Teach Us How to Outgrow this Madness

AN: Rebirth. language, Time Travel, Au. I don't exactly have an idea for what the pairing will be; perhaps there won't be one at all, however you, the readers, are free to suggest.

Pronunciations: Antare: Ahn-Tah-Ree, Ashyr - Ah-Sheer, Avior - Ay-vi-or

Summary: Rebirth. Harry was a dreamer, a dreamer leading a dull life at the age of thirty-three. It was a bore, and he would have hated to admit, but the adrenaline rushes from the war left him in a yearning. It was to his luck when Death had accepted his request and sent him back in time, as it was to his suspicion when the Deathly Hallows weren't confiscated for price. Now in 1926 and unrestricted by his title, he re-enters Hogwarts - except this time, from the shadows.

So many possibilities, although one mistake could destroy him or the world He would carve out a name for himself; better late than regretful.

It was two decades ago when he had won the war; when he was the golden boy, the brightest star for the wizarding community. Although many people had died, and the light suffered as hard - if not harder - than the dark, the main players of each side had suffered the most.

He had been thankful, when the people dearest to him were still alive and with him. Hermione, Ron and Ginny. He had recalled his teenage crush. He knew he had affections for her, but he was hesitant and later on, that moment of hesitance proved him thankful.

Harry Potter had never loved Ginny romantically. As one of his best friends? Yes, certainly. But his affections were of friendlier ones, not to mention slight infatuation due to the influx of teenage hormones, not to mention the desperation he felt - the need for someone to love - in the midst of the hysteria. No, he didn't see her in that light - he never did.

Dark hair still as tussled as ever, he found himself - predictably - an Auror. Chasing villainous figures, he fought them all off valiantly enough - not once using a dark spell. His name was the epitome of all that was good and holy, it seemed, and some part of him - deep inside, hated it all. It was at night, when he was all alone, had he been ambushed by around three dark supporters.

Knowing that he wouldn't have stood against them with his admittedly small repertoire of light spells and disarms, Harry knew he would have had to try for something...different.

One look at the offenders in front of him; just one look at their faces had told him that they would stop at nothing besides death to have him dead. He stared on, interest and adrenaline flowing through him as it had just decades ago. After so long, it had taken a near death situation to get his heart beating and blood rushing. He stared on and then with lightning fast reflexes swung his hand in such a sharp fashion that the Elder wand swung from his sleeves and into his open palms.

As soon as he felt the wood graze against his skin, Harry pointed the wand, jumping back and uttered an incantation.

'Avada Kedavra'.

It finished as soon as it had come; the pulsing green light flashing from the tip of his wand and flew directly towards the rogue wizards. It was a clear-cut hit and the three didn't even seem to have registered the attack as their bodies fell onto the ground, eyes dull, body lifeless, only shock colouring their pale faces.

Harry stared on, panting, his heart ringing in his ears. His wand was still in his hand, pointed at where the bodies once stood, his position unchanging. The incantation a reverberation in his mind, and the pure green of pulsing magic replaying through his widened eyes. Sweat dripped down his body and as the pitter patter of rain fell on his skin, they did little to cool his too-warm body.

He felt the heat rise beneath his skin as his blood and heart pulsed erratically. The wizard slowly dropped his wand hand before using tentative fingers to touch his skin; the warmth inside not translating to his cool, smooth skin.

Coughing, Harry backed himself against the wall, taking comfort in its cool, hard properties. Feeling the hysteria rise, he let out a shaky breath, contemplating silently about his course of actions, such as; why had he chosen specifically, the Avada Kedavra? It was out of impulse, but impulses were usually immediately based on the subconsciousness of said person.

Harry shook his head, eyes closed and headache rising. He didn't want to go delve any deeper into that...but that power. Staring at the elder wand resting coolly in his sweaty palms, his body relieved a phantasm of the adrenaline the spur of dark magicks had sent him. For the longest while, he felt alive; excited.

The war, it seemed, broke him in the most twisted sense. Perhaps broken isn't the right word;altered. He had spent his life battling dark forces and fighting near powerful blasts of dark magicks, that they had started tainting him slowly and slowly. The fact that he had kept a part of Voldemort's soul within him for a decade and three-fourths; amplifying the ambient throws of 'evil' power.

Faded green eyes looked tiredly on, holding a shadow of a glimmer they once held. He looked on, to the Deathly Hallows; the hazardous trio. It was a secret he held to himself - that the Deathly Hallows were far from destroyed, no matter how valiant his attempts were.

It was a secret he kept dearly, as the dangers of greed would easily dilute even the most 'pure' claimed. He was sure, that if their functions were to be revealed, even Mrs Weasley would have been enticed by the idea.

He fingered the ring, and stared hungrily at the other two Hallows before him. Twisted, he had become. The power granted would be tempting; should he accept. How funnily hypocritical and selfish of him, but he couldn't hold back if he had tried.

He wanted to go back; but not to his time. Perhaps, to the one where the crux of the problem was held; Riddle's Era at Hogwarts. But that would mean he would have to let everyone he knew now, go… Maybe he should just stay put?

No, Harry wouldn't allow himself to slowly deteriorate. Head held high and eyes full of selfishness and self-loathing. Harry calmly slipped the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand, feeling the cool gold; soothing to his skin. It was a perfect fit.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Huh.

Unexpected, however, convenient nonetheless.

Next, he held onto the elder wand - in pristine shape, even after the numerous times he had snapped it in frustration; it always managed to find its way back to him, unblemished and willing.

Power rushed through him; impulsive. Controlling. Addicting.

Harry gasped, his eyes widened but he didn't let go. Only tightening his grip upon the wood. This was power play. He was having a fight over dominance with...a wand? It would have been shameful had he lost.

Thankfully, he didn't.

Still looking at the Elder wand in distrust, Harry wiped his palm and the wand upon his jeans of the sweat that accumulated in his hands. He huffed, before placing the Elder within his right hand's sleeve, before placing his phoenix core wand at the back pocket of his jeans. He hummed in approval. Good. That will allow the assumption that he is weak and inexperienced.

Harry placed his invisibility cloak within his brief case and three bags of gold, along with forged copies of information and qualifications - just in case. That time was the time of war, and he wouldn't risk any disqualifications, along with being homeless.

He raised his hand before pressing his mouth against the cool, marked stone.

With a baritone voice, he spoke.

"Perhaps time had addled my brain but it is my wish – and so I stand by it. Take me back in time, however don't you worry. My demands are purely superficial and it is the adrenaline that I crave, and not change. For you, Death, I know it is not too much to ask."

It was brash of him. Stupid, not courageous; to have confronted Death that way. Harry couldn't bring himself to be afraid but he did see the fault in his words.

Death arrived a man dressed in a black suit and nothing more; his skin stretched upon his bones; a dauntingly thin appearance, ghastly. Harry looked steadily on, eyes half lidded as if to express a relaxed aura, attempting to hide the nerve beneath his skin, resounding in his thudding heart. Perhaps he should be worried, when Death held a mischievous upward tilt of his mouth - not enough to seem neutral, and yet not enough to be dubbed as a smile or a grin.

"Ah, . I was wondering when you would have had called me onto your service. His smile widened fractionally as he gazed at the middle-aged man. "But of course," the figure dubbed as Death went on, "your wish...your desire can be easily obeyed, master." The last word was spoken in a bitter-sweet tone, unnervingly polite with a mocking edge.

Harry's brows furrowed in question. "I feel as if there is a...but coming up," he intoned, staring at Death with heavy suspicion.

This time, the ethereal figure really did grin - wickedly, at that. Teeth of pure ivory shone unnaturally in the dark of the night as he watched the figure compose their sentence.

"How astute of you, young master." This time, Death Chuckled. Slightly unnerved, Harry took a step backwards in preparation...just in case.

Catching on the guarded expression of his master, Death rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"But of course, I would never dream to harm you, master." The male vessel looked towards his trunk, seemingly contemplative. "I see that you are packed and already to go, and I will send you back to the time of your choice...what was it...ah, yes. Nineteen twenty-six was it? A peculiar time, although it does not escape me, master, that your nemesis - one by the name of Lord Voldemort was birthed. Just what do you wish to do?"

Slightly miffed at the hard accusation, Harry replied in his defence.

"As I had stated earlier," he murmured with a monotonous voice, "I have no intention of intervention whatsoever. The timeline is their own, I would do nothing to it." He leveled Death with a steady gaze before soldiering on.

"I only seek the rush, and my heart seems too steady and empty to desire for anything but adrenaline, and change is one of them."

As the vessel stared at him, quietened, the silence lapsed into seconds and swiftly onto minutes. About two minutes later, Death chuckled again, and yet again, it was as unnerving as the midnight shrieks of crows and animals.

"Of course, young master," Death soothed. Harry frowned; the tone Death had used...made him seem like a petulant child to a humouring adult. No, he didn't like it at all - for even with his title of master, it still felt as if he was the one played, as if he was the one inferior. But of course, in the light of Death, who would be equal, but life itself? And that entity was something Harry was not. So he had, in calm acceptance and reluctance, played along with the facade of being a master.

"Let us start with your journey, then." And without further ado or warning, Death's hand struck out, easily crushing Harry's rib cage and pushing effortlessly through the muscle tissues and through his heart. Harry looked wide eyed down at the appendage struck through his chest in shock, the midnight moon cascading on the paleness of his skin as blood ran like rivers down his ragged clothes; dripping on the hard, concrete floor. Suddenly, his eyelids weighed a tonne.

In the midst of the blackout; the unconsciousness of his own mind, he heard the skeletal vessel speak, sounding as amused as ever.

"But of course, young master. It was in your own fault, that you had not raised any terms nor conditions for this great adventure."

Above it all, after those words were uttered, Harry felt himself burn, but he couldn't scream. He had tried to, although the silence rung out into white flares. He screamed and flailed as he felt his body disintegrate into dust; fading into oblivion.

But he knew it wouldn't be the end. He would still return to the specific time, as Death had wanted him to - however, he just didn't know what terms. For all Harry knew, that blasted entity could have sent him back as a flobberworm of all things.

He was afraid, and he loved it.

Every moment of his death and rebirth; when he felt himself being torn to pieces; as if thrown down a shredder, or mauled by a rabid dog.

Harry closed his eyes with a ironic smile, as if to sleep peacefully... before he let his consciousness slip in peace.

Alarms were ringing and many voices were heard through his all-too sensitive ears. He couldn't open his eyes, nor could he move. Harry felt as if he as paralysed on a whole, and whenever he tried with renewed effort, it would feel as if he was confined in a tight, hot and moist space. Gagging at the pungent smell, he immediately regretted said action as he felt himself enveloped with a sticky substance that persistently clung on to his skin.

But when he felt himself being pulled physically from the tight space and into a foreign opening, he couldn't help but let loose a rigid scream; which at first sounded like an abysmal attempt of mewling, before he had tried again. An ear piercing shriek could be heard by his ears. Yes, that was better. In the midst of all the chaos that he could have sensed through his blinded senses, he heard lively, excited voices in the background, surrounding him.

Worried and panicked, he tried to squirm but found strong hands - ginormous and clutching around his sides, restraining him from any disagreeing movement.

"My, isn't he a lively one!" Piped a clear, melodic and feminine voice. She sounded exhausted but happy, nonetheless. "It's good to see successful carriage from Antare, even if after many miscarriages and still-borne.

"Yes, yes! It must be the luck of the gods!" A male voice exclaimed happily, getting closer and closer to where Harry had depicted himself as.

"What luck, what luck! And no problems too. You have a yourself a happy, healthy boy, madam Avior!" The voice was lower, male.

Confused and unable to depict his current situation, Harry decided to just lay there helplessly...or at least, until something could have been done with his current...predicament.

The voice of the male had been quick to be hushed by the surrounding figures.

"Quiet!" A low, smooth voice of another enthused. "Do you not see Mrs. Avior resting? The carriage had been successful, yes, but we shall not celebrate yet! Or at least until we get our mistress back to full health and walking around our halls! April?"

"Sir!"

"Hurry and make some more Pepper Up potions and Blood Replenishing Potions!"

"Yes, sir!"

...What the hell?

Oh.

Oh lord.

Death, the bastard alright. So as the price for being negligent on his own terms - a part of Harry had agreed with him in great reluctance - Death had sent Harry back in time...the same era as he had wanted, but as a baby. The adult in Harry's mind groaned in -annoyingly- amusement but also in frustration. His mistake had accosted him around two decades. One of which would he spend getting brought up by the current family - Aviors - and the other, his metaphorical self groaned, in some magical schooling - which was most likely Hogwarts. He scowled. Schooling with Tom Riddle, huh? Wonderful.

So he had discovered, with the abundance of information he had overheard and deducted, that his mother's name was Antare Avior, and her sister - his aunt, was named Ashyr Avior. Throughout the many gatherings of the family he had been brought to, the many voices were too much for him to single out who was whom, and who was referring to whom but through out the months, he had figured out some maids, butlers and...tutors that handled him and his branch in the family - the main branch.

His features didn't seem to change so much; his hair was still dark, and skin was still pale. The most prominent change he would say, were his eyes which were no longer the green of his previous mother's. They were light blue, although he suspected they would grow darker in time - descending into royal blue, perhaps.

His days of a baby consisted of him sleeping, eating and pooping. So dull but at least time passed rather quickly, or quicker than he would have thought. Harry - or rather, Balthazar had been born in a family of Aviors - a reclusive, pureblooded family with no alliances on either the light nor dark. Although their Grey ordeals have avoided them much less confrontations and bloodshed then aligned families, it meant that their allies were half as few, but it was not as if the prestigious yet isolated familia needed help, not at all.

It was to his despair when he had learnt that since he was the first heir in a series of miscarriages, and therefore, it was their duty to take care of him with utmost delicacy but also train him into some kind of insane prodigy of the arts - whether be it magic, physical combat or literature. An insane prodigy he was not - no, he wasn't a patient man; nor ambitious either. Being depraved of literature in his earlier years with the Dursleys hadn't helped him in the sense of a need to read, but made him feel alienated and unmotivated when the words peered back of him.

The annoying feeling of down within his heart are only amplified whenever he had stared at the small text huddling near each other within a wide page of an ancient tome. The fact that Riddle's first horcrux had been a book, and one that tried to kill him at that, didn't alleviate matters any more, only dragging them down in his opinion.

He frowned as he played with a pile of wooden, antique blocks distractedly, unaware of the cooing from hidden maids in charge of guarding him. No, his almost-borderline-phobia for books. That was something he would need to rectify, if his education plan he had spied from the tutors were anything to go by. Already feeling worn out and tired, Balthazar let out a small sigh, ignoring the giggles that sounded behind some statue, and claims that he was adorable. He wasn't adorable. A thirty year old as a baby was far from so.

"Sit up straight. Read chapters twenty-three to forty-five. No complaints; and sit up properly or there will be consequences. A five minute break is allowed after every ten chapters read."

Were the orders that he had to abide by every second morning, after a nutritious breakfast, by his literacy tutor. Balthazar restrained a sigh and a glare of contempt towards where the tutor sat; comfortably on a chair, as if on a throne. Classy, aristocratic. He didn't know whether to be reluctantly jealous or despise the man. A second spared glance with his improved vision - a family bloodline, apparently - allowed him enough of a once over for the tutor, of whom went by the name of Lauchlan Demedeiros. The said man had blood red hair and pale, green eyes. He had a sharp, aristocratic face that was dulled by a seeming warmth of his features.

The middle aged man was handsome, as Balthazar grudgingly admitted so to himself. Eyes returning back to the thick, dark tome at hand, the boy's eyebrows slanted in annoyance as he elegantly attempted to open up to his progress within the book - one of prominent light and dark wizards in history and a dash of grey. The book's cover was lowered upon the desk with a soft thud as Balthazar adjusted himself on the ivory seat.

He straightened his back before fidgeting his collar ever so slightly - his new and refined penguin tuxedo coat sticking crisply into his skin. Stylish? Of course. Functional? Not at all.

Resuming his reading, Balthazar found it difficult not to zone out from the almost dull, drone. He didn't become Master of Death for this. This wasn't on the papers. He didn't sign up for this. He caught his eyelids drooping before the tutor had, thankfully - lest he spent another time lecturing Balthazar on the importance and symbolism of magical history. He was five, for goodness sake but that was something Balthazar refrained from voicing.

He had doubted Lauchlan would be very sympathetic to his pained pleas. Knowing the bastard from his lessons, his tutor would probably have some kind of sadistic pleasure in seeing him squirm and slowly die in boredom of 'Ye' Olde History'. Balthazar assumed that the vast piece of literature had not become of an instant classic because of its riveting tales and amazingly rapt story telling, but because of the sheer frankness and factual, unbiased aspects of it in itself. Impressive, but literally first word on, Balthazar could feel his mentality fading.

The book was sapping his life juices slowly, he just knew it.

His practices continued daily when every time he became older, the list of 'training' the Aviors intoned on him increased evermore.

Today, it was a month after he had turned seven.

Balthazar was happy when his mother and aunt had heartily greeted him - they were both kind, beautiful and graceful, yet still holding a deadly edge. When asked, he followed them and some butlers into a hallway, only to stop at opened double doors. The trickling and running of water caught his ears and as his eyes stared downwards, he saw a long, thin and shallow pool of flowing waters. He tilted his head in curiosity, black locks falling slightly in front of his eyes. The pool's length was around ten metres however the width was no more than too.

Concentrating on the shadows the ripples produced, it was deducted that the depth was approximately sixty centimeters. Having finished his silent observation, Balthazar looked up inquiringly to his mother, an eyebrow raised in question. She smiled, however he couldn't pin point what kind of smile it was.

"You are to take off your pants and stay in your boxers. Also take off the outer layer of your suit and place them both neatly and folded upon this bench." His mother started, placing her hand gently upon a beautifully crafted bench. He nodded in compliance, but stayed silent - waiting for what she has to say. Patience, as it was, was regarded highly within the family - a beautiful virtue, his aunt had claimed.

His mother looked towards her sister, who nodded, expressionless, before smiling.

"You are to walk within these waters from the start to finish for half an hour with a ten minute break as an interval, and five minutes within that interval you will walk alongside the pool and back, before re-entering the pool once more. This is to be repeated twice within a day, and everyday henceforth. Whether you are within or outside of the pool your back will be straight, and your head will be held up high, but not pretentiously so. Understood?"

Balthazar nodded in silence, eyeing the waters.

Sensing his enduring questioning - as to why he was going through this, his aunt elaborated further.

"It is to make your form more graceful; for your movement to flow, as if giving the illusion of your free flowing movement; so graceful and ethereal, as if through water; however, on land. All Aviors are to endure this training; although one would hardly call it so. It is simplistic in the most difficult sense; of where it is facade that is easy to play, but hard to master. Are we clear?"

"Yes." The boy spoke, blue eyes emotionless on the outside, but he did feel a bit of excitement.

"Good. Proceed onward, as your training starts now." Her slipped out her wand before waving it in the air; an intricate and delicate pattern with grace he would only wish to have, before producing a golden bell.

She smiled before placing it upon the bench.

"Use this if you require any help, or if you are feeling too desolate. Now, go on!"

Nodding, Balthazar shrugged off his black pants and tuxedo-jacket before folding them neatly and placing them systematically upon the bench - just as he had been instructed before slowly and carefully lifting himself into the pool. He frowned, feeling the pressure and light strain of water as he tried to drag his legs as naturally as he could within the substance before sighing.

Nothing was easy in this family. Nothing ever.

He was now eleven and eagerly awaiting for his letter of acceptance from Hogwarts, the school he had chosen under the many lists his mother had produced; although he appreciated the various physical and mental training he was provided with, they were all time consuming and took up around ninety-nine percent of his daily schedule, the one percent being dinner, lunch, breakfast and shower before going to bed. The tasks he was set up with were all odd but also, oddly helpful as well. They weren't very blunt; there were many instances where he had to look within an inception of underneaths to actually gather why he was being made to do such chores.

No training had been blunt, no. Especially the physical combat training...with weapons. Balthazar shivered, his body remembering various stab wounds and near deaths his combat tutor had inflicted upon him - a seemingly insane, but brilliant witch by the name of Xiao Fung; whose name deceives her prowess in other things than fighting, causing people to heavily underestimate her understanding of the English language. Most of whom were prejudiced and stereotypical.

It was something that he hadn't discovered until he was eight; that apparently one of the most prominent reasons as to why other wizarding families had looked down upon the Aviors were the fact that not only do they specialize in dueling with magic, they were also incredibly skilled likewise with physical combat. Now that, Balthazar could appreciate; the reasoning and logic behind knowing both physical and magical infliction appealed to him. It was a heavy advantage to have; when and if one of the two elements had been eliminated within the situation, the Avior would be less than helpless - unlike most wizards who relied heavily, if not completely on their magic.

His other training unmentioned previously were:

- Washing dishes with minimal water and at night to promote patience and stealth

- Stepping on foliage with trapped dumb bombs like mines that were sensitive to sound and vibrations. Which meant he had to find a way to avoid the foliage or a way to step on the lesser of great evils. Repeated training of this left him a broken man.

- Going into ball parties with his aunt, who had also been forced, out of pure politeness and respect.

- Greeting various scheming politicians and being a general servant whenever his family held sophisticated but dead boring parties

- Weapon maintenance; not as cool as it sounds. Even when he had received a few choice and necessary gifts of weapons; arm blades, specialized footwear with daggers and wand holsters, being thrown into a room full of sharp and deadly metals really taught him how to be extra careful with unexpected, piercing edges of what he thought to be the blunt sides.

- Magical dueling; where Lauchlan wiped the floor every time, occasionally giving out pointers but mostly just taking pleasure in such easy defeats, but even a bruised and beaten Balthazar couldn't deny the helpfulness and his improvement with dueling, although it would be decades before he mastered such amazing arts as wandless magic.

- Potions; a subject, like analysis of literature, where he didn't excel in at all and the only reason he had been able to craft reasonable potions were all kudos to his tutor - April Williams, a half-blood and intermediate apprentice in the art of potion making and potion theory.

He had also received his given wand; eleven inches, dogwood with phoenix feather core. An odd combination although it felt suited for him, but not as suited as the elder wand had been. He sighed, fingering the wand in his hand. The wand should be in Grindelwald's hands soon enough. He would have to rectify that matter; but Balthazar was unsure as to how that was going to be executed, as he has no where near the power to defeat Grindelwald one on one at the moment, so he decided to just forget about that matter altogether.

His letter of Hogwarts' attendance had arrived, much to expectation and lack of surprise for everyone in the family. Nothing changed within the next few days, besides the sudden elevation of his training which left him too tired to do anything but eat, sleep and shower afterwards.

Because of his mother's need of appearance within an important family meeting on the looming war and tensions rising, it was his aunt who offered to take him shopping for the school supplies his family didn't already have.

So it was with his aunt did Balthazar find himself traversing with in a not-so-different-looking Diagon Alley, eyeing around for candid goods and necessary materials.

When they arrived at an expensive looking bookstore, Balthazar's eyes widened in shock at the expensive prices before scowling - ripoffs, the lot of them!

His aunt, however, looked at the prices without batting a lash before placing them into the basket Balthazar was carrying in his arm.

"Why can't we just buy second handed books?" Balthazar asked his aunt, a small, inquisitorial frown on his face. "It's much more cheaper and I don't see what the difference in superiority would be; besides the quality. That of which I wouldn't need for my grades."

She chuckled, a small, delightful smile playing upon her dark-rose lips. "Nonon, my dear Balthazar. Though we are a small familia of wizard and witches, we still have an image to upkeep. It would not do for the Aviors, a pureblooded family, if their only heir in decades of still-borne were to arrive at Hogwarts with mere,worthless seconds, no?"

Before he could conduct a retort to her rhetorical question, she continued.

"Non, it would be a disaster indeed." She sighed dramatically, feigning sadness.

He sent a skeptical look to his aunt before concentrating on dodging the flood of adults and children; obviously purchasing to prepare their children for their entering of the magical school. When they decreased and when it required less of his concentration to dodge the infinite bags, purses and carts, he replied to her comment.

"I never knew that purebloods would be easily provoked; so as to see a mere used book and deem the whole family of such to be incompetent?" He murmured, eyes directly ahead.

"Ah, but that is life, yes? They see you and think you to be incompetent, but alas you would also have what they want. So instead of careful negotiation they go on to threaten you because you are deemed weak. Although, as Aviors, we would easily set them in their place, but what trouble it would be! And to raise their shackles; dangerous footing indeed." Ashyr laughed, before continuing on in a more serious note, her eyes surveying their surroundings.

"Balthazar," she spoke in a steady, quiet tone. It was so much more serious than her general carefree muses, and it set him on his edge. Interested, his ears perked up as he tentatively listened to what she had to say. "Our family has been neutral since the beginnings of our creation, no?"

He nodded slowly, staring at her from the corner of his eye and wondering if her simplistic question was a trap.

"Not once have we diverged," she carried on after seeing his brief nod. "Although along with our being neutral, centuries ago, our history was marred with bloodshed and desperation. In war," she chuckled darkly, "No one is safe, no neutral person forgotten. We are all required to shed blood to some pretentious lords' names, but as the years passed, our retaliation and prowess for battle in magic and metal has shown our true alliances to even those who were blinded with greed. So we backed off into the shadows, and so did our names and status."

She turned to him sharply, her fuchsia eyes piercing through his royal blues.

"Do you know why I am telling you this, now, Balthazar?"

He stared up at her, stunning blue covered by slicks of uncontrollable, dark locks of hair.

"You want me to hide my skills. To avoid confrontation." He replied stiffly.

She nodded.

"In the bluntest sense, yes." Ashyr smiled, eyes soft. "You are very skilled, Balthazar - far from the strongest, but not far enough for them to disregard you as not a threat. Even in a place like Hogwarts, there are hierarchies you must climb, and although we wish you not to be the lowest, it would be a wise choice to remain in the center. Grey, like our magical affinity."

Balthazar frowned, but after a while of deliberation, nodded to her ever softly when he saw the logic in her words, and more. This was the era of Tom Riddle; gaining his attention, even like this, would result in deadly consequences.

Random chapter preview: Year one of Hogwarts and beyond!

He took down the monster, but it had been close - a corpse of a large arachnid. He was panting, his eyes were wide, and therefore shocked when he had heard the other student pipe up.

"Wow! That was amazing!" She yelled and almost fawned. She sounded hyper. Probably from the adrenaline of a near death situation, Balthazar deducted as he slowly contemplated his options, the sharp, assassin's blades were still activated and protruding from his arms.

Deciding with finality his decision at hand, he raised his wand pointing it towards the unfortunate girl who was still squealing praises.

"Thank you for saving me! I was so scared! Where on earth did you learn th-"

"Obliviate."