Amulet of time 1: The Age of The Founders

Chapter 17: The Sign of A True Marauder

By the end of September, the four friends were happily settled into Anglo-Saxon life. Galatea was doing exceptionally well with her English lessons. She could already make some basic sentences and was quickly picking up the vocabulary. The grammatical structure was reasonably similar to her own language, so she wasn't finding it terribly hard. Before long, she would be able to speak it without too much difficulty. Her aim was to be able to learn enough that she could speak to her friends in their own language. She knew that they were all starting to get homesick, so she wanted to bring a bit of their culture to them. She was even constructing a basic Anglo-Saxon – English dictionary as the lessons progressed.

The animagus transformation was progressing nicely for the whole group. Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Ardwick, Galatea and Christabelle had spent the last few weeks researching their animals. It was the first step before trying to transform. As Hufflepuff told them, they couldn't become the animal if they didn't understand the animal.

Harry had been spending his time, when the others were researching, reading up on the Dark Arts. Once the first lesson had passed and Harry had gained a better understanding of the subject, he found it quite fascinating. He decided it wouldn't hurt to have a reasonable grounding in Dark Magic before he went home. As long as he remembered that it was the intent that counted when using some of the curses, he didn't feel so guilty about studying it. After all, he thought one day, you can't fight Dark Magic with Light Magic and hope to win. The Dart Arts are more powerful and that was where Dumbledore was going wrong. He refused to use Dark Arts spells and was stuck in a rut. I'm going to change that when I get home. Some of the spells in his parseltongue book were decidedly Dark, but he tried each and every one of them. Simbi and Nirah didn't mind. They thought it made life more interesting.

As well as reading up on Dark spells, Harry had also started his first book. He knew Hermione wanted him to write a book on the rare potions he knew about. He intended to write at least five books; one on Dark Potions, one on antidotes to Dark Potions, one on Light Potions, one on antidotes to Light Potions and one specifically on ancient Dark Magic. It was the last one he was working on at the moment. He had three chapters finished already. He was aiming to write two books a year, so he would be finished before he got home.

Harry wasn't just learning the Dark Arts, though. Their other classes were going well for all of them. Harry had found a particular talent for duelling. Once he had got over his initial fear, his fierce determination and seeker agility made him very talented. His extra reading wasn't doing any harm, either. As had been anticipated by Lolidé, he had completed his invisibility training rather quickly. With all the extra practice he had been having, he had mastered it in three weeks. The others hadn't quite got it down yet, but they were all progressing well. This week, Harry was due to have his second lesson in the infirmary with the elf. Each week, he was to spend his first hour learning the elven language. The second hour was elven customs and traditions. The rest of the time was devoted to healing and battle magics that Lolidé's people used. Once he had mastered the language and customs, she had promised to take him to visit her family in one of the elven cities, a trip he was seriously looking forward to. He decided it would be a good idea to borrow Ginny's camera when he went. He knew the pictures would be very useful when he got home. He thought he might even write a book about elves when he had finished the others.

Ginny was doing well with her own book. She had been spending a lot of time with Christabelle, Ardwick and Galatea finding out about their time. She had written over twenty thousand words already, but had had to start one of her chapters over when Crookshanks had chewed the first page. The cat was more trouble than it was worth. Ginny had also been taking a lot of pictures with her camera. She'd started an album, one large enough to house pictures from all the time they were to be away. When she got home, she wanted to have something to remember her new friends by. She knew her family would want to see her growing up, too, even if it was only in pictures. Ginny had spent a lot of her time, when she wasn't writing, practicing her archery. Her lifelong interest was starting to pay off. She was the best at archery out of the four of them. Each of them had discovered a special talent or two. Harry's were duelling and the Dark Arts. Ginny's were archery and photography, as well as being a true Seer. She had had a few small visions and feelings recently, but nothing on the scale of the vision in the first Divination lesson.