Note: This will be a Harry/Tonks story, but they will take a while to get there as Harry has to experiment (hint hint, wink wink). Anyway, I hope you like the story so far and if you have any flames to give to my writing or my ideas, go rightahead, this is a place where writers can improve after all.

Thought

speech

Mind speech

Harry smiled to himself and made his way up to his room. He had had a lot of fun with Dumbledore, but he had things to do. The fact that Voldemort was after him was a well-known fact, not only because of that thing called pride, but also because of the prophecy as well. This thought sent rage coursing through Harry's veins and if anyone had been watching, they would have noticed the lights flicker and shrink to almost nothingness, but then, Harry had suppressed his anger in favor of a better emotion: determination.

Well, first things first, I need to train. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, he thought to himself. The only problem was how. He knew that a member of the Order would be guarding his house at all times, but he also knew that there were those among the order that would gladly help him train, Moody for example. But Moody wasn't an animagus, or a shade, and he didn't believe him to be a swordsman for that matter either.

Yep, Harry would definitely need help from outside the Order. Maybe a trip to Diagon Alley was due in the near future. Till then, he could practice the theory of Charms and Transfiguration, as well as finish reading his collection of books from school. Some, he didn't have any use for in the near future, such as care of magical creatures, while others he had absolutely no use for, like divination or astronomy. Just the thought of the stacks of books waiting for him in his room made him groan. Even though he knew that he should do it, that didn't make it any easier for him to finally trudge up the steps to begin the task that would surely take several hours.

Starting with the potions book he had left unfinished in his room, he made his way through his entire selection of useful books. These excluding all of Lockhart's and Quirrel's books, of course, and he was infuriated that he could actually understand why a potion had to be brewed in a certain way, and why you couldn't add some ingredients in with others. Damn Snape. When Harry looked up to check the time, he was shocked to find that only a few hours had passed for him to finish reading all of his many books. He really had to figure out what was going on with him and his new abilities, maybe the sword could help.

Deciding to ask, Harry instinctively went into the trance that comes along with wielding this particular sword to have a…talk with the entity that resided in the ancient weapon. Reaching that special place of calm in his mind, and finding the specific link to his sword he traveled down the path to have his second meeting with this very powerful…thing, that he might consider a mentor later in life.

"Shadow, he spoke…err thought…err, whatever, in his mind, I would like to have a chat with you."

The "thing" that answered his call was the creature that had protected Harry's mind earlier and spooked Dumbledore, spooked being a "light" term. (sorry, stupid pun)

"Yes, Harry? What is it that you need?" It responded.

Since it isn't any fun to talk with someone when you're nothing but a voice, Harry willed a room to be made in his mind for him and shadow to talk. Surprisingly, it was the Gryffindor common room, although Harry didn't seem to notice as he took a seat and gestured for Shadow to do the same.

"Shadow," he started, "It has come to my attention that I can now do a few things that I couldn't do before and weren't supposed to be part of becoming a shade, care to explain why?"

Shadow bowed his head, and then returned his gaze to Harry's eyes, eyes he knew would never turn yellow like all others before him, before saying, "That, I cannot answer, though I may know of a way for you to figure that out."

Harry was intrigued. There wasn't much that Shadow didn't know about, living a few centuries trapped inside of a sword will do that to a person, but at least he was able to give Harry a lead. "Go on," he commanded.

"Well, in every patron's vault, there are supposedly artifact that can determine all latent abilities that a person from that family may possess, such as a Metamorph, and this artifact could be used to discover all of your "special" abilities." He finished with a knowing smirk at the fact that Harry would be uneasy at the fact of him standing out of the crowd in any way, although, knowing the fact that he was now a shade, he wouldn't be able to hide among the crowd for much longer.

"What are you talking about?" Harry questioned, "I'm not the patron of any family and I'm pretty sure that if I was, I would know about it."

"Oh?" shadow smirked, "What do you think the ancient and most powerful house of Potter is?"

Harry was nearly hysterical at this time, "But, someone would have told me about my family…" here he had to stop as realization hit him like a levitated troll club. Dumbledore.

How dare he keep something like this from me! He thought to himself. That old codger is going to pay big time for this one.

Shadow was happy to see Harry meet his expectations, although he was a tad worried that the room they were currently residing in would collapse as he lost control of his emotions, indeed, there were cracks appearing in the walls and darkness started to seep in, but then Harry calmed himself with a wicked grin on his face, though the room seemed was repaired, it didn't look the same as before. It looked somehow, darker, but with the same amount of light in the room, as if the walls were made of something that sucked in light.

"Shadow?" he said, "Can you teach me to shadow walk to Gringotts?"

Shadow was now extremely pleased with how his new pupil was forging a path for himself without anybodies help. Shadow, of course, would only be teaching Harry how to use his developing powers. "With pleasure, milord."

Harry decided to dismiss the fact that Shadow had called him as his "lord" as some sarcasm from the being-he still wasn't entirely sure whatit was-and jumped into his training with eagerness. After all, if he was going to undermine Dumbledore's control over him, he was going to need all the help thathe could get.

"Since you've already done it once, it shouldn't be too hard for you to make it to the wizarding bank." Seeing the blank look on Harry's face he explained, "When you captured Dumbledore remember?" then comprehension dawned and, if possible, Harry became even more excited at the thought of sliding through shadows as if it were the plane they now existed upon.

"First, you have to know that there are many other planes of existence besides the one that you live on." Seeing Harry's nod he continued, "To shadow-walk, you have to rip a hole into the shadow plane and just step somewhere else and rip yourself a hole back, don't worry, it doesn't have any long-term effects on either plane." Shadow was happy to notice the look of relief on Harry's face when he said this, 'Good,' he thought to himself, 'He's already worried about the consequences on others, this bodes well for his future.' Returning to the lesson, Shadow told Harry the next couple of stepsfor Shadow-walking, also telling him the benefits, such as the fact that it can't be stopped by anti-apparition wards and is almost completely undetectable by any known magical devices, though for some odd reason, cats could tell when it happened. And, apparently, they didn't like this particular form of travel either because whenever they felt it, they would attack whoever showed up.

Although it was a powerful ability, it still had its problems, such as the fact that there has to be a shadow for him to step into before he could do it. Also, it had a limited distance, depending on how powerful the shade is, they could go anywhere from across the room to being able to shadow step all the way to France. The longer the distance, the more difficult it is to shadow-step there.

After about an hour or so of Shadow's ministrations, Harry was ready to try it. Removing him from the "safe" room, as he had come to call it, and returning to the present, he looked into his shadow and stepped into it.

The place that Harry found he had entered was known as the shadow plane, not completely light, but not completely darkness either, much like the world he had come from, and it was big, I mean really big. Even though it corresponded with the real world, it had to be at least twice its size. Shadow had mentioned something about this, but it didn't make any sense at the time. He had said that the Shadow plane seems to stretch and shrink at certain times of the day when there are more shadows to choose from, and since it was dusk, it was only natural that it would be at its largest. What Harry didn't expect, were the creatures. Sure, Shadow told him about them, but it was only to warn him to get away from them as fast as possible. From the looks of it, that wouldn't be happening anytime soon, because the Shadow Dragon that stood not a hundred feet away was looking right at him with a curious look on its face.

Harry couldn't do anything. The Dragon was huge, much bigger than the Hungarian Horntail that he faced in his fourth year, and the eyes showed intelligence to equal that of any human, if not surpass them.

It just reeked of power.

When Harry finally returned to his senses, he turned around and booked it. He didn't know where he was going, but if he could get away from that Dragon, then he would live to see tomorrow, and that would be worth it, even if he did get hopelessly lost.

His thoughts were interrupted when the beast landed right in front of him and Harry almost ran into it. Looking up, Harry was terrified to find its enormous yellow eyes staring at him.

Now, the dragon was intrigued to find this flesh ling running around on his plane when he hadn't seen one for the past century at least, and so questioned him, "What are you doing here, flesh ling?"

The sheer power that radiated from his voice would be enough to send the hardiest of warriors running in terror, so the Dragon was surprised to find this boy show nothing of his fear other than the slight quiver in his voice.

"I, I'm here to walk to gringotts."

"How did you get here?"

"I shadow stepped."

Now the dragon was truly amazed. There hadn't been a shadow stepper since he was an egg, and that was a very, verylong time ago.

"How can you do such a thing?"

"My sword," Harry's answer was completely honest, though he decided not to tell the shadow dragon about his mentor.

For the first time, the Dragon noticed the blade sitting at this puny things hip, then a very unexpected thing happened, the dragon's face showed fear. Although it hid its fear quickly, it wasn't fast enough to be missed by Harry. He was curious as to why a being of such great power would be afraid ofjust a littlesword, but before he could question it, the dragon was just…gone.

Note: Thanks to all the readers who reviewed, and to all the readers that didn't review, may Shadow take you into the pits of Darkness and do things that I can't even think up.

P.S. Thanks to all ideas for an Animagus from my readers, I hope to have the chapter about his form up soon. After his Gringotts visit anyway.