Mastering the Basics of Charms

"Great. First thing to know for charms is the basic wand movements, every charm you'll every learn will use at least one of these twelve movements. Transfiguration uses them, defense against the dark arts just about anything you can use a wand for for charms uses these eight movements. For those other subjects you hold your wand slightly differently but for charms you hold it like so." He demonstrated the grip and then corrected Harry's. The lesson proceeded from there at the end of the evening as Sirius entered the room Jack said. "Good Job Harry. For tomorrow how about you read the first chapter in the household charms book and pay close attention to the incantations. Oh and before I forget Since all work and no play makes-"

"Jack a very dull boy." Harry finished for his instructor.

Jack grinned widely. "I was going to say Harry, but you already figured out what I was going to say. Since you won't have class Saturday night I got tickets for you and Sirius to see "CATS"."

Sirius groaned. "Is that why you told me to leave our first Saturday night open."

"Of course, you can't come to New York and not go to the theater." Jack noticed Harry was trying to hide his snickers. "What?"

"It's "CATS."" Harry finally lost the battle and started to laugh. Leaving it for Sirius to explain the joke.

"I… Cats don't like me. I'm a dog animagus."

"Oh.. Oh," he chuckled, "now I get it. Sorry I would have chosen something else had I known."

"That's okay. I like cats, they just don't like me. And my family," Sirius grabbed Harry and mussed his hair, "Likes to tease me about it."

The first day of Harry's lessons with Jack set the tone for the entire time they were in New York. Harry fell into bed every night and slept soundly usually from exhaustion. Sirius and Harry shifted his schedule slightly he woke at nine a.m. He would then spend his days doing school work for Stuart-Cavanaugh, training for his next martial arts belt, studying charms on his own, studying transfiguration with Sirius and Rachel, sightseeing the museums of New York one floor of a Museum at a time, relaxing by working out or playing his instruments, having dinner in a restaurant somewhere in one of the cities many ethnic districts, coming back and having a four hour class with Jack during the week or going to the theater on Saturday nights and going to bed somewhere close to midnight sometimes even after.

The security team didn't know what to think. Most of their assignments involved spelling regular teams assigned to Judges and doing background support, security checks and what not, they couldn't figure out why they were guarding this wizard and his kid. William Cosby was older and getting close to retirement he took the night shift when they weren't going out and making targets of themselves plus the wards on the penthouse made it easy. Catherine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey took mid morning to evening frequently supported by Christopher Judge and Alexis Cruz when they were out and about New York. They were content for the most part to do their shift and then go home,but the one who truly wanted answers about who they were was Alexis. He just couldn't figure it out. Rachel at times seemed the ultimate bodyguard and oversaw the entire group, at others she was teaching Harry and interacting with the principles like a friend.

Alexis had made a point of hanging around the penthouse trying in a non-obvious way to figure out why WIS was guarding these two wizards. They were wealthy, his folks only had a three bedroom place in lower east side's wizarding district. He had shared a room with his brother, his three sisters had shared a room until they got married and when his grandparents used to visit they expanded the living room and they slept on the transfigured couch their whole place would fit in a quarter of the penthouse. But that alone didn't explain it.

He noticed that Sirius Rachel and Harry all had wizarding cell phones, that could have been due to their wealth but since the phones had only been available on the market for four months it was a little unusual. He also noticed that the hours that Harry was studying or was with Jack Harkness, Sirius usually seemed to be working on some project. He had glanced at the papers, bringing Sirius tea once just so he could snoop, but hadn't been able to make sense of what he saw. He heard Harry and Sirius talk about the stock market theorizing different investment strategies and wondered if he should invest a bit of his savings.

He noticed that Harry, who was not even nine, was being given training. This really puzzled him. He had never heard of a wizard having a strong and stable enough core to be receiving training that young. But Harry seemed to be getting really different training, including training in physical defense and a muggle education.

Alexis had grown up in a pureblood home in the only pureblood district of New York, in the New York Office of WIS he was the low power and low man on the totem pole. He'd heard rumors of "special" training that someone in the DC office offered but had never been able to find out about it. But in this assignment his "boss" was from DC and was an active participant in the training of this boy. His father had raised him in a traditional magic home but Alexis had always been one to question the status quo and one of his most enduring questions was if pure blood magicals are so superior to muggles why hide. His father's only answer was tradition although that answer never satisfied him. His father had trained him at home but refused to "indulge" his curiosity about Muggles so after two weeks of watching Alexis asked to join in.

This whole assignment had been eye opening in many ways. Harry and Sirius as they preferred to be called moved through both the magical and muggle worlds with ease and had opened Alexis' eyes to the wonders and challenges offered by the muggle world. Of course Alexis made his share of mistakes being ignorant of muggle culture, Harry had saved him a couple of times from glaring gaffes. On various days when he escorted Harry and Sirius to various museums he occasionally had the opportunity to ask Harry questions he finally got an answer he could live with to the question he had asked his father. Harry had begun it when he asked Alexis a question.

"Alexis, how come you're so uncomfortable around people when we come out to museums."

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