"Ah, so here he is, the famous Harry Potter. Albus told me you were interested in learning about the fine art of Alchemy, is that true?" Harry turned to see an old man enter the room. After his discussions with Dumbledore they had decided to see how Harry got on with a tutor before hiring one year round.

"Yes sir, we got talking about it over the summer and he said he suggested I learn from an expert"

"Flattery will get you nowhere boy… although it is appreciated." Here the old man gave Harry a wink and a smile, Harry felt himself smile in return. Whenever he met someone else with an interest in magic as deep as his own he was at his happiest. Harry took a moment to inspect his new tutor, he looked old but Harry guessed he was slightly younger than Dumbledore, but with magic being taken into account the man could be several decades younger or older.

"Now, I want you to understand something before we begin. There are three reasons that I agreed to mentor you in alchemy, the first is that you seemed genuinely interested in the art rather than thinking about what it can do for you. The second reason is that I am old and dying, I would die happy knowing that at least one more person, especially one so young, knows all I can teach and that when you reach my age you will have passed on all you know. The third and final reason is that you wear my Stone upon your finger and if you are to wear it you should learn to use it. In all my years of study I have not found a true limit to the power of the Stone."

"Wait, you're Nicolas Flamel! The creator of the Philosophers Stone?" Harry asked in shock

"Of course… did Albus not tell you who I was?" Flamel asked humorously

"No, he didn't, it's very nice to be able to meet you, Mr. Flamel" Harry said formally, thrilled to have met one of his idols in person.

"None of that, you will call me Nicolas if I am to be your mentor in alchemy. For this year I will be teaching you about the basics of both alchemy and wider magic, what you will be learning is public knowledge, so I will not require an oath of secrecy. Should you wish to learn more about the art of alchemy once we finish then we will agree upon an acceptable oath. Is this fine with you?"

Harry nodded, he had suspected he would be taking an oath since alchemy was one of the few magical subjects that needed to be taught one on one, from what Harry could understand a student could not just sit down in a classroom and learn how to do alchemy. You could only learn alchemy by doing alchemy and even the simplest alchemical experiment could go disastrously wrong so the student needed to be under constant observation.

"Excellent, now the first thing you will learn is not actually alchemy at all. Today you will learn about magic, what it is and how witches and wizards use it. In order to understand alchemy you need to have a wide understanding of the magic behind it after all. The first thing you need to understand is that what you learn under the Hogwarts professors is, in a sense, magic, however it is not true Magick. The best way to understand is to imagine different magicks as different languages, the arts taught within the magicks are just accents or dialects and are called magic.

"Charms is not the same as transfiguration, however they are both the same magick, the majority of magick you learn at Hogwarts and the magick most wizards know about is known as Verbarn. Verbarn magic roughly comes from the Latin translation of 'words', which can confuse people as Verbarn magick can be done wordlessly, would you like to guess why it is still called Verbarn magick?"

"Is it because even when done wordlessly, a witch or wizard is still mentally thinking of the incantation?" Harry knew from his own personal study of magic that words were not needed to cast magic but gave the user greater control over the intent of their spell, meaning the spell would require less raw power to be cast.

"Very good, yes as you said Verbarn magick is magic often found where an incantation is required in a spell. In order to cast any magic from the Verbarn family you require some form of incantation, if there is no incantation then it is not Verbarn magick. I should also note that for the purpose of this discussion I will refer to Magick as the overarching force behind each family while magic is how the family impress themselves upon the world, it is not a truly accurate description but it will do for this explanation"

"What if the spells goes wrong? As in, what family does failed magic belong in." Harry asked

"A spell that fails is seen as a failed attempt at all magicks and as such does not exist within any of the families" Nicolas replied "Someone cannot try to cast Verbarn magick and end up with another family of magick. Magic is needed to power all the spells within the magick families and it is the same magic for all. It is the same force regardless of what it is used for and despite what some may say there is no change in difficulty between the various magick families. However the the higher families do have much greater requirements and are easier to fail and more destructive if they do.

"The second magick family is Loquela, meaning speech or tongue. The most notable and well known Loquela magic is any magic that deals with translating between languages, at Hogwarts this is seen in the arithmancy and rune classes. Now runes are technically a mix of Loquela and Verbarn magicks, runes do not require incantation to be formed but when activated they form the incantation, they are also a translation of the world around us."

Harry nodded, familiar with the principle of runes since Professor Babbling had explained them to him when they had first met.

"It is important to know that some magic can exist within several families, for example a translation charm is first and foremost a charm with an incantation meaning it should belong in the Verbarn family, however it deals with translation and understanding another language, which lies within the Loquela family. For alchemy, knowing the difference between the magick families and how they overlap or interact is vital. But for other areas of magic knowing the difference is essentially pointless, a spell does not care if it belongs in the Loquela or Verbarn family, it just is. In alchemy magic can only be formed within just one family so you would need to look at what you want in the application and the formation. A translation spell forms itself in the Verbarn family, once completed in then shifts into the Loquela family to apply itself."

"Earlier you said that someone can't cast magic in one family and end up in another" Harry said confused

"Indeed, when casting the magick, the spell has to remain solely in one family, however once it is fully formed it can shift into any family. It does take a fair bit of power to move between families which is why translation spells can be very taxing on the caster. A good example of this in reverse is by looking at any ability with the word 'tongue' in it, take for example Parseltongue. The caster starts their Parseltongue magic in the Loquela family, let us say they cast a flame freezing spell, despite being an incantation it is being translated and understood so it remains in Loquela, once formed it moves into the Verbarn family to be applied. In a sense Loquela turned the flame freezing spell into a format Verbarn could understand and then cast through Verbarn. That is why magic is taught in Latin, it is the closest translation to the true language of magic and thus requires the least translation. If you were to try and cast a spell in French or English it would require much more power and will."

"What exactly is Parseltongue?"

"Ah, Parseltongue is most well known as the ability to talk to serpents, a skilled speaker can also tap into Parsel magic, which includes the power to replicate any magic or abilities from a creature within the Serpentes genus. Most common are of course snakes, although some dragon breeds and wyverns are also within the genus. I believe it also makes them immune to other Parseltongue magic, which of course includes the creatures within that genus.

"Now the third family of Magick is the one I personally know the most about, the magick of the Arcane. The name arcane means 'understood by few' and eventually, you will be one of the few in the know. The arcane arts include alchemy, potions and astrology. The arcane arts are the second most dangerous of the magick families and can go disastrously wrong. If a Verbarn spell goes fails it can only ever kill the caster, if an arcane spell goes wrong it could potentially destroy the entire country."

Harry accepted the warning, knowing that Nicolas wasn't lying.

"The arcane arts are perhaps the hardest to define, true to their name the only easily identifiable aspect of each art is that very few people know about them. For many that is an acceptable classifier and they leave it at that, but I do not settle for something so vague. In my experience, the arcane arts are when the magic forms within an external force while the intent comes from the caster. The previous two families however form the magic within the caster or their focus, it is important to note that runes are seen as a magical foci, any guesses as to why?"

"Because runes carry the casters magical signature just like a wand while a potion just takes the power of the caster without taking on their signature?"

"Excellent, yes that is exactly the reason. For example in potions, the magical power comes from the user but the potion's intent is formed within the cauldron, the magical intent of the ingredients also help shape the potion. Astrology is actually almost the exact reverse, the intent of the universe shape the magic and witches and wizards have to learn to overcome that external intent. You will need to work on your astrology when we start on alchemy since every alchemical reaction is influenced by astrological magic.

You will also find it would also get you bonus points in your potions papers."

Here Nicolas winked at Harry who couldn't help smiling, he found himself liking the old man

"You might also be interested to know that the oldest department of the ministry of magic was made specifically to discover the mystery of the arcane, suffice it to say they have found little." Nicolas chuckled and took the time to have a drink

"We will talk more about the arcane at a later date, for now we will move onto the next and final family you need to worry about, the divine magick. This is considered the oldest form of structured magic and references to this magick can be found throughout history, most well known are the Greek, Roman or Egyptian divine magicks. There are many other examples of divine magic but those are the three I personally have the most knowledge of, they are so well known that even today muggles learn about the myths of them, you could also say that all the other magick families lie inside divine magic and Loquela magick translates all magic into divine."

Nicolas walked over to a nearby bookshelf and pulled out a book on the Greek gods, he opened it to a page describing some of the gods and handed it to Harry.

"Divine magic is normally described as tapping into the powers of the gods from old, how true this is I do not know. I did not dabble with divine magic all that much so I do not feel competent enough to comment on that opinion, what I can confirm is that divine magic is real and does indeed work. I consider divine magic the perfect mix of Verbarn and Arcane magick. After a preparation ritual, a witch or wizard invokes the essence of a god of old and can channel that god's power through themselves and into the world around them, every time they wish to tap into this magic they need to go through the ritual specialised to each god or deity. True masters of the art can not just tap into the power but keep hold of it for the rest of their lives, this is often known as hosting the god's essence and once a witch or wizard becomes a host they can use that god's power without needing to go through with the ritual.

"Tapping into a god's power is extremely dangerous and requires the casters magic to either match or exceed the divine magic that had been called forth, if the casters magic can not match the divine magic the caster will burn up. The only way to tell if the caster can match the magic is once the divine magic has been called, there is no way to test beforehand. This is why the entire family is under a blanket ban, making it illegal to be taught as the ministry found that many students were going through with the process and dying, however it is still not illegal to use divine magic and under my tutelage you will at the very least learn how to recognise divine magic."

Harry got the sense the Nicolas resented the ban on divine magick and he would be learning more than just recognising the family.

"As you should be able to tell hosting the god's essence is far more dangerous than simply tapping into their power, the magic of the host has to always remain greater than the divine magic and once hosted there is no way for a witch or wizard to give up that divine magic, they are stuck with it until they die. Some people believe that the benefits gained from this are worth the risks… I disagree, which is why I have only ever experimented with the simplest of divine magic. The benefits of divine magic, both tapped and hosted is that once cast the magic is nearly impossible to stop, the only way to fight divine magic is with divine magic. That is not to say that divine magic is unstoppable as a skilled witch or wizard can take command of the divine magic and focus it on easier targets. I once saw a witch fight the power of Vulcan, god of fire, by surrounding herself in water and pointing the essence of Vulcan towards the nearby forest, the forest was burnt to the ground but she escaped unscathed."

"Could a witch or wizard theoretically tap into the essence of two gods at the same time?" Harry asked curiously

"Theoretically… yes they could… However, in reality it is impossible, when I used divine magic in my youth it took all my power to contain just one divine force, if I had tried to tap into two I would have been incinerated instantly. However two divine forces can be combined with one sole purpose, even if they are controlled by two casters. Divine magic is not just tapping into a god's essence however. Fiendfyre is divine magic but can be cast instantly without any ritual, theoretically a witch or wizard could cast fiendfyre then another divine spell such as obscura aquam, the dark water spell and the two conflicting powers could be contained by one person, of course it would take a considerable amount of power and concentration to maintain two extremely powerful pieces of magic simultaneously."

Harry shuddered as he remembered the fiendfyre he and Dumbledore had fought at the end of the year, he could well believe that the magic was divine.

"The simplest way of explaining the difference is this; Verbarn is memorising the name of magic and calling it by its informal name, Loquela is calling the magic by a different name and receiving the same result, Arcane is understanding the magic and forming it elsewhere and Divine is asking the universe for a favour. One of the reasons Divine magic is so hard to control or stop is that there is no resistance. As you may or may not be aware the world doesn't like being changed by magic, as such when casting all magic has to fight this resistance, divine magic is changing the very magic of the world, like adding dye to water once formed it takes a much higher force to undo."

Nicolas turned up once a week to talk magic with Harry, under his tutelage Harry felt he had a much greater understanding of magic, he had not been taught any practical magic yet, only theory. He had also not learned any more about alchemy, they had instead focused on learning the magic that alchemy needed to be done safely.

Harry found learning Nicolas extremely difficult since unlike in Hogwarts he couldn't just use his mage sight to see how the magic worked or already had previous experience in understanding the magic, he found the change refreshing and was delighted to finally be challenged.

Dumbledore kept giving challenges to Harry for him to complete alongside the revision set by Nicolas, on top of that Xenophilius kept in regular contact as 'Rook', he and Dumbledore received weekly updates on what Xeno had done to try and find the Hallows, he had tracked the Wand to last being seen by someone named Gregorovitch but wasn't about to find it since, he had not found anything about the Cloak, the Stone he had tracked down to an heir of Slytherin claiming to have the power to bring back the dead. They had not told Xeno that they had the Wand and Cloak but Harry thought he had a right to know, Dumbledore seemed to disagree however.

They had also gone to Diagon Alley and collected the supplies Harry needed for his next year, there was a suspiciously high number of Gilderoy Lockhart books on his list, when he asked he revealed that Lockhart would be the Defense teacher for the year "I can't say I'm too pleased to have hired him but he was the only one to apply, or at least the only new person to apply."

While in the alley Harry had dropped into Ollivander's.

"Ah Mr Potter, I did not expect to see you so soon. What can I do for you today?"

"I wanted you to check on my wand, I can feel my connection with it weakening, I think it's still very strong but I remember you saying I might need another wand and I wanted to know how long I have left."

"I fear you misunderstood my warning, that wand will always serve you, but over time the bond will weaken, eventually you will find another wand will serve you better than your current wand. But I will gladly look over your wand."

Harry handed over his wand, relieved to know he wouldn't lose his wand's loyalty.

"Ah, you have taken good care of it I see, although you have been over powering the wand, you need to give it time to naturally the magic stored within it… I will not ask how you have managed to power it almost non-stop since I sold it to you last year… you are dealing with very strong magic, Mr Potter, I hope you can handle the amount of magic you push into your wand when casting. Overall your wand is in excellent condition, try to give it time to cool down and I would suggest employing a softer touch and your wand should last for years."

Before Harry knew it the summer was over and he and Dumbledore were walking across kings cross towards platform nine and three quarters, they could have apperated to the platform but Harry was determined to avoid apparition at all costs. As such they had taken the Knight Bus from Godric's Hollow to the station, the bus was filled with other students going to school, they went unnoticed however as Harry had cast a weak notice-not that ensured neither of them got any attention.

However even the notice-not did not stop the Muggles noticing Dumbledore, he was wearing a muggle suit instead of his normal robes, unfortunately the suit probably went out of date when Dumbledore was Harry's age, wanting to avoid further attention Harry hurried over to the barrier and tried to go through. It came as a surprise when rather than slip through he bounced of the now solid wall, shocked it took him a moment to look at the barrier with his mage sight and see the intricate spider web of white magic.

Harry couldn't see why it wouldn't let him pass until he looked deeper and saw pale lime bars crossing behind the white magic, Harry didn't recognise the signature and turned to Dumbledore for help. The headmaster had already identified the problem by the time Harry had turned to him and he had that twinkle in his eye, the twinkle he got when he was enjoying a good joke.

"Figured it out yet, Harry?" Dumbledore asked

"No, I mean I've found the magic stopping people passing through but I didn't recognise the signature"

"Have you learned to identify magic without physically looking yet, Harry?"

"Sort of, I haven't gotten it to full awareness but I can see magic in my periphery"

"Well then, might I suggest looking for the magic signature in the rafters, about 5 feet to my left."

Harry concentrated and cast his gaze behind Dumbledore, it was extremely hard but eventually Harry became aware of another aura.

"But that's my signature, how can someone have my signature?" Harry asked surprised

"Look deeper my boy."

Forcing himself to look deeper he realised there was a second signature behind the first, at first he didn't recognise it but it was clearly a healthier colour of Dobby's signature, which meant the pale lime magic was what Dobby's magic looked like when cast. Obviously his yellow blended with Harry's green to make a new colour.

"If half the magic is mine then I should be able to control it right?" Harry asked cautiously.

"It is worth a try, suffice to say if it is not the case I am confident our combined efforts will unravel the magic anyway."

Turning to the barrier Harry searched for the lime magic, he found it quickly now that he knew where to look. It was fairly simple for Harry to tap into the intent of the block and removed its intent, ending the spell. Cautiously, Harry placed his hand against the barrier, rather than collide with the barrier Harry's hand passed through, grinning Harry walked through the barrier and onto Platform nine and three quarters.

This chapter was quite severely delayed mostly because I didn't have time to work on it, which is why I will be going back to release chapters on a Friday rather than Thursday.