Chapter 12

Tuesday September 12, 1991

Harry woke up and got ready for the day. Checking the schedule he saw that he had Potions for his first class today followed by Herbology. He packed the needed books into his backpack and made his way down to the common room. He sat there for about three minutes until Hermione showed up and they made their way to the front entrance, gathering Neville along the way. Once outside they saw that Patricia was waiting for them.

She said "hello Harry. Would you introduce me to your friends?"

"Patricia this is Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger. Hermione and Neville this is my instructor in fitness, Krav Maga and eventually dueling Patricia O'Shanery." After everyone said hello Harry continued on with "Patricia these two have been accompanying me in working out since yesterday and I hope that you will consent to teaching them as well."

"Sure thing; didn't you get my letter I sent yesterday? I wrote in it that you could invite anyone you wanted to join you, but I reserved the right to refuse to teach anyone I want."

Harry thought back to his approved sender list and slapped his forehead when he remembered that he hadn't updated his approved sending list. He shamefacedly said "well I kinda forgot to update my approved immediate sending list. So I should get it this Sunday, sorry. I'll update it as soon as possible."

"No problem." She directed her gaze on to Hermione and Neville and said "now then. Let's see you want to get into shape right?" Seeing their nods she took out her wand and said "I know a spell that will help you get fit quicker than you would normally be able to. I'll teach it to Harry here so he can cast it on you when I'm not here, alright?" She waved her wand in a sweeping pattern saying "cito igneus pinguis, constructum lacertosus." A glow settled on all three of them, when it appeared she nodded and said "good. Now you must only cast this on yourselves only once a day you hear? If you do it more often you run a grave risk of causing an injury to yourselves. Now I want you two to start running around the lake for the next forty-five minutes. When that is done I want you to spend the rest of your time doing sit-ups, pushups and pull-ups. In the meantime Harry and I will be running a path through the forest I marked earlier. So get to it!" Seeing that Neville and Hermione were running off she turned to Harry and handed him a bag saying "put this on. I weighted it to be fifteen pounds. In the future I want you to run this path once a day, while the other exercise I want you to do is the speed exercises alright alternating with Krav Maga katas. I'll start teaching them to you when I come here Friday. Now for our run."

She led Harry through a twisting serpentine path through the forest. About three quarters of the way into their run Harry felt a pull on his magic. He stopped and called out to Patricia "hey there's something leading off that way I want to check out."

Patricia paused and said "so I was feeling something earlier! I thought I felt something earlier but passed it off as my imagination." She checked the time and saw that they were making good progress so she nodded and said "let's go as we have plenty of time."

Harry followed the puling sensation for about fifty yards until he broke into a clearing that revealed a henge that looked like an exact replica of the one on his property. He walked up to it and looked it over. He was broken out of his inspection when he heard Patricia make an "eep" sound. Looking around he saw that there were three centaurs with drawn bows standing at the edge of the forest. He walked over to them and said "greetings. I am not trespassing on your lands am I?"

The lead centaur snorted and said "no you are not trespassing on our lands, but we centaurs have pledged to protect this place from those that would despoil it."

Harry nodded and replied "well I felt a tugging sensation and followed it here. It looks like an exact duplicate of the one on my property."

The centaur got a skeptical look on his face and said "really? What exactly is your name human?"

"Harry Potter."

"I see, so you found your ancestral property then. That location is the only known place for a henge that this one was copied from" the centaur said with a somewhat awed expression on his face. "Tell me Mr. Potter; are you a follower of your ancestors religion or have you been corrupted by the religion from Rome?"

In reply he took off his robe and shirt and showed the tattoos on his back to the centaur and said "I got these when I pledged myself. Good enough?"

"Those markings are more than sufficient to prove your dedication. My name is Cherion and I am the leader of the centaurs here in the forest. You have my permission to come here whenever you desire Mr. Potter."

Harry had a puzzled look on his face and asked "forgive me if I am rude in this, but I overheard yesterday that the leaders of the centaurs in the forest was a centaur named Bane. Oh and please call me Harry."

Cherion nodded and said "we are co-rulers in a sense. He oversees discipline within the tribe and I am in charge of matters outside of the tribe."

"I see. I plan on coming here for the pivotal times throughout the year if I have your permission to do so."

"You do. It will be good to have witches and wizards worshipping the Gods and Goddesses here again. I hope you are able to bring more of your kind to follow you in worshipping them."

"I will certainly try sir." Harry paused and glancing at Patricia said "well I will be exercising by running through the forest everyday so I am sure I'll be seeing you some more. Until then have a good day Cherion." He and Patricia then went back to the trail and finished their run. They got back and saw that Neville and Hermione had just finished their laps.

While they were making their way back over to them Patricia said "Harry there is one thing I would ask of you. Would you send a copy of the rituals we performed to Samuel? I told him what I had done and he was ecstatic that you had a copy of them available. You see our copy of the information on the rituals were lost when the Ministry Aurors killed all of the practitioners of the old ways that they could find about two hundred and seventy ago. It turns out that the Ministry has a law on the books detailing what exactly is considered dark magic and those who used the magic field to power their spells were classified as dark. They killed all of the practitioners of the old ways that they could find and destroyed all of their copies of the rituals as well."

Harry thought for a few seconds then said "I have no problem with giving him copies of the rituals. One concern that I have is that it could be misused. So I will require him to administer an oath that all those who wish to do the rituals will not support Voldemort or become a Death Eater. In addition they need to vow not to kill muggles except in self defense." He paused and said "he does realize that the rituals are in Welsh right? Will he need a language capsule as well or does he have them ready?"

"I asked about that and he said that he already knows Welsh and for those that don't already know the language he can supply all the materials they will need."

"Excellent. I'll send a letter to him containing a copy of all of the rituals that they practiced. In addition to the dedication they also had eight rituals throughout the year, they called the sabbats. The dates for them were Yule which happened between the 20th to the 23rd of December, Imbolc which fell on the 2nd of February, Ostara which fell between the 19th to the 22nd of March, Beltane which fell on May 1st, Midsummer which happened between the 19th to the 23rd of June, Lugnasadh which fell on August 1st, Mabon which took place between the 21st to the 24th of September and Samhain which fell on the night of October 31st. As you can see these celebrations have been passed down to use in modern times somewhat."

Patricia nodded and said "cool. Now he just needs to find a place to carry them out."

"Well, why not hold them at the henge we just found? It seems to meet all of the perquisites and should be safe enough as long as all of the participants respect the centaurs."

"I'll suggest it. The henge is outside of the castle's wards as well so they can apparate in and out easily enough." She looked over and saw that Hermione and Neville were almost within hearing distance so she clapped he hands and exclaimed "now that you have finished running it is now time for the other exercises. Hermione, Neville I want you two to run every morning, in the evenings I want you to alternate running and doing the speed exercises I taught Harry alright? So while one of you is running I want the other be carrying out the speed exercise and switch off the next day. For now carry out the standard sit-ups, pull-ups and pushups."

Harry, Neville and Hermione all finished their exercises and made their way back to their respective rooms. Once Harry had showered and changed he wrote a letter to the postmaster saying:

Dear Owlops (the name of the postmaster that Harry met and set up his secured mail system)

I write this to you to have my secure mailing list updated with the names of Patricia O'Shanery, Hermione Granger and all letters from Madam Malkin to be sent to me with no waiting period. I also wish all of the new teachers to Hogwarts to be added to this list with the exception of Dumbledore, Snape, Trelawney and the DADA teacher.

Best regards

Harry Potter

He sealed the letter with his signet ring and mentally called out 'Hedwig are you nearby?'

'Yes master. I am making my way back to your room and should be there in a few seconds, why do you ask?'

'I have a letter to send to Owlops to update my safe sender list. When you get back I will have a package to go as well. This one could be quite difficult to get to as it will be directed to Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel. I need to get their stone back to them without the whole world knowing about it so if you cannot find them then come back here and I'll try and figure another way to send it on to them.'

'If I was an ordinary wizard's owl than what you ask would indeed be impossible, but since we are bonded then I should be able to deliver it with no problem.' As soon as Hedwig finished speaking she ghosted gracefully onto the perch and stuck her foot out.

'Excellent. Here you go. I have classes for most of the day so I'll see you after 1600 alright?' Hedwig nodded and flew off. Harry gathered his book bag and met up with Hermione in the common room. They rushed through their meal and made their way to the dungeons.

Unlike the last time almost all of Harry's classes were to be taken with the Hufflepuffs so there was no bickering or anything of the sort in the corridor. The doors slammed open and Snape loomed in the doorway and with his customary sneer said "get inside and seated now." Once everyone was seated he stood in the front of the classroom and called the role. He had a slight hesitation when he said Harry's name, but gave no other sign of anything out of the ordinary than that. Once he finished he said "Potions is a delicate art and as it is not a flashy or simple as what you can do with a wand, most of you dunderheads will fail to truly appreciate the subtle art of brewing potions. As I have been instructed to I will try and teach you something, I can only hope that all of my efforts to teach will actually cause you to learn something." He waved his wand and sheets of paper appeared in front of everyone. "I have decided to give you a quiz on some of the fundamentals of potions and brewing them. Now I don't expect anyone here to have actually studied ahead in your class book. If you have congratulations are in order, if you can actually remember something in your heads for more than a day, you might actually be able to answer the questions correctly as your books shall remain shut for this quiz." His gaze roamed around the room and he then said "yes that goes for you to Mr. MacMillan." As Ernie hurriedly closed and put away his books; he said "the test should consume no more than ten minutes so when you finish remain seated until the time has run out."

Harry went over the quiz and saw to his surprise that he actually knew the questions. Taking his time he answered all of the questions with the clearest hand he could manage. He silently thanked his lucky stars that he had actually worked on improving his penmanship as the answers were legible and clear of defects. Finishing he put down his quill and waited for about three minutes for the time to finish. He noticed that Hermione was still writing and mentally groaned at her most likely verbose answers. He mentally made a note to talk to her and try at least to get her to cut back on the unnecessary information.

When the time had finished Snape went by and collected all of their quizzes. He sat behind his desk and said "I want all of you to read the first chapter of your books now while I grade these tests. If you finish the chapter before I'm done, then read them again and once again until I'm done." He then graded the tests and marked the scores for about twenty minutes. When he finished he cleared his throat and said "well it seems like some of you are able to use your heads for something other than a place to put your hats on. Hermione Granger, Terry Boot, Kevin Entwhistle and Harry Potter each earn five points for Ravenclaw for answering correctly. Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott each earn five points for Hufflepuff for answering correctly." He paused and continued on with "in the future I expect all of you to put forth the effort these students have shown today." He paused and directed his gaze on Hermione and said "in the future Ms. Granger when answering tests I only require the specified information not an essay, is that clear?"

Hermione blushed and nodded while squeaking out "yes sir."

"Good. Now we shall go over the first chapter in detail and I will make sure that each and every one of you fully comprehends the principles behind brewing Potions." The class went like this for the rest of the time period. Snape was caustic and had a biting edge in what he said but he actually taught the subject. When class finished Snape said "I want each and every one of you to read the first four chapters of your schoolbook before our next class as the next time you will start brewing and it will become abundantly clear then which of you can actually understand the material. Good day."

The rest of the day passed normally with Harry being the first in every class besides Herbology to accomplish the tasks set by the teachers; when he had done so he immediately helped the other students that seemed to be having difficulty. Hermione had a slightly surprised expression on her face the first time he did this, but she soon settled down and listened intently to him when he explained how he did it. She was invariably the second person to accomplish the tasks. She was frustrated when it seemed that Harry was able to explain how to do it better than she could, she told them how the books said to do it while Harry would give practical or slightly different explanations. The classes passed until it was time for History. The class all trooped into the classroom to be met with the sight of the man introduced earlier as Michael Bassin.

"Hello class. I am Michael Bassin and I will be your instructor in History of Magic. I am one of the few people who actually got an O on my N.E.W.T.s in History in recent history. Now I have revised the curriculum of this course and any and all notes that might have been passed onto you from previous students are now worthless. This course will briefly cover our origins and events that took place up until the Roman invasion of the British Isles. When we reach that point we will go into detail on the formation of the Wizengamot, the International Confederation of Wizards, the persecution of wizards by the muggles, reasons for and the passing of the Statue of Secrecy, the way magic was taught before we had schools such as Hogwarts here in Britain and the founding of Hogwarts. We will also be covering the rise of the various Dark Lords and Dark Ladies as well. This will take us up until the end of your fifth years." He paused then said "now let us begin."

He then taught the course and Harry was for the first time fascinated by what was being taught. The class ended and Harry went to went to his room. He saw Hedwig there and said 'hello Hedwig. Have a nice flight?'

'I did master. The funny man at the owl post office said that he had updated your safe sender list. He unfortunately cannot go through the mail that has been already collated due to some secrecy laws. He says that from now on those names on the list will be sent on directly with no problem. How was your day master? Were you as bored as you expected to be?'

'Potions was different and halfway pleasant for a change and History was very interesting. The other classes were a bit of a bore though. No help for it as I already know their material up to the equivalent of a fourth year now with all the studying I'm doing at night.'

'You mentioned that you had a package to send to the Flamel's earlier master. Where is it?'

'Thanks for reminding me Hedwig. Hold on one second.' Harry wrote a letter saying: