Oh look we get some good news! Finally!

See end for notes

0o0o0o0

Harry wrote back and forth to Bill and Charlie a few times while puzzling over the issue of the fireproof shirt. Thankfully he and Bill had a bit of time on Saturday after Occlumency to look at it.

The problem was that the runes were absorbing too much power. He'd got the self-sustaining element working, but intensely magical fire overpowered them. It buckled under the extra charge and had started blowing up again.

Will Bill's assistance Harry had worked out how to add temperature control charms to help as secondary bleed offs. If he added something for balance, it should make sure the shirt stayed just the right temperature, not too hot in summer and not too cold in winter.

That was the idea anyway. It could adjust based off body temperature. For long bouts of fire, it still wasn't enough however. So they had to put a sensor in it. That allowed the runes to charge to a certain level and stop them from absorbing more. The rest would then just bleed off and be channelled it into the climate control and the low-level glow.

In the end, they worked out that it should work if the shirt was initially charged up under a full moon before it would correctly recycle the energy and keep it balanced. There was something in the balance of the full moon that helped. He managed to get the bleed off working, but the soft glow on the runes was not quite enough yet.

So Harry ended up with five prototypes that once charged should work. He just needed to get Charlie to test them out on dragon fire now.

To Harry's relief, he heard back from his aunt on Saturday night, after his lesson with Bill. She'd agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

"Fine. Come back for Christmas. The garden needs work, and the house needs a clean before Christmas dinner. This better be worth it! I'll pick you up from the station, but it had better be the last time!

Petunia."

Harry smiled. Anyone who saw it would think he was pleased to hear from his aunt. They would have thought wrong. He was amazed at her agreeing. Still, he suspected it was not out of the non-existent kindness of her heart, but out of desperation at the slight possibility of getting rid of him permanently.

He snorted. She hated him; almost more than Snape did. He had long learnt to read between the lines of her speech. She would pick him up and carry on the farce of needing him home. But only on the condition, he gave her a good day's work on the house and the garden. Harry suspected it would be all evening in the house cleaning, then, once everyone was in bed, all night working in the garden, before cooking them breakfast. But after that, he would be free and had better never return. Part of the agreement was to find somewhere else to stay for the summer. The prospect of being free of him was a hefty bribe. He had known it would work.

Without being able to sell his old books and dress robes, he had no idea where he would stay. But he'd lived on the streets before and could do it again. He'd just need to make sure he packed enough food this time.

Harry sighed and pulled his jar of bluebell flames out of his bag and put it on the shelf next to him on a small amplification rune. He tapped the rune, and it flared to life, sending the heat of the low flame all through the cupboard as if he were in front of an open fireplace.

He grinned. He loved magic.

Now all he could hope for was that Rodgrip would find a loophole in the tournament contract. He opened the box again, Rodgrip had gotten back to him, but his note was not what he had hoped, merely a straight to the point note.

"I shall look into it."

Charlie had also written back to him. He had been absolutely thrilled with his birthday gift. Harry had made a few hooded shirts that were fireproof for Charlie, or they would be when Charlie charged them with his blood. That was the most reliable way so far. Harry had got Charlie's measurements from Bill and found some in the Room of Requirement to fit. Bill had also promised Harry that Charlie would be okay with the blood magic and Harry wondered if Charlie too was Darke. He didn't ask though.

Harry had sent Charlie across some of the prototypes of the other shirts to test out. He'd tested them for him, and had sent back detailed notes on how they had worked and at what point they had combusted or exploded. The five he had sent over had been a complete bust. They had worked, but when it got to the point of recharging, under long bouts of fire, they still tended to combust.

But Harry knew he was getting closer. It was just the bleed-off that was still the problem. Maybe he could find some way to send the excess power back to the earth... It would need a different rune set up, but eliminate the need for the glow.

The power rune circle would need to be linked to an earth grounding sigil, and that needed to be tied to the self-sustaining ring... Maybe if he had the original fireproof runes in the middle, with the climate control, and have both of them surrounded by the power rune chain, combined with the recharging chain... If he chained them around the outside of the original set, with an earth sigil in the middle... It might work.

Harry scribbled down his notes, before turning back to Charlie's letter.

Charlie had written to his Metamorph friend, Tonks. She recommended 'Powers You Never Knew You Had & What To Do With Them Now You've Wised Up.' But apparently, there was actually very little in the way of guides for Metamophmagi. She'd mostly had to figure it out for herself. But she gave him her Gringotts Box number though, so he could write. Apparently, all Aurors had them, and she was a trainee.

Charlie was equally furious and appalled at the ball, but offered to teach him to dance when they saw each other next. Apparently, it was not too hellish if you were friends with the person you were dancing with.

Harry wasn't convinced, but spent Sunday in the Room of Requirements with Hermione, the twins, and Neville who had brought along Luna, who he was good friends with. Apparently, they had met up through Herbology.

The six of them spent an enjoyable day, duelling, studying, brainstorming breathing methods and learning to dance. Harry also brushed up on some of his old street skills, and tried his hand at sparring against the training dummy's the room had conjured for him.

They were vicious, and by the time he had finished, he was exhausted and sore but pleased with his progress. The others agreed to join in too. None of them wanted to be caught out and dragged into the lake in the middle of winter. He'd even started teaching them how to use a knife in a fight. Really the training dummies were brilliant!

"Honestly!" Hermione said as they poured over another set of books, this time for potions they could use, "it's like they want to kill us all."

"You'll need to know how to swim," Fred said.

"We'll teach you mate," George offered.

"I don't have any swimming trunks," Harry said, trying to avoid the inevitable.

"I can lend you a set." Neville said, "I'm pretty sure I can get us some gillyweed, but maybe we should see if there's a potion or something we can use with it in it, so you can get the effects to last longer, just in case."

"And maybe an antidote to end them earlier too," Harry thought, "so I don't then suffocate if I come up to the air too early."

"that's a good point mate," George said,

"Yeah, it'd be a shame if you went to all that trouble to not drown, only to end up asphyxiating when out of the water." Fred finished, making them all laugh.

It was only later that night that Harry remembered that he hadn't opened his mother's trunk yet. Despite his exhaustion, he just couldn't sleep. He was too tired to wander the school and had ended up pulling the trunk out when rummaging around in his bag for a book.

His mother's trunk, like the bag, was worn but well taken care of despite its apparent age. Like the bag, it had strong blood wards and was more than it appeared. It was a plain trunk devoid of any names or crests but had an odd-looking lock on the front. It hummed with now-familiar magic when he touched it. Not having the key, he put a drop of blood onto the lock, and it then clicked open for him at the touch of a finger. A small pocket opened, revealing a key ring and a scroll.

He picked them up curiously. The scroll seemed to be a manual of some kind, on old yellowed parchment detailing the features of the trunk. The tiny keys were old looking skeleton keys like Gringotts keys.

There were seven of them. When he picked one up to look at it more closely, it to, pricked his finger, drawing blood. He jumped and glared at it. It tingled as if it had tasted him.

As it pricked his finger, it shivered a moment, and then grew. It was now larger than the previously minuscule Gringotts key. He peered at it closely. The handle had the initials on it 'LE' and a small engraved picture of a trunk. It was a pretty key, and he looked eagerly at the others. Each pricked his finger and grew. Each one had his mother's initials and a different symbol; a book, a cauldron, an apple, a wardrobe, a door, a desk and a bed.

He put the one with a trunk into the lock, and it opened with a click. The first compartment seemed to be a standard trunk but bigger on the inside. It also seemed to have pockets or small sections for everything. It was not just one big space to throw everything in higgledy-piggledy. It was organised and filled with letters, chocolate frog cards, some muggle paperbacks, surprisingly, some divination things and a few other nicknacks.

There seemed to be a map of the Hogwarts grounds and castle, along with the forest. Both looked to be an old copy of the one from Hogwarts, A History, but with tiny annotations added. The annotations had things like, 'good classroom for practising potions in', 'good study space,' 'Peeves haunts here' or 'don't duel in this room, crap wards.' There were also notes on the grounds and along the edge of the forest saying things like 'bowtruckle tree,' 'mallow sweet grows here,' and 'honking daffodils here.' It looked like his mother had started mapping the grounds and school, but with more exciting bits and anecdotes added in. He closed the trunk lid with a smile, eager to have a closer look later.

He slid the key with a book on it into the lock next. The second compartment was, like the first, much bigger on the inside. It looked like a library, with rows and rows of books. When Harry tentatively touched a shelf it seemed to move as if scrolling upward to reveal more shelves. Some of which were full, some of which were empty.

Harry could see the newt level textbooks, along with many further advanced books. To his delight, there were also diaries, and stacks of notebooks filled with what he hoped to be more of her class notes. There were also rows of novels; some muggle, some magical. There was also a row of thick dictionaries in other languages, Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Mermish, Goblin, Bulgarian along with several runic dictionaries including Norse, Celtic, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Mayan Glyphs, Sumerian Cuneiform, and Phoenician.

Well, the Goblin and the Mermish would undoubtedly come in handy. So might the French and Bulgarian, at least for translating the insults they'd spat at him before the first task. He was itching to look at all the books!

The next compartment was a wardrobe. One half was a hanging space, with dresses, robes, coats, cloaks and skirts hung on neat wooden coat-hangers. The other half was a chest of drawers, filled with neatly folded stacks of shirts, pants and (Harry blushed) undergarments, along with a space for shoes down the bottom.

The next compartment was odd. It seemed to be like a typical trunk, but colder. It was divided into three spaces. One was chilly and had several bottles of Butterbeer and pumpkin juice in it. The middle section was not cold but had several pieces of fruit and packets of cereal. The last section was warm, like a warming oven.

Harry pulled out the manual scroll and looked it up. This compartment was for food. Designed to keep fresh any food put into it, and keep it hot or cold for as long as needed. Harry grinned. This would mean he no longer had to go hungry at the Dursley's. Not that he was planning on ever going back, but this would mean, he never had to be hungry again.

He could get Dobby and Winky to help him pack it ahead of time for the holidays, so he would have enough meals! This was brilliant! It even had a small barrel in one corner that seemed to be, when he studied the runes more closely, ever filling with fresh water. Not potions quality water, he suspected but clean cold water, perfect for drinking. How clever! He'd never be required to be thirsty again! It was small enough that he could fit it into one of Dudley's bulky pockets. He'd never be stuck in the sun at Privet Drive with no water again!

The next compartment seemed to be for potion brewing. The top half turned into a set of shelves and drawers, again bigger than it should have been, for ingredients, equipment and completed potions. The bottom half seemed to transform into an old fashioned school desk with a bench attached.

He peered closely at the desk itself. It was clearly well used, covered in old stains and marks. But carved into the wooden desktop, was containment and shielding runes. Almost exactly the same as the ones he'd come up with to use in potions class. A large pentagram with a circle of neatly carved runic text just inside the circle.

He grinned and peered closely at them. They were done slightly differently from how he'd done it. Still, it was ingenious and perhaps even more effective. And she'd incorporated several timers into the desktop so she could keep track of several different timings at once.

His mother was brilliant!

What was even neater, however, was that some of the drawers still had ingredients in them, and somehow they still seemed fresh. He cast a few detection charms, and like the food compartment, it seemed to be covered in strong preservation charms and runic arrays. He peered into the drawers of ingredients. There was a surprising amount, and several of the harder to find varieties. To his relief, there was lots of Gillyweed, Lacewing Flys, Bicorn-horn, Boomslang skin, Wolfsbane and Bezoars, just to name a few. He let out a happy sigh. This would make things easier. He could now brew some Polyjuice too for a quick disguise when he needed it. It wouldn't be done in time for the Yule Holiday but, it kept. He could brew some preemptively for escaping during the summer if Dumbledore somehow forced him back.

There were more notebooks and books here too. One of which seemed to be a massive and well-worn tome. It was heavily annotated by two different hands but seemed to be the potion masters companion. This was a huge and very hard to get text that was used to train for Potion Mastery's. Harry wondered if his mother had been planning on becoming a Potions Master.

Harry had tried to find a copy himself, but there was none in the library. Even now, when he understood better, he still somehow managed to screw potions up. And he had no idea why. It was so frustrating. And no-one seemed able to explain it to him.

Apparently, most people were not talented enough or good enough, or in-tuned and sensitive enough to need that level of detail in a teaching text. But having that intrinsic sense for potions, meant you''d need the book, as clearly, his mother had. It had been the only book he had ever heard of that listed what ingredients reacted with what and why. That would hopefully help Harry figure out what his problem with potions was. Or maybe it was something to do with his inability to sense his own magic...

Another interesting looking book seemed to be one his mother and her friend wrote themselves. It was titled "Everything you ever need to know about potions: a dunderhead's guide. By the Half-blood Prince and the Flower."

It seemed that Sev and His mother had written a book! It started out as some kind of potions encyclopaedia, an introduction, but it ended up as so much more! It had every ingredient imaginable; what it did and how it reacted with different things, where it was found, and how to grow and harvest it.

The book ended up as a massive amalgamation of interesting notes; pages and pages of notes, useful bits of textbooks, heavily edited with many snarky and sarcastic comments. It was a delight how cynical and sarcastic his mother and her friend were. They were hilarious.

It even went into the intricacies of why things acted as they did! Which was what most people seemed to not care about, be he thought was very important. It seemed to heavily reference the Potion Masters Guide and almost completely rewrote and restructured the introductory texts as well as the advanced ones.

His mother and Sev then went a step further and made an enormous folding out table of correspondence listing the different ingredients. It even had a whole chapter on how magic affected potions and how a wizards use of magic while brewing, and the feel of the potion, affected its success. Harry blinked. Maybe that was why he had such trouble? He couldn't feel his magic and therefore, couldn't channel it right. Perhaps that was also Neville's problem. He seemed to have difficulty channelling his magic too. Maybe Harry should mention it? Maybe Neville had blocks as well. Or maybe, Neville's wand was unsuited. Harry had noticed it felt a little funny when Neville was using it in comparison to when Hermione used hers.

His mother's potion book also seemed to have every potion they had ever brewed or improved, and detailed many failed attempts and why they failed as they tried to create new potions. It also had several that she and her friend had invented.

It seemed that they had at one point gotten a hold of The Master Book, and re-wrote it making it better. Which is what Journeyman Potioneers used when studying for their masteries. The Mastery book itself was great but was not the most to the point book. It was also big, heavy, expensive and hard to get. So they had condensed it and made a smaller version, just for them to use as a reference.

They'd charmed their book to look smaller than it was. It was still a large book, but it was lighter, and had more pages on the inside than the outside. Which in itself was a brilliant piece of charms work. He reckoned it would probably be more useful than all his potion texts put together. His mother was funny, cynical (like Sev) and the book was peppered with sarcastic, snarky comments amidst all the information.

Sure enough, in Sev's snarky writing was a note, "most morons are too dunderheaded and are not talented enough, strong enough or in-tuned enough to need any of this. They will never experiment, never create, and will never feel potions for what it is. An art. But some might, as we will. So we will make this, for those that can feel it. Morons."

Harry wasn't sure what that meant, but it was a useful book. He closed the book with a frown at the thought of Professor Snape, before putting it out of his mind.

Harry used the key with the desk on it next. That compartment had a set-up much like the potions compartment, but instead, the shelves and drawers were designed for writing supplies, homework and books. Lined up here were stacks and stacks of completed homework assignments and like his bag, bound notebooks full of class notes.

On the desk, however, was a typewriter. Harry peered at it. It hummed with magic, and after checking the manual learnt that it was magicked to allow edits to be made, and for the text to look mostly like standard Wizarding handwriting. This apparently made writing essays and things much quicker. That would be useful. Snape was always complaining about his handwriting. And it didn't seem to matter how much he worked at it. It was still atrocious. His hands just didn't work right. He could clench his fists and had good reflexes, but his fine motor control was just shot for some reason.

It was a good size. The desk was small enough to fit onto the little platform he'd made in his cupboard but big enough on the inside to give him as much space as he needed to spread out his work. That had been the only problem with his cupboard. He could not spread as many books and notes out around him on the floor as he wanted. Wizarding space was amazing! The trunk's desk seemed much bigger within the confines of the trunk than it logically should have been!

He closed the trunk, unlocked the next compartment. It opened and transformed into a bed. Complete with a bedside table. It looked comfortable too, with a lamp on the headboard, and a warm patchwork blanket in black and green. It looked like his mum's blanket, but the colours were different, and the magic felt different, but vaguely familiar...

It would be much more comfortable than his ratty bed at the Dursley's! At the Dursley's he had a metal camp bed with a crappy falling apart baby mattress and far too many loose springs poking into him at all angles. Really, the floor was more comfortable there!

Harry opened the bedside table door; more books. These ones seemed to be notebooks, and he pulled them out. Most were only half full and seemed to be for all the current projects she'd been working on when she died. He pressed a hand to his mouth. Her last diary and a notebook on warding and protection... He wondered if it would have how she had protected him in it. She also had a book on mapping, on her trunk project, and on languages. She'd been planning on learning with Language potions! There were also the notebooks she'd been using for her mastery studies, potions and charms.

How on earth did the notebooks get updated if the trunk had been at Hogwarts when she died at Godric's Hollow?!

There was also a thick sketch pad and pencils box. He opened it carefully. Pages and pages of sketches; Hogwarts, her friends, of him as a baby... His mother had been more of a drawer than a painter. Harry himself was terrible at drawing; not nearly as good as his mother who seemed to be able to capture a photo like quality in her pencil and ink sketches.

Harry himself had taken up watercolour painting, in the summer after first year. He wasn't that good, but it was cathartic and relaxing. It was somehow more comfortable for him to control a brush than a pen. Locked in Dudley's second bedroom with nothing to do, he'd started sifting through all the junk and had found a sketch pad and paints. He'd picked it up on a whim and had ended up painting his time at Hogwarts; like a painted diary instead of a written one.

He'd been so lonely and traumatised after his first year. When he was locked up in his room, he wondered if the Wizarding world had forgotten him, or abandoned him. In his more hungry hours, he wondered if he'd imagined it all and was he a murderer because Quirrell had died?

He'd started painting; the hut on the rock with Hagrid in the doorway, silhouetted by lightening, Diagon Alley, Olivanders and his first wand, Gringotts, the platform, Hogwarts Express, Hogwarts and the lake viewed from the boat, the Great Hall, the Quidditch Pitch, Fluffy, Norbert, Quirrell, Snape, the unicorn... the gauntlet protecting the stone, each of the traps, Ron on the floor of the chest board, the mirror, Quirrell burning; everything. It had been absolving and something to anchor his memories into reality with. Which when he was feeling weak and crazy from the hunger, he'd needed.

He'd missed painting. It was a habit he'd never really stopped. He didn't have time to paint at Hogwarts and was too scared of getting teased for such a 'girly' past time. But he missed it at school. Maybe he could paint the walls of his cupboard. He'd always wanted to. Or maybe the floor of his potions platform. He'd paint the night sky on it and maybe enchant it to move with the stars. Maybe Dobby could pick up his sketch pad from the Dursley's. He always left it under the floorboards.

He'd like to paint again, the goblet, the shack, maybe his new cupboard. He would love to paint Night-Sky-Scales; the Horntail, as well. She'd been beautiful. He liked painting beautiful things. She had nice lines, and the colouring would be a nice challenge to get just right. And the way her fire lit up the night sky...

He wouldn't mind painting Firenze too. His colouring was nice, subtle, with blond hair, tan skin bending seamlessly into a palomino coat, he'd be nice to paint. And maybe some of the Bowtruckles he was becoming friendly with. And Dobby and Winkey, they'd done so much for him.

He sighed and put the books away to look at later. The last compartment was odd. Instead of the bottom of a trunk, it was simply a dark hole, with a ladder in it.

Puzzled, he looked at the notes again and realised it was all her handwriting. He was stunned. She'd made this trunk. Not entirely, but mostly. She'd made this and had written up the manual for her creation. She must have been a genius.

He hoped he would one day live up to her intelligence, and that he was even half as smart as she had been. She had taken a two-compartment trunk and transfigured it, used runes and arithmancy on it to make it more. He was stunned. She'd added the extra compartments and made them into what they were. She'd even managed to put a room in it and was working on making it turn into a tent, but hadn't gotten to try it. He'd have to see if he could finish it for her.

Carefully climbing down the ladder, he reached the bottom and muttered, "Lumos."

Lanterns on the wall lit up, revealing a wooden room. In one corner was the bed, that now seemed to be a bunk bed. Harry wondered who the other bed was for... His father was an ass, so he didn't think his mother would have shared this with him. Her friend Sev? Professor Snape, he meant? But they stopped being friends after fifth year, so it must have been for someone else. Not Petunia, she hated magic. Maybe his mother had another close friend?

The desk was along the wall next to it, with the bookshelves. It was was longer now, half study desk, half potions. There was the wardrobe at the end of the bed on one side of the ladder. On the other side was a door to a small bathroom. Under the bed was the drawer full of the nicknacks from the first compartment. It seemed that you could access every other aspect of the trunk from inside this room.

Opposite the bed was a fire place with two armchairs. In the final corner was a kitchenette with a scrubbed wooden table. It was a really cozy looking little room. It was small and seemed perfect. It was a bit like the inside of Mr Weasley's tent. Small but with everything you needed in it.

He peered around closely. There was a window painted into the wall over the bench in the kitchen. It seemed to show a section of moonlit grounds. He wondered if it were enchanted like the Great Hall was or if it would always show that. The floor, like the walls and ceiling, was wooden. But there was a thick woollen rug in front of both the fireplace and the bed.

There were dried herbs and plants and things hanging from the ceiling. Some plants had died while not being in a preservation ward; the bonsai on the desk, a vine of some kind hanging over the small fridge-like wooden cabinet. But the dried plants and things hanging had clearly been preserved potion ingredients.

There were also a few tanks on the wall. One looked like it had once been a fish tank, and one seemed to have held some type of reptile at one point. There was also an owl perch in the corner, and a basket that looked like it had belonged to a cat.

He wondered if his mother had liked animals as much as he did. He liked cats, though he'd hated Mrs Figg's. Hers stank of cat and cabbage and always seemed to be watching him, spying on him. But he'd liked Crookshanks. Maybe he'd be able to have one one day. Or a snake? He'd like to have something he could talk to, or rather that could talk back. And that perch would be perfect for Hedwig. He'd have to see if Winky could put an owl portal for her in the trunk as well, like she had in his cupboard.

He went over to the desk and pulled out his mother's potion book. Taking it over to the hearth. He lit the fire and curled up in the armchair in front of the warmth under the black and green blanket. Harry spent the night reading the book.

He ended up nodding off and falling off the chair very early the next morning. Instead of climbing out of the trunk, he went into the bathroom, had a shower and borrowed a pair of pyjamas. They were black and huge on him, and for some reason he couldn't imagine his mum in black.

He slept in the trunk that night with his jar of bluebell flames and a fire in the fireplace. He'd missed the sound of a smouldering fire since leaving Gryffindor. He snuggled down in his mother's bed, under her green blanket and fell asleep breathing in her scent from her pillow. It was bittersweet and nostalgic.

There was a tiny part of him that wished he hadn't asked, hadn't gotten to know her. Because now she was a real tangible person. Someone he was connected to. Now he had someone to miss, not just an idea or concept.

Because now he missed her terribly.

Severus jumped and shot off a rather deadly hex, before allowing himself to swear violently when the Bloody Barron drifted into his bedroom just as he was drifting off to sleep.

"Do you mind?" He said irritably staring at the ghost.

"There is another snake nesting in your dungeons," the ghost said in the way of greeting.

Severus sighed and sat up, pulling a blanket around his shoulders. This was going to be one of those conversations.

"I thought so," he said, "I am almost certain they are taking refuge in the lower dungeons. I haven't caught them yet, but you have just confirmed my suspicions."

The Barron said nothing, just stared at him dolefully.

"Not one of our green-clad nestlings, is it?" Severus asked.

He knew everything that happened in his house and with his Snakes. So it was not one of them. They knew to come to him if they were having house issues that prevented them from going to the common room.

"Indeed it is not," was all the Barron said before drifting out through the wall. He left Severus with the impression that the infuriating ghost knew precisely who it was and where they were hiding, but wasn't going to tell him.

0o0o0o0o0

Notes on the runes-alphabets mentioned

These are basically all old alphabets or writing systems that can be used in rune work. Sumerian Cuneiform are the pictograms used in Mesopotamia, one of the oldest known writing systems.

Similarly Mayan Glyphs are also pictograms

And Pheonician alphabet in an early Canaanite alphabet used in west Asia.

For more info check out Wikipedia or

Ancientscriots dot com

Also I'm not a linguist, so please ignore any minor errors.