X. Ship

So why Diary Tom? A few reasons: divorcing the story from the original plot and because I think there might be some interesting stuff to do with a malevolent magician who knows about space, or at least ideas to explore. I have some plans for the future- to put it simply, Voldie's mooks will eat shit in what I hope will be spectacular fashion.

As for why Sage the Basilisk thought Harry sounded more natural- it wasn't a matter of being natural born Parselmouth, more that Tom was trying to force a body not used to Parseltongue to speak it through a crumby possession. Compare that to a Harry with a bit of practice and a tongue that is actually his own… and yeah. Sorry if that was unclear.

Unfortunately, before Harry could start delving too deep into the construction of his spaceship, there was the matter of Quidditch, and their upcoming match against Slytherin. Honestly, Harry couldn't really get himself all worked up by the whole thing, but he was still obligated to play along in case anyone started asking awkward questions.

Walking out in front of that cheering crowd did warm his cheeks still, but Harry honestly wanted to be known for something more than just sports, no offense to the Quidditch pros. He'd like to think that he was a decent player and the sport was pretty fun, but he just didn't really like the idea of playing professionally- it wasn't something he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

However, it seemed like someone wanted him to play Quidditch for the rest of his life, considering the manic bludger that was hunting him through the air. Yet more proof that someone was out to get him- although he really couldn't focus on considering any potential culprits when he was flying for his life.

Fred and George did their best to keep it off of him, but it was scarily determined- he supposed that was a deadly flipside to magical intelligence, as it let things like this happen. Dogged pursuit by a bludger was terrifying to face- he tucked away the idea as something to pursue in a potential security system and continued dodging for his life while trying to grab the Snitch.

Taking a blow to the elbow that handily broke his arm was bad enough, but he grit his teeth through the pain and went for the Snitch- it was the only way to end the game and get someone to actually analyze what the hell went wrong with that Bludger. Well, maybe the game would be ended if he got turned into a red smear on the pitch, but he much preferred survival.

After nearly hitting Draco with a truly flying tackle he grabbed the Snitch- and proceeded to crash onto the field in truly spectacular fashion, skidding in the mud even as gripped the Snitch in his good hand. Through the pain, Harry made a note to possibly leave the Quidditch team if this sort of stuff happened too often- maybe it was a curse, like on the DADA position?

To make a bad situation even worse, took a quick dive into unconsciousness, and when he returned it was Lockhart's unnervingly wide grin above him. Harry groaned and Lockhart prattled on about how grateful he should be that he would be healed by the magical mastermind Gilderoy Lockhart (Harry would have much preferred Madam Pomfrey, thank you).

At the very least, Harry managed to get one admittedly lame smack in with his boneless, jelly-like arm (good grief, how did you bungle a spell that badly?) before he was dragged away to an actually competent medical professional. Some part of him worried that he might actually get punished for that- but at the same time, the teachers all seemed to think that Lockhart was a special kind of insufferable so he wasn't too worried.

Having the bones of his right arm and therefore dominant hand removed was, to put it mildly, something of an annoyance, and served as a minor setback for any future plans, as he would need to stay the night to get it fixed. On the bright side, it did force him to improve his left handed writing- being ambidextrous would be kind of useful, even if Tom did rib him for his bad calligraphy (not mention all the ink smears on his hand).

Regrowing the bones of his arm was not a fun process- he tried to take note of what was happening with the Skele-Gro, just in case he found himself in a similar situation in the future. Hopefully it would just be broken bones, but it was probably something he would want to stock up on if he was far from help.

He also received a visit from the house elf Dobby- admittedly, waking up to those vast, watery eyes was a little frightening. "Dobby warned Harry Potter… Dobby tried to stop him… the platform was closed, and he still came to Hoggywarts!"

Harry's eyes narrowed. "How did you know about the platform?" Harry asked, but he pretty much knew- Dobby had gone around and somehow blocked it- how else would he know? "It was you, wasn't it? You tried to keep me from Hogwarts!"

"Indeed, yes sir… but it was to save you sir!" Dobby cried. "There is danger here, sir- you need to leave and go somewhere safe!"

"You nearly stole my education away from me! If I wasn't bedridden, I'd hit you!"

Dobby gave a sad smile. "Dobby is used to threats, sir- I get them many times a day at home." Dobby blew his nose on the corner of his tunic, a pathetic looking… pillowcase? Harry couldn't help but pity the poor guy- he had told himself that house elf slavery was alright if they really needed it to survive… but if they were treated like this, then… ugh. It was uncomfortably familiar to Harry.

"Why do they make you wear that pathetic thing, Dobby?"

"Tis a mark of enslavement, sir- if Dobby was given clothes by his masters, he would be freed, but they are careful to not pass so much as a sock to Dobby." He sniffled, and suddenly changed subject. "Harry Potter must go home, sir- Dobby's bludger should have been enough-"

"Wait, you're the one who tried to send me home in a coffin?"

"No! Never, Harry Potter sir! You don't know how much you mean to us dregs of the magical world…" Dobby continued to rant about how much Harry meant to him and how it wasn't really a murder attempt, honest- until he heard somebody approaching the room and popped away. Interesting- Harry decided that looking into house elf teleportation could be interesting- did it follow the same rules as normal wizarding teleportation? People couldn't… apparate, was it? They couldn't apparate in Hogwarts, if memory served.

As Harry considered this, the door swung open and a voice carried in. "Hullo, Harry!" Harry almost cringed when he heard Colin's voice, but hey, it was company. And hey, he brought grapes- and a camera. That was interesting.

"How are you, Harry?"

"Been better." Harry chuckled. "Been a lot better- arm hurts… I can still feed myself though." Thankfully, he still had one of his hands working properly, so Colin didn't have to feed him, thank goodness.

"I got some good pictures of your game- would you like to see them?"

Harry grinned. "Of course." He had to admit that the pictures were all pretty novel- it was like watching a video or show or something, but on a thin piece of paper. It was definitely one of the most magical items he had seen at Hogwarts.

"Say Colin- do you think you could grab a few photos for me? I'll sign some, if you'd like, if you let me keep the others." Colin gave him a broad grin.

Tom wanted to be careful with Harry- he couldn't just drain him dry to make a new body, like he planned on doing with that Weasley brat. Potter was too useful to be a magical battery, not when his resources and reputation were there for the taking. And as loath as Tom was to admit it, these muggle things that Harry talked about were interesting- at least more than Ginny's prattling.

At first, it was just something Tom figured he would have to pretend to like, but as Harry talked on, he saw the practical uses that space had, the way it and other technologies had linked the muggle world together in a way that wizards could scarcely imagine. Throwing a coup and taking over wizarding Britain only to get busted by muggle telecommunications or something would be truly embarrassing.

He wasn't going to say something silly, like that muggles were somehow better than wizards, but denying the good things they created would just be asinine- the wizarding world had already integrated radios and trains, why not have more? Harry had already compared Tom to those devices- computers?- before, but stressed that Tom was better in some ways. How much fat could they trim off of the Ministry if someone figured out how to install computers?

Satellites were another interesting muggle thing- how could they be improved with the power of magic? With the right spells, a truly unrivaled system of observation could be possible- it just seemed like there were so many areas where one could improve the other. Thinking about it, with careful applications of magic, you could basically establish a shadow government: a few Imperios in the right place, bribes of magical items or medical treatments…

There were a number of things space could offer him- either as a place of refuge in case things in the wizarding world got a little too hot, or as something to hold over the muggles. How easy would it be to cripple their satellites with magic and extract a princely ransom to keep their delicate little webs of technology going? There was so much opportunity here...

Not to mention that Harry's fascination with space was always a good button to press if he wanted to derail the boy's train of thought. A subtle push in the direction o space stopped him thinking about inconvenient things, like the fact that the mysterious culprit of the attacks hadn't made a move after Harry had gotten the diary.

Honestly, Tom wasn't even completely against the idea of hitching a ride with Harry- there was always something nice about letting others do the hard work for you, at least when they were actually competent enough to get the job done.

Tom made sure to keep up the appearance of being helpful- bemoaning the way classes wasted time that could be spent building, while also making sure to provide help for homework… Sure, it was all basically review material, but it was better than having no one at all to speak with.

Sneaking down into the Chamber had become something almost fun for Harry. It was satisfying, making actual, physical progress towards space- he had nothing against learning about magic, of course, but there was something wonderful about actually applying it.

Harry and Tom were still doing even more testing on top of the building- one of the big things Harry wanted to figure out was seeing if things with runes could be shrunk. So he carved out a little piece of stone with some basic runes and shrunk it, and thankfully, everything seemed to work properly. Sure, the light absorbent runes would be a lot less efficient at smaller scale thanks to less surface area, but he didn't plan on flying a mini-spaceship. It was more about sneaking the ship out- well, he'd probably need some lightening spells as well.

He had already gotten some practice in with those- he was never really the strongest kid in his age group, there was was no way he was moving giant slabs of stone around. Even then, it was definitely some intense work, moving eight (that was the number they eventually decided on) huge slabs of roughly circular rock (as flywheels) into position next to his sort of workshop- the corner of the Chamber he claimed for himself.

Figuring out how to turn stone into metal was a real trick- he had to sit down and do meditation exercises before he could even begin to do the most basic alchemical exercises. Thankfully, since he was a magician, he didn't have to make perfect quality steel- he could just use spells to make whatever crappy iron he made strong enough to do the job.

Of course, there was also the inherent problem in trying to shape a giant hunk of metal into something useful- he could use cutting spells, but it was still solid metal. It took an embarrassingly long time to come up with the idea of transforming it into something more malleable, like clay, first- it made the process more complex, but also saved Harry from having to sculpt actual rocks.

At least, that was the theory- he couldn't even compare it to those first transfiguration classes, where they actually got something done. Some part of him just revolted against the idea- you couldn't just transform two completely different materials into each other without going as far to tear the very atoms apart and reshape them anew.

Thankfully, Tom was there to help- he had been a sixth year back when the school actually offered Alchemy, making him the resident expert (at least, the resident expert he felt comfortable asking). That didn't stop Harry from getting into a spirited argument about the nature of the elements with him. It seemed like Harry's faint knowledge of the periodic table was causing some contention.

After several prolonged arguments, Harry decided, grudgingly, to play along with Tom's methods for now, using his basic alchemy gear to figure out the process on tiny little slivers of stone. Despite one part of his mind screaming at him that no, rocks and steel weren't united by some shared "earth element" he tried his best- and when he managed to silence that voice, to focus on just himself and the little sliver of rock, the procedures of heating and cooling and simmering…

For a few beautiful moments, the Chamber seemed to fade away until there was nothing left but that little shard of worn stone and its immediate surroundings. After a process of calcining and purification and a bunch of other alchemical buzzwords, Harry picked up the shard with a set of pliers (it might still be hot) and could see a slightly warped reflection of himself in the metal. The metal.

At the very least, no one was there to hear his maniacal laughter, except for Sage (if she wasn't sleeping or hibernating or something- could that explain her surprisingly light diet?). Sure, the metal was a little off- it seemed to have melted slightly during the process, the shard no longer in quite the same shape that it was originally, but it was alchemy!

Still, transforming a little shard of rock into metal was different from transforming rocks by the slab- he couldn't exactly stick one of those inside a beaker. Well, couldn't he just… use a shrinking or engorgement charm? In theory, a true alchemist would eventually manage to wean themselves off of all the ceremony of the lab- it seemed like it was intended, in part, to get the alchemist into the correct mental state. What was it called? The Zone, a sort of trancelike state where everything but your work just seemed to slip away…

Interesting stuff to theorize about, certainly, and Harry hoped to eventually reach that peak state of alchemy- but he wanted to do so once space had been achieved. For now, he would have to settle with trying to use alchemical procedure to induce that state… if that was what caused alchemy to happen anyways.

The shrinking thing did seem to work, happily enough- so he made it into something of a process. Carve off a reasonably sized chunk of stone, shrink and lighten it as much as he reasonably could, and get to work, transforming it into clay before undoing the spells- from there he could work it with his hands, let it harden, and then he could do the entire process all over again to make it into metal.

Embarrassingly, Tom had to point out the humor in Harry Potter doing actual magical pottery.

That was one part of the ship handled, at least in theory (the warping issue seemed to pop up again- it was almost as if the material was too malleable- it ruined fine detailing), but it turned out that using alchemy to make glass was a lot harder than he thought- at least, if he wanted to make glass that was actually clear instead of the crappy brown and green stuff he made before. He supposed that on a philosophical, alchemical level, it would make sense that internal impurities would have to be removed before he could make pure, actually good-looking glass.

Not to mention the fact that if he actually wanted to see outside of his craft, he would probably have to make runic cameras… and even Professor Babbling had struggled with carving glass- he'd probably break dozens of pieces of glass to get even one of those. At least, if he was doing it the normal way.

Why waste time painstakingly cutting glass when he could just use a stylus to carve the runes into a piece of clay and then make it into glass? At least, that was the theory- the runes were already small and precise, so even a tiny jostle could completely ruin them while they on the soft clay, and if they survived that they would almost always get ruined during the alchemical process, thanks to the sort of 'melty' effect his alchemy seemed to have.

Harry persevered, but he tried to think of how the normal, non-magical space programs had done it- they had all those lovely windows…

Harry grinned as he remembered- in all those pictures of astronauts in their space suits, they had those fancy golden visors which let them basically look directly at space. And if there was one thing Harry wasn't lacking in at the moment, it was gold- if the goblins didn't know he was defacing currency, could it really hurt them?

That would definitely be an option- it would still involve looking through his less than ideal glass, but it was better than the camera thing, which seemed to be a bit of a dead end, at least until his alchemical skills improved. He made sure to note his issues- it was as the materials resisted staying in the form they had been shaped to. The ship would probably end up looking a little rough and unpolished- but he could work on that.

On the bright side, Potter gave Tom a lot of information to parse: whenever Potter had the time, he would write out long "progress reports" on the status of the ship, along with his struggles with alchemy. The craft was already starting to take shape, although as a framework more than anything.

From how Harry described it, the structure of the craft looked rather tent-like, a sort of conical shape composed of many bars of metal, with the occasional plate bridging the gaps. After his little glass epiphany, Harry had decided to take out several of them and replace them with glass- good thing Tom had urged him to go a little light on the charmwork until he was certain everything was in its proper place. The eventual plan was to use charms to make the whole of the ship one mostly seamless body- they just hadn't gotten to that quite yet.

Tom supposed there was one good thing about his current diary form, in that he couldn't really get claustrophobic like a normal human could- imagining a long trip in a craft like that, no matter how Harry described it (the kid was twelve, a normal adult would probably have to bend over just to fit) did not sound appealing. Was it better than the cold depths of space? Probably, but he couldn't imagine how nutty that would make a normal human.

Harry hoped to accommodate for this with intense use of expanded space suitcases- you could fit hundreds of books in a smaller one or an entire room in a larger one. Some of them would be used for provisions and life support and a dozen other things Harry prattled on about… but there would be some creature comforts as well.

Certainly, it was an interesting way to use the summer off from Hogwarts- although Tom suspected that Harry would probably tuck him away for the summer. A stay with the Dursleys would make any testing practically impossible, and Tom was certain even Harry recognized the suspicion that Tom might arouse at the Weasley's (Tom had employed some gentle mental pushes to stress secrecy, and that had already begun to stick).

Tom was careful to observe Harry's mannerisms, from how he took notes and wrote his homework to how he interacted with his friends (which was, admittedly, getting a little rarer thanks to their projects). All of the advantages Harry's body offered depended on being capable of passing as him- if Dumbledore detected that something was up… If anyone was going to dislodge his possession, it was that old man.

He would have to consider ways of getting rid of him, if the rigors of time wouldn't do the job. With a bit of nudging here and there, 'Harry Potter' would make a shoe in for a number of roles: Head Auror, Headmaster, perhaps even Minister of Magic… Still, it would be good to keep Dumbledore around for now- as loath as Tom was to admit it, the fanatical base of followers Voldemort built up was worthless to Harry Potter, and as such crackdowns on them were only a good thing, as they meant less risk to his host.

Building a base among any previously dark purebloods was risky, but he might be able to eke out something from the lighter families… it was interesting to consider all of the many options that Harry Potter was going to give him. Fortune truly smiled upon some people.

It wasn't hard to notice that Harry's behavior had changed quite a bit, becoming more reclusive and a little more irritable, probably courtesy of sleep deprivation. He was noticeably, visibly sleep deprived, and tended to slip away during the night to do… something. His grades didn't really seem to be suffering- at least not the point that his teachers were willing to step in and ask him about it, except for Lockhart, who was more interested in him for his celebrity instead of grades. (Part of the reason why he was doing so well despite not devoting as much time to studying was Tom, who had years of experience with magic, although no one knew this.)

For most of his year mates, this wasn't exactly a huge change, but for Neville, Ron, and Hermione, they could certainly tell that something was up. Sure, Harry was definitely interested in learning more about magic, but this just seemed… odd. Why start acting strangely now?

"Maybe he's just a little spooked by the whole Quidditch match thing- he could have died out there." Neville suggested, "I've had some close scrapes before and felt out of it for days- maybe it's that?"

"What close scrapes, Neville?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowed- she disagreed with his theory because some of the diary weirdness had clearly started before the match (although his sleep deprived appearance got worse afterwards), but maybe it played a part?

"Uncle Algie pushed me off a pier once."

"He… what?" Hermione gasped. "Why?"

"Trying to make sure I had magic, you know- he… uh, he dropped me out of a window when I was eight."

"WHAT?"

"Not on purpose! He was just dangling me!"

"Just dangling you!?"

While Neville's misadventures with awakening his magic distracted them for a moment, they eventually got back around to discussing Harry, and his fascination with that odd diary of his. None of them remembered him writing in it before- it had just sort of appeared. Maybe he got in the mail or found it somewhere… but why did he feel such a need to write in it so frequently?

Christmas was nice, and it served as a bit of a break for Harry, to wind down after lots of extremely late nights. Taking a break from the ship would probably be in order, just so he didn't burn himself out- it might also be good to lay off on the visits to the Chamber for a bit (other than feeding Sage) both to lower any suspicion and to work out some of the more delicate mechanics of the device.

By day, he got into the swing of the winter festivities- throwing snowballs or watching the upper years enchant snowmen to waddle around the grounds- and by night he planned with Tom, writing out plans for the complex system of runes that would make up the system's batteries. Some would store magic, others would make up a system that could store energy in flywheels and extract energy from them… They figured that some flexibility would go a long way there.

Then there was the novelty of Christmas with actual presents and people that wanted to celebrate it with him- it hadn't worn off since last year, at least. He got sweets and a sweater from Mrs. Weasley and a letter from Mr. Weasley, who seemed to be hinting that he would be willing to invite Harry to the Burrow over the summer, and that was easily the greatest gift he received, even compared to the invisibility cloak, which he used quite a lot.

Exploring the castle late into the night under the cloak was still interesting- trying to unravel Hogwarts was a distant second to something as important as his spaceship, but wandering the halls was still inspiring- magicians had pulled off a feat as incredible as Hogwarts hundreds of years ago, why couldn't he make a marvel of his own?

Occasionally, he would spot someone else wandering the halls- thankfully, never Dumbledore, who had the means to see Harry through the cloak- but there were others. Students up late for whatever reason: Ravenclaws determined to grab some particular book from the library, other students (read: Gryffindors) playing catch up with Astronomy assignments late at night, and a few upper year girls who saw Lockhart for remedial lessons. How Lockhart could possibly remediate if he could barely teach, Harry wouldn't know- he had heard Dueling Club was a disaster.

Then there were the presents- another sweater from Molly (couldn't she just enchant one to grow with the child? Maybe she just ran out of ideas- or needed a relatively cheap gift idea every year) and a great collection of sweets to go along with it. Ron and Neville both gave him books- the former had acquired a book on his favorite Quidditch team, while the latter had a book on foreign magical plants. Both were… a little different from his current interests, but sometimes he needed a break from old tomes.

Sirius just wasn't built to stay in a confined place like the Burrow for a long period of time- it brought back unpleasant memories of Azkaban, and he could really get mired in those if he was left alone… Getting out of the house in dog form wasn't quite the same as running around as a human, but he knew that the evidence of his 'death', the only thing keeping the government off his tail, could be cast into serious doubt if people ever thought that just maybe he was willing to sacrifice a hand for freedom.

Being a dog wasn't completely awful, in all honesty- life as a housepet was pretty easy, especially considering the show he could put on with puppy dog eyes and the missing front paw. The scraps just fell into his lap. Heck, if he really wanted to he could go out and get his own food, prowling the countryside for any woodland critters (not that he caught many). It was nice to feel proactive, like he was working for his food instead of just having it slid in on an ice cold tray in a damp, choking room that sucked the warmth of the sun away like it was never there in the first place, like he was still there…

Suddenly, Sirius realized he was sitting on very real, very not-stone grassy ground outside of the Burrow, and he let out a sigh of relief. Well, as much of a sigh of relief as a dog could reasonably give. He was alive, and he was out of that lasted place- sure, he couldn't get all the money he had stowed away in Gringotts (well, maybe he could, if he could sneak in as a dog, but he appreciated the subtlety required to stay alive), but that was a small concern.

This meant that sending Harry a big, dramatic gift was practically impossible- it would raise a lot of very awkward question, especially if it was supposed to be from Arthur Weasley. As lame as it sounded, all Sirius could really give his godson was his 'sage' advice and his affection, which it seemed like the poor boy definitely needed considering what Arthur had told him about the Dursleys. (If Sirius got his paws on them, he'd give the ministry an actual reason to lock him up, he swore...)

Still, Sirius couldn't help but wonder how his godson was doing at Hogwarts- from what Sirius had gathered he took after Lily in a lot of ways, very passionate about learning. He supposed that was tolerable if Harry could still have some fun doing it- would he enjoy pranking? Admittedly, Azkaban had… hit his ability to dream up pranks, to have a good laugh about anything at all, but Harry was the next generation, wasn't he?

Admittedly, Harry didn't have much faith in alchemical texts, or at least the parts of the books that were focused on trying to explain how the world worked, on a basic level. In muggle terms, they would have been hopelessly out of date a few centuries ago- and yes, Harry understood that several of the books were that old, but that was all the more reason to dismiss the non-critical portions. At least that was what he figured.

So that meant he and Tom wasted days debating ways of fixing oxygen so he didn't choke to death on his great big adventure. Transfiguration was right out because it was impermanent- he didn't want to imagine what would happen if things transformed while inside of him- if it even worked in the first place. Herbology, or at plants at the least, were another possibility, but Harry wasn't sure what the plant to passenger ratio was supposed to be, not to mention keeping everything all properly lit.

Tom had discussed the applications of a spell learned by the upper years, called the Bubble-head charm, which provided good, breathable air for diving. A possibility, and something Harry would surely look into for emergency reasons, but he wasn't sure how it would interact with food and drink. Would you have to like, stick a straw through the bubble? Would it pop? What happened if you feel asleep? Would it fail then, in the most crucial moment?

Alchemy seemed like a good solution, but it needed to be automated, so it would work while the passengers slept, and more critically, it somehow involved performing alchemy on air, which seemed like really high level stuff.

Eventually, the thing that made everything fall into place was an old alchemy textbook which discussed the idea of something called phlogiston- it was an antiquated theory about the nature of combustion, which posited that burning things produced phlogiston, which was then absorbed up to a point by the air, and once the air stopped absorbing it, the thing stopped burning. As far as Harry could tell, it was a way of understanding combustion without knowing that the air was composed of a mix of gases, of which only oxygen could help make things burn.

While an antiquated theory, there were a number of writings in the subject courtesy of past alchemists, who had worked to expand their understanding of the world, in their own way. So he was given an objective to search for: "dephlogistication"- he supposed that in a way it made sense in a warped sort of way, as the air was being filled with something, just carbon dioxide.

Unfortunately, a rune assembly that just turned carbon dioxide into oxygen didn't fall straight into his lap, but he did get something: someone had created a charm which was touted as "attracting and directing phlogiston"- that is, a charm that would attract carbon dioxide towards the item the spell was cast on. Interesting, but not useful until he could do something with the carbon dioxide.

In theory, it could be really simple: after all, carbon dioxide was composed of one part carbon two parts oxygen, and if the carbon could simply be taken away, leaving nothing but the oxygen behind, that was workable.

Okay, great. So how did they split carbon and oxygen from each other? Maybe you could have runes that said something like "split air" and carve it with the intent of dividing the component parts of the air instead of, say, literally cutting the air like a sword or something. The problem was finding a rune that could reasonably stretched to mean air- at least not by their understanding of the Runic system, which was admittedly limited.

Eventually, Harry and Tom decided to just scrap the idea of using the old system of Runes, at least here- other parts of the ship would be using tried and tested stuff, but he and Tom started the significant task of composing a completely artificial Runic language.

Because Harry was shooting for simplicity, the Runes would be composed of dots- or circular punches embedded into the surface, in four by four grids, so you could have sixteen possible spaces which could be either left blank or be marked- either with ink or a stamp/hammer of some kind (this might make mass production easier, if they ever got to that stage).

From there, it was as simple as having Tom memorize the meaning of each pattern: set aside ten for numbers, add basic words, and top it all off by adding the elements they planned on working with (carbon and oxygen, in this case). From there he composed a rather… grammatically janky sentence in his runic system: make one carbon two oxygen into carbon and oxygen.

He carefully transcribed it onto some normal paper (maybe he should buy some graph paper or something to make the process easier?) and cautiously started the runes, seeing no major reaction at first. His magic went in, and continued to go in (it was a power hungry rune)… and nothing. Okay, it was changing the air, but surely, there should have been something, right?

Shaking his head, Harry made something a little more complex: he acquired a candle and a glass jar, which he planned to use in a little experiment. Ideally, if the rune system worked, then placing it in a container with a lit candle should keep it lit. Normally a candle in a closed space would exhaust the oxygen present, but as long as the runes functioned it would hopefully continue to burn.

So he set up his runes, lit the candle, placed the jar on top of both… and watched the candle stay lit for a bit longer than he expected before sputtering. Welp. Harry sat down and thought about it for a moment- where had it failed? Assuming that the split was successful, maybe some of the carbon and oxygen just… got back together? Maybe even became carbon monoxide?

Back to the drawing board with a concrete idea of what they needed to do, Tom and Harry modified the runes again- simplifying 'organize this carbon into a crystal structure' was a bit of trick, but the end result was extremely promising: when the runes started working, they were covered in a gentle dusting of black dust. For a moment, Harry wondered if he could make it produce diamonds- if it was pure carbon…

There was a minor problem with this though- if too much of the carbon stacked up, it could start blocking the runes, meaning that oxygen was no longer being produced. That was definitely a good thing to discover before it potentially got him killed, but it could be worked around by simply putting the runes upside down. Set a tray down below and let the carbon fall into there- workable, if hard to accomplish in space without gravity. The dust would make one hell of a mess without that in place.

Gravity was its own problem though- there were a number of ways he could try to pull it off, and all of them would probably need some work. Doing something like one of those crazy ring space stations was a possibility long term (and it would look super cool), but pretty much impossible with the small craft that Harry had at the moment.

As he saw it, he basically had three options: get gravity from the ship's acceleration (which meant a blazing 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration at all times, or somewhere around that so things weren't too disorienting or physically damaging), use magic to push the passengers and stuff down, or having some sort of magical pull down.

He wasn't sure how much energy the movement spells would take up, so he didn't want to bet on that, so that meant one of the other two options. (Not to mention that Harry wanted something that could just work on the air filters alone- he wanted to experience actual zero gravity without choking to death). Between pushing down and pulling down, Harry preferred the later- it would be a little simpler, as he already had the whole banishment spell, at least in theory.

Unfortunately, the whole gravity thing would have some issues when carved onto angled walls- and with his cone shaped craft, that meant that a lot of the walls were angled. He didn't want to get pushed around horizontally- or to have the carbon dust flying around all over the place. While he was at it, why not make the life support a little more… mobile?

The end result was a sort of box like thing- there was space for the carbon dust to accumulate and a bunch of sheets of paper above that space, each with the carbon dioxide purifying rune on them- the dust would appear between the sheets and would be pushed down by runes immediately. He would still have to be sure to charge it with magic (or integrate it into the ship's magical system), which was less than ideal… but it was life support.

With the smaller example of propulsion runes out of the way, that left the real work- the bottom of the craft, where the actual engines would go. Then it occurred to him- he was supposed to be reentering with this thing as well, wasn't he? That meant he needed to somehow figure out how not to get fried by reentry- and he wasn't sure about magical fireproofing.

The first thought that came to his mind was something like dragon scale- that had to be super strong and fire resistant, right?- but unfortunately, he was a little thin on scales at the moment. Maybe he could buy them, but the idea of overlapping scales reminded him of something a little more mundane- didn't the American space shuttle have some sort of ceramic tiling on the bottom?

Harry imagined that the stuff they put on the shuttle wasn't just dug out of the ground, cooked, and stuck to the bottom of the craft, but it was an idea. Once again, he redirected his attention to researching spells which were intended to heat proof things- he found a lot of surprisingly useful stuff in the books discussing dragon handling. Long lasting spells intended for application on things like gloves or clothes- but that worked just fine elsewhere.

There were enchantments for heat resistance, which he could apply to the collection of small shingles he had made. Once again, the strategy was to work on a bunch of tiny parts instead of trying to make the whole thing in one go. He cast as many heat resistance spells as he reasonably could in a night before attaching them to the ship's bottom. Tests with carving the runes on enchanted ceramics proved… undesirable, though.

He eventually resolved on having the engines (or at least what passed for them) pop out from the sides of the ship- it was a complication in design, but better than trying to mess with the heatshield in any way (which Harry knew was a bad idea on many, many levels).

When Harry stepped back, he couldn't help but feel a little proud- even if the craft was honestly one of the ugliest things he ever laid eyes upon. In places it seemed almost like it was melting, and you'd be hard pressed to find a completely straight line anywhere on the thing. It was a rough job and would need a lot of polishing to look presentable, but it was something of a spacecraft, and that was enough.

Hmm, it would probably need a suitably dramatic name- he'd ask Tom if he had any ideas.

Lucius Malfoy hadn't gotten out of the war alive by being a fool- being aware of exactly what was going on was vital in those times. Admittedly, part of the reason he was free was just a general sense of war weariness: the battle was won, the Dark Lord defeated, and his followers freed from the dread grasp of the Imperius curse. No one was anxious to open old wounds once the traitor Sirius was safely locked away.

Still, many eyes were on him- he being anything less than perfectly aware of the threats that surrounded him was folly of the highest degree. So he was very careful when he read over Draco's letters- there was something of great import going on at Hogwarts after all. Getting rid of an incriminating artifact while scaring Muggleborns out of the school and potentially sabotaging the Weasley patriarch's career through his daughter? Perfect.

And sure enough, Draco wrote home about an attack on Halloween, one that certainly seemed to be the result of the Chamber reopening, even if the execution was a little sloppy. However, nothing else seemed to come of it- after the first attack, which had only petrified a cat, there were no more attacks on muggleborns at all. There was certainly unrest in the school, but unless plans were underway for something big… things had begun to fall apart.

In a best case scenario, the diary was somehow lost or misplaced, maybe buried under piles of second hand books in the Weasley brat's bag, but in the worst case, it might have fallen into the hands of someone with an actual understanding of what it was.

Still, this didn't mean he couldn't try to manipulate the situation in a way that benefited him- he was still under scrutiny for his collection of dark objects, so why not show the world just how he had supposedly turned around? It would certainly be… embarrassing if it was revealed that Dumbledore had somehow let such a vile magical artifact slip into the school under his nose. With a bit of work to make sure Lucius wouldn't be caught in the backlash, this could turn out to be quite the political victory.

The year passes, and plotting ensues. Tom and Harry reach for the stars as Lucius Malfoy reaches for political power and Lockhart reaches for… well, ahem. I didn't want to make him a straight up magic date rapist (even if that is worryingly possible in HP-verse) but he is a bit of a creep to be honest.

The mechanics of spaceflight are under way, and orbit, at the very least, will be reached before third year. Third year will be Sirius focused and fairly normal for Harry- the former gets to do space stuff while Harry has to play a more advisor like role short term, possibly through magical mirror like the one Sirius had in the books.

Was this chapter a bit too technical? I enjoyed writing it, exploring how magic could radically change construction and the like. I decided to kind of focus on that whole "divorcing yourself from desire" thing I talked about with alchemy and rolling with it.

I also haven't really decided a name for the ship yet- I was thinking something kind of constellation themed, as Sirius is going to be one of the first passengers, but I'm open to suggestions.