Harry Potter and the Secrets from the Past

Chapter 22. SECRET TRAININGS

...

And breathing breezes

Which spread over grounds

Without limits or borders

We push aside each other,

But then we find us closer,

And higher and further

Now we are sons of the immensity.

...

"The Hill of Cherry Trees" by Lucio Battisti

The city of London had just been swallowed by darkness and all the inhabitants were already hurrying to return home.

A passer-by was hurriedly walking along Hyde Park; when he crossed the street, his gaze stopped on an abandoned and ancient building; suddenly, he felt a chill going up his spine and looked behind him, afraid he was being watched.

He quickened his pace and disappeared behind the corner.

The unaware passer-by didn't notice that inside the ancient building, someone had just followed him with his gaze, two cold eyes, red like blood, unable to emanate feelings such as compassion and love.

"My Lord!"

Voldemort swayed his gaze from the dismantled window and turned to his servant, who was standing with downcast eyes, in the half obscurity of the room.

"Have you any news, Lucius?"

"Yes, my Lord. Mark Evans has been sighted in town."

Voldemort's face lit up with a chilling smile.

"Very well. Bring him to me, then!"

"As you wish, my Lord."

Lucius Malfoy bowed deeply in front of his Master and then left the room.

"Soon we'll meet again, Mark..."

The Dark Lord turned again to the window, foretasting his revenge.

***O***

Harry, Ron and Hermione had come back to Hogwarts two weeks ago and almost immediately their classes had become more difficult than ever: the final examinations were coming closer and teachers were giving lots of homework.

Even Professor Lupin, who was back again, had assigned them a difficult essay about the new subjects learned during his absence.

The first thing Harry did was go back to his parents' grave; he made it a habit to go there on a short pilgrimage almost every day. This daily appointment gave him the strength to go on with his life.

Beyond school lessons, Quidditch trainings had started again at alternate evenings and to Harry's disgust, his Occlumency meetings with Snape were also each Friday night.

Despite the continuous criticism of his teacher, Harry was trying his best to close his mind and react to his mental attacks. Unfortunately, these Occlumency lessons always caused him terrible headaches, which often made him feel really bad.

Ron had finally admitted to Ginny and Hermione that he was going out with Luna and now he was trying to spend as much free time as possible with his girlfriend: they were always studying together, taking long walks in the gardens all alone, and during weekends, they saw each other after Quidditch trainings.

For this reason, now Harry had the opportunity to spend much more time with Hermione. Besides, they had now started the habit of secretly training at Defense the Dark Arts.

At least twice a week, they climbed up to the seventh floor, walked forward and backward three times, focusing their minds on a right place for their training and suddenly a door appeared in front of them, leading to the Room of Requirements.

As the previous year, the room was perfectly equipped: the shelves were completely full of books about useful subjects like Charms, Fight, Healing Techniques, Potions; there were even several strange crystal instruments filled of coloured liquids, puffing and crackling continually.

According to Hermione, there were also many books that were usually kept in the restricted section of Hogwarts' library.

The room was also furnished with large and soft rubber carpet for practical trainings.

It was a cold Tuesday at the end of January and the two of them had just entered the room. Hermione immediately reached the book shelves, where she took a huge and ancient book.

"Today we can start with something more... stimulating!" she said, heading to the center of the room with the big book in her arms and sitting with her legs crossed on the soft carpet.

Harry followed her and sat right in front of her, staring at the book with curiosity.

"This is the 'Seer Handbook: A Practical Starter's Guide'. In my opinion it's one of the best, I already read it during Christmas holidays," Hermione said in a competent tone, while skimming through its large pages.

"If say so!" said Harry, sighing deeply.

"Here we are, listen to me carefully:"In the known world we mainly find two different types of Seers; the first one is called INACTIVE, and includes all those Seers who manifest the sight just in particular occasions, and always, during a trance state..."

"This is Professor Trelawney's type!" Harry added, cutting the reading off, but Hermione went on without commenting.

"The second type is called ACTIVE, and includes all those Seers who manifest the sight more frequently, during their dreams, but also during their waking hours in the form of visions ..."

"And this is me!" Harry cut her off again and this time Hermione frowned at him before going on.

"Also, Active Seers possess many other powers which manifest themselves spontaneously reaching maturity; among those powers, are: the ability to foresee the future, the ability to do magic without a wand, reading others' minds, mastering the universal elements, telephathy, overcoming time and space, the power to..."

"Hey, wait a minute! You're saying that I could be able to do all those things?" asked Harry, shocked.

"I'm not saying anything, it's just written in the book! If you don't believe me, why don't you read it by yourself!" answered Hermione, deeply annoyed, while setting the open book on Harry's lap.

"Well, after all, it isn't so bad. Anyway, here it says that if the Seer doesn't exercise his powers, they could disappear for ever."

"That's why we've no time to lose!" replied Hermione seriously, taking the book in her hands and skimming through it again.

"Now, let's try with something simple. How to foresee the day after's menu... Thousand different ways to evoke fire... How to communicate with your cat." Hermione was carefully reading all the titles.

"Here it is! Visualization for Beginners. We can start with this one."

Harry was listening to her with deep attention.

"First of all, you should sit comfortably; then close your eyes and concentrate deeply on someone... let's try with Ron, for example. Now visualize Ron in your mind and try to understand how he's feeling right now."

Harry followed Hermione's instructions: closed his eyes and imgined his best friend's face; a few minutes passed by, but nothing happened and Harry was starting to feel like a real idiot. Then suddenly, a whirlwind of images rushed in front of his eyes.

When everything became quieter again, Harry looked around and found himself completely surrounded by darkness; then a wand lit up and he jumped in surprise when he saw Luna Lovegood's face really close to his; in that moment, he felt his heart beating faster and faster emotionally and his cheeks became incandescent; he realized that Luna was slowly getting closer to him, with eyes half open; Harry was nearly brushing her lips, when abruptly, he came back to his senses deeply shocked, opened his eyes and found himself again in the Room of Requirements with Hermione on his side.

"Harry? Are you all right?"

The boy was pale in the face and was panting heavily; he felt really weak and sick.

"Did you manage to feel Ron's feelings?" She asked curiously.

"Yes... I think so!" Harry replied, still confused.

"He and Luna were so close and then... oh, NO! It was disgusting!" Harry made a funny grimace and Hermione burst into laugh.

"I can imagine what they were doing! I think that sometimes it could be dangerous entering someone else's mind, because you'd never know what you may find in there." Hermione used the tone of someone who knows a lot about the subject.

Then she read again from the book and suddenly became really serious.

"Here says that inexperienced Seers could find some problems at the beginning."

"Which kind of problems?" asked Harry worriedly.

"The more difficult the foreseeing exercise is, the more the Seer'll be weakened by the effort to accomplish it. Only with constant practice will the Seer be able to master his powers and use them wisely... You should be really careful, Harry!"

***O***

February had just arrived, bringing with it even more cold and bad weather; Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the warmth of their common room, surrounded by several other students, busy with homework, while outside a snowstorm was raging.

The three friends were writing a difficult essay about cats' disapparating; Harry raised his head for a moment, massaging his forehead while re-reading the last sentence he had just written. Absent-mindedly he turned to Hermione, who was sitting on his side, busy writing her essay; Harry thought that she was the most beautiful creature in the universe.

He really wanted to open his heart to her, but he believed it would be an impossible task for him to accomplish: How could he tell his best friend that he was in love with her? Maybe she'd laugh at him, or worse, she'd get really angry and decide not to talk to him anymore. This terrible thought was now torturing him continually.

The evening flew by quickly and soon it was midnight; all the other students had already reached their dormitories, leaving the three friends all alone in the common room.

"That's it! I'm finished! Now I don't want to hear about cats as long as I live!" said Ron with determination, while rolling up his Transfiguration parchment and throwing it brutally into his school bag.

"Never say never, Ron!" Hermione warned him from the sofa, where she had moved an hour ago after having finished her long essay.

Harry had just finished his homework at that moment, which had left him with a really bad headache. He put his parchment into his bag and reached Hermione on the sofa.

"I'm dead! This week has been tough for me! Between lessons, homework, trainings and Occlumency, I should have split myself into four people to nearly have the slightest possibility of making it!"

"Don't complain, Harry. There's always someone with many more problems than ours. Take Neville! When Professor McGonagall assigned him two more essays for Wednesday, he nearly burst into tears!"

"Poor guy. Maybe he should find a girlfriend, to comfort him!" said Ron, while taking a seat close to them.

"Someone like Ginny, for example?" asked Hermione maliciously and Ron brought a hand to his heart, horrified.

"Please Hermione, tell me that Ginny isn't going out with Neville! I'm starting to get a heartache."

"NO, you can calm down. I don't think that they've already reached that point!" replied Hermione, laughing.

"What do you mean? At what point are they? Besides, I thought that she was going out with Dean!" Ron was deeply confused.

"Yes, she was going out with Dean, but shortly before Christmas they split up and now Neville is doing his best to comfort her. I don't understant why you'd be against their relationship!"

"Hermione, you don't understand! It'd be a tragedy, a real suicide, a real...."

"LOOK AT THAT!"

Harry cut them off abruptly, pointing at the crackling fire.

"I just saw..." Harry was nearly saying "I just saw Sirius" but then he realized that it was impossible.

Then, suddenly, a man's head appeared among the flames.

"MARK EVANS!" They exclaimed in unison, getting closer to the fireplace.

"Hello guys, I hope I didn't scare you!" Mark Evans quietly spoke, showing his usual large smile.

"No, don't worry. we're accustomed to that! How come you're... here?" asked Harry, deeply astonished.

"Just for you, Harry. Remus told me that you've overheard my discussion with Hagrid."

Harry lowered his gaze, hoping that Mark wouldn't explore the subject. Actually, in that occasion, he had found himself at Hagrid's hut, at a forbidden time and hidden under his invisibility cloack.

"I don't care about how you managed to hear, the most important thing is that now you know the truth about your past."

Harry raised his head and stared directly in Mark's eyes, wishing to learn more.

"What are you here for?"

"I need to talk to you, personally! Could we meet during your next Hogsmeade weekend?"

The three friends stared at each other puzzled, and Ron spoke first.

"But it'll be on Valentine's Day!"

"Well, maybe it isn't the right day for you to meet me; maybe you already have some other things going on..."

"Not at all! For me it's fine on Valentine's Day," replied Harry, determined.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am!"

"Then we'll meet on the morning of February 14^th, right in front of the "Hog's Head", but please... don't inform anyone about this. Goodbye!" Harry nodded before Mark's face disappeared inside the dancing flames, with a resounding "POP".

"I don't really think it's a good idea to meet Mark Evans," said Hermione worriedly, while sitting on the sofa.

"If he's got something important to tell me, I'm going to listen to him. Everybody here has always hidden the truth about my past and now Mark wants to reveal everything."

"Don't you understand yet that Dumbledore had always tried to protect you?" Hermione seemed exasperated by Harry's behavior.

"I'm tired of always receiving someone else's protection! Now I want to protect myself! Do you think I'm asking the impossible?" Harry was starting to lose his temper.

"Calm down mates, there is no need to fight!" Ron was trying to soothe the situation, but Hermione spoke again, raising her voice tone.

"If you've decided to meet him, then I'll come with you!"

"That's fine with me!" said Harry stubbornly, crossing his arms and staring deeply at her in the eyes.

Then Hermione stood up abruptly.

"I'm going to bed!" she said angrily, before rushing upstairs to her dormitory.

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