An Opus Alchymicum Vol 1: The Experimental Theologian's Apprentice

The Sowilo Rune

Harry scowled, cursed, rubbed his scuffed knee, then got up to try again. He looked out from the lofty position of the Potter estate, down across the twinkling lights of the towers and high rise accommodation blocks of Pont-y-Annwn, which stuck out stark against the dark, since the main illumination from the Light Deck hadn't come up yet. He really would miss the place when he was gone. This view was maybe his favourite of all.

But now was not the time to be regretful. His future promised to be bright, full of magic and adventure. He had to focus on that. So he threw his leg over the wooden pole once more, hauled himself back up onto the mound of crates and boxes he'd manage to cobble together, then took a determined breath. Then jumped.

And promptly fell flat on his face. Which cause him to invent several new swear words as he cradled his sore ankle.

"What are you doing?"

Harry leapt up, turning scarlet in his embarrassment. He wrung his hands guiltily.

"Harry?" Lily pressed, a smile touching the corners of her mouth. "What exactly are you up to?"

"Nothing," Harry muttered, looking at a random spot over his mother's shoulder, anything to not look her right in the eye.

Then Lily's gaze turned down to the patch of gravel that Harry had been using as a makeshift crash-mat. And her face ignited with mirth.

"Are you ... trying to fly?"

Harry felt his cheeks burn, and tried to roll the broomstick at his feet under one of the boxes, which had toppled over when he last jumped.

"No," Harry replied shamefully. Because, of course, that was exactly what he'd been trying to do.

Lily closed the distance between herself and her son and picked up the broom from under his heel. She looked down at him seriously.

"This is how you use a broom," Lily teased, her eyes twinkling, as she promptly turned the brush the right way up and began sweeping the footpath, which made Harry laugh at himself for being so silly.

"I just wanted to see if I could," Harry grinned shyly. "I've been reading all about Quidditch ... and it's all Dad wants to talk to me about at the moment ... so I really want to give flying a try. I thought I might ask my Godfather to take me to learn and I don't want to make a fool of myself if he does."

"You wont make a fool of yourself," Lily returned supportively. "In any case, it'll be your first time. It's quite unlikely that you'll be a natural. And I don't know what the rush is anyway. First-year students never get picked for the House teams at Hogwarts. I know your father has been putting more ideas into your head, but you need to be aware of how these things work. Don't think that I'm being cruel, honey, it's just that I don't want you to be disappointed when you don't get picked."

Harry wasn't put off by his mother's sage warning. The way he saw it, she would just be even prouder of him if he confounded expectations, did better than anyone thought he could. The motivation drove Harry like a dynamo, and he was fast becoming a ball of potential energy, restlessly keen to get on with the business of learning magic.

But that was the best part of a year away. Harry wasn't sure how he was going to stand it. But there was still a mountain of things to do before he could start to think about any of that. In any case, his mother had begun to prepare him for his mission, to deliver this mysterious Stone to whatever was going to protect it on the surface.

And to do that Lily had to introduce her son to an obscure branch of magic, and one of the many allegoric languages that it was conducted in.

"So Harry, I know how impressed you were by your father's boast that both he and Sirius could transform into animals," Lily began, guiding Harry back to the house after his flying fiasco. "I never became an Animagus myself, because I chose to focus my advanced magical study on another area entirely, one that was infinitely more interesting and requiring great skill to accomplish."