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Chapter 4. Midir, Grunwald, and Battle Spells
Tired, Harry wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. He shifted his eyes to observe the result of his hard work.
The room didn't comprise much: a bed, a desk, a bookcase, and a wardrobe. All plain and without any carvings or decorations, allowing students to let their imagination run free and do the room up themselves. Harry's trunk peeked out from the vast space under the desk. He didn't have many memorabilia with him, and the books he had only filled up less than a quarter of the available shelves, so all in all the place looked bare and dreary.
'Well, I have some years to liven it. If I don't get killed or die of this mystery disease first, of course.'
Harry supposed he should do some revising for his classes, maybe borrow a book or two in the library, but his desire to explore won out in the end, like it always did. Bo matter what, he couldn't just become another Hermione with a nose constantly up some dusty tome on the Freedom-for-House-Elves movement.
Which reminded him...
Oh yes, he had to look up the races that attended Arianrhod. The next-door bloke had baffled Harry, so his determination in running to an encyclopaedia of a sort only steeled.
Or he could ask Hermione.
Harry sighed and stood up as he made up his mind to drag his arse out of the room and into the world.
Trouble always sought him, and sometimes he aided its search, but the adventurous Potter genes took the reins in his heart. He didn't see the Lewis guy (was it fairy? Pixie?), but heard rambunctious laughter ringing off the walls, coming from the kitchen, and he caught sight of broad shoulders and a thick mane of dark red hair.
Still, Harry was in no mood to socialise now. He walked out of the lounge-
To bump into a very hard chest. It hurt.
"Watch where you are going, boy," a silky but very irritated voice snapped down at him. Harry stepped back to glare up at the guy.
The appearance of the man startled him.
The person – certainly not human, judging by the split irises drowning in swirling violet eyes – had black hair gelled back to display the sharp angles of his tanned face. His clothes surprised Harry: the colour was an ordinary dark blue of various hues, but the cut and the ornaments didn't ring a bell. Probably was yet another Creature-Realm thing.
The man raised his eyebrows at Harry's blatant observation.
"Checking me out now? How impudent. I'll let you know I don't fuck food, and you don't seem much like anything more."
Harry flushed an angry red.
"Excuse me? I don't believe you-" Harry stumbled on the next word. "-fuck at all, simply because your over-inflated ego would put a damper on any mood."
The stranger's eyes widened before narrowing as he leaned in to regard Harry closer. Harry bore the scrutinise with a frosty exterior and a bubbling hot rage inside.
He rarely lashed out. Hardly at all, actually. And then he remembered his time limit, and remembered how dangerous Arianrhod could be if you let people walk over you, and decided to change his attitude. Step by step, starting from now.
"So you have some backbone, boy. Weird, considering the invertebrates Lewis hangs out with," the violet-eyed man drawled. "Does he believe you'll ward his offenders off? Spineless pile of maggots, always running to others for protection... Just warning you then: he gets what he gets, and however pretty you are, I will smash your skull into a hundred splinters if you think of helping him. Merlin knows he deserves everything we dish out at him."
A pang of compassion for that odd weather faerie pierced Harry's heart at that. He knew all too well what it felt like to be bullied. Now he was talking with another bully, the sort of Malfoy and Dudley and, heck, even Voldemort. He felt sick.
A veneer of intangible frost covered Harry's eyes.
"I'm not his protector, whatever that means. But if I see you harming him with no cause at all, I will step in. And I'm not his friend. I'm just his new neighbour," Harry finished in a steely voice, eyeing the other warily. A gleam of interest flickered in violet.
"Oh? Fascinating. You might be interested to hear that people don't survive long in our block. Especially Lewis's sympathisers." The strange-eyed man snorted, as if at a joke Harry didn't understand. "Not that he has many, mind."
"And isn't it easy to fight the unarmed?" Harry asked with acid sarcasm. His fingers clenched into fists.
"The unarmed? Perhaps he is. In a verbal spar especially, or when it comes to studies. But it doesn't mean he is defenceless," the older man waved him off, comfortably leaning against the door. Even if Harry wanted to escape, the body was blocking his way.
"I don't understand," Harry said with a frown, puzzled.
"Don't worry, I don't begrudge you this lack of cognitive abilities to understand the simplest of phrases. I really don't," the man drawled with a sardonic smile playing across his full lips.
Harry wanted to strangle him. And he wasn't violent for thinking so.
"Now run off wherever." The man mockingly stepped away from the door and made a show of bowing in its direction. "You are so low on the list of my priorities at the moment that chatting with you kills my time. Study and move up the ranks of Arianrhod, and I might just consider acknowledging you someday."
"It's a shame that I won't return the favour," Harry replied with a sweet smile.
Here the other actually had the gall to outright laugh.
"I am Midir Catus, boy," the man – and finally Harry had the name to connect with the face – forced out through the chuckles. "People fall over themselves to get to know me. Be honoured to share the dorm with a celebrity, however long it lasts."
"Aren't you supposed to be more concerned with your public image then?" Harry demanded. He was reluctantly curious. As much of a bastard as the other was, Midir fascinated Harry with his lack of fawning over the Boy-Who-Lived, even if the other didn't know who he was talking to.
...And didn't it just sound sort of conceited? Well, the title of the great Saviour did bring some fame with it.
Midir gave him a slow smile. His violet eyes glistened mysteriously.
"When you have the power, you will find that what people actually think of you matters little so long as they oblige."
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After some searching through the school Harry discovered the library, the dining hall, the training rooms, and the classrooms where his first classes would be. Arianrhod's grounds also included a vast forest, so huge that he couldn't see the end of it, two Quidditch pitches, stables, a river – and that was all Harry could see out of the windows, since he didn't venture outside yet, preserving it for another day. He was tired already.
In many ways the school resembled Hogwarts in its atmosphere of magic and mystery, but the doors and staircases were fixed, and Hogwarts didn't have such a dark air of sheer danger in it. Not to mention the carvings that depicted scenes from legends and possible myths, all moving and fascinating to watch.
When hunger reared its ugly head, Harry walked down to the dining hall. In Hogwarts he always hated that time because other students always observed and judged him, always giggled and pointed and whispered and stared...
Nightmarish.
So, the lack of interest in Arianrhod pleasantly surprised him. His eyes browsed through the dining hall filled with round tables of different sizes until they stopped at the sight of Hermione who waved to him.
Walking up to his friends, a greeting on his lips, he noted that they both seemed tired, if not worn out.
"How's business?" he asked warily as Hermione handed him the menu. His finger rigidly tapped the "human course" option.
Ron groaned, a piece of meat falling out of his mouth. Hermione smacked him on the head.
"Are your roommates utter jerks, too?"
"Ron!" Harry's other best friend chided before he had the chance to open his mouth in reply. "I'm sure they just... had a bad day."
"If you call every day a bad one," Ron muttered in response.
Harry hid his smile with a glass of juice. He wasn't sure what sort it was, but luckily not from a pumpkin; he wouldn't have been able to ward off the nostalgia otherwise.
"Well, to be honest, my own dorm mates aren't a walk in the park either," Harry admitted, still sipping at his juice.
"How so?" Hermione's face scrunched up in concern. "They don't bully you, don't they? If they offend or hit or hex you-"
"Relax, Hermione. No one's bullying anyone," Harry laughed her off before scowling. "Not me, anyway. I've met only two guys so far, and one seems to be harassing the other... But, dunno, the victim does look harmless, but there's something unpleasant about him." Harry glared mutinously into his meal. "Not that I won't defend him if others truly gang up on him for no reason at all."
"I-" Hermione wavered before taking Harry's hand in hers. The teen didn't miss the way Ron stopped eating to stare jealously at their intertwined hands. "Never thought I'd tell you so, but please wait before doing anything rash. Including defending someone. One of my dorm mates explained it to me; some people here are not what they seem, and others have bone-deep grudges that are there for a reason. Don't rush into danger until you're sure that this person doesn't deserve it."
Harry nodded sharply.
"Yes. That's what I think of doing. Still, I'll intervene if someone's about to kill a person in front of me. Even grudges and offenses have their limits."
"Please, people," Ron butted in, "this talk of killing is killing my appetite. Can't we speak about... birds? Good weather? Quidditch?"
"As if anything can destroy your appetite," Harry said with a chuckle and a smile. "I swear if you could marry food, you would."
Ron shook his head sagely. "Nah, once you eat food, it's over. I'd rather marry a chef. Then it keeps coming forever."
"And how about you stop paying that great deal of attention to it at all?" Hermione questioned, steely undertones in her voice. Harry stifled a wince.
"What about you dorm mates, Ron?" Harry asked quickly to prevent a yet another quarrel from breaking out.
Hermione tossed him a glare that showed clearly how unimpressed she was. Ron fidgeted, stopping the stuffing of his mouth with food.
"One's touched in the head, another scares the living lights out of me, the third..." Ron shuddered and looked at his meal as of repulsed.
"He told me his one of his neighbours is... excessively amorous," Hermione explained with a touch of red dusting her cheeks.
"Loudly so."
Harry winced. Now that was something he wouldn't want in his dorm. In Hogwarts they always used silencing charms to created the needed air of privacy for some alone-time, and no one could hope to take a girlfriend into the room... Harry couldn't imagine how out of depth and flustered Ron might feel.
Then he wondered about his own dorm mates.
"It's so different," Hermione said after a pause. Her voice washed over them in wistful notes. "Sometimes I can't believe we've done it. All that we know is left behind, and everyone is so cold here, everything is either impersonal or too personal – like grudges and feuds and animosities, and no one cares if someone id killed... We are so not used to this."
"But we are used to changes," Harry whispered. He took one of her hands in his, clenching it, while Ron did the same with the other. "Especially us two, Hermione. There was a day we didn't believe in magic. But we built a life for ourselves in the magical world. Here it is the same situation. Our past is destroyed, but our future lies ahead."
And all three ignored the ticking of Harry's clock, and all three ignored the thoughts of England back in Human Realm, under the Vodemort-controlled Ministry.
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Coming to school after summer was always a tough affair. Harry found out that Arianrhod didn't differ much from Hogwarts in that regard.
He quickly stuffed himself with breakfast – muffins! Only that was enough to make the day shine – before rushing to his first class – Battle Spells.
All groups in Arianrhod were quite small so as to allow more concentrated attention on an individual student, so Harry was amongst the last to arrive, even if the classroom seemed only half-full. Others mostly sat by themselves, but Harry found the place beside Ron already occupied by whom Ron had deemed his only bearable neighbour. Shrugging, he strolled to the first row.
They didn't have to wait for long for the class to start.
"Now, punks, there's no slacking off in my class," a booming voice echoed through the classroom as the door swung open. "If you can't keep up, you're out. If you whine, you're out. If you're dead, you're out. Everything is clear?"
The class was stumped silent.
"If speech is too much for your non-existent brains to grasp, blink three times for 'yes'," the man bit out, and everyone immediately snapped out of their stupor.
Harry's eyes roamed over the (most likely, he didn't know anymore) werewolf. Although the man's hair was streaked with dark grey strands, he didn't look old, and his vivid glaring amber eyes so much like Remus's only added to the impressions of joviality and youth. His black shirt was open to reveal a mighty chest with scars running down on it, some of them reaching his neck, while leather trousers hugged strong legs. He was majestic: a paragon of power, both physical and magical.
"My name is Nicon Grunwald," their teacher continued sharply. His eyes dug in like daggers into anyone who dared meet his gaze. "You will call me Professor Grunwald. Someday, if I deem you worthy enough, you may earn the right to use my first name." He sneered, swiping them with another observant glance. "By the looks of it, not many of you punks will succeed.
"My class is a practical one. If you've noticed, there aren't any books assigned. That's because there aren't any. Only a living being and experience can teach you how to fight, not a moronic dust-gatherer for dummies. You will turn to books when you are in need of engorging your arsenal of spells, but I will teach you the tricks of how to use what you already know with a minimal waste of magical power."
Harry listened to the man explain how exhausting duelling spells could be, and how people couldn't afford to feel tired in a battle. When someone moved to take down notes, Grunwald made a fist to appear out of thin air to smack this unfortunate bloke.
"No notes in my class. No quills, no ink. I will allow only your memory to guide you. Only your logic and natural abilities will reign here."
And so it continued until he apparently decided he was sick of talking. At Grunwald's beckoning, the entire class including Harry rose from their seats and followed him through a door near the blackboard. Harry found himself in a huge bare room with dummies lying at one of the walls like a battlefield of broken dolls. He shivered. Their empty eyes and tangled limbs created a gloomy impression.
"We will conduct out lessons here. Sometimes, you will work with training dolls, and sometimes you will pair up. There will also be wall-on-wall lessons, when you will divide into two or three groups and fight it out with each other."
A hand belonging to a girl sprung up into the air. Grunwald shot her a sharp look.
"Questions?"
"Yes. One. What about Duelling Tournaments? Will we have a team this year? And how do we apply?"
That tickled Harry's interest. The talk of a tournament left a bitter taste in his mouth, reminding him of Cedric's tragic death and Voldemort's unfortunate return, but he liked the idea of duelling. Besides, he had steeled himself to the idea of forgetting professional Quidditch for the time being, but training himself in Duelling would be advantageous, too, instead of being a frivolous pleasure.
"If you duel as well as you count, I doubt you will have many chances of being accepted into one," Grunwald said icily. "I will judge your abilities for a month before deciding whom to include into a team. I will choose three punks from this group, and so will the teachers from the other groups. The chosen ones will have to fight it out between themselves, and so the final team of seven will be made up. I will give you a heads up at the beginning of October, when enough time will have passed to safely determine the best of you."
Harry made a mental note to ask others what the teams were about and what advantage it gave to make part of one. He just wasn't asking Ron. The redhead – and wasn't it odd to see him almost shaven! – wore a dumb look on his face, the one Harry supposed his own countenance mirrored.
"Now, I have to see what level you're at," Grunwald barked at them, effectively stopping all the whispers that had spread at his information. "Each of you will grab a training doll there, scribble your name on it, and cast the strongest curses and hexes you know at it. Today I will be just determining the force of your spell-casting, so they won't respond you. The next lesson will surprise you."
The nasty smirk on his face didn't leave Harry with an impression that he would like to be surprised.
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Harry – astoundingly – enjoyed the rest of the lesson. For all his drawbacks and a snappy disposition, Grunwald's mode of teaching allowed students to figure things out for themselves.
He didn't simply step back to observe and occasionally jeer at them, like Harry had suspected he would at first, but walked amongst them and corrected the way they held their wands, pronounced the spells, outlined the wand motions.
He individually explained their shortcomings ("Punk! The blinding mist and the bombardment hex do not mix when your aim is worse than a drunk house elf's!"), the amount of magic one had to pour in not to overpower the spell ("Yes, you can keep on overpowering it. This way when you cast a strong explosion curse, the world will contain one moron less."), the uses of a jinx ("I thought the effects of a blasting hex are self-explanatory. You don't use it to punish a pet when it annoys you."), and the like.
Harry relaxed and allowed his natural instincts to take hold of his body, guiding it into precise wand movements and carefully articulating the incantations with his mouth. Other students were preoccupied with their own work, so he didn't feel bad for trying even some of the more unusual, darker shades of magic he would never have dared to try out at Hogwarts.
Guilty happiness swelled inside him.
So engrossed he was that he utterly missed the considering look that amber eyes regarded him with.
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Advanced Charms passed with no incidents and much less excitement. Along with Hermione he had taken ordinary notes and listened to the explanation. An elderly elf conducted the lesson without any yells or derision, but also with no practice yet, which would start from next lesson. As the teacher had said, they would have one or two lessons devoted entirely to theory, and then several practical lessons until they have perfected that part of material.
When Harry arrived to the dorm, he didn't glimpse dark red hair in the kitchen, and didn't hear anyone. So, he simply retired to his room to do the assigned Charms essay.
A surprise awaited him when he dragged himself out of the room for an energising cup of tea. At the table, with a thick notebook filled with runic script in front of him, there sat the bastard from earlier, Midir Catus.
"Evening," Harry muttered tiredly, reaching for the kettle.
Midir let out a noncommittal sound as he corrected a symbol with a flourish.
"Not talking with those without power, huh?"
"Got it in one, little boy," Midir mocked. His eyes were still locked on the pages of his... research journal?
Harry's cheeks reddened as he bit out, "Do not call me 'little boy'! My name is-"
"If I cared about it, I would have found it out by now. Save your breath." Midir took a long sip of whatever he drank. When he sat the cup back on the table, Harry saw it filled with a sickeningly black liquid, thick and repulsive and smelling vaguely like rotten wood.
"Has anybody ever told you how rude you are?"
"Yes. They never had a tongue to talk again," the older male warned Harry lightly. The latter frowned.
"Are you always this... bloodthirsty?"
"It's the truth. I prefer not to lie when I can help it."
"Why do I get the feeling that you are lying now," Harry deadpanned. Midir's lips stretched into an enigmatic smirk.
"Aren't you a clever little boy? Yes, I'm lying. You are lying. Everyone is lying. And..." Abruptly, he clutched the front of Harry's shirt and brought the teen's head closer, whispering into his ear so close that his lips grazed the shell, "They are lying when they pretend to be harmless or pacifistic." He moved away, his face a cold mask now. "Just a hint for you regarding some people you will or have met and are suddenly inclined to protect."
Harry suddenly didn't want his tea so much anymore.
Btw, d'you want me to retain Harry's POV (almost) all the time, or are you okay with me switching it every now and then?
And PLEASE review! And reply to the poll on my profile :)
If you are good, I might update next week. I have exams now, but the one I'll have next Tuesday's very easy, so I might spare some time to write after this Thursday.