Speaking in Tongues – Chapter 3 – Celticas

Reading Time:
10 Minutes

Odd shouting woke Harry up the next morning.

The group didn’t sound angry or excited. They were talking as if the topic was as interesting as the never changing Scottish weather, except they were shouting it at each other.

The volume was distracting enough that it took him a minute to make sense of what they were saying.

“-unstable.” Madam Pomphrey shouted.

“Terry can take a reading and start a search.” A man shouted back. “But there isn’t much hope. You know as well as any of us that there are very few magicals in the community. If it’s as bad as you say, the chances of finding a match and getting them here in time is low.”

“I know.” Madam Pomphrey said at a reasonable volume. “Come, he should be waking up soon.” She shouted.

They clattered and stomped loud enough to wake the dead. Somehow they got louder and louder. To save himself, Harry clapped his hands over his ears and tried to press his head into a blackhole through will power alone.

By the time they slipped into his blocked off area of the hospital wing their quiet voices were a roar of noise that felt like a physical presence.

Knowing it was a sensory spike didn’t make it easier to deal with.

“Easy there. Ch’ench’enkil.” Madam Pomphrey cast and the noise subsided to a more manageable level. “Harry, these are the contact team from the Glasgow Psyonic Centre. They need to run some tests to be able to help you.” Three men and a women were arrayed behind Madam Pomphrey. Two of the men were old. As old as Dumbledore looked, although he assumed they weren’t actually in their hundred and tens like the headmaster. The other man and the women were somewhere in their twenties or thirties. Experience making their eyes sharp, but they hadn’t seen enough of life to wrinkle their faces yet.

“What tests?” He whispered.

“There are a few that are standard for any Sentinel or Guide, and then some extra for magical S and Gs.” One of the old men said. His dark brown eyes were warm and the kind smile on his face invited easy agreement.

“What tests?” Harry asked again. He was sick of things happening to him without his input.

The man didn’t look put out that he hadn’t gotten the instant agreement he might have expected. “May I sit?” He waited until Harry nodded his permission. “Thank you. The first is testing each of your senses, that will tell us where on the psyonic scale you fall. The next will be your connection to your spirit animal, though we already know it is robust.” He smiled kindly.

Harry remembered that from Muggle Primary. In Year 6 they had a class on Sentinel and Guides. The stronger a connection between a S/G and their spirit animal, the more solid they could appear. The weakest were only visible to their bonded, while the strongest could directly interact with the physical world.

He nodded his understanding and waited for the man to keep talking.

“The last one is to take a psyonic signature, that will be compared to the signatures of guides we already have on file to try and find you a match.” He spoke with his hands. Sketching invisible images and links in the air above his lap. “For magicals, coming online can awaken other gifts. The final test is your magical level. The results of all of these will go into narrowing down, and hopefully finding your guide. If not now ,the results will be sent out to the other centers that deal with magicals and hopefully, in the future, they will find your guide.”

It all made sense to Harry. But he was loathe to allow a group of strangers, who hadn’t even bothered to introduce themselves, to collect that much information about him. And he knew most of it was needless anyway as he had already found his guide without their help.

“Can you just take the signature and do the test for awakened gifts?” He didn’t think he could get away with not letting them take the signature, and knowing if he had any other magical gifts wasn’t information he knew how to get himself.

None of them looked happy.

“Mr Potter,” Madam Pomphrey started, “you really must allow them to do all of the tests.”

“Why?”

“Without the tests we do not know exactly what level you are, but we do know it is high. Your senses aren’t stable, and won’t stabalise, without a guide.” She explained.

“No.” He crossed his arms across his chest and glared at them all from his hospital bed.

“Really now-”

“Why ask for my permission if you’re just going to ignore what I want anyway? Just like always?” He demanded. 

“He’s right.” The young woman said before any of them could continue arguing. “He is old enough to make his own decisions.” She started at Madam Pomphrey and the old man until they begrudgingly nodded and then she turned on Harry. “But you need to understand the risks of saying no.”

That made sense to Harry. “Sure.”

“You are probably a very high level Sentinel. If you don’t find your guide quickly, you will become unstable as Poppy said. Do you know what that means?” 

She was doing well at not talking down to him. Her voice was serious but she was speaking to him as a peer not a petulant child. Which he knew he sort of was. At least in this.

“That my senses will go haywire.” Harry spoke only to her, ignoring the other people in the little cubicle.

“And eventually catatonic.” She added.

He wasn’t going to budge though. “I know. I still only want the signature and magical gift test.”

“Okay.” She agreed. “Poppy, if it’s okay with you, I will stay in the castle. There are some skills I can teach you that will hopefully stabalise you a little. It’s no guarantee though.”

“That’s fine with me.” Madam Pomphrey agreed. Her mouth was still tightened in a small mue of disapproval, but there wasn’t much she would do about it.

“I’m happy to learn.” Harry appreciated the compromise that he could tell none of them were thrilled about. But he wouldn’t give in. He was sick of being pushed and pulled without any choice. He also didn’t want them figuring out about Malfoy. Not until he knew how he felt about it all. Always knowing the other teenager wasn’t as antagonistic as he pretended, didn’t wipe the slate clean. They would both have work to do there. And the Slytherin would have to appologise to Hermione for the slurs he had used against her over the years.

“Tomas will do the tests.” She gestured at the old man.

Tomas moved in close again and drew a strangely short wand. He flicked it in the air as if he was writing as he cast “Joronts’iib.” A white blow began in front of Harry’s chest and steadily darkened into a deep, rich green with flecks of gold and red throughout. If the green had been any brighter he would call it distrubingly christmassy. Instead all the colours were rich enough to edge them over into an ancient forest dappled with autumn sunlight.

It brightened for a second and then blinked out. Tomas was holding a scroll that he hadn’t been before.

“Can I see it?” Harry asked, already reaching a hand out to take the parchment.

Tomas put it into Harry’s hand without comment. Rolling it open he found why. It was filled with complicated arithmancy that he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Hermione might be able to. He didn’t bother asking, he just picked up his wand and cast the copying spell gemino on it. Tucking the original under his blankets against his hip, he offered the copy back to the old man.

None of them quibbled.

“The test for awakened gifts is a little different.” Tomas explained before he cast. “It will show a symbol or mark of any gifts you possess. That includes your magic and that you are a sentinel. It will be the ones after that that are of interest.” This time it was a spell as much as an incantation. “E’esajil le siibalo’ob ket buk’ ichil le k’i’ik’ yeetel wiinkilal.”

As the first movement of Tomas’ wand completed a circle in front of Harry’s chest, he could feel his blood moving. A song began just out of hearing. It grew and grew until it was a choir of power and strength. It reminded Harry of some of the opera music Aunt Petunia used to play when she had Mrs Cooper from number 7 over to visit.

A low hissing joined the sound. It was telling a story of the Tribe it had once protected until they were overtaken and then forgotten. The long lonely years where few had called on its power. And then the turn from a forgotten protector to a dark weapon. Used to scare and lie. It sang of wanting to be remembered as it once was.

Heat licked up around the song. Flickering at the edges of Harry’s awareness. Burning away the chill from memories of his cupboard in the depths of winter.

Shadows gathered beside his bed. Until they twisted into the form of a tall man. His shadow eyes held a kindness that made Harry want to cry. “Grandson. My line runs true in you. As Azhdaha is here to protect you, I am here to teach you.” The figure faded as the song reached its crescendo before fading with the last of the shadows and heat.

Tomas was panting harshly and sweat glistened on his brow. While Harry had been distracted by the spell, the other old man had wrapped an arm around Tomas in support. Now he guided Tomas into the waiting chair. The rest of the group was staring at Harry in various combinations of disbelief, curiosity and fear.

“We need Satü and Guivi to come.” The woman said.

Harry wasn’t sure who she was, but with the way the others had let her take over earlier and the way they all quickly nodded at her command, he suspected that she was in charge. Even if she hadn’t been the one to cast on him. The old man slipped out of the room after making sure Tomas was settled. He drew the young man with him, leaving Madam Pomphrey, Tomas and the woman.

“What’s going on?” He asked. “What did the spell say?” He might have experience it, but he didn’t understand it.

“You have three gifts.” Again the woman spoke for all of them. “I’m not sure what the first two were-“

“Parseltongue and fyrremaj.” Pomphrey offered.

The woman waved a hand. “There you go. The third is the reason I am calling in Satu and Guivi. Kiment’aan or mediumship is a gift only awakened in Shamans. Satu is a Shaman as well as being the Alpha Guide for Scandinavia. She will be able to help you train that gift and learn whatever you need to learn.”

From the words of the old man, Harry suspected he would learn what he needed to know from him, not from some Guide he had never met. Another adult who would have their own agenda that probably had nothing to do with helping Harry.

He didn’t say that though. He hummed and nodded and only half listened as they talked at him. Eventually they left him alone. Saying it was so that he could get more rest, but he could hear them talking about him the moment the door was closed behind them.

= + =

Madam Pomphrey released him from the Hospital Wing during dinner. He was hungry, but had no interest in facing the whole school. The gossip must be spinning out of control. Instead he headed to the alchemy classroom to wait for Malfoy. It was the perfect place really. It was in its own little building off the main courtyard. Everyone avoided it because ten years earlier a couple of Hufflepuffs had been growing illegal smoking poppies in it, and they had interacted with some alchemical residue. The result had smoked out the courtyard during exams, and the smoke had caused wicked hallucinations that took a week to wear off. Since then it was firmly off limits.

And the Puffs had found somewhere else to grow their hallucinogens.

The classroom was much cleaner than Harry expected. The corners were free of dust and the air wasn’t stale or damp. He wandered around poking though the Professor’s desk and the couple of books abandoned on shelves.

“Take that one.” A voice whispered when he flipped open an alchemy book thatwas filled with the most complicated formluae and diagramshe had ever seen with handwritten notes in every centermeter of spare space.

He didn’t jump at the command. Just. Whipping around, he drew his wand and was ready to blast whoever had snuck up on him into the opposite wall.

Except there was no one there.

Silver moonlight streamed into an empty room. Until the moonbeams weren’t so empty. A shadow moved without anything to cast it. It shifted and moved as if it was breathing. Harry squinted as if to bring something small into better focus and a face appeared in the shadows.

It wasn’t the man from the hospital wing. Instead a woman smilled at him in welcome. “You should take my book.” She said again. “You will be able to learn a lot from it.”

“I… I don’t take alchemy?” it didn’t come out as confidently as he would have liked. 

She waved his concern away. “I will teach you.”

“Uh-”

“HARRY?!” The door cracked against the wall as Malfoy came barrelling through it, wand drawn and spell already glowing on the end.