A/N- Hey guys, thanks for your reviews. I am honoured however it is little sad to see that this fic does not attract general attention like other fics out there. But well, I am writing for you awesome people out there who are giving their valuable time to read it. Thanks you guys.

Thanks everyone for the reviews.

Thank you Hypergym for the editing and changes you made.

Adrishpuram

The Morning after the funeral, Vari came sneaking into Harry's room to see if the lad had learned anything yet. He was fairly confident that he would not be detected under a disillusionment spell with his feet silenced. Unknown to Vari, Harry was feigning sleep and oblivion with his wand ready in his hand and his cat-like night vision active. When the rather subtle proximity ward, which Harry had placed in his doorway, informed him that there was an intruder, Harry blasted the doorway with an Aguamenti that had the force of a muggle fire-hose. He thought that perhaps he had over-done it as Vari went tumbling backwards out of the door. Vari did a back-flip and landed back on his feet, wet and spluttering. Harry knew that there was no serious harm done, but, watching the glint in Vari's eyes and the amazingly Snape-like curl to his lip as Vari dried himself off, Harry knew that training today was going to be fun… for Vari.

When Harry arrived at the track, Vari vanished his trainers then banished him to the middle of the lake, where he landed with a splash. Before beginning his training with the mystics, Harry had only the slightest idea of how to tread water, never mind swim. To make matters worse, since the healing and all the physical training, His frame was much denser and well muscled than he had ever been before. This meant that if he stopped paddling, he would go right to the bottom. Vari gave him a minute to get over the surprise of being in the water and get himself sorted out before he began bellowing instructions at him. After a few minutes, Harry was treading water easily. After a few minutes more, Harry was able to make some progress toward the shore. As Vari worked with him, he was able to use his magic to help him stay afloat and propel him forward.

When Harry climbed out of the lake, Vari had his wand pointed at him, "Potter, you will run until you drop and I will keep things interesting while you do so."

Harry took-off and started running while Vari shot at him with a wide variety of dark curses. He yelled at Harry to dodge and keep running. Harry managed to complete three laps before he dropped. Without a word, Vari peppered him with stingers. Harry started push-ups. First, he spread his feet apart, then alternated ten push-ups on his left hand, then ten push-ups on his right hand. When he was no longer able to do any more one-handed, he put his feet together and continued two-handed until his arms seized up.

In his studies, Harry thought he might have an easier time of it because his newly organized mind-scape made it easier for him to learn and recall things. But no, his teachers, sensing his improved abilities just piled on more. By the time he crawled into bed, sore and tired, he neglected to replace his ward and passed out.

The second day, Vari came sneaking back. Detecting no ward at the doorway, he entered Harry's chamber. His non-verbal Homenum revelio showed him that it was the real Harry Potter slumbering away obliviously in his bed. Disappointed, he let loose a stinger and laughed as Harry leapt, yelping from his bed. When he arrived at the track, Vari just gestured to the lake and Harry dived in. By the time Harry had sorted himself out enough to swim across and back, Vari had a number of mystics assembled around the track "This morning, you disappointed me. You allowed me to enter your chamber undetected and unchallenged. You will work extra hard. My friends here,", he gestured to the group, " have kindly volunteered to make your laps more interesting. You will run. You will dodge. You will not permit any of their spells to touch you. And…"

Harry anticipated him, "I will run until I drop." And Harry took off at a full run.

As he ran, the mystics fired bone breakers and bone exploders at him while he dodged them. Dodging had become easier for him now. He was learning to feint and fake so that the mystics could not easily predict his movements and kept casting their spells where he wasn't. There were several near misses, but; he was able to escape without any serious harm. It looked like Vari had turned up the brutality in the training a notch.

By the third day, Harry had learned his lesson and Vari was not able to enter his room unchallenged again. Swimming had become a daily routine. By the end of the week, Harry Potter had become a good swimmer. He had taken to swimming hard at the beginning of his workout to warm up and loosen his muscles and swimming in a leisurely fashion, swimming underwater, testing himself to see how long he could stay down, at the end of his workout to cool off and cleanse the sweat from his body. Not only did the swimming leave him feeling clean and refreshed, it also helped him to build strength in all of his muscles and improve his endurance.

The same pattern continued for the next full week. As word got around with the mystics about Harry's routine, more of them turned up to hex, jinx and curse him as he ran, making the laps around the track so "interesting" that Harry could hardly run a step without having to dodge something. He was getting better at dodging and guessing in which direction the mystics were likely to hex him. He had started to love feinting for them which worked wonders for his reflexes. He came to realise that all this dodging was working wonders for his agility which might have suffered otherwise with his increase in size and strength. One-handed push-ups, Russian push-ups, swimming and sword fighting plus the mountain air, the diet of the mystics and the healing ritual had all contributed to him gaining strength in leaps and bounds. He thought he could beat Crabbe and Goyle in an arm wrestle now, likely Flint too. And yet, he had not become muscle-bound but was now more subtle than he had ever been. Even Mrs. Weasley would not be able to say that he looked peaky or underfed now.

Harry missed his friends of course. He had not heard from them since he left Wizarding Britain. The few times that he had been able to talk to Sirius, the marauder was living at a different location. Harry was seriously concerned that Sirius had left the safety of the Black town-house. There was still no word that the ministry had called off the man-hunt. If he were caught, he was still under a death sentence. When Harry talked to Moony about allowing Sirius to leave the safety of the Black Town House, the werewolf chuckled briefly over this then assured Harry that adequate precautions had been taken. He had not received any message from Dumbledore either. When he asked Harsh about this, he told him that Adrishpuram had some heavy duty mail wards which allowed no form of communication to pass through. Homesickness was beginning to set in. More and more each day, he thought about Sirius, Remus, Hermione, Susan, Neville and Ron but he missed them all. He also missed Mrs. Weasley's wonderful home cooking, her three course meals, Mr. Weasleys obsession with all things muggle, Gred and Feorge's pranks and even Ginny.

He thought of Susan the most and how pretty she was. She had been loyal to him without asking anything in return. He felt he should have cultivated more friendships than just in the Lion's den. There were people in the Badger's hole and the Eagle's nest who he should have tried to know. He had been such a private individual that he did not even know the names of all his year mates except those in Lion's den i.e. Ron, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Hermione, Parvati, Lavender, Fay Dunbar and there was a girl named Runcorn but he could not remember her first name. He was determined to make more friends than just the trio and occasionally Ginny he used to have around him. Of course, there had been Ron running interference all the time. He hadn't minded it so much when people were just being annoying, but now, things will have to change. Harry was going to let Ron know, in no uncertain terms, that he would decide who his friends are for himself from now on.

The Potions Master had started to give him free rein of the dungeons. As soon as Harry would enter he would give him a list of potions he had to brew for a particular day and then would step into the role of a spectator. There were generally 3 potions on the list each day and it kept him busy for three hours a day. Thanks to the new mindscape, Harry had no problem recalling even the most complicated and fiddly potion recipes and getting them right every time. At the beginning of class, he looked at the list of what he would be brewing today and recalled the recipes. Before he started, he went over each recipe and decided if and how he would modify each one, then made notes, on parchment about any changes he was making and what effect he expected from each one. He laid out a schedule in his head of each step for each potion so that he could brew them all simultaneously. He laid out his ingredients and checked that each one was properly prepared and pure. He set out the cauldrons and conjured fires to get them to exactly the right temperature, then started brewing. As he worked over the cauldrons, he recalled facts about each ingredient, where it came from, how to care for the source plant or animal, how to prepare them for use, their properties and their other uses.

The Potions Master had informed Harry that he had taught what he could to Harry considering the time they had together and the position of Harry in the tribe. He could not teach him the more exotic potions which were only known to mystics because Harry had no practical uses for them in his war. He had taught him every potion that he thought would be useful for him like the blood replenishing potion, pain relieve potion, Skele Gro, Nutritional Potions, Draught of Living Death, Wiggenweld Potion and a few others that he was expected to brew in his OWLs or NEWTs.

There were two potions that he taught Harry which was not a part of his academic curriculum. One was the poison made from the plants which was the magical cousin of the mimosa pudica. To make the potion from it was very simple. It required mixing ingredients from a couple of poisonous plants and then boiling it till it started emitting green smoke. However the smoke was extremely dangerous and was to be stored in a crystal phial and kept sealed at all times. When it was meant to be used, the vials would be hit with a heating charm bringing the potion to a boil and then thrown into the air, it should be hit with a bombarda. The vapour that would spread would kill those who came into direct contact with it while those who got even the tiniest whiff would be paralysed at the very least. Harry wondered if a tiny amount of thermite could be placed at the centre of one of these phials to make a gas grenade that could be used by the order. But he did not share this idea with the potions master.

The other potion was a side project that Prathimaan had given him. That was to brew the Polyjuice Potion correctly. As a reward Harry could take the potions with him. Harry had started the Potion a week ago and today, it had to be left to simmer for a full moon cycle which meant about two weeks later the potion would be ready.

Potions class was just before lunch with Harsh and the mystic had a savage sense of humour. His frequent pranks were both subtle and inventive. He would strike at the most inopportune moments and never the same way twice. Harry was more wary of him than Vari and Vari used him as a practice target. He had learned some prank worthy tricks from the mystic and was looking forward to trying them out on the marauders. Although, he thought that this would earn their ire, he thought that he may even be able to teach the twins a thing or two.

One prank had been when Harry had sat down to eat after making sure that there was nothing amiss and as soon as he sat down, his chair trapped him with chains around his wrists and a jinx which was tied with the chair locked his tongue. Harsh just sat there amused watching him try to cast non-verbal wandless spells unsuccessfully. It had been a very agonizing 20 minutes before Harsh released him telling him the secret behind non-verbal casting and to practice it any time he could. He had started to do so but it had been very difficult going. He had tried to cast the spell which was his personal favourite, 'Pitra dev Sanrakshnam (Expecto Patronum)' inaudibly. After working at it for an hour straight, he had not been able to so much as conjure a wisp of silver. When Harsh asked which spell he was trying to cast and Harry told him, the mystic started laughing so hard that Harry felt he would fall over. After he controlled his outburst, Harsh told him that Expecto Patronum could not be done inaudibly. It was one of those spells along with the unforgivables and a few other curses which required being cast audibly. So, Harry had started with a stinger which was easy. Then he went to work on the stunning until he could fire them effortlessly without even thinking of moving his lips. As he worked at it, he added progressively more difficult spells, some of them getting into the borderline dark spells. The non-verbal spells didn't quite have the same punch that he got by shouting incantations at the top of his lungs, but the trade-off for the element of surprise or being able to cast when speaking aloud was ill-advised or impossible was well worth it. Speaking of surprises, he decided to keep this new ability to himself. There was a certain satisfaction to keeping secrets, especially those that could give him a tactical advantage. However, he resolved never to keep secrets that may allow harm to come to another person.

Another time he had been caught in a prank was when he had been walking to classes and suddenly his feet started dancing of their own accord. He was sure that nobody was near enough to curse him in anyway. He tried to use finite and all other counter curses he knew, but; nothing helped. When he went to the healer, Charak discovered that his robes had been enchanted to keep him dancing on his feet and he had been trying to finite himself thinking someone may have cursed him.

He had been totally embarrassed the day when he was walking towards his room after his classes for the day and his shoes vanished from his feet. As he turned around, he found Harsh holding his wand and grinning at him. Harsh often enchanted his stuff and the jinx tied to them took effect when Harsh was not around so Harry was unable to retaliate. Harry was determined not to let it get to him. The mystic would get what was coming to him.

He often ran into traps which were meant solely to prank him. As he stood there laughing, Harsh would send him off to stable duty because he had not been vigilant enough. As a result Harry was on very good terms with the animals now. They seemed to know him and often expressed their joy when he came to visit them.

In transfiguration class Ambar was teaching him animation. She had taught him all the basics of animation in the last week. She also showed him memories of some of the animation she had seen or done in her life. The most impressive had been when she enchanted water to resemble a horse and attack her opponents while she brought them down. It was a very fascinating event where she had been deployed to kill a group of nine wizards who were starting to become a menace and the mystics had chosen her for the job. In yet another ambush she had transfigured a boulder into a stone golem and enchanted it to shoot fire bolts at her enemies. She showed him another memory where Harsh was fighting 30 wizards and animated a couple of statues to come alive and fight on his side. Yet again in another duel, he was shown that Harsh had transfigured stone boulders into animals and animated them to attack his enemies. He had been having the most trouble in animation because his raw power was his own enemy. Animation required him to use his power in controlled measures rather than putting in too much power at once. He was able to control the amount of power in his spells lately, but; animation required him to use his power in controlled amounts for longer periods of time. So far, he had been over powering his animations, causing them to explode. Ambar had been patiently dealing with him. She told him how power rushed into one's body and in his veins. He had to control the flow of magic he put into animation and to that end she had told him that as he achieved proficiency in occlumency he would be able to successfully animate things.

His animagus training had been coming along beautifully. She had taught him to transform his nails into claws. In the same manner, he had been getting his other features to develop. He hoped that his animagus form would be complete before the final confrontation came. If he had to, he would be able to tear Voldemort limb from limb without any wand or magic. In the last week, he had been successful in turning his hands and feet into the paws of his leonine form and was working on the midsection now. He was sure that his complete animagus form would cause a great sensation if he changed to it in front of his friends.

She had been teaching him everything that she could and sometime even duelled with him using only transfiguration. In the past week, they had tangled seven times and yet he had not been able to best the mystic. She would often pull something on him at the last moment.

In charms, he had been disturbed to learn that Achala had been in the care of the healer for two days after she came back from the battle. She had some sort of melt down at the battle when her sub-ordinate soldier had leapt into the path of the Avada Kedavra curse which was meant for her. She had been very patient while he attempted the Fidelius charm and whenever he failed, she would only encourage him to work harder. He was finally able to learn the Fidelius charm and was able to attempt it on the class room. Achala told him that he would be able to do it easily for any place when he was in tandem with his magical core. She also taught him all the shields that were there from Protego to Contego to Protego Maxima Horriblis to Mage shield. Achala was more ecstatic than him with the prospect of bearing a mage shield into battle.

She even duelled him at times using charms only. He was amazed. She was a charms mistress renowned for her skills throughout the world however that had been 50 years ago when she left the general wizarding world and joined the mystics. She was a fierce fighter and Harry had seen her training some of the other mystics. She was ruthless with them. She would use some of the more dangerous and difficult charms with such ease that it boggled his mind. She was ruthless when she had a wand in her hand and an opponent before her. She had left the world because her talents had caught the eye of some unsavoury wizards and they wanted to use her talents for nefarious purposes. Her family had been slaughtered when she had refused to join and since then her sole motive had been to serve mother magic and prepare new warriors who would save helpless wizards from evil ones.

He had been doing the exercises recommended to him for getting in tandem with his magical core. Since he had built his mindscape, sorted his memories and arranged it, he was able to find his magical core more often. That alone meant that he could draw more from his core without worrying about getting exhausted after a matter of a few spells. The use of his core to full capacity was restricted by his inability to connect fully with his magical core. Harsh had assured him that he would teach him to connect with his magical core when he learnt to find his core without concentrating upon it. He watched Harry's progress each night and was satisfied with what he saw.

Harry knew that he had made some progress, but; he also knew that he was not fighting at the level of the mystics. He was still in awe every time he thought back to seeing them in battle. They all fought fiercely, casting with abandon, dodging whatever was thrown at them and he wanted to fight like them.

Pawan had been teaching him clusters now that they were done with wards. He told Harry that he had taught him things that would help him in the war and if he wanted to learn more, he should pursue the subject on his own. He also had encouraged Harry to learn Parsel Tongue because it was a magical tongue, that there were a handful of people who spoke it in Wizarding Britain, therefore; even if people did manage to find your wards, they could not decipher them. He suspected that even Tom riddle, who can speak Parsel Tongue has no idea how to read it. He recommended that Harry go to the nagas. They would be able to help him with reading and writing the runes and with speaking the language without having a snake in front of him. Perhaps they would even consent to teach him Parsel Magics while he was there.

He had progressed to teaching Harry runic clusters which were important because they had a lot of uses and could often be used in wards to make a single ward perform multiple functions. He often told him to read ahead and would explain things once and if even then Harry had a problem, he would draw a cluster and explain it to him by example.

The mystic had taught him to construct anti-escape wards like the goblins made and some which even escaped the goblins. He had travelled across the world and knew of many ward schemes and as such, he taught him a lot of them. Harry had a pretty good idea about using those runes. There were a few runes which could even be used to kill however they required fast wand work because those runes were to be etched in the air. For them to work, it was imperative that they were cast with precision without any time gap. It was slightly hard for Harry but Pawan helped him a lot by explaining how it was done and after struggling for a day or two, he had got the gist of it.

Vari had been the hardest of the lot. He had started to teach Harry some of the lethal spells that he had seen being cast on the battle ground that day. He taught Harry the motion and then left him to practice it. He would conjure a dummy before him and ask Harry to start practicing, generally shooting a particular part of the anatomy of the dummy. The dummies were smart and would often move, dodge or shield against his curses. This also helped him improve his casting by trying to guess where the Dummy would move if he cast a curse. At the start, most of the time he had been wrong, however; lately he was able to defeat a dummy by predicting its moves. When Vari noticed that his dummy did not present a challenge to him anymore, he put the dummies in pairs of which one would shoot while the other defended. The mystic had told him to evade any of the spells shot by the dummies and if he ever got hit by one, it was stable duty. When he had enough of practice for the day, he would make a small mistake and Vari would send him to Pashupati where he would spend the rest of the day grooming the animals and cleaning out the stables.

While some considered stable duty to be beneath themselves, Harry was starting to enjoy it because often, Pashupati had some creature to show to him. Reading or hearing about a creature did not measure up to meeting them up-close and personal. He had time to become friendly with them and to learn more about them. As much as he learned to love these creatures, he didn't think he would ever develop Hagrid's tendency to think of really dangerous creatures as cute and cuddly pets. He was filling his journal with notes and drawings of every new creature he met. He often thought about meeting Newt Scammander to tell him about those creatures and wondered if Newt Scammander was still alive.

Besides learning to duel with the dummies, Vari had started to teach him dodging. Harry was impressed by the way that the mystic was able to dodge and weave around Harry's spells, no matter what he did and make it look like a dance, laughing and taunting Harry all the while. Harry wanted to be able to dodge like that too and so resolved to study the art. For their entire lesson time for two days, Vari taught him what he called "the slippery fish". When he was sure that Harry would not embarrass himself practicing it, he bombarded Harry with stingers making him weave in and out of the way of his spells. After the mystic was sure that he could handle it, he often placed Harry before two or more mystics who would fire colour spells at him while he tried to dodge. He ended up drenched in colours every single day. As he got more practice at it, a little less each time. Finally, the day came when, after a half hour of being bombarded by six mystics, they only managed five hits.

Anal sparred with him on every alternate day since there was not much that he could teach him in sword fighting. He had become proficient with Sword and dagger and the mystic told him that there was nothing more that he needed to learn in that particular skill since the only enemy that he could face with blades were werewolves and while they were fast, Harry's reflexes negated that advantage. Still, the practice helped Harry to keep his skills sharp and it was good exercise.

Then there was Charak. The healer was a very jovial bloke who always had a smile on his face for Harry but, he wasn't like that with everybody. Harry had long since seen evidence that the man was capable of doing violence when the occasion called for it. The few captives that were brought back to Adrishpuram had been given to Charak and he had asked Harry to join him every evening for two hours since he had something to show him. He had no idea what the healer wanted to show him and that just made Harry curious. He had always been Kindly toward Harry, a good listener and, Harry felt, a good friend.

The first night, the healer had told him about Healing as a profession. He told Harry openly that healing was not just an art to cure people but it was equally deadly. He had told him that he could kill a man in thirty different ways without even making him bleed and Harry had been left open-mouthed. The healer did not look like a killer but rather one who would do everything he could to save everyone. Perhaps his empathy was limited to those who served mother magic. A completely different story for those who defiled it.

In the first class, he taught Harry about human anatomy including everything there was to know about vital locations and the sensitive points which could disable a man. He told him the best way to kill a man and the ways to make one scream for mercy. He even taught him about how to torture someone and based on their resilience, he had different modes of torture. He told Harry that since he had no hatred in his heart, he would not be able to use the Cruciatus curse which was a rather unimaginative way to torture someone anyway. The Cruciatus curse was used by those who did not know about other exotic ways which could be used to break people's spirit.

For the second class, he had tied down one of the captives and asked him for information. The captive did not deign to answer and he tried to persuade him otherwise showing him fear of death and everything without actually doing any physical harm. When the captive did not budge, he plunged a silver knife in the man's thigh and made a deep incision. As the werewolf (yes it was a werewolf) howled in pain, the mystic poured molten silver into the wound and knit the wound haphazardly with stitches all the while winking at Harry that some forms of muggle healing were quite as effective as any form of torture. As the werewolf writhed in pain, he handed the knife to Harry to do the same to his other thigh and Harry was so nauseated that he refused to do it. It was the first time that a mystic scared him. The healer pinned him to a wall with the knife at his throat telling him that this was not a game and he did not have a choice. He told Harry firmly that while mystics do not kill all werewolves, there were some, who by their deeds had earned death and this one on the table was one of them. No one could know how many people a werewolf had turned. After he had shamed Harry enough for lack of will to do the right thing, Harry reluctantly slashed the werewolf's other thigh and as a result the incision was not deep enough to cause any real pain. The mystic snarled at him and buried the knife hilt deep into the already made incision and twisted it for good measure. Harry poured the molten silver in his thigh with shaking hands and when he stitched the wounds his hands shook so much that he was sure that the werewolf would be cursing him more than the mystic for not having the guts to do it properly. After the werewolf sang like a canary, Charak had simply slit an artery in his neck making a point to show it to Harry and watched in grim satisfaction while the werewolf bled and died in agony.

After his session with Charak and the werewolf, Harry retired to his chamber and called the marauders. As soon as he said Padfoot, Sirius's grinning face appeared in the mirror, "Hey pup, how is it going?"

Harry was still nauseated and said morosely, "I don't think I can do it Padfoot."

Sirius who could see that Harry was looking pale and morose, asked him, "What is the matter, Prongslet? Did something happen? Are you okay?"

Harry could still remember the werewolf bleeding and dying slowly. Watching the werewolf, he had been thinking of Remus and asked in the same morose tone, "Is Moony okay?"

Sirius who had not got an answer to his question understood that the teen wanted to see the werewolf and hollered for him. Moony was more perceptive than Padfoot and immediately realised that something was not right with him and said to him in a kind voice, "Cub, I know something is bothering you but you can always rely on me and Sirius to help you. What happened to make you so grim?"

It was then Harry lost all control, "Moony, today the healer Charak had me over for a class. He was teaching me torture methods. He had a werewolf captive (he did not tell them about the battle) and he wanted some information from the werewolf. The werewolf refused to say anything and he just slashed his thigh open, poured molten silver into the wound, then closed it with muggle stitches. He asked me to do the same to the other leg, but; I could not help thinking that it was wrong."

Remus was frowning but still said to him in his kind voice, "Harry was the werewolf innocent? Are you sure that he had never turned anyone or was not a killer?"

Harry shook his head, "The werewolf was not innocent. We captured him during a battle. He was part of the forces defending a dark lord's castle. During his initial interrogation, he boasted that he had turned at least ten children."

Remus looked sick for a moment, then his voice hardened, "Harry, listen to me. This man was a monster. It is creatures like him that cause muggles and wizards alike to hate and fear us. The werewolf was not someone innocent nor was he interested in living life like an ordinary person. By his admission, he had turned 10 children and that alone makes him a beast undeserving of any mercy. He deserved to die. In fact if I were in your position I would have gladly taken the knife and impaled him in the throat leaving him to choke on his blood. There is war coming and werewolves are already gathering. Unless someone stands up to them, they will run amok turning children and spreading misery. I wish you to diligently take up everything they are willing to teach you. You will need everything to survive the war and we will be cross with you if you failed to learn anything."

Harry gave his full attention to every word the werewolf said and understood what he was saying. He turned to the both of them, "I promise I will not hesitate again. I will learn whatever they are teaching me and then I will use it on those who deserve it."

After he ended the connection, he went to practice occlumency. He set up his wards, then he retired to his bed.

From that time on, he did not hesitate to learn whatever the Healer told him. He taught him to kill by a single cut, how to prolong someone's death keeping them in agony, he taught him to bleed someone by a thousand injuries while keeping them alive. Harry learned everything with grim determination to succeed.

The entire week, Harry and the healer worked together, torturing the werewolves one-by-one until they were all dead. By that time, Harry had a solid knowledge of the most effective techniques. It disgusted him, but he learned it to the best of his ability anyway. The upside was that Harry had become less sensative to blood and gore.

Next, Harry went to work on the wizards. Harsh told him that this was an opportunity for Harry to practice his mind magic but cautioned him to go gently and not to destroy their minds. The first captive had been very hard for him because he had solid mental defences. Then Harry remembered Shravya had taught him to petrify the enemy and he would not have so much trouble. He petrified the enemy and ran through his defences. He conjured a giant fist and broke down his defences as if they were made of cardboard. He had done it twice in three days before he was sure that he could do it again with ease.

The second one was tougher for him and he had simply burned down his mindscape with a raging inferno and sifted through his memories at his leisure. There were no secrets left for him to pursue after he was done.

Black Town House

Hermione Granger had learned more in this last month alone than in her entire four years at Hogwarts. The big difference was that this was not for an essay. This was 100% practice training. In her schooling, she had been all about the theory and only attempted to put things in to practice to prove that she understood the theory correctly. It still rankled her that she was not allowed access to some parts of the library. She understood Sirius had reasons but still she had wanted to read those books. She even tried to persuade Tonks to bring some of the books for her but the metamorphmagus had scrunched up her nose and told her in no uncertain terms that she was not touching those books which made her skin crawl. She had already finished the books which Remus had brought for the students and she had nothing else to do on the days when she had no training.

Molly, noticing that Hermione had free time, had given her an alternative which was equally exciting. She had offered to teach her the life and living of pure blood families seeing she came from one such family i.e. the Prewetts. There were things that all muggle born should know and there was nothing stopping Hermione from learning those things like etiquette, behaviour and customs of the wizarding world. Ever since Molly made that offer Hermione had something to look forward to, something which she should have known when she entered the wizarding world. She was flabbergasted to know that the wizarding etiquette classes at Hogwarts had been banned a century ago as was duelling.

Green Hues

Croaker had arrived in the entrance hall where he bumped into Neville who had just returned from training at the Cottage on the Hill. He had been teaching non-verbal casting to the teen for the last week and he had learned enough that Croaker appeared to be satisfied.

Neville turned to him, "Great uncle, what have you planned for me today?"

Croaker was almost finished with teaching him the finer points of family magic and was content with leaving it at that. He had instead started to teach him duelling and they usually duelled using only family spells for an hour every evening with Neville being left battered and beaten in the end usually.

That evening as their duel came to an end, Croaker sat with him, "How goes your training with the students?"

Neville enthusiastically replied, "I have learnt a lot. We are almost done learning what Dumbledore would allow since he does not want us to dabble in dark magic. These days we mostly do duels mixed of defence, transfiguration and charms. Mad-eye still runs us through the ringer though."

Croaker chuckled, "He is one sadistic person who takes pleasure in other's miseries but he has a good heart. He is focused on giving you all a chance to make it alive through the coming war."

Neville nodded.

"Now Neville, how about you take up Dumbledore on that offer?", Croaker asked smiling.

Neville grinned, "I thought you would never say that. I will write him a letter tomorrow."

As Croaker left, Neville flooed to Longbottom castle to see his parents. They were mostly up and out of their wheelchairs now, walking around the property as much as they could, building up their strength.

Bones Manor

Susan had been having a good time now. It had become easier for her to train since her body adapted and her confidence had increased. She also was able to cast with more speed and her dodging had improved as had her repertoire of spells. She loved duelling with Auntie because while Amelia did not cut her any slack, she was not a task master like Moody who took sadistic pleasure in torturing the students.

She had another little thing on her mind for which she had written a letter to one person who she knew would be able to help and that particular person had arrived the next day in her manor to offer his help willingly. She intended it to be a surprise for others and could imagine Harry Potter's face when he would be left open mouthed after her secret was revealed.

Her training in family magic was almost complete and Amelia was proud of her for what she had achieved. She had confided in Susan that she intended to declare her heirship at the upcoming session of the Wizengamot which was already promising to be explosive since it would perhaps be the last session where the three factions were on an equal footing. After the upcoming session the politics of the Wizengamot were sure to change.

Susan was less interested in politics and more interested in Harry Potter and why he never even sent her a letter from wherever he was. She sometimes wished to slap him for his foolhardiness and sometimes she wished she could drag him into a broom closet to snog him so much that his brains would melt down. As she thought of the green eyed raven haired teen, she remembered that it was 21 July and Harry Potter had been gone for three weeks now. It was his birthday in 10 days and she wished he was here. She had decided to buy him a gift and to present it to him the next time she saw him,. Auntie had told her that he would be back in about a month which meant he was expected to return sometime in August.

Cottage on the Hill

The students had gathered for dueling practice again today. They had been having these sessions almost daily for the past week and while they did not come out on top often, they were making progress. Moody took it upon himself to put them through the ringer whenever he felt like he was having a bad day. He avoided facing the twins because he did not relish ending his duels covered with multi-coloured feathers and fur with assorted body parts of other creatures, hog-tied, upside-down or whatever else they thought would be funny at the time. He claimed that those two would beat him too easily and there was not much left that he could teach them. He always left them for Minerva or Filius.

Minerva had taught them all that there was to teach but not the advanced transfiguration because they were energy taking and time consuming. Animation would take a lot out of a wizard and although they had improved greatly she did not think that they had the level of mastery required to attempt animation in the middle of a duel yet. They knew that not all of the death eaters were such accomplished fighters that the students would need to be trained like soldiers.

Flitwick had taught them some advanced charms which were not terribly tricky and were quick to cast. He often tested the students by duelling with them using charms only. While Flitwick was usually the winner, the students were coming close. He was satisfied that they had learned enough and that the training was over for all practical purposes. The whole point of the training was to teach them to survive which they were excelling at.

Adrishpuram, a week later

In the past week, Harry had managed to get some satisfaction. Between his wards, transfigurations and animations, He had managed to make his chamber look like he was sleeping blissfully while he remained concealed. His wards alerted him no matter what measures Vari took to gain entrance to his room. After retreating from Harry's room drenched three mornings in a row, Vari took to apparating in, dousing Harry and apparating out again. What he didn't know is that he had just doused a very clever replica of his intended victim, but; Harry could not allow even the appearance of failure. None of the wards he had learned would stop mystic apperation. Harry had to give this some thought. He placed a series of trap runes all over his floor then hid them using the Fidelius Charm. When Vari popped in to Harry's room the next morning, he found himself disarmed, hanging from the ceiling by one ankle and thoroughly drenched. As soon as Harry was able to stop laughing, he levitated Vari gently to the floor and returned his wand to him.

The mystic growled at Harry, "I will expect you every day on the field before dawn" and stalked out of the room.

Harry accepted this as total victory and made sure that he was never late.

It seemed to Harry that every mystic he had ever seen turned out to make his morning runs more interesting. He could not run a step without someone forcing him to dodge. After two near misses in a row, he had enough and started firing stunners at his tormentors without a wand and without breaking stride. He felt a grim satisfaction when a couple of stunners from each volley found their marks and the mystics fell unconscious.

The Potions master had told him that he needed no further instruction from him and not to attend any more sessions if he didn't want to. But Harry enjoyed his company and so spent an hour a day in conversation with him anyway. He never went away without picking up some new trick that would come in handy in the future. The polyjuice that he had been brewing was nearly complete and required only a week more before it would be ready. The only exciting thing that was left for them was to test the modification to the wolfsbane potion trying to make it less poisonous because aconite was poisonous to everyone.

Harsh had helped him to meld with his magical core. It had been easy after Harsh instructed him while he was doing it. He could still remember when the mystic had helped him do it.

-Flashback-

Harry was sitting before the mystic who asked him, "What is the problem Harry? Why are you not able to connect with your magical core?"

Harry who had been hoping the mystic would teach him how to do it scowled, "May be because you are not telling me how to do it, Guruji."

Harsh chuckled, "Still complaining, I see. Okay, while you meditate I will try to help you to connect with your magical core but once you are able to do so you will have to learnt to do it by yourself so that you would not need me time and again to take your hand and do it for you."

As Harry sat in meditation, he found his magical core very easily. It was like he only had to think of it and he could see it. It looked like a big ball of greyish light which seemed to shine in the surrounding darkness. He was staring at it hoping it would connect with him when he heard Harsh's voice, "Concentrate Harry. Can you hear the low thudding sound being made by your magical core?"

Harry concentrated hard and pushed all other thoughts out of his mind to try and hear what the mystic asked him. After trying hard, he could hear a low thud like his heart beating in his chest. He was surprised that he had never heard it before whenever he found his magical core. But then he was only used to standing there and watching his core. He had never even tried listening as he was now.

Harsh's voice echoed again, "Now concentrate upon the sound and visualise as if you are trying to find the source of this sound. Follow the thudding sound and find where it's coming from. Imagine your magic as a sentient being which is waiting for you to come and accept it. As you imagine, you would feel the rush of your magic around you, and it may be gentle or fierce. Do not be scared of it but welcome it and embrace it as a part of your own."

Harry followed the instruction and after what felt like hours, his magic was swirling around him like a tornado but he revelled in the feeling. It was soothing on his nerves and he welcomed it with all his heart. As it melded in him, he felt like someone had fed him a drink of pure energy and there was nothing that he could not do.

Harsh's voice broke him out of his trance, "Now come back Harry. You will do it again on your own till there is no need to do it over and again."

He opened his eyes and found Harsh looking at him with a smile, "You have achieved everything that I wished for you to do. With the melding of core, you are ready
to learn to fly or to travel like we do."

-Flashback ends-

Since then, the last week had been frustrating with him attaining little further success. Right now he was sitting before Harsh who was teaching him tranquillity, "Tranquillity is a state where your body would become one with nothingness i.e. where your physical presence is not bothered by anything. It means dissolving your body into nothing but only your essence remains. When you wish to reappear, your body would again take a physical form but that requires extreme concentration and your magical core and your body are not two different things but your body becomes your core. In that condition, your magic which is sentient being would do your bidding with just a thought however to be able to things like flying, you will need to practice. It would be hard at first like you would not levitate for more than a few feet for the first few times but with practice you will be able to fly higher and will be able to control it even. I will only teach you to start flying but you have to do the rest on your own because you have not much time left here. We are already on the end of our tether and two weeks at most is what we can manage of which one week would be required by the Naga people who have sent me a request to that effect."

So it was that Harry sat in meditation and the mystic instructed him in that state, "Since your core is one with your body now you can ask your magic to do your bidding. Will it to raise you. Imagine that you are levitating from the ground and hovering in air. As you feel like you are in air will it to keep you hovering."

He tried to imagine himself hovering in air and pushed at his magic. After a few moments of concentration, he felt like he was hovering a few inches from air. After an hour, Harsh told him to come out of his trance and when he did, he found that he was spent.

Harsh confided him that after practicing the medling regularly for one month, he would attain a little nothingness which would enable him to pass through wards undetected and no wards could stop him. However the little nothingness would be hard to achieve and Harry will have to do it on his own.

His sessions with Pawan were nearly at an end because the mystic told him that there was little more that he could teach him in the short amount of time they had remaining together. He had taught him some very useful wards and to erect them in different languages but that was it. To know of the more exotic applications would require years of study and they were down to their last week. He instructed Harry to keep practicing what he had taught and to enlist the help of Professor Babbling, the runes professor at Hogwarts if he ever had any trouble. However he acquiesced to test Harry on the knowledge that he had imparted to him to make sure that he would not make a mistake in anyway. One more thing that the mystic was going to teach him was to create the ward explosives and they were the hardest to master but he had faith in Harry's abilities that in the next week, he would have learnt to do it correctly.

Vari, who was a ruthless task master and liked to torment him in the arena had replaced the dummies with mystics who would duel with him in groups of two or three at once because Harry had come a long way from one on one duels. The mystics used all sorts of underhanded techniques which sometimes irritated him to no end but he was determined to outshine them. At times, he was hurt by one of their curses. When that happened, he was sent to work in the stables with Pashupati. He thought that being sent to Pashupati was no real punishment because the mystic never asked him to do anything dangerous ore really difficult, so he asked Pashupati about the real punishment. The stable master told Harry that the real punishment was to send the mystics to stand under a waterfall without any clothes for the full night. Considering that they lived in the Himalayas and that the waterfall was fed by glacier melt-off, this chilled him to the bone to think what would have become of those who were awarded those punishments. Pashupati also confided in him that he was cutting Harry some slack because Harsh had forbidden any sort of real punishment from being given to him.

Vari taught him some of the spells he had seen flying around at the battle. He also gifted Harry vials of memories from the many mystics which contained some very special spells. He warned Harry to never show those memories to anyone who was not a mystic because those spells being known to the outside world could cause unforeseen destruction and no one could perform them anyway. He had been fascinated and nauseated at the same time when he saw a couple of those memories in a penseive which Harsh had gifted him. The pensieve bore the mystic crest and it did not require him to enter into the pensieve but with a tap of the wand, he could see the memories like watching a television.

For the last week, Vari always made him duel others using those spells and would often chide him if he failed to do anything flawlessly. As a result, his casting speed, accuracy and power behind his spells had become very controlled. He had once or twice duelled Vari and the mystic defeated him with great difficulty.

Outside of Vari, he had taken to spending an hour a day by himself in the arena to practice his spells with dummies. He used all of his lethal spells with abandon and was pleased at the results when often the dummies were destroyed with all the magic that was put in those spells. The dummies also would attack him from all sides, sometimes together and he would apparate from one point to another to keep them busy. Every duel, he learned something new but still felt as if he was missing something. He had learned the entire spell book of the mystic by heart by now but he felt like there must be something that could sate his hunger. Perhaps he would have to ask Harsh what this feeling was.

Ambar had helped him to overcome his difficulty with the animagus transfiguration by showing him that he should employ occlumency whenever he was working on his transformation. As a result, he could transform the tail, his paws, and some part of his torso. He hoped that within a month, he would be able to transform his torso completely and the mystic told him in no uncertain terms that within two months he would be a full fledged animagus. She also told him not to register his form with the British Ministry of Magic but with the ICW because in that way, no one would be wiser about his animagus form and he would not be an illegal animagus either.

She duelled with him regularly with the transfigurations and he enjoyed it the most. While she won often, he had won his fair share of duels. He was working extra hard in her subject because he wanted to surpass his father in transfiguration and he had been an expert. Sirius had told him a few stories where James had used his formidable transfiguration abilities to his credit.

Lately Ambar had started to teach him to transfigure humans into animals which was fun. She had started the demonstration by transforming Harry into a stag. He remembered the theory that she had told him, "In every transfiguration, it is essential to know what you are going to do. For example if you want to transform a person into an animal like a rat, you must be able to clearly see in your mind. Like you must be able to see its skin colour, its paws and every other detail and then when you cast the spell, you keep that image in mind and will your magic to do your bidding. If your mind is not into it, you would not be able to do it correctly and the person may end up as half man and half animal."

Harry chuckled remembering Dudley's pig tail when Hagrid had come to rescue him from the rock in the sea. The half-giant's education had not been complete so he probably did not know how to do it properly.

Since then, he tried the spell on some of the captives. Sometimes he failed and they would end up only with some features of animals. After failing three times, he had advanced enough to transfigure them into animals with a thought. Ambar had pronounced him ready for whatever was out there waiting for him and bade him to keep practicing so that he could transform people into animals without putting much thought into it.

She also taught him transmutation as he had seen Moony do to the bike. He had to attempt it a number of times before he was proficient at it. He had enough in his arsenal to keep people on their toes with his pranks.

Achala had been teaching him all the charms that she knew. She had taught him the fidelius charm. Once he got it right, the spell was fairly easy for him to perform. It only required a fair amount of power and skill at his hands. After he had shown his prowess in Fidelius, she had started teaching him what was long promised. A way to slay dementors.

She taught him about a charm which had been made centuries ago and could not be performed by average wizards but only war mages. Since Harry was a war mage, she believed he would have no trouble in learning the charm. To do the charm one would be required to hold his wand in his hand, waving it in a circular motion while keeping his hand raised over his head and chanting with all intent, "Danav Sanharak Kshan Prabha Aavahanam" (Demon Slayer Kshanprabha, I summon you) and light would emerge at the tip of his wand like a blade made of it with serrated edges and whenever it connected with a dementor, it would cleave them in two or simply disintegrate them. She also told him to keep people around him who could cast the patronus because once he started the process, all the dementors who were in the vicinity would be attracted towards him like moths to light. Having patroni around him would ensure that he would not be kissed by them or faint while the dementors in his vicinity would not be able to escape.

This evening as he arrived at sword practice Pawan asked him, "What do you know about killing giants, Harry?"

Harry spluttered, "Gi... Giants... What do you mean?"

He shook his head, "Perhaps Guruji has not yet told you but your friend Hagrid's mission was a failure and he is now returning back to Avalon while 30 giants have allied themselves with that abomination. They too would reach Avalon in their own time and his army is bolstered by their numbers."

Harry was horrified. Adding giants to the fray was catastrophic seeing there was no one he knew who had slain a giant. He turned to the mystic, "Do you know how to kill a giant?"

He smirked, "As a matter of fact, I do. You see giants cannot be killed by magic because their blood makes them immune. So, to kill them you need to attack their weak spot with things like rock, boulder, swords (a very big, extra heavy and sharp blade) etc. or you can disable it by tying it down with heavy chains. After it has been disabled, do as you please with it."

He told him of a few stories he had heard about slaying giants by wizards and Harry dutifully wrote down all the ideas in his journal. Pawan also told him to share this information with his friends and the order because it could save a lot of lives.

One evening as he went to practice his spell casting and duelling with dummies, he did not find Vari there but Harsh who told him that he was going to teach him something. He asked Harry to not use his right hand but his left hand to cast the spells and he wanted to see if he was successful. Harry was able to use his left hand to cast spells but not with anything like the same accuracy and precision. Harsh ordered him to keep casting with his left hand. This continued for two days before Harsh gave him the old wand he had loaned him to use and told him to cast simultaneously. He wanted to see if he could cast with both hands at the same time. Harry had no trouble and then for two days, it was his work to do. He did parallel casting and simultaneous casting till he became proficient. Then Harsh took it up a notch by asking him to use different spells with each hand and for the last three days he had been casting different spells.

One evening, Harsh joined him at dinner and asked if he knew where the three heirlooms of the Peverell brothers were. Harry told him that he knew where the cloak is.

Harsh eagerly asked him to bring out the cloak and as he did, Harsh had to stifle his laughter, "How do you wear it Mr. Potter?"

Harry told him that it was given to him in this form and that he had no idea how to wear it. Harsh had smirked and taking the cloak, gave a twirl to his wand shot a spell at the cloak and it folded itself on itself and within a matter of seconds, there was a regular cloak in place of the blanket like cloak he was used to seeing. He handed it to Harry, "Here Mr. Potter. This is how you wear this cloak. This cloak can even absorb most hexes except for the unforgivables but since you would not be seen by anyone, there is little chance anyone would use them on you. This cannot be summoned nor can the homnum revelio charm detect someone who is standing under this cloak. Nothing can stick to it, therefore; it cannot become soiled nor retain your scent. It cannot be damaged or become worn from normal use or any form of common magic. Just take care not to misplace it or allow it to fall into enemy hands and it will never fail you."

He also told him about the battle of Bavaria where Dumbledore had duelled with Grindelwald for hours before he had emerged victorious. While Grindelwald was a powerful wizard, he was nowhere near as powerful as Dumbledore and had only been able to keep at it due to the fact that he had the elder wand in his possession. From there Dumbledore had taken the wand and kept it in his possession through all these years. He told Harry that the wand was his and when he went back to Avalon, he should ask Dumbledore to surrender the wand to him.

He told of the third hallow which was also with Dumbledore after they had destroyed one more horcrux in it. This hallow was important for him because they formed a set and anyone who held them together would emerge victorious against any foe. He warned him to keep them away from public eyes because there were people who actively searched for the hallows and it would not do to openly flaunt them.

He also told him that Slytherin's necklace had been cleansed of the soul piece and it was once again functioning as was intended. He told him that several mystics had been stationed in Avalon and if he came across any such horcruxes which were made of historical relics, he should send them to the mystics and they would relieve it of the taint.

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