The next day's lessons went much smoother. After giving me a once-over and pronouncing me fit for training, Myrddin proceeded to lecture me for the rest of the morning about magickal theory, which was quite different from the way I'd learned it at Hogwarts.

The way he put it, there were three kinds of magic… the Magic of the Mind, the Magic of the Body, and the Magic of the Spirits.

The Magic of the Body was the one I was most familiar with, as it was generated not only by a wizard's body, but also by other living things, and even natural features like rivers and hills. It sort of sloshed around these weird channels and collected in certain places of power, but could be tapped into if you knew how. It could even be stored in objects, like his staff.

"It's wild magic, however," he said, waving his hands expansively. "It has to be channelled to be effective. That's where your wands and spells come in. The core of the wand focuses the magic, while the wood protects the magician."

I nodded, "And I suppose, after a while, you can handle it directly. But what about the spells, sir?"

Myrddin stood, clasping his hands behind his back, and began to pace. "In the old days, great workings of magic were accomplished via long rituals and multiple adepts. By using specific patterns of movement and speech, the participants ensured that everyone worked together smoothly. Over time, they noticed that these patterns were somehow remembered by the magic, and the rituals became easier to perform.

He stopped before me and pointed a gnarled finger at my face. "So the lazy bastards created quick rituals that any dumb bugger could use and called them spells. Don't let me ever hear of you taking shortcuts like that, boy!"

I shook my head. "Nossir! I mean Yessir!"

We studied that style of magic for a couple of months. After a while, he proclaimed me "Not completely incompetent", and moved on to the Magic of the Mind, or what the faeries called hudoliaeth. Unlike the magic I was used to, it didn't use any energy at all but was all about changing the way people perceived reality. It could even be used to read minds, although there were apparently several easy ways to defend against it. One of them was quite amusing, and I made sure to remember it.

To Myrddin's disappointment, I had a hard time focusing my attention to pull it off, so he was forced to teach me an old "charm" (really, just a bit of doggerel) that I could use as a mantra. Honestly, it made no sense, but it worked well enough.

We didn't get into the third kind of magic until about a year into my training, as a couple of events took us away from the main curriculum. The first happened around Yule, when (after a pleasant dinner with my folks) Myrddin took me down a path behind the Hall to a small stone building, lit by a bright orange glow from within.

Inside, we met with a large man in a leather apron working at a forge, who was apparently composed of mostly muscle & hair. He held a heavy hammer like he knew what to do with it, and surprisingly modern goggles covered his eyes.

"This the lad?" he said gruffly.

"Aye, Gofannon. This is my pupil, Harry Potter." Myrddin replied.

"Doesn't look like much. Needs feeding up!"

Myrddin turned to me. "Harry, this is Gofannon, smith of the Winter Court. He's making something for you."

"Hail & well met, sir," I said, bowing as I'd seen others do.

"Don't call me sir!" Gofannon roared. "I do an honest day's work, you hear!"

I stepped back. "Uh, sorry, si-… sorry."

He shrugged, and turned back to the forge, removing a bar of what looked like black glass from within with a pair of tongs. "I added your rock to a cauldron of black sand, Mirth. Stopped your little beastie from sneaking out."

He took the bar to an anvil and started pounding on the glass. I fully expected it to shatter, but instead, it started to flow, almost like clay.

"How?" I muttered.

"Magic, of course," Myrddin whispered, motioning me to keep quiet.

Soon the bar was reformed into a flat black sword with what looked like snowflake designs embedded in the blade. Gofannon raised it in the air with his tongs and gently blew on it. The puff of air turned into a gust of cold wind, and I shivered despite the proximity of the forge.

Without touching it, he turned the sword in the tongs so that the hilt (which was this weird-looking thing that looked like two upside-down club symbols pointing at each other) pointed in my direction.

"Here, take it!" he ordered. "Don't worry… it's not hot."

I gingerly reached out and grasped the hilt, which was neither warm, nor cold, but oddly like a handshake.

"Enaid am gleddyf. Cleddyf i enaid." Myrddin intoned.

The sword wriggled in my fist and vanished.

"What?" I cried. "Where'd it go?"

"Call for it," said Gofannon, "Draw it in your mind."

I closed my eyes and, feeling like an idiot, said "Can you come back please?"

Gofannon snorted as I felt the warmth in my hand again, I opened my eyes to see the sword… well, not the same sword, as now it looked more like a jet-black version of the sword of Gryffindor. But the blade was the same glossy black with white snowflakes.

"Not what I would have chosen," Myrddin remarked, as I practised stowing and retrieving it a few times. "But it will do. I'll have to find someone to teach you how to use that thing without hurting yourself. I wonder what Art is up to…"

It turned out that Art (whoever he was, although I had my suspicions) was unavailable, so I ended up spending my afternoons learning how to use my new toy with Taran, Lord Gwyn's squire. When I apologised for taking up his time, he mumbled something about taking care of pigs and shrugged.

Oddly enough, the more I used my sword (which I'd named Enaid Du) the more comfortable it felt. Each time I summoned it, it looked slightly different... one day the hilt was a bit longer, and another the blade a hair narrower. Over time, it grew to feel like an extension of my arm, although it still took me a while to control its tendency to "eat" magic.

This indirectly led me to the other major digression in my tutoring, as about a month before Beltane, I was duelling Taran (rather well, if I say so myself) when I accidentally banished Enaid instead of parrying Taran's blow, leading to his sword making a fairly nasty gash in my left shoulder. To his credit, he dropped his longsword with a clatter and immediately called for a healer.

The first to arrive was a willowy blond woman with silver eyes. I couldn't quite tell if she was elf or human, as she had ordinary ears, but an oddly familiar eldritch air. Her hands were gentle as she applied a poultice and bound my wound in a soft cloth.

"Boys and their toys," she murmured, laughter dancing in her eyes. "Why are you all wracked with spurts of utter foolishness?"

"I could not say, my Lady," I replied. "My peers at school were quite the same, however."

Pandora shook her head as she tied the final knot. "I am no lady of the court, young Potter. Merely a wife of the underworld."

"Have I met your husband at court, my- uh madam?"

"No," she replied, standing and wiping her hands with a cloth. "He lives in the mortal world, along with our daughter. I... made a poor choice once."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I replied sincerely.

"Thank you. You may continue your training, but please be more careful. Accidents have consequences."

"I will," I promised as she wafted away.

Taran ambled over, "Ready for another round, Harry?"

I was still staring at the door the healer had left though. "Oh, I guess. Who was she?"

"The healer? Her name is Rhoddion. I think she used another name in the mortal world when she lived, however."

"I could swear I've met her before," I mused.

The following day, at the midday meal, I asked my folks about her.

"I didn't think you were into older women, Harry!" Dad replied, chuckling. Mum threw a roll at him, although he caught it before it struck.

"Behave, my love," Mum commanded, turning to face me. "She rarely shares our meals, spending much of her time at the scrying pools, watching scenes of the past. Remember my mentioning those?"

I nodded. "You said you and Dad watched me through them."

"For good or for ill, yes," she continued, "You may only view those you of your own blood. For the most part, they show scenes of the past, although, on rare occasions, they've given glimpses of the future."

My face fell, "I was hoping I could use them to check on Sirius. I'm a little worried about him."

Mum frowned a bit, "I don't think he's related closely enough... James?"

Dad shook his head. "At one point we thought we were related, because his great-aunt Dorea married a Potter, but we couldn't figure out where he fit in the family tree, and I never thought to ask Father."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I was too busy chasing after a certain redhead," Dad replied with a smirk.

After the meal, I took a tray of fruit over to the garden where the scrying pools were located. There I saw Rhoddion gazing sadly at a vision only she could see.

"Ma'am?" I announced, from a respectful distance. She dipped a hand into the pool and dispelled the enchantment, before looking up.

"Ah, young Harry. How is your arm?"

"Much improved, thank you. I thought you might like some fruit... and maybe some company?"

We spoke for a fair while. While she refused to discuss her mortal life, she was a fountain of knowledge on other topics, like the five types of Fae (two of which I'd already met in the Wizarding World under other names), the properties of plants and trees, and even the names of the spirits. You may recall the third form of magic I mentioned earlier... it's all about invoking spirits and asking them to do magic you cannot do alone. For whatever reason, Myrddin didn't care much for the art, but Rhoddion was a fair teacher.

And so the months passed. My skills improved, my shoulders broadened, and I even started growing a wisp of a beard. I was so engrossed in my studies that I barely noticed it until someone mentioned that I'd spent twenty-three moons in training.

That's when I started to panic.

"Mum, Dad!" I cried at dinner that night, "Why didn't anyone warn me? I only have a month to defeat Voldemort! I have to go back!"

Mum rested her hand on mine. "Relax, Harry. There's nothing to worry about. There's a saying down here: Hir yw'r dydd a hir yw'r nos, a hir yw aros Arawn."

"Long is the day, long is the night, and long is the waiting of Arawn," Dad added, putting a hand on my shoulder. "That's one of Lord Gwyn's titles. He's well aware of time's passage down here."

"I have to go! But... I don't want to leave you." I finished miserably.

"Oh, Harry!" Mum cried, wrapping me in a hug. "We've always been with you."

Dad embraced us both. "And we always will be."

And then Samhain came around again, and I stood before the King.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

hudoliaeth - Enchantment

Enaid am gleddyf. Cleddyf i enaid - A soul for a sword, a sword for a soul.

Enaid Du - Black Soul