Author's Note: This story is written so I'll try to post weekly once I get some editing done.
On a final note, "Does anyone know why I can't select Lafiel as a character in settings?"
Harry knew the time of reckoning had come, when he was woken up at the crack of dawn by Hermione shaking him, while glancing over at Ron, to see if he was waking up.
He blinked and tried to focus on Hermione's fuzzy form. Mornings without glasses were not easy times for him.
"Mione," he muttered.
She half scowled at him, before thinking better of it. "I have questions."
Harry nodded blearily. "Gimme a couple minutes and I'll meet you outside."
"Don't fall back asleep."
Harry grinned feebly, hoping to dissuade her. The bed roll was really soft. He suspected more magic at work.
Harry found Lafiel sitting around the fire with Hermione in a chair not too far away. Neither spoke. Lafiel seemed to not have a hair out of place and appeared to be perfectly comfortable with her position. The only real oddity with her was the curiosity dancing in her eyes about the simple fire built to ward off the nights chill.
He said, "Lafiel, would you like to join Hermione and myself for a bit of a walk?"
She looked up at him and nodded, before standing and waiting for him to lead.
Hermione looked at him, surprised that he invited her, but shrugged and headed out first, followed by the other two. They walked down to the far side of the lake where there was an old picnic table set up. She sat down on one side, with Harry opposite her and Lafiel to his right side.
Lafiel immediately turned to watch the sun rise in astonishment. She seemed caught by surprise when Hermione said, "We'll?"
"Lafiel is a new friend."
"There must be more to it than that, with all the time Dumbledore spent with you."
Lafiel looked at Hermione and then back at Harry and decided that perhaps this conversation did not involve her. She walked down and sat at the lake's edge peering through the shallow water in wonder. She brought out a bit of bread she had stashed in a pocket and broke up a few pieces tossing it into the water. She seemed utterly surprised when the fish shot up and gulped it down, but she quickly adapted tossing out the next piece a bit further.
She was a bit surprised when Hermione and Harry sat down to either side of her. Hermione turned to her and said, "Harry told me a bit about you, and if you would have me, I'd like to be your friend as well."
Lafiel smiled. "I would like that very much. I have had few true friends." She turned to Harry just to make sure.
He said with a grin, "I would never forgive myself if I abandoned the person who saved my owl."
Hermione said, "I'm surprised someone like you didn't have many friends."
"I was, well, I was related to someone important. Most saw my connection to her. They did not see me. They did not see Lafiel."
"Oh," Hermione asked. "Anyone I know?"
Lafiel said, "No, unfortunately not. I came here in a bit of an accident. I know my family should be fine, but I don't think there is a way back."
Hermione looked at Harry to see if he would elaborate. He did not.
Harry said cautiously, "I hope you will forgive Lafiel some of her secrets."
"I suppose. After all anyone that can convince Harry to take Ancient Runes and Arithmancy must be a good person. I thought for sure Ron had corrupted you."
"That was more Bill than Lafiel, though she is taking them as well."
Lafiel nodded.
"We'll are you going to show me your magic trick?" she asked, curiosity evident in her voice as she spoke to both of them.
Harry looked at Lafiel and she smiled a small smile. He said, "Lafiel, do you mind if I try something with your help this time?"
"I do not mind."
Lafiel slipped inside of his arms and took out her wand. Harry said, "I'm going to try a Patronus with Lafiel's help."
You could see caution in Hermione's eyes but Harry just said, "Trust us." Hermione remained quiet.
Harry showed her the spiral motion traditionally used to summon a Patronus charm, she perfected it within a few tries. He said, "The Patronus charm is a spell to summon a magical protector which can protect you from Dementors and Lethifolds."
Lafiel asked, "What are Dementors and Lethifolds?"
Harry glanced at Hermione.
She quickly explained, "Dementors are dark creatures that guard the Wizarding prison at Azkaban. They have the ability to drain peace, hope, and happiness from those they are near and they have the ability to remove a person's soul leaving them a living husk. Lethifolds are ever rarer. They resemble a black cloak, roughly a half inch thick and they can digest their victims by wrapping around them."
Lafiel twisted partly to see Harry's face, as if searching for some sign he was kidding. He said softly, "Every word she said is true."
She said, "I will learn this. I will never let such foul things near me or anyone. Why do you not kill them?"
Hermione said, "I don't think anyone knows how to kill either one. The Patronus charm is the only defense I know of."
Lafiel nodded quietly, accepting what she had heard.
Harry took that as his cue. "To cast the Patronus charm you generally need to say Expecto Patronum while focusing on two things. First is your desire for a magical protector. The form of the protector depends on the person. Often it is an animal. The second thing is you must focus on your happiest memory at the same time. When an actual Dementor is present, it is even harder to attain the required focus. Do you want some time to get ready?"
"Yes please."
He was surprised when Lafiel placed one of his hands over hers, but quickly did the same, even as he tried to be absolutely still so as not to ruin her concentration. While he was at it, he thought of his own Patronus memory, and of recent days, eyes of Blue and hair as well. He smiled, when he heard in the distance a soft bark. Hedwig had arrived. It seemed she had taken her time, but given how long the Dusley's had locked them in, he wasn't surprised.
Lafiel said, "I'm ready"
"Good, I just want you to go through the motions with my hand following your own. Let's get this right first."
She started to move, only for Harry to fail to stay in sync. She slowed and after several more minutes they got it.
"Harry said, I'll count one two three, then on three I'll try it okay?"
"Okay."
He really was amazed at how fast she picked up his language. He really should spend some time to learn hers. It was the least he could do.
"One."
Hermione looked on in curiosity, even as she unconsciously started to bite her lower lip gently. She also put a hand on her own wand.
She had no idea dual casting was even a thing, let along with a high level spell like the Patronus.
"Two."
She shivered. It was not cold. It was warm if anything. She had felt Harry's magic when he repelled over a hundred Dementors. This was more. This was more right somehow. She had no idea why she thought that. She could see the while light of Harry's magic tinted slightly Lavender by Lafiel's own.
"Three" Lafiel and Harry moved in concert, executing what looked like a flawless wand movement for the charm. They shouted in unison, something she noted they had not practiced, "Expecto Patronum!"
Hot. Too hot. It felt nice, but too much. She backed up several steps as swirled white and lavender light shot out of Lafiel's wand and out onto the lake only to form a solid black panther glowing with swirls of lavender and white light.
For an instant, Hermione thought she saw blue hair on Lafiel, but the Patronus vanished a second later, even as Lafiel collapsed in Harry's arms and her hair returned to black.
He tried to tap her gently, only to get no response.
"Hermione, go get help. She seems to be just out cold."
Hermione rushed into the house, and seconds later the whole family, other than Ron, who was still sleeping was down by the lake.
Mrs. Weasley checked her over before asking, "What did she cast? She is just learning magic and she is in this shape?"
"They cast a Patronus charm." Hermione said.
"Are you insane," Molly shrieked. "That is high level magic. Harry might be able to manage it, but not someone who just got her own wand."
"It worked." Hermione said.
"What?" Bill asked in surprise.
Harry answered, "We practiced a bit and we dual cast the Patronus. Well, I was the one casting. Lafiel just assisted though we used her wand."
"That's crazy. It should have just fizzled. How?" asked Bill.
Hermione said, "It worked. It was a large black panther of some kind. You could tell it was a Patronus because of the lavender and white glow, but other than that it looked like a real panther."
Bill whipped his own wand out and quickly cast a Patronus of his own, before whispering a few sentences to it. "I just contacted Madam Pomfrey. Hopefully, she will be here soon. I still can't believe you did what you said, not this quickly."
Mrs. Weasley said, "She seems to be just unconscious, but I'll be relieved once Madam Pomfrey can check her over."
The twins grinned down as they saw that Harry was still holding the young woman in his arms. They had the tact, at least after their father glared lightly at them to remain silent.
Less than five minutes later both Dumbledore and Pomfrey appeared outside the wards and quickly crossed them to reach where they were at the lake.
Pomfrey said, "Place her gently on the ground Harry and back away so I can get a clear reading."
Harry hesitated for a second before gently placing her down on the soft green grass.
Seconds then minutes passed until Madam Pomfrey was satisfied with the results of her spells.
"You know," she said dryly, "very very few manage to magically exhaust themselves these days. She is fine."
She paused for several seconds, debating what to say. Seeing Albus's expression she continued. "Feh, the girl is lucky. I can tell she has barely used her magic before today, and the message said she helped dual cast a full corporeal Patronus. Well I can buy that if I'm interpreting these readings correctly. What she did, is not well known, because we do not do it!" The last part of her sentence you could hear the exclamation point in it.
She continued more calmly, "What she did is called forcing. If a person begins to learn magic late in life, you can sometimes do something like this to forcefully expand your potential, but as I said we do not do this. It is foolish. She got lucky."
"Why?" Hermione asked.
Harry moved closer to Lafiel and gently swept her hair out of her eyes.
The headmaster answered, "The reason we do not do it, is you get similar results far more safely by simply teaching from age eleven. It is true we could teach more, push harder to achieve better results, but with the increased push is increased risk of permanently destroying someone's magic, thus we do not do it."
"Oh, but what about dual casting? How does that affect it?"
The headmaster shrugged, "Dual casting is probably the only way she could have forced herself to this extent, well short of perhaps a few dark rituals that no one sane would attempt. That there was enough synergy, that they cast one of the few pure white spells." He paused considering his words. "There were many ways for this to end badly. It is partly my fault. I failed to caution them more, since I did not expect this to be a possibility. They both got lucky. Linked as they were the backlash might have been divided."
He turned to Harry. "Now, I was hoping young Harry here would be kind enough to give me his memory of the event."
"I don't know how to do that sir."
"Just spend a couple minutes focusing on the memory from beginning until we showed up, then I can easily retrieve a copy if you permit it." Albus conjured a small vial and pocketed it.
"Okay," he said uncertainly. A few minutes later Albus had touched his wand to the side of Harry's head only to pull it away, drawing a string of dazzling light and vapor, that he quickly placed in the vial.
"Well, as I haven't had breakfast yet, perhaps it is time for a picnic breakfast?"
Molly said, "But I haven't had time to make it."
"Not to worry, I have a small army of House elves that have recently expressed how bored they are now that school is out."
He called one of them and asked for breakfast for everyone, even as he made a copy of their picnic table, complete with table cloth, and conjured a similar cloth for the other table.
Hermione looked on in curiosity, but was distracted when Lafiel blinked her eyes and woke. She said several sentences in that odd lyrical language of hers as Harry helped her up. By the sound of it, she evidently was not happy about something.
Harry asked, "How are you feeling Lafiel?"
After apparently several seconds of thought she ended with, "Bad. Cold water please?"
A house elf appeared handing her a tall glass of ice water, which she carefully held in both hands as she drank it down. She seemed to be spending all her focus on that task, even as Madam Pomfrey waved her wand several times.
Poppy said to her, once she finished her drink, "You are a very lucky young woman. I'd say not to do what you did again, but really you probably will be able to safely do whatever you did, provided of course you do as your told and avoid doing any magic for at least a week. You got lucky. I'll stop by in the mornings to check on you. No magic until I clear you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes." She held a hand to her head as she continued to blink.
Poppy nodded, even as she went to sit down and started making herself a plate.
Harry saw Lafiel start to sag a bit and quickly moved behind her to support her even as the others, save Hermione
moved over to the tables now loaded with food. He said, "I'm sorry Lafiel. I didn't know."
"What happened?"
"We apparently did something which forced your magic to grow faster than normal. It was horribly risky, and I swear I wouldn't have tried it had I known, but your okay, and it looks like it is going to help."
"How will feeling like this help?" she said in a pained voice.
Harry knew that she heard what he said, so he debated saying more, until he remember Pomfrey's words. "We'll you'll be able to cast a Patronus much sooner now."
"Idiot," muttered Hermione fondly.
Lafiel smiled a small smile, as Harry helped her up with Hermione on her other side.
Lafiel, Harry, and Hermione ended up picking up the plates the elves had made for them and moving back slowly to the lake, where it was more quiet, which was something Lafiel seemed to need right then.
Later that night, Lafiel managed to turn in to her temporary room before Ginny and Hermione did. She got out her tablet and said in Baronh, "Ship, what is your status?"
"Propellant is fully recharged. Antimatter supply remains at 47%. One message is available."
Lafiel was shocked. She said, "Play message."
"Viscountes Paryunu. Many of us feared this test may not go well. We had hoped we were wrong or you would choose not to complete this test. That you are hearing this now, means that you did complete it and did at least survive it. In the hopes of helping you as best as we could, we took all we thought might be relevant to you from the Abh Library, compressed it, and encrypted it under your personal keys. We realize that if you survived that antimatter generation will be a challenging problem. Several designs exist in the library that will work there, if you can build them. We are sorry, there was no way to add the equipment necessary to your craft. It was simply too heavy, no matter how we tried to shrink the design. Be well princess and please forgive our failure."
Lafiel said fondly, "There was never anything to forgive." Then more loudly, "Computer record my recommendation for the scientists behind this effort to be rewarded. Transmit it when you can."
"Confirmed."
It went without saying that the Queen would likely never get this missive, though the thing she saw in Gringotts did begin to give her some vague ideas.
"Computer verify my identity. Decrypt the database records relevant to antimatter generation, then determine which, if any of the antimatter generator designs is feasible with the level of technology available on this planet. Once that is done, Reencrypt everything except for your final report, which will only exist on my tablet."
"Identify Verified. An estimate is not yet available when the information will be available. I am currently limited to passive reception of radio waves, which has limited information. A cable carrying data is within ten minutes of silent travel."
"Continue to avoid detection. Remain where you are until the database is fully re-encrypted and only the minimal information is retained to accomplish your task. Once complete attempt to tap into the cable, if you can do so with reasonable safety. Inform me when an estimate is ready."
"Confirmed."
"Computer resume the English lessons."
"Confirmed."
Hermione was surprised when she walked up to the temporary room and heard Lafiel speak what appeared to be lines from a television show. She opened the door, only for her to slip something in her pocket.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"We'll enough. I think I'm mostly over what happened earlier."
Hermione smiled. "Being around Harry is usually exciting, sometimes bad, but mostly good."
"You have known him long?" she asked.
"Since we were eleven. He saved my life."
"Tell me," she commanded a touch imperiously.
Hermione really enjoyed simply talking to Lafiel, who may have been skeptical but listened with great patience. She was actually a bit disappointed when Ginny came in and got in her bed. It seemed Ginny was not in the mood to talk. We'll she supposed Ginny was not expecting some girl to come in and what, sweep Harry off his feet? Well maybe not that, but she was certainly having more luck than Ginny was.
Hermione asked, "Are you sleepy?"
Lafiel yawned. "A little, but I'm not ready to sleep quite yet."
"Could we go somewhere and you help me with these books?"
"Sure, but you can't cast anything. Madam Pomfrey said..."
"I won't."
The pair slipped out the room, with several of Lafiel's new books held in their arms.
Harry was surprised when Hermione was missing at breakfast. He asked, "Has anyone seen Hermione?"
Lafiel blushed sheepishly. "We may have stayed up a bit late. I believe she is still sleeping."
Harry looked towards the stairs in curiosity.
Mrs. Weasley asked, "Whatever did you stay up all night for?"
"Hermione was explaining Arithmancy to me. Unfortunately, we only got through the first book."
Bill had only been down at the table for a few minutes when he heard this. "You got through the first year Arithmancy book in one night?"
"Yes, it is odd, but seems simple enough."
"That is pretty impressive, and then we have Ron," Bill teased.
Ron was piling sausage on his plate when everyone turned towards him and chuckled. He kept added pancakes.
Bill said, "We'll if you have any questions, feel free to ask."
"I have many questions."
"After breakfast?" Bill hazarded.
Lafiel smiled a mischievous smile.
Hermione awoke three hours later only to blearily stumble into the kitchen when lunch was almost ready to be served. Bill and Lafiel were not there yet. Neither was Harry.
Hermione started nibbling on a piece of toast. She absently muttered, "The woman is a menace. Whole book. One night.. Understood it." Fred absently put a cup of tea next to her hand that she picked up like it was the most precious thing in the world before slowly drinking it, blinking, and looking around, wondering why everyone was looking at her.
Molly prompted, "You were saying something about Lafiel?"
Hermione blew out a breath, yawned, drank some more tea, and then finally said, "She is brilliant. She just is. I know I'm good, but she is at least a third faster than me in picking up the material!"
"So your saying," Mr. Weasley said, "that Harry's new friend may be a bit smarter than you are?"
Hermione resisted the temptation to glare as she contemplated her pancake.
One of the twins asked, "Do you think she would help with our pranks? We could use a certified genius."
Molly said, "No. Just no. You will not be corrupting that girl. Forget it. No."
Hermione smiled her own small smile as she attacked her sausage and then refilled her tea.
A few moments later, Bill, Lafiel, and Harry came in. Hermione asked, "How far did she get today?"
Bill said, "Not very far actually, but this is mostly because we spent time helping Harry learn Arithmancy. You know, I'm not sure I'll have enough time, but I'm betting if Hermione and you helped him, you might both be able to skip the year you missed. It will be a close thing, but if you are far enough this summer I'll talk to your professors about it."
Hermione's eyes sharpened and her smile grew. Lafiel's did as well. Hermione said, "Finally. Your not getting out of it any more Harry. I knew you could do it. You're out of excuses."
Harry gulped and looked towards Ron who said, "Don't look at me!"
He stabbed his own sausage and hid his own smile.