A/N: I was really surprised by the number of people who didn't read the last little piece of the last chapter properly and complained about it. Come on, I'm trying to prevent Harry from being a moron. Work with me, here!

...

Anyway. Chapter four. Yeah.

This is a first version and I'm probably going to alter it a little, but I thought I'd put it up now rather than next week. My update rate is awful, after all.

"What'cha writing?"

Harry jumped at the sound of Tonks' voice. Somehow, she'd caught up with Hedwig while he wasn't looking. His owl was stuffed under one of her arms, looking like an extremely disgruntled teddy bear. He tilted the parchment towards himself, blocking what he'd written from her view. He'd forgotten that Sirius' message was on the other side, and Tonks' eyes narrowed as she quickly read it.

She grabbed for the message, but Hedwig slipped out from under her arm , and pecked at it, holding it in her beak. Tonks tried to yank it back, but Hedwig flew a few feet upwards, out of her reach.

"Hedwig! Take that to Sirius," said Harry, desperate to get it away from Tonks. He sighed in relief as the snowy owl began to wing her way across the horizon, and Tonks didn't give pursuit. Perhaps she thought that the letter wasn't important.

Or that something else was more important, he thought, as she turned her gaze on him. Her normal joviality was all gone.

"Sirius? Sirius Black?"

Harry shifted nervously on the broom, eyes darting between Tonks and the distant speck that Hedwig made against the sky. He opened his mouth soundlessly, but closed it again. Furiously berating himself for letting her see the letter; for not tucking it away into a pocket, and reading it later; Harry grasped for the first lie he could find, feeble as it was.

"No! I said Severus – it's just a note asking if I can borrow a potions textbook. I'd forgotten to buy mine." Harry almost crossed his fingers, hoping desperately that she would somehow accept the excuse and leave things alone. She rolled her eyes in reply.

"Since when did Snape sign his letters Sirius, then? I can read, scarhead. Want to tell me why you're playing the pen pal game with my wayward cousin?"

Harry stared – cousin? He didn't know that Sirius had a cousin. Hell, that practically made her family, although he had no idea what he'd call her. A godcousin once removed? A second cousin in-law? His mouth worked faster than his brain, and he said the closest thing to an intelligible remark that he could manage.

"What?"

"I always thought that it was confused and slightly slutty teenage girls who went for the dark and mysterious older men," continued Tonks, seemingly oblivious to Harry's mounting confusion. She narrowed her eyes, and peered intently at him.

"I –"

"It's not as if he's even that good looking. All those years in Azkaban have left him looking like a piece of dried up old beef jerky dressed in a sheep's tangled overcoat," she said, face set as if in stone and her tone deadly serious. An irritated twitch developed somewhere behind Harry's left eye. It told him to stab Tonks. He told it to shut up.

Harry tried to speak again, but Tonks interrupted once more, adding an emphatic wave of the hand to punctuate her words.

"Still, I've seen a few old family photos that my mum keeps around, and he did have something special around the face and shoulders. "

Some of the frustrated confusion welling up inside Harry began to bubble up and over. He took in a few deep breaths, and broke into her train of thought before she could continue.

"But – "

"AND," said Tonks, taking no notice of Harry's attempt to speak, "I guess he was rather dishy. If he managed to clean himself up after the pictures I've seen on the wanted posters, and fleshed out a bit, I guess I would. Yeah, cousin Sirius could get it on with me without too many complaints – "

At the word cousin, Harry's self-control snapped. His traumatized mind threw up an image of himself and Dudley playing tonsil hockey, and he felt his stomach roil. Years of abuse had nothing on this horror!

"INCEST IS WRONG!"

Harry closed his eyes and gulped in a large breath.

"Don't hurt my innocence any more. Have some sympathy for the poor abused orphan and stop!"

Tonks sniggered.

"Am I worse than your horrible relatives yet?"

"Damn the Dursleys and their inappropriate cupboarding!" shouted Harry, who promptly felt much better, and continued in a more normal tone. "The thought of an inbred baby version of you with pink hair, four legs, a fluffy tail, and webbed paws terrifies me."

"Paws?" asked Tonks. Harry nodded, grimly.

"Webbed paws. They terrify me."

Tonks shook her head and smiled – with that disarming motion, Harry's confused worry began to ebb away.

"You don't care that I'm in contact with the most wanted man in the country?"

"Nope – like I said, I read his letter. Doesn't look like he's going to be running around slaughtering you any time soon, so I won't tell the DMLE on one condition; you explain what the hell is going on."

The wind whistled around them, and Harry shivered. He nodded towards the ground, and Tonks dove sharply downwards, shrieking in surprise at just how fast the firebolt could go. She didn't seem to be making any effort to pull out of the dive. Harry sighed, and followed her. Judging by her earlier performance on his broom, she was not a skilled enough flyer to perform the same daredevil stunts that he orchestrated in his Quidditch matches. Her broom didn't have the speed to catch up with the firebolt, regardless of how good Harry's flying was.

With only metres between her and the ground, Tonks began to pull up. Harry watched with growing apprehension as he realized that she wasn't going to get up in time. He noticed beads of sweat dotting her distant brow, and she seemed to be moving slowly, in a frozen moment – a little like he sometimes felt when reaching for the snitch.

An image of Tonks lying broken on the ground wavered behind Harry's eyes, and he clenched his teeth, desperately wishing for things to slow down. The sense of hyper alertness brought on by adrenaline wasn't enough! He hadn't known her for long, but couldn't stand the thought of losing a friend so new, so soon.

The thought that her death would remove awkward questions about Sirius crossed his mind for a fraction of a second before he pushed it away savagely.

He forced Tonks' broom to its highest speed, willing it to move downwards. It continued to crawl forwards slowly, to his accelerated mind and eyes. Sliding a hand further down the shaft of the broom and crouching closer to it, streamlining himself, Harry found that he, too, was moving slower, sluggishly.

It wasn't enough – he forced every ounce of willpower he had into the broom. Slowly – agonizingly slowly – it began to accelerate. Thoughts of Tonks' death changed to thoughts of his own dark past; a basilisk rose before his eyes, and bared menacing fangs; Lupin, a man he trusted and respected, fell to all fours and turned into a creature of death and despair; Dementors spiralled down onto him, and Sirius – and, lastly, he remembered a high, cold laugh, and a flash of green.

The flash of green distorted everything. It spoke of anger, and hate, and death. That same shade of green light began to rise from Harry's body, illuminating him and outlining the broom.

A harsh crescendo filled the air; the sound of a thousand breaking mirrors; and the broom tore forwards at a speed greater than even his firebolt could manage.

Harry tumbled onto the grass, unhurt, and the green light began to fade. He reached out with one hand, and pushed the firebolt up – less than three feet from the ground, it was painfully obvious that Tonks would not have pulled up in time. Once the firebolt pointed outwards, parallel to the ground, time seemed to snap back into its proper place, and Tonks shot off at the speed she'd been travelling at.

As she drove the firebolt back into her control, Tonks collided with the castle wall and fell onto the springy grass. Harry heard her grumbling from a distance, but didn't look up; his eyes were on her broom, which, as he watched it, began to creak ominously and fall to pieces.

"Harry? How did you..." she began, but trailed off upon coming closer. He looked up, guilt washing away some of his confusion, and stammered out an apology.

"I – I think I broke your broom." He gave her a sheepish grin, and picked up the thick wooden shaft – the largest surviving piece.

Tonks took it from him, and studied it intently.

"Huh. You must have overloaded the speed charms or something. Bugger me if I know how you did it."

Harry crouched down, and began to pick up some of the remaining pieces while Tonks continued to talk.

"Never seen anyone push a broom that fast before. S'a wonder you didn't rip your face off from the pressure or something."

Straightening up, Harry passed her an armful of broken broom fragments, trying not to fall over. He felt strangely dizzy and disoriented, as if he'd been portkeyed in two direction at once while travelling by Floo.

His balance wavered, and he stumbled. His knees hit the grass, and blurred shapes swam through his vision. Although he still wore his glasses, it was as if they had fallen off. Nothing was clear. He clutched his head as spikes of pain shot through it. As if from a great distance, he heard Tonks call his name.

"Harry? Harry?"

Everything began to blur, and his hearing became as distorted as his vision. Tonks' words merged into one another, and the blurred shapes began to rush in front of Harry's eyes faster and faster until all he could see was a blinding kaleidoscope of colour.

All sounds around him became a dull roar; the sound of a thousand bees or a restless ocean. Harry fell backwards, and closed his eyes, trying to blink away the nauseating sensation of the world rushing past him.

Only a few seconds had passed when the inexplicable feelings left, and things returned to normal.

Harry opened his eyes, and saw the ceiling of the hospital wing above him. He sat up and looked around; outside the windows, it was growing darker. The only hint of daylight left was a vibrant orange glow illuminating clouds by the distant horizon. With a loud groan, Harry slumped back, and slammed his head into the pillows. The term hadn't even begun, and Harry was already on his second visit to the hospital wing. Nobody else had to put up with this sort of thing.

"Why did I have to be Harry fucking Potter?" he said aloud, wishing for a moment that he could have had an easy, boring, life as Neville Longbottom instead.

"Why indeed, Harry?"

Harry jumped up, startled. Heat rose in his cheeks as he realized what he'd said – and who had overheard him.

"Ah – Professor Dumbledore – sorry...I...I didn't see you."

The headmaster chuckled, and moved into a chair by the bedside.

"I would have been very surprised if you had, dear boy, on account of my not being in the room until you spoke."

Harry frowned; Dumbledore was expected to pull off remarkable stunts, but appearing out of thin air was a bit too much even for him. Then again, Harry mused, he had done so before, in his first year when he had caught Harry gazing into the mirror of Erised – but that time he had been invisible. Harry began to ask if that had been the case, but Dumbledore gave a slight shake of his head, pre-empting the question.

"No, I was not invisible. It's a technique known as Apparition. The delightful minds of muggles would, I believe, dub it as a form of teleportation, although the reality is a little more complex."

Something seemed a little off about that statement. Harry tried to think of why, and Hermione's voice popped into his head, irritably stating 'you can't Apparate in Hogwarts!'

"But sir, I thought that you can't Apparate inside Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore gave one of his disarming half-smiles, and looked over the top of his half-moon glasses at Harry.

"I see that you've been listening to Miss Granger again. While facts and figures are certainly useful, and she is a most remarkable young witch, she does seem to lack the ability to think as far outside the box as some aspects of magic require. But yes! Alas, you are right. It is a well-known and highly documented fact that Apparation is impossible within Hogwarts grounds."

Harry stared at Dumbledore for a moment, half irritated with the headmaster's reluctance to answer a question directly, and half overcome with fondness for the eccentric old man. He hardly knew him, but in their brief encounters he'd really come to care for him; he was the grandfather that he'd always wanted – one of the faceless relatives that he'd wished would come spirit him away from the Dursleys. While he was not the almost-brother that Ron was, or the almost-family that the Weasleys were fast becoming, in a way he regarded the headmaster as family.

As those thoughts crossed his mind, Harry noticed an odd, wistful expression cross the headmaster's face, speaking of old sorrows, and something else that Harry couldn't quite place – a strange mixture of longing and guilt. It only lasted for a moment, however, and the brightness in his blue eyes couldn't have been a hint of tears.

"I must confess," Dumbledore continued; his tone strange for his first few words, and returning to its normal joviality afterwards. "The rules of magic are ancient and set in stone – the stone of the castle, in this case, and taking the place of wards over a thousand years old. It is impossible to Apparate within those rules, and, as such, I cheated."

The innocent smile that the headmaster gave Harry seemed to be full of the schoolboy mischief that made him so popular among his students. Harry couldn't help but let out a small laugh of his own.

"I was sure that you can't Apparate in Hogwarts," he repeated.

"You cannot, dear boy, and Miss Granger cannot. I, however, can. Let us call it a perk of my job, and say no more."

Harry got the distinct feeling that there was more to it than Dumbledore would say, but understood the request to let the matter rest for now.

"Delightful as the distracting topic of the castle's wards may be, there is a more pressing matter at hand. Tell me – how did you end up in this bed?"

Harry began to explain the events that had happened – or so it seemed to him – mere moments ago.

The headmaster listened attentively, and when Harry began to get into the important part of his narrative, interrupting with minor questions about the exact shade of light.

It was not until Harry had continued speaking, having answered the questions, that the importance of the colour struck him. He stopped speaking, and began to worry about it. It was the same shade as the flash of light that was his first memory - the exact same shade.

"Sir," he began, hesitantly, and stopped, wondering how to phrase it. Am I using dark magic? didn't seem to be an appropriate way to ask – mostly because he was afraid to admit his suspicions out loud.

"No, there is no need to worry. That particular hue of green is not the colour of dark magic, but of soul magic. Unfortunately, the killing curse is classed among that particular branch of magic as it works by means of severing the connection between body and soul," said Dumbledore, pre-empting another of Harry's questions. Harry felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. It was more than a little eerie. He wondered, briefly, if the headmaster could read minds.

As he thought that, he could almost believe that he saw the same not-quite-guilty expression dance across Dumbledore's features, but it was gone so quickly that he decided that he was imagining it.

Once he had finished repeating everything that had happened, the headmaster sat back, looking thoughtful.

"I thought that it was some kind of accidental magic – but that's never left me feeling dizzy before."

Dumbledore hesitated, and then nodded.

"It was accidental, yes, but it wasn't quite accidental magic as you know it. A better term would have been wild magic. When we are children, we often begin to show our magic in a number of small ways – often telekinesis; using magic to pull a toy to us, and so on. Wild magic is like this, and yet not like it. It is a primal force of magic, rather than the application of our own internal power, such as we practice through our wands."

"So wild magic draws on the magic around us?"

The headmaster gave Harry an approving nod, clasping his hands together earnestly, and leaning forwards as if to impart a secret.

"Exactly. You see, Harry, our own magic is not half so powerful as we would like, and requires the use of a wand to amount to anything, save for the most basic of tasks."

"So...when I blew up my Aunt Marge last year, that was accidental magic? An engorgement charm?"

"I thought so when I first heard about it, but now that I see your predisposition towards wild magic, I'm inclined to disagree with my younger and less informed self. Think about it; you did not simply cause her to expand, but to retain some measure of proportionality with her internal organs, meaning that she was in no danger, while inflating to a vast size. That is no mean feat – far beyond the skills of a fifth year taking their OWLs. I would be surprised if more than a handful of NEWT students would be able to deliberately perform a task so onerous – it seems more along the lines of a complex human transfiguration than an engorgement charm – although, of course, such labels are wholly unnecessary when dealing with wild magic."

"And today, sir? What exactly did I do?"

"Time, Harry. It is a fickle friend, and a whimsical foe. If I had to label what happened, I would call it a case of time dilation. You somehow borrowed time from your future, and pushed it a single moment of your present. It's why you collapsed – effectively, you returned that time by slowing by as much as you had accelerated. It will probably happen again, as you borrowed much more than a few hours of time –"

Dumbledore broke off mid-sentence, and took on a worried expression.

"How much faster did you say that the broom was travelling? Comparatively?"

Harry thought about it – the difference was huge; from barely moving to accelerating faster than the broom could move at.

"If beforehand was a walking pace, I was going fast enough to get from one end of the grounds to the other in less than a minute," he said, not entirely sure if he was understating the difference. It had been going incredibly slowly before the change had happened.

The headmaster sighed.

"This will likely present some problems in the year ahead. No matter. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Could you teach me to use this wild magic, then?"

"In theory I could – I am one of a sparse handful to have ever come close to mastering it."

Harry felt his hopes rising, and began to enjoy a flicker of pleasure at the thought of having some skill to back up his fame. He'd always felt something of an imposter, regardless of his accomplishments fighting against Voldemort and the other incarnations of darkness that he'd faced.

"That, sadly, is something I would only be able to teach to someone I took on as an apprentice; something that I have never done before."

Harry quashed his disappointment. He knew that he was a mediocre student, and couldn't hope to take on the role of Dumbledore's apprentice. That would be a position for a gifted witch or wizard like Hermione. He remembered his patronus from last year, but ignored the memory of Hermione telling him how powerful it – and he – must be.

Dumbledore rose, and removed his glasses, tucking them into a pocket of his robe. Harry saw faint lines scored beneath his eyes, and began to wonder if he was sleeping properly. Despite his youthful demeanour, the headmaster looked tired – not from age, but worn out, as if he'd been working too hard, for too long.

The odd expression flickered across Dumbledore's face, and Harry knew that he wasn't imagining it this time. It remained for much longer; a mixture of guilt and a longing for something to be different. He seemed to pause before turning away. As soon as the strange emotions playing out across his face had appeared, they were gone, and his enigmatic half-smile returned.

"No need to look so forlorn, dear boy – I wasn't saying no. On the other hand, an apprenticeship is a formidable undertaking. Are you sure you're up to it?"

Harry felt a burst of elation, and sat up straighter.

"Yes! I'd love to – I mean I'd be really grateful for you teaching me, and I don't want to waste your time, but it's really nice of you, and – "

He cut off his rambling, embarrassed again. Dumbledore smiled, and then froze, looking conflicted. Harry began to think that the headmaster was regretting his decision when he finally spoke again.

"Well then, far be it for me to say if you are fit for the task. It's traditional for a test to be set – an entrance exam, if you will – but I've never set much store by grades. Let me see...

Ah, yes. A fitting challenge! Should you manage to take your place as the Hogwarts champion in the upcoming tournament, I will allow you to take your place at my heel, like an exceedingly well-behaved puppy. "

Harry grimaced at the thought of having to prove himself in so difficult a manner. Still, if his bizarre luck with regards to dangerous and unusual events held true, something good might actually come out of it this time.

"How is the champion chosen, sir?" he asked, already crossing his fingers in the hopes that it wasn't some kind of exam, or a choice based on schoolwork.

"You'll have to wait until everybody else finds out. No need to spoil such an excellent surprise ahead of time, is there? Now, I suggest you make yourself scarce before Madam Pomfrey returns and shackles you to the bed for the night. Don't hesitate to speak to me if your wild magic should come out to play again – and be wary of having fits of timelessness at inopportune moments, like the one that brought you here."

"Ah – yes, thank you, sir," said Harry. Dumbledore raised a hand and tipped his head slightly in acknowledgement, and strode towards the door.

Before he had reached it, he faded away, and disappeared, leaving behind a thin cloud of sparkling dust motes. It was unlike any Apparition Harry had heard about, and he suspected that Dumbledore had done it for his sake, as part of his inherent dramatic flair. He smiled at the thought – but didn't let it hinder his speedy progress out of the door.

Hours later, Harry was sitting on his bed, unable to sleep. His day had only lasted for a few hours, after all. He threw back the covers of his four-poster bed, and went to stand by the window. It was not so dark outside as he'd thought it would be. The moon and stars were out, illuminating the grounds under a cloudless sky. Everything had a misty, ethereal pallor to it, but he could see fairly well. The silvery disk of the moon brought back unpleasant memories of the end of last year. Harry shuddered at the memory of Dementors cloaking the sky in black. He closed the shutter to stave off the chill that ran through him. It didn't help – the cold came from inside.

The trunk lying at the foot of his bed has half-open, and his cloak lay inside it, spooling over the edges where he had carelessly dropped it earlier. Harry picked it up, and put it on.

Half an hour of staring into space later, when his restlessness hadn't faded, he took off the cloak and dressed properly. With the cloak wrapped around his shoulders, he ventured down the spiral staircase and across the common room. He had a moment of apprehension as his hand touched the back of the Fat Lady's portrait, and almost went back for his invisibility cloak, but decided against it. Term hadn't started, he reasoned, so he wasn't breaking curfew by being out so late. His watch, like most of his belongings, was second-hand and unreliable, but he was fairly sure it was close to two in the morning.

The stone walls were cold to touch, and windows were so few and far between that Harry cursed forgetting his wand. He ran a hand against the large blocks from which the castle was built, using the walls as a guide to where he was going. A few paintings grumbled when they were jostled, but could see him no more than he could them.

Eventually, Harry's hand found a stone that was sunk slightly into the wall. He grinned in triumph – it was the mark of one of the many secret passageways dotting the castle. Opposite it, on the other side of the corridor, there was a tapestry depicting something obscure enough that neither he nor Hermione had any idea of its origins. A wizard was there – and a number of bizarre magical devices that Harry didn't recognize. He had no time to gaze at the dusty workroom they were depicted in, as he usually liked to, all because of the accursed darkness. Wishing he'd brought his wand for the hundredth time, he slipped behind the tapestry, and carefully made his way down the steep set of stairs.

His legs were beginning to ache from trudging down so many stairs when a wall finally came up in front of him. It felt solid enough; he walked headfirst into it, and only just managed to pull himself short in time to avoid causing a nasty bruise that would spread across his entire face. Like many others in Hogwarts, it was a door disguised as a trick wall. Unlike the others, it had a lot more rigidity to its illusion.

Harry pressed himself slowly against the wall, and he felt it give way beneath his weight. It was almost like treacle; a thick, sticky substance that was reluctant to let go of him. Getting out was always a nuisance in this passageway, and it took him a full ten seconds to walk through the two metre thickness of this particular wall.

Outside, it seemed bright compared to the utter darkness inside. Harry walked for a while, marvelling at the beauty of the grounds by moonlight. He'd never really appreciated it before. Hogwarts itself was something he'd seen as a work of art from his very first impression, but he'd never thought much of the grounds themselves.

Dewdrops glistened on blades of grass, and trees seemed to be pale, almost skeletal silhouettes dotted with darker leaves. Against Harry's own better judgement, he found himself wandering towards the forest.

He soon stood by its edges, leaning against a tree, and peering deeper inside. It was too dark to go any further. He was content to remain here, for now. The luminous dial of his watch was now coming closer to three than two.

Harry looked up, gazing at the moon. He couldn't tell whether it was full, or close to it, and chuckled nervously, remembering Malfoy's fears of werewolves in the forest, all the way back in first year.

He froze when a shadow moved at the edge of his vision. When it began to edge closer, detaching itself from the trees into a closer patch of shadow, Harry reached for a wand that wasn't there, and cursed his luck. He backed away from it, and it moved closer. It was still too dark to see it properly – all he could make out was four legs and a head held high. He bit his lip, desperately trying to think of a way out of this.

If he ran, it would surely give chase, and it would doubtlessly be faster than Dudley. Somehow, Harry didn't think that getting caught by it would be as pleasant as an encounter with Dudley and his gang of thugs, either.

It was with some surprise that Harry noticed that his fists were clenched. He could feel a number of hot pinpricks where his fingernails dug into his palms, and, on some level, dully took note of the fact that he was preparing to fight whatever the hell this thing was.

The shadowy figure took a step forward, and Harry forced himself not to turn tail and run. It stopped in its tracks, and stood there, staring at him.

Harry watched, amazed, as it lowered its head in a bow.

"Buckbeak?" he asked, incredulous. A beak pushed against his shoulder was his only reply. He let out a breath he didn't remember holding, and began to laugh with hysterical relief. Buckbeak snorted, and pushed against his shoulder again, a little more forcefully. Harry gave in, and began to pat the hippogriff.

At Buckbeak's insistence, Harry climbed onto his back. The powerful wings on either side of him beat the air furiously, and he felt sleek muscles moving underneath feathers and skin.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry noted that the moon wasn't full after all, but a handful of days on one side. He never could tell which. Astronomy wasn't his strongest subject by a long way.

Over in the distance, he saw a section of forest dominated by webbing. It reflected the moonlight very well, almost seeming to glow. He hadn't imagined that the Acromantula nest was anywhere near that large. Hagrid's comments to Dumbledore didn't seem anything short of understatement – although Harry's opinion was that even one Acromantula was one too many.

Shapes moved among the webbing, and Buckbeak veered away, unwilling to fly too close to the nest. Harry wrapped his arms around his neck, and leaned down close, as if riding a broom. Buckbeak responded perfectly, folding his wings and diving forwards in a series of aerial acrobatics that few birds could match.

Harry felt wind rushing through his hair, and saw the ground rushing towards him at an incredible speed, and felt completely at peace.