad). After that, they were perfectly happy to have him around.
Author's note: Sorry for the slightly chopped-off ending, I'm still working on Year II so it might be a while.
