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Professor Monroe	By : Athey1024 Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 15727 -:- Recommendations : 8 -:- Currently Reading : 25
Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter. This is a work of fanfiction and no profit is being made. It is a for-fun endeavor and no infringement is intended.

Chapter List
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- 5
–

“So?”

“So.... what?” Harry asked, blankly.

Ron let out a frustrated sort of huff. “So, how did it go? What did he want?” Hermione sat up straighter too, obviously curious as well.

Harry rolled his eyes, but grinned widely as he threw himself down into one of the squashy chairs by the Gryffindor Common Room fireplace, opposite his two friends. “It went fine – great, really. He really is brilliant. He said that after digging about, trying to figure out what had gone on with the previous batch of Defense teachers, he figured I'd probably be all paranoid that he'd be out to get me too and wanted to offer himself up to answer any questions and calm any concerns I might have.”

Hermione's brow had a little pucker at the brow and she looked pensive. “Well... I suppose that was very thoughtful of him. Did anything seem weird though? Anything suspicious?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Harry shook his head. “It was just tea and we talked. He said that he didn't think that there was anything he could do straight off to prove to me that he could be trusted but wanted to make an attempt. He used this glowing ball that's some sort of lie detector that they used to use in court cases –“

“He had a Fidescio?!” Hermione gasped. “Those are really hard to come by! They were supposed to have all been destroyed when the Ministry stopped using them!”

“Yeah, well he's a bit of a pack-rat,” Harry said, grinning fondly. “In fact, Hermione, you would love his office. It's huge – way bigger than most of the other teacher's offices – and it's FULL of books.”

“Books?!” she gasped, wide eyed and clearly interested.

“Yeah, he says he's a book hoarder,” Harry chuckled. “Anyway, he used the fedesco thing –“

“Fidescio,” Hermione corrected, but Harry ignored her and kept going.

“And held it while he told me a sort of brief summary of his childhood and going to Hogwarts and then traveling afterwards. He was raised in the muggle world – his dad was a muggle and his mum a witch, but she died when he was a kid and his dad didn't know much about magic so he grew up not really knowing anything about it. He's a lot like me in that way, I guess. He was sorted into Ravenclaw, and after graduation he applied for the Defense post but the Headmaster told him to get out and see more before applying.”

“He probably didn't want someone taking up the post and dying so young,” Ron said with a snicker.

“Ron!” Hermione said.

“Whut? Everyone knows the post has been cursed for ages. They say it's been this way since the 50's, right? And it's not like it's all that unusual for them to end up dead, or good-as-dead by the end of the year.”

“Most don't end up dead, Ron,” Hermione pointed out tiredly.

“Anyway,” Harry said loudly, “we talked about some other stuff too, like the Ministry and them slandering me in the prophet – or libel, I guess, since it's written. He told me that I have the right to sue them because what they're doing is illegal! Did you know that?”

Hermione blinked. “I... for some reason I assumed that wasn't the case in the magical world. I know that's definitely how it works in the muggle world, but all of the Order members seemed to have it in their minds that there was nothing that could be done to stop it, and since none of them suggested you should try and defend yourself against the attacks, I assumed that the wizarding world didn't have any defamation laws. I mean, that awful woman, Rita Skeeter seems to get away with writing anything and no one ever does anything to stop her.”

“Yeah, well no one else has ever mentioned anything about me being able to legally defend myself like that, to me – no one – not until Professor Monroe did. I almost can't believe it's true, but he insists that I should be able to put a stop to it, even if I can't get them to print a retraction. He said he'd put together a list of lawyers I could try to contact and suggested I ask any other adults I trust for suggestions as well. All I could really think of were Sirius, Lupin, and McGonagall...”

“Well, what about Professor Dumbledore?” Hermione asked.

Harry scowled a bit but diverted his gaze. “He's probably too busy to bother with something like that for me. And he's been avoiding me like I'm got dragon pox or something. He won't even look at me – he wouldn't even look at me during that hearing at the Ministry.”

“Harry, I'm sure you're just jumping to conclusions,” Hermione said.

Harry just grumbled and shrugged.

“You know, it almost makes me wonder... I mean... I wonder if er, Snuffles, has even tried to get a lawyer. I mean, aren't there laws against putting a person in prison without getting a trial first? Couldn't he try to get an appeal, just on those grounds? I mean, we're never going to get Pettigrew back now, so if Snuffles is ever going to get cleared we've got to try something else, right?”

Hermione's eyes widened and her lips parted in a silent gasp. “Oh, Merlin Harry – you're right! At least, that's how it works in the muggle world...” she paused and her eyes seemed to be moving around, seeing things in her mind's eye and her brow furrowed with concentration. “Yes... yes – it's called Habeas Corpus – a writ through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention – detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. It has historically been an important legal instrument safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary state action. Siri-Snuffles could try to get a solicitor to lodge the writ on his behalf. If it could get some public attention, the Ministry would have to rescind their order to have him given the Kiss on sight. He'd have to get a trial!”

“Yes! Exactly!” Harry exclaimed. “That's brilliant Hermione. I'm going to write Snuffles and ask him if he knows about this. Think you could help me out because I don't think I can remember exactly what it was you just said.”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a fond smile before easily agreeing. Harry pulled out some parchment and began to write a letter to his godfather, with Hermione's help.

He sent the letter off with Hedwig, went with his friends to dinner and settled in for an evening in the common room. Even though it had only been one week since school started, he already had what felt like a mountain of homework and it didn't take long for Hermione to start getting on he and Ron's case about not putting it off. Harry gave in with a resigned sigh and started working on an essay for Transfiguration before moving onto an assigned reading for Potions. When his eyes were getting too tired to keep going he called it a night and went up to bed.

Harry woke with a frustrated strangled moan on his lips and pitch blackness filling his vision. His mind was dizzy with a swirl of quickly fading images that seemed to be just beyond his grasp now that he'd begun to rejoin the waking world. Impressions of large, strong hands, touching him. Strong scent filling his noise and a body pressed up against his. Rhythmic thrusting and moans echoed in the quickly fading recesses of his mind, and his cock was rock hard.

Without any hesitation at all he reached down, pulling his pants over his hips and freeing his straining erection. He fisted it and set a quick, almost desperate pace. He needed to come. How frustrating was it to wake up so unfulfilled? He'd been so close – he just knew it – and it'd been so good.

So good, so good... so... so... ugnh!

Harry had to choke back the grunt that had wanted to escape his parted, panting lips. As it was, he was pretty sure something still got out, he just hoped his room mates were asleep deeply enough as to not have noticed.

The ropes of cum that had shot out over his stomach were quickly cooling and Harry reached to his bedside table to grab a couple tissues from the box there. He mopped up his mess and grimaced at it before tossing the tissues onto the floor, grabbing his wand, and vanishing them.

Wand quickly put back away, Harry rolled over onto his stomach and was back asleep within minutes. He woke the next morning, not even sure if it had happened at all.

– –

The weekend was a diverse dichotomy of distractions. Quite a bit of time was spent with Ron out on the pitch helping him prep and hone his skills for the keeper tryouts that Angelina was holding later the following week. Some of the time was spent on homework, simply because Hermione wouldn't allow them to slack off the whole weekend, but then there were a number of far less enjoyable distractions and concerns.

First was that Seamus's animosity was only growing in annoyance. Harry was getting plenty of looks and it seemed no matter where he went, there were always people who would duck their heads together and whisper about him, but Harry had to share a room with Seamus, and the Irish boy's open anger towards him was starting to get too hard to ignore.

The first night back after the summer holidays, Seamus had made a fuss about how his mum had been reading the Prophet and thought that Harry was just stirring up trouble for attention. Ron had come to Harry's defense, and Harry had defended himself, but Seamus was being a stubborn git and the animosity was growing between them.

Then another shock hit Harry's system when the speckled gray owl that had been sent off with the letter to the Ministry's Department of Magical Children Services had come back with an equally short reply, stating that Harry's Magical Proxy was one Albus Dumbledore.

Harry had sat on his bed, staring at the letter for nearly an hour without moving. He didn't know what to think, or how to react. What did it mean? Dumbledore had to know what he was supposed to have done as Harry's guardian proxy – right? Harry wondered then if maybe Professor Monroe had been wrong about what a Proxy was supposed to do and had then asked Hermione to help him look them up.

This hadn't done anything to ease his concerns though because Hermione's brief research had turned up three different books that described the duties and responsibilities of a Magical Guardian Proxy, as well as the rise and fall of their power depending on changing legislation. It was true that at one point they had been expected to do a great many things, and were held responsible for any serious failure to attend to those responsibilities, and that many of those things had decreased in the last few decades – that however did not mean that they were now permitted to completely neglect their duties all together.

Dumbledore should have paid Harry an in-person visit at least once a year, since he was placed with the Dursley's. Dumbledore should have made sure that he wasn't being mistreated, and that he was being fed and clothed and properly taken care of. Dumbledoreshould have made sure he was informed of the magical world from a young age. And upon reaching the age of 11, Dumbledore was required by law, to make sure Harry was provided with literature on certain customs and traditions. A magical child of an old line was not to be permitted to fall ignorant of the wizarding world.

At one point there had been clauses to include Muggleborn in this to some extent. Having them assigned proxies upon their discovery and entrance into the magical world, but that legislation had been repealed in the late 70's... by Dumbledore. In fact, a lot of the legislation that weakened the power of the proxies had been backed or supported by Dumbledore from what Hermione had found in one book on the more important political actions of the Wizengamot over the last few decades.

Harry didn't know what to think. But he did know that he felt horribly, terribly, let down. There had been times when he'd felt guilty for taking up so much of Dumbledore's focus – he'd worried that he was expecting too much from the man who was headmaster of a whole school, and responsible for a lot more children than just Harry. But all this time, the man had been legally assigned the specific task of making sure that Harry was healthy, safe, and informed.

Why hadn't he done it? Why had he let Harry remain ignorant for so long? Why hadn't he come and checked on him at the Dursleys?

Harry didn't have any answers, and instead secluded himself into his curtained bed to sulk.

– –

Harry got a letter from Sirius Monday morning at breakfast and cut his meal short so he could go read it. Hermione and a very reluctant Ron had followed his lead and the three had secluded themselves in an empty classroom for privacy.

Sirius thought the suggestion was brilliant. Harry knew that his godfather had been feeling rather hopeless ever since Harry had come back from the graveyard back in June and reported having watched Wormtail being killed by Voldemort's own wand. The whole event still sent horrified shudders down Harry's spine whenever he thought about it – and not just because he'd watched a monster revived and another man killed. It had all begun with a flood of dizzying power that had rushed through his scar, making him black out shortly after seeing Cedric fall to the ground from the stunner. He had woken some unknown time later to find himself bound to an ancient stone statue marking the final resting place of Tom Riddle Sr. and seeing a frightened Pettigrew coming at him with a knife in hand.

Witnessing the clothed child-like thing being dropped into the giant bubbling cauldron and wishing desperately that it would just drown, only to then have his blood taken from him and used in restoring the thing's body – it had been beyond traumatizing.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the memory away. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think...

Mostly... mostly what he didn't want to think about was how elated he had felt as he watched Pettigew writhing on the ground, screaming for mercy after the newly risen Voldemort had turned his wand on him. Had that been Voldemort's elation – or had it actually been his own? The most disturbing thing was that Harry didn't know. He had wanted the man to suffer. But had he wanted that, or was it Voldemort? Harry also didn't want to think about the way Voldemort had looked at Harry and asked him if he enjoyed seeing the man who had betrayed his parents, suffer. He had asked Harry if he wanted him to stop – said that Harry could stop Pettigrew's suffering at any time, and yet Harry hadn't said a word.

And Harry definitely didn't want to think about how Voldemort had said he was doing it all just for Harry. That Pettigrew's punishment was his gift to Harry. He hadn't understood that. It didn't make sense. Why would Voldemort give him a gift at all? Voldemort had needed Harry's blood to be resurrected, but he'd needed Pettigrew's hand too, and Pettigrew had taken care of him all those months – surely Voldemort owed Pettigrew a lot more than Harry, and yet he had killed Pettigrew for Harry? It was just bewildering and confusing.

Harry had been so confused and overwhelmed during the entire ordeal – he told himself he wasn't in his right mind to tell Voldemort to stop. His head had felt like it was filled with too much air, and his thoughts couldn't quite get themselves in order properly. He wasn't sure if his scar hurt or felt good, and that thought just horrified him beyond rational description.

He kept blacking out of consciousness, he thought, or at least his vision kept going in and out. At some point, Pettigew had stopped screaming and crying and Harry's head had lulled sluggishly to the side, watching the serpentine thing that was Voldemort, walking casually around the twilight graveyard.

He had come up close all of a sudden, startling Harry in his dazed state and causing him to flinch back violently, smacking his head against the tombstone he was bound to. And then Voldemort had done it – he'd pressed his finger against Harry's scar and Harry's whole world had exploded. There was just whiteness and stars in his vision and a huge rushing in his ears, as if he were standing right next to a jet engine.

And Voldemort had leaned in close and whispered in his ear in parseltongue, asking Harry if he wanted Pettigrew to die. Asking him if he thought the sniveling little rat deserved it for betraying his best friends in hopes of saving his own hide. How the man had always attached himself to the coat tails of the biggest bully he could find – in school he'd tailed along Harry's father to be an accomplice, rather than a victim – and as soon as he'd gotten out into the big bad world, his cowardice had gotten the better of him and he'd gone running to Voldemort in hopes of repeating the tactic again.

Voldemort had hissed all sorts of things that had been mostly nonsense to Harry's addled mind, but Harry had felt his rage building. Rage at Pettigew. At the man who had betrayed his best friends – who had as good as killed them – and then pinned the blame on Sirius and left him to rot for over a decade in misery and squalor while he lived a comfortable life as a family pet. And in the end he'd croaked out that yes... yes, he did want the man to die.

And Voldemort had cackled and stepped back. He turned his wand on the sniveling little man and shot out the same awful green curse that had killed Harry's parents all those years ago.

And the surge of accomplishment and immense intense glee that had shot through Harry may not have been entirely his own, but he had to admit that some of it was. Some of that was him. And that horrified him more deeply than he'd admitted to anyone else.

After Harry had watched the last of the light leave Pettigrew's beady little eyes, Voldemort slashed his wand in Harry's direction, ending the bindings that held him there and letting him fall in a heap to the ground. Then his wand was tossed to him and Harry fumbled for it, not knowing what to do – just knowing that he didn't want to die.

He'd looked up into Voldemort's piercing, unnatural red eyes, and just like that, the idea had entered his mind that he needed to get the cup – and Cedric – that it would take them back if he could just get to it. It was a portkey and it would take him back! And so he'd rushed over to Cedric's still unconscious body, accio'd the cup, and vanished in a swirl of light as Voldemort stood there and did nothing to stop him.

Harry still didn't know what to make of the fact that he'd gotten away so easily. He'd told Dumbledore what had happened, and according to what Sirius had told Harry later on, Dumbledore had sent people to search the area, but Pettigrew's body was never found. It had been quite a blow to Harry's godfather – knowing that he would never get to exact his personal revenge, or be able to bring the rat bastard out to public light and clear his own name.

It was one of the reasons, Harry suspected, that Sirius had been so horribly down that summer. Being stuck in his mother's old house certainly didn't help matters. But now Hermione's suggestion had given the man new hope and he told Harry that he was making steps towards getting in contact with a solicitor to handle the matter for him.

He told Harry he didn't personally have much in the way of suggestions for Harry's own problem, and then apologized profusely for not having thought of suggesting such a thing himself. Sirius didn't exactly have a lot of faith in magical Britain's legal system, for obvious reasons, but even out side of that, he'd never really taken a lot of interest in it and didn't know thing one about some of their laws.

As the heir to the family it had been his 'duty' to familiarize himself with politics and laws, so, of course, he hadn't. It was part of the whole teenaged rebellion thing, apparently. Besides, at the time, he knew his younger brother, Regulus, had taken up the reigns with far more interest and sincerity than Sirius himself ever would, and Sirius had been satisfied with that. Now, he held a few regrets – especially if it were possible that he could have demanded a trial all this time, if only he'd had a solicitor on retainer.

Sirius did give Harry the name of the law firm that the Black Family had held on retainer for years. And when he said years, he meant decades – nearly a century, in fact. It was a very very old and powerful law firm, and they represented the wealthiest and most powerful of the old blood families. It was this reason that Sirius had always sort of sneered at them and turned his back, but now that he was rather desperate, and they were technically on retainer for his family, he was considering going to them first.

He wasn't sure if they were the right sort for Harry, but theirs was the only name Sirius could give him at this time. He agreed with Harry's teacher's suggestion of getting names from multiple sources, sending them all letters and then picking the one he thought fit him best.

It sounded like good advice, and Harry decided to wait until Professor Monroe had given him a few names – probably that afternoon after Defense – and then send out some letters that evening, if possible.

The rest of the day flew by as any other school day does. Potions was only marginally bearable. Neville managed to explode his potion with only twenty minutes left of class, causing a huge cloud of noxious fumes, and Snape let them out early while loudly berating Neville for his dunderheadedness.

History and Divination were just as throw-away as ever, and Harry wondered why he even bothered to show up sometimes.

Harry found himself excited, nervous, and thrilled to be making his way to Defense. He was eager to see Professor Monroe again; eager for any opportunity to talk to the man again; and eager for whatever would be discussed and practiced in class. He was never sure what to expect, but it had all been brilliant so far, and he was sure it would continue to be so. How could it not be when Professor Monroe was so brilliant?

Once again, Harry seated himself in the front, center, and was quickly entranced by the confident and charismatic voice of the man who was quickly becoming his favorite teacher. The lecture that day was about dueling efficiency – conservation of energy, spells with short incantations and without elaborate wand movements, and chaining appropriate spells in succession. Harry had never even heard of 'spell chaining' before, but it seemed to be a brilliant concept. Basically the idea was that one spell ends with a certain motion, so the next spell you use would start with that motion so they flow smoothly into each other.

He wanted them to go through the spells they knew and list spells that they thought would transition into each other smoothly – that was their homework assignment for the day, in fact. After that, they all went into the back of the classroom and Monroe did some demonstrations, and showed them a few spells that he considered to be especially efficient dueling spells since their incantations were short and their wand movements quick and to the point. He also showed how they transitioned well into several other spells that they already knew.

All in all, Harry thought it was one of the most useful classes he'd ever been in.

When class was over, Monroe asked Harry to stay behind and Harry's heart had begun to race and he'd had to fight off the stupid smile that was threatening to mar his face.

Ron and Hermione told him they'd wait right outside, and Ron gave Monroe a look that was probably supposed to appear scrutinizing and warning, but really just looked sort of stupid. Finally they left and Harry turned to his teacher.

“Class was brilliant,” Harry blurted out and then flushed, feeling a bit daft.

“Thank you, Mr. Potter. I appreciate that,” Monroe said, grinning with amusement. “I compiled a short list of legal firms I thought you might consider contacting.” He waved his hand towards his desk and a drawer opened and out flew a piece of parchment, right into his hand. He handed it over to Harry and he quickly skimmed it. The one on the top was actually the same firm that Sirius had suggested.

“This is great, thanks,” Harry said, smiling enthusiastically.

“I also came across this while unpacking a few more of my boxes and thought you might find some value in it,” Monroe continued as another object flew out of the same drawer and into his hand before it was presented to Harry.

It was a small, thin book – almost a pamphlet – with a single symbol on the cover. It was a symbol he was distinctly familiar with, since it had marred his forehead for as long as he could remember.

Harry looked at it wide-eyed and opened it to the first page. 'So-iölo ᛋ Sol ᛋ the Sun' it said on the title page.

“Oh... wow,” Harry said softly.

“It's a small book dedicated entirely to the rune Sowilo, it's meanings and legends attached to it – the same symbol that marks your forehead, in fact.”

“Yeah, I see that. Thanks. I'll check it out. Oh – erm, I haven't really gotten much of a chance to look over that other book yet, but I will. I was waiting until I had a good block of time that I could dedicate to it before I really got into it too much,” Harry said, having just remembered the parselmouth book that his professor had given him the week prior.

He suddenly felt rather awful for not having started reading it already. He'd hesitated because he was afraid to read the book in front of his friends, and he hadn't had any opportunity to spend a lot of time without them around. But it occurred to him suddenly that itwas important, and he shouldn't let his petty fears hold him back.

“That's fine, Mr. Potter. Really,” Monroe said calmly. “Your school work comes first, of course. Don't stress yourself over it.”

“No, I'll get on it right away,” Harry said shaking his head insistently.

“If that's what you want. Well, you should be on your way – your friends are waiting for you, after all,” Monroe said with a small grin. “I'll see you Wednesday morning?”

“You bet,” Harry said enthusiastically, looking forward to the next morning workout.

He told his teacher goodbye, feeling happy with how the meeting had gone, as well as still feeling great over the whole class and the things he'd learned. He was actually looking forward to the paper he had to write, since it was interesting working out in his mind what spells to put in what order to get the best chains. He expressed this to Hermione as the trio walked through the corridors towards Gryffindor tower and she beamed at him, relating her own excitement over the subject matter, and wondering why she'd seen so little about the technique in her books, since it was quite brilliant.

Ron admitted it was pretty interesting, but he still thought they were nutters for getting excited about writing a paper on the subject.

That night Harry headed up to bed early, secluded himself behind his curtains and pulled out the two books that Professor Monroe had given him. He looked between the two, trying to decide which to have a go at first. He supposed he needed some parchment and a quill so he could take notes from the parselscript book, since that was the point of the thing.

Professor Monroe wanted to know what the book was about, but couldn't read it. Harry was in the unique position to be able to read the book, so it was a perfectly reasonable request. He'd been rather put off of the whole parseltongue thing ever since second year when everything went tits up over the whole chamber thing. The way the whole school had treated him like a leper when it got out that he was a parselmouth... well, it hadn't exactly left him with a positive impression of his unique 'gift'.

But maybe Professor Monroe was right about that whole thing. That they were just a bunch of close-minded idiots. Honestly, he was right, and Harry knew that. People were so fickle. It was so easy for them to turn on him. Seamus and Harry had never been best mates, but they'd always been friendly. They'd always got on great – but now that the Prophet was going off about Harry being an attention-seeking lunatic, Seamus had hopped right on board with everyone else and was buying into it. Seamus – Harry had lived in the same room as the bloke for four years, and yet he could still believe the papers about something like that!

Hell, even Harry's best friends had wavered a few times over the years – well, not really Hermione, but Ron had. No denying that. That mess last fall after Harry's name came out of the cup was only the most extreme example. And both Ron and Hermione had been a bit wary of Harry when the parselmouth thing came out.

People who knew him – the real him, he thought – could still so easily be swayed by crazy misinformed prejudices... it was just infuriating, and endlessly frustrating.

What did they know, anyway? Why was it such a big deal that he could talk to snakes? Professor Monroe didn't seem put off by it at all. He was just excited that Harry could do something that would give him access to a curiosity. Access to knowledge that most people didn't have.

Harry shook his head, trying to clear it of his angsty brooding thoughts. No point, really, in getting upset about how stupid people were. Harry had a task to do, and he ought to get to it. With that in mind, Harry reached over the side of his bed and pulled his rucksack up next to him so he could fish out some parchment and a self-inking quill.

Using one of his huge history texts that he didn't give two sickles about as a lap desk, he cracked open the parselscript book and started to read. It was a slow start because, even though the letters did automatically translate the squiggly letters into the Latin alphabet in his head, it didn't change the fact that the book itself was written in a rather archaic language. He was fairly sure it was written in middle-English, or maybe even old-English, so it was a bit of a wade for him.

It took him a very bewildered five minutes to remember that a 'þ' was pronounced like 'th', and not like a 'p', which is what he though it really looked like – once he remembered that (a lesson he'd learned from Hermione back in first year when trying to figure out who Nicholas Flamel was), a number of sentences made a lot more sense. Þi was 'thy', þou was 'thou', þai was 'they'. It was understandably slow-going, but it was hardly the first time he'd had to read some old-as-dust book written in middle-English. The Hogwarts library was full of them, and Hermione had set him to sifting through books of this sort for years, whenever they had something to research.

He found himself not just writing down what the book literally said, but then spending a minute writing down the same sentences in a more modern English, just so he could make some sense of it.

He managed to wade his way through the first paragraph of what he figured was the introduction.

'A mage naught stronge ofe innare magicks must naught feare weakenes fore he who canne steres in darknes canne join wiþ others a commune wiþ mighte of launde and aire and spek wiþ faerie foalk who cannotte be seene, but canne be fealte. En mass, þi of magick canne comme and prae to leaurds of earthe and gaia a be filled wiþ er mighte. Þi þat canne steres in darknes, wyene bleased by þi leaurds will wield a mighte farre gretear þau any onne mage caud hoppe ta wield alaine.'

After spending nearly ten minutes trying to wrap his head around that one paragraph, he managed to pull together a translation that he thought was close. Maybe.

'A mage not strong of the inner magic must not fear weakness for he who can see in the darkness can always join with others and commune with the powers of the land and the air and speak with the faerie folk who cannot be seen, but can be felt. En mass those of magic can come together and pray to the lords of gaia and be filled with her might. Those that can seen in the darkness, when blessed by the lords will wield a might far more powerful than any one mage could hope to wield alone.'

It got quicker after that. With a bit of practice, he got faster at recognizing words and knowing how to actually say them in his head, which made understanding them simpler. After the brief introduction (which took the longest to translate and make sense of), the first chapter, from what he gathered, was mostly about ritual magic done in groups. There were spells to bless the harvest and guarantee a full and fast crop; rituals that Harry finally figured out were for warding a field from pests; rituals to ward wolves and the like away from herds of livestock; and other such spells that would be useful for people who had to live off the land and in small farm-based villages.

The next section was on predicting and 'persuading' the weather was rather impressive to Harry, but all of those spells had to be lead by a powerful 'druid' with a group of other people as aids. Apparently the spells from the first chapter didn't require any one wizard of significant power, just lots of lower-powered people, but if you wanted to do anything big like end a drought and bring rain clouds, or put an end to a snow storm, you had to have one wizard who was exceptionally powerful to act as an anchor and a conduit.

Harry had stopped with the word-for-word translation as he found himself getting more and more into the book. He skimmed through the technical specifics of most of the rituals, more curious as to what sorts of magics these witches and wizards of olden days practiced. It was such a completely different form of magic then what he was taught at Hogwarts. It wasn't all simplified and structured – clean cut and easy – the way the spells that they were taught were. It wasn't about using a wand, performing a certain movement, saying a specific word, and doing a bit of focus. It was more about actually connecting with your own magic, deep inside yourself, mentally manipulating it, and blending it with the ambient magic of the world around until there was no way to determine where one ended and the other began.

It was sort of poetic, and had a beauty to it that Harry hadn't felt about magic in a while. In Hogwarts they were taught spells that had been constructed by a spell crafter. The hard work had been done by someone else, and they just used the spell like a tool to accomplish the designed end result, nice and simple. You didn't have to understand how the magic was manipulating the world to accomplish what it did, you just had to know how to perform the spell and you were set. It still took practice to learn it in the first place, and a lot of practice to get it into your 'muscle memory' so that it was easy to perform whenever you needed it, but it still didn't feel as impressive as what these people did.

They didn't even have wands – Harry had finally figured out that this was why they had to do magic in groups. They were channeling their magic without any sort of focusing aid, so it was harder to pull it out in large quantities. To compensate for this, they'd band together and perform group rituals. It was rather brilliant, really.

About five chapters in, there was a section all about calling on faerie magic, and teaching early beginner magic focusing for children. It was all very fanciful stuff that called to Harry's imagination in a wonderful way. One simple little spell was for lighting a candle by simple blowing on it and Harry was instantly interested in trying it out. After re-reading the passage a couple times to make sure he understood it, he climbed out of bed and grabbed a candle out of one of the wall sconces. The rest of his dorm mates were in bed and he wondered for a moment just how late it was, but quickly shrugged it off and climbed back into bed. He held the candle in front of him, and closed his eyes, trying to feel his magic the way the book had described.

It felt silly that he'd never really tried something like this before – he'd been using magic for more than four years now, and he knew that there was magic inside him, and yet he'd never really tried to feel it and wield it consciously before. Not without his wand being involved.

A few minutes without any success passed and he was beginning to feel frustrated. Finally he decided to just try and blow at the candle and see what would happen. He opened his eyes and stared at the wick for a minute. Finally, feeling determined, he gently blew his breath out over the candle.

Nothing.

He tried breathing slowly; in, then out. Calming himself down and trying to focus on what the book had said for training a young child to feel their magic, deep inside them, and then to blow it out at the candle.

Trying again, slowly he blew out at the candle, but not just breath, but something more. A tiny ember flickered on the wick and sparked twice before dying. Harry stared at it and realized that he'd felt something that time. Grinning like a loon, Harry tried again to focus, grabbing onto that something he'd felt stirring in his chest, and hold tight to it while slowly letting another breath of energy pass between his lips.

This time the wick burst into flame and Harry nearly crowed with delight – only just barely catching himself for fear of disturbing his room mates.

Grinning wider than ever, Harry blew the candle out and re-lit it several times in a row, growing more and more familiar and comfortable with the feeling each time he did it.
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Professor Monroe