Chapter Number: 9
Chapter Name: Ali Pasha & the Ukrainian Forest stories
" Hello Harry" said Mr. Pasha.
Harry was so surprised that he jumped off his bed and tried to get his wand lying next to his sleeping body, forgetting that it was impossible for him to do so. Letting out a hiss from the sting, he looked at Ali - expecting some kind of attack.
" You know as well as I do, you can't touch anything." Ali said softly.
" How do you know?" muttered Harry, looking at the wand and willing it move. Nothing happened. He looked back at him.
" I'm just like you. It was your mother that passed on the power to you. She initiated James, so he became an observer."
" What do you mean?" asked Harry very confused.
" If you want to understand this you have to listen to me. You have to listen to me very carefully. Sit down on your bed," said Mr. Pasha, as he took a seat.
Harry kept standing, still not trusting Ali. But then he did, thinking if Ali had wanted to kill him, he had several chances. He was safe even if Ali wanted to kill him. " It's amazing isn't it. We can sit on chairs and tables or anything else. We don't fall through floors, but we can pass through anything. If we try to move things with those areas of our body we simply pass through them." Harry only nodded.
"Well. Like I was saying.... Like your mother I am a muggleborn, and she had the power. I'm not sure how long you've been experimenting with this but I have experimented with it since sixteen. I'm ashamed to admit it but at the beginning I used this power to spy on girls."
Harry was surprised by the man's honesty, but didn't say anything.
" I won't use the fact that back then in school "the bird and the bees" fact was not explained as an excuse. I was a sixteen-year-old, with all the things that came with being one. I was curious and I'm fairly certain, regardless whether or not the topic was explained or not in school, I would have had done it anyway. On my third week, my mother who had the power, found me Astral Projecting into a place I shouldn't have had been. She didn't just punish me - no that would been no punishment at all. She punished me in front of all the girls that I tried to peep on. It was the single most humiliating experience of my life and I learned my lesson then. Erm, sorry… I should get to my point. "
He let out a deep sigh. It looked like he was making a list in his head about what he was going to say. Harry only had to wait a few seconds.
" The power that we have comes with lots of benefits. For one thing, when you sleep, your brain rests and it's very easy then to learn new things. Problem with it is that you are sleeping, so you can't really learn anything. I know you did the Page turning charm, which by the way took me until my seventh year to figure out, and even then your mother was the one who told me about it - I'm getting ahead of myself."
" This gift might let you do extra ordinary things like this, but you have to remember not to overexert yourself. That's why at the beginning, more than anything else, it is very important to get a minimum of one good night sleep every week. This prevents you from getting too edgy after a few days of Astral Projecting. There's a way to give the gift to someone worthy. Someone willing to give their life to save you or someone who cares as much for you as you do for them." Mr. Pasha paused.
" Now this is where everything gets a little confusing so I'll try to be as clear as possible... If I know my self it'll be as clear as mud..." He laughed to himself, as Harry just watched the odd man speak. " Don't worry about my rambling, I tend to do that often. There is a way to "INITIATE" someone. That is to say that to give a person the ability to "Astral Project", but they can't pass it onto their children. They can walk through walls, but can't do anything other than that. These abilities make us, more than human. Better memory, physical shape... Oh by the way by the time you're gonna be 16 you'll grow to six foot two. Exactly. So, I'm afraid you'll never be as tall as your father was. He was something like six feet six or seven, anyway-it's Accelerated Growth."
Mr. Pasha saw the puzzled look on Harry's face and before Harry could utter a single word to ask him why he would grow to that height, Mr. Pasha answered him. " I don't know why, but that's the trend... I'm off the topic again. Where was I?"
" We're more than humans?..." prompted Harry.
" Oh yes. I don't mean to sound superior or anything, but it's just the way things are. We have better memory, physical conditioning, and something that you don't have the ability to control. The ability to heal our own injuries comes very handy...not total healing, just small cuts and bruises. There's some more and I tell you the ones that I know of. There might be more, but no one I know with these sorts of powers has any idea.
" If the person you choose to initiate is a muggle or atleast 1/8th muggle then you don't loose any of your powers. However there is also way to initiate a full-blooded wizard, but it only works on the opposite gender and it come at a great cost. You loose all the powers except for walking through walls - in the astral plane. This is what your mother did for your father. She gave up all that, just so he could walk around at night. That's how the -ah - do you know about the map?"
Harry nodded his head in surprise. Harry had assumed that only the marauders knew of its existence. Mr. Pasha continued from where he had left off.
" Well before that power he and his group had discovered only a fraction of it. After she gave him the power, they did the whole castle. He didn't know what she had given up. Not until we met- even then he only knew fraction of the truth." Mr. Pasha sighed. Remembering old days were hard for him. It reminded him too much of the war he had fought in. Too many good people died in the war. Too many to count. Too many to remember.
" Like I said before, we met in Ukraine... We were both sleeping on camping ground and decided to go exploring in our sleep. Imagine our surprise when we both get out of our bodies at the same time. I asked him how long he had been doing this. When he told me it had been only for four months that I was surprised. You see, it usually takes about six or seven months before the "Initiated" can actually do it without the help of the person who initiated them. I asked him whether he was a full-blooded wizard. When said he was, I explained to him, what the person gave up, for him to have this power. He had absolutely no idea." Mr. Pasha paused.
" What did he do then?" asked Harry
" Nothing. Neither of us could do anything. Next day we explored the jungle and found some interesting looking creature. When we went to investigate it your father saved my life, but not before the creature left its mark on my left arm." Mr. Pasha rolled his sleeves and revealed the scar that was made by a claw. " Well I too saved your father with the help of a surprisingly helpful giantess. Well James, ever the adventurous person that he was went into the jungle without me and managed to become the prey for a Chimera."
" I attacked the beast, quite stupidly, but really was getting no where with it, and then out of nowhere a giantess about some fifteen or eighteen feet tall, came and kicked the Chimera right out of sight."
" Really?" asked Harry in disbelief. " I thought they usually ate humans or something..."
" That might be true, but this one seemed different. I'll get back to what I saying before...It was amazing. Well, we both wanted to give her money, but she refused. She even shared her food with us. We got around talking about each of us and when she heard that James went to Hogwarts, she wanted to know if he knew if there was a half giant wizard there?"
" Just that? She just wanted to know if any half giants went to Hogwarts"
" Rather odd that was." Ali said, shaking his head. " Well, James told her there was, but somehow he was expelled, much to her disappointment but then she clapped really hard and it sounded like thunder when, James told her that he was the best grounds keeper Hogwarts ever had. Not to mention the fact that he was very popular with most of the students."
" When we went back to our camp the next day, James promised me that he would see about getting me into Hogwarts for a while as an exchange student. I never did find out how he convinced that headmaster that I should come to Hogwarts, even if it was only for a few months. But I think it might have had something with the fact that everyone was afraid of how the Dark lord was gaining a foothold in the magical communities around the world."
" The day before I was supposed to go back to Morocco, I got a letter telling me I'm supposed to go with James to Hogwarts for a two month period. We celebrated all night long-" Ali Pasha made a drinking motion.
" We were so drunk the next day, we almost missed the train back. It didn't take that long for me to befriend his Marauders and… your mother. Saving his life helped. I was totally fascinated by your mother. I could never imagine giving up my perks of the power just because a girl was my friend, and there she was who did that."
" It took until the very last day of my stay at Hogwarts, to get her trust. She finally told me why she did that. She made me promise that I won't tell anyone. Her answer was very moving. She told me loosing all the abilities were nothing compared to what she was going to loose at the end of the year. It was the seventh year and last year. They were all going to go their separate ways. Lily wanted to give something to James for all the years of unconditional friendship that James had provided her with from the very first day they met."
Mr. Pasha wanted to say something but he paused, unsure if he should go ahead or not. " Did anyone ever tell you why Lily and James became friends in the first place?"
This was a question that was highly embarrassing for Harry. He had seen photos of his mom and dad, and they looked very close in all of them. This coupled with the fact that everyone always said that they made a very nice couple, he had assumed that they fell in love with each other from the first time they saw each other. As stupid as it was to think that two eleven years would fall in love in their first year.
" err...No. I was given the impression they were in love with each other the first time they saw each other." Said Harry.
(A/N: The history of allowing of Muggleborn witches and wizards are totally fictional but a necessary evil. Discrepancies with the books are intentional.)
" Not so..." Mr. Pasha laughed a dry laugh before continuing with the tale.
"...The year that Lily Evans came to Hogwarts was the first year Professor Dumboledore was the Headmaster, but it was also the first time after almost a period of 250 years that Muggleborn children were allowed in. There were only five of them and only one was in the Gryffindor. From what your father told me, she was a very timid looking girl with red bushy hair and an easy target for everyone who wanted an easy target to pick on."
" After sorting, (the next day) on her way to her first class apparently a huge crowd of students were waiting to pick on her. The sad part of it was that most of them weren't from Slytherin. They were from Gryffindors." Mr. Pasha paused for the situation to sink into Harry.
" Gryffindors picking on Gryffindors?"
" It was bad times...anyway, your father and his three new friends wiggled past all the people to see what was the center of all the attention. He was disgusted to find out that all those people were actually picking on one girl. There were five or six people who really were doing the teasing the rest were just watching the show, but your father saw no difference. He went ballistic right there and then started to fire curses and hexes in every direction. For a first year he knew quite a few and he did them all very well. According to Lily, James had sent about twenty boys and girls to the hospital wing. He got a month worth of detention from Professor McGonagall using magic in the corridor, when she finally showed up."
" I can still recall your mother's face as she explained in awe, how she couldn't believe that someone who didn't even know her was willing to get in trouble over her. She fell for him that moment. Thing is your father just thought of her as a friend."
" The marauders actually started to play pranks on people who had insulted her somehow. Before the end of fifth year, few people even looked at her twice. James and his marauders and there was one other person that Lily came to be friends with in her second year. It was a Slytherin boy by the name of...name of Slap, Snug...er...no. Snape. Yes! That's it... Snape would sometimes talk to her about potion -"
Harry couldn't help and yell at the mention of Snape " Did you say Snape? This wouldn't happen to be Severus Snape would it?"
" Sounds familiar... Yes...Yes... Could be… Do you know him?"
" He is my potions teacher" said Harry in a dazed confusion.
" Well... seems like I haven't lost as many details about Lily and James as I thought. Well, anyway, they used to talk about potions and such things. Sirius," Harry noticed how Ali's voice was rather stressed, " hated him but your father liked him. He thought it was good thing that Lily had managed to get herself another friend other than the Marauders. He thought that this would encourage her to be more outgoing. It was getting easier for her then, since the next year several new muggleborn Gryffindors joined."
"She was very good in all her subjects. Lily got the highest in everything other than transfiguration. It made her even more enemies because of that. So whenever she had free time, she would be with James doing transfiguration. As luck would have it your father was great at it. I myself am into Charms. The intricate flicks and swishes and the way to grip the wand, it's really … sorry, I drifted off. Like I was saying, he would break off dates with all those pretty girls, some of them two years older, just so your mom wouldn't fail transfiguration."
" Lily told me that she didn't think James did it because he felt pity for her, but he did it because he valued her friendship. He did it for her sake. The fool actually thought that he did it because she was a friend. He didn't even see that he was in love with her... Well it was clear to me and Moon..err Lupin"
" -You don't have to worry about that. I know about him since my third year." Said Harry.
" OH OK. At the end of the fifth year she read about an easy potion, to make her hair soft and straight. The day after she became the most popular girl in school, suddenly all the boys wanted to be with her, some of them were older, better looking and even more rich than your father. But she only wanted him. Unfortunately James saw nothing in her to make him think that she was anything other than what she was before."
" What was that?" asked Harry, very curious as to how his father saw his mother, even after she went through a makeover.
" A GOOD friend. After spending almost three-quarters of a year, trying to get his attention she finally gave up and decided that Snape deserved a shot. That's when she decided to give James the gift as a parting gift."
" Your mom and that Snape fellow apparently dated, until he accused James of trying to kill him. I think this happened a few days before I was supposed to leave. The night before there was an incident where Sirius lead Snape to where Lupin was...you know...but your father saved him. When Snape accused James of trying to kill him, she dumped him right there and then. James was going to go along with Snape's story too, actually he started to say that he did do that. But she could always see through his lies and this was no exception. She knew James would never do anything like that. He couldn't stand to see Lily unhappy and she knew that James thought Snape made her happy."
There was a long pause that made Harry uncomfortable. Just as he was about to say something, Mr. Pasha started to talk again, " When I heard her story, I was furious. I couldn't believe James didn't see Lily for what she really was and I went back to the dorm punched your father straight in the face a few times to get rid of all the emotions that had built up listening to the story. I told him he had to be the stupidest man alive if he didn't see what Lily did or why she did it. I told him exactly what she gave up. I asked him why he thought he didn't feel any pain for the first four months and then suddenly he had to learn to tolerate it. When he said he didn't think about it; I was ready to murder him." Mr. Pasha looked to see Harry who had a small tear running down his cheek.
' Good! He understands now why his mother wanted to sacrifice herself than see her son die in front of her. Looks like he understands what she had gone through for her love; never showing pain, never faltering in front of James.' thought Mr. Pasha.
" I told him... because Lily was in her bed screaming in pain. I told him she must really love him to go through all that pain and never even mention it him. I told him I was very surprised that Lily hadn't gone mad, with the amount of mental torture that she must have had gone through, keeping the pain in check when James was off having fun. I now know, it's because women folk have a higher ability to stand pain - childbearing and what not."
" Before I boarded the train I told him to think about a few things. Why would she want to be put through all that pain if she didn't love him? Where the hell was he ever going to find a person who knowing they didn't have a chance in hell of getting his attention would go through all the pain and never say a thing? If he didn't feel exactly the same way, why would he always break off dates with older, more popular girls just so he could help her with transfiguration? What did she ever give him that those girls that he had dated weren't willing to give him?" He paused to look at Harry.
Harry could just look back in return, with his face still wet from his last sobbing.
" By the looks of you... I can see that dope finally came to his senses. You know your parents would have been very proud of you. You're their love personified, that's why they were willing to die to save you." There was a hint of sadness at the beginning but it was filled with pride at the end.
" I heard James with his wife perished, saving their son, who killed the dark lord. I never knew Lily was his wife. If I had... I would have had cried a hundred times more." As he said this Harry noticed streams of teams were leaving his eyes.
Sometime later they were wiped away. In that time Harry realized why Snape had it in for him from the time he was in first year. Harry knew his parents got together sometime a few months into their last year meaning that, what Mr. Pasha had told his father must have hit home and he realized his love for Lily. Once Snape saw that those two got together a few days after he got dumped he must have had thought that she had been two-timing him from the beginning. Or something like that…
" Thanks, Mr. Pasha. What you just told me answers one question that has been haunting me for the past four years. I can't begin to tell you how much this means to me"
" No thanks is necessary. I 'm - I'm" Mr. Pasha was sniffling, " I'm just happy they realized how much they really loved each other. Well now on to some more pleasant business I hope... The entire reason I told you everything I know was to tell you all the information you need to know before you start to experiment with your powers any further. I was wondering whether or not you had some one in your mind to become your initiate. So who'll it be, Harry?"
<<~~~>>
END OF CHAPTER
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Hello. :) I hope you liked this chapter. It's been edited a bit for clarity. The unedited and more rougher and loger version of this fic is on fanfiction.net - under the name of " NAPPA " as the author. The story is right now 46 chapters, and only a few have been uploaded thus far. Beta was by NATE . :)