DISCLAIMER: I do not own Negima or Harry Potter. Negima is the property of Ken Akamatsu, and Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling.

Italics text = character thinking to themselves.

Underline+Italics = character communicating with telepathy

Bold text = shouting

Bold+Italcs = Casting Spell/Ability

Chapter eight

Channeling and Revelation

"Why can't we do this?" Ron yelled in exasperation after half hour of fruitless practice.

"Well, maybe it's because we didn't tell you how." Negi responded without even rising his head from his book.

"Now that you mention it..."

"He wants us to figure it out ourselves." Hermione said.

"That's not it." Yue informed her.

"Then we're wasting time?"

"No, you're channeling magical energy into your bodies through your wands." Negi explained. "Unlike your other spells, the elemental ones use huge amounts of energy. Normally, you use the power within your bodies that is created by your souls. Thus your latent magical capacity remains unused. Using elemental magic, you must harness the natural energies in your environment by absorbing it."

"I think they should have practiced long enough in order to unlock their limiters." Yue observed.

"Yes. Now listen up. Think of the tip of your wand as a spark. Then think of your body as a conductor that delivers it the air it needs for a flame to sprout. Here, I'll do it slowly, so pay attention." he said raising his finger.

"Practe bigi nar Ardescat!" he chanted. After a second, light seemed to flow from Negi's body into the wand and a flame erupted at it's tip.

"Now do the same, but don't try to imitate the light. I did it for demonstration, but it costs 100 times the energy." he said.

At her first attempt, Hermione succeeded, followed by Harry, Ron and Neville. But in his case the flame was huge and almost fried him, but Asuna intervened and blocked the flame with her bare hand, nullifying it to the entire classes amazement.

"How did you do that? And barehanded no less!" Hermione asked in awe.

"I'm a complete magic canceller. Only the most powerful spells can affect me." she said without any enthusiasm. "Kid, what's your name?" she suddenly asked Nevile.

"Nevile Longbotom" he said fearfully.

"Well, mister Longbotom, with your level of power, you can skip the next few levels." Negi congratulated him. "Just one pointer: be careful where you point your wand".

"I bet it was just a fluke!" Malfoy mocked him.

"Oh, I just remembered. Malfoy, go with Asuna to the artic area and do a few laps as punishment." Negi said. "For running away earlier and failing Eva's test".

"Now." Asuna said and left with him.

"Is it called artic why I think it is? Hermione asked with a smile after they were far enough.

"Yep, minus 50 degrees Celsius." Negi grinned and most of the students started laughing.

"By the way, the other three that succeeded can also take a break."

While the boys took a seat on the side, Hermione walked over to Yue.

"Excuse me, professor Ayase..." she began.

"Yue is fine" she cut her off.

"Miss Yue, could you tell me more about elemental magic? I would like to learn more about the differences between it and our own kind of magic. Some references would be great too."

"Ask anything you would like." Yue smiled as she raised a card. "Adeat! Orbis Sensualium Pictus" and a book appeared as her outfit transformed into one similar to the student's. Among the introductions, they said nothing about the artifacts so everyone stared at her amazed. Quickly getting out of shock and began asking a variety of questions, the answers getting more and more complex as they went on. Before they realized, it was almost nightfall so they went to the castle with everyone else. And since they would have a free hour plus the lunch break after they left the resort, they decided to spend it in the library, Konoka, Nodoka and Haruna saying they will join them.

As they prepared for diner, the group that went to the artic area returned with a trembling Draco. Before he had diner, Konoka had to heal his hypothermia.

After diner, they were showed to their rooms by the robotic maids. As they left, Dumbledore took Negi to the side and asked:

"Did those four really succeed on the first day?"

"I was amazed as well. I was the only one who managed to do that back at Meridiana. And here we have four in one class! From the same house no less!" the young mage said enthusiastically. "It's gonna be an interesting year."

"Indeed." the headmaster smiled.

But in the middle of the night, one of those four awoke with the scar on his forehead burning. Harry had just had the same nightmare in which Cedric Diggory was killed and then he found himself walking along that dark corridor, waking up before reaching the black door.

Deciding he needed some fresh air, he went to the terrace he saw earlier and looked at the unfamiliar sight. Somehow, looking at the waterfalls seemed to calm him down rather quick.

As he decided to go get some sleep, he noticed some movement by one of the waterfalls, and being unable to resist temptation, he headed there first.

As he was already used to sneaking around Hogwarts, he had no problem reaching that waterfall without being caught by the doll maids or making too much noise for that mater. When he arrived, he found the source of the movement quite easily, since Negi was practicing his martial arts under the waterfall, partially being covered in water. But after a few more moves, Negi stopped and called out to Harry:

"You can come out, mister Potter, I don't mind if someone watches me practice."

As Harry appeared under the moonlight, the young mage asked looked at him for a few moments before returning to practicing his kenpo, but keeping the conversation going.

"I may be wrong, but you appear to be having trouble with your sleep."

"Yes professor, I just can't seem to be able to fall asleep" Harry lied, saying to himself that a even if a teacher, a ten-year old brat couldn't understand how he feel.

"You mean you're having too many nightmares!" Negi said as if he could read his mind.

"What do you mean? How could you know?" Harry asked feeling both curious and annoyed.

"People don't have tears in their just because they can't sleep" the young teacher smiled kindly.

"How would you know? It's not your business anyway!" Harry yelled at him in frustration.

"But I do know, and it is my business." Negi replied without looking at him.

"You've gotta be kidding m…" he continued his yelling but was cut off by a hit to his head form Asuna who suddenly appeared next to him.

"Quiet down, you noisy idiot! You wanna wake up everyone?" she snapped at him with a low voice. "Why are you yelling at Negi for, anyway?"

"It's alright Asuna, I don't mind. But you really should lower your voice. Evangeline is the last person you want to wake up in the middle of the night" he added amused and Asuna smiled as well.

"S-sorry, I just…" Harry began ashamed.

"Don't worry. I told you I understand your feelings, didn't ?"

"But how…" Harry began again.

"I did say we're similar, didn't I?" the teacher began.

"The same might be said for me" Asuna said as she joined Negi under the waterfall.

"We know about your past, Harry. It's very similar to our own."

"My mother died of unknown reasons after I was born, as for my father, I only met him on that fateful night for a few minutes."

"Fateful night?" Harry asked quietly.

"Yes. Six years ago, my village in Wales was attacked and burnt down by demons. One of those demons petrified everyone except me and my sister. I was first saved by my father from being killed and then by my uncle Stan who sealed the demon but was also petrified in the process. All those demons were after me."

As Harry said nothing, Asuna told her own story.

"Because of my magic canceller, my city was under constant attack from the two great neighboring countries. It was right between them so all of the wars they fought were right in front of us. As many of the population died, I ended up being used as a shield by my own people, and eventually I was captured by a criminal organization who tried to use me to destroy the world of magic. If it weren't for Negi's dad and his comrades of the Ala Rubra, everything would have ended that day. But even if it didn't end, the ritual affected the city, draining the magical energy that made the islands float an make them fall from the sky. Over a million refugees were left after that battle. The great city of Ostia was no more. Now, only a few small islands remain, within the ones on the ground lurking monsters of all kinds."

After those words, Harry was left speechless, not knowing how to apologize for his earlier words. Negi and Asuna however didn't give him the chance anyway, as they smiled and Negi said: "But what maters is not one's past, but how he lives the present. After all, we all have some great friends. Isn't that right, the six who can't muster the courage to come out?" He looked behind Harry as Ron, Hermione, Neville, Eva, Nodoka and Konoka appeared from behind a huge bolder.

"Hm, caught us, didn't you boya? Eva grinned.

"How long have you all been listening?" Harry asked in surprise.

"From the beginning" they said in one voice, making the three near the waterfall start laughing.