Eventually of course, one of the Professors had come to terms with a massive black Cerberus with one head licking a student to death.

Professor McGonagall coughed. "Mr. Potter, when you described this spell you failed to mention the... size... of your avatar."

Harry looked up, hands full of slobber that he had just wiped from his face and sighed. "Yeah, sorry about that. I was planning on using a variation of the portrait enchantment to have one of my mental aspects handle the questions and stuff."

He reached out and absently scratched the huge head. "Cerby sort of got in the way, and I have much less control on him since he isn't a part of me."

Filius Flitwick looked up from the notes he was frantically scribbling. "He does look similar to Hagrid's pet Fluffy. Did you design him around that?"

Harry blinked. "Who's Flu... Wait, Hagrid named a Cerberus FLUFFY?"

Padma had at some point managed to sneak up on the massive dog and was hugging its front left paw. "HE IS! Who's a fluffy wuffy puffy!"

Harry reached up and thrust a hand INTO the massive creatures skull with a frown. "I suppose it's descriptive at least. Still, his name is Cerby now that he is on his own. During that whole mess with Professor Quirrell I found him bleeding out."

He sighed as his hand paused, embedded in the happy dog's head. "I didn't get there in time to save all three heads, and Cerby was dying. I managed to pull his soul into my mind though, even if I couldn't save his body."

The children in the room were still shocked into silence, with the exception of Padma who was cooing into the massive leg she was grasping. Dumbledore had wandered away at some point, and several of the teachers were staring in either excitement, awe, or (In Madam Pince's case), a feeling of horror at sharing the library with a ghost dog the size of a small mountain.

Thankfully Harry missed most of the commotion as his hand gave a sharp TWIST... and suddenly there was a small black puppy.

He smiled. "There we go! Much better with you as a puppy."

Padma squealed as she dived for the shocked puppy.

Hermione carefully tugged Harry's sleeve. "Did... did it work?"

Harry nodded with a smile. "Yeah, although I had wanted to do the portrait thing instead of this, I think this will work for the best. Since it is a ghost instead of my magic, this should now be a permanent spell now."

Madam Pince walked calmly up to the boy. A puppy was much more acceptable, as long as he didn't mistreat the books. "Mr. Potter, could you share how we are supposed to do searches with this... Cerby?"

Harry nodded. He snapped his fingers.

Cerby vanished from Padma's arms and floated in front of Harry, eyes glowing green.

Harry gave a soft smile. "Cerby, please find me a way to make casting your search spell possible for other magic users."

The dog gave a soft yip and then seemed to... fade. Green mist flew into all the shelves, swirling between legs and over book stacks, down rows of knowledge untouched by students for years and up to shelves that had been ignored for decades. Even as the students began murmuring there were bright spots of light that seemed to pulse light green as they flowed in the library.

Moments later the fog faded and Cerby was floating again in front of the wizard, a scroll held in his mouth.

Patting his head, Harry took the scroll and opened it. "Let's see... Looks like Cerby has three options to make casting this spell easier. One, split it into ten parts and have ten wizards or witches cast it at once."

Hermione frowned. "Well I guess that would work, but they would all have to be really good at casting together."

He nodded. "Yeah, that would be annoying. The second option is to cast it in a completely non-magical environment so that one wizard or witch could cast it over the course of three days and none of the old work would be destroyed during the process."

She began to pout. "Three DAYS!? Thats... just unreasonable."

He sighed. "Yeah, no breaks too. Most won't have the power for it really."

Hermione leaned over. "What is the last option?"

Harry grinned. "Runes. Apparently runes project magic patterns into the air, so if I make them correctly I can fake all the wand movements using a really complex rune system. It would still take a LOT of power for another like Cerby, but the basic version could be made into a pendant or small board or something and cast by one person."

Professor Flitwick leaned forward, his notes still increasing. "Could you demonstrate the basic version of this spell for me Mr. Potter?"

Harry blinked, noticing everyone again, and blushed. "Ah... yes, no problem sir."

He waved a hand and dozens of threads began making dozens of fake wand movements, until the mass turned into a floating green ball. "Find me introductory texts about runes."

The ball quickly began drifting through the shelves. Harry sighed. "To make it easier to cast, this version takes MUCH longer. Cerby splits up into lots of tiny parts to find answers faster, but at least this one can be easily cast and set to go. It will probably take twenty minutes or so for it to finish searching the library."

Professor McGonagall stepped up. "Well done, Mr. Potter. Could you teach me how to ask for things so I could share with the other teachers and write it down for future Headmasters and Headmistresses?"

Harry grinned. "Well, just snap and ask for what you want."

She paused... then snapped. Cerby appeared, his normal red or brown eyes glowing green and his tongue hanging out. "Cerby, could you give me a list showing how to use you and what restrictions you have?"

The black puppy barked and a THICK bundle of parchment landed on the table.

Harry grinned as several books were being floated to his table by the green ball of light, which had finally found something to read. "Well, glad that's done. I think only twenty or so people can ask questions at a time, but teachers will be prioritized and he will attempt to not ignore anyone. Now I am going to use the time before my next class to go over these runes and figure out what it can do for my spell work."

Padma was snapping as she held three puppies. "I LOVE THIS SPELL!"

~~~Core Threads~~~

Most students had already began wandering out after a couple of questions to Cerby. While cool, at the end of the day it was just a new method of searching a library after all... and hanging out in the library wasn't a huge thing for 3/4ths of the school.

Several Ravenclaw's and Hermione seemed close to falling apart with happiness.

Harry was sitting on a couch in the corner, keeping on eye on Hermione while Padma leaned into him and played with the ghost-search-puppies. Daphne was resting on his other side, having carefully ignored Tracey until she had wandered off with Terry to go watch some Quidditch practice sessions.

He was half buried into a book about runes now and enjoying the warmth of the two girls leaning on his side. Daphne grinned seeing Hermione send off another puppy searching for some information about different magical effects caused by plants. "I can't believe how happy you made Hermione. Did you earn some house points too?"

Harry chuckled. "I think everyone forgot honestly, they all got distracted searching for stuff. Still, I am glad it all worked out." He gave a soft sigh. "Although I had been looking forward to having Wisdom be here instead."

Daphne looked into her book about conjuration. "Well, would you mind helping me with something then?"

He tilted his head. "Sure Daph, what you need?"

She sighed. "I need to be able to create pillows with conjuration. For pillow-fights and stuff."

Harry frowned slightly and snapped his fingers. "Cerby, give me an overview of conjuration. Daph, give me a day or so to study the basics. Padma, you ok here?"

Padma raised a hand from her pile of puppies and snapped, causing another black puppy to land on the pile.

He grinned. "Well, I will see you both in Merp 2 later then. Keep an eye on Hermione, make sure she heads to lunch. And class."

As they both nodded he faded away, causing Padma to collapse deeper into puppy land.

~~~Core Threads~~~

Amelia Bones looked angrily at even more red tape. Apparently freeing Sirius (as he was not actually guilty AND had not gotten a trial) counted as going around Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic... Ha, Minister of bribes more like.

He had blown so many fuses it was amazing anyone could understand him. The only reason he wasn't MORE angry was that they had kept the whole thing under wraps while attempting to find Peter Pettigrew.

After pulling in some leads everyone had discovered that Peter had been hiding out as Arthur Weasley's Son's pet as a rat. Unfortunately one of the raw recruits had NOT been subtle when they had arrived and the bastard had escaped.

Arthur was currently hunting.

But only a week or so after making some promising leads, Cornelius Fudge had bumbled in.

Suddenly all the teams searching for Horcruxes were pulled back because he declared them 'Waste of Ministry Resources', and he had somehow put miles of forms and documents in Amelia's way as she tried to re-authenticate the searches.

Several dark families had protested the search for 'Dark items belonging to the Dark Lord' as they claimed it was a blatant attempt to rob fine upstanding citizens of family heirlooms. Or to translate, they were horrified that in the process of searching for these items the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would find all the OTHER evil and dark items filled with black energy in their homes and businesses.

She sighed as she went to the next form. At least Sirius was healing, although the healers were suggesting that physical recovery alone would take at least another few months, if not a whole year. Mental recovery could take two, and only her assurances that Harry Potter was both safe AND happy (With proof) was keeping Sirius from escaping his hospital bed.

A soft grin sneaked onto her face. Well, that proof and her hugs. Siri was always a sucker for a 'Amy Hug' as he called them.

Right now he was probably going to be staying with Andromeda Tonks and her family when he got to a healthier state. His cousin had been thrown out for marrying someone non-pure, a muggle-born wizard. Someone who DIDN'T know the correct spoon to use or how deeply to bow on a Thursday when wearing a red suit near two turtles. Their daughter was hoping to be an Auror, and had some impressive natural shape-shifting talents as well that she used to tease and prank her friends.

Sirius would love them.

~~~Core Threads~~~

Many weeks passed. Harry had managed a basic spell for Daphne within a few days, but in the process had began to experiment with the world of conjuration.

The initial spell was basic, but the pillows were... lacking. Perfect spheres, stuffed with foam since feathers were harder to visualize, and in bright primary colors.

Easy to imagine, easy to cast... but only the tip of the iceberg.

He sighed, looking at his pile of notes. At some point Harry had built up a routine: Aside from classes (Which he tolerated really), he tended to eat, head to Merp 2, study runes and conjuration, have lunch, create some stones for Gringotts, have dinner, then head to the Arden's home and spend part of the evening with Luna and Amy.

Sure the girls would pull him outside, or Terry would drag him out to watch a Quidditch game or two (STILL a confusing game for him, although yelling with friends was fun anyway). Still after the amazing mass of stuff that had happened in the first few months, his life was feeling... stagnant.

Professor Snape was being watched like an eagle, and his classes were actually teaching basic safety and brewing now. It was interesting, but also took some of the flavor out of Harry's day.

Avoiding explosions and creating perfect potions was much less fun when the other side gave up and treated him fairly.

The new Defense Teacher was a nice man, although he jumped at loud noises and had a nasty scar on the left side of his face. And Professor McGonagall had verified how out of date Professor Binns was, so now they had a new history text to work with since apparently the school board had been fighting an update to the syllabus for over twenty years.

Harry wasn't sure how exactly, but at some point everything at Hogwarts had become safer and much more educational.

He was bored.

He had wandered the halls for a while, and had managed to find a few dozen hallways and rooms no one had seen for years, including a room that always looked like the room you saw two rooms ago and a stairwell that was easier to climb up than to climb down.

After that got old, he began copying the Hogwarts Library row by row. He had gotten so fast with the process that it only took touching a book to memorize the contents.

Of course, having that book in his mind didn't mean that he could find that information quickly, and Wisdom had created a second purple library full of unsorted texts that would slowly be added to his main memories.

The restricted section seemed interesting, but he had avoided on principle so far since Madam Pince had been so nice to him and his friends. He had even returned some books that had been misfiled in the public section (After copying them of course) and had earned some brownie points with the librarian.

Still, he had found some interesting information. Conjuration was restricted by how clearly you could visualize something, how much power you could provide for the process, and what requirements you added.

Making pillows had initially been too hard a spell to teach Daphne, until he realized that he was trying to teach her permanent conjuration. Changing the requirement to 'Exist for 10 seconds' had dropped the power needs SO MUCH that she could now FLOOD a room with pillows, pillows that her foes were UNABLE to return fire with.

It had started Harry into optimizing some fighting and utilitarian conjuration spells. Sure it took tons of power to create a permanent bowling ball, but he could create thousands of perfect spheres that would only last 5 minutes, and then dig out finger holes.

More importantly, he could create a massive sphere of metal for 5 seconds, long enough to smash whatever his target was beneath it. Or to block an incoming projectile or attack.

And when he made it a massive sphere of glass, it had not only blocked spells and such but had been see through so he could watch the enemy.

Enemy in this case being the other pillow fighters.

He sighed as he tossed the new conjuration records onto the pile.

Hogwarts was not really up to his speed.

Everyone else was struggling with wands, with learning processes and theories and so forth.

He just watched how the magic moved and duplicated it.

Others had to practice for hours to get things right.

He created a mental spell library (The third purple room), and in front of each spell had created a snow globe including the best version of the spell he had ever done.

Harry could cast any spell perfectly dozens of times using those memories. He had also learned how to tag targets with his threads and send spells down them. This allowed him to have perfect accuracy and spells could flow through walls to hit people from the floor or from behind.

Harry had actually left his wand next to his bed for a week without noticing. Apparently he had accidentally created a fake wand using a rope without noticing. How was he supposed to pretend to be normal when he kept doing such strange things?

Even messing with the Goblins was less interesting. For some reason they had all gotten so... nice. Harry had even dropped a diamond he had created the size of a small house and no one had even seemed annoyed. Not that he WANTED them to be angry or anything, but now most of them just felt like 'yes' men, who did whatever he wanted.

Well, except for Nagnok, but then again Nagnok was awesome.

Harry sighed, thinking about the advancements he had made in class and while working on personal projects. The real problem was that Harry couldn't DO anything with all this power and knowledge. Oh sure, he had created a few fun spells for his friends, like the super-soaker one that streamed water on targets at long range, or the 'poofer' spell that caused all hair and clothing to poof up like they had been through a dryer and been electrically charged. But those were just to keep him from going insane from boredom.

He sighed and leaned back. 'Anyone have ideas for something interesting to do?'

'Quack.'

Harry groaned. 'NO, for the last time Jim, I am NOT going to the zoo again. We went like fifty times so far.'

'Well, we could always continue with the library. We only have around 68% of the public section scanned.'

He shook his head. 'Sorry Wisdom, I am honestly tired of that right now.'

'We could work on your island some Rinpoche.'

Harry began making a pile of his notes and absently cast stasis on them, adding them to his hand storage. 'Nah, planning on making that our summer project. Going to need supplies and stuff anyway, and Gringotts is shipping raw metal and plastic and stuff to the island over the last few months until the end of the year.'

'We could go retrieve one of the Deathly Hallows.'

Everyone got quiet.

'Wrath?'

'Yes Sir?'

Harry's eyes narrowed. 'How long have you known where they were?'

'I always know where they are.'

Harry looked at the ceiling for a moment, debating with himself. He had most of today free really. What could it hurt?

~~~Core Threads~~~

Harry collapsed to the dirt road in a cloud of dust, cursing quietly. Blind shifting was TERRIBLE! You had to throw power randomly as far as you could, then just HOPE it was safe to land there.

He had fallen into a lake AND a pool. Watcher claimed to have not known about the danger, but had been smirking at the time.

Harry looked up and examined the bone white thread. This connection was strange, as if it was a long series of finger bones lined up that led AGAIN into the distance. He had no idea how far this blasted Deathly Hallow was, but so far he was estimating 'Middle of noWhereVille'.

Well, once more into the breach. He threw his power again and shifted.

And fell twenty feet into another swimming pool, cursing like a sailor.

~~~Core Threads~~~

Neville grinned as he took another bite of liver. Susan and Hannah had made him cut back on the desserts, but had introduced him to several dishes he had never had before, and liver and onions had been surprisingly delicious.

He felt a nudge from the right. Swallowing, he looked up at Susan and swallowed. "What's up?"

She nodded toward Harry's side of the table. "Notice anything off with Harry?"

Neville leaned back and gave him a long look.

Harry looked furious. And wet. And twitchy.

He grinned. "Think he is doing something fun?"

Hannah leaned over and added some greens to Neville's plate. "Well, most likely. Last week when he got frustrated he ended up searching for ghosts in an abandoned ice cream factory."

Neville gave a quick smile to Hannah and dug in. Clearing his throat he gave the girls a grin. "Want to see if we can join in?"

Susan sighed, taking another bite of corn. "Later maybe. Daphne and Padma have been trying to get Harry to open up more when he goes on these explorations of his."

Neville blinked. "Are they having any luck?"

She shrugged. "Well, they managed to get him to come to each meal now. Two months ago he would miss half the meals due to some project or other."

Hannah looked at the moist wizard. "Hmm. Whatever he's doing involves getting messy. Are you sure you want to get into this?"

Neville chuckled. "I'm into Herbology. If I couldn't handle a bit of a mess I wouldn't have made it."

Susan sipped her juice while watching the other group. "Whatever he is up to it seems to have soaked him. I think I'll just wait until you boys get done being messy."

Hannah grinned. "Well I want in. Should we ask Daphne after lunch?"

Neville shook his head. "I don't think she is involved in this one, so we should just ask her to pass on the information when Harry shares it. I don't want to pry if this turns out to be a personal thing."

Susan pulled out her 'pen' and 'notebook'... muggle tools were amazing! Quickly making a note for their schedule she nodded at the other two. "Got it, and I will let her know before our next class. We have the class work done?"

Neville and Hannah nodded. Neville pulled out a book. "Also make a note that I need to pass this text on to Hermione. It is one of my favorites, covers some of the more bizarre plants in the magical world."

Susan nodded as she made a second note and accepted the book. "For her cooking project?"

He grinned. "Yeah, she is trying to take Gillyweed and dry it to be used in sushi. Not only does she think it will taste better and breath under water, but she is hoping to find other items to include that will make you see better at lower depths and feel warmer as well."

Hannah's eyes widened. "Really? That could be fun. Are there plants that let you fly?"

Neville sighed. "Sort of, but Flightvine has non-reversible effects. Sure you gain wings and lose a lot of weight for flight, but when it wears off you don't get the bone density back. Some people even died because their muscles caused bones to snap after."

Susan frowned. "That sounds horrible! How did such plants get created anyway?"

He shrugged. "Both were bred and manipulated by wizards obviously. Just like how muggles bred flowers for specific colors or vegetables for flavor and size, magical growers focused on special effects and enhancements. Some say that the stranger magical animal species were created when they got into some wizards greenhouse."

Susan gathered her stuff and got up, carefully not looking at Neville. "Well, I guess we will have to make sure your greenhouse is secured this summer. It's alright if we come visit, right?"

Neville looked down at his food, blushing. "Of... of course. It would be great to have friends over."

His blush got slightly worse as both girls grabbed on. Double hugs were best hugs.

~~~Core Threads~~~

Daphne had a grin on her face that would have shocked several of her house mates if she hadn't already acted so unusual for a Slytherin this year. "Come on, tell us why you are soaked."

Harry grumbled. "No. It's silly."

Padma leaned in, ignoring her meal. "Does it involve animals?"

He shook his head.

She sighed. "Maybe NEXT time it can involve animals?"

He nodded.

Daphne ignored the other grinning witch. "Come on Harry, you go missing all morning and come back soaked! Were you exploring the lake?"

Harry sighed and leaned back. "Do you REALLY want to know? I feel stupid enough as it is."

She nodded.

He held his head in his hands. "Well, the long and short of it is that I trusted Watcher to pick landing points when shifting randomly in a direction across the country."

Daphne frowned. "Alright, aside from 'Why were you shifting randomly', why shouldn't you have trusted Watcher? He keeps an eye out for us, doesn't he?"

Harry sighed. "Well yeah, but he also thought it would be funny to keep picking spots twenty feet above water as we went. I didn't realize it was on purpose until the sixth time I landed, and THAT time I almost landed on frog."

Padma grinned. "I KNEW it involved animals! All your best stories involve animals."

He groaned. "THIS IS NOT a best story. This is a 'I kept falling into water, screaming like a baby' story."

Daphne bit her lower lip, a grin on her face. "Best story ever."

Harry snapped his fingers and twelve fluffy pink pillows buried Daphne. "WELL, I suppose I will get back to it."

Before she could struggle out of the pile he faded away chuckling.

And then fell twelve feet into ANOTHER pool. 'BLOODY HELL WATCHER!'

~~~Core Threads~~~

It had taken two days and avoiding a lot of questions, but he had finally found the endpoint of the bone string.

Well, two days and basically discovering every pool across the country. Harry had ended up stamping his way into his own mind, grabbing watcher, and tossing him in the golden lake to get him to stop.

The area was apparently called 'Little Hangleton' and it was basically in the north of England and YES, middle of nowhere. Buried between mountains with almost nothing built.

There was a fairly large mansion that seemed covered in some dark ward schemes, a graveyard (Creepy), and in the distance a pub and basic buildings.

But what Harry was focused on right now was a shack near the mansion. It was roughly constructed, like several wood workers had been given too little time to do too much work. The walls were bent strangely and soft creaking could be heard, as if the foundation was attempting to escape its burden.

Darkness cloaked this shack, a darkness that called out to Harry, whose teeth clenched and eyes glared with a green fire.

This place was desecrated by Voldemort. That bloody ponce had gone through a LOT of effort to protect such a rotten heap of boards, ignoring the fairly nice mansion further up the hill.

Harry gained a vengeful smirk as his hands spread, feeling the defenses almost tremble at his rage.

Finally, something to do.