Chapter 3
This place is going to take a little getting used to if I wasn't wrong. I was woken from my comfortable bed by something that looked like a grotesque child that I later found out was an Imp. The Imp had laid out some normal clothes and had drawn my bath. After I was dressed it led me down a hallway to a dining room where breakfast and Evelyn awaited.
"Harry did you sleep well? Are you ready to start your training?" She had that smile on her face again.
Well I would let her smile and dangle some more bait but right now I was shoveling eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast onto my plate. Food was a rarity and I enjoyed it tremendously whenever I can get it, so it is now going from the plate into my mouth.
"Well since you're so busy eating I'll explain what is happening at the Dursley house. Presently at the Dursley's there is a clone of you doing all the things that you normally do and who will proceed to Hogwarts on September 1st." That information almost got me to stop shoveling food into my mouth, almost. Then I thought, no big deal! He could become the wizard but I have more money than I could possibly spend in three lifetimes. Big whoop!
Evelyn continued, "So while clone Harry is at Hogwarts you will be training here with the Order of the Night. The timelines have been tweaked so a number of things have been changed. When it is deemed appropriate you will be returned and replace clone Harry".
Oh well! Here I thought I was going to escape the Dursley's forever.
Part of your training will be watching what you call the TV cloud to see pieces of what clone Harry has been up to every day. I warn you that this is not all of what is happening but just significant segments. When you replace clone Harry you'll need to know who your friends are and who your enemies are as well as the interactions between your professors. But right now I need to take you to your first instructor."
I kept shoveling food into my mouth while my brain was running a marathon of questions. But right now I had a more important thought. "Evelyn I don't have a wand mine is at the Dursley's."
"Don't worry about it Harry, we will take care of everything, all you have to do is train and follow instructions."
This training and following the instructions was one of the rough spots in my life. By the end of some training sessions Vernon beatings seem like little love taps. First off many of my instructors cannot be classified as human. My physical trainer always got me up at 5 o'clock in the morning and, Oh! He turned out to be a vampire. How am I supposed to keep up with somebody that can run sixty miles an hour? At least the ghosts couldn't do anything to me physically.
If I wasn't overly mistaken I could swear some of these instructors got their kicks out of what they called training. Oh I did learn how to move and dodge because if I did not I would end up on my butt or be thrown across the lawn. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the hospital wing being patched up. There was magical training as well as physical training and each class usually caused a stint in the hospital wing.
Exactly where we were I never did find out but the forest and mountains and hills where I was training were of exquisite beauty. There was a mix of green meadows, snow-capped mountains, and on the other horizon a white sand beach with an endless expanse of deep green ocean attached. This was definitely not Privet Drive. My room was in a castle that must've been a gazillion years old and was the only building I saw during my stay. With all the exquisite surrounding beauty I only got to sample it in what one might call physical torture. Yes there was a white sandy beach but I never seem to have time to leisurely lay around and obtain a suntan. I found a ten mile run my only enjoyment on that white sandy beach which was quite exhausting. Me, today? I was busy running up the side of a mountain with fifty pound pack on my back only to have a gazillion push-ups awaiting me should I make the top of the mountain.
/Scene Break/
"Harry, now that you've had a chance to perform some physical training we need to take care of a couple of things."
Some physical training? While I had not been marking off days, weeks, or months on a calendar there were seasons that passed around the castle. Again I had not been keeping track of the seasonal changes but I must've passed a half-dozen winters already.
"Evelyn, I understand that I must not be caught using wand-less magic while at Hogwarts. What's confusing me is why I need to have two wands."
"Harry this is hard to explain and of course it is going to be based differently on different situations. Wand-less magic is extremely rare and very limited We have stress to you that if you are found using advanced wand-less magic there's a good possibility the ministry will snatch you up to find out how you can do this. I'm quite sure that you would not like to be cut up into different pieces so that they can figure out how you do your magic."
All I could come up with about then was a quiet, "Oh!" Then a little bit louder "Right! But back on subject, why two wands?"
"Harry some of the spells you are learning here are considered dark magic in England. So you use your second wand while in public to hide your wand-less capabilities and nastier spells. Should you ever be called upon to produce your wand for inspection the only spells they will find on your Hogwarts wand will be spells and charms taught at Hogwarts and legal. By using your second wand during any fights you will not have to explain to the Ministry why you used what they consider dark magic nor will you have to explain to Dumbledore how you came about learning all the curses that you fought with."
This new wand they provided was a perfect fit. This bit of wand manufacture was done by a Gnome or so I was told. However, using a wand in my right hand and throwing wand-less spells with my left hand was introduced into my training program. Blimey, don't they make anything easy around here? At least my Hogwarts wand was still with clone Harry getting loaded up with Hogwarts spells.
Of course not all my training was a success. I was pants at protecting my mind from outside forces. I couldn't stop my trainer from entering my mind and peeking at different memories. After each training session I left with a whopping headache.
Some of the new things to be taking care of were now occurring in the hospital wing. The nurse ended up causing me my recent splitting headache by removing my lightning bolt scar, well mostly, and some foreign magical spells around my magical core. The core retarding wards came from Dumbledore. The lightning bolt scar was from Voldemort, the rest were the compliments of Dumbledore via his surrogate Vernon Dursley. The nurse was a kindly old lady who tended many of the wounds and broken bones I got in my "physical training". However, humans don't tend to have four arms but then again, what do I know? This magical world could really be weird in a lot of areas.
/Scene Break/
Later we saw the Star Wars movie which was one of films they showed in our small theater. This allowed me to add names some of my new magic instructors, at least privately in my head. Jabba the Hutt and Yoda would describe a couple of them. Jabba the Hutt was extremely fat but did most of the generic training like potions. Yoda couldn't have been four feet tall but did Charms and Transfiguration training. Some trainers would later make Voldemort seem a pussycat. Although Darth Vader, my physical trainer, another vampire, lead the pack in nastiness. So after demons attacking me, mind attacks assaulting me, and making me do things which were impossible, they would then sit me down to provide me with more training. It seems they had also taken heart from the Star Wars movie and the phrase, "beam me up Scotty". I was now being trained in some very odd ways of travel.
About this time I started to get the impression of how magically powerful I really was, and then I hit a rough spot, they informed me of a prophecy. Apparently a prophecy had been made concerning me and the Dark Lord. I was then provided the prophecy by Evelyn and was told that the Dark Lord Voldemort marked me as his equal. Talk about mind blowing information.
"Harry there is a number ways to look at that prophecy. What Dumbledore is actually trying to accomplish we find confusing. We believe that Dumbledore is focused in on your fighting Voldemort with some special wizard power called love. We believe that Dumbledore is overlooking that the Dark Lord Voldemort marked you as his equal."
"Evelyn, the Dursley's never showed me anything about love. In fact they made sure I didn't even have friends."
"We feel he's overlooking the fact that you have been as powerful as Voldemort since he marked you with your scar. We believe that Dumbledore put magical spells on your magical core as he was taking no chances that you can win when you gain your magical maturity and become Voldemort s equal on your 17th birthday."
"Evelyn, even I find that twisted logic, why my 17th birthday?"
"We also think that he is not training your clone because he believes you will either become the next Dark Lord or that it doesn't matter so long as you and Voldemort both die. You remember that I gave you four options when we first met. Dumbledore has the prophecy so he probably has access to a seer. That seer could have also told Dumbledore one or all of those options and that is what he is making decisions from. If it wasn't for that scar marking you the prophecy could be applied to a number of individuals." Evelyn explained.
That gave me some to think about that evening. However you twisted the facts or what other people thought none of it made sense. It seemed logical that I was going to die at Voldemort's hand. Before I was going to fight Voldemort I had to be trained and clone Harry definitely was not receiving any training. Along the way I had to find 'the power he knows not '. I was chuckling to myself before I fell asleep. I wonder if a Muggle fighting fell under the 'power he knows not'? Maybe I could practice on Dumbledore, a good solid punch to his crooked nose, that would be quite fulfilling right about now.
/Scene Break/
Normally I was allowed to enjoy dinner before watching the TV cloud which showed pieces of my clone's day, his friends and classes. While the prophecy was twirling in my head something on the TV cloud grabbed my attention. Ron Weasley was distracting clone Harry while Hermione Granger was running off a cute girl from Slytherin. Apparently the cute girl from Slytherin was trying to make friends with Harry... Curious, very curious!
Evelyn attended a number of the TV cloud presentations and pointed out how much the Dursley treatment of the clone is not only improper but illegal, this of course did not make me any happier. No one should be treated that way, even a clone. It also struck me that Vernon's physical abuse was getting worse every summer when clone Harry returned to Privet Drive. But my brain got sidetracked about then…I was watching memories… but... how were they obtained from Hogwarts or Privet Drive?
"Evelyn just where are all these memories coming from? Surely you don't have people following clone Harry all over the place."
Again I got a definitive answer from Evelyn... "Now Harry you remember how Dumbledore's manipulations got you to that mirror which ended up containing the stone?"
"I did along with a number of other manipulations like returning my father's invisibility cloak. I can't believe he's paying Ron and bribing Hermione in different ways to help manipulate my clone." I was a bit embarrassed at the slowness of my clone and how my two best friends were not really true friends. Then again clone Harry was me if not for the interference from Evelyn and Evelyn again was still not answering my questions.
/Scene Break/
It also didn't take long for me to ask, "Evelyn time is passing slower here than where clone Harry resides, why do we seem to be the same age?"
"Perfect observation Harry! You get to see parts of his day in an hour but you get many more months of training for that one hour but don't worry your both aging at the same rate. It's a time thing so don't worry your head over it or it will drive you crazy."
I was quick to stop thinking about the time difference even though logically it made no sense. Another thing that made absolutely no sense was all of the wand waving and yelling out strange Latin phrases that I saw on the TV cloud. My training consisted of basically wanting something to happen and it did, as long as I was focused on what the end result was to be. I was glad there was such a thing as silent spell casting in clone Harry's world so at least I wasn't going to have to learn all of those Latin phrases when I got back.
I had become interested in a sorcerer's staff. While it had been abandoned by the magical community in recent times as it was damn near impossible to hide and a pain to carry around all the time. I fashioned myself a very ornate staff. It had nothing to do with magic but it served a important purpose. It contained my sword which was gifted to me by Evelyn after completing my sword training. Primarily the staff was used to physically beat off strange attacking things that were part of my training program. So while fending off vampires and strange things physically with my staff I needed to be able to shrink it pocket-size to keep it with me. I did this by focusing my magic, without using my wand, to shrink the hard wood staff and sword. Anyone observing this would think it was like the auto shrinking charm on school trunks. Although my magic flowed so much easier without a wand the wand was part of my training at blending in with other magicals. If I shrunk my staff there had to be a logical answer as to why I didn't use my wand, the auto shrinking charm fit the bill. What was magical was the sword. By touching the hilt or mentally calling it, it would appear in my hand. What was cool was that it looked as if I had slid it out from the staff. Magic was so cool.
I also had my etiquette training which loused up my focus along with my dance instructions. Why did I need this social diversion as I was being trained to fight and not be a social Don-Juan. Evelyn had brought in a number of female girls about my age. They all were gaga over me and confuse me to no end. Later I found out they were being paid and they were part of my training. Being gaga over girls was very instructive training although I'm not sure I totally learned the lesson but the overall effect was quite pleasing. These rough spot experiences in my life were a lot of work but it beat the hell out of living with the Dursleys. I wonder if I could talk Evelyn into my having another class on understanding girls.