Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fate/Extra. Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and the Fate franchise is owned by Type-Moon.

Week 1, Day 3

Much like the previous morning, Harry found himself waking up to the comforting warmth of Archer. However, he quickly realised that, unlike the previous morning, he wasn't simply snuggling up against the Servant's side and was instead sprawled out on top of her, using the soft mounds on her chest as a pair of rather comfortable pillows. Torn between wanting to stay where he was for a bit longer and the thought that he should probably get up now that he was awake, the eight-year-old stretched slightly with the intention of going back to sleep only to stop when he noticed that his baggy jumper had disappeared at some point during the night and that the quilt was bunched up at the bottom of the bed so that it only covered his and Archer's legs instead of their entire bodies.

"Good morning, Harry. Are you feeling better today?"

Hearing Archer's voice caused the young Master to look up at her and, even without his glasses on, he could see that she was wide awake with her left arm under her head to support it while her right was loosely wrapped around him. She didn't seem to be at all bothered by Harry's current position on top of her as she passed him his glasses and was clearly more concerned with finding out whether he had recovered after exhausting himself the previous day.

"I'm fine," Harry absently replied as he looked around for the missing item of clothing, eventually spotting it on the floor at the other end of the room.

"You took that off an hour or so after we went to bed yesterday since it was rather warm," Archer informed him after noticing the questioning look he was giving his jumper. "You threw the duvet off as well but I guess you were too tired for it to really register."

In truth, the child had been so tired that Archer had had to help him with the jumper as he had been having difficulty getting it off by himself and, even then, he had ended up unintentionally dumping it on her face while settling back down to sleep. Since none of Harry's clothes had been washed over the last few days, the smell had been a bit much for her sharp nose at that distance so she had quickly tossed it as far away as she could without thinking. The Servant had also taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the garment's removal to give her young Master's body a quick check and, while he was a little on the scrawny side, she had been pleased to find no noticeable signs of malnutrition or physical abuse, something that she had been worried about since concluding that Harry's home life wasn't particularly pleasant but hadn't wanted to bring up directly due to the topic's sensitive nature.

"Oh," Harry muttered to himself, clearly surprised that the jumper in question had travelled so far.

Since Archer was awake, the black-haired child decided that it probably wouldn't be appropriate for him to carry on using her as a bed so he stretched again and climbed off of her and onto the floor. As he did, he caught sight of a red mark on the back of his right hand that he initially thought was a stain until his attempts at getting rid of it proved useless. Having a closer look, he saw that it appeared to be a tattoo in the shape of a snake with a jagged body that reminded him of a bolt of lightning starting just above his wrist and extending down to the somewhat heart-shaped head that had a short forked tongue sticking out like it was trying to lick his knuckles.

"Archer, what's this?" He hadn't noticed the odd pattern over the last few days since his jumper's sleeve would have kept it covered all the time but, now that he had seen it again, he vaguely remembered it appearing in that strange chapel when he had first met Archer.

"Hmm?" The cat-eared Servant merely had to glance at him staring at his hand to know what he was referring to. "Those are your Command Spells. As a Master in the Holy Grail War, you have been granted the right to three absolute commands as proof of your contract with me. Should you use one when giving me an order then even things that are otherwise impossible for me to do can be accomplished. However, they also serve as proof of our participation in the Holy Grail War so using the third one would result in immediate disqualification, regardless of what it is used for." She knew that she probably should have told him this, along with a few other things that she still hadn't covered yet like Noble Phantasms, back on the first day with everything else but she had held off on it since she hadn't wanted to overwhelm him with too much information at a time.

"When you say 'absolute commands'…" Harry started to ask, only to trail off since he wasn't sure he was understanding it correctly. If he was, then the symbol on his hand could force Archer to do something that she didn't want to and that didn't sound right at all.

"Absolute means absolute. If you use one with an order then I would have no choice but to obey as the Command Spell would force my body to move even if I didn't want it to. The effect is weaker with broad and long-lasting instructions to the extent that it's generally useless but a concise and specific command would be strong enough that you could even force me to kill myself if you wanted to," Archer elaborated. Her Master's thoughts were like an open book to her right then and she could easily tell that he really didn't like the idea of having such control over her; had she been contracted to someone else of questionable morality, then she would not have been anywhere near as forthcoming with her explanation. "On the other hand, if we are in agreement on the order, then a Command Spell could be used to empower my actions to a degree far above what I would otherwise be capable of. Even though they have the potential for misuse, Command Spells are one of the greatest weapons a Master has at their disposal if used properly."

"I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to," Harry quickly promised. The thought that he could do that made him feel uneasy and his Servant clearly trusted him to not abuse the Command Spells since she told him about them.

"I know you won't," Archer replied with a slight smile. "Just remember, you can only really use two of them so try not to use them unless there's no choice; using one in a situation where it isn't necessary is essentially wasting it."

"I'm not going to use them at all unless you tell me to," the glasses-wearing boy declared resolutely. He didn't want to risk angering the Servant by using one without her permission and her judgement would undoubtedly be much better than his anyway.

"Alright then," she conceded. Her young Master seemed to be focusing more on the Command Spells' unpleasant ability to force her actions rather than their useful ability to strengthen them so she would need to sort that out at some point but it could wait since it was unlikely that they'd need them so soon into the Holy Grail War.

With the issue of the Command Spells more or less dealt with, at least for the time being, Harry went off to deal with the usual morning stuff while Archer contemplated the apparent lack of laundry facilities and wondered if it'd be worth trying to acquire some more appropriate sleepwear for her Master from somewhere.

After getting some breakfast from the commissary, during which time Archer asked Harry to enquire about clothes only to be told by the clerk that she didn't stock things like that, the young Potter and his invisible Servant headed back up the stairs to see if they could learn anything from the library. Stepping onto the landing, the green-eyed child saw Hakuno standing more or less in front of him. The brunette didn't seem to know that he was there yet as she was looking at something down the corridor but Harry decided that he might as well say hello to her since she had been friendly with him the previous day.

"Good morning, Hakuno," Harry started, only for the teen to quickly shush him before he could even finish the greeting, along with making a shooing gesture with her hand. Feeling a mixture of confusion and sadness at the response, as it suggested that she didn't want to talk to him, the boy was about to leave her and go to the library when Archer spoke up from next to him.

"From the looks of it, she's trying to listen in on the conversation those two near the door are having so don't feel disheartened by her actions. She might not even realise that she just tried to get rid of you like that," the Servant remarked.

Hearing that, Harry turned his attention to the corridor that Hakuno was looking down intently and quickly figured out which two people Archer had been referring to. Standing next to the library door was another teen the same age as the amnesiac next to him with her long black hair fastened up in a pair of twintails. Unlike pretty much everybody he had seen in this school, this girl wasn't wearing the usual brown uniform and instead had a red long-sleeved top with a white cross on the chest, a short black skirt and a pair of black high-heeled boots that went halfway up her thighs.

Opposite the black-haired girl, with his back to Harry and Hakuno, was another teen with short blue hair wearing the same uniform that everyone else was. Harry had no idea who either of them were or why Hakuno seemed so focused on what they were talking about since the conversation didn't appear to be all that interesting.

"…from you in the past, but this time the winner is me! With her armada to back me up, I'm invincible. Nothing you can do will be able to even touch me," the blue-haired male declared arrogantly.

"Oho, you must be pretty confident to give out information about your Servant to an enemy," the teen in red replied.

"So she has an armada," Hakuno muttered to herself, quietly enough that Harry barely heard her.

"I understand now," Archer spoke up, drawing the young Potter's attention. "If she's paying attention to what he is saying about his Servant like that, then it's likely that he is her opponent. Gathering information on the enemy like this is vital to success in the Holy Grail War and that Master must either be very confident or very stupid to reveal things so openly. It's a shame that our own opponent doesn't seem like the type to do that."

Harry didn't really understand why just talking about an armada would be so useful since he didn't think it would be enough to reveal a Servant's identity but he trusted his Servant on the matter so he didn't question it. Turning back to the conversation out of curiosity, he then got a demonstration of the importance of information when the black-haired teen started idly talking about countermeasures for dealing with the previously mentioned armada that Hakuno tried to memorise while the other Master became increasingly nervous with each comment.

After a rather pathetic attempt at a comeback, the blue-haired Master quickly ended the conversation, likely to stop himself from letting anything else slip by accident, and turned around to leave. He only took a single step before he caught sight of Hakuno standing in the middle of the corridor and his nervous expression increased even more.

"You…! You weren't there the entire time, were you?" he half-asked and half-demanded, pretty much confirming that the amnesiac brunette was indeed his opponent. He then tried his best to look more confident than he was probably feeling and gave Hakuno a brief parting comment before quickly walking off.

"It seems that there are a great many Masters who don't understand the stakes involved," the girl in red commented to herself with a sigh as she approached. She exchanged brief and polite greetings with Hakuno and then left.

"Oh, hello Harry," Hakuno said as she caught sight of the eight-year-old while watching the black-haired teen walk off. Her tone suggested that she had only just noticed that he was there so he decided not to mention her earlier actions.

"Good morning. Was that someone you know?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. The fact that the two girls had said hello to each other suggested that they had at the very least met before and he hadn't talked to many people here so he couldn't help but wonder about the other Masters.

"That was Rin Tohsaka," the brunette replied. "We're not really friends, she said that she considers everyone in the Holy Grail War an enemy, but she did explain a few of the basics to me."

"Another foreign person," Harry mumbled to himself, noting the name that was clearly not English in origin. "Where is this school?" Since all of the names that he had encountered since waking up in the school three days ago were foreign, the child was certain that he had somehow ended up in a completely different country, even though he had absolutely no problems conversing with anybody.

"You don't know?" Hakuno asked, clearly surprised by that. "According to Rin, this whole place is in a virtual world called Serial Phantasm, or SERAPH for short. I'm not entirely sure where the system that's running everything is but, from what I understand, it's apparently some insanely complex supercomputer inside the Moon that was built by aliens."

"Huh?" the green-eyed Potter eloquently replied. That just sounded utterly ridiculous. The concept of a virtual world was beyond his understanding and thus the term held no real meaning for him but the idea of an alien computer being inside the Moon was just plain silly.

"My apologies, Harry," Archer said from next to him, cutting clean through his thoughts. "I should have made sure that you understood this earlier but it honestly never occurred to me that you might have been able to get in without even knowing about the SERAPH or the Moon Cell, especially since you didn't question me when I mentioned them." In hindsight, the Servant was disappointed in herself for not realising that her Master didn't know since it should have been obvious when he had recounted the events immediately preceding him waking up in Tsukumihara Academy but she had been so preoccupied with explaining the actual Holy Grail War and all that it entailed, as well as discreetly trying to figure out the extent of the damage his upbringing had caused so she could try to fix it, that she had completely overlooked the possibility. It probably didn't help that this was the first time that the topic of where the Holy Grail War was taking place had actually come up in conversation.

"You mean that was true?" Harry asked incredulously. The explanation still sounded absurd but he didn't think that Archer would lie to him about it. Still, the computer bit did sort of make sense since the enemies in the Arena were called programs and then there were those zeroes and ones that he had seen in the sky the previous evening but dismissed as his imagination; while he hardly knew anything about computers, he did know that long strings of those two digits had something to do with them even if he didn't know exactly what.

"Yes, it was but I don't think it's all that important in the grand scheme of things so don't worry if you can't understand it properly," the invisible bow-wielding Servant responded. "While it's nice to know, it doesn't really change anything since leaving before the end isn't permitted and neither is contacting the outside world. Plus, once we win and you claim the Holy Grail, you can go wherever you want."

"I guess," the child said uncertainly. After giving it some thought, he did have to agree with Archer that knowing his current location didn't seem to make any difference to his situation so he was kind of wishing that he hadn't asked in the first place, if only to spare himself the headache of trying to comprehend it. Deciding to just put the whole thing to one side for the time being, the young Master realised that he had essentially been ignoring Hakuno for a good few minutes now and he quickly apologised.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it," the brunette replied. "It's not the easiest thing to get your head around if you don't already know about it and your Servant seems to have helped so you don't have to apologise. Anyway, since Shinji blabbed about it, I'm going to try the library to see if I can find out about the Invincible Armada. I'll see you around."

The mention of the library reminded Harry of why he was there in the first place and he wound up going with the long-haired teen after explaining that he had been planning on researching his own opponent. Hakuno had no problems with that and the two ended up quietly chatting while they went through the numerous bookshelves, hoping to find something useful for their respective goals.

After spending most of the morning in the library, Harry returned to his private room after getting some lunch at around noon. Like always, Archer materialised as soon as the door was shut while he sat down on the bed. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to find anything of use during his search, unlike Hakuno who had at least discovered what exactly the Invincible Armada was without much difficulty.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find anything," the young Master said, hoping that the cat-eared woman wouldn't be too unhappy with him for his failure.

"You have nothing to apologise for," the Servant replied with a reassuring smile. "We know nothing about the enemy Servant except his appearance and choice of weapon so it was unlikely that the library would have been any help anyway. Once we learn more about him, we should be able to narrow down what sort of books to look through which will make the research much easier."

"If you say so," Harry muttered, clearly not confident in his ability to find the right information in such a large library with only a few days remaining. He also still felt bad about essentially wasting all those hours, especially since Archer had to remain in her invisible spirit form the entire time.

"Would you like to go to the Arena now?" Archer suddenly asked. "There are only four days left of the preparation period and we have yet to acquire either of the Triggers nor have we finished exploring the first floor. If we get lucky, we might even encounter our opponent again and hopefully get some more information on him."

"I guess we should," the orphan replied uncertainly. Researching in the library would be like looking for a needle in a haystack without any clues to narrow things down and there really wasn't much else for the pair to do right then either.

"What's the matter, Harry?" the bow-wielding young woman asked as she sat down next to him. It was obvious that there was something on his mind but she didn't know him well enough to be able to work out what it may be.

"I was just thinking about how this room is the only place you can actually do anything other than fight," Harry admitted, remembering the Servant's explanation of how she was incapable of interacting with anything while in her spiritual state due to the lack of a corporeal body. "Isn't there anything else that you want to do apart from help me?" She had told him that she had died a while ago so surely she'd want to make the most of her second life?

"I told you yesterday that there is nothing more important to me right now than ensuring your survival," Archer responded. She thought that she knew what her Master was getting at and the implication was unexpected but not unwelcome.

"But why? I know that Servants are supposed to fight for their Masters but why is me surviving so important to you?" It was something that Harry had been wondering for a couple of days now but he hadn't wanted to bring it up in case he came across as ungrateful for her assistance. "Why would you help me when you knew that it'd mean getting involved in this War?"

"Why wouldn't I help a child in need?" Archer replied. She had been expecting him to ask about her motive at some point but she hadn't thought that he'd do it so soon. "Even though you weren't trying to summon a Servant, your desperate plea for survival still reached me and there was no way that I could ignore it." A memory from her past floated to the forefront of her mind and she carried on talking with a somewhat haunted look in her eyes.

"I was abandoned immediately after my birth. My father desired a son and had no interest in raising a daughter so he left me to die on a mountain. Even though I was saved afterwards, I'll never forget the despair I felt back then. That's why I saved you. I refuse to allow another child to experience that, even for a moment, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had just stood by and let you die." At that point, the Servant of the bow was abruptly brought back to the present when she felt her Master's small arms wrap around her waist in what was clearly an attempt at a comforting hug.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling bad for bringing up such painful memories. While he knew that some parents gave up their children for various reasons, the idea of someone just leaving a newborn to die because they happened to be the wrong gender horrified him and he simply couldn't imagine how it must have felt for the Servant. It was right then that Harry decided that, despite his desire to know more about her, he wouldn't ask about Archer's past in case he accidentally brought up something else that was unpleasant for her.

"It's alright, Harry. You asked why I am so determined to help you so I told you," Archer replied as she wrapped one her own arms around him. It had certainly been a traumatising experience for her but it had helped shape her into who she was and she had no intention of lying to her Master about anything.

"Right, so the Arena?" Harry asked as he ended the, admittedly enjoyable, hug. It was a blatant attempt at changing the subject and he was certain that his Servant knew that but he really didn't want her to dwell on the memories that he had unintentionally dredged up.

"Very well, then," Archer responded. She knew what he was doing and the concern was quite nice even if it wasn't necessary. As the pair stood up, she thought about how much time they had left and how much they still had to do. "If possible, I'd like to finish exploring the entire first floor today so that we have enough time to cover the second. That said, we'll leave immediately if anything bad happens so make sure you have that Return Crystal."

"It's right here," the glasses-wearing Potter said, showing her the object in question before slipping it into his pocket along with what few healing items he had. With that sorted, the Master and Servant duo set off for their destination.

Remembering what had happened the previous day, Harry stuck close to Archer's side from the moment they entered the Arena as he really didn't want to almost get killed again. It was a good thing he did since a Klein appeared right in front of them barely two seconds after their entrance. The program didn't last long against Archer's arrows but Harry was under no illusions that he would have died before Archer could save him if he had gone in on his own again.

Following the map that his terminal had generated over the course of their previous explorations, it didn't take all that long for the pair to reach the place where they had encountered the Crix two days prior, with about half a dozen Kleins being taken out along the way. Just like the last time they had gotten so far into the Arena, one of the wasp-like programs was casually buzzing around in the middle of the corridor but Archer decided to make a pre-emptive strike this time.

"Remember, stay back while I deal with this but try to keep an eye out for other programs as well," the Servant instructed as she drew her bow back. Her senses were sharp enough that it was unlikely a program could get the drop on her unless she got too distracted but she wanted her Master to feel useful so she gave him the task regardless. Plus, if he was paying attention to his surroundings like that then he should hopefully notice any programs before they got close enough to attack him.

When he replied with his understanding, Archer charged her arrow with prana and let it loose, two more shafts instantly appearing in her hand. Unless the SERAPH was being particularly hostile with the Arena's settings, a Crix was probably the strongest program on the entire floor and she doubted that a single hit would take it out, especially given her weakened state. She was proven correct when the insectoid enemy survived the attack with only some moderate damage and made a beeline for her now that it knew she was there.

The young woman responded to the straightforward charge with the two arrows in her hand, this time without enhancing the shots with prana as she didn't want to burn through her reserves too quickly, and followed those up with another arrow immediately afterwards. The first two projectiles knocked the program off-course without doing much in the way of damage but she had gotten rather lucky with the last one as it pierced the joint between the Crix's thorax and abdomen with enough force that it came close to tearing the latter part off. One final well-aimed shot ripped the lower body clean off and that proved to be too much damage for the program to handle as it quickly disintegrated.

Dismissing her bow now that it was longer needed, Archer turned back to Harry and saw that he was staring at his terminal, occasionally glancing around before returning his attention back to the screen in his hand. She was about to gently scold him for not following the instruction she had given him, as it had been primarily for his benefit and not hers, when she remembered Hakuno's explanation of the terminal's functions; in addition to mapping out the Arena as its owner explored, it also displayed the position of any enemy programs that were within a short distance of the Master, even if they were out of sight behind a corner or something.

"We're done here so let's keep going," Archer called out, even though he probably knew the Crix was gone due to it no longer showing up on the map. "Good work with keeping watch," she added as the two of them set off again, the child smiling happily at the approval. "However, even though the terminal shows you where any nearby enemies are, you shouldn't be too dependent on it. If something is capable of evading its detection, not observing your surroundings with your own senses could prove fatal." She didn't necessarily disapprove of his use of the device, as it was arguably more efficient for him than constantly looking around and she didn't think that any of the Arena's programs were capable of hiding from it, but she didn't want him to become too reliant on it since the resulting lack of awareness would only hinder him once he left the virtual world of the Moon Cell and could also cause issues if they ever encountered an Assassin.

"I understand," Harry replied, his previous smile disappearing a bit even though he knew that she was just looking out for him. "Is that another item folder?" he suddenly asked as they rounded a corner. The cube in front of them was floating just like the one they had come across during their first visit to the Arena and it looked pretty much the same as well except for one small difference. The item folder that had contained the Ether Shard had been a pale blue colour whereas this one was a deep red.

"Yes, it is," Archer responded. "I don't know the significance behind the different colours but I can only assume that it has something to do with its contents. Either that or they're all just different colours." She wasn't all that knowledgeable about the workings of the Arena so she couldn't do anything other than speculate.

The Potter wasn't really sure what to expect when he reached out to touch the floating container but the scarf that dropped out definitely hadn't been on the list. It seemed to make of silk or something similar and the fiery red feathers that adorned it went nicely with the item's bright orange colour.

"A Mystic Code?" Archer questioned in surprise as she could sense the magical energy running through it. "I didn't know something like this could be found in the Arena. Even though it's probably not very powerful, it might come in handy at some point, depending on what it does. Why don't you have a look on your terminal?" she suggested, reminding Harry that Hakuno had told him about the device's ability to provide a basic description of items.

"What's a Mystic Code?" Harry wasn't familiar with that term so he no idea why his Servant was so surprised to see it.

"A Mystic Code is an item with some sort of thaumaturgy embedded within it. They can be used to cast spells called Code Casts and it's not uncommon for magi to develop their own at some point."

"Oh," Harry replied as he fished his terminal out and navigated through the menus. There was a new option alongside the item inventory labelled 'Mystic Code' and he poked it. "It says it's a Phoenix Scarf and it has a Code Cast which can slightly restore a Servant's health," he read out loud.

"That does sound useful," Archer admitted. "At the very least, using it would probably save us some money since we wouldn't have to buy as many healing items but something a bit more interesting would have been nicer." Personally, she would have preferred something capable of boosting her agility, even just temporarily, since she had taken pride in the swiftness of her feet in life and the severe drop in her parameters made her a fairly slow Servant compared to others but the odds of finding something like that just lying around probably weren't all that high.

"So how does it work?" the young Master asked, having absolutely no idea how a scarf of all things could be used to heal someone.

"It should just be a simple matter of channelling some of your prana through it in order to activate the Code Cast. Since it's apparently quite a weak spell, it shouldn't require too much and, unlike those healing items you've got, it can be used over and over again without breaking," the bow-wielding woman replied.

With the explanation over, Harry gave the scarf in his hands another look over and tried to send some of his prana into it as Archer had been a little roughed up during the short fights and he figured that he could do with the practise now that he had something that wouldn't disintegrate after a single use. Since he had already successfully managed to consciously use his prana the previous day, it only took him a few attempts before he felt something flow from within him and into the Mystic Code. Unlike with the Ether Shard, the Phoenix Scarf seemed to only pull out what was necessary for the Code Cast as he only felt a minor drain despite him not making much effort to limit the flow since he didn't really know how much would be required.

The disappearance of the handful of minor scratches that marred Archer's otherwise unblemished skin told him that the spell had both activated and done what it was supposed to do so he loosely wrapped the scarf around his neck since he didn't want to risk damaging it by stuffing it into his pocket. After that, the two of them carried on exploring, occasionally having to double back due to encountering a dead end.

After what felt like several hours of walking, during which time they found two more blue item folders with Ether Shards inside and Archer dealt with at least a dozen Kleins, another Crix and a pair of flat kite-shaped programs that she identified as Inspires, the pair caught sight of another item folder floating in the distance. While the Servant blew up yet another Klein, Harry touched the green cube to open it and quickly caught the small card, maybe half the size of a playing card, that fell out before it could hit the floor. Bringing it closer to his face for a proper look, he saw that there was some sort of chip in the middle that could be seen on both sides and there were several angular circuit-like lines extending out from there to the edges.

Since he had absolutely no idea what he was holding, he flipped through his terminal's menus again in an attempt to locate a description. It took a few minutes, as it wasn't a Mystic Code and it wasn't some sort of healing item either, but he eventually found what he was looking for. Rereading the entry on the screen, the child gave the card an odd look before deciding to just chalk it up to the whole place being full of odd things that didn't necessarily make sense.

"We've got the Trigger," Harry announced as he held it up for Archer to look at. "I don't know how this can be a key to anything but that's what the terminal says." He then proceeded to very carefully place the cipher key into his pocket so that it wouldn't get damaged.

"It looks like there's an exit just over there," the Servant informed him, gesturing to the open space at the end of the corridor in front of them. "Have we missed any areas of the Arena?" She didn't think that they had but Harry had the map and she didn't want to leave only to find afterwards that they had accidentally skipped a section.

"It doesn't look like we have," he replied. He was slowly going through the map on his terminal, looking for any indication that they had missed something, but there were no gaps or unexplored corridors so he was pretty certain that they had covered the whole place.

"In that case, shall we leave now? There's isn't much else for us to do here apart from fight against some more programs and I'd rather you not stay in here any longer than is necessary."

Since he didn't really want to stay there either, the eight-year-old agreed with his Servant's suggestion and they made use of the conveniently placed exit in front of them to get back to the school.

Upon returning to the campus, where Harry discovered that they had been inside the Arena for quite a while as it was getting dark outside, the Master and Servant duo returned to the privacy of classroom 3-C. The first thing he did there was place the Trigger on one of the desks where it wouldn't get damaged and he left the Phoenix Scarf with it as well since he wouldn't need it again for the time being and the feathers were starting to itch.

While her Master was busy with that, Archer casually leaned against a wall and decided that this had been the best day of the Holy Grail War so far, if only because Harry hadn't had any near-death experiences. True, they were seriously lacking information on their opponent, who should be experiencing the same lack of information regarding her identity as she didn't think that they knew anything apart from her appearance and Class, but they had acquired both the first Trigger and a useful Mystic Code and her young Master's self-confidence also seemed to be slowly improving after she put him in charge of navigation, even if part of the reason for that was simply because he was the one with a map.

"Harry, we're going to try and track down our opponent tomorrow so we can get more information," Archer stated. She didn't like admitting it but if they couldn't get any data relating to the staff-wielding Servant's identity then the chances of them surviving the first round weren't particularly good.

"Alright," the child agreed absently as he sat down on the bed. He was clearly thinking about something and the cat-eared woman was about to question him when he spoke up again. "Archer, is it possible to cast spells without a Mystic Code?"

"It is. In fact, most magi don't use Mystic Codes when using their thaumaturgy unless they need one to cast a specific spell," the Servant of the bow replied, noticeably surprised by the question that apparently came from nowhere. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to help you but all I can do right now is heal you and read the map in the Arena. We might not find any Mystic Codes that do other things so I was just wondering if they were actually necessary or if I'd be able to do other kinds of spells anyway."

"I'll admit right now that I'm not the best person to talk to about this since I'm not a magus and the only knowledge I have was gained through observation of others but I know that it's doable," Archer said, trying to recall what she knew about the topic in question. "The problem is getting the information that you need to learn from. I seriously doubt any of the other Masters would be willing to teach you and I don't really know anything about actually using thaumaturgy. A Caster would almost certainly be knowledgeable enough but there's still the issue of finding one who's actually willing to help."

"I thought as much," Harry muttered, stifling a yawn as all of the walking he had done that day started to catch up with him. However, he couldn't stop the next yawn from escaping him and he decided that he should probably get some sleep. Placing his glasses out of the way, he moved under the covers but found that he just couldn't get comfortable. He spent the next few minutes shuffling around until a thought occurred to him and he glanced over to his Servant, who had since sat down on one of the desks at the side of the room and was currently having a closer look at the Trigger.

"Archer?" the child began, only to trail off afterwards. He was eight years old and an eight-year-old was supposed to be able to sleep by themselves. What would she think if he asked her to get in the bed because he couldn't get comfy on his own? Besides, he had only slept with her twice and he didn't think that was enough to develop a dependency or whatever the word was, regardless of how relaxing it was to have her so close by.

"Yes?" she asked, putting the cipher key down since she had given up trying to figure it out.

"Um… Uh…" the young Master mumbled, his mind quickly trying to come up with a way to get the outcome he wanted that didn't involve Archer thinking that he was pathetic. "Where are you sleeping?" he eventually asked, wondering if he could steer the conversation the way he wanted without her picking up on it.

"I'm not really sure yet," the Servant of the bow replied, doing her best to hide her amusement. It had only taken her a few seconds to figure out the situation, the fact that he had moved over to the other side of the bed and left a gap next to him that was easily big enough for her had been a pretty big clue, and she found it more than a little humorous. "I think the bed would be the best place since it'd be far more comfortable than anywhere else. You don't mind sharing again, do you?" She almost smiled when she saw him try to hide the happiness he felt at her comment.

"No, I don't mind at all," Harry said as he practically threw the duvet to one side for her.

Once again fighting the urge to smile at her Master's actions, Archer hopped to her feet and allowed her gloves and stockings to disappear during the short walk to the bed. She slid into the space left for her without problem and gently pulled the child close to her. "If you want to spend the nights like this, you just need to ask." The expression on Harry's face when she revealed that she had seen through his plan was a bit too much for her and she let out a brief laugh. "No matter what you may want from me, you should never feel ashamed to ask. Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Archer," he replied as he snuggled against her warmth, sleeping finally claiming him.

A/N: Not much to say here apart from that, in light of a few people commenting that Harry is weak or useless as a Master, I have added a little bit to the end of the author's note at the end of the prologue to address this (I put it there so new readers can see it straight away). For those who don't feel like going back to look, the basic gist is that while Harry is indeed quite weak and generally useless as a Master right now aside from being able to do minor healing, he is gradually going to develop into a competent Master able to pull his own weight over the course of the story. It's not going to be an overnight change but it is going to happen.