Ermagwerd, I'm writing the next chapter already! This one will have a bit of Harry learning, a bit of the train ride (so we'll see Hogwarts students) and maybe even some other things.
If anyone wants to know what inspires my writing, two bits - the scene break titles are from mostly songs that I love the lyrics to, but when I write, it's generally atmospheric electronic music that convey heavy emotion - trance, dub with hip hop influences, things like that.
So guys, please visit the forum to discuss things! www. fanfiction dot net/ forum /A-Split-in-Time-and-Space/119550/
Check my profile for a hyperlink if you're lazy. xD
In there, you'll get bonus content! And maybe a chance to convince me of how the story should go!
And since I'm promoting this. I'm giving you the next chapter super, super early. I just finished penning it like, two hours ago. I've looked over it once.
Kaleidoscope
She was Lorelei of Bartholemoi, the youngest General of the Mage's Association to exist and the sound of her name defined her.
The Bartholemoi were the Protector of the Five Elements, the last of Elijah's line - you were not considered an adult until you parted the Jordan River. Her older sister had died at the age of seven trying to replicate the feat, but she had done it. She had spent twenty years in the Mage's Association skirting a Sealing Designation for her true understanding of what it meant to be one with the elements.
A Sealing Designation. Before she had become a General, it hung as a constant threat against her overperformance. They were given to those who knew magic better than the elders of the Association, something to keep young mages down, to keep them from getting strange ideas. After Gellert Grindelwald had joined them and stole the fifty two tomes of Universal Research, they had begun handing them out like candy.
It was a death sentence. Those who violated them, she struck down personally. But she felt the years of plateauing catch up to her. The Aozaki and their two demonic daughters, Matthew Lenova who was twelve and chanted in the name of Fate, the everpresent threat of the Einzbern, Lady Greengrass's prodigy daughter who didn't forget a single thing she learned…
The storm clouds brewed on the horizon and she functioned as the woman who would blow the hurricane back.
I Feel Fine
Harry lived in the guest's quarters as he had not been "Sorted" yet. He assumed that it meant that he had to pass a sort of test to enter the different Houses of Hogwarts.
It was a nice space, with a thicker carpet than he had ever seen before and a four-poster bed all to himself. It was quite a colorful room, with what he learned were Gryffindor Red and Golds, Hufflepuff Yellow and Blacks, Ravenclaw Blue and Greys and Slytherin Green and Silvers.
The bookcase was stocked with historical journals and culturally important books - The Song of Merlin, Elijah's The Elements, Sweeting's Horn of the Unicorn and other works that would have been considered light, elementary reading by most of those with the right to stay in the guest room. Harry barely left the room, even at mealtimes, due to his need to imbibe the information within the pages. On the second night, he asked Dumbledore for a notebook of sorts, which was immediately provided with the flick of a wand.
Harry's notebook had reached lengths of epic proportions, full of generic note-taking, comments, insights provided by his eyes and the displeasure of not having a wand when Dumbledore pulled him aside on a Monday morning to go to Diagon Alley.
They walked at a comfortable pace as Dumbledore asked Harry about what he had learned in the past two weeks.
"And so my idea on the formation of runic structures is in line with Agrippa's, the whole Note of Resonance and Resonant Branches seems to make the most sense. But I have discovered exceptions. The Egyptians and the Indus seem to operate through multi-note systems, which I think is based on the fact that their polytheism is more abstract and geographically separate."
"Of the three theories, Agrippa is not my favorite, but I do admit that he seems to be quite accurate in his Resonance production. The information isn't quite easy to come by, but there are other rune sets which don't follow the Rule of Agrippa - runes so powerful that they form their own Resonance and are connected loosely by Chordal Cadence."
"What exactly is Chordal Cadence, Professor?" Harry asked as they waited for the gates to open.
Dumbledore frowned for a moment. "It's… quite a difficult concept to explain, especially if you haven't played an instrument. There are progressions of sound which seem to make sense together, both to our ear and to Magic itself. If you'd listen to some popular music among muggle teenagers, you'd find that some of the strongest chord cadences can be felt by even them, especially if they imbibe things that change the pathways in their mind. I think it can be said that the 'point' of Runes, which are somewhat archaic means of communication, is to cross the divide between the self and the conceptualization of magic, almost as language crosses between our thoughts and what other people hear. Now, take my arm, Harry."
They Disapparated (Harry finally discovered the proper term for the teleportation process) in a little pop, rather sloppy for what it was, but Dumbledore had been quite deep in thought.
"I apologize, that was rather abrupt," Dumbledore said immediately as they stood before a brick wall.
Harry stared at it, felt the hum of magic.
"It is important to train your senses even without the help of your eyes. What is, so to speak, the key to this puzzle?"
Harry tapped on a brick.
"Now, that's generally not the way forward. Had this been a thing of malice, you would have lost anything from your arm to your life. You mustn't rely on tactile information either."
Harry traced the hum of magic to a very specific brick.
"That one," he said, pointing just off the center of the wall. "What must we do to pass?"
"Now, that's a question, indeed. I personally can tell from my sense of smell, attuned to the way different magics interact. I smell quite a bit of wood, despite the fact that no wands are out and casting. So that implies that there needs to be a touch of magic reliant on a focus. Most wizards utilize their wands as their primary focus. What have you used?"
Harry removed a pencil from his pocket and lobbed it with a burst of magic at the brick. The already charged brick exploded with the sheer force of Harry's willpower and Dumbledore raised his hand to stop the shrapnel in midair.
"Now, you see, it's not always the best idea to use force on wards. They tend to explode. Outwards." Dumbledore put his arm back down and the destroyed brick wall crumbled to the ground. He pulled out his wand and waved it quickly as some bystanders on the other end stared in shock, quickly rebuilding the structure. He tapped the same brick with his wand and the bricks parted ways to reveal the pair.
Dumbledore cast a quick charm which he called a "Forget Me" to Harry over the two of them and they passed through the crowd uninhibited.
They turned a corner and Dumbledore nodded at a structure which proclaimed "Ollivander's Wands since 382 B.C."
"Has it really been there for that long?"
"Oh, of course, my boy. The entire Alley was built around it and near it. Wands used to be interchangeable terms for staves, which were far more popular for men in the old days. Now, hiding a wand is far easier, so after the Statute was passed, wands became standard. Another casualty of secrecy."
They stepped into the shop and Harry immediately scanned the area with his eyes. An old man was hiding under a fabric of what could have only been invisibility and was trying to sneak around without making any noises.
Dumbledore looked straight at the man and shook his head.
"Oh, Brother Albus!" the man who could only be Ollivander cried out, lifting the spell in a mere moment.
"Linus, you are far too dramatic for your own good. I have brought young Harry here to procure a wand. I have the strong belief that there will be a certain phoenix feather in the wand he chooses."
"The Other?" Ollivander said, a touch of seriousness entering his tone.
"Yes, the brother wand. He was marked, after all." Dumbledore touched his own forehead to indicate his meaning. Harry nodded in understanding. "The feather was given by Fawkes, a companion of mine. Fawkes gave two feathers, one of which resides in the wand of the man who marked you."
"What happened to his wand?" Harry asked.
"It was stolen from the site of his downfall."
"There was someone in there after he attacked me," Harry decided. Dumbledore did not disagree.
Ollivander passed the wand to Harry. "Eleven inches. Holly and Phoenix feather. Give it a wave, young Harry Potter."
"Push your magic through. If you feel any sort of resistance, it is not the correct wand for you, Harry."
Harry did, showering the room in gold sparks. He frowned at the wand, even as Ollivander clapped and beamed at Professor Dumbledore. "Professor… it expects something of me. It's trying to tell me something."
Dumbledore nodded. "Keep channeling your magic through it without intent. Connect with it."
Harry did and more golden sparks formed raining pools of residual magic on the other wands on display, which responded this way and that - some of them began to produce sparks themselves and one extremely long white wand emitted a jet of water which soaked the side of a wall.
"It wants… More. That's what I'm getting from it."
"You will do great things, young Harry Potter. Great things indeed." Professor Dumbledore nodded along, lost in thought.
"Well, we'll be going now, after a quick visit to my old friend Florean. Thank you, Linus!" He dropped several galleons, the largest denomination of wizarding currency, onto the counter and all but pulled Harry out of the shop.
"There were three of us, back in the day. Myself, Gellert Grindelwald and Linus," Dumbledore said as the door shut firmly behind them. It had begun to rain slightly and the streets were mostly clear of pedestrians. "We were the three students of Livius the Light Mage. Linus had no talent in magic and all the talent in the world at wandmaking and Livius had only taken him as a student out of a favor owed to his father."
"Did he become great as well?" Harry could not help but ask.
"Oh, it would take a good amount of talent to kill Linus Ollivander indeed. But he was not the brightest of us."
"Who was the brightest?"
Dumbledore smiled. "I would like to believe that I was a shade more talented than Gellert, though he certainly had far more ambition than I did. But that's enough about me."
They ducked into a side-alley and Harry took Dumbledore by the arm again to be whisked back to his place of learning.
Better Just to Have It
They stood on the platform as picture perfect families, as if everyone hadn't been at war a scant eleven years ago. Lord Greengrass shook Lord Malfoy's hand stiffly as a political ally. Lady Malfoy and Lady Greengrass eyed one another with icy and icier stares. Draco Malfoy and Daphne Greengrass stared at one another with open dislike and casual disinterest respectively.
"I wish your son the best of luck in the following term," said Lord Greengrass.
"Your daughter as well," Lord Malfoy said, without a hint of displeasure, though he managed to convey quite a bit.
Daphne dragged her trunk onto the train and sat in the first unoccupied compartment she discovered.
In several moments, Neville Longbottom had opened it. "I've lost my damn toad before the train's even begun moving," he said, with a curl of lip that sat between exasperation and amusement.
"Well, go and get a prefect to summon it, or do it yourself," Daphne said irritably.
"What the hell bit you?" Neville asked, surprised at the sudden shift in temperature in the compartment.
"I saw Draco Malfoy on the compartment. My father shook his father's hand."
Neville's face darkened as well. "Well, there isn't shite we can do about that sort of thing," he said, a very undignified accent surfacing.
"Stop cursing. You're bringing shame to your House."
"Fuck my House. My father doesn't care and I don't care either. I can be as foul-mouthed as I want to be."
"You weren't quite this bad at the Bones'," Daphne decided. Neville looked at her and barked in laughter.
"Well, I didn't want to get banished like Malfoy did. Say, what house do you think you'll be sorted into?"
"Ravenclaw or Slytherin, probably the latter. It's a family thing, and the Hat's supposed to take that seriously."
"The Hat. My mum says it said nice things to her and judging by her response, it put her into Hufflepuff. I think I'm going to be as angry as possible or try to outthink it. I'll be okay with either Gryffindor or Slytherin myself, though my father says he bleeds red and gold."
Neville dragged his trunk into the compartment and lifted it with a heave onto the rack. He pulled his wand out and pointed it in the general direction of the door.
"Accio Trevor!" he cried, snapping his wrist. Nothing happened. "Well."
Daphne shook her head. "You'd better put your hand in front of your f-"
A blob of green and brown blob came flying into the apartment. Neville parried with his wand out of obvious practice and Trevor the toad slammed against the window, spraying toad oil onto the two unoccupied seats.
"Shit!" and "Well, I'm glad I wasn't sitting there," were said simultaneously.
Neville picked up Trevor by the nape of the neck and dumped him into what looked like a horrendously insecure basket and attempted to clean the toad oil off of the seats. He ended up setting it on fire.
Daphne shook her head. "Toad oil's very arithmantically unstable. Anything that isn't near a complete number sequence will set it on fire, so only fours, sixes and twelves to clean it up."
"How do you even remember things like that?" Neville wondered aloud.
"I remember important things," Daphne said.
"That was pretty backhanded," Neville said, glaring, though he was clearly amused.
"Well, what do we have here?" came a very unwelcome voice as the compartment slammed open.
"Malfoy."
"Get out."
"Now that isn't a way to greet old family friends, is-"
Daphne pointed her wand under Malfoy's chin. Neville scooped up a batch of toad oil surreptitiously in his left hand.
Behind Draco Malfoy was a pair of what seemed to be human gorillas. "Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle then. How does it to start kissing rings on your knees before you're even eleven?" Neville spat.
Crabbe grunted. Goyle growled.
"You know what? I'm going to teach you a lesson," Malfoy said, pushing Daphne's wand out of the way and drawing his own. Daphne slid back to the previously dirty seat in preparation of a duel and Neville threw the toad oil at the three newcomers.
"What the hell is this?" Malfoy said, spitting out gunks of it. "Stupefy!" he cried, pointing his wand at Neville, who displayed his prowess in parrying things with his wand yet again. It burned a slight singe mark a little to the left of Malfoy's head.
"Don't fuck with me, Malfoy," Neville shouted.
"Fighting on the train is really, really against the rules!" someone shouted several feet away. The girl who was presumably the speaker squeezed between Crabbe and Goyle, past Malfoy and into the compartment.
She had slightly curly brown hair, a shockingly pretty face and was already dressed in her school robes.
"Recognize her?" Daphne asked, a little shocked at how quickly the girl had managed to get past Malfoy's bodyguards.
"Nope," Neville said.
"Must be a mudblood then," Malfoy said, his face twisting into a sneer.
"Hey, that's not a nice word," the girl protested.
"It's what you are. A filthy-"
"Enough!" Daphne said sharply. "All four of you, get out or I will set you all of you on fire," she finished, her voice steadily rising in volume.
Another voice floated in. "Well that's not very nice."
Crabbe and Goyle parted to reveal a boy with messy, jet black hair, green eyes, a bemused stare and a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead.