Intersections in Real Time

Harry and Josiah spent their time wandering around Hogwarts. It was a lot more fun to explore with two people - well, one person, and a ghost - and Josiah's knowledge of the castle helped, though Harry really couldn't have cared less what they did, though. No one had ever wanted to be friends with him before, not with Dudley around to make it clear that they didn't. There were times when Harry could convince himself that he was playing with another boy, but then Josiah would float through a wall, or dive into Harry's watch.

Josiah dove into the watch a lot, especially when there was a chance that another person or ghost might see him. At first, Harry had wanted to tell his father about Josiah, but then he decided he couldn't risk it. What if Snape forbade him to see Josiah? Most wizards didn't like ghosts. They tolerated them, but they didn't like them. He didn't want to condemn Josiah to an eternity in that toy room. So Harry told no one about his new friend, and if Snape noticed that Harry was spending less time flying and had a tendency to address his comments to the world at large, he didn't mention it.

They were now exploring the castle to see what had changed since Josiah's time.

The other morning, Josiah had admitted to being in his third year when he died, then had quickly changed the subject.

Harry rounded a corner, then immediately jumped back and pressed himself against the wall. Josiah didn't stop soon enough and floated right through him, sending an icy chill down his spine.

"What did you see?" Josiah looked as if he wanted to know whether he should hide or not.

"My father and Dumbledore," Harry whispered, then put a finger to his lips to show he wanted silence. Josiah nodded and dove into the watch, leaving Harry to listen. The two older wizards appeared to have stopped a short way down the corridor.

"... Severus," said Dumbledore.

"He seems more interested in flying and wandering about the castle than learning some serious magic," said Snape scathingly.

Harry frowned. What did he mean by "serious magic?"

"I strongly doubt he would refuse you if you asked him. Unless you've asked him already?" inquired Dumbledore.

Snape sounded a bit sheepish when he responded.

"No, I haven't," said the younger wizard. Then he paused. "Are you sure you don't mind me teaching him these things? He could cause a lot of trouble, especially if he winds up somewhere like Gryffindor." He practically spat the last word.

"Lily was in Gryffindor," said Dumbledore gently. There was a long silence before the Headmaster continued. "He's your son, Severus, which means his extracurricular education is in your hands. But with the enemies he has, I believe that not knowing these things could hurt him more. The incident at Gringotts was disturbing, to say the least."

In his mind's eye, Harry could picture his father nodding curtly. The sound of footsteps resumed, heading towards him, and Harry flattened himself even further against the wall. The two wizards didn't seem to notice him as they walked by.

"I don't believe I've mentioned what a lovely gift you gave him for his birthday," Dumbledore remarked. Harry could now see the back of their robes as they proceeded down the corridor.

"The broom was your idea, Albus," Snape reminded him in a long-suffering tone.

"I wasn't talking about that, Severus." They passed beyond Harry's view, but he could still hear Snape's response.

"You know everything that goes on in this castle, don't you?" said the younger wizard accusingly. The Headmaster's delighted laughter echoed down the corridor.

Harry stayed where he was, straining to hear more. After nearly a minute of silence, he relaxed and slumped to the floor. He had a lot to think about.

"I didn't know he was your father," said Josiah, popping his head out of the watch.

Harry jumped. He had forgotten Josiah was there. He stared at his friend, trying to think of a response, and a wave of guilt came over him. He had promised Snape he wouldn't slip up, and here he had told Josiah after only a couple of days. What was he going to do once classes started, when hundreds of people would be around to hear if he made a mistake?

He frowned, and came to a decision. From now on, his father would be Professor Snape, or Snape, or Mr. Snape, but not Father. He didn't want to lose his father - no, Snape - because of such a trivial thing.

"Harry? Are you all right?" asked Josiah in a worried tone.

Harry blinked and realized he had been clenching his teeth so tight it hurt. He forced himself to relax and focus on Josiah.

"I'm fine. Listen, you can't tell anyone about Snape. Nobody is supposed to know. Promise me you won't tell," he said desperately.

Josiah frowned at him.

"Who would I tell?" he said with a shrug. "But I promise not to," he hastened to add. "You have my word."

Harry nodded in relief.

"You don't look much like him, you know," said the ghost slyly.

"Josiah," Harry warned. The ghost just grinned.

"Now at least you sound like him," he said. Harry was unsure if he had been complimented or insulted. Deciding to ignore the comment, he continued down the corridor that Snape and Dumbledore had so recently occupied. Josiah floated beside him as Harry walked along, lost in his own thoughts.

"Here it is!" exclaimed Josiah.

"What?" said Harry.

Josiah gave him an impatient look. "The room I was looking for. It must have migrated a few corridors over. Come on." He dove through the door before Harry could open it.

Harry frowned. He hated it when Josiah did that. Reaching for the door latch, he attempted to lift it. It didn't move. He tried harder. Nothing.

"Josiah," he called softly as he could. Who knew who might be listening? "It's locked." For a second he thought Josiah hadn't heard, but then his head popped through the door.

"Really?" asked the ghost. "It was never locked when I was a student here. In fact, students were encouraged to use it." He floated fully through the door so that he could face Harry.

"Maybe something happened in there," said Harry with a shrug. "It's shut now. I guess you'll have to enjoy it on your own."

Josiah gave him an annoyed look. The ghost ran his hand through his hair and stared at the door, muttering under his breath. The only word that Harry could make out was "self-sacrificing."

"All right," said Josiah finally. "I know a spell that should work. Take out your wand."

Harry did so with some trepidation. Who knew how long it had been since Josiah had done magic?

"Now point it at the latch and focus on the idea of it opening. Once you have an image of the latch opening in your mind, say 'Alohomora'. Be careful to say it exactly as I said it."

Harry nodded and stared determinedly at the latch. Opening...

"Alohomora," repeated Josiah helpfully.

"Alohomora," said Harry, and the latch clicked open. He stared in shock. Some part of him had expected it not to work. "Is all magic like that?" he asked.

"The easy stuff is. You won't even have to focus as much once you practice a little. I thought I'd take it slow since you hadn't used a wand before," said Josiah smugly. "Well? Are you going to go in?"

Harry pushed open the door, wand still in his hand.

Inside, strangely enough was a typical English garden. Boxes on either side of him overflowed with herbs and wildflowers, sending a pungent scent into the air. A narrow gravel path led between the boxes. It was framed by rising hedges, and in the distance he could see a stand of trees. Everything was overgrown, as if it hadn't been tended for a long time. Harry looked up at the sky, perplexed by the brilliant sunlight. It had been raining in the Great Hall only a few hours ago.

"It's always spring here," said Josiah, answering his unspoken question. "Occasionally you'll get a sun shower, and it does get dark at night, but the moon is always bright." He sounded a bit wistful.

"You used to spend a lot of time here, didn't you?" asked Harry. He started walking up the path.

"If I'd known it was abandoned, I would have been haunting here."

"You still can," said Harry, thinking that he would be sad to lose Josiah's company.

Josiah pinned him with a stare.

"If I were corporeal, I'd be grabbing you and attempting to shake some sense into you. Are you trying to get rid of me or something? I can leave if I'm bothering you."

"No!" blurted out Harry. "You're not bothering me." He fell silent. He wanted to tell Josiah about the Dursleys and explain that he had never had a friend before, but he didn't know how.

Josiah stared hard at him, then nodded slowly.

"Right. Then no more of these comments about me leaving," he said and headed off down the path. Harry followed slowly.

A gap in the hedges to one side revealed a fountain with a statue of a dragon, which would have been spouting water from its mouth if the fountain hadn't been dry. Harry took a step closer and saw patterns made by coloured tiles at the bottom of the fountain. They formed a picture. He walked up to the fountain and leant against the edge to see better, but it crumbled under his hands and sent a pile of rubble and dust over the tiles.

"This way," said Josiah, sticking his head through the hedge. Harry forgot about the fountain and ran back to the main path. He was just in time to see Josiah float through the stand of trees he had seen earlier. They formed a dense patch of forest, but Harry was able to push his way through. Once inside, he discovered that the inner trees formed a ring around a roughly cut standing stone with an iron ring embedded in its side.

"Tradition says that the older students used to flog the younger ones who disobeyed them by tying them to this stone and whipping them with branches cut from the trees," Josiah told him. Harry regarded the stone with morbid curiosity.

"Really?" he asked. Josiah shrugged.

"Who knows? They had certainly stopped doing it by the time I came here."

"When did you come here?" asked Harry, but Josiah didn't answer.

*****

Harry was getting ready for bed that night when a knock came upon the door. Before he could get it, the door opened to reveal his fa- Snape. Harry froze with his pyjamas in his hands.

Snape looked like he was ready to do battle. His face was set in the sternest expression Harry had ever seen. The wizard strode inside and surveyed the room with distaste before focusing on him.

"I am going to teach you magic," said Snape in his most severe tones. "These spells will probably never be on your curriculum, and if I catch you using them on a fellow student, you will be doing worse than mincing ferret livers." He stared menacingly at his son until Harry nodded to show he understood.

He decided to venture a question.

"Why won't these spells be in my curriculum?" he asked. Was this what Snape had meant by "serious magic?" Instead of answering, Snape turned and pointed his wand at a nearby chair.

"Oxys," he said. A jet of sickly yellow light left the wand and hit the chair's back. Wood melted, ran down in thick globs, and puddled on the seat.

Snape stopped before the spell could strike the wall behind the chair. "I learnt that in my second year," he said grimly. "It's not illegal, and I've heard they use it to great effect against pests in Australia, but it has been associated with the Dark Arts since Daphir the Depraved used it to torture his enemies in the early 1500s. To use it in a duel, for instance, would be considered bad taste. Very bad taste."

"Why are you teaching it to me, then?" Harry had to ask. Would Snape give him the same reason Dumbledore had mentioned earlier?

"Because some wizards aren't concerned with 'bad taste'. The Lestranges were a very good example," said Snape.

"The who?"

"Never mind. Do you want to learn or not?" There was an odd note in Snape's tone as he asked the question. Was he nervous?

"Yes, sir," said Harry carefully. Snape nodded.

"Very well. Follow me!" he commanded before sweeping out of the room. Harry paused.

"Stay in there, Josiah," he whispered to his watch before running to catch up. Snape strode quickly through the multitude of stone-lined corridors that made up Hogwarts' lower levels.

They entered what looked like an abandoned classroom. With a wave of his wand, Snape pushed all the desks and chairs to one side, then physically pulled one chair out of the group to place in the centre of the room.

"There's your target," he said. He walked over to Harry and pulled him toward the middle of the room, treating him just like the chair. Harry ended up about six feet in front of the chair with Snape standing beside him.

"Take out your wand!" Snape ordered. Harry did as he was told. "Don't grip your wand with your whole hand like that! It isn't a sausage!" Snape reached down and adjusted Harry's grip on his wand so that Harry was holding it lightly between his thumb and forefinger.

"That will give you flexibility in a duel and better aim. A wizard who grips his wand with his whole hand has probably never been taught to duel. His or her movements will be wild and flailing compared to yours. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded. He noticed his hand had unconsciously relaxed into its earlier position, and hastily corrected himself.

"Somehow I doubt you do," said Snape dryly. He turned and pointed his wand in quick succession at three chairs in different parts of the room. With each gesture, he said "Candeo," and light jetted from the wand to hit the chairs, making each chair momentarily glow a brilliant white. Then Snape turned back to Harry and met his eyes.

"Try it with that ham-fisted style you were using before, then try it my way." He paused. "All you need to do is say the spell and focus on what you want it to accomplish," he said begrudgingly. He seemed annoyed to have to explain even that much.

Harry nodded quickly to show he understood. This spell seemed a lot easier than Josiah's unlocking spell, though he wasn't about to tell Snape that.

He gripped the wand the "wrong way" and pointed it at the first chair. He focused on the image of the chair glowing the way it had when Snape had done it. "Candeo," he said, easily sending a jet of light at the first chair, before turning to the next one, and the next. He waited until the last glow faded before looking at the other wizard. Snape did not look impressed.

"Now the other way," he said. Harry held the wand between his thumb and forefinger, and awkwardly went through the exercise again. The wand felt strange in his hand, but he hardly had to move to hit each chair. He had no way of checking, but he was sure his aim had improved as well.

"Easier?" asked Snape.

"Yes, Mr. Snape." The other wizard frowned for a moment, then seemed to notice the forgotten chair that he had placed in the middle of the room at the beginning of the lesson.

"Do you remember the spell I used in your room?" Snape asked in a distracted tone. Harry nodded. "Then try it on the chair."

"Mr. Snape?"

Snape sighed.

"Yes?"

"What is advanced magic? Why do we need to know more than a few spells?" Harry asked. If magic was so easy that he could makes spells work on his first try, he couldn't see why Hogwarts students spent seven years learning it.

Snape gave him a hard look, and Harry thought he wasn't going to answer - but then the wizard turned to consider the chair again.

"What do you think you would say to make that chair glow green?" Snape asked. Harry thought about it. Something in Latin, he was sure, but he couldn't remember the little he had learnt in school.

"I don't know."

Snape pointed his wand at the chair. "Candeo viridis," he said. A jet of pale green light hit the chair and made it glow green. He smiled in satisfaction, then turned back to Harry.

"Do you know what you would say to turn that chair into a cat?" he asked.

Harry didn't have the faintest idea. He shook his head no.

"Even if you did, it wouldn't matter. In addition to saying the spell, you have to know the proper wand movements and have the proper mindset. It even requires a certain strength of will. After all, you are forcing your image of the object on top of what the object wants to be." Snape seemed to be warming to his topic. "That's why it's even harder to transfigure another living thing, especially another wizard or yourself."

"Can you do it?" asked Harry eagerly, enthralled by the idea of seeing such complicated magic. Snape looked offended.

"Of course I can," he snapped. "But Minerva is perfectly capable of teaching you this herself. What I'm teaching you won't be learnt from any of your textbooks. And it will not be easy," he warned. "Now point your wand at that chair and melt a hole in it! And stop asking me useless questions!"

Harry frowned and did as he was told.