Zaid Hashim Normal Zaid Hashim 4 234 2003-07-07T15:10:00Z 2003-07-07T15:12:00Z 4 2010 9210 168 72 11150 9.2720
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling. We all bow down to her. I own nothing.
Interlude: Mentor
"Wow. So where are we anyway?"
"I have no idea actually."
'Then how did you get into this bloody forest in the first place?"
"I was … experimenting."
"Okay, then remind me never to try whatever you did."
"I was trying to open a gateway, to Travel."
"Well then, congrats! You managed to travel your way a thousand years into the future straight into my head."
"I still have no idea why I landed in this forest."
"How long were you stuck here anyway?"
"Uh, a couple of weeks I think. Strange thing happened when I first entered though."
"You mean besides the time travel?"
"Yea, there was a blanket of green light covering the forest. And the forest … it was different. Like it was drenched in blood."
"Fourteen days ago."
"Yea, so the green light seemed to be killing the trees slowly, I think the blood helped though, in stopping the death I mean."
"Killing…the forest…and the blood…"
By now Salazar was too immersed in remembering the events that occurred when he first entered the forest to even register what Harry was saying. Harry was pale, his face drained of blood, his mind working overtime, processing what the Founder was saying.
"So I was a little nervous, see. Didn't want to be attacked by the same light. So I reached out for saidin, that's what the Druids named the One Power, and channeled. Tried to stop the light. Wove all sorts of defensive spells. Worked too, except now the light was just hanging there. Now I like a greenish tint as much as the next wizard, but there was just something wrong with leaving it there. Like Death was hung over. So I tried reflecting it, sending it back to the source."
"You…you sent it back…"
"It's what I said didn't I. The spells nearly drained me. That was when I heard it."
"What…what did you hear?"
"There were other sounds too, before that, which came along with the green light. Sounds you don't normally hear in a forest. There was shouting, like they were arguing, fighting. Then there was a laughter, dark laughter. But the sound I heard later was different. Anguish. It was like someone wailing. Someone in pain."
"Laugh…Laughter…"
"By then though, I so exhausted I collapsed. But there was one thing though. I thought I saw…a couple. Nearly didn't see it of course, if it weren't for the woman's shocking red hair. Tried calling out to them but they didn't hear me. Woke up the next morning, haven't seen anyone else till you came along."
"Red…hair?" Harry choked out. Salazar didn't hear him though.
"The forest then seemed to be withering though, for the next week or so. Thought the light was still killing them, slowly albeit. It was kind of dark and gloomy. Then I think some five days ago, Sun came up, nice and sunny. Was nice, seeing the place flourish. Then things started getting weird."
"Right, like things weren't weird already."
"You know what I mean. Heard the laugh again, that night, and the trees started…burning…the next day I heard Parseltongue. Didn't find any snakes though. Day after that saw some strange animals. There was a wolf, a werewolf I think, a Grim and a stag. Except the stag was silver. Then day after that, that was the day before I met you, was full of incidents. Saw a dragon flying above me. Then that night the green light returned. I didn't think I'd be able to reflect it again. I was still pretty tired. But then the weaves came, from the forest and drove it away."
"Priori Incantatum"
"What? Brother wands?"
"Okay I think I figured out what the hell this place is. It's my mind. Everything makes sense."
"Explain."
"Remember when I told you about me defeating Voldemort when I was a child? I blocked the Killing Curse. Avada Kevadra."
"Go on."
"That's the thing. The Killing Curse. It's a green light. The blood on the trees was my mother's. The couple you saw were my parents. And…and you said fourteen days. One day here for you meant a year in my life. Four days/years ago, I burned Voldemort out of Quirrel. Next year, I heard Vina. Year after that, Padfoot, Moony and my Patronus, the silver stag. Last year, Voldemort returned and tried casting the Killing Curse again before our wands connected."
"Makes sense. And yesterday, on your fifteenth birthday, you found yourself in this here forest and met me, bringing me back to reality."
"But can't you make another gateway? Back to your time?"
"What do you think I was doing the whole time? Except the gateway didn't open. Exact same weave and nothing happened. That's why I thought you were my way out. I could feel your power, could see that you could channel. I thought you had also somehow lost your way into the forest too, and we could help each other out."
"What if you were meant to come? If it was fate that brought you to that moment, reflecting the Killing Curse?"
"You mean this was Destiny? Sounds stupid enough to be true. So I was meant to come all the way to the future to help fight my heir."
"So what now? You can't really manifest to help defeat Voldemort. How can you help?"
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
"You're going to teach me?"
"Of course."
~*~
It was an odd thing Salazar had taught him. Concentrate on a single flame and feed all your passions into it - fear, hate, anger - until your mind became empty. Become one with the void, Salazar said, and you could do anything.
Harry stared at him. "The flame and the void," he said wonderingly.
He closed his eyes and formed the flame. The void came slowly, hesitantly. He knew his own fear was holding it back, fear of what he was trying. As fast as he fed fear into the flame, more came. C'mon, Harry. You can do this! Grimly he forced his thoughts to stillness. He could feel sweat beading on his face. Determinedly he kept on, pushing his fears into the consuming flame, making it grow, and grow. And the void was there. The core of him floated in emptiness. He could see the light - saidin - even with his eyes closed; feel the warmth of it, surrounding him, surrounding everything, suffusing everything. It wavered like a candle flame. He reached for it - he was not sure how he reached, but it was something, a movement, a stretching toward the light, toward saidin - and it filled him, made him alive. He did not move a muscle, but he felt as if he were quivering with the rush of the One Power into him.
Saidin flooded him with life, energy and awareness. Life without saidin was a pale copy. Anything else was a wan imitation.
Reluctantly, with infinite slowness, he severed contact with saidin, gave up its embrace as if giving up life's breath. The night seemed drab. The shadows lost their infinite sharp shadings and washed together.
"Wow. And that's saidin. It made me feel so … alive."
"Yeah, it does that. Enhances your senses, enlightens your soul. But don't go around reaching for the Power anytime you feel like it. You could burn out."
"Burn out?"
"There were records where some Druids tried to take in more of the Power then they could handle. It ended with them severing their magic, leaving them as Squibs."
"I see." Now, Harry was eager to take on this new challenge. "So can I practice channeling something?"
"Very enthusiastic aren't we. Very well then. Reach for saidin."
With the command, Salazar himself seized saidin. So much power from the boy. The Founder then wove flows of Air that snatched a random twig before sending it hurtling towards Harry. Laughing at the attempt, Harry channeled back and the pair spent a couple of minutes just controlling the twig.
"So what else can we do besides the normal elemental stuff?"
"It varies widely from individual to individual and is seldom related to the strength of the individual's ability to channel. The best known is Healing. Other examples are Cloud Dancing, the control of weather, and Earth Singing, which involves controlling movements of the earth, for example preventing, or causing, earthquakes or avalanches. Then of course, there's Traveling, the ability to shift from one place to another without crossing the intervening space, but you know how my attempt went."
Now Harry was feeling more confident on his abilities. He reached for saidin - and caught nothing, as if running his hands through water. It felt like a slimy pond, scum floating atop clean water below, but he could not scoop up any of the water. Time and again it trickled through his fingers, not even droplets of the water remaining, only the slick scum, making his skin crawl. The taint slid off onto him, soiling him, but there was no flow of light inside him. Driven by a distant desperation, he tried again and again. And again and again there was only the taint.
Suddenly the void vanished, contact with saidin fled, and Harry fell with a thud that would have knocked the breath out of him if he had not already been half numb. He felt rough stone under his cheek, and his hands. It was cold.
"What. . . ?" Harry stopped to swallow. He was lying on rough, weathered stone half buried in the dirt. "What happened?"
"A surge of the One Power." The Founder tottered to his feet and pulled his cloak tight with a shiver. "It was as if we were being forced . . . pushed. . . . It seemed to come out of nowhere. You must learn to control it. You must! That much of the Power could burn you to a cinder."
"But…but…" Harry shuddered nervously, trying to shake of the feeling of the taint, trying to figure out what had happened. Wordlessly, he seized saidin, and the One Power surged inside him, no trace of the grime he had felt before. "Never mind. I'll try to be more careful next time."
~*~
The pair was now training every day and night. A couple of nights after their first lesson, Salazar had now gotten it into his head that hand-to-hand combat was important. He had been appalled when he found out that Hogwarts didn't teach it students how to defend themselves physically. He had also increased Harry's daily exercise routine, including some weight lifting with pails full of water.
He had made Harry imagine swords, which had …shimmered… into existence, noting that as a dream world, as his mind, Harry would have total control of the dimension's reality. Salazar then went through some forms, instructing Harry to follow him. Not the wild leaping about and slashing that Harry had in mind whenever he thought about using a sword, but smooth motions, one flowing into another, almost a dance.
"Moving the blade is not enough," Salazar said, "though some think it is. The mind is part of it, most of it. Blank your mind, Harry. Empty it of hate or fear, of everything. Burn them away. Form the void, but don't reach for saidin. You can use it with the axe or the bow, with a spear, or a quarterstaff, or even your, bare hands. Hold the sword as I showed you, Harry. I cannot make a muggle-born youngster into a blademaster in an hour, but perhaps I can keep you from slicing off your own foot."
~*~
A/N: Really short interlude. This wasn't in my writing plan but I felt I needed to explain the whole Salazar/Harry connection and further elaborate saidin. Wrote the piece in about a couple of hours. Halfway through the next chapter though. Snape meets the Dursleys! Review please!!! Thanks
Legion