Lafiel dreamed, and in her dream's she saw her father and her mother's sorrow. They missed her so. She reached in her dream to try to bridge the impossible distance, only to fail, time and time again.

Harry felt something was wrong, something was out of reach. He forced himself awake, only to look upon Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing.

"You are safe. Everyone is fine."

Harry knew that already, somehow, save it wasn't quite true. He turned and saw the others. Lafiel was jerking slightly in her sleep. He got up, amazed at how easy he could see, and wondered why Poppy had put his glasses on, then realized she had not.

He ignored it, and almost stumbled as he made his way over to well, one of the blue haired girls. He gently touched Lafiel's right hand with his own, and she was instantly awake, looking at him.

"We are in the Hogwarts hospital wing. The others are here. They are fine," he said.

Lafiel looked around to confirm his news.

"What happened? Did it work? I recall we beat it."

Poppy said, "The foul thing in your scar is gone. The headmaster wouldn't tell me what it was, but I can assure you it is completely gone. Everyone is healthy, save for your magic, which should recover fully in a week or two."

Harry nodded.

Poppy continued, "Would it help if I asked you to avoid any more crazy magical events?"

Harry grinned. "Probably not."

"I can't fix your hair. It's somehow normal now. There is nothing to fix, though you could use a glamour."

Harry thought about it for barely a second, but it was enough for him to glance Lafiel's expression darken. "No," he said. "I don't know about the others, but I won't hide."

Lafiel smiled a small smile as she looked around the place. She then turned to Hermione and Luna. Luna's hair was the lightest, more blue white than anything. Hermione's was only a touch darker than her own, and Harry's was darker still.

She asked, "When will they wake?"

Poppy said, "I am told they were supplying magic for what you did. You all were, but they were at the end." Seeing their concern she hurried on. "Don't be concerned they are fine, but it might be another day or two. Their magic has already recovered considerably."

Lafiel nodded. "I am quite hungry. I assume Harry is as well. Is there someplace we might eat?"

"Do you feel strong enough to walk?"

Lafiel carefully got up and walked the length of the room before returning to where she was. "Yes."

Poppy summoned an elf and asked her to have professor Vector come to the infirmary.

Lafiel tilted her head in curiosity.

"The professor has wanted to meet the new Arithmancy prodigy. I figured she could show you to the kitchen. Just take your time, and return here when your done."

Lafiel said, "Thank you for your hard work. Your care is appreciated."

Harry surprised at the almost formal statement quickly added, "For me as well. I don't say it enough."

By then Harry had moved enough for Lafiel to see the headboard of his bed. She said, "I should hope you can explain why you have your own bed in this place."

Harry turned and looked just as the healer broke out in a laugh. "Sorry Harry, but you earned that one. You have been here far too often, and I know some of them could have been avoided."

"But," he protested.

"I shall have to get Hermione to help me teach you to be careful. Perhaps Luna as well."

He hung his head, even as Lafiel reached out to gently touch the left side of his face with her right hand.

Poppy stepped back, but continued to watch them.

Lafiel said, "I sensed much of you in that moment. You would sacrifice yourself for any of us. We know this and do not approve. Sacrifice for duty, for a loved one, for the future. All of these are honorable, but not if there is any other way. We understand that you do not yet know your truth worth, but know this, your duty is no less than any of ours. Do not ever pretend it is, for it is not."

"I'm sorry."

"Do not be sorry. Learn. The risk we took this time was for you, for the value we saw in you. Your trying to take the risk onto yourself, to avoid us harm would have only been acceptable if the odds to us were so bad that there was no other way. They were not, and you were worth the risk. Do not make this mistake again."

"I won't. I promise," he said softly.

Lafiel smiled.

Poppy said to her, "I may have to ask you to come by from time to time. You seem quite adept at this. I could have used you years ago."

"I shall be honored to serve."

"Really? We'll if your serious, we can talk later."

Lafiel nodded, even as the door opened admitting professor Vector.

Poppy said, "If you could show these two down to the kitchens, and make sure they find their way back up here sometime today, I would greatly appreciate it."

Vector asked, "Are they well then?"

"They are prohibited from using magic until I give them the okay, which will not be before classes start in a week."

"My, they have been bad if that is the restriction, and such interesting color hair, I almost didn't believe it when Albus reported the reason behind it."

Harry asked, "What did he say?"

"I think I'll leave that as a surprise, though I suspect the real reason is much more interesting."

They were quite surprised about the odd door to the kitchens complete with fake pear you had to tickle. They were more surprised about all the house elves within. One in particular jumped rushed to meet them.

"Dobby is so glad to be seeing the great Harry Potter. Does Harry Potter have a place where Dobby can work yet?"

Harry looked at Lafiel then back at Dobby, "Not yet. You may be able to help at the Granger's, but we need to wait and talk to Hermione."

Dobby bounced on the corner of his feet. "Dobby wait. Dobby bring food."

He raced off and soon enough there was a wide selection of food placed by Dobby and other house elves on one of the tables that mirrored the tables in the great hall. They all sat down and began to eat, with the professor tossing them the occasional question now and then.

It took them a couple hours to finish, mostly because of the number of questions Vector kept asking. Harry was really having to think hard, and even do a bunch of work on parchment that Dobby provided. Lafiel had an easier time. Her bane appeared to be handwriting.

Professor Vector asked Lafiel, "I'm curious, just how did you get to your age without being able to write using pen and parchment? You are improving rapidly, so you clearly could have learned the skill at any time."

She replied, "We used computers for all our work. There was no need to write by hand, so it was a seldom practiced skill, that I admit I never got around to."

"Computers. Really? How did you manage that, or have you not been around magic till recently?"

"Magic is recent for me yes."

"Curious, well, your well past the first year in Arithmancy knowledge and Mr. Potter is almost past it as well. Given that he must have gained his knowledge this summer, I am willing to let you both into the fourth year Arithmancy class. Should you continue to improve at this rate, we will reevaluate. There would probably be little point in moving you to my fifth year class, but if warranted I could perhaps create an advanced class."

Lafiel asked, "Where would Luna, Hermione, Harry, and Myself have to be for you to make that class before school starts?"

"Daring are we? Fine. Impress me now. Harry, I expect you to contribute." If you impress me, I'll agreed to test you four before classes start and decide then. I'll make the same offer to Daphne Greengrass once I see her. She tied with Miss Granger last year and deserves the chance."

She asked, "Are there any restrictions?"

"Theory only. Don't activate any spell or rune sequence you come up with."

Lafiel nodded. "My idea is to create a runic sequence that heats water to several thousand degrees and to combine it with additional runes or physical structures that further accelerate the water molecules, generating massive amounts of force with minimal amounts of water. We can supply the water separately with a water spell."

Vector's eyes suddenly sharpened as she paid close attention.

Harry said, "Your making an engine of some form?"

"Yes, or trying to at least. This is an idea I've been working on. Now, here is the common sequence for heating runes. It is used over and over again in the books, but most of these runes aren't for heat."

Harry said, "Aren't they for stability and to make sure it doesn't get too hot?"

"Yes, but if you replaced these four, with these six, and place them in this structure, you should get a resonance with the primary runes which should act to insure stability."

"I don't follow."

"Do you understand the concept of resonant frequencies?"

"No not really."

She looked around and saw some champagne style glasses and asked for one. "If an object has a regular structure it will often have a resonant frequency where it oscillates at. That is, if you shake the object at that frequency it will vibrate at that frequency, and if you continue to input energy at that frequency the oscillations will grow, potentially without bound. In some cases this will occur until the object tears itself apart."

"I think I saw that once. Some bridge that when affected by wind started swaying until it broke."

"That was probably similar. Let's see if I can figure this out." She tapped the cup with her fork, several times at different places, listening carefully to the sound it made. She then sang in different tones, watching the glass carefully. Satisfied she set the glass down and repeated her most recent note, but much louder. The glass shook, but did not break."

Lafiel said, "I think I hit the resonance and I think I supplied enough energy. I'm puzzled as to why it didn't break, or at least vibrate more."

The professor said, "The glass is bound to have some basic charms on it. Here, let me remove them."

The professor cast finite and several other spells on the goblet before setting it down. They all stepped back a little as Lafiel again sang the same note, but at any even louder volume. The glass shook, and shattered.

"Impressive," the professor said, "But how does this resonance do what you said to the runes?"

"It is not sound we are talking about but magic. The runes will interact, increasing and decreasing in their contribution. The final one here will moderate and limit it, but at at a quite high level."

"I think I understand," Harry said, "But the power runes here are not big enough for this. Wouldn't they just fail?"

"Probably. That is a separate problem, or is it."

Harry said, "The runes once in resonance will not need much energy. We just have to get them up to that point without destroying the sourcing part of the array."

"Yes. Perhaps something like this." She sketched out her design, indicating a dozen more runes in odd geometric pairings.

Harry said, "You are using resonance as storage, building the energy until the level you need is present, then shifting it over into the primary array."

"That was the idea. I'm not sure if it would work. There is a lot of uncertainly here, and we would have to construct a large test area with considerable safeguards before we could attempt to test it."

Vector said, "You will do no such thing. That particular menace might possibly destroy this castle if it got out of control. You have impressed me. I will test the others, and if they pass form your class, but only if you both give me your word you will make no attempt to test anything like that while you are my students without my explicit approval and not remotely near people. I'd actually prefer an entire warder team review all this work, and be somewhere safe, like the middle of an ocean. Very bad things happen when people try things this daring."

"So you think it would work," asked Harry.

"It might. It might also kill us all. I can't see anything obvious wrong, but I'll study it more. Frankly you have scared me enough that I'm tempted to refuse to teach you at all, save that if you can get that far without my help, I shudder to think what you might do if you are not trained."

Lafiel said, "I would take no risks I could avoid."

"Perhaps not, but I will be watching you."

"I understand." Lafiel didn't seem offended. She simply accepted.

"Now I think it is time to get you two back to Poppy. Don't worry about Beth's class. I assume you will want an advance class for it too."

Lafiel nodded.

"We'll, given what I've seen, I assume Beth will agree to teach it, and if not, well I'll do my best."

Harry said, "Thank you. If it helps, I think I know what Lafiel has in mind. This kind of thing, once perfected could be used like a muggle jet plane. Imagine, Wizards flying around the world at impossible speeds."

Lafiel nodded.

Vector said, "I'm also unsure if that is a good idea, though it might be a better idea than a broom. Such a thing would be very dangerous to people behind you."

Lafiel asked, "Would you know where I could get a good book to understand current broom designs?"

"That one got moved to the restricted section of the library after the last pair of idiots almost got themselves killed trying to make their own broom. I'm not inclined to write you a pass at this time. Your dangerous enough without it."

Lafiel smiled.

Harry shivered. He had a bad feeling about her smile.

Severus sat in his potions lab as he contemplated recent events. The story they had come up with was that Potter took his hand at brewing Polyjuice potion under the supervision of the know it all, but they had used the Wesley twins potion setup, which apparently had the residue of several experimental potions the twins had cooked up. The story was that the residue wasn't in the cauldron, but rather in their reagent containers due to Ron's carelessness. He smiled. While he didn't know the full story, being able to put the blame on his pain amused him greatly. He wondered how Albus got the Weasleys to go along with it. He supposed it didn't matter, though he rather suspected a bribe was involved.

The best part was Potter, no longer looked like Potter. From what he saw in Pomfrey's domain, his features had softened, and in addition to the dark blue hair, his eyes had shifted to blue green. Perhaps it was petty of him to magic open his eyes when they were out cold, but his curiosity was satisfied before Poppy chased him from her domain.

Potter's apparent rapid learning did puzzle him. He would have to watch closely this year. If it was true he hid that much potential, or simply didn't use that much potential, then his potions had better be perfect this year. There must be some way to kick the Weasley out of his class, but Albus kept saying no.

Perhaps he could make Weasley the punishment? The person who screwed up the most had to partner with him? This had potential, though he supposed getting his students killed would be frowned upon. We'll Weasley or Longbottom he supposed.

He looked again at Weasley's grade and smiled. The news of Ron's careless habits, which he knew was made up, but he could still use, gave him sufficient reason to hold Ron back a year, which kept him from the more dangerous potions. What's more, he knew Albus wouldn't fight it, because Ron's grades should have held him back anyway. Albus had previously overridden his decision. Hmm, if he moved Ron back, things would be unbalanced. He was also curious what the blue group could do, so perhaps he should complete the set? He looked at Luna's scores, well her real scores, not the ones he reported. Some of her class were harassing her, but his notes estimated corrections for that. Really, her average score meant at least an outstanding. Anyone who could work with that much sabotage and produce passing potions had some potential.

It was still puzzling why the girl didn't at least tell her head of house. He had not known Pandora well, and Potions wasn't where she excelled in any event, but she had excelled in general, and he recalled she was competent in potions as well. It should be no surprise that her daughter was similar.