AN: This chapter was a bugger to get started but after the first three thousand words seemed to write itself up. In here you can see my first OC which was inspired by the game Dragon Age: Origins which I am playing right now, see if you can guess who I'm referring to even if it is rather easy. I have the story pretty much planned out up until mid third year but if anyone wants to give me ideas then they are more than welcome to do so. On the forum there has also been mention of a friend of a friend of one of the posters who is considering trying to draw my Harry and on that note I would love to see any fan art that any of you would like to show me. It makes me immensely curious how others interpret my descriptions and it would always be appreciated. As I have said multiple times before I have a forum that can be found here:

forum/Fate-s-Gamble-Behind-the-scenes/139203/

And that about wraps it up so enjoy the chapter.

Beta'd by NIX'S WARDEN

Chapter 14 – Back to the Mirror and into the Forest

Harry looked at what was on the floor in his room.

Since he had added the anti-house elf effect to his bounded fields guarding his room the elves had taken to handing his laundered clothes to him on a morning before he did his morning workout. He was probably the only person in the castle who saw as much of the elves as he did.

The package was set a ways inside the door, it had probably been thrown there from the doorway seeing as it was impossible for anyone to actually enter without his permission. Whatever it was, it had been wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. There was a note of some sort attached to it.

Harry cautiously made his way to it, preparing to use structural grasping on it, just in case it was a trap or something. There seemed to be nothing inherently malicious about it. Oh, there was a compulsion charm on it but that could be easily ignored. There was a tracking charm too but it was the object inside that really caught Harry's attention. Whenever he tried to analyse it he seemed to just slide off it like it wasn't even there.

Harry carefully opened the package and a silvery cloak spilled out onto the floor in front of him. It shimmered and it seemed difficult to even look at, his eyes seemed to slide off it if he didn't concentrate.

Harry tried to analyse it one more time, apart from the 'slippery' result of his structural grasping it was fine. He put it on. He didn't feel any different but it was when he looked down to see how it looked that he nearly had a heart attack.

His feet weren't there or, more accurately, they had become invisible. It was incredible and it certainly explained what he had felt from the cloak, it was an invisibility cloak. They were supposed to be really rare and as such Harry wondered who would be sending one to him. There was also the fact that invisibility cloaks were supposed to falter with age and this one was at least a thousand years old if not more.

Taking note of the note pinned to the packaging he analysed that as well. It came back as nothing but ink and parchment. Flipping it over Harry saw the flowing cursive script that said:

Your Father left this in my possession before he died.

Use it well.

No name was given but Harry had a hunch that it was Dumbledore. The only people who had known his parents that he was currently aware of consisted entirely of the faculty and he recognised the handwriting of most of them from when they marked his homework. This was too loopy and fancy to be any of them, Hagrid's handwriting was little better than a scribble and it seemed an odd thing to 'gift' someone anonymously. The compulsion and tracking charms were also in line with what Harry had come to expect of the man.

Harry rechecked the compulsion charm, it was to go to a certain location, and decided that it was better to be informed about what the old coot wanted with him than it was to go in blind. He would follow that compulsion this evening and see where it led.

xxxxx

After unpacking the things he had brought with him, mostly clothing, Harry headed down to Supper. His mind was still on that cloak and what possibilities that there could be when using it. There were charms that he could use on himself so people would ignore shifts in the wind and the indents of footsteps in carpet along with other minor things, there were silencing charms that he could use to make himself unheard as well as unseen, there were even spells to stop smells that he could use so that animals, such as Mrs. Norris the caretaker's cat, would not be able to scent him and that accounted for sight, sound and smell. Of the other two senses only touch remained and, if he managed that, he would be similar to an astralised servant. The problem was finding a spell, if one existed, to make him intangible. Harry doubted such a spell existed otherwise it could be used to combat the unforgivable curses and there was apparently no purely magical way to stop them.

As Harry reached the entrance hall he found Neville and Hermione waiting for him. Harry smiled, those two had sat and eaten with him every meal since the troll incident and Harry was most thankful for it, especially with how some people had not stopped rabbiting on about his 'super cool magic powers' and some had not stopped bothering him. Some had even asked for lessons, the more intense of these had out-right demanded it preaching that all magic should be shared and not hoarded away. The first lot were easily dealt with by remaining silent, they eventually stopped bugging him as something new caught their attention. The second lot had been harder to get rid of but if he sat on the end of a bench with Hermione next to him and Neville opposite then they had less space to get to him at meal times, he'd even dragged Cedric Diggory into it, and he just 'disappeared' outside class time and none of them had yet found where he hid. It was the third group that proved themselves to be the most annoying. Some of them had taken to hovering over him as he ate and stalking him in the corridors, Madam Pomfrey had become rather adept at spotting the signs of a gandr curse as a result. Those in that category scared him the most especially when a Ravenclaw sixth year promised him her first-born and he couldn't tell if she was serious or not.

Harry had not stopped analysing everything he ate and drank at all times just in case and, as a result, he could now tell far more about what he ate than was really necessary. His structural grasping in terms of food had progressed to the point that he knew how many calories it contained, what conditions the animal/plant had lived in, how old it had been when it had been slaughtered/harvested to a matter of minutes as well as being able to tell what proportion of it was protein, starch, sugars etc.

He didn't know whether this was a good thing or not. Nevertheless, no one had yet tried to drug him with either potions or muggle chemicals so Harry counted himself in the clear.

He was sat at the end of the table closest to the entrance hall with Neville on his right this time and Hermione opposite. As it was the first evening back most of his stalkers were catching up with their friends and Harry gained a little breathing room. It was Hermione who began conversation.

"Thanks for the books you two, they were really interesting." She turned to look fully at Harry "I've also been practising the exercises in the one you gave me and I think I can detect legilimency probes now but not do anything about them. Can you help me with that?"

Harry looked up from his steak and kidney pie. "I've never practised legilimency before so I don't know how good at it I'd be but I will help you regardless. I learned occlumency quite by accident, I'd been learning another mental discipline before I even knew about it and managed to form a mindscape in just under a month."

"You're learning occlumency?" Neville piped up. "I've never been very good at that. I thought it might help me remember things better but I never got anywhere with it."

Harry gave Neville a small smile "Your problem wasn't concentration or anything, it was nerves. The beginning stages of occlumency need you to be calm in order to collect yourself and focus. I don't think you'll have as much of a problem now as you did before, you're certainly more confident."

Neville returned Harry's smile with a grateful one of his own "Thanks. I've never had much confidence before, I was always the squib of the family. No one expected me to do well because of how clumsy I always was. I also didn't do much accidental magic and with how good my parents always were, especially my father, it kinda snowballed from there."

"Accidental magic appears in situations of great stress or other emotions. From what you've said the only thing you've really shown is nervousness. Your accidental magic may have even acted on that and made you clumsier than you really should have been. After I left my relatives, I rarely did accidental magic either. I was happy and there was nothing in particular that I wanted for." Harry confided in him before looking over towards Hermione. "Did you do much accidental magic?"

Hermione went a bit red as she replied "Summoning books off of high shelves mostly. I was pretty lonely and wanted friends and now that I think about it I seem to half-remember children's books reading themselves to me out loud, that was probably accidental magic too."

The three of them shared a small smile with each other before Hermione asked "And what about you Harry? Care to give us an example of your accidental magic?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Yeah, I have one. Where I grew up is full of researchers so, obviously, some of them didn't take to kindly to a kid running around the place. There was this one that was really bad and he kept saying really snide and unpleasant things until one day I got so mad that I just wanted him to embarrass himself somehow. Well, as soon as I thought that, his hair turned blue. This guy was a big-wig from Germany and a well established family so it was really bad for his image. The thing is," Harry lowered his voice "It stayed that way. Even when he tried to dye it, it showed through the dye and when he shaved it, it grew back. I still think that he has it now. The Einzberns no longer send him to the clock tower as their representative and, to be honest, I'm rather glad that I don't see him too."

The three of them dissolved into muffled laughter here which made some of the nearby students look over at them before returning to their food. Harry was glad that he had met these two. Hermione reminded him a little of Waver, they both believed in ability over family legacy and they both were constantly thinking of questions to ask. That the two of them had also been socially awkward was just the cherry on the cake.

Neville on the other hand was different. He had been cripplingly nervous but his new confidence had changed him greatly. His personality was completely unlike any other he'd encountered, the closest equivalent he knew of was Arcueid and her perpetual happiness but even that was completely different. Neville was a generally cheery person who could easily get along with anyone now that his nerves had eased. He also had something of a stubborn streak if it came to his friends and he would stand true and loyal with those he'd declared himself for. Harry was touched that, for Neville, this consisted of him and Hermione.

xxxxx

Later that evening, after the Hufflepuff common room had emptied, Harry placed the cloak around his shoulders and set off out into the castle at large. He kept part of his attention on the compulsion charm and where that was leading him as he observed and memorised the route he was taking. The compulsion took him towards the library and Harry began to wonder whether Dumbledore wanted him to read a particular book until the compulsion led him past the entrance and along another corridor.

It was about five minutes later in a seemingly deserted and unused part of the castle that the compulsion had him stop and open a door next to him. He paused momentarily in the doorway, just long enough to place a hand against the wall and use structural analysis on the room in general.

As expected, Dumbledore was in the corner under some sort of concealment spell. The rest of the room was no more magically potent than any other in the castle except for what was in the middle. The mirror from the third floor was stood alone in the centre of the room. Harry was cautious as he approached it and double checked that the bounded fields he'd anchored to it were still in effect.

They were, which meant that the stone was still sealed inside of it. He decided to play along with whatever the headmaster had planned and, after reinforcing his occlumency and throwing memories of his family to the front of his mind, he stepped up to the mirror.

Staring back at him were those who he cared for. Even though he knew it wasn't real he couldn't help but smile at them all. He didn't realise he'd been so transfixed by it until he felt Len weaving in and out of his legs to get his attention. Harry sighed and went over to sit beside where the headmaster had hidden before giving Len a fuss as she was in her cat form.

"You know Headmaster, if you wanted me to see this then there are other methods that don't involve compulsion charms." Only silence greeted Harry's comment.

"You might as well drop the spell, I know you're there after all." And so saying, Dumbledore ended the disillusionment charm that he thought had hidden him from Harry completely.

"Do you know what this mirror is my boy?" He asked. Harry snorted.

"The inscription at the top gives you at least a clue. Did you want to know what I see or was there some other purpose to this little charade?" Harry was not amused, he really didn't like this thing and his tone made that obvious.

"No Harry, I did not do this to know something that personal." Dumbledore sighed. "Once again I find myself wrong-footed by you, is there anything we can agree upon?"

"Perhaps if you talked to me rather than try to control me, you might find out." Harry replied.

"Perhaps you are right. I find that in my old age I have made more and more mistakes. Shall we have that conversation now?" Harry raised an eyebrow at this before he answered.

"Sure, let's talk. Can you tell me why you sealed my parents will?"

Dumbledore seemed to age beyond his years at that. "You had just defeated Voldemort and a number of his followers still roam free. Without the will being sealed anyone can contest your placement but with it sealed a blood relative has the highest claim. I did not want you taken in by a death eater family only to find your corpse as a result."

Harry thought about that for a moment and found it actually reasonable. "You've answered my first question, now you can ask yours."

"Can you tell me how it was you left your Aunt and Uncle's residence? They have no recollection of you making an attempt to run away." Harry decided to be careful how he phrased this next bit.

"That was the result of an accident of magic. I ended up very far away and when someone approached the goblins of Gringotts they legitimately became my new family. My question, why did you try and have Weasel befriend me on the train?" That wording would make him think it was a child's accidental magic rather than an accidental result from applied magic.

"The Weasleys are a good family. They are known for being loyal and true friends. I thought that a stable friendship would help you, it seems that Ronald Weasley was a bad choice." Dumbledore thought for a moment. "May I ask about the nature of the magic you used against Draco Malfoy and the troll?"

Harry considered it and decided to be truthful while not giving anything away. "I have an affinity for magic of a certain nature. That was the reason it manifested as those orbs. I reduced their power so they wouldn't kill but they would still hurt. I would have left it alone afterwards but Ferret didn't seem to realise when he was beaten. The gandr shot was to keep him down and end the duel. What I did against the troll was another of my skills, the difference being that what I used against the troll took years to be able to produce an appreciable result whereas what I did against Ferret was pretty instinctive. Next question, how do you define light and dark?"

Dumbledore was thrown for a moment by this particular question and took a moment to reply. "Dark magic is inherently harmful whereas that which is light is incapable of harm. Most magic has no alignment, at least, that is what I believe. Can I ask you the same question, how do you define light and dark?"

Harry's reply was instant "I don't." At Dumbledore's confused look he elaborated. "To me, magic is magic. Light and dark are merely labels that others have put on it, I do separate right from wrong however. Things I view as wrong include torture, the sacrifice of an innocent or unnecessary harm. My question again, why didn't you punish Ferret for his use of a deadly dark curse during our duel?"

"During your duel I was too startled by him actually using it, and even more so you deflecting it like you did, to really do anything. After the duel I thought that the sickness curse you used as well as the humiliation of being beaten like he was would suffice. If I had taken him to task for it he would have been embroiled in negative emotions that would likely fester and become even worse. Now, where does killing sit on your scale of right and wrong?" Dumbledore did have a point, Malfoy is the type to hate being disgraced and if the headmaster had done so then he might have lashed out. Harry's 'anonymous' tip off had sorted that mess out.

"Murder is wrong. I define murder as killing in cold blood and unprovoked. Killing is different. If someone throws a stunner at me then I will respond with non-lethal means to remove them from the conflict. If, however, someone throws something at me that is likely to result in death then I will remove them from the fight permanently. There are a few other things that warrant death in my opinion. This includes rape and child abuse, there is also the case of someone taking hostages. If the choices are to kill them or risk an innocent dying then I will kill them and my conscience will remain clean. Now, if you care to answer me, can you tell me why you tried to have me tied up in a marriage contract? I found out about the attempt you made with some relative of Weasel."

Dumbledore wasn't happy about Harry's morals but he would ask him in a moment. "I was trying to keep you from following the same path Voldemort did before you. He was isolated like you but also maintained a good relationship with students from all houses, similar to how you act cordially with others. I feared that you would walk the path of the dark arts like he has so I thought that some love in your life would counterbalance it. Was that so wrong? My question to you is why must you kill when they can be redeemed and prove themselves better than the depths to which they've fallen?"

"Was it wrong? It damn well was wrong. What would have happened if I hated the one you forced me to be with? It is all well and good to say that there would be love and she may even be fond of me, even if it is more likely she'd be enamoured with the image of the boy-who-lived. I am loved at home, have my family and a number of friends. It is true that I am by far the youngest but I'm still just as much their friend as they are mine. Now, for my final question, could you explain the media hype about the boy-who-lived to me?" Harry was rather irritated by the old man believing that a simple marriage contract would 'produce love' as it were.

Dumbledore looked a little ashamed now, he hadn't even thought about Harry rejecting Ginny Weasley's advances. "I can only offer my apologies Harry, I'm afraid I had not foreseen you denying her. With regards to the boy-who-lived media thing, it relates once more to your defeat of Voldemort. It had been at the end of a number of dark years full of oppression and fear, he was at the height of his power and was poised to completely engulf all of Britain in his rule when you happened. As with most families, the birth of a child is widely known and as such your existence was no secret. You must remember that, with the exception of the Weasley family, children are rare in magical families especially the long standing pureblood ones and as such they are precious. It is unusual for a family not to proclaim their child's birth in the wizarding world and as a result of that your image is widely known already. Your defeat of Voldemort was like a beacon to the world and you became a symbol of heroism. I was overheard speaking to professor Mcgonagall once about you in glasses and it soon became a part of your image. The stories spread and there is no one who is closely related enough to you to stop it. It will probably be less than a year by the time everyone knows about your differing appearance. Since you have asked your final question I think I will ask mine. My curiosity has been peaked by that blindfold you wear, can you explain it to me?"

Harry tilted his head to one side "It is for safety reasons." was all he said. Dumbledore blinked.

"Your own safety?" he asked curiously but Harry shook his head.

"Others." was his one word reply. "Good night headmaster, I think I will make my way to bed now but I will bypass the kitchens for a mug of hot chocolate, you can allow me that right?" Dumbledore absently nodded as Harry put his cloak about his shoulders and left the room. Both of them thinking two things. The first was that the conversation just then had probably been the most civilised they'd had and the second was the same in words if not the same in meaning,

'perhaps he's not such a lost cause after all.'

xxxxx

The following morning found Harry outside sparring with the mannequins that Flitwick had charmed for him. They were masterfully done and Harry was well pleased with them when he wasn't frustrated by how good they were. He could take them one on one when their difficulty setting was an eight but if he was facing two then they'd have to be on six. He'd tried facing three at once and found himself in immense difficulty on anything higher than a four.

He was sweaty and invigorated, he loved spending his mornings like this. Harry had noticed a small improvement in his hand to hand combat while sparring against the drones and counted them a success, Flitwick had asked to see his training sessions once and had been quite pleased with their performance as well, he'd said it was the most unusual way he'd ever seen animation charms used as most wizards would use nothing but spells in a fight.

Walking back to the castle with the shrunken mannequins in his pocket Harry thought back on last night's conversation with the headmaster. He wondered if Dumbledore would ever change his views or if they had been set in stone long ago. There were things he could agree on with the headmaster but even then he seemed to have left a lot out of his explanations, something that Harry had also done. He pondered this as he wandered into the great hall and sat down.

Grabbing a bowl of muesli absently and analysing it like always caused Harry to freeze, there was something added to his food. He checked again and tried to identify what it was before he let out a little chuckle, with his mind elsewhere he had forgotten what he'd gone to the kitchens for last night. He had told Dumbledore he'd gone for hot chocolate, and he had, but it was what else he'd done there that was the real purpose of the visit. Who knew that house elves actually liked the idea of pranks, Harry idly wondered if he should be sorry for what they could do here before dismissing it. He did after all appreciate a good prank himself, perhaps that was the result of growing up around Euryale and Zelretch.

He looked around as more people came down to breakfast and watched as some ate the food that had initially been served such as bacon, egg and toast while others chose the stuff that had appeared since Harry had developed his friendship with the house elves and they had shared recipes. Hogwarts now served a much wider variety of foods and several of the foreign students seemed rather pleased by it, Harry had caught sight of Slytherin Blaise Zabini taking a great shine to the pasta and other Italian dishes while Su Li of Ravenclaw ate the Japanese food that was now served. Weasel still gorged himself on traditional english food while Ferret ate predominantly French foods, Harry expected that was because the French tried to make everything look refined and elegant.

None of them knew what harry and the elves had done and none would until lunch time when it kicked in. It was a Monday and that meant magical theory was the first lesson of the day.

Magical theory was a first year only class that made students aware of the fundamental laws of magic that applied to all spells. In later years the different subjects would expand or add to that as it became necessary for the curriculum. They were discussing the nature of how spells interact with things they are not directly cast upon, an example was used with the levitation charm. This charm would apply the force equally across an object it was cast upon and this could be shown by levitating a bean bag. The bean bag would retain whatever shape it had been in before the levitation charm had been cast and only when it was released would it deform against a surface or other object.

The second period for Harry that day was transfiguration theory. Mcgonagall had stopped eyeing him like a hawk but she still did not seem totally comfortable with him. The lesson had been on the differences when transfiguration was used on more and more complex shapes. It was all well and good to transfigure a wooden block into a bird but it was a sign of mastery if the caster could manipulate the bird's size, colouring, behaviour and temperament all in the one spell. Harry remembered when they had learned the spell 'Avifors' that would change inanimate objects into birds and coupling that with the spell 'oppugno' which caused things to attack a target Harry thought it would make for a good strategy in a fight. You could blast things apart and transfigure the shrapnel into birds of all sorts of sizes while the caster used the distraction of the attacking birds to sneak some more spells into the duel. Harry was considering the idea of fewer larger birds attacking an enemy or more smaller birds, he decided that the latter was a better option as it presented less of a target and, if directed at the eyes or soft flesh, was more likely to get through and damage an enemy. Mcgonagall hadn't looked too happy when he'd asked whether or not the spell could incorporate turning the transfigured bird's talons to metal but she'd answered in the positive regardless.

xxxxx

At lunch that day Hermione and Neville found Harry cackling to himself at the end of the Hufflepuff table. This was most unusual and, truth be told, rather disturbing too. He was sat stroking that cat that never left his side and his fangs could be seen quite clearly. The two of them wondered whether their enigmatic friend had finally snapped and degenerated into insanity. Neville thought it better not to ask but Hermione's burning curiosity just had to be quenched.

"Harry, I think I speak for the both of us when I say you're creeping us out. This mad laughter isn't normal for you, is there something you'd like to tell us?" She spoke slowly and Harry's continued laughter did nothing to calm her growing unease.

Harry stopped laughing long enough to say "If you take a look at everyone when it turns half twelve you'll see. I said I would and I damn well made it happen, don't ever doubt I wouldn't." He then continued cackling.

Hermione glanced at her watch, it was twelve twenty-three so she had seven minutes to wait. Taking a look at Neville she told him as such before deciding that she should really use her time to eat before whatever Harry had planned reared its head.

Hermione soon found out what Harry had done as she was alerted by the shrieks that came from the Ravenclaw table, this noise was soon echoed around the hall as everyone noticed something.

They all had red eyes.

Hermione thought back to the first train ride they'd taken to Hogwarts and what harry would do. She concluded that she would never again dismiss whatever he said as 'not going to happen'. She also wondered if it would last a week and if by that Harry meant five days or seven. She turned to Harry, "Have your eyes also turned red?" As he was wearing a blindfold no one would have been able to tell.

"My eyes were already red, I did however include myself in the targets but I doubt if it really took hold. My eyes are rather... unique and they might not have been capable of changing to begin with." He replied before enjoying the chaos around him as the entire student body realised that they too had red eyes. Harry glanced up at the staff table to find most of them looking disapprovingly at the Weasley twins. Mcgonagall even called out. "Can the two of you end this prank already before I take more serious action against you than docking points?"

The two looked at each other before replying

"It wasn't us!" One said.

"Bloody good one though to get everyone." The other followed.

"We will most certainly -"

"Be looking to trump this -"

"one though and get even -"

"the pets with our next -"

"Big display." They finished together. How anyone could talk like those two, continually switching who spoke, was a mystery to Harry and one he wasn't going to even try and replicate. He was simply glad that he could tell them apart from a slight difference in their prana signature else he wouldn't be able to tell one from another like he could.

Looking back to the staff table Harry noticed that one teacher had not immediately looked at the Weasley twins but at him. The school rumours that flowed around the castle whispered that the potions master, Severus Snape, was a vampire. Harry thought that it was simply because of his black hair and pale complexion, the fact he stalked all over the place instead of walking and that he spent most of his time in the dungeons didn't help, but with red eyes and black robes he certainly looked like a caricature of a vampire. Harry looked directly at him and only the subtle tilting of the goblet in his hands alerted Harry to the fact that someone was aware of who had really done it, no doubt he would ask why when he went to continue his reaction tables that night.

xxxxx

After that afternoon's charms lesson Harry headed off towards the dungeons and the classroom adjacent to the one potions lessons were conducted in. he entered to find that his glass tumblers were already laid out and sparklingly clean. That was normal since the house elves had found out and insisted on clearing it up and setting it out, what was not normal was the potions master standing beside them and looking at Harry with a blank expression on his face. He uttered only one word.

"Why?" It was said with no inflection, no accusation and no other emotion.

"My family and friends include three people with red eyes, they are vampires, and the wizarding world views those with that eye colour as evil, this caused a fair amount of fuss at the station. The results will last at least a week and more likely two or three, they will resist colour change charms and I added a locking ingredient in the potion that will render counter-potions ineffective. I want this to show that simply having red eyes does not mean you are some dark despicable monster or evil wizard and that red is simply a colour like any other. That is why I did this." Harry stated it all in a monotone.

Snape looked at him and simply said "Very well." before heading out the door. It was only by reinforcing his hearing that he heard the quiet "ten points to Hufflepuff for equality and erasing prejudice." as the professor left the room. Harry shook his head, it seemed that the head of the snake pit had an image to maintain even in private. Harry doubted he would ever truly understand that man but he definitely respected him.

xxxxx

It was two weeks and four days later that everyone's eyes returned to their previous colour. It had taken a week until everyone had stopped jumping whenever they made eye contact with anyone else, the remaining week and a half had some students wondering if they could permanently change their eye colour to something else with several girls squealing over the possibilities of pink and glittery eyes. Harry was quite proud of how everything had gone and hoped they could transfer their anti-prejudiced views to their families when they returned home, he had already made note of several owls heading out of the castle that had an array of colours charmed into their feathers and eyes, Flitwick it seemed had taught all of his students in every year colour change charms and students had begun to turn up to lesson with a variety of different hair colours since. Harry was sure that the trend would fade with most people, colour changing charms weren't permanent after all and had to be recast daily, but he hoped the effect of turning everyone's eyes red would stick.

Harry was spending his Friday afternoon out by the lake and practising the colour changing charm himself, he was rather curious how detailed you could get with it. If someone was to approach him they would find an array of stones with various different patterns on them ranging from simple ones, such as a red one with a blue border, to more complex ones, he had one that had a rather accurate image of Len's human form on it in miniature.

He was startled out of it by the sound of hooves knocking against stones. Looking up Harry found the unicorn that had been spending time recovering with Hagrid, it should be about healed now as well. The unicorn seemed to be trying to make its way towards him across the pebbles and stones so Harry thought he'd make the job easier on it by going to the unicorn himself.

The unicorn stopped trying to come to him when he slid off the boulder and just watched him make his way over to it. Having read up on unicorns since the last incident, Harry knew they were incredibly intelligent, way more than some expected and were fully capable of understanding human speech. They apparently felt the emotions of those around them and it was this that let them decide who could approach and who couldn't, this is what propagated the idea that only maidens and children could touch them as they were 'innocent' of any misdeed. Harry thought that the unicorns initial unease with him was more telling than anything, he didn't even view himself as 'pure' or 'innocent', he was far too cynical for that.

As he got close to the unicorn he looked at it and asked "Well, what is it you wanted?" An outsider looking at this would probably have been rather incredulous at him being so blasé in the face of a unicorn but Harry thought he could see a hint of mirth in the eyes opposite him.

The unicorn turned towards the forest and looked over its shoulder at him as if to ask him 'Come along then, or are you chicken?'. Yes, Harry Potter had definitely found a unicorn that he liked in this one. He looked up at the sky, it was approaching late evening and he'd already had his supper. A regular student would have been worried about being shut out of the castle when the doors were shut but, if it came to it, Harry was perfectly capable of walking up the side of the wall and finding an open window to climb in and, failing that, he could always enter through the battlements or towers.

Harry sighed and merely said, "lead the way." He said and was sure that the creature in front of him snickered in amusement. He followed the unicorn into the forest and was soon engulfed in the darkness caused by tree cover, the unicorns white coat being the only thing that would allow a normal human to follow it. Harry wasn't a normal human and even without reinforcement his eyes could see better than others in this darkness, that didn't stop him from reinforcing them and improving it even more however.

Stepping carefully over the thick undergrowth Harry tried to think why the unicorn would be leading him into its home. It had been uneasy with him at first like most animals, they sensed the gorgon part of him and that screamed predator to them. The unicorn was obviously no longer afraid of him and that concerned him even more than fear would have, he didn't like it when something involving him didn't make sense.

Deciding to use this as an opportunity to check out the forest which he had refrained from entering so far, Harry analysed the trees around him. It was strange, it was almost like the trees were alive. No, not alive individually but part of a greater consciousness. Harry began to think that it was more than just the castle which had become sentient with the dip in the leylines and, considering how much longer the forest could have been here, Harry decided to be on his best behaviour. Nature spirits and those that had been part of an age before humans rarely looked fondly upon those that intruded on their domain, especially humans as they cut down many of their trees.

Harry caught sight of a spider out of the corner of his eye, a spider that was a fair bit larger than he should really expect and Harry analysed it as they went past. It was definitely an arachnid but its exoskeleton was a lot stronger than a regular spider and he could feel some kind of natural magic in it, he would have to research magical spiders when he returned to the castle to find out more on the subject.

Harry felt for the presence of the forest again to try and determine its mood. He reached into the trees around him and tried to follow all of their roots back to where the centre of the forest should be, he noted that the location seemed to be ahead and to the right, and tried to feel it without angering it. He reached what he assumed to be the consciousness of the forest and found anger, a lot of anger.

Harry froze for a moment before he realised that none of that anger was directed at him, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding then. He tried to probe this forest spirits emotions and found that its anger was mostly directed at something, not a collective but a single being or creature. There was a sense of a rustling cloak and silver blood as well as a malignancy, nothing that Harry could really pin down so he tried to feel what else the spirit was concerned about.

The unicorns came out on top of that list, there was a feeling not dissimilar to a mother's arms closing around their child there and Harry thought that the forest was trying to protect its children. The second thing he found was a sense of anger that was tempered with frustration. This second feeling was being directed somewhere off to his left and he caught snippets of sight and sound. There was clicking and shuffling as well as deep shadows and many reflective eyes.

Harry jerked back at that. That was one big spider, he'd thought that the one he'd seen before was big but that one had only been the size of a plate. The one he'd found in the spirit's focus had to have been the size of a house, he didn't want to meet something like that any time soon and he doubted he could do anything to it even if he did.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a brush against his occlumency that made him shoot into alertness, it seemed the forest had finally noticed his intrusion both into its borders and into its mind. It was suspicious and, reluctantly, Harry let it into his mind, it would not do to anger something like that and he felt that it could do a lot if it decided to put its mind to it.

He felt the forest spirit enter his mindscape and idly wondered what form it had taken. He felt its surprise at his mindscape, he supposed that it might find the forest his mindscape consisted of unusual. Harry focused more and more of his attention inward as the spirit rooted through his mind like roots rapidly growing into soil seeking water. He waited and hoped that he would come out of the encounter intact. He took notice when the spirit found his more recent memories, those since he started Hogwarts. It wasn't until his encounter with the injured unicorn that the spirit's emotions underwent significant change. All through his memories the spirit had maintained its suspicious nature which had relented slightly as it went through more and more memories yet never abated completely. Now, however, he felt the genuine pleasure and gratitude the forest exuded as it saw him try and help what it viewed as one of its children.

The process of the spirit leaving his mind was rather off putting as it felt as if a plant was being pulled out one root at a time. Harry expected this to go on until it had completely let go but he was mistaken, when there was but one connection left the forest stopped. Harry plucked up the nerve to send a questioning thought at it and was rewarded with a voice like a gentle breeze whispering in his mind 'In thanks, I will aid you all I can'. That wasn't something he had expected when he'd followed the unicorn into the forest and decided to leave the matter and be grateful that he had been accepted as he had.

Turning his attention outwards once again harry noted that he'd followed the unicorn deep into the forest, so deep that he thought the forest spirit itself was only a ten minute walk away. He looked around himself to see that there were many more unicorns than the single one he had followed thus far, they looked at him warily at first but seemed to soon accept him and Harry thought that they might have somehow found the connection he now shared with the forest no matter how unwilling it had been.

Harry looked around and found the anxiety he'd been feeling since the slight anxiety he'd felt since the he'd found the injured unicorn ease and he swore he heard the forest spirit give a gentle laugh in his mind. He looked to the unicorn that had led him here, lowered his head and said "Thank you for trusting me with your haven, I hope all of you will be safe here until the danger has passed."

Raising his head he found that the unicorns around him had also bowed their heads as he had and Harry found a smile creeping onto his face. He looked around and saw a golden unicorn with a scratch down its side that it had probably gotten from a thorn bush or something, the gold colour meant it was very young. Harry walked over and knelt by the foal which nuzzled into him while Harry drew his wand and pointed it at the cut. A muttered 'episkey' later and the cut had healed itself over. Harry looked over at the rest of the unicorns and walked amongst them healing whatever minor injuries they had which he could do something about.

xxxxx

Harry stood about a half hour later, after he had healed the last unicorn and smiled at the herd "I thank you for this but I must return to the castle if I wish to get any sleep tonight." Several of the unicorns nearby whinnied and Harry thought it sounded a little like laughter, either that or he was getting delusional.

With that he rose and left the clearing but it seemed his peace for the night wasn't yet come. There was a tugging sensation in his mind that Harry identified as the forest spirit and Harry decided to follow it and see what else he was wanted for, now that the spirit had a direct connection to his mind it was even more imperative that he not piss it off.

The tugging continued and Harry started to recognise the direction as where he had theorised the centre of the forest had been. He grew apprehensive, why did the forest want him right where it would be strongest? He nevertheless steeled himself and walked onwards towards whatever awaited him there.

It was a number of minutes later that Harry stepped into a clearing in the forest. The roots of the trees around him seemed to converge and rise from the ground forming some kind of crude archway in the centre of the clearing, the other side of the archway was a dark so impenetrable that Harry's eyes couldn't penetrate it even when reinforced to the limit.

Harry stopped just before the arch and waited for whatever was going to happen, he didn't have to wait long. A figure stepped out of the blackness of the archway before him. It was obviously female and looked rather human at first until one looked at it more completely. She was mostly naked but it seemed like ivy coiled around her body in the form of a leotard and Harry was hard pressed to tell you whether it was worn as raiment or if it grew directly out of her body, there was also what looked like roots that were wrapped around her bare arms and legs that reached down her pale green skin and along her hands. Her face was beautiful and serene but Harry thought it could also look wrathful if she so chose, something Harry didn't want to see. Her hair was the brown of fallen leaves and when she opened her eyes they had no iris or sclera, they were orbs of pure green like they had been filled with chlorophyll. She regarded Harry for a long moment in which he didn't dare move a muscle. When she spoke her voice sounded like several people speaking at once, the whisper of the breeze, the rustle of the undergrowth and the creaking of the trees being but three of them.

"It is strange. I have never shown myself like this to a human before nor have I even shown the centaurs that so arrogantly believe my domain to be theirs yet you seem so different. You don't feel like a human, you feel like something outside of perception like myself yet you stand before me as you do and observe so many of humanities virtues and vices. You are someone who follows the natural order of prey and predator, I do not understand you." She spoke to him as she stepped forward and began circling him, he felt like an insect that had been stuck under a microscope, scrutinised and insignificant. She continued speaking.

"You saved one of my children even when she shied away from you and you gave no thought to the second skin you wear as others do, you immediately removed it and tried to help all you could. I wish to thank you for what you have done, no others have ever helped my children so. I may wish to speak to you, the humans seem to be changing the world and perhaps you can convey an understanding of them to me. If you ever wish for assistance then call me through our new bond, I will do what I can for you." She stopped pacing and started walking back to the archway but called over her shoulder.

"Know that you are always welcome in my demesne, this forest that was once called Elestia. Humans use names and that should suffice for mine. I believe that we shall meet again Harry, I will await that day with anticipation whether it be a year or a century." That was all she said before stepping once more into the dark archway.

Harry let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Her presence was strange, he'd been around Altrouge and others before and knew what it was like to feel the presence of something far greater than yourself, Primate Murder had been a prime example, but never before had he frozen up like he had and he didn't know why. With Primate Murder he had even gone so far as to give the beast of Gaia a fuss and that was pure mental by anyone's standards yet he had been completely overwhelmed by a forest spirit. He shook himself before turning round and walking back the way he had come into the forest. The spirit, Elestia, as he would now call her guiding him whenever he drifted of course.

xxxxx

So deep into his thoughts was he that it took Elestia's warning for him to notice how quiet everything had gotten, not wanting to paint a target on himself Harry climbed the nearest tree and sank into the shadows. He sent a questioning thought to Elestia only to receive a biting reply 'It's the invader, the one who hunts my children. Beware you to do not feature on its menu'. Harry cautiously walked along the branches, from tree to tree, in search of whatever it was that had the Elestia so angered. He utilised his control over gravity so that even the slimmest branch didn't break under his weight, this brought the problem of how much more effect the wind had on him and he was ever so grateful that there was only a slight breeze tonight.

Less than a minute later Harry saw what was out in the forest tonight. It looked like a cloak that was floating along mere inches off the ground but Harry could vaguely see the outline of a humanoid figure through the fabric, the figure was face down so he couldn't tell the gender but it was definitely of adult height. That eliminated the students as suspects and three of the faculty were out as Hagrid was too large, Flitwick too small and Filch was a squib so he couldn't be the one. That left a fair number of the faculty and Harry was not going to discount the idea that it could be someone from the nearby village, Hogsmeade.

Harry silently traced an english longbow into his left hand and a pointed bodkin arrow in his right. This arrow was good at piercing the target even if it didn't have the wide, sharpened head that other arrows sported. He quietly drew back on the bow and released it in one fluid motion as he leapt for an adjacent tree before tracing another arrow and firing it at speed.

He did this twice more and all four arrows were released in a matter of seconds. The figure, probably alerted by the sound of the arrow whistling through the air, had managed to dodge the first arrow completely but the second and third had left furrows along the arms of whoever it was and the final arrow had embedded itself in the earth just a few inches away from their foot. Harry tried to look the figure in the face but their seemed to be some sort of spell obscuring it from view. The figure started looking around for whoever or whatever had shot at it and Harry heard a distorted voice mentioning centaurs, that was good as it showed that they hadn't seen him and hadn't realised that he was the one doing this.

Harry considered letting a few more arrows loose at his target but thought that it might compromise him, he was also unnerved by the fact his opponent was clearly unaffected by the gorgon venom that his arrows were coated with. He turned to sprint towards the castle but decided to leave his opponent a last gift. He projected three more arrows, these ones had sharp, broad heads on them instead of the points that bodkin arrows had. He placed all three of them on the bow string at once and reinforced it as well as his arm putting as much force into it as he could before releasing them and fleeing towards the castle as fast as he could. Firing three arrows like that made it rather difficult to be accurate but, with his opponent on alert this time, it made dodging more difficult and he hoped that at least one of them had found a home in the flesh of the thing that had been hunting unicorns.

He pondered why his arrows didn't have an effect and made a query to Elestia, she soon replied with a mournful voice 'The blood of my children perpetuates life but leaves the drinker cursed. That blood would prevent all but the most concentrated poison from doing harm though I am thankful you tried all the same'. Harry raced off towards the school while keeping to the treetops until he was far enough away from the thing that he felt confident enough to alight on the ground once more.

xxxxx

Harry thought that he would be able to leave the forest without running into any more of its denizens that night but the bow and arrow levelled his way destroyed that chance before it could prove true. On the other end of the bow was a centaur male with scraggly shoulder length brown hair and a thick winter coat on his horse body, he had mud brown eyes and a narrow, suspicious face to go with it. "What does a thing like you want in our forest?" he asked and Harry really didn't like the way he referred to him with such disgust but he decided that it was better to be nice instead of slaughtering the damn annoyance just so he could get to bed at a more reasonable time.

"A unicorn that was injured and then healed led me to where they gathered. I was on my way out of the forest once I knew they were safe." That was true even if it didn't tell him everything.

"Why would a unicorn want anything to do with you? Normally I would call you human but you are obviously not one of them that build your homes from the mud. What manner of beast are you?" Now that was really rude and Harry was getting closer to the end of his temper.

"My name is Harry Potter and while I do not view myself as human that is how most others choose to see me." He was not going to tell this overgrown pony he was a gorgon.

"Potter!?" He exclaimed. "You disappeared from the stars six years ago and upon your return Mars, Neptune and Pluto all made themselves known. Mars for war, Neptune the sign of magic yet never has it associated itself with the pathetic humans that scrabble about for wealth and knowledge so why would such an honour be bestowed on you? And then Pluto, the symbol of sadists and power is by far the worst. What manner of thing are you that would bring that one out into the sky? Answer me worm!"

Harry was really beginning to agree with Elestia, this pony-boy was really starting to grate on his nerves. "I have no reason to answer you when you hurl insults at me. Refine your manners before you enquire any more." With that Harry utilised both reinforcement and his gravity manipulation to leap far over the head of the centaur and towards the castle. When he reached the tree tops on his downwards fall he managed to catch a branch beneath his feet and he remained high in the trees until he reached the edge of the forest.

He made his way hastily across the grounds to find that the door was locked and an alohomora wasn't going to budge it. He looked up and around but couldn't see a window that was open and instead ran all the way up the wall whilst avoiding the windows so he wasn't seen. From the battlements he made his way to the owlery which was always open and sneaked down into the castle proper.

Keeping his feet planted on the ceiling Harry made his way towards the central staircase in the school, freezing solid and hiding in the shadows whenever a professor walked by on patrol, before he went straight down the side of the wall to the ground floor and the entrance hall.

After that it was only a matter of taking the stairs down to the basement and a short trip back to the common room. Seeing it empty Harry quickly made his way to his own room where he collapsed on his bed and tried to go to sleep. There was only one thing on his mind.

Whatever or whoever had been out in the forest would be getting no more unicorn blood from there and, as it cursed your life, they would be looking for alternate means of remaining alive. The only such method that Harry could think of that was nearby was the stone he had sealed inside the mirror of Erised. This was beginning to feel more and more like a set up as the year went on. He would be damned though if he let the unicorn's hunter get away without retribution, you could be sure of that.