Four Sect Alliance (Harry Potter AU; Xianxia inspired)

Some people looked at Rubeus Hagrid and assumed that he was a simple sort. There was often an assumption made that a man of his size must obviously be more brawn than brains and that he would have to be raw muscle rather than holding any degree of spiritual refinement. The worn and patched clothing that he habitually wore, covered with pockets holding the oddest thing, did nothing to dispel such an impression.

Rubeus Hagrid was a Master of Beasts and no one reached mastery of any path of cultivation without having a brain. He was not an eloquent or subtle man, but he had stood motionless for days until Wild Aurochs passed close enough to observe their smallest habits and had pitted himself in a battle of ambushes against a Great Tiger from which only he had emerged alive.

Hagrid had learned from the original sources both the Salmon Leap and Snatching Magpie Talons. He knew how creatures of dozens of varieties moved and so it only took him a single glance to notice how an important detail about the child he had been directed towards. Was different than he had been told.

"So," Hagrid said slowly, trying to moderate his voice into a kindly rumble, "Yer Harry Potter, right?"

Through the contact from his hand on the child's shoulder he felt every motion they made. There was no need to look down to actually see the nod nor to notice the continued worry that the tension in muscles spoke of to him.

"I'm Master Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts Keeper of the Keys," He continued then chuckled, "I could go all formal past that but, eh, it'd sound real silly with me doin' that eh?"

"Yes, sir?" The response was tentative and uncertain.

"I came 'cause we had the name of 'Harry Potter', of that there number four Privet Drive, down as a potential student of cultivation." Hagrid forged on even as he felt the response beneath his hand, "Yeah, that's right. 'Coulda just said something like 'Yer a cultivator, Harry', but that's not quite true yet."

They reached the end of Privet Drive and Hagrid guided them towards the right as he speaking, still taking them further away from the house which had been the closest thing to a home that Harry had ever known.

"Yet." Hagrid stressed, "Ev'ry one's gotta go through the stages, work long and hard, and there's all the risks in being a cultivator. We do great things, great things but terrible ones. You could die doing 'em. You could die learnin' to do 'em."

Each step seemed to take the pair further and further along the roads. The streets that Harry knew best began to recede behind them and the boundary which definied the edge of Little Whinging's stifling normality drew closer.

Hagrid's hand left Harry's shoulder and the giant stepped across the invisible demarcation. A cryptic glowing symbol, part of the Formation which defined that boundary, passed between Harry and Hagrid but the large man ignored it. Crouching down he turned his gaze upon the child he had escorted here and truly looked. His eyes took in the hand-me-down clothes, the messy hair in a ragged cut, those eyes which gleamed like emeralds, and saw what those were a deliberately cultivated distraction from.

"Harry, mosta those who get noticed as havin' potential are have something weird about 'em." Hagrid said, his tone sympathetic, "Some see things that others don't. A couple are too big or strong. Beasts act like a few are catnip. All sorts of things. Maybe even not looking the same from one day to the next."

Harry Potter looked up at Master Hagrid, at the larger-than-life man who had effortlessly plucked her from the house which had seemed more like prison than a home, and tried to absorb what had been said.

"It doesn't mean that I'm a freak, or a changeling, that I sometimes change when wake up?" Harry asked and was surprised when Hagrid chuckled in response.

"I know a girl who changes whenever she darn well blinks wrong." Hagrid confided, "Yer gonna have to wait until you get some Transfiguration lessons under yer belt, but I ken see yer more stable than that. Like Janus o' myth, you flip flop right?"

Harry nodded, not quite trusting her voice.

"Might take a while fer ye to learn control, but it'd make you stronger for it." Hagrid stated then rubbed the back of his head, looking somewhat embarrassed, "Not 'xactly summut I know a lot 'bout, not like if it were you turnin' in ta a beast from time to time.."

The giant of a man shook his head, dismissing both his uncertainly and a few random musings, then took a step back away from Harry. Standing clearly outside the protective boundary, he stared at the young girl and she fidgeted awkwardly under his penetrating gaze.

Harry wasn't used to being the object of such attention from a stranger. In fact she had spent long hours under Aunt Petunia's critical gaze, trying on one set of Dudley's former clothes then another, with an eye to picking out those combinations which best concealed her gender. Despite that she had still found herself confined to the house as much as would not arouse pointed questions from neighbours about her health and wellbeing.

Being looked in such a way made her feel that Hagrid, despite his words, was about to call her a 'freak' as her Uncle Vernon did or strike her down as 'unnatural' as Aunt Petunia often warned her that others might.

Yet, despite those feelings, she couldn't suppress a spark of hope.

"You said that every one, every cultivator I mean, learns how to… cultivate." Harry began slowly. When Hagrid didn't respond she went on, "If I wanted to learn then what would I need to do?"

Hagrid gave her an encouraging smile, "You want to learn then?"

Harry thought back over the things she had read in Uncle Vernon's books, about the tales she had overheard Dudley and his friends had exchange. She thought of how supposedly, as she had never been out to see them for herself, cultivators and the students of the Great Sects were powerful. They ran like the wind, fought the Spirit Beasts that lurked in the wilds away from the town, and nobody saw them as freaks.

"I want to learn." Harry stated firmly, catching Hagrid's gaze with her own.

Hagrid pulled himself up to his full height and, without warning, Harry could feel the the strength emanating from the man. Here was a wild and terrible power yet one which was under careful control. This man who had smiled at her, who hadn't judged her badly despite guessing about her other face, was dangerous.

"Child," Hagrid said, speaking his words carefully in a manner unlike his previous speech, "I offer to you a chance and no more. In you I see the potential to learn our arts, to join my Sect, and I extend a hand towards you."

The man did exactly that, one hand held out towards Harry but still not far enough to cross the threshold again.

"If you would dedicate yourself to cultivating your body, mind, and soul, then step away from safety." Hagrid said, visibly struggling with what was obviously some sort of formal phrasing, "Take my hand and step beyond the mundane. I promise you danger. I promise you pain. I promise you duty. I promise you a chance to learn. If you would accept, step forward and take my hand."

There was a silence which drew out between the two, broken by the rustling of the wind across the long grass around Hagrid and the distant sound of cars behind Harry in Little Whinging.

Harry stepped forwards to take it, feeling a faint tingle as one of the symbols of the Formation passed through her, and Hagrid's hands engulf her fingers as he closed his hand around them. They shared a smile, tentative on Harry's side and bittersweet on Hagrid's, at this silent acceptance of the offer.

The moment was then ruined when Hagrid began to cough, sputtering even as he yanked a handkerchief the size of Harry's shirt from a pocket and covered his mouth.

"Eh, sorry 'bout that?" Hagrid said sheepishly, "Just talkin' fancy like that right does my throat in."

Harry couldn't help but laugh at the giant's expression, letting herself giggle at the contrast between how he was now and how deadly serious he had just been.

"Right, since yer not one of those scaredy cat types." Hagrid announced after letting Harry's laughter subside, "We can be off now. Today's gonna be an important day for you, the first one in ter proper life."

There was suddenly a twinkle in Hagrid's eyes and he beamed at Harry, "You won't always have a master to guide you, not less you been good enough to learn their time, but for today? You got me to help put yer feet on the path and get yer first steps going. Just like a mother bird needin' to push her fledgling from the nest afore it can learn ta fly!"

For some reason, when confronted by Hagrid's enthusiastic words, Harry was suddenly worried that staying at the Dursley's might not have been the better choice after all


Harry Potter had grown up rather sheltered compared to many other children in Little Whining.

That was not to say that Harry's childhood in the Dursley household had been easy, but instead that she had few of the small adventures which others her age indulged in. She had never gone near the boundary Formation before let alone set foot across it on a dare as some of the more adventurous others might have been. Privet Drive itself was closer to the center of the small town so even when peering out of the upstairs windows all Harry could see from them where more houses and streets.

Yet she had heard about the wilds and even been taught about them at school before her Uncle had declined to pay for either her Eleven Plus exam or an apprenticeship. Once, during a midmorning break between classes when she had been hiding from Dudley, he had snuck back into the school and gone all the way up to the roof. From there he had seen the stark dividing line beyond which were plains and woods and deceptively innocent looking hills of lush greenery.

It was quite different to see it as she was now with the surrounding trees mere blurs of green and brown as Hagrid carried her at a dizzying speed between them. It never occurred to her to be scared as he carried her effortlessly in his arms and, without thinking, she spoke.

"Can you go faster?" She asked, her bright eyes with joy. The idea of being to able to move like this, to be able to run like this, seemed to Harry to be the very essence of freedom.

Hagrid's answer was a low rumbling chuckle before he surged forwards and their surroundings became briefly became streaks of color as the wind made Harry's eyes blur.

"Just relax, Harry." Hagrid assured her, carrying her as easily as another man might carry a handful of change,"I got ya and we'll be there right quick enough. We're in the soft places but I know where I'm gonna be getting to."

There was a long moment of weightless as Hagrid burst between trees and leap over a gap then landed without breaking his stride.

"Gonna haveta make this a 'teaching moment'." Hagrid told her almost apologetically as he continued to run. "I told you that you'll gotta learn and that's true. Yer thirteen now, a time o' change and a real inauspicious number. Time is when kids like you start to grow up and prolly why yer Uncle kept you away from other people afore they noticed. Boys and girls start gettin' different about yer age."

Harry nodded as best she could despite the wind of their passage pressing her head against his chest. Pressed close in that way close Hagrid's scent was discernable her despite despite the attempts of the air to whip it away: a mixture of not unpleasant musk and the smell of pine needles.

It made Harry think of the cleaning fluid that Aunt Petunia favoured, but without the connotations of laborious work scrubbing the floors and aching hands.

"Ye'd think it was bad and it sorta is." Hagrid continued twisting for a moment so a branch struck his shoulder rather than Harry. The speed of their passage left the crack of shattering wood was left far behind though. "The Founders though, they realised that there's potential there. It's a bad time but it's got symbolism to be starting there and getting better. See?"

"I think so." Harry offered when the silence extended long enough that she realised the question hadn't been rhetorical.

"That's where yer startin'." He told her and, out of the corner of her eye, Harry glimpsed a flash of grey with ivory fangs which suddenly red before it passed out out sight. "The old old ways would have someun spendin' years, decades even, tryin' to awaken just through meditation. You being thirteen means we just got to give you the right sort of push, open you up to the paths, and we get ye around that bottleneck."

There was another silence but Harry couldn't think of what she was supposed to say. She didn't think that Hagrid had asked a question and she was feeling a lightheaded as the air buffeting around her seemed to be moving so fast that it wanted to pass by her mouth rather than allow her to breathe it.

"Still takes a master to do this right," Hagrid said finally, "Done it for dozens now and I'll do it for dozens more. Ain't had any of ye explode on me yet."

"Explode?" Harry echoed, her mouth suddenly dry and her stomach twisting. Hagrid didn't seem like he was joking.

"Like I said, not had it happen to any student yet fer me. Can't say the same fer Master Snape e'en if he does awaken more initiates." Hagrid grumbled as he continued his tireless stride. "Blames it on the cauldron bottoms being too thin, he does. Or the furnaces not burnin' right."

"You were telling the truth about cultivation being dangerous." Harry said, resisting an urge to huddle closer to the reassuringly solid warmth of Hagrid's chest.

"All of you kids seem to say something like that, but I tol' ye it'd be dangerous." Hagrid said, seeming not to quite understand her reaction. "Ain't everything worthwhile dangerous? It ain't like we got the great Mandate o' Heaven lettin' us have towns and cities everywhere."

"That's… true." Harry said slowly.

The loss of the Mandate, as well as what it had meant, was a lesson that her schooling had touched upon. Harry mostly recalled that class as being one in which Dudley's friend Pierce had got in trouble for dipping a girl's pigtail in ink and so she had missed exactly how it had happened, just remembering that it was something to do with the ancient Empire.

Without that Mandate, the teacher had explained using far too many terms where the capital letters were almost audible, the Authority of Man was limited. The more that the physical world was defined and pinned down, the more that the soft places and the wild would push back. Spirit Beasts would become more common, appearing from nowhere if need be, and disasters would occurring.

The teacher had shown them some old maps, three different ones from different times, and even Dudley could see how they differed. Harry most vivid memory about them was how all the older maps lacked the Surrey mountains and how the oldest one showed an island the size of Wales in the Northern Sea.

Harry had once liked gardening and thought about trying to become a farmer. Then he hadn't then thought about how the fields were outside of Little Whining and, without as strong a protective Formation encircling them, Spirit Beasts occasionally wandered through.

"Don't worry, Harry." Hagrid murmured, somehow finding the energy to begin moving faster, "I know the perfect place ta help awaken you. A nice new one, fresh and waiting just for you.I'm cert' it'll still be fine. It'll just be a little challenging..."

As it turned out Hagrid had quite the talent for understatement.

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What sort of place will Hagrid take you? (Pick one, no write-in)

[ ] A campsite with a fire and waiting spit.

[ ] A dark cave which you'll need to traverse after he seals the entrance.

[ ] A pool at the base of a waterfall in which to float and mediate.

[ ] A sacred grove to eat the fresh and dripping heart of a Spirt Beast.

[ ] A huge tree in the middle of a clearing.