The Long Road

"Ah, Professor McGonagall, I presume you had a restful summer break?"

"Not as restful as I would have liked, Albus. Something dark hung just outside my mind all the while."

"As it did with me. Sometimes magic can seem a curse, eh, Minerva?"

"Yes, but I'd never change a thing."

"Me neither, but all the while, I feel something bad will soon fall upon us, horribly bad."

"I feel the same way, Albus, but what should we do?"

"I have summoned an old friend of mine to teach class this term, to instruct our children in another form of magic, the old way."

"The old way? I've not ever heard that referred to in over fifty years."

"I know, Minerva, but it seems to be a logical decision. If things go as I fear they might, it might be the best thing I've done as a Headmaster here."

"Surely that won't happen, Albus-"

"I hope not, but I cannot stand idly by and wait for events to overtake us, you know."

"I agree. Hogwarts is strong, Albus, and the staff inside are most formidable."

"Yes, but Voldemort is strong as well, and growing stronger all the while I fear. We must be prepared."

"Then tell me, Albus, who have you called on to teach the children these ways? An old friend, you said?"

"Yes. Messina Jade, her name is. I've known her since, well, quite a while. She was always determined to study the olden ways and has learned much I hear. She sent word earlier in the month and said she shall arrive in the morning."

"Good. I will be most pleased to meet her. I do still hope that our fears are unfounded, Albus."

"As do I, Minerva. However, I can't shake the feeling that they aren't.

The first day of term finally came around for Harry Potter. He thought he would explode if he had to wait one more day to go back to school. He, Hermione, Ron and Ginny walked up the hallway leading to the Great Hall and were tingling with anticipation.

"Are you ready, Ron? Ginny?" Harry asked his companions. It was obvious that Hermione was so there was no need to even ask her.

"I guess so, Harry," Ron said. "It just feels like we just left this place a few days ago, like someone stole part of my summer."

"Well, Ron, if you'd not have slept through so much of it you likely wouldn't feel that way."

"Hey," Ron answered, "I was up by no later than three on most days. Five on a few."

"Exactly." Hermione sniffed and took her seat at the table.

"Harry, you do you suppose that is to Dumbledore's right?" Ron asked once he got over Hermione's little poke at him.

"I don't know, Ron. I can't even tell if it's a man or a woman, their cowl is pulled down so low."

"Probably another DADA teacher, you think?" Ron asked.

"No, Professor Moody is back, remember?" Hermione said.

"Obviously I didn't or I wouldn't have asked, would I?" Ron said.

The four of them started talking with the rest of the Gryffindors that they'd not seen since last term- Seamus, Neville, Dean, and so on. A good half hour passed before the first years were led in and the sorting hat did its thing. Once they were all sorted and seated with their new houses, Professor Dumbledore stood as he always did.

"Welcome back students," he said and looked around the room, making eye contact with a large number of students. "I hope you all had a wonderful summer and are now ready to learn more of the fine arts of magic. I'm sure that you are all quite hungry and not in the mood to listen to an old man ramble on forever, so I'll make a few short announcements and then we'll all dig into the feast." More than a few murmurs of assent reached his ears and he smiled.

"First off, for all the new students, the Forbidden Forest is forbidden. To all the returning students, it is still forbidden." Dumbledore smiled when he said that. He had said it for decades now, but still found it a little amusing.

"Second, and this goes for the fourth and fifth year students," he looked at the middle grade sections of each table, especially Gryffindor, "You shall not be taking Potions this term, nor the next." Thunderous applause echoed off the walls from three of the four tables. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor were overjoyed at that. Slytherin was, well, not. Once the noise quieted down, he began speaking again.

"Instead of Potions, you will be learning a different Art, the Art of the Mind." Confused looks were all around the room. "You will be learning about the way magic used to be done, long ago." Murmuring filled the room again, puzzled glances were exchanged freely. "Now, as to who will be teaching this class, may I present an old friend of mine, Messina Jade." Dumbledore motioned to his right to the figure in the light grey robe.

"Ah, now we get to see who the mystery person is," Harry said quietly.

"Yep," Ron replied and they were all silent in anticipation.

The robed figure stood and slowly raised its hands to its cowl and then tossed it back like an afterthought. The front of the robe fell to the sides, revealing a stunningly gorgeous woman with long curly red hair.

"Holy cow!" Ron yelled out and his sentiment was echoed by the majority of the boys in the room.

"She's awesome," Harry said, and almost had to pick his jaw up off the table.

Even Hermione had to agree. "She is stunning."

The figure at the table pushed her hair back out of her eyes and prepared to speak, causing all the boys in the room to fall dead silent. She smiled at this effect and began speaking.

"As your headmaster said, my name is Messina Jade, and I will be instructing some of you in the Arts of the Mind. It won't be easy, but you will find it quite rewarding. I won't say anything more now because I'm sure you want to eat, so I'll just save my lectures for tomorrow." Jade pulled herself back into her chair and Dumbledore stood again.

"Now, let the feast begin."

The feast went on with many murmurs and whispers and comments about the new instructor.

"All I know is that this has to be the best term ever, for two reasons," Ron said between bites of chicken.

Hermione looked at Ron while he was gorging himself. "I bet I can guess what one of those two are, Ron," she said dryly.

"You probably can, Hermione. One, of course is the great looking teacher sitting up at the table. The second is that we don't have to take Potions this year."

"You're right," Seamus says with a mouthful of his own, "it just doesn't get any better than that." Hermione rolled her eyes and chewed properly.

The dinner drew to a close and the students retired to their dorms, rather worn out from the long travel and then the big dinner.

"So Harry, what do you think that she is going to teach us?" Ron asked Harry.

"I honestly have no idea, Ron. Something to do with the mind, I guess." Almost every bit of conversation this evening had revolved around Messina Jade. From the color of her hair to what Dumbledore meant when he said she was an old friend. How old of a friend? A girlfriend? It was decided that she couldn't have been his girlfriend because she looked way too young, as well as each boy in the conversation wanting to claim her as his own girlfriend. Finally eyes grew extremely heavy and the students began to slowly file into bed.

The next day seemed to go on forever. The class they were all waiting for was at the end of the day, seemingly forever far off. The Gryffindors trudged through their classes and finally the time came around for them to go to Professor Jade's class. Harry and the rest of the fifth year Gryffindors met up with the Slytherins outside the classroom.

"Great. Even though we don't have potions, we still get stuck with them," Ron said, gesturing a thumb at Draco and his little group.

"Still, no Snape to worry about favoring them," Hermione told him. Ron nodded his head in agreement and the conversation turned to other things. They were all starting to grow a little impatient when they heard the sound of footfalls echoing from down the hallway. All heads turned in the direction of the sound and saw their teacher coming their way. Her grey robes billowed around her and her hair hung loose. Silence fell over the whole group as she strode up.

"Ah, my class beat me here. A rather inauspicious way to start off, isn't it?" Messina Jade didn't get a reply, just a few dumb stares. She smiled and opened the door to the classroom.

Inside the room they followed her. The two classes segregated themselves and gave their undivided attention to the lady at the front of the room. She looked over her students for a moment before speaking.

"Welcome students. I hope that this year goes well. For those of you who might have forgotten, I'm Messina Jade, and I'm here to teach you the arts of the mind. These arts go far back into our past, almost to the beginning of time itself." All the eyes in the room were staring at her, hanging on every word.

"I must say that I was a little surprised when I got the owl from the Headmaster earlier this year, asking me to teach this class. What I'm about to begin teaching you used to be taught on a one-to-one basis, but Dumbledore seems to think that it is vital you learn this, so we'll have to be a little creative. Any questions before we start?" The sound of a fly buzzing could easily been heard over the silence. Messina smiled.

"Good. Then let's get started." She got out of her chair and started pacing around the front of her desk. "The way you are learning magic now is quite different from the ways of old." Blank stares rained on her. She continued. "Before, when the power ran thicker in our blood, the wands you have in front of you were completely unnecessary." Hermione gave her an odd look and raised her hand.

"Yes, Ms. Granger, a question?"

"Yes. What power are you talking about? Magic?"

"Sort of. Some people say that long ago dragon's blood ran thick in our lines. I don't belong to that theory myself, but I won't go into all that right now. Needless to say, we wizards have something in our lines that I call power for a generic term." Hermione looked placated for the moment and settled back in to listen.

"In old times, the power flowed through us and we were able to channel it with great ease and use it." Quite a few confused looks came her way. "Over time, our bloodlines have thinned out considerably and we, the descendants of the old masters, have to use wands to supplement our power. In olden times the great masters had such great control of their power that they could use it and will something to happen."

"Anything?" Seamus said, a little excited.

"Not anything. Quite a bit though, depending on how strong they were magically."

"How strong were they?" Draco asked from the back of the classroom.

"Well Mr. Malfoy, it is said that the old masters could bend reality to their whims."

"I don't believe that," Draco said and crossed his arms.

"It is very likely true. The magic that we possess today is like a drop of color added to a gallon of water. Magic then was like a gallon of color with no water. It was very influential and pervasive that Muggles were as rare as wizards are today, if not rarer. Almost everyone wielded some form of magic or another."

"There were different types of magic?" Harry asked, sort of already knowing where she was going.

"Of course. Some focused on healing, some on defense, some on offense, as well as those that were Dark." Ron immediately looked at Draco and the Slytherin returned his stare.

"As long as there has been light, there has been dark," she said, ignoring the small staring contest. "That is the way it always will be." A few glances asked her why, so she continued. "Ask yourself this, can you have light without darkness?"

"Sure you can," Ron said loudly.

"But how would you know what is was without comparison?" Messina got no answer from Ron to that question. "Well, I seem to have digressed. I didn't set out to give a history lesson, but an introduction to a new magical theory. Some people will shun this approach as they do everything different, but with Dumbledore's approval, I will show you, or at least attempt to show you how to do this." A murmur ran through the classroom like wildfire on a windy day. Even the Slytherin seemed interested in something that went against the tradition.

Messina sat on her desk and put her hands together. "So, put away all your wands, books, and anything else you might have, except your quills." Hermione felt slightly shocked at that and her face showed it.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but this is something that you can't learn from a page." Hermione faked a bit of drama and set all her other items on the floor beside her desk and gave her attention to the Professor.