AN: Greetings, guys and gals. Again. This is a surprise chapter, at least to me. Call it inspiration. It is not particularly funny, but I hope it is interesting.

miss quirky bookworm, well yeah, it turned Harry to an apprentice. I'll explain about the origin of the orb in the next chapter, I think. Briefly, Harry fell to a hidden passage, where he was lured (I'll explain later), got his blood analyzed and got himself into apprenticeship. Willingness for the "orb" was irrelevant.

Chapter 5

Time lost its meaning to the young Apprentice and left only a sense of urgency. He had to study hard to receive a Calling sooner. Why, he didn't remember, just felt that something was waiting in the outer world. In the world that did not consist of dusty books, Master's indifferent voice and numerous hours spent in meditation.

The boy unenthusiastically watched his dinner appear. It was awfully tasteless but it did curb his hunger.

He inhaled the food and stopped to savour a glass of water, the only pleasurable thing in this place, except the feeling of his magic. The water was fresh, achingly cold and invigorating in contrast to the stale surroundings.

What was his name, his appearance, his past? And did it even matter? The only thing that was important was the well of magic inside his being and all the things it could do – endless possibilities.

Apprentice placed the empty glass on the tray and walked from his Spartan room to the library. It was not a large one – only five medium-sized bookcases, but every book carried a wealth of information. Memoirs of deceased wizards and witches, their discoveries on the road to better themselves and the world or even to make the world bow at their feet. He only scraped the surface.

First and foremost task was to find his magical core, to know it intimately. To make it sing and play in tune with his mind and soul. The young man frowned. There was a discrepancy in his magic and he was going to question his Master about it.

"Master, I have found my magic!" he winced as his voice was sounding too giddy and somewhat drunk. Magic could be like a drug, especially just after the first exposure.

"Apprentice," chastised his Master's voice that was coming as usual out of nowhere. "you surely took your sweet time. Now do you see why the meditation was necessary? Will you not argue with one who knows better again?"

"I will not argue with one who knows better again, Master," meekly answered the boy, but the teacher nevertheless heard the implication that is was still up to question who knew better. He decided to ignore the defiance. Some independent thought was welcomed. "But there is a problem, Master. A foreign presence, an alien power is attached to my core. What do I do? Assimilate or purge it?"

"What do you think, Apprentice? Does the presence feel hostile to you?"

"It does, Master."

"Then I trust you know what you should do."

"Assimilate it."

"Very true, Apprentice. Keep your enemies closer. I'll watch over you while you do it."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, what are you waiting for? You still have four hours before curfew. Get to it already!"

"Yes, Master."

The assimilation had gone well. It increased his magic exponentially and gave it a sharp edge that he would have acquired much slower on his own.

Control. Power. Creativity. Three keys to becoming a true mage. And if he was helping himself with other people's ideas, so what? He just had to stay above the blind following and constantly introduce changes even if they were small ones to improve the technique.

His Master had gifted him with a stack of parchment and a collection of various materials. He was to make his own grimoire. And he did it.

Apprentice reverently caressed the smooth red skin cover created from the lower devil's hide residing on the demon plane. How his Master got such a precious thing was unknown to him, but maybe he would learn that in time. The malevolent nature of it was counterbalanced with an elvin living vine that was in threadbare. There was a darkened place on the cover, which later will be filled with his Calling and date of birth, and even more into the future the date of his death.

His improvements and experiments were already carefully written down into the book. He didn't have to worry about getting out of place to write. He placed a tricky blood magic spell on it, firstly, to insure that his life force would supply the grimoire with enough energy to endlessly expand, remaining the same in volume and weight and, secondly, to carry the book inside his blood. If it was accidentally or purposefully destroyed, only a drop of his blood and willing of his mind would be sufficient to restore it. Thirdly, nobody but him could access the information without his permission till the time of his death.

He was going through the library at a fast pace stopping briefly to practice new uses and experiment. Master guided him sometimes. He could always ask a question, but it was to his Master's consideration if he should be answered or work the problem out on his own. More often than not he was answered cryptically, with vague hints or even riddles.

Roughly, fourth of the books had to be discarded as they were meant for people with certain abilities. As he was no elemental, seer, shapeshifter, dark/light master, Singer and plenty of other obscurer magic wielders, he moved on. He could mimic the effects of some abilities on a less large scale, for example, creating small currents of wind and balls of fire, turning into his inner animal, but he would never create a storm, part the sea, or shake the mountains, as the masters of the field could. It was not his Calling.

He knew he should have one though. Or he wouldn't be here, wherever it was, studying under the stern guidance of Master.

Apprentice sighed and put the final dot in the description of his latest experiment. Alchemy was certainly not a thing to be trifled with and combining thestral hair and Nordic runes was apparently a big no. Hm-m. Maybe he should have thrown in some unicorn horn powder. It could be the missing element of connection to the innocence of the wielder, he forgot to add to the device, which enabled the people who hadn't seen death to see thestrals and other underworld creatures. He was not sure why he chose to do it, but it seemed like an interesting project at the time.

The young man stretched and worked out kinks in his body. Perhaps it was time for another period of light reading, as he called the leafing through the grimoires of particular abilities not inherent to him. At least they were cognitive if not very useful.

He got up from the sturdy stool and grabbed the next book. He was already finishing the third bookcase. Did he even have a Calling?

Dreamer Ryest's Grimoire, previously known as Gillion Cleytring

12.06.345 BC - 20.01.201 BC

He felt it. A longing. Rightness. So he was a Dreamer. Just who the heck was he?!

Apparently a Dreamer was a person who while sleeping could see through other people's eyes. Feel their feelings, think their thoughts. At that very moment. At the present time. Unfortunately, he couldn't delve into the past motives and memories. Mastering the ability required immense amounts of mind control, even more so than manipulating magic, and rigorous training. Exercises to achieve the needed state of mind were painful (manipulating and overcoming pain), stressful (managing emotions) and sleepy (learning to fall asleep at any given time but staying in control of yourself). The hardest part was to merge both conscious and subconscious parts of the mind. That was a trait inherent for the Dreamers and their determinant, but obviously the ability still needed to be evolved through hard labour. The merged mind then had to seek its target for viewing. The easier to find were people who the Dreamer had ties with – family, friends, lovers, enemies…

Apprentice couldn't stretch his mind beyond the confines of Master's establishment which in his opinion had the best wards ever, and had to use a simulation room. It gave him only half the real experience. But it had to do. He was finished.

"But Master, didn't I receive my Calling yet? Why am I not free to go?"

"That is one of your Callings. And you still haven't gone through the whole library. You may have improved yourself, Apprentice, but you did not salvage all the parts of your training yet. More is missing."

And Master was as usually right. He soon found his second calling.

The fifth bookshelf had even more specific books. It contained grimoires written in inborn languages: Elvish, Avian, Parseltongue, Phoenician, Chimerian and many-many more. So he skipped almost all of it. He could understand only Parseltongue and partially Ammadean. He had to wholly learn it through trial and error and a few successful summonings. Each language held its own magic within itself. Parseltounge was weather and healing magic, And Ammadean… Well, he only knew part of its magic. Manipulating, twisting and changing the very nature… of people, surroundings, perceptions. And fire and rock magic. That's all he knew about, but he was sure there was more. He would endeavour to master the branch in time as not many sources on that magic were readily available even in Master's library. He'll just have to hunt the knowledge down.

It was finally over. Apprentice knew it without doubt. Though he was in a hurry to receive a Calling, he felt sad and more than a little afraid. Who was he before? How will he change upon merging with his old personality?

Well, no use procrastinating. It was time to leave for the entrance chamber.

Apprentice remembered the golden mist from somewhere and it brought his nerves on alert.

"Relax Apprentice. You have done remarkably well. Remember the lessons and rules of magery that you learned here. I hereby call you Dreamer and Summoner Flhoyer. May your road be fruitful and your achievements great."

The golden mist swallowed the trembling figure.

"Good bye, Harry Potter."