11 Training & Being Harsh

Upon seeing Harry coming out of the Charms classroom, Hermione looked at him with an excited face. "Harry, let's go to the Common Room, quickly."

"Hm?" Harry looked at her with a confused look.

"Come on, Harry! You didn't forget you promised to teach me magic, did you?" she asked him with a glare.

"I really need to put a cap on this bossy attitude of hers," thought Harry. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. But we won't be going to the Common Room."

"Where are we going if not the Common Room?" asked Ron.

"Somewhere secret, but first you have to promise me neither you won't reveal it to ANYONE else without my permission," replied Harry in a serious tone.

"I promise," replied Ron and Hermione simultaneously.

"Now let's go, I'll tell you about it when we get there," said Harry, leading the two away. "But first we need to get some food frown the kitchen."

"You know where the kitchen is?" asked Hermione filled with curiosity.

"If course I do, girl, who do you take me for?" said Harry while puffing his chest.

"Alright, food!" exclaimed Ron excitedly.

"Seriously, Ron, just how much do you eat? We just had lunch," said Hermione with a look of disbelieve.

"Hey, I'm a growing kid, I need lots of good to make sure I grow healthy and handsome," replied Ron.

"Ugh, seriously. Harry why do we need food from the kitchen?" asked Hermione ignoring Ron.

"Because we might not make it to dinner," replied Harry, finding Ron's excitement for food amusing. "And because I'll definitely get hungry. Now enough questions for now."

Harry led the way down the stairs and went directly to the broad stone basement. It was brightly lit and had a lot of decorations that was themed after food. Harry looked around and found a painting of a fruit bowl. He tickled the pair in the painting and found it really amusing as it giggled turned into a large green door handle. He pushed the the door handle and the huge Hogwarts kitchens was revealed much to the astonishment of Ron and Hermione.

"Ron, Hermione, welcome to the Hogwarts kitchen," said Harry as he walked in. The duo followed him in with their mouth hanging in astonishment.

"This place is bloody amazing!" exclaimed Ron in amazement. "Now that I know where the kitchen is, I'll never go hungry."

"Harry, how did you find this place?" asked Hermione in a high-pitched voice.

"Secret!" chuckled Harry.

The kitchen was gigantic with a high-ceiling. There were give tables that were not only identical to the ones in that Great Hall above, but also situated in the exact same positions. There were a humongous number of pots and pans that were either placed around the stone walls that Harry guessed were either counter tops or stoves. There was also a huge brick fireplace at the end of the hall.

When the trio entered, the large number of elves that were runing around, busily preparing for dinner, turned and stared at them.

"Hello, everyone, I brought some friends to thank you for the delicious food you all prepared for us," said Harry. "If there is anything any of you need from me, please feel free to ask me without hesitation."

"Oh we have students vesiting us, we don't get that often," said one of the elves. "Come on in and sit by the fireplace. I will get you something nice food."

"You guys are bloody awesome!" exclaimed Ron excitedly. "The food you guys cook are really amazing! Harry, I declare you my closest friend for showing me this place! Thank you!"

The trio spent about an hour in the kitchen, eating and chatting and taking a large amount of food from the elves with them. They finally left and made their way up their way up to the seventh floor. Harry stood in front of a statue, facing Ron and Hermione with a serious look on his face.

"What I'm about to tell the two of you, you must once again promise me that you will NEVER, EVER reveal this piece of information or anything related to it to another person," said Harry in a heavy tone. "Should you ever feel the need to tell anyone, first they must be someone you would go to hell for and second, you must bring them to me before telling them anything."

"Is this thing really so important," asked Hermione nervously.

"Yes, Hermione, it's that important. I'm telling this to the two of you because I have a hunch that I can trust the both of you despite meeting you two yesterday. My hunches are 99% accurate. That's a good enough percentage to trust you."

"As long as it's nothing bad, Harry, I promise on my thirst for knowledge," said Hermione with a serious look.

"I've got your back mate," said Ron, giving Harry the thumbs up.

"Good! The room that we are going to go into is called the Room of Requirement. It's a special room that needs a specific action for it to reveal itself, much like the kitchen," said Harry. "It is basically what it says it is. A room that fulfils what you require. Except for food of course. Which is why I brought so much food with us. Now, you see the wall behind you? Whenever you need it, come here andwalk past the area of the door thinking of what you need. Come and do it with me. I'm going to think "I need a large open area for me, Hermione and Ron". Each of you think the same thing, except change the name part."

Harry walked by the wall and walked past it three times thinking: "I need a large open area for me, Hermione and Ron to train together!" each time he walked past it together with Hermione and Ron. As soon as he finished, a door materialised.

"Woah, that actually worked, Harry," said Ron with his mouth hanging open.

Hermione was also looking at the room with her mouth open in the shape of an O. "This might be a better place to study than the library."

"Trust me, girl. This is much better than the library," said Harry, looking at Hermione with a glint in his eyes. "If we want, we can even sleep the whole night here and no-one would find out. Of course, you can sleep in my bed."

"S-shut up, Harry," gasped Hermione, blushing hard, causing Ron to laugh at her.

"Hahaha, don't worry, I'll wait for you to grow up first before I take you to bed," laughed Harry. "But for that, you'll have to marry me."

"Harry!!" screamed Hermione, her face turning red like a tomato.

"Hahaha, hey Harry, when did you turn into a player?" asked Ron amidst his laughter. "If Hermione blushes anymore, she'll faint."

"Alright, enough jokes," said Harry, shifting back to serious mode. "Let's go inside."

The serious Harry, the laughing Ron, and the blushing Hermione went inside the room and the door closed behind them. Even Harry was shocked by the size of the room. Forget about the word large. Talk about humongous. The room was almost the size of a football pitch with brick walls. However, it empty. After recovering from his shock, Harry put tyre food to a corner and closed his eyes again. A second later three armchairs and a large yoga mat suddenly appeared. The trio went and sat on the comfy armchairs.

"Alright, remember what I explained in charms today?" asked Harry.

"Yes," nodded both Ron and Hermione.

"Good. What I said about the light particles in the air that I imagined; they're real and that's what I'll be teaching you to sense in this room first. If you're able up sense them and control them, your spell casting speed and understanding will improve very rapidly. You would be able to improve your perception and you'll be able to learn high level spells more easily. But I'll have to warn you, this step is going to be the hardest. If you're able to accomplish this, the rest will become easier," explained Harry.

"Alright, Harry, how do we do this," asked Hermione.

"Through meditation!" said Harry. "Meditation is the best method I know of to clear your mind allowing you to sense what's around you."

"Is that what you're going to do, too?" asked Ron.

"No, first I'm going to do some physical exercise first," replied Harry.

"Wizard don't need physical exercise to become stronger," said Ron with a dumbfounded look on his face.

"I'll explain that later," said Harry, taking a black tracksuit and t-shirt out of his backpack. "First start with sensing the magic particles in the air. You can either continue sitting in the chair or you can sit on that mat. We're going to be here for the next four hours. And I will not hear any complaints!"

Having given out his instructions, Harry quickly changed and stretched his body first. He was feeling a little stronger after his morning workout, but it was still nowhere near to the physical fitness he had in the past. However, he did not allow that to bother him as he knew that he would become as strong as he was in his past life in no time.

After stretching, he started with light jogging to warm up and slowly increased his speed. Whenever, he would get tired, he would sit down in meditation and absorbed the mana particles, getting rid of his fatigue. He would rotate between sprinting, performing squats, push-up and sit-ups. Following this routine, two hours soon passed. Harry stopped at the two hour mark and looked at Ron and Hermione to find them sitting on the yoga mat, still meditating. Not wanting to disturb them, Harry decided to change his work out routine. Up until now, he was only doing basic workout.

In his past, Harry was very skilled in martial arts. He would always watch movies that revolved in martial arts and he fell in love withBruce Lee's Kong Fu style Jeet Kune Do in his childhood. When he was 10 years old, he started learning the Kung Fu style of his favourite martial artist. He was practicing it for four hours six days a week with the first two hours of basic physical training and the last two hours of Jeet Kune Do practice. That is what he was doing now.

He started with practicing the basics of the style first so that his new body could get used to it first and then raise the intensity of his training. Once he started practicing his martial arts, he got absorbed into training and lost track of time.

"Why is Harry dancing around?" asked Ron, looking at Harry as if he was crazy. "Is that a form of exercise muggles do?"

"He is not dancing around," replied Hermione. "That looks like Kung Fu."

"What's Kung Fu?" asked Ron, question marks flying around in his mind.

"It's a hand-to-hand fighting style of Chinese muggles," replied Hermione. "I didn't know Harry knew Kung Fu."

"Hey Harry, four hours are up!" called Ron. "Come on, let's eat! I'm hungry!"

Harry looked around and saw Ron and Hermione waving at him.

"Four hours are already up?" thought Harry. "That was quick. Now that he mentions it, I'm kind of hungry too. But when did I get so far away from them?"

Harry started walking back towards them, sweating heavily, breathing deeply. Even though he was getting rid of his fatigue after absorbing the Mana Particles, it appeared it didn't recover his stamina completely.

"I need to find a way to absorb Mana Particles while I train," thought Harry, his breathing becoming steady.

"Harry, we need to quickly get back to our Common Room or we'll get into trouble for being out of bed out of hours," said Hermione with a worried face.

"If it gets too late we can spend the night here," replied Harry, shrugging his shoulders.

"No thanks, I prefer the comfort of my own bed," retorted Hermione with a stern voice.

"Yeah, me too, Harry," said Ron.

"Alright, let's go," said Harry. He took a towel out of his backpack and wiped his sweats dry. "It's a shame we can't eat here. I'm hungry."

"We can eat at the Common Room," said Hermione.

"By the way, how did your meditation go?" asked Harry pick his stuff and the food.

"I kept on getting distracted just when my mind was about to clear," said Hermione with a sad look. It was really difficult for her not to succeed after so much effort.

"I kept on thinking about food and Quidditch," said Ron with an embarrassed smile.

"We'll do things a bit differently tomorrow," said Harry, taking a sandwich and biting into it as they made their way to their house Common Room. "Clearing your mind isn't easy. Especially for you Ron. You're too easily distracted."

"Hahaha, you're right," laughed Ron.

"Why don't you join the Quidditch team tryouts?" asked Harry.

"I don't think I'm good enough," said Ron sadly.

"Just attend the tryout. If you get in, you get in. If you don't, then you don't. Why are you being a bitch about it?" asked Harry in an angry tone.

"But ...!"

Harry stopped and looked at Ron dead in the eye. "Ron, you need to stop doubting yourself. Both Hermione and me have confidence in ourselves and we will constantly get stronger. With your current mentality, you'll be at best average and forever remain in our shadow, unknown. You have talent and you need to believe in yourself to make that talent bloom. I can help you if you need help but I'm not going to babysit you. Make a decision. I don't need someone who is constantly in self-doubt.

So, what are you going to do? Cast off your self-doubt and become a powerful wizard where both your family and friends are proud of or remain as you are right now and always get compared with your brothers?"

"Harry ...!"

"Don't answer me," Harry cut off Ron. "You come up with the answer for yourself not for me. If you decide to you want to become more confident, you know where the Room of Requirement is and you'll find us there after classes tomorrow."

Without waiting for an answer, Harry walked away. Hermione looked at Ron and then at Harry's receding back. "Come on let's go to the Common Room. It's late." She ran after Harry, quickly catching up with him.

"Harry, weren't you a little harsh with him?" whispered Hermione.

"I was, but he needs to come out of his shell," said Harry. "I've been thinking about him for a long time and I finally realised why he's like that."

"Why is he like that?" asked Hermione with curiosity.

"It's not my place to speak about his personal life, Hermione," replied Harry. "And it's not your place to probe."