Chapter 124: Mastering Apparition, Plans, and Dreams

*Pop!*

Quinn vanished from his spot and appeared near Aksel, who was standing under a tree.

"Pop!" grinned Quinn, enjoying his new ability to apparate.

It was two days after Quinn learned to apparate. On the first day, he had shocked both Aksel and Haldor by succeeding apparition in mere three tries. At first, both of them thought that Quinn had gotten lucky, but then he proceeded to apparate five times in a row and established that it wasn't a fluke.

On the second day, Haldor repeated the exercise from the first day and kept it safe. He wanted Quinn to get used to the feeling of apparition before moving on.

Aksel looked at Quinn, who was grinning, and asked. "If you want, we can switch instructors and join someone more competent."

"Hmm? Now, what would prompt you to say that?" questioned Quinn.

"You saw how he arrived yesterday," pointed Aksel. "He was clearly hungover and not prepared. That wasn't professional. You already understand the first level of apparition. So, if you want, we can go and choose another instructor. I know some good ones and can arrange classes with them by the end of the day."

Aksel didn't have a positive impression of Haldor. He didn't like those who didn't take their jobs seriously, and Haldor coming to his job in an unsightly manner didn't make a good impression.

Quinn shook his head with a small smile. "Actually, I think Haldor is a good teacher. A teacher needs to be two things to be a good educator. First, they need to be good at what they teach, and Haldor was clearly good at apparition."

Quinn, too, had noticed Haldor's condition when he had arrived, but he also noticed something else.

"Haldor wasn't feeling good, and from the looks of it, he was feeling it bad, yet he still apparated without a problem. Despite suffering from what I am guessing, headaches, nausea, and dizziness, which are all big red signs for not apparating, he did it without splinching."

"That just shows he is good at apparition," shrugged Quinn.

"Point the second, a teacher needs to be good at teaching," continued Quinn. If Haldor wasn't good at explaining, it wouldn't matter how good he was at his craft. "Haldor taught just fine. If he was hungover yesterday and I still managed to apparate, then I'm sure that he would do better today, given that he isn't hungover."

A light pop was heard behind them.

"Speaking of the devil..." said Quinn and turned saw Haldor standing at a distance from them. "... See, he is better today."

Unlike yesterday, when Haldor arrived with a messy appearance: uncombed hair, rumpled clothes, black circles under his eyes, and his mood was also down. Today's Haldor looked like he had taken a bath, used a comb on his hair, wore clothes that weren't from the last day, and had a good night's sleep.

"... Good morning," greeted Haldor, his voice held more energy than yesterday.

"Morning," replied Quinn while Aksel silently nodded.

Haldor beckoned Quinn to the center of the field and started today's lesson.

"Yesterday, we got you familiarized with apparition. And you somehow grasped it quickly, too quickly, really quickly," said Haldor. He still couldn't believe what Quinn had accomplished yesterday. "So today, we will be moving on and practice the next step. Follow me."

Haldor and Quinn walked to the edge of the circular clearing, just beneath the trees surrounding the clearing, which Haldor used as his instruction center.

"Yesterday, we stuck to apparating to a three-meter (10 feet) distance," recapped Haldor. "So today, we will be going beyond that and go further."

He pointed somewhere around the center of the circular clearing and expressed. "The distance from here to the center of the field is thirty meters (100 feet). I want you to apparate to the center."

Haldor then, without any warning, disapparated from beside Quinn and appeared at the center of the field.

"Right around here!" shouted Haldor as he looked at Quinn from his new spot.

Quinn grinned, visualized his destination, covered his body with magic, triggered the apparition magic, and then let the magic do its work.

Haldor watched Quinn disapparate from his spot and was expecting Quinn to appear beside him, but Quinn didn't. Haldor heard the loud pop and looked in that direction to see Quinn standing near the opposite edge of the clearing and was waving his hand.

"How about we move on to the next step?" beamed Quinn, traveling double the distance Haldor had specified. "You should change the exercise to something more fun."

Haldor looked at Quinn and felt amazed. When still new to apparating, people tend to be scared about apparating to lengthy distances. Unlike Quinn, a majority of people experienced splinching or at the very least witnessed splinching while learning. And that created a slight fear about apparating longer distances.

But Quinn lacked the experience of splinching and thus lacked the fear. He understood that as long as the distances weren't changed exponentially, the difficulty remained the same.

"Well, let's do something else," sighed Haldor and called Quinn closer, who apparated to arrive near Haldor.

Haldor took out a thin tie from his pocket and handed it to Quinn. "Blindfold yourself with this, and then you will try apparating without your sight. You will try to picture the place and apparate to it." He pointed back to the initial spot Quinn apparate from and continued. "Apparate back the point we started from. You won't be able to see it, so let's see how strong your imagination is. It's all about the image, Quinn. It all starts with the picture in your head."

Quinn shrugged and wrapped the tie around his eyes and secured it tightly so that he couldn't see anything.

'Hmm, this is different from Tehom's Delight,' thought Quinn. The time spent in Tehom's Delight had taught Quinn that lack of sense wasn't a bad thing.

He had spent a lot of time in the darkness of Tehom's Delight before he got the ripple sonar. All that time had numbed to the lack of sight, numbness of hearing, the dullness of touch, altered hearing, and scent deadness.

Quinn imagined the spot he apparated from and then let the apparition magic do its work. And Haldor and Aksel watched as Quinn apparated to a destination that wasn't in his vision.

"How was it?" asked Quinn, still blindfolded and confident smile on his face. "Did I get it right?"

"Yes, you did," answered Haldor. But before he could continue, Quinn disappeared and popped right in front of Haldor. "What's next?"

Haldor blinked at his blindfolded student and sighed. "Now, remove your blindfold. I have the next task for you."

Quinn removed his blindfold and walked towards Haldor as he described the task.

"Where are you staying?"

"At a hotel."

"Is it warded against apparition?"

"I haven't checked my room, but the lobby isn't warded against apparition."

"Where is it?"

Quinn turned to Aksel and jutted with his chin.

Haldor turned to Aksled and called out in Danish. Aksel turned his attention to Haldor and replied back in Danish. The two communicated about the hotel's location and how far it was from here.

"That works out for us," nodded Haldor. "The distance within the range that will be perfect for this. I want you to apparate to the hotel and come back. It's a distance much greater than the one you just traveled. If you are able to apparate to the hotel, it shows that you have the basics of apparition under your belt."

The distance from Haldor's apparition classes to Quinn's hotel was within the range most people used apparition for travel. It was nearly the same distance that the apparition-license test in Denmark used as a benchmark. If a person could travel that distance, they would check one of the things off the list.

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"Alright, let's see if I can do it," nodded Quinn and loosened his body and was about to start the apparition magic when Aksel spoke up.

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"Wait. I will go to the hotel lobby first. If you mess up and splinch, I will be there to take care of you." And before he apparated, Aksel advised, "Do remember to imagine the lobby. Specifically, the center of the lobby. That's what the hotel tells you to do."

After then Aksel apparated off to the hotel lobby.

Quinn put his hands behind his back, his fake wand in his hands, and smiled. He stood straight up and looked at Haldor while smiling.

"I will be back in a little bit."

Then his body was taken by the apparition magic as he very momentarily traveled through the fabric of space while his body was forced into a narrow pipe-like tunnel.

On the other side, Quinn was greeted with the hustle and bustle of the hotel lobby. He looked around to see guests passing by the lobby, bellboys doing their services, and Akseld standing in front of him.

"It seems I passed, didn't I?" said Quinn.

Aksel shook his head in reply. "You still have to go back. He asked for a round-trip." Then he disapparated back to Haldor's apparition classes.

The concierge behind the welcome counter looked at Aksel disapparate after barely a minute of getting here. If it was another customer, he would've talked to them, but the instructions were very clear, Quinn and Aksel could do practically anything and they wouldn't get in trouble.

"That's technically true," said Quinn with an accepting nod but then turned to face the entrance to the hotel. It showed the street outside, and Quinn could see non-magical folk walking by and cars driving on the road.

The people outside couldn't see into the hotel. It had been charmed to show a closed and locked door. And over that, the area had been charmed with a non-magical-repellant ward, which made sure that no non-magical would even give the building the first look, forget about a second look.

According to the International Statute of Magical Secrecy, every magical building near a non-magical area was required to ward off the buildings with extra precaution. The hotel followed the code to a T. The entire building wouldn't attract the eyes of any non-magical person, theoretically cutting it off to anyone who couldn't interact with magic.

'Hmm...' wondered Quinn and stared at the view outside. 'It's the third day. Should I?'

If he included the day he went sightseeing with Aksel, it was the fourth day. And in those four days, Quinn had dragged out Aksel every day to show him more of the magical community. And Denmark had been fun, but Quinn had some other plans regarding Denmark and the magical community in Aarhus.

But after giving it a thought, he shook his head and looked away and apparated away with a final thought.

'I will start tomorrow. It will be fun.'

- (Scene Break) -

Thousands of miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

Harry Potter lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had awoken from a vivid dream with his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on Harry's forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning was burning beneath his fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other reaching out in the darkness for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on, and his bedroom came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful.

Harry turned on the lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed and crossed the room. He opened his wardrobe and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A fourteen-year boy looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He examined the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal, but it was still stinging.

Harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It had seemed so real. There had been two people he knew and one he didn't. He concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember...

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him. There had been a snake on a hearth rug, a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail, and a cold, high voice... the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped down into his stomach at the very thought...

Harry concentrated on the image of Peter. He looked so different from the picture he had seen in the posters. Wormtail, as Harry had heard in the dream, was a thin man rather than the fat in the poster. No wonder no one recognized him: he looked completely different.

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like, but it was impossible. All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it. He had felt a spasm of horror, which had awoken him... or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man in his dream; Harry had watched him fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harry put his face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them.

Voldemort and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harry could not remember the name, and they had been plotting to kill someone else him! No, he could remember something. It was a woman; he could barely remember Wormtail talking about a woman and some kind of cup. But as seconds passed, that image was also sinking away.

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. But instead of his usual room, there was nothing that stood out as unusual.

A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig, usually perched.

On the floor beside his bed: a book lay open; Harry had been reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched one of the wizards score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch - in Harry's opinion, the best sport in the world - couldn't distract him at the moment.

Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it, running a finger over his scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; Harry was no stranger to pain and injury.

He had lost all the bones from his right arm once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced by a venomous foot-long fang not long afterward.

Only last year, Harry had fallen fifty feet from an airborne broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that bothered Harry was that the last time his scar had hurt him, it had been because Voldemort had been close by. But Voldemort couldn't be here, now... The idea of Voldemort lurking in Godric Hollow was absurd, impossible.

Harry knew a thing or two about his house. This was the house where Voldemort had come to kill him but had instead died. At least, the ground was the same; the house itself was dismantled down and built anew.

When he had met Voldemort in his first year, and Quirrell had burned on touching him. And after that night, his parents had told him that because of ancient magic that his grandmother had cast, Voldemort couldn't touch him or harm him. As long as Harry lived with his family in this house, Voldemort wouldn't harm him.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house with him except his father, mother, and Ivy, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

And he liked it to keep it that way. They didn't need to be worried for him. At least for now, he didn't want to wake them up and ruin their night's sleep. He went back to bed and laid back down on his bed. Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise slowly crept into the room.

But Harry didn't notice that he had been forgetting. That the images of the dream were slipping away from his mind. He didn't know that the moment he went back to sleep, he would forget about the dream until the moment something that would trigger this specific memory.

The residents of Godric Hallow slept in peace, not knowing the turbulent year in front of them.

A/N:

As I wrote in the poll. I experimented with my writing and for it was half-good and half-bad. The bad was that I messed up the pacing of the Denmark Ark. I wrote a little too much in decriptive text, so it's stretched out a little.

The chapters all have something fun(?) but they could've been wrapped up quicker. It will be at least this week where you will see a little too much of decriptive text, but after that I will amp it up a bit. Don't want another Aquatic Vault.

-*-*-*-*-*

Quinn West - MC - Denmark wouldn't be fun without him planning something.

Haldor - Apparition teacher - Huh, that was easy money.

Aksel - Unknown Occupation - Isn't a man of words.

Harry Potter - Boy-With-Scar - Scar and Dreams

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