The End

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in my story nor the setting, they belong to J.K. Rowling and futhermore, I recieve no money for this project.


1
It had been a long night of training. Harry had never fallen this weak before, but Snape had taken him far past his limit. He supposed he shouldn\'t feel too bad since Snape told him that he had gone beyond his modest expectations. As he breathed heavily, sweat dripping down his pale face, he gripped what remained of his strentgth and attacked with his wand. \"Lightningus Ropus.\" Harry gripped his wand tightly as the spell ripped from his wand. Snape didn\'t dodge it, he simply seemed to absorb it. Once the magic had dissipated he placed his hand in a manor that let harry know training was over. Sighing deeply, he looked up at the professor. \"Sorry.\" He began to get up and then realized he had no ability to. Severus walked over and helped Harry to a seat. \"Mister Potter, there is no need for apologies\" He conjured a couple of glasses of water for Harry and himself and then proceeded to take a seat in front of Harry\'s. \"You did well this evening. Any particular reason you felt it necessary to attempt to kill yourself?\" Snape rested his chin on his clasped hands and looked at Harry\'s eyes. \"I\'m going to win Professor, not just delay him this time. I intend to kill him.\" The glint Harry had in his eye made Snape flinch.

\"What makes you think you\'re ever going to be capable of that, Potter?\" Both teacher and student turned around to face Draco Malfoy. Harry\'s eyes settled on Malfoy, unable to muster the strength to show any emotion other than his tired face. \"You look awful.\" Draco continued walking up to Harry. \"I wonder, are we destined to be saved by such a weakling.\" Snape coughed audibly. \"As much as I don\'t mind abuse of Potter, is there a point to your apearance here, Mister Malfoy?\" Without looking, in Snape\'s direction, he smirked. \"I came to see the hero in action, seems I was too late.\" He chuckled, letting his eyes size up the boy in front of him. \"I\'m disappointed, I expected more from you, hero.\" With this Harry shot out of his chair in an attempt to strike Malfoy, but forgot his lack of strength and collapsed. His next recollection was that Malfoy was holding him up and asking for Snape\'s help. Then he let himself fall into blackness.

~~~~

\"Will they work together?\" The bearded man inquired softly. \"I don\'t know sir, but I don\'t think we can invest hope in them.\" The voice of the head of griffyndor house sounded tired and streched. \"If they can, their contrast is perfect for the task ahead, but Harry cannot face it alone.\" Dumbledore said, walking to the fireplace in his office he lit it, letting the fire reach a comfortable point before continuing. \"I do know that Mr. Malfoy has a hidden power that is so great, we can\'t imagine it.\"

~~~~

It was always the same particular dream, not always the same ending. Harry recognized it as the intermost reaches of his mind. He never was in a particular place, but many, all at once. He could see every deep rooted expirience and emotion. He never tried to make sense of it until recently, it seemed he was seeing the future, only, he wasn\'t sure because of the odd sight he kept settling on. It was far back, almost hidden by a dementor memory.

He decided he would approach it again and see if it made more sense then the last time he saw it. It seemed to be a crying boy, trapped in a room, a fire was burning infront of him. The boy couldn\'t have been more than six or seven, Harry noticed he was craddling his hand. He looked oddly familiar, but before he could look further he was jerked awake by a sudden loud sqwaking. Hedwig cooed and sqwaked, she brought Harry a chocolate frog. He smiled. \"Thanks, Hedwig.\" He ran his hand along her head and let out a soft breath.

~~~~

Draco snapped up from having been knocked on his back by a stun spell. He attacked Snape head on, full force. Shooting spells was easy for Draco, he did it so regularly, it was like breathing. Snape was watching him, he\'d have been enchanted, except he had to be alert or the boy in front of him could kill him with a mere thought.
Snape stepped back as the spells Draco threw intesified, as if he was desperate to get out of an enclosed space, in fact, the look on his face read exactly that of a trapped animal.

\"That\'s enough, Mister Malfoy.\" Snape announed calmly, as if danger was not possible. Draco\'s knees slamed to the ground as his body recognized the effort it had gone through, no longer drawing on adreniline. \"Sorry, I couldn\'t push anymore.\" the blonde replied quite angry with himself. \"You did well enough, one doesn\'t simply push a button and gain new powers, Mister Malfoy.\" Snape decided it was better to let his favored student alone for now and left with not another word exchanged between them.

Draco hated this, knowing he wasn\'t strong enough. He couldn\'t beat Snape, that meant he would never touch his enemy and contrary to what Snape thought, it wasn\'t Voldemort he was looking to fight. He sat down on the floor of Snape\'s class and sighed. A snake had begun winding his way toward the tired form of Malfoy. \"Hello Eathun, I am sorry, I don t have any food.\" He said softly, reaching out his hand he rubbed the snake\'s head affectionately. Eathun wrapped himself around Draco\'s body hissing softly and Draco began to hum gently. This soon become a soft song and then he was singing at normal voice level. He felt the most safe when he was here singing to his snake.

~~~~

\"Curious indeed, I had no idea.\" The soft voice of Albus Dumbledore stated. The man next to the headmaster raised his eyebrows. \"I recognized the signiture of it\'s mark almost instantly. Though as you would say Albus, it is my area of expertise.\" The man moved his wealchair to face the fireplace where a small fire was burning. \"Yes, Xaivier, I do believe you are quite right. I just worry however, that if you are correct, we may be in more bad than good.\"

\"Well, I realize I am not a wizard, but I believe the coming days will require my expirience with this particular situation.\" Charles Xaivier was a bright man, compared to dumbledore, they were quite the same personality, just from different worlds. \"I will make the necesary arrangements. Can you remain here for a bit?\" Dumbledore was fumbling with a couple of parchments. \"I can, I figured I would be indisposed. for awhile, so all things were set before I came calling. Might I add, that you are really hard to locate by normal means.\" Xaiver stated sarcastically. \"Indeed, I dare say, if I allowed for that, I\'d have more on my shoulders than I could handle.\" Dumbledore replied lightly clasping a hand around Xaivier\'s left shoulder.

\"I shall fetch the ones for which you are here, the sooner we can get started, the better.\" And with that, Dumbledore left the office in a brisk walk that didn\'t seem an old man\'s gait at all.

~~~~

The two boys were walked back to Dumbledore\'s office, the only words exchanged was the headmaster\'s request for them to acompany him. Harry and Draco eyed eachother with contempt. Harry didn\'t like this, Dumbledore was unusually quiet, and Draco\'s preasence made this much more unsettling. Not to metion, the fact that Harry was still recouperating in the medical wing when Dumbledore had retrieved him.

Draco was more beside himself. The Headmaster had seen him singing to his snake, this was not only embarassing, but now, he couldn\'t exactly pretend he didn\'t care about anyone. \'He better not tell anyone about that\' Draco thought worriedly. He had eyed Harry, this was bad. Dumbledore never talked to both of them before and Draco\'s first thought was that this would involve them working together and Malfoy pride doesn\'t allow for that.

When they arrived, Harry gave the password. \"Butterscotch toffy.\" The gargoyle moved to reveal a staircase. As Harry had done so many, many times before he walked up to the Headmaster\'s office. Draco lagged behind, very unsure of himself. The first thing Harry noticed was a strange bald man sitting in a wheelchair. He was so suprised that he jumped back and tumbled into Draco, who had just come up behind him. \"Really Potter, I didn\'t realized you had trouble standing like a normal person.\" Draco whispered into his ear.

\"Ah, I see you\'ve met my guest Harry.\" Dumbledore said as Draco set Harry right and took a look at the man who sat infornt of the fireplace. \"This, is Professor Charles Xaivier, he will be taking over your training\" Draco snickered at this. \"Yes, Mister Malfoy?\" Dumbledore seemed very amused. \"How is this, Cripple, going to teach me anything?\" Draco sneered, letting his extreme distaste for this turn of events to show through.

\"My friend, will you show them what you can do?\" The headmaster gleemed. This frightened Harry but Draco remained unmoved. With an upswing of his head Charles Xaivier\'s eyes shown a bright blue light and suddenly the office was a forrest. \"I am a muggle psychic, young lads, I have power no wizard can fathom. I can make anything I wish happen.\" Harry looked in awe at the forrest around them, if it was still the office, there was no way to tell. Everything told him he was in a forrest, sights, smells, sounds and feel told him this was a forrest.

Draco wasn\'t scared, but rather in awe. \'How can a muggle do this?\' he thought. His father might rethink everything, if he could see this. Of course, after thinking it, Draco knew better and threw the thought away. Dumbledore chuckled and clasped a hand on each of the boys\' shoulders. \"I assume there are no more doubts about my choice of teachers for you, lads?\" He took the silence as a yes and informed them that during this term, instead of D.A.D.A they would train with the new Professor, by themselves.

~~~~

The boys arrived at the designated classroom the very next day. Their loathing, were it a physical object, would be rather large and completely unmanageable. The glares they showed eachother before entering the room told a whole story in just a few seconds. \"You know, you can just let me do the hard work. I\'ve seen your work and it leaves alot to be desired.\" Malfoy grinned and started to turn the knob on the door, which creaked ominously. \"Malfoy, here\'s a fantastic Idea, why don\'t you shut your stupid mouth and stop offending me with that horrid breath.\" Draco went silent and a death glare quickly crept into his features.

Both boys headed into the room together and quickly noticed their surroundings, or rather, the lack of them. The room was completely devoid of funiture or decoration, simply four walls, a celling and a floor. Xaivier sat at the front of the room, He looked up from the small book he was reading and gave a welcoming smile and brought himself forward.

\"Today, I want to build trust between you two boys. If we are to train you two right, you must have trust in eachother.\" Professor Xaivier said this matter of factly, as if it would be easy. Both boys expressed their distaste quite audibly. Knowing exactly what was on their minds, the professor continued as he moved to the center of the completely empty class room he had requested. \"Like it or not, that is my descision.\" and he directed them to sit on either side of his chair. He wasn\'t exactly sure this would work, but usually doing things this way, opened the bonding process that would help open the gates to where he needed to go.

He was still unsure of his compatability to the wizarding world, his mind was the strongest of every human on earth, but when it came to magic, he may as well just be a cripple. He could feel the fear off of young Malfoy. It was so touchable that he couldn\'t avoid it. It was like a giant pink elephant had just walked in and said hi. Harry, on the other hand, was completely indifferent, which really meant the proffessor couldn\'t pick up any particular feelings at the moment.

The trust he hoped to build didn\'t come easy. It involved allowing eachother to see the worst fear they had. Xaivier thought for a minute on how to explain this. Realizing this is a difficult task for friends to even agree to, plus, he could feel the negitive thoughts that the two boys on either side of him had.

When he finally did manage to tell them, to say it went very bad would be a huge understatment. Both boys froze and both thought essences changed to extreme fear rather than hate. \"Now, I realize that you have a distatse for eachother, but we must get passed this. If I am to help you both, I need you to also help eachother.\" The Proffessor sighed, knowing he had done nothing to sway them.

\"I\'ll do it.\" Harry said after a couple of minutes of silence. \"But first, what do we do and how do I know it is safe?\" He shot quickly as if the man would start right away before Harry had a chance to ask. Draco had stiffened and his mind cried out so loud that the professor winced.

\"Well, Mr. Potter, it is simple, I will connect your minds with my powers. The only thing I need you to do is sit still.\" He motioned with his hands and he had closed his eyes. \"Are you ready?\" He said softly, knowing that they wern\'t. He then calmly reached out and touched both their minds.

~~~~

All three of them were now in, what seemed to be a long hallway. All the doors were closed and a thin mist covered the path they walked along. Harry recognized it instantly. He\'d had dreams about this place, but usually the doors were open and he could see inside. However, all the doors seemed sealed very tightly now and he wondered why.

\"How do we know when we\'ve reached his worst fear, Professor.\" Draco asked half concerned and half excited. They continued walking as the professor answered softly, \"He will know.\" Nodding at Harry who seemed to be captivated by his surroundings. It was extremely unsettling to be here to Draco and he couldn\'t understand what this could do to help them train. Of course, he never vented these thoughts, knowing it was wasting breath or what ever it is you did in someone\'s mind.

They had seemingly walked for hours and this was irritating to Draco who spoke quite loud after the long silence that had carried them this far. \"Jeez Potter, if all these doors are memories, you must make stuff up. Do you, maybe you\'re parents, you prentend they\'re still alive? Draco said in a mocking soft and singy tone that made Harry want to make him die. Harry had spun around to say something to his enemy when a door on his right burst open.

A gold light knocked Harry over and standing in that doorway, was another Harry. The Harry on the ground yelled at Draco to look out, but the Evil looking Harry, a smile of intense hate glued on his face, took aim at Malfoy. In a split second Harry reacted, jumping up and pushing Draco out of the way and taking the green blast from himself directly in the chest. Harry slumped to the ground and closed his eyes.

Draco had retuned to his feet right before Harry had been hit. He thought he\'d be really glad Harry was gone but something happened. Rage was inside him now, rage that cried for release. \"Ok Potter, let\'s dance.\" The evil Harry gleamed the smile still on his face and gave a short bow before bringing his wand to Draco\'s chest. The next thing Draco heard was the voice of Harry, it sounded like Voldemort. \"Die!\" It hissed and fired a spell which Draco blocked easily.

\"I don\'t think so, you first.\" Draco said, cocking an eyebrow and grinning. He brought his wand up to it\'s face and thought, \'this should be very satifying\' \"Crucio!\" The spell hit it hard and while it was distracted by the spell Professor Xaivier who had watched in silence moved the struggling creature back into the room and locked the door with his mind.

~~~~

When they all returned to the empty classroom they were tired and sweaty and Harry was shaking. After a long silence Draco decided he needed to ask a few things. \"Why are you afraid of yourself, Potter?\" He said ot so softly he scared himself. \"Not himself Mister Malfoy, but his darkside, So afraid in fact, that he hid it away as best he could.\" \'even frpm the boggart\' Remembering third year and the fact that Harry had feared dementors.

\"So what happened to it?\" Harry\'s sudden question caught Draco off gaurd. \"Did it die?\" \"No Mister Potter, one cannot simply attack a fear physically. You must uproot it, like a weed, it is a slow process, but today is a start.\" Draco wnt over and knelt down infront of Harry looking him deep in the eyes. \"I\'ll help you, if I can.\" Harry was still shaking and on instict Drao took him into his arm in an attempt to stablize him, neither really realized this at all.

\"It is good that you said that Mister Malfoy, because tomorrow you are next.\" The professor had interupted after several minutes of silence, allowing the boys to collect themselves. Draco froze and sheer terror was on his mind. He was afraid because he knew what they would see.


End Chapter one.