A/N: Again, I'd like to thank texan-muggle for doing such a wonderful job proofreading my story.
Legends
"Speech"
Thoughts
"Mind Communication"
§Parseltongue§
[Speech in Foreign Language]
Incantations
Scene 9 – Taking Control
It took only a fraction of a minute in real time for Harry to complete his daily exercises in the Room of Requirement. He was now setting up privacy wards around Hermione's bed, still disguised in his malnourished body with glasses.
This was the first time he saw Hermione since his first transformation to the Royal Phoenix in this life, thus this was the first time he saw her with a natural mage sight gifted by his Royal Phoenix. Harry used it to check over Hermione, and was relieved that the only foreign magic on her was from the Basilisk's gaze and a couple of memory charms with Dumbledore's magic signature; however, it looked like neither the MOB nor the red-headed weasel had gotten around to potion her yet. Harry knew the memory charms would dissolve themselves as Hermione's Occlumency training progressed.
Getting comfortable on a conjured chair, Harry took hold of one of Hermione's petrified hands. He spoke softly, "Hey, Hermione. How are you? How is your Occlumency training coming along? I missed you so much and I can't wait to hear your voice again."
After a moment of silence, Harry continued, "I have decided to speed up the timetable on waking you up to tomorrow at the latest. I have arranged to purchase the necessary ingredients, and have a certified Potion Master to brew the draughts for everyone."
Harry didn't let on that he was the certified Potion Master; it was one of the many Masteries he had acquired during his four centuries of life. However, Potions was still one of his least favourite subjects. He would have to get re-certified again sometime.
"There are a couple reasons for this new plan, the main one being that I missed you terribly and I can't wait to see your smile again; I will explain the second reason when you wake up.
"I am sure you already have a long list of questions you want to ask me, and you most likely will have more when you wake up, but please only ask me when we find somewhere private. I would like to apologize that I won't be able to answer all of your questions until you are able to protect my secrets, but I refuse to ever to lie to you. So please bear with me, and trust me that I will tell you everything as soon as it is safe to do so."
After a moment of silence, Harry got up and kissed her gently on the forehead. He whispered, "I love you, my beautiful bookworm."
Harry headed towards the central ward room using the shadows as he thought about his progress since he came back to his twelve-year-old body. His overall plan was simple yet complicated at the same time.
Harry had retrained himself first, so that if push came to shove, Harry could confront the MOB directly, and win. Harry then worked on cutting off the MOB's information network, so that the MOB wouldn't learn he was losing control of him in the first place.
But Harry knew the MOB would eventually learn that he had lost control of his main pawn, namely Harry himself; the MOB would then target those he cared about, in order to regain said control. It was why Harry had stayed away from his girls other than Hermione, whom Dumbledore already knew Harry cared about. After all, the bastard couldn't target them if he didn't know Harry cared about them.
The other reason Harry had stayed away from the other girls so far was that he knew the MOB would see him initiating contacts with Slytherins as a sign of losing control of him, given that Ronald was given the mission to isolate him from anyone other than himself, and Daphne could inform him of his rightful inheritance.
So Harry had decided that only when he was sure he could control the information going back to the MOB, would he start to contact the girls. He would then provide the girls with the necessary political and legal protection as well as teach them how to physically protect themselves. This way, when the MOB eventually did learn of those close to his heart, they would no longer be his weakness, but his strength.
Messing with the MOB's mind and creating trouble for him would help both in destruction of the old goat as well as keeping his attention away from Harry himself. If everything went according to Harry's plan, the MOB would only learn of his loss of control of Harry when Harry wanted him to, which was when the old goat was already politically and publicly destroyed, charged with multiple crimes, as Harry delivered the final blow.
It had been nearly half a year in Harry's perspective since his came back, and regrettably, he had barely contacted any of his girls; he had missed them all terribly. Oh, how he wished to start developing his relationships with them right away, but Harry had learned to have patience; it was something he had to do in his long life of battles during his previous timeline.
Besides, it was nearly four centuries in his perspective since he had lost Hermione and Luna; two and half in Susan's case; nearly three centuries in cases of Daphne, Astoria and Tracy; Fleur was lost before either of them knew she was lost due to the MOB's meddling. So what was six months compared to all that if his patience would grant him an eternity with his girls?
And now, he was at the last step of his plan before he could start contacting the rest of his girls. After taking control of the castle's wards, Cassie would be able to help him control any outgoing information regarding himself.
At precisely five o'clock, Harry arrived at the central ward room of the castle. The ward room was located on the lowest level of the castle, excluding the Chamber of Secrets; it would only reveal its entrance to the Headmaster and any heir of the Founders. The entrance could recognize the current Headmaster by magic or the heir by the Headship ring and thus allow his or her entry.
As Harry entered the ward room, he could literally feel the anticipation from Cassie.
Inside the ward room, there were a series of ward stones scattered around the floor; the Headmasters could adjust the castle's ward by modifying the ward stones, or even adding additional ward stones.
There was also a blue crystal-like stone supported by a silver pedestal in the very centre of the room, which Harry knew was the main ward stone. Harry referred to it as the Heartstone, because that was where Cassie's soul and the Founders' essences were housed.
The pedestal actually went much deeper into the ground and was made completely from Goblin's silver; thus it was almost indestructible. It was also hollow in the centre, which allowed the network of ley lines to feed raw magic into the Heartstone; Harry knew that if it wasn't for the Deathstick, Dumbledore, even as powerful as he was, would have never been able cut off the connection between the Heartstone and the ley lines.
The Founders had added so much protection to the Heartstone that even the Headmaster couldn't access it. A Founder's heir wearing a Headship ring could partially access the Heartstone, and the Marauder's Map was made using that partial access; full access was only granted when the heir or heirs present could claim the majority of Hogwarts and its surrounding grounds.
If Harry only had Gryffindor's and Slytherin's Headship rings, Harry wouldn't be granted full access; but given he also had Ravenclaw's heir ring, the ward stone deemed Harry the majority owner of Hogwarts, and granted him full access.
Harry immediately felt the castle. With the aid of his AIs, a 3D hologram showing every inch of the castle was constructed in his Mind World. He could now sense every ward, every charm, and every piece of active or passive magic that existed within limit of the Heartstone, which included the castle and its surrounding grounds; if he wished, he could also find any living soul within that limit, tell what they were doing and sense their intentions.
"Hello Daddy! So you finally took control of my wards!" Harry heard a cheerful voice, immediately followed by Cassie manifesting in front of him. "Now I will be able to talk to you using our mental link anytime!"
"Great, I will never get a moment of peace from now on with your incessant chatting in my head all the time!" Harry put on a show of mock fear, which only caused Cassie to giggle.
She asked him in her innocent little girl's voice, still using their newly-established mental link. "Do you not want to hear my voice all the time, Daddy?" Cassie finished with a pout.
Harry sighed in resignation, he was never going to win a teasing-contest against Cassie, and one would think with seventy years of experience with her in the future, he would have learned that fact by then.
Seeing her Daddy sighing in not a little frustration, Cassie giggled. She enveloped him in a big hug and continued what she wanted to say out aloud, "You are now in full control of every ward in the castle, the old goat can't do anything to me anymore!"
Harry hugged her back tightly and whispered, "Make that no one would do anything to you anymore! I will make sure of that. No one hurts my princess!"
"Thank you Daddy!" Cassie gushed.
Harry eventually released Cassie and started giving Cassie instruction as they planned; despite being free and all, Cassie was still bound by the Founders' will, and still required Harry's instructions to make the changes. Harry made it up to Cassie by always discussing things with her before giving his instructions.
"Let the old goat think he still has the same control of the wards, and let him sense what he expects to sense. There are a number of monitoring charms around the castle tied to him; keep them active for now, but don't let them report anything out of place."
Cassie happily nodded, and Harry felt her take care of her connection to the old goat. Harry continued, "Good job, my princess. Now that is done, we can make some real changes without the old goat knowing. Can you get those seven crystals you helped me make, please?"
"Sure, Daddy!" Cassie answered before disappearing.
When she came back a minute later, Harry was already busy working with the rest of the wards, so Cassie stayed silent to observe her daddy; she loved watching her daddy concentrate and hard at work: his green eyes were blazing with determination, his movement was graceful and confident, not to mention how he was easy on the eyes, especially now that he had dropped his glamour. Just because she thought of Harry as her daddy didn't mean Cassie didn't appreciate the view.
Although Harry could now activate and deactivate any existing ward using his mind link with Cassie, he still needed to permanently remove or add a new ward manually.
Each past Headmaster had added their own wards on top of the existing wards, and thus many wards were redundant. For instant, there were nineteen separate Anti-Apparition wards cast by seventeen different Headmasters; the repetitive wards didn't make it harder for someone to Apparate, they just drew excess magic from Cassie's core which could be used for something else.
As he already had a copy of every unique ward from his last timeline, Harry permanently removed any ward or ward stone not placed by the Founders. This left only four ward stones behind in addition to the Heartstone, one of which controlled all of the suits of armour.
Harry then marked seven points on the ground around the pedestal; the points would form a regular heptagon if they were connected together.
Harry called for the Elder Wand, which he had blood bonded to him, from its hiding place; the Deathstick appeared in his right hand in an instant. His holly-and-phoenix wand wouldn't be able to survive the amount of magic he was about to cast. Seven short motions later, a seemingly bottomless hole appeared on each of the seven points Harry had marked.
Harry then drew out a knife he made that could mark Goblin's silver and started using the knife to carve out runes on the stem of the pedestal. Harry cast a few charms on the Heartstone when he finished carving; only then did he look up and motioned Cassie for the crystals he asked for.
Cassie was watching her daddy working work with fascination, and immediately handed the crystals to Harry.
The surface of each crystal was covered with a unique set of rune arrays; each crystal was attached to a three-metre-long hollowed cylinder which also had a unique set of rune arrays etched on the surface. The cylinder was made from a synthetic material of Harry's own invention with enchantments modified from those used on Goblin's silver, but the details were a story for another day.
Harry smiled in thanks but noticed Cassie was pouting slightly. "What's wrong, Princess?"
Cassie's pout became more prominent and she whined in a way that particularly suited her current form, "You just carved another rune array I don't understand, cast a charm or a number of charms on the Heartstone I couldn't recognize as all of your spell-work was non-verbal with barely any wand movement, and you still haven't explained what some of the runes on the crystals, not to mention the runes on those thrice-damned hollowed cylinders are for. And these bottomless holes, what are they for? I don't understand!"
Cassie sighed in not a little frustration. She had helped Harry carve most of the runes on the crystals as well as watched him enchant the crystals; Harry had explained almost everything he did, but he was very tight-lipped about the functions of some of the rune arrays and enchantments.
Harry chuckled at his daughter's antics and gathered her in his strong arms after placing the crystals down on the ground. Cassie immediately relaxed against him.
"Aww! My poor princess," Harry cooed to his daughter, who wanted to punch Harry in mock rage, but she was too comfortable to move. "It's a surprise present I prepared for you. I wanted to surprise you this once, as it would be much harder to surprise you after I key you into my Mind World as soon as our work is done here."
Cassie had a hard time suppressing her grin; she had such a wonderful daddy. She was also looking forward to access her daddy's Mind World, especially the library; despite disabling the active defences temporarily for her in the Room of Requirement, Cassie was still having trouble navigating her way to Ravenclaw's Castle in Harry's Mind World on her own.
Cassie looked up at her daddy with her bright green eyes, and gave him a big smile. "Thank you, Daddy!" Before Harry could react, Cassie put on her puppy dog eyes in the blink of an eye, complete with tremoring bottom lip; she pleaded, "But I still want to know, please, please explain to me, Daddy!"
There wasn't anything Harry could do except to sigh in defeat, "Alright, alright. Put those eyes away, they are going to be the death of me one day. I will explain everything to you while we work, OK?"
Cassie immediately jumped up and wrapped around Harry with her arms and legs. "Daddy is the best!" She then climbed down and looked at Harry expectantly.
Harry picked up a crystal and motioned for Cassie to copy his actions with another crystal.
"In the last timeline, I strengthened your magical core enough that you could roam freely anywhere within the ward boundary, not just in the magic concentrated areas of the castle like the Room of Requirement and this room. I am doing it again, but with some upgrades."
Cassie was bouncing up and down as she listened to her daddy's explanation. While she could always sense everywhere in the Castle, it would be so much fun if she could run around freely on the Castle's grounds. Maybe she could go flying outside with her daddy.
"As you know the ley lines are metaphysical; these holes might seem bottomless, but they lead directly to the metaphysical plane of the ley lines. You can see that the diameter of each hole is the same as that of these cylinders."
Cassie nodded as realisations dawned upon her; it should have been obvious. With that said, Harry planted a crystal; its cylinder disappeared completely into a hole. Cassie did the same with another crystal.
"There is a rune array on the inside surface of each of the hollowed cylinders; they were configured so each cylinder would draw raw magic from three different ley lines. Another rune array was etched on the inside to prevent any tampering to the connections."
By now, all seven crystals were planted. Harry approached the Heartstone, drew his knife again and made a cut on his right index finger.
"We placed different wards on the crystals together, I am guessing you assumed the crystals are just some special ward stones?"
Cassie remained silent but nodded in agreement.
"Well, you were partially right. They were modified from the magical batteries used to power the time compression chamber in the Department of Mysteries. You should be proud of these, as we had designed these together in the future; these crystals can anchor wards, store magic and house a magical core. These properties combined together gave us a ward stone that could house a magical core with a functional magical reserve." Harry had just finished tracing the runes he carved on the pedestal using his blood.
Cassie watched in fascination as the originally white semi-opaque crystals started lighting up, but each with different colours.
"As you can see, the magical core in each of these crystals are already charging, albeit very slowly. We are going to speed up the process by releasing another layer of binding on my magical core, just like we did when we first met in your perspective.
"But that isn't the interesting part; the interesting part is that all seven of these magical cores will fuse with the magical core in the Heartstone." Harry finished his sentence while pointing at the stone housing Cassie's soul.
Cassie was shocked and looked Harry in a wide eyed expression. Eventually she recovered her wit and said, "But, Daddy, given what you had shown me about those magical batteries in the Department of Mysteries, and the size of these crystals, each of these crystals could house a magical core nearly half the size of my current core!"
Harry chuckled at Cassie's expression and answered and a teasing fashion. "Actually, with the way we redesigned the molecular lattice structure to increase efficiency and the shrinking charm we applied to the crystals after we finished carving the runes, the capacity of an individual crystal should be much bigger.
"However given how a magical core stores magic differently in a less efficient manner and don't forget we are sharing the capacity of each crystal between a core and a reserve; in addition, I had configured the crystals to only charge to two thirds of their capacity leaving a third empty for emergencies. So only a third of the total capacity of each crystal would be used to house the magical core, which still should be about the size equal to your current core. But regardless, so what?" Harry asked almost too nonchalantly, knowing it would probably frustrate Cassie somewhat.
"So what! What do you mean so what? With a core that size, I have enough power to protect the entire Hogsmeade Village and still leave enough for me to manifest in said village!" Cassie exclaimed in exasperation, she didn't understand why her daddy wouldn't realise the ramifications of his changes. Then she saw Harry's mouth curling up a bit to form a smile, and his eyes seemed to sparkle with happiness.
"Unless that was exactly what you had in mind!" Cassie whispered when she realised this was exactly what her daddy had in mind; her expression started to switch from exasperation to excitement. She saw her daddy's smile got even bigger, his eyes full of love and pride at making his daughter happy; Cassie found herself couldn't be happier nor could she love her daddy more if she tried.
Cassie squealed and launched herself at her daddy, who caught her with his now much sturdier frame. She buried her face in her Daddy's chest to conceal the happy tears threatening to pour out.
Harry felt another piece of his soul being healed as he watched how happy he had made his daughter; however, he had one more surprise for Cassie.
When Cassie finally climbed off him, Harry saw a grin threatening to split Cassie's face in halves, and that made him happy. Mentally making sure the ward room was sealed, Harry started to draw the runes for the core unbinding ritual using Transfiguration. As this was happening, Cassie asked him a question Harry had thought she had forgotten in her excitement.
"Daddy, could you explain to me what kind of emergencies you were preparing for to leave a third of each crystal uncharged?"
By now Harry had finished transfiguring the ritual circle and he turned to Cassie. "Tell me Cassie, do you know what a nuclear weapon is?"
Cassie being the smart girl she was, immediately guessed the direction this conversation was heading, but she still didn't have enough knowledge regarding this matter. "I have only heard some first generations talking about it, including your mum. All I have gathered definitively so far is that it can cause devastation beyond any witch or wizard's imagination."
Harry nodded, and decided that was all she needed to know for now. "That is good enough for now, but please bring up the subject again when all the girls are gathered together; the existence of weapons of this type is one of the key reasons that I need to do what I am planning to do. And it is one of those situations where I need all the help I can get.
"In a really short version, it is a weapon that could destroy a big city in the blink of an eye. I found out the intelligence agencies around the world were not as ignorant about the magical world as the Wizarding World believed, and I won't be able to disable these weapons for a while yet; thus I need to make sure you, my beloved daughter, are protected in case one of those bombs was dropped on the castle.
"I developed a way to convert heat generated by radiation as well as said radiation to magic, but the magic still needed to go somewhere, and that is why I wanted such a large proportion of the crystals uncharged. I still need to place some wards around the grounds for the conversion, which I planned to do as I upgrade the wards around the castle in the next few weeks before the term ends.
"When I finish doing that, you should be able to take ten direct hits from such weapons without any damage to the Castle and its surrounding grounds, but you would need a day or so to leech off the excess magic. I am still working on the solution counter the unlikely event where more than ten nuclear bombs were dropped on Hogwarts.
"And if that does occur before I am ready, I would just have to do what I did in my previous timeline to stop the Third World War, which was going back in time to tamper with all the bombs in existence. I would rather not do that now, as that would mean to go back into the Cold War to do the tampering, and I might actually trigger the Third World War; also, I would have physically aged to my prime by the time I came back, and I don't want to spend a decade with a glamour on."
Cassie nodded in understanding as she contemplated everything Harry told her and she realised that her daddy must have experienced the aftermath of one of those nuclear weapons before; she now had a new appreciation of what her daddy had been through and why her daddy always seemed to be preparing for things.
"Come on, let's get this ritual over with, I have another surprise for you!" Harry said joyfully, trying to return his daughter to her previous excited state.
Cassie came out of her thoughts and saw her daddy was already charging the runes, and she braced herself to help her daddy redirect the magical backlash. She knew this one would be even bigger than the previous three backlashes combined, as a bigger portion of her daddy's magic would be released.
A bright flash later, Harry stood up from where the centre of the ritual circle was; the runes had already disappeared as Harry had only used a temporary transfiguration spell.
Both Harry's and Cassie's eyes were drawn to the crystals surrounding the Heartstone. Visible golden lines of magic connected each crystal to their neighbouring crystals and the Heartstone, forming a heptagonal pyramid with the Heartstone as the apex. Each of the seven crystals themselves was shining brightly in different colours, pulsing in unison not unlike heartbeats.
Cassie was already feeling the power coursing through her and watched the crystals, now parts of her magical core, pulsing in fascination. "Why are they in different colours, Daddy?" asked Cassie absentmindedly.
"That my dear princess, is what the rest of the runes and enchantments are for," answered Harry cryptically.
Cassie retorted, "What, to make different coloured crystals? I thought you were supposed to be old!"
Harry glared Cassie in indignation, causing the girl to giggle and blow a raspberry at her daddy.
Harry thought it was unfair for someone to be so cute, and conceded to carry on his explanation. "You saw me draw the blood runes on the pedestal; I did similar things to the cylinders of different crystals. Basically, I opened a connection between our magical cores in a way similar to that of a familiar bond; however, I did it in such a way that a tiny fraction of my elemental magic was donated to your magical core; the colour of each crystal represents the element you could now control. I am sure this would be handy in the future; hint, pranking Snape."
Cassie's expression was getting brighter by the moment as she listened to her daddy's explanation, but she wasn't prepared for her daddy's next statement.
Seeing Cassie's happy expression let Harry know he had done the right thing, so he continued, "But that is just a side benefit. The real benefit is that now our magical cores are connected, and given your physical form is a magical construct, you could now manifest anywhere within two hundred meters of my location, regardless of where I would be at that time. I plan to take you travelling around the world, so you could see its beauty through your own eyes."
Cassie didn't know what to say, so she just wrapped herself around her daddy as tightly as she could and cried in happiness. Having been stuck in the castle for a millennium, Cassie never imagined she would get to see the rest of the world.
Freedom was something she craved but had buried so deep in her psyche she had forgotten she wanted it. That was until her daddy gave her this wonderful surprise present; sure, it wasn't absolute freedom, but it was more than Cassie had ever hoped for.
In his previous timeline, Harry had seen how Cassie had always been fascinated by the stories of his travels; he was glad he was perceptive enough to correctly assume what his princess had always wanted: to see the world. Now, he was finally able to give that to Cassie; he felt like the proudest father in the world to make his little girl's dream come true.
Harry checked the time using his Occlumency when Cassie had finally calmed down and released her death grip over him. It was seven o'clock already, which meant there was only half an hour left until breakfast; it would be for the best if he could get back to the dorm before that.
"Come on, Cassie. Let's finish configuring your wards so I can get back to my bed before people start to notice I am missing," said Harry gently.
"First, castle perimeters. Turn all functioning security wards to maximum. Monitor and control the entry and exit of anyone and anything through the perimeter; stop and report any attempted entry by anyone who is not invited directly to me and Professor McGonagall; confiscate any item entering through the perimeter you deem dangerous and store the item under stasis for evidence as well as record the item's sender and its intended recipient.
"Until the time I finish remarking your ward boundaries to cover the entirety of Hogsmeade Village, all secret pathways are closed; I will let you know when I finish that particular project.
"Next, the well-being of the residents. Turn on the full functionality of the suits of armour, and have ten extra moved to the Slytherin Common Room for protection against unwanted sexual advances; I will not have my castle become a training ground for rapists. You are to intervene directly if the suits of armour are not persuasive enough. I will work on creating more suits next year.
"Now that you can manifest anywhere within the castle, you are also authorized to intervene directly if anyone was to be harmed. Wait a minute, scratch that, make that anyone other than Ronald Weasley, Draco Malfoy and his cronies; they need to have a taste of their own medicine," said Harry thoughtfully, and he smirked, "Besides, it's quite amusing to watch them beating each other up not knowing why they were doing it."
Pure of heart he may have been, Harry could still be particularly vindictive when it came to the red-headed weasel; he would not forget his role in the attempted murder of his Hermione in their first year and the actual murder of his Hermione in his previous timeline.
"Back on topic, for anyone else, shield the victim from any curses and transport him or her directly to Madam Pomfrey if needed; disarm and stun the offender; again, alert both Professor McGonagall and myself; I will then contact the DMLE if needed and the professors have not already done so.
"Let's try our best to prevent the need for anyone to be sent to the hospital, but we both know that we can't do anything without any evidence; so use your passive telepathy to monitor for any harmful intentions and alert me and the closest professor available; hopefully this way, we can catch any offenders in the act without anyone being seriously harmed.
"Stay invisible to the rest of Hogwarts for now; I will make an announcement at the Leaving Feast to introduce you and the Founders as well as to give everyone a fair warning. From the next term on, you will be authorised to do more: up to castration for any sexual offenders. We will work out the details later once I have a discussion with the girls. Speaking of sexual offenders, can you provide me a list of all those who have committed or tried to commit sexual assault in the past fifty years and the Pensieve memories of the events for evidence?"
Cassie nodded affirmatively.
Harry's expression hardened and he growled, "Good, it's time for those sick bastards to learn that their actions have consequences."
Cassie again nodded, this time in agreement. She knew what happened in the last timeline and she agreed with her daddy's firm stance against these foul acts; Cassie was glad that this time Harry would help her to spare those girls those horrifying experiences.
Harry's expression returned to normal. He said gently, "Now that we have taken care of the protection of the Castle and its residents, let's work on information control.
"I have permanently disabled anything cast by the old goat other than those that could alert him of the change. But you are now in control of the Castle, so you can now control what information goes through his monitoring charms, can't you?"
At Cassie's affirmative nod, Harry continued, "Good. I don't want to invade other students' privacy, but we are at a critical time taking the old goat down. I have configured your ward so that even communication mirrors could be intercepted. I want you to scan any outgoing message for any reference to me; if it looks like someone was reporting about me to anyone, intercept the message, and I will check it personally and decide what to do.
"Check carefully especially for anything sent by the Weasleys and Snape, but don't get too fixated on them; I might be paranoid, but knowing what I do know about the manipulative old goat, there will be someone else observing me from afar reporting to him, someone unexpected. That's what I would do if I was to use human intelligence for information gathering."
Cassie nodded contemplatively; her daddy was nothing if not thorough and she wondered what else had her daddy experienced in his previous life to make him this paranoid.
"Speaking of Snape, like I promised you, you can prank him however you want, especially to keep him away from any of my girls. I am going to establish my contacts with them starting today, and I don't want the greasy bat mind-raping them for information. In fact, I want you to prevent him from going anywhere except for his room and his fifth and seventh year classes."
"Sure, Daddy! This will be fun!" Cassie had a certain gleam in her eyes Harry wasn't sure if he should be excited or terrified about.
"Could you also check if any elf still bonded to Dumbledore is left in the castle?" asked Harry. He wasn't quite sure what to do yet if there was still an elf spying on him for the old goat; he knew very well how the old goat could inspire some fierce blind loyalty using his grandfatherly demeanour. Harry had already configured the ward so that only Hogwarts elves, Potter elves and unbonded elves could enter or exit Hogwarts freely; he hoped there wouldn't be any elves trapped in Hogwarts.
Harry wasn't worried about any of Dumbledore's elves trying to enter though; the old goat would be too busy contemplating about his encounter with "Ariana" to deal with trivial matters as why his elf suddenly couldn't enter the ward, and he just might chalk that up to the physical changes of the now free elves.
Harry relaxed when Cassie reported to him that there was only one elf who used to spy for the old goat left in the castle, but was now bonded to the castle instead of the old goat.
"Good. Last thing regarding information: now that the mail redirection ward on me is gone, there will be a lot more mail arriving for me than usual; my sudden increase in the number of letters received could raise a few eyebrows. So, redirect them all to the Room of Requirement, and I will answer them all privately.
Cassie nodded affirmatively, indicating she was done. Harry smiled proudly at his daughter and hugged her tightly. "Well done, my princess. As you well know, I still have a lot to do around the castle and the grounds to finish upgrading your defences. I will let you know of my progress. I will require the help of Hogwarts elves though."
Cassie nodded affirmatively, "Thank you, Daddy! For doing this for me. I saw most of the plans you made for my defences; they are quite scary! The castle will be a fortress by the time you are done; I am sure nothing short of an army could get anywhere near me." Cassie hugged her daddy tightly and appreciatively. "And I am really looking forward to travelling to world with you!"
Harry just smiled. It would take more than an army to get anywhere near the castle; when he finished, the castle would be able to defend itself against the full capability of the entire US armed forces in the 2090s and deal with all the existing warheads, approximately 100,000 of them, dropped directly on top of the castle.
So unless there was an alien invasion coming, Cassie would be safe no matter what; but Harry would find a way to deal with that potential as well in the future. He still had quite some time to deal with that; in his previous timeline, humans only got their first extra-terrestrial contact at the end of the twenty-first century.
"Believe me, Cassie, I am looking forward to travelling with you, too. I am thinking of taking you, my parents, the girls and their parents to America sometime this summer, but we can finish that discussion later. Now let me key you into my Mind World, so I can get back to the dorm."
Cassie couldn't believe her daddy just teased her like that; she would have pestered him for more detail if she wasn't so anxious to see her daddy's library in his Mind World.