Chapter 5: I Said So…

I own Nothing.

And I apologize for not posting in such a long time but life caught up with me and I'm still trying to get my feet underneath me. I don't know when my next post will be after this but I guarantee I will not abandon this story.

Enjoy.

Fuck portkeys.

The old goat gave him a little metal ring that he said was the quickest way to the blasted school and that it would activate at exactly nine that morning.

What he failed to mention was that the infernal device spun you around more than Dorothy's Kansas twisters.

That's just what they'd get: taking strange items from strange old men who liked candy too much.

Just when he thought he couldn't be surprised anymore, someone or something goes and surprises him, again.

And that was before he saw the effing castle.

Sure the kid said that Hogwarts was a castle, but saying this lithic building is a castle is like saying that Chicago is windy. While it is technically accurate it is also completely underestimating the scale.

Helm's Deep would be hard pressed to match this castle.

The castle was huge. Definitely not the largest castle ever but absolutely massive, the towers were at least ten stories tall, not to mention the main castle itself had seven stories of windows that he could see. And then it had wings. Not two or three but more wings. With wings built off of other wings.

It was not hard to see how the five hundred or so students were not using the entire structure.

The walls and gate had also been impressive. And built for warfare. They were thick, with only a single entry point with a full portcullis and massive wooden doors. This place was formidable.

Suffice to say that one Harry Dresden and one Molly Carpenter were stunned.

And that was without the wards.

There were going to be a lot of surprises today.

Dresden knew these wards when he passed through them. These were true siege wards, like the ones he had on his apartment only a hell of a lot more powerful and most likely deadly. Once fully activated nothing would be coming in or out until they were brought down, either forcefully or when they were deactivated.

And that was the second set of wards. The first were at the edge of the grounds, marked by a low stone wall a simple wrought iron gate. They weren't that thick but they were probably simple warning wards.

Both sets of wards were strong, very complex, and… off. They felt… strained, like they were barely holding on at this point. The warning wards probably still worked for the most part, and the siege wards would probably still work if enough power was pushed into them on activation.

But that shouldn't be necessary the wards should be powered by the anchor runes, which in turn should be powered by the magic in the earth and air. Hell with the amount of power in the air now, there was probably a ley line or two in the area that the wards were tied to.

Going on a hunch, he closed his eyes and opened his eyes with the sight and looked at the wards.

Harry didn't know whether be dismayed or awed with what lay before him. Maybe a little bit of both.

A dome of multicolored light covered the castle as a shield. He could make out the strands of colored magic, green, blue, red, and others woven together like a vast tapestry that when newly christened would have probably held back the entire red court for months.

There were tears in that fabric. Some were massive, as large across as he was tall. If he was standing on top of his own shoulders. Twice over. And some were merely frays in the cloth. The magic in the wards was bleeding out.

The good news was that there was no flickering. If the wards were doing that, then there were issues with the anchor runes and possibly the ward stones.

The bad news was that the wards should be in perfect condition. They just needed a recast, which just went to show how far magical knowledge had been lost here.

Harry was yanked out of his thoughts by a tug on his sleeve. Closing his eyes to the Sight, he turned to see his former apprentice standing next to him with her hand still on his arm.

"We're here Harry."

Looking over her shoulder he saw the massive wooden doors that were more than likely the main entrance to the fortress beyond them. There was a smaller service door inside them that was opened revealing a stern woman in an emerald green robe, complete with pointy hat. Her black hair was strewn with veins of silver and pulled into a tight bun.

Molly thought there was something distinctly feline about her, but couldn't place the feeling. Maybe she was a cat person.

"You must be Mister Dresden and Miss Carpenter," she greeted as she observed them over the top of her glasses, "I am Minerva McGonagall the Deputy Headmistress and Transfiguration Professor. If you will follow me the staff has already gathered and is awaiting your presence."

Harry and Molly thanked her and followed when she turned to lead them deeper into the castle. The both of them were struck by how… old fashioned everything in the building was. The lighting was all done with torches and windows. And the decorations were all paintings and tapestries. Never mind the shock they had when the paintings were moving.

Apparently the professor had been informed of their lack of knowledge and told them about the history of the castle and the magical side of the United Kingdom as they walked.

No one is sure when but wands were invented by the Romans and brought to the British Isles during the conquests. When wands were introduced the number of people clamoring to be apprenticed slowly began to rise as wands were crafted and given out to anyone with magical talent. Over the next seven or so centuries the wand came to dominate the magical scene as staves and other magical focuses which were harder to make and use fell by the wayside.

Merlin was one of the last staff users, and became legendary for his assistance to King Arthur defending the isle against the invading Saxons during the sixth century. He lived for over four hundred years and his last apprentices Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw built Hogwarts in the mid tenth century to pass on magical knowledge to the people of Europe.

No one was sure if Hogwarts was the first School of Magic in Europe or even the British Isles but it was certainly the oldest and as far as they could tell the only one at the time to exist. It was so old that it predated any modern organized magical state including the Ministry for Magic that was founded in the sixteenth century to hide the magical world from the muggle world.

Hogwarts itself was a self-sufficient and by treaties signed during its formation, a completely independent state. For the next several centuries Hogwarts was the only magical school in Europe and expanded massively. Students would come from as far away as northern Africa and Russia to be taught magic there. They taught every subject imaginable many of which were no longer taught or were thought to be beyond the ability of modern wizards.

Hogsmead was actually founded just off the grounds of the school and to this day remained the oldest and largest magical only community in Europe.

But no matter how large the school was, Hogwarts would never be able to hold all the magical students who wanted to attend and the prices of admission skyrocketed due to limited space and became an exclusive school for the wealthy. During the Renaissance happening in Europe Magical Schools began popping up all over the continent. Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and Durmstrang Institute were next two to form. By the 1700s every country had multiple schools of varying sizes including Great Britain.

And so Hogwarts shrank. They had to just to survive and fell back on their reputation as the oldest and most exclusive school of witchcraft and wizardry just to survive.

Every class was taught by the most knowledgeable person to apply for the position. While no significant progress had been made in any of the wanded magics in centuries, most of the other subjects were still making leaps and bounds, and the teachers at Hogwarts were at the forefront of their respective subjects.

Minerva McGonagall herself and the Headmaster Albus Dumbledore were both widely known to be the world's leading experts on Transfiguration both practical and theoretical work. That Minerva was an animagus (whatever that was) was supposed to be an amazing achievement. And Albus was one of the last people in the world to have actually studied Alchemy and under Nicholas Flamel, who was the founder of Alchemy in Europe, was another feather in Hogwarts' cap. That both had their Masteries was a given.

Filius Flitwick was a world champion duelist and had his Charms Mastery from a young age. He was one of the most beloved teachers in the school, and had the most attended class after the OWLs at the end of fifth year.

Severus Snape was a prodigy at potions. He was the youngest person in recorded history to obtain his Mastery in the subject and just six years previously created the Wolfsbane potion.

Pomona Sprout was continuously spending her summers discovering and cataloguing new magical plants across the world and was another student favorite.

Minerva allowed herself a small smile when she looked back at her two companions and saw the stunned looks on their faces. It was very amusing to see the two of them looking so overwhelmed at all of the information that had been given to them. Albus had told her that the two of them could pull of magical feats that no one else in the world was capable of duplicating but they were so lost when it came to the more mundane things in the magical world.

Finally they had reached the conference room where the staff meetings were held. As they walked through the door all conversation stopped as the professors all turned to look at the newcomers.

All of them were sitting around a large table with Technicolor Gandalf sitting at the head opposite the door they came in through.

Nobody missed the staff he was carrying or the fact that neither of them was wearing robes.

"Ah, thank you Minerva for retrieving our newest Professor and his assistant," he said with his eyes twinkling madly as their escort nodded and took her seat next to the headmaster, "everyone these fine people are Harry Dresden and his apprentice Molly Carpenter. They were recommended to me by young mister Potter to take the vacant Defense position. Unfortunately the Ministry has already placed one of their employee's in the vacant position; she will be joining us just before the start of term.

"As such I have asked them to teach a Magical Applications and Varieties class available to the fourth years and above if they are taking Arithmancy or Runes."

Harry and Molly stood at their end of the table while Dumbledore gave his little speech. They couldn't really sit anyway as there were no more chairs. They both thought it was a little odd that everyone had a different type of chair. One exceptionally short man was sitting on a stool, where as a veritable giant was sitting in a chair that could easily have been mistaken for a loveseat were it not so high off the ground.

They were both broken out of their observations when a greasy haired hooked nosed man dressed head to toe in black drawled out an objection.

"Headmaster, why are we taking hiring advice from Potter? The last time I checked he was a student, not a staff member. How do we even know they are who you say they are?" It was perhaps not the most cordial way of saying what the hell are we hiring them for, but the man did ask what was clearly written on several of the other staff members' faces.

It would have remained as such if he hadn't sneered while he continued, "And what precisely will this class be teaching, the best way to use a levitation charm?"

That had several of the staff members, including McGonagall, turn and glare at the sallow skinned man who was too busy trying to make eye contact with Harry to notice.

"Calm yourself Severus, you know as well as I do that Mr. Potter is not easily impressed, nor does he trust easily, so I merely met with these two so I could divine what had the boy so interested," Harry would swear to this day that the old man was amused with the entire situation.

Maybe he really was a little touched, "In any case we haven't discussed exactly what Mr. Dresden would teach as I so caught up listening to the explanation for his demonstration to ask what he had in mind to teach. I was hoping we could get another demonstration before we discussed what would be the courses curriculum."

Now Harry knew why the old goat was so amused, every single person in the room was in shock as they turned first to the old man, who just kept twinkling away (he HAD to figure out what that was), before they all turned to face him with contemplative expressions all around.

Harry turned to Molly with a small smirk on his face and quirked an eyebrow at her in silent request. As she returned the smirk the two of them disappeared from view.

It was a good thing she had covered sound with the veil too because when the two of them vanished with no apparent movement at all every jaw in the room hit the floor and the little man on the stool fell off in shock. Even Dumbledore's eyes widened.

Harry nearly broke a rib when Admiral Ackbar Burst into the room and yelled "It's a trap!" before running back out slamming the door behind him. Molly had a couple of illusions of famous movie characters pop into and out of existence while they regained their composure and so they could become visible again.

They nearly lost it again though when Jaws swam up through the middle of the table and ate a swimmer.

They reappeared to the stunned room and Harry couldn't resist asking, "Any questions?" to the silence.

Everyone in the room began asking questions immediately and it took five full minutes before there was any sort of order in the room so he could start speaking again.

"What I want to teach the class is exclusively wandless magic," he almost lost them again there, but he didn't let them get a word in before he continued, "wandless magic, magical theory, using runes to create alternative focuses and for enchanting, how to unravel a spell and create a new one with Arithmancy, mind magic, potion making, warding, and a variety of other tricks."

Harry took a second to again look out at the shocked faces around him, before they all started speaking again.

This was going to take a bit longer than he expected.

A/N:

Thank you everyone for waiting so patiently for this chapter, I know I said it would be longer, but I figured you all deserved to have something put up sooner rather than later.

Next Chapter we meet back up with Harry Potter and see how he's doing. That will probably be an exclusively Potter Chapter.

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