Towards the end of dinner, there was a loud bang from the top table.

Dumbledore smiled pleasantly at everyone, waving his wand (which was emitting a thin plume of smoke, and which had clearly caused both the loud bang and the smoke ring gently bouncing off the far wall). "Good evening, everyone. I am afraid I must disturb your digestion with a number of notable announcements."

He waved a hand at Professor Umbridge. "Firstly, I must congratulate Professor Umbridge on an excellent piece of work. It is rare indeed that a Professor of any subject can find a book so wonderfully suited to demonstrate that textbooks are written by people who may not be correct, as the Dark and Dangerous Creatures book she has begun handing out is so very wrong on every single detail that every single sentence I have found which happens to be correct is contradicted by another sentence elsewhere in the same book."

Still smiling, Dumbledore began to applaud, and after a few confused seconds most of the rest of the school began to applaud as well.

Professor Umbridge didn't look very pleased by what the headmaster had said. In fact, she looked intensely irritated, which gave Harry the feeling that either Dumbledore didn't really mean it about congratulating her or she was taking it the wrong way.

Or, and this seemed most likely, she really did think that everything in Dark and Dangerous Creatures was correct.

"However," Dumbledore went on, as the somewhat-confused clapping petered out. "I must now give out some points. Doubtless you have all noticed the sad state of the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor hourglasses, and for entirely related reasons I will award one hundred and ninety-five points to Gryffindor for the courage of their convictions, along with two hundred and five points to Ravenclaw for alert and questioning minds."

"That's completely reversed all the points we lost in Defence!" Hermione informed Harry.

"And if I could see Miss Granger once dinner is over," Dumbledore continued. "That is all, thank you, and I do hope you enjoy the unexpected pleasure of a Great Comet tonight."

"He must want to see you about your detention," Dean said. "Maybe your detention will be to watch the comet?"

"Dumbledore does like astronomy," Harry contributed.

"Oh!" Dumbledore said suddenly, standing back up again and causing the renewed hubbub of conversation to die back down. "I had quite forgotten to mention this in any of the last several years, but for those who are in fifth year this year please do consider Alchemy as one of your NEWT subjects. For those who are in sixth year, perhaps we will be able to work something out so you may get some appreciation of this remarkable topic. Thank you."

"I didn't even know you could do Alchemy," Ginny said.

"I didn't know you could do it as a NEWT subject," Fred agreed.

Or possibly didn't agree? It wasn't clear to Harry if Fred was saying the same thing in a different way or a different thing.

"It'd be hard for us not to know you could do Alchemy," George nodded. "On account of how we've been doing self study on something a lot like it."

"Is that how you did some of your sweets?" Ron asked.

He crossed his arms. "That one that turned me into a six foot canary was a mean trick."

"Custard, like canaries, is yellow," George told him.

"And besides, who else are we going to experiment on?" Fred asked.

"Yourselves?" Ron pointed out.

"Wait, hold on," Neville requested. "Did you say canaries is yellow?"

"By Jove, I believe I did," Fred gasped.

"That was very ungrammatical of you," George nodded solemnly.

"But…" Neville began, looking from one twin to the other, then shook his head. "Never mind."

"That's a fine philosophy to life," George told him.

"Anyway, we can't experiment on ourselves," Fred said. "Or not just ourselves, or we might end up with tricks that only work on ourselves."

"We had to ditch the Doppelgänger Dominoes for that very reason," George agreed. "And it's no good trying them on Ginny because she's way more irritable than you."

Ginny looked smug.

"Charlie keeps saying he'll feed us to Nora, and I don't want to test him," Fred added.

"I don't think Nora would eat you," Harry contributed. "She has very good manners and knows humans aren't for eating."

"I said that, and he said she'd never recognize the results as human," Fred winced.

"What about Percy?" Harry asked, interested. "Or Bill?"

"Never provoke a cursebreaker," George advised. "They know curses you don't."

"And Percy would just be… you know… legal at us," Fred shivered.

"We could try Dad," George suddenly realized. "He'd probably enjoy testing some of that stuff."

"So if you're not testing them on one another because you're twins," Harry said, thinking about it, "does that mean that you have to test them on someone who isn't a Weasley?"

Lee Jordan waved his hand.

"That makes sense," Harry decided.

"No it doesn't!" Ron protested. "Why can't you just test them on him, then?"

"It's less funny that way," Fred said.

The comet that went over that night was spectacular, and Harry had never seen anything quite like it.

It wasn't quite as bright as some of the brightest stars in the sky, at least in terms of magnitude, but it had a blue-green coma that was three times as wide as the full moon and the tail stretched almost halfway across the sky – and it was moving so fast that you could see it, visibly occluding some stars in the time everyone was watching.

It seemed like the whole school was crowded onto the Astronomy Tower, taking advantage of its magical clear sky – in fact, it was so crowded that Harry elected to clamber off the side of the tower, clinging to it instead, so that there was more space for the contingent of centaurs who showed up to join in the sky-watching.

There was no sign of Bane, but both Ronan and Firenze arrived, and Harry overheard a few snatches of Ronan talking to Professor Sinistra about the unexpected nature of the comet as compared to the comparatively well-anticipated Hale-Bopp that would be passing next year.

Apparently an unexpected comet heralded that something unexpected was going to happen, but the problem was that it didn't really give much clarity about what that unexpected thing was going to be.

That was the problem with warnings of unexpected things. You didn't know enough about them to actually be ready for them, but you had just enough warning to feel stupid when it happened.

Over the next week or so, and almost without discussing it, people stopped going to Defence Against the Dark Arts.

It was strange how it happened, because Harry didn't remember ever discussing it except as something that was already going on. And Professor Umbridge kept teaching, even though there wasn't anyone in the classroom any more.

"I heard that it's because teaching is her job," Neville volunteered. "So she has to keep doing it, even if nobody's listening."

"I'm not sure you can teach if there isn't anyone to be taught," Harry said, frowning.

"Well, maybe it's a bit like with Professor Binns," Neville guessed, as Harry used a ruler to measure his hand.

Harry turned that over as he wrote down the result, though he wasn't quite sure the comparison worked.

"I think I might need to make it a bit long for you, at first," he said. "More of a longsword? Then if you grow it'll turn into an arming sword."

Neville nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense, I've been practicing both. In both hands, even."

That confused Harry for a moment, until he remembered that Neville was going to be using it with a wand some of the time.

"How are you going to make the actual metal?" Neville added. "Shape it, I mean, I know Dumbledore helped you with the iron."

Harry had been thinking about that, and was glad to explain. "I was actually thinking of using Transfiguration, but not for the metal itself – more for a kind of mould? Then I can cast it."

"Wouldn't it end up being, you know, weak if you do that?" Neville asked, then corrected himself. "Oh, yeah, runes."

"I don't actually know if casting it is a problem, with this metal," Harry said. "It's a problem with iron, but this isn't just iron."

"Yeah, good point," Neville nodded.

He frowned. "Do you think that's something they cover in Alchemy?"

"It probably is," Harry agreed. "I can't think of any other subject it would be."

"Pity we can't just look it up in the Silmarillion or something," Neville opined.

He glanced up at where their room was. "It's sort of a pity that Tolkien didn't include how to make things out of mithril. He included everything else."

Harry snorted appreciatively.

Towards the end of March, a little after Saint Patrick's Day and about a week before the Easter Holidays began, Harry got a letter on Saturday morning which asked him whether he might be able to come down to the Entrance Hall just after lunch.

In what Harry recognized as Dumbledorean style, it went on to say that while it was a little difficult to answer the question while reading the letter no reply was desired, and that Harry could simply show up – or not – as the fancy took him, with a period of arrival between one and one fifteen in the afternoon.

It also asked that Harry bring along any notes he may have made about himself, which was an odd request but one Harry thought he could fulfil.

"What's that about?" Dean asked, then got a look at the letter. "Think it might be something bad?"

"Probably not," Harry replied, inspecting some toast and spreading marmalade on it. Then he lightly torched the marmalade, caramelizing it to produce a delicious smell, and ate it in three bites.

"Don't forget to let us know what happens," Ron requested.

Harry nodded his assent, swallowed, then looked at Hermione. She had two sausages, some scrambled egg, three pieces of toast and two of bread, an orange and some bacon, and was just finishing off some beans.

"Blimey," Neville said, blinking. "I don't think I ever realized how much you eat, before."

"Long day studying," Hermione replied.

"Ah," Neville said, snapping his fingers. "That makes sense."

That was one of those things that a lot of stories about time travel didn't take much notice of. Sometimes someone spent extra time sleeping, but extra time eating was much less common – Harry didn't even think it had been mentioned in Moreta's Ride, though perhaps that was part of why Moreta had been so tired and made mistakes during the events of that book.

Or maybe it was just something that happened, and there was no need to go into detail about it.

Harry had lunch early, picked up a book just in case (it was The White Dragon, which he was going to check in case Ruth's gallivanting around time included mention of Ruth and Jaxom eating when they were timing it) and was down in the entrance hall promptly at one PM.

June was already there, and waved to him, and over the next few minutes Isaac and Conal turned up as well.

"Any idea what's going on?" June asked.

Isaac wrote on his slate with a quick and practised paw, and held it out for them to see.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Harry read out, helpfully.

About a minute before quarter past – at least, according to Harry's occasional Tempus – both Tanisis and Tiobald appeared, hurrying down the stairs with Luna in tow, and then Dumbledore waved at them from the door to the Great Hall.

"I do apologize for arriving a little late," he said. "Though perhaps I should instead congratulate you all for being early, or at least on time. No, it is my pleasure instead to introduce you to someone I do not believe you have met, an old friend of mine who I hope you will all enjoy talking to."

He stepped aside, and another old man – one who seemed not nearly as old as Dumbledore, but still quite elderly – stepped through.

"Good afternoon," he said, with a little bow. "I can't tell you how much I've wanted to meet you all."

"This is a gentleman by the name of Newton Scamander," Dumbledore said, with a little smile. "I believe you may have all read at least some of his book, unless the curriculum has changed since I last saw it."

"The author of Fantastic Beasts?" Conal asked.

"I do have that honour, indeed," Mr. Scamander said. "Though I've retired, I'm afraid, so I've not updated it very recently."

"That's good, because I do have a few questions about what's in there," Tanisis informed him.

"My dear girl, so do I," Mr. Scamander replied.

His whole face seemed to light up at the prospect. "There's always more to find out – and when my good friend Albus invited me I couldn't say yes fast enough! Do you know, I consider it a personal failing that I managed to miss the werewolf colony in the Forbidden Forest?"

"Um, actually, Mr. Scamander, these days we've decided warg is better," June told him. "Mostly because werewolf is a confusing word because there's more than one meaning for it."

Mr. Scamander got a spiral-bound notebook out of a pocket in his robes, and a fine golden quill with a sea-green tint at the tip opposite the nib, and began writing furiously. "That's a very good idea."

"I've got a question, actually," Tanisis said. "Why are sphinxes in the book about beasts?"

At that, Mr. Scamander stopped writing for a moment, and sighed.

"You probably remember how it was decided whether certain creatures should be Beings or Beasts," he said, with a surprisingly shy smile. "I know I included that in the book… I've sometimes thought that they were a bit careful with exactly which members of some species they asked."

Dumbledore suggested that they could take the stairs up to the first floor, where there was a spare classroom, and as they did Harry thought about that.

It was something he hadn't thought about before, but now he was thinking about it he could see how it could really impact the definition of Being or Beast. Since it was all about if you understood things, then – well, with how Nora was getting along at the moment then asking her would be enough to qualify dragons (or her sort of dragon) as Beings, but there were probably some humans where if you asked them then you'd end up with humans considered Beasts.

Harry wondered if Mr. Scamander had met Nora and the others yet.

Maybe that was half of why he was here today?

"Please, call me Newt," Mr. Scamander requested, once they were no longer in the entrance hall. "And – I've always thought that there are a lot of what we call Beasts who are considerably smarter than the label sounds. It's not really right to have one label for all of what are now Beasts."

Isaac scribbled something quickly on his slate, and everyone else waited politely while he did.

"Why is it like that in your book," Newt read, then spread his hands. "To tell the truth, you're right – I could have written the book about creatures that I think should be labelled as Beasts. But then I wouldn't have the opportunity to write about sphinxes and griffins, to give an example of only two."

He made another note. "And then there's that some of the things I've seen – people simply wouldn't believe them. A Thunderbird friend of mine has helped me out by Obliviating thousands of people in New York, after… ah, a mishap," he winced. "And if you told most wizards that they'd say you were making things up."

"Thunderbirds are like phoenixes," Harry said, half thinking out loud. "I've met a phoenix, and I'd believe Fawkes was a Being if he wanted to be."

"Is that why centaurs and selkies are Beasts, still, then?" Luna said, her eyes on Tiobald's signing fingers. "We want to be?"

"Quite," Newt agreed.

"I know some humans who would quite like to be able to ignore politics," Dumbledore mused. "I imagine they would quite enjoy being Beasts."

That gave several people a chuckle, Harry included.

"Do you think any of you would mind if I asked a few questions?" Newt added. "I've been technically retired for a decade and a half, now, but I'm sure nobody would complain if I put together another edition of Fantastic Beasts which included all the recent developments."

"You mean like Nora?" Harry asked.

"I'd be interested in wargs getting their own entry," June contributed.

"That sort of thing, yes," Newt agreed. "And making it quite clear that sphinxes, wargs, griffins and a few others most certainly can use magic themselves."

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should make it a little clearer why it is that many of the Beasts in the book are classified as Beasts. I know some people don't realize the difference between why griffins are considered Beasts and why hippogriffs are, and that's quite a mistake on my part."

"What would happen if a selkie or a centaur wanted to be considered a Being?" Conal said.

"I suspect it depends who is in charge of the country," Newt replied, considering. "Maybe they'd just need to ask, though."

He flourished his quill slightly. "Miss… Sanura, perhaps we can start?"

Harry thought that the next hour or so was not only really quite interesting, but also was going to help him at least a bit in his Care of Magical Creatures OWL.

Newt was an expert, that much was obvious, and he was an expert not only because he knew so much about magical creatures but because he knew what sort of questions to ask and how to quickly assimilate the information – fast enough to give him the next question to ask, in fact.

Harry had known in a sort of abstract way, and in a technical way, about the way that sphinxes had a strong reaction when someone got their riddles wrong. But even though he'd known Tanisis for years it wasn't until the interview that he'd got a sense of how it felt – how it was sort of like someone hadn't put any effort in at all, and you felt like giving them a smack just for wasting all the attention you'd put into making such a good riddle.

It wasn't something that Tanisis could ignore, but it was something she could think about and get past. It reminded Harry a bit of his hoard thing, really.

Somewhat to Harry's surprise, by the time the conversations were over it had gone past three in the afternoon.

He'd learned quite a lot that was new about those of his friends who qualified as Beasts, and he was fairly sure that the friends in question had learned a lot about him – he hadn't known for example that Isaac spoke a clicky language from South Africa, one which Newt turned out to be fluent in as a result of spending a year tracking a herd of Erumpents across the Kalahari.

Apparently they were sometimes (and very briefly) preyed on by lions, which reminded Harry of what the Discworld books had said about how predators of Swamp Dragons soon evolved not to be predators of Swamp Dragons, because it was hard to evolve to get better at something if you'd just exploded.

Harry's own talk was interesting as well, in that way where someone asking you about yourself and genuinely interested in the answers was always at least a little engaging. Newt seemed a little disappointed that Harry had no idea how it was that he'd turned into a dragon, but quickly dropped the subject to talk instead about what it was like getting along in the Muggle world on all fours and with wings (instead of as a human who, naturally, was not allowed to use magic).

"Well, I'm not sure how I'd handle that," Newt said eventually, checking back over his notes. "I don't think it makes sense to call you a Beast, Harry, especially because you're the only one – and because you're different enough from all the other dragons that you'd have to be a separate category anyway. Like wargs and werewolves, as a matter of fact."

He nodded in the direction of the Forresters. "And I'm not making that mistake again."

"What about wargs?" Matthew asked, stepping out a little from behind his cousin. "Do we count as Beings or Beasts?"

"I think there is a very good case that could be made for you being humans," Newt replied. "It's strange, isn't it? Though I would like to put you in Fantastic Beasts, or at least mention you, simply to avoid confusion."

Isaac asked a question in !Kung, and Newt snapped his fingers.

"All wargs are descended from werewolves," he explained. "And werewolves are human, though I did include them in my book."

"I saw that it said you worked at the Werewolf Registry?" Harry said, trying to remember what Fantastic Beasts had mentioned.

"Yes, my idea actually," Newt replied, though he didn't look particularly proud of that fact. "It was supposed to make sure that people who were werewolves didn't end up infecting more people by hiding their condition, but it went badly wrong and got used to put vulnerable people though more stress."

He shook his head. "And it didn't even catch Fenrir Greyback."

"Didn't Professor Lupin stop him?" Tanisis asked, looking over at Harry for confirmation.

"Yes, that's why he had to stop being a teacher," Harry agreed. "He got hurt, and then all of Fenrir's pack decided that meant they were with him now."

"I heard about that," Newt said, then got his notebook out again and wrote something down.

"It's just occurred to me," he explained. "It'd be very hard to test, but perhaps these instincts we've talked about are the result of what someone thinks their instinct should be. Werewolves hear about pack alphas and so they decide that's what matters, Harry here read about dragons hoarding – what do you think, Albus?"

"It seems to make as much sense as anything," Dumbledore said – he'd been sitting at a desk writing for the last hour or so. "Of course, I do find that 'anything' does not always make much sense, so take that with the grain of salt it so justly deserves."

Newt smiled in a familiar sort of way, and closed his notebook. "Well, thank you all for your time, and it was very nice to meet you. If you don't mind, I'll be sending you something at some point in the year to look at and make sure I haven't made any mistakes – that's the revised version of your entries in Fantastic Beasts, of course."

Luna raised her hand.

"Are you going to include the Crumple-Horned Snorkack in the next one?" she asked. "They're fascinating creatures."

"I'm afraid that if I did I would get into trouble with the publishers," Newt told her, spreading his hands. "It's called Fantastic Beasts, which is a legal term, and no government has yet made a ruling on them – it would be terribly impolite to include them if they turned out next week to actually be worthy of being Beings."

"I'll be sure to let you know the instant that Daddy and I have found one," Luna promised, then tapped her chin in thought. "Or, rather, the instant we've found what political party one supports."

"That would be delightful," Newt told her, quite sincerely.

Harry wasn't entirely sure if creatures like that, or the other ones that Luna had sometimes mentioned, actually existed. It could be a sort of elaborate joke she played on everyone else, because Luna was like that.

He could understand Newt's reaction, though, because if they did turn out to exist then just because they sounded silly was no reason to ignore them. And there were places in the world where no human at all had ever seen, so there must be lots more places that no wizard had ever seen and when you thought about it like that there could be magical creatures that hadn't been discovered.

It turned out that – unlike the others – Harry's time was still required, as Newt wanted to see and talk to Nora and the other dragons as well. That meant a trip down the stairs and out onto the grass, heading for Hagrid's hut, which was almost entirely surrounded by dragons lounging around in one of the first really properly sunny days of the year.

There were only four dragons, but dragons were big enough to do a lot of surrounding.

"Good afternoon!" Dumbledore called, and four scaly heads came up. Two of them promptly dropped back down again, Ollie and Sally going back to their naps, but Gary rolled over to watch in interest and Nora sprang to her feet before coming eagerly over.

"Good afternoon," she replied. "Who is this?"

"My name is Newt," Newt told her, and Nora leaned closer to give him a sniff.

"You don't smell like a newt," she told him.

"That's because it's short for Newton," Newt said, and Harry blinked.

He was fairly sure he was supposed to be involved in this conversation.

"I thought you could speak dragon because you're a newt, which is a lizard, which is like a dragon," Nora told him. "But you're not?"

"I learned it a long time ago, in a country called Burkina Faso," Newt replied. "It was called French Upper Volta at the time, though."

"...I don't know a lot of those words," Nora admitted.

If Newt had been taking a lot of notes before, the amount of writing he did about his conversation with Nora – and then other conversations with Gary, Sally and Ollie, who were all interested in speaking to someone new – seemed even larger.

He asked Nora all the details she could remember about having grown up, then asked Hagrid the same questions, and asked Harry to contribute if he could remember anything useful. He knew a lot about dragon biology, he said, but here was brand-new still-forming dragon culture, and it was something he wanted to research just to try and capture the sheer novelty of it all.

While he was asking Gary about what he thought of Sally – and getting the slightly abashed answer that she was 'annoying' but that she was also 'nice really' – Nora leaned around to look at the notebook into which Newt was busily scribing.

"That starts with a G," she announced. "That can sound like a guh. And there's an ah after it… oh! Is that the name Gary?"

Gary stopped saying what he'd been saying, curious. "Yes?"

"Remarkable," Newt breathed, then coughed. "Yes, that's right."

Nora looked very pleased with herself, and turned her attention to Harry. "I read something that someone had written down!"

"That's right!" Harry agreed.

He couldn't remember how soon he'd learned to read, but Nora wasn't quite four years old and that seemed to be about the right age. "Can you write your name as well?"

Nora's wings half-flared in excitement, and she swished her tail to brush away some of the fallen petals on a nearby patch of ground.

Bending down, she carefully used a claw to draw a slightly wobbly but quite clear N, then O, then R and finished it with an A.

"Nora!" she said.

"That's very impressive," Newt told her. "Maybe one day you'll write a book about dragons – and I hope I'll be the first to read it."

It was nearly five when Newt finally declared himself to be enormously satisfied, and he took the time to thank Hagrid for his excellent work in taking care of four young but very well-raised dragons.

Charlie was in Romania at that point, but Hagrid said that he'd pass on Newt's praise to him as well, and then Harry, Newt and Dumbledore headed back up to the castle.

When they were halfway there, and quite a long way away from anyone else (the nearest students were playing a new game Dean had invented, which was sort of like football but with tennis rackets and a quaffle), Newt looked back at Harry and winked.

"I haven't thought of anything to help with your basilisk problem, Albus," he said, so matter-of-factly that it was a few seconds before Harry quite worked out what had been said.

"Thank you for trying, Newt," Dumbledore replied, as Harry fumbled to catch his glasses after they'd gone poing up into the air from surprise. "I will of course be interested in anything you discover."

"Don't worry, Harry," Newt added, looking back with a smile. "I won't be putting Empress into the next edition."

Harry considered that, because he was fairly sure that part of the book said there were no basilisks in Britain and hadn't been for centuries – he'd had a bit of a smile at that bit shortly after discovering Empress.

It was perfectly fine to put things that weren't quite true into a book, though, if there was a good reason for it.

"I hope one day I can come up with something," Newt mused. "Unless Albus does first. It would be nice to be able to record a basilisk sighting, but until then it remains the case that there have been no recorded basilisk sightings in Britain for more than four hundred years."

"Oh, right," Harry said, remembering that that was the exact wording. "Do you think basilisks would count as Beings as well?"

"They just might, though much as with dragons like Nora it will take some work to prove," Newt told him.

"...because if it's just someone like me, or you, who can translate, then it might seem like we're doing the troll thing," Harry realized, thinking about when goblins had taught trolls a few words of English back when the definition of Being had been much more poorly thought out, and how they'd had to see if trolls understood politics and so on by asking them without using a goblin as a translator – as otherwise all you'd get was that the goblin was able to qualify as a Being.

It probably hadn't been all goblins doing it, though, because you wouldn't need many. Just one particularly creative goblin prankster, in fact, taking delight in repeatedly inflicting trolls on the wizards.

There should probably be a word for that.

When the Easter Holiday came around, everyone had a busy schedule.

Harry did his best to make sure he had some time that wasn't taken up with revision that he could use on reading books instead, and he also made sure to have some time to sort out how to make a sword.

It seemed like casting wasn't a very good idea, because of how hard it was to make things take on just the right shape, but at the same time Harry wasn't sure if it was worth getting a hammer and an anvil and all those bits – and learning how to make swords the old fashioned way, which could take years – if there was a way of doing it a bit quicker with magic helping out, especially since he was a dragon and he probably had some advantages there.

That gave him an idea, and he melted the flask of may-as-well-call-it-mithril with a quick jet of flame before scooping some out. It took a few tries, because it started out fluid, but then it became a sort of play-dough-like consistency which slowly got cooler and harder until it finally became solid – and a little breath of flame heated it up to the play-dough sort of thing again.

Pouring it back into the flask, Harry decided to get some play-dough in Fort William. For practice.

It was surprisingly hard, Harry discovered, to find out how to properly make something that had only really gone out of fashion a hundred years ago or so.

On the Muggle side of things there were plenty of reference books about swords, which was one thing, but they were usually mostly about how the shape had changed and how thy'd been used and who had used them – all of it useful information, but it left Harry a bit frustrated because what he was really after was the techniques used to make them (and while the books had some details on that as well, it wasn't quite enough to be confident).

Then on the Magical side of things there were books in the Hogwarts Library going back for hundreds of years, but they mostly didn't have a lot to say about making swords. There was a bit about using them, and a whole book about useful enchantments to put on a sword (which Harry decided to take note of for Neville) but nothing really about how to make one properly except 'buy one from a Muggle'.

Based on that, and because he didn't really want to spend years learning how to make a sword, Harry used play-dough (then plasticine, which seemed to be a closer match) to make himself a sort of almost-the-right shape and froze it so Neville could see how it felt. It seemed balanced about right, which gave Harry the conviction he needed to be sure about this, and he melted the almost-mithril before getting to work.

"That's so weird to watch," Neville said, sitting a good few yards away as Harry worked.

It wasn't the first time he'd said it, either. Harry had been going for about an hour by then.

He blew a little stream of flame onto the metal, heating it up enough that it got a bit more pliable, and ran his claws along what was going to be the blade edge. He'd put a long metal ruler on the stone floor either side of where that was going to be and stuck them down with Sticking Charms, so his claws could run along the ruler on one side and scrape out a straight line, and little curls of alchemical alloy came off like wood shavings.

Those bits cooled off more quickly, and Harry added them back into the blade nearer the centre.

It was sort of blade-heavy at the moment, but Harry had planned for that. One of the things he had got from his reading about the Muggle middle ages was one of those grinding wheel things you used to sharpen a sword, and Professor McGonagall had been kind enough to not only Transfigure one for him but also put an Unbreakable Charm on it.

That would mean that Harry could grind bits off until it looked right, then either add those bits of metal back onto the blade if he'd overdone it or add them to the pommel until it was properly balanced.

"I've heard of making things by hand, but this is silly," Neville added, and Harry had to snigger a bit as well.

The idea of a Muggle blacksmith – or even a magical one – doing this sort of thing was kind of funny.

"How does that look?" he asked.

Neville stepped a little bit closer, cast a Cooling Charm on himself, then picked up Harry's diagram of what he wanted to make and checked it.

"How long is the bit from the top of the hilt to the pommel?" he asked, and Harry used one of the spare rulers to show him. "Right… and, okay, that looks about right…"

He looked up. "Isn't it going to sag a bit as it cools down?"

"It's already a lot harder to move around than plasticine is," Harry said. "It might a little bit, but we can check how it feels before I actually put the runes on."

"Right," Neville agreed.

He frowned. "Can you cool this down by magic, or something? Isn't there that thing where someone would put a sword in water – quenching, that's it?"

"Good question," Harry agreed.

He thought about it for a moment, gathered up the shavings that hadn't been added back into the blade yet and put them back in the flask, then took a deep breath.

Neville stepped back.

"Aguamenti!" Harry incanted, exhaling sharply, and there was a loud hiss as the water hit the metal and cooled it off all at once.

That had the unfortunate but expected side effect of getting the floor wet.

Once the floor had been dried off again – it had taken a bit of thought but a Scouring Charm had worked – Harry started doing the grinding part.

That turned out to take a lot of work as well, because a lot of it was about making sure that the sword balanced right – which partly meant measuring to make sure that it would balance in the right place (so it wasn't too heavy on one side or the other) and partly meant giving it to Neville to see if it felt too blade heavy.

Or too blade light. Either could be fixed, but Harry had to know about them first.

Really, this was complicated enough even with an alchemical material that didn't need to be treated carefully to get the right combination of being strong and being tough and all those other things.

Finally – and after adding a bit more of the mithril scrapings to the guard, and the rest to the grip to give some extra roughness to hold on to – it was finished, or finished as a piece of metal anyway.

The sun was setting, and dinner was going to start soon, but Harry decided that he should at least mark out the runes now even if he wasn't going to etch them just yet. Professor Babbling had said that putting one meaning on one side and the other meaning on the other side would work best, when Harry asked, and she also said that she was very impressed that Harry and Ron were actually making their projects.

It was at about that point that Harry had been reminded how all they really needed to do for the exam was a write up of a project proposal. He'd been entirely too carried away, and so had Ron, but at this point that didn't matter very much.

In any case, the first step was to mark out the runes in something that could make marks on the object you were using (Harry used a crayon) and then the second step was to mark the key points of each rune with a spell called – with admirable simplicity – the Rune-Marking Spell. Unlike the first step markings these had to be exactly placed in relation to one another, or as close as possible, and Harry ended up spending almost an hour getting each little glowing red dot in exactly the right place.

Then he went to have dinner, because this making-swords thing could leave you hungry.

AN:

Harry isn't actually trained at this, he's making some of it up as he goes along. If you know how swords work then you probably know more than Harry does.