Humanities Inhumanity
"Have you succeeded?" A rough voice echoed from around the dank dark cave.
"Yes." Harry stated simply. The bottle containing the black sludge hit the ground in front of the dark specter concealed by the shadows. His mentor couldn't completely hide his presence from him anymore, not after the second year of his training.
"What is it? What type of creature have you faced?" The shadow man asked, picking up the bottle and peering into its murky depths. "A fear creature." The shadow looked at the boy in slight surprise. He managed to defeat one of those things? Even he was hard-pressed to fight off what he feared most when one of them snuck up on him a while back. The tell-tale black sludge, for that is what the creature was, seemed to gather near the lid of the bottle in an attempt to get out. "You pass." The bottle was tossed at Harry's feet as the shadow man went back into a meditative pose.
"Shadow." Harry said softly. "I received a letter on the way here from an owl." Shadow's eyebrows lifted, as if asking Harry to explain himself. "I was invited to attend a school, a magic school." The being remained in silence, and Harry shuffled nervously waiting for his response.
"What did you do with the letter?" He questioned simply, his face unrevealing any emotion. "I burned the letter. If there are really other magic users out there they may have ways of tracking people or objects."
"Good." The shadow stood up and dusted the front of his black tunic off before walking down a tunnel to the left, motioning for Harry to follow him. "Do you want to go to this magic school?" Harry trailed after the shadowy being, mind set in thought.
"It's not my type of thing, but it may be a good learning experience." He supposed, it really might be useful, maybe he'd learn more than Din's Fire, his fire spell and Nayru's Love, which conjured a barrier around him. He was set to learn Farore's Wind after he fully mastered Nayru's Love. Shadow only knew three spells, and that was all he was going to teach him. Maybe he could learn new spells and teach his mentor for a change. That was a nice thought. He shook his head to clear his thoughts.
"Not this year." Shadow told him. "Wait until you have managed to learn Nayru's Love."
Harry only nodded in response as the two pale skinned swordsmen entered an open area in the cave. Mentor and student drew their swords with a sharp sound of metal against metal before crossing swords like many times before.
Two hours later saw Harry out of breath on his knees, clutching his left arm which had a deep gash extending from his elbow to wrist diagonally. Tiny cuts littered his body as he breathed ragged breaths. "Not bad." His shadowy mentor stated in his usual emotionless tone, even though he too was covered in little gashes.
The pale skinned boy tightened his grip on his sword as the shadow walked calmly over to the downed child. As soon as he was close enough Harry swiped his sword in an upward slash in a hope to catch the shadow man off guard, only for the man to lean backwards slightly, cutting through the edge of the tunic. Ganondorf's ex-servant kicked him in the ribs causing him to tumble over onto his back.
"Better." Harry coughed up blood as the shadow man knelt over his beaten and battered form. "You have improved quite a bit. Two hours against me is not a small feat." The shadow man stood up and started to walk away from the downed boy. "The hunt begins in ten minutes, today is your turn. Heal up and grab your bow."
Four years ago when Shadow started training Harry, the shadowy man accidentally pushed his young charge too far and gave him a fatal injury. Without a healer the young boy could have died, so he rushed him towards the nearest town he could find. On the way there the shadow man tripped over an odd rock jutting out of the ground. The rock looked familiar for some reason and upon further inspection, the crest of the Royal Family was engraved on it.
A fairy fountain
His eyes widened in stark realization. Back when he was still the bloody Hero of Time's shadow he came across quite a few of them.
Needless to say, Shadow searched around for a cave of some sort around the rock and found the fairy fountain to which the fragment belonged to. The fountain was in need of drastic repair as the pillars surround the shallow pool of water were crumbling away. The fairies seemed to be well enough and weren't affected by whatever happened to this place.
The shadow man had flung the injured child into the water and watched as a few fairies circled around the young child, healing his wounds and cleansing his body of the dirt and grimed that had been caked onto his skin. The shadow being walked into the small spring and repeated the process with himself.
The shadow being had made the cave the fairy fountain resided in his home as it was very unlikely he would encounter another one. They were usually spread far apart and almost impossible to find.
Harry slowly and painstakingly removed a bottle from his pockets and popped the lid off, releasing a fairy that completely healed his wounds. He got up off the ground and dusted his clothes off before leaving the training area to grab his bow.
The hunt, Harry mused, was just a training exercise that was derived from the actual sport or necessity of hunting. It was both a necessity as Harry and Shadow needed to eat, and sport as they made a game of who could get the most game in the least amount of time. Currently Shadow was in the lead with two deer and six rabbits.
Harry sighed deeply as he admired his bow. It had been a gift to him when he completed his third year of training. The shadow had decided that swordplay wasn't enough and had him learn the art of the bow. It was a beautiful hand crafted piece of wood with a deep ocean blue handle. A metal guard surrounded each side of the handle, the top of the bottom piece had arrow indentations on both sides so Harry was able to use either hand to shoot. The bowstring was made from a beautiful yet tough silk that the shadow man had found on his forays out into the wilderness surrounding the cave. He sighed one more time before exiting the cave into the night covered forest.
Albus Dumbledore only sighed as a small odd knick-knack, which was among the other little odd things littered his desk, blew out a deep red puff of smoke which covered up the previously blue smoke clouds.
"Twilly." The headmaster called out into the absolute silence of his office. A loud crack and a grotesque looking creature clad in a pristine white tea towel appeared in front of the elder. Its large ears hung over the front of his head as he patiently waited for his command. "Yes Master Dumbledore sir? You called for Twilly sir?"
"Ah yes Twilly. Could you perhaps fetch Professors McGonagall and Snape for me dear?" The house elf nodded in assent. "Oh and before you leave, would you care for a lemon drop?" Twilly shook her head softly. "No sir, sorry sir. Human foods make House Elves sick they do sir." Dumbledore nodded in disappointment as Twilly snapped her fingers, disappearing with another loud crack.
Albus only had to wait a few minutes until his two staff members were knocking at his door. "Enter." He silently waved his hand. The door opened to reveal a stern looking woman and a pale-skinned man with a hooked nose standing behind her, a scowl marring his face while a tight frown was etched on the woman's.
"You called for us Albus?" Minerva asked in a no nonsense tone of voice. He was interrupting her duties after all!
"Yes. Please do inform us what this is about Headmaster. I have certain... potions that are in dire need of a stirring." Snape said with sarcasm dripping off his tone of voice.
The Headmaster folded his hands together on top of his desk and peered over at his two staff members over the rims of his glasses. The two professors quickly became silent and straightened up at the serious glint in his eyes. "Mr. Potter has received his letter."
"Well surely that's g-"Minerva fell silent to Albus' raised hand.
"The letter was destroyed upon being received, therefore rendering the tracking charm placed upon it almost useless. We still have an approximate area he could be residing in, though he may have just been passing through the area."
Minerva seemed almost pensive as she thought through the options they held. "We would still have to check. Just in case he is in the area the letter was destroyed."
"Or you could leave him to rot in the wilderness. Surely the boy is nothing short of a barbarian by now." Severus inputted.
Albus twirled a strand of hair above his eyes thoughtfully. "Minerva, Fawkes will bring you to the sight of the destroyed letter. Severus, you will go with Minerva and provide back up in case anything were to go wrong, don't look at me like that Filius is on holidays to the Caribbean Islands for the summer."
Minerva and Severus nodded at their orders and made to leave. "Oh and before you go, care for a lemon drop?"
Okay honestly this chapter fought me the entire time and this is the best I could do. I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter done, and I apologize for the length as it's shorter than usual.
Oh one last thing. I put up a poll for this story, check it out. Peace.
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