Chapter 11: Celestial

"The strangest part of the story was yet to come." - Chasing The Dragon

~ ~ ~

Caught between two of the most bizarre things that year (and that was saying a lot), Harry could do nothing but stare at the magpie in wordless shock, and then out of the window in - well, more wordless shock.

Finally, the moment caught up to him, and as the dragon neared, Harry leapt back from the window and brought out his wand. The eyes were a dragons' weak spot, and at this distance, they'd be easy to hit. The creature outside though, had other plans. Slowing, it almost hovered, the tip of its snout just metres away from the Tower.

It turned its head slightly so that Harry was directly in front of its right eye, gave a snort that sent a plume of smoke spiralling out of its mouth, and then dipped sharply down and raced in the opposite direction, the wind still possible to be heard as it was beaten by the dragon's wings.

Harry's heart started up again. "Levina has a heck of a lot to explain!" he finally yelled, before turning and jabbing a finger at the bird. "And what the Hell is going on? 'Cause I'm damn sure you weren't talking yesterday!"

Ajax ruffled his feathers and fixed a beady eye on him. "You sound annoyed." he croaked indolently.

Harry wondered whether it really was possible to kill with a glance. "Annoyed? Of course I'm annoyed! Good God, I'm a bit more than just 'annoyed'! I thought you were a dumb animal, and now it turns out you're a reject from a Walt Disney cartoon!"

"And those are different?" Ajax muttered just loud enough for Harry to hear. "Look, you created me with Techno-Magic. Didn't you read the title of the section? It was called 'Creating AI Lifeforms', as in 'Artificial Intelligence'. I'm just as sentient as you, or Levina, or the bed."

"The bed?"

"Okay, maybe not." the bird corrected himself. "Look, just because I haven't talked a Human language before, doesn't mean I can't. I'm in the form of a bird, therefore I prefer to speak with a bird language, okay? It's only if I want to talk to you - which I really couldn't be bothered to do before - that I speak English."

Harry crossed his arms and glowered. "You couldn't be bothered? I created you, and you couldn't be bothered to let me know what you can and can't do? I mean, you could at least have acted intelligent."

"I was acting like a bird, okay. Just because the most common sentient race on the planet are Humans, doesn't mean that because I'm intelligent, I have to act like one." He pulled out a small feather and chucked it on the floor. "Anyway, I did save your life. Twice, actually."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Great, I'm arguing with a bird. Care to elaborate?"

"Number one, when you were hiding from the daemon in the Room of Requirement. If I hadn't sensed you were in danger, I wouldn't have gone after Levina, you'd have come out of the room too early, you'd have got eaten, yadda, yadda, yadda. Number two, when you possessed me. I mean, how would you have got away if I hadn't have been created?"

Harry didn't have an answer to that, so he just scowled. "Very fascinating, I'm sure. How did you know I was going to be in danger, anyway?"

"All AI systems - ones from Techno-Magic, anyway - can sense empathic signatures. Levina can, and so can I. Empathic signatures meant that someone had used Forbidden Magic, which in turn meant the daemon summoning, which led on to the fact that when I sensed a Human's empathic signature, and it was wasn't coming from a Human, it was obviously the daemon running around the corridors. I'm just too damn good, really."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, right. Another thing I can figure out from that story is that you didn't bother to tell me that you could sense Leone's empathic signature - anyway, how did you know about how you were created and Forbidden magic? I don't remember mentioning them in front of you."

The bird started preening his wings. "Firstly, as your Familiar, I know everything you know. Secondly, there's a whole lot of basic information that was put into my brain when I was created. What did you think that spell was for? Just the body?" He lifted his head up again. "I know the different types of magic, I can sense empathic signatures, and I can even read your Aura. Plus, I can be understood by you."

Harry raised an eyebrow at this. "What do you mean?"

"Basically," Ajax sighed. "I can do my usual cawing, which is interpreted by everyone as bird noises. Or, I can do my different cawing, which everyone but you translate as bird noises. You're not actually hearing me talk - my normal noises are just sounding like a language you can understand, because I'm talking directly to you."

"Thanks for the lecture, Professor," Harry muttered. "Now you've explained the mysteries of the Universe to me, I don't suppose you have any idea what a bloody dragon was doing outside the Tower?"

"As I said before; how should I know? That didn't come into the 'basic information' thing." Ajax said, idly.

Harry gave up. It looked like there was no choice but to go to Levina for the answer, and she was unlikely to tell him anything. "Fine," he yielded, and headed for the door. "I'll be back up later. I need to go and take my mind off things for a while." He opened the door, to find Seamus about to rush in.

"Harry!" he gasped, "Did you see the dragon? It's all anyone's talking about down in the Common Room!"

"Oh, go away." said Harry.

~ ~ ~

In the Library, Harry had the good luck to run across none other than Levina. She was sitting at one of the tables, marking what looked like one of the third-year's essays on water divining. Harry made his way over to her, staying out of the view of Colin Creevey, who was reading in one of the corners, and sat down next to her, grabbing a book off the nearest shelf and pretending to read it.

Levina didn't look up. "Is there something wrong?"

"Ooh, I dunno. Maybe the fact that you go on about how you want to remain inconspicuous, and then take on the job of a bloody teacher. Oh, and I found that other prophecy that you mentioned, by the way. And before I forget, a dragon just flew up to Gryffindor Tower. Care to explain?"

Levina looked amused. "How did you find it?"

Harry tapped the book he had pulled off the shelf. "My brilliant reading skills. I chose Elspeth Glades for my Divination homework, and I found the prophecy in there."

"Nice work," commented Levina, impressed, and Harry decided not to mention that he hadn't actually been looking for it. The woman ticked one of the paragraphs, still not looking up. "About the becoming a teacher thing; while I'm unknown, and likely to be thought of as a trespasser or enemy, it's better to remain unseen. However, when I heard they were going to be searching for a supply teacher, I made a few documents, a new name and life-story, and applied myself. Now I can wander around the entire school and talk to you in public, and no-one will think anything of it. That answer your questions?"

"All except the one about the dragon," Harry challenged, and Levina sighed.

"Please tell me we're not going to go into another one of those 'you lied to me!' things. All right, I admit I know about the dragon. I don't know why it came today, though. Okay?"

Harry gave her a pointed look, though her head was kept bowed over her work, so she didn't see. "Okay? You still haven't told me why the dragon's hanging around here! For all I know, it really could be living in the Forest, like the Daily Prophet said, and it could be heading out every now and then to attempt to eat me!"

Levina clicked her fingers. "That reminds me - when you come for training tomorrow, bring the rod with you, so you can get another one. I'll also be taking the remaining blocks down from your power on Wednesday."

"What's that got to do with dragons?" Harry muttered rhetorically, but he was temporarily appeased by this good news. "By the way, do you have any rods on Mermish, Telepathy, or Phoex?"

"Cheating?"

"No I'm not," Harry defended himself, a bit insulted. "I mean, if that's cheating, then all the people with good memories should be disqualified, because they have an advantage. I mean, if I'm running about training, taking all those extra classes, and worrying about people trying to kill me, I'm not going to have a very easy time trying to remember the best way to ask directions to a Merman, am I?"

"I'll get a couple more rods for you," Levina promised. "Just as long as you stop whining." She scribbled a note down on the parchment of another essay. "The unicorn's doing well, by the way. Its coat's starting to turn paler."

Harry perked up. "Is he okay without the rest of the herd?"

"She," Levina corrected. "And she seems fine. How's Ajax?"

"Talking." Harry scowled, at which Levina's mouth twitched. "Thanks for telling me he could."

"Oops," said Levina cheerfully, shrugging. "Never mind. By the way, do you have any clues as to where the Myrrh Cage could be hidden? I mean, the empathic signature would have faded by now, and for all we know, she could have destroyed it when she'd finished Summoning the daemon."

Wishing he hadn't destroyed the book that held the spell of Cantworth, Harry stopped to think, before shaking his head. "No idea where it could be. I mean, all she said about it was that it was well-hidden, and wasn't in Hagrid's hut. That leaves the rest of the school grounds, Hogsmeade, anywhere that she could have sent it by owl - and of course, she could have destroyed it."

Levina sighed. "Well, looks like we'll just have to find her and get the information ourselves. Still, it's not as though I expected anything less. I just wish she'd left us some kind of a hint as to where it was."

Harry shrugged, and closed the book. "She may have been nuts, but she wasn't stupid."

"Unlike you."

"Yeah, unl - hey!"

"What?"

Harry glared, before checking his watch. "It's nearly nine o'clock. I'd better go." With that, he said good night, returned the book to the shelf, and returned to Gryffindor Tower. The rule sheet that had been handed out had been useful - number three-hundred and twelve of the school rules was that students had to be inside their House areas - such as Gryffindor Tower, or the Slytherin dungeons - by curfew, but there was no rule about having to go to bed.

Popping an Oxtamed pill into his mouth, Harry settled down, and before and after Astronomy, managed not only to complete 'The Cosmic Classic of One Thousand Invocations', but also continue what Trelawney and Levina had started in 'Within the Mind, Beyond the Sight'.

~ ~ ~

Saturday passed smoothly, as forms of personal details to apply for the extra classes were filled in, and Dumbledore announced the times for the tests to join the Basic Auror Training course, which would be the next day, and that the new classes would begin on Monday onwards.

The Healer from St. Mungoes, who was to be teaching the Healing lessons along with Madam Pomfrey, had already arrived, and the pair were now discussing the merits of Muggle surgery.

Ginny, Harry discovered, was taking Magical Healing and Spell Creation, and was planning to attempt the end of course exam, which would give her a Grade 3 Spell Creation E-Level if she passed. Magical Healing didn't have an exam at the end, as more would be needed to be learned before the Grade 3 for that was covered.

"Of course," Ron added, "barely anyone actually passes their Grade 3 E-Levels if they do them here." When Hermione asked why, Ron explained further. "Firstly, though there's no age limit, it's usually adults, and only the really smart ones, who take E-Levels. Each grade takes a year to complete - our tests will come after about only half a year. We'll have other classes to deal with as well, so there's even less time for studying.

"Then there's the pass mark - you need eighty percent to gain a pass, and even if you're one mark below, you fail. When they last did these for students, when You-Know-Who was first in power, only three students passed at all, and they were all seventh and sixth years."

By the time he'd finished, Hermione was determined to gain at least two Grade 3s in Spell and Ward Creation, while Harry was just panicked.

When nine o'clock came around, Harry grabbed his Invisibility Cloak and the training rod, and informed Ron and Hermione that he was going to training. They didn't know that this tutor was actually 'Professor Carnaena', and Harry was quite happy to keep it that way.

The Room of Requirement was exactly as Harry had left it. Levina had changed back from her black teachers' robes to her red robes and boots, and was now holding two of the rod carrying-cases, one in each hand, and was sorting through them. Harry held his own up to show he had it, before handing it over for her to slot back in.

"Here," Levina said, as she passed over one of the carrying cases. "There's ten rods in there; 'The Language of the Sea-People', which is Mermish, 'Screams of the Surface', which focuses on the Mermish screeches above-water, and 'Advanced Swordfighting'." She pointed to each one in turn as she spoke, though Harry had no idea how she told them apart without looking at the title.

"I've also put in 'Demonology and Daemon Summoning Volume One', so you can do a bit of research, and 'The Tiger's Book of Transformation'. With that, you just decide on what kind of transformation or transfiguration you need, and when you 'read' it, only the applicable parts will come to mind."

"Thanks!" Harry said appreciatively, impressed with the books. "What are the others?"

Levina set the other case down by the wall, and opened the cabinet to retrieve their swords. "The other five are blank; just scan them down the pages of whatever book you want, as well as the cover, and once you've read them, return them to me - I'll engrave the title and author into them for you."

Harry thanked her again, and put the case down by the door with the Cloak; they would make studying a lot easier. The rest of the lesson was spent in sword-fighting, and this time Harry managed to remain unbeaten for twenty-eight minutes, rather than the eleven and a half of last time. He also managed to hit Levina much more often, and he knew that the 'Basic Swordfighting' rod had done its job in teaching him - now all he had to do was work on his reflexes, speed, and strength.

They had a break of ten minutes afterwards, so that Harry could regain his breath, and Levina made a few suggestions about changes to Harry's diet. He was mildly horrified to think about cutting down on chocolate and the fatty foods at the table - especially because he was still pretty skinny - but he finally relented, promising to go into the kitchens and ask Dobby if he could manage to make healthy dinners for Harry, separate to the rest of the food.

He returned to the dormitory at almost midnight, where he hid the case under the bed, and collapsed into a welcome sleep for the rest of the night.

~ ~ ~

When Harry woke up, the others had already gone down to breakfast. A note left on his bedside table from Ron told Harry that they had tried waking him, but he had refused to stop sleeping. Cursing as his stomach growled, Harry hurriedly showered and dressed, and made his way through the school corridors, until he reached a large painting of a bowl of fruit. Tickling the pear made the door visible, and Harry quickly made his way downstairs.

The house-elves weren't doing much; the had finished making breakfast, and it was too early to begin lunch or cleaning, so most of them weren't there - Harry guessed they were off sleeping or having their own breakfast.

Dobby and Winky, the two house-elves that Harry knew by name, weren't there either, and Harry was forced to make do with asking a different one to get him something healthy; on such short notice, he ended up with a ham roll, an apple, a banana, and some kind of Wizarding kiwi-juice, which turned out to taste quite nice.

Harry requested that small, healthy meals could be made for him each day, which the house-elves were only too delighted to agree to - making practically the same food every day must get a little boring, Harry decided - and left a message for Dobby and Winky, just to say hi.

When he returned to the dormitory to grab his stuff, Ron was already up there, reading a book about the Chudley Cannons. They had a brief conversation about why Harry hadn't been down to breakfast (Ron was highly sympathetic about the healthy eating, although he couldn't quite hide his glee when Harry added that Ron would have to eat all his share of the box of Chocolate Frogs), and then Harry withdrew the rods from beneath his bed.

"These are the rods you heard Levina talking about when you followed me," Harry explained, as he grabbed some of the books from his trunk. "I'm just going to be reading - don't let anyone disturb me, 'cause I don't want to have to explain what they are." Rod nodded, and returned to his book, while Harry pulled the curtains of the bed around him and pulled out a few of the blank rods, which were transparent.

"Right," he muttered, and selected a book. "'The Cosmic Classic of One Thousand Invocations' - perfect," he whispered, and began the arduous task of scanning the rod down each and every one of the five-hundred and seven pages. It took a full twenty-five minutes to complete, and the black mist filled the rod as he continued.

When that was finished, Harry moved onto the next one; 'Advanced History of the Magical World'. He continued to fill the remaining three with 'Apprentice Masters' Potions,' Ron's 'Auror Testing and Training', and 'Phoenix Communication; The Purest of them All'.

By eleven o'clock, Harry was finished - and now only had to read them. He sped through 'The Cosmic Classic of One Thousand Invocations' again - this time, he remembered far more of it, and it gave him a far smaller headache than his previous use of a rod did. 'The Language of the Sea-People' was next, and then 'Advanced History of the Magical World'; after that, his headache grew too large, and Harry was forced to stop.

Lunch was brought up by one of the house-elves; a large glass of milk, pasta, a small salad, and (much to Harry's disgust) rice pudding for dessert. Harry made the most of it, though he found the pasta extremely good anyway, and afterwards his headache had cleared enough for him to complete his reading of 'Apprentice Masters' Potions', 'Auror Testing and Training', and 'Screams of the Surface'.

His headache was back again now though not quite as bad as before, so Harry gave it a rest for a few hours as he completed some homework, and then went through the books in his mind. When the ache had been gone for twenty more minutes, he finished 'Advanced Swordfighting' and 'Phoenix Communication; The Purest of them All'.

Harry grinned as he fed the rods back into the case, and locked it in his trunk. There was no chance of him failing Magical Languages, that was certain; and he would get an even better score on Potions and Charms.

~ ~ ~

At eight o'clock, an hour after supper, all those who wanted to take the Basic Auror Training exam made sure their wands were working properly, took a deep breath, and made their way to the Great Hall, where tables had been set out ready for them. Before they could sit down, however, they had to gain Captain O'Keifer's approval.

While Captain Marcella (a shorter-than-average woman, with a cheerful face and tied-back brown hair) put a test on each desk, along with a quill that wouldn't work if the applicant cheated or turned their paper over early, O'Keifer (a burly, strict-looking man in his late forties, with more than a few grey hairs and one of his fingers missing) made the students line up against the wall, while he marched up and down like he was on parade, inspecting them. There were over fifty students applying, and in the end, only thirty-seven made were allowed to take the test. The others, if they had got through, wouldn't have managed to complete the class.

The exam was a thick booklet, with a maximum of a hundred and fifty marks; they would have an hour to complete it, and the top ten passes would be allowed into the Training.

The exam started at ten minutes past eight - Harry had taken an Oxtamed just before they had entered the Hall and felt alert, as did Ron, whom Harry had given one of the pills to as well. This would give them a slight edge over the others, though it wasn't cheating, as they would be less likely to panic and make stupid mistakes.

Silence didn't reign for the next hour; the air was filled with the scratching of quills, muffled 'oh no!'s, chairs scraping, sighs, and tapping of nibs against desks as people tried to remember the answer. Three of the students gave up, finding the questions too hard, and handed in their papers before leaving.

Harry, though, was finding it startlingly easy. With the help of 'Auror Testing and Training', he was racing through the strategies that should be used against Dark Wizards; recalling 'Apprentice Masters' Potions', it was easy enough to explain the uses of rhodonite; he mentally flicked through the pages of 'The Cosmic Classic of One Thousand Invocations' to find the spell that would be best to start a fire.

By eight forty-five, Harry was already finished, and only three short questions had managed to elude him. He had a stab at answering when the Aurors were first established, and was pretty sure he'd got the why right, but he didn't have a clue about the founder, so he left that blank.

Looking around, he saw that everyone else was still busy scribbling, so he re-read his answers, and expanded on a few answers, before the time was finally up and Captain Marcella came around to collect the papers.

Harry waited for Ron outside the classroom, and followed the rest of the Gryffindors who had take the exam back up to the Tower. "I found that really easy, did you?"

Ron groaned. "Easy? Are you kidding me? I don't think I did too badly, but it was a real strain. Did you get question six? You know, about how to create an emergency Portkey?"

"Yeah, that was in your Auror Training book. The word's 'Portus', and it's best to use something natural like a stone, because it's easier than a man-made object."

Ron sighed. "Well, I got that right. I was worried it was 'Porto' instead. Tell you something, those pills are great. I'm not even tired right now, and I took it over an hour ago. Does it last the whole night, or something?"

Harry nodded. "It does, actually. Sorry, I completely forgot."

Ron shrugged as they entered the Common Room. "No problem. Hey, can I try one of those rod things?"

"If you want," Harry said. The rest of the students were heading for their dormitories, still talking about the exam. Harry and Ron went to their own dormitory, where Dean, Seamus and Neville were getting changed for bed. The pair ducked down by Harry's trunk, and Harry opened it and began looking through the rods. "Okay, that's swordfighting, you won't want that - that's Mermish, you don't do Magical Languages... hold on... how about 'Apprentice Masters' Potions' and 'Advanced History of the Magical World'?"

Ron was only too happy, so Harry gave a brief explanation of what to do and passed them over, warning that he might get a headache, but it was normal.

As Ron pulled the curtains around the bed, thanking him, and preparing to use the rods, Harry did the same with the rods he himself hadn't already 'read'; 'Demonology and Daemon Summoning Volume One', and 'The Tiger's Book of Transformation', of which rather than selecting a specific topic, Harry just went through the entire thing - and even at a hundred pages per second, it took almost four minutes to get through that one 'book'.

When that was over, Harry was again stuck for something to do. He put the rods that he and Ron had used back in the case, and locked his trunk closed - Ron thanked him lay awake, going through the information he had just taken in, slowly in his mind, and trying to get rid of the mild headache he had.

Trying not to disturb Ajax or the other students, Harry crept downstairs into the Common Room, closing the dormitory door behind him. He wasn't at all tired; he had been through all of his rods; he wasn't hungry; he didn't feel like exploring the school under his Cloak; he didn't know where Levina wa- of course!

Harry made a short trip back up to the dormitory to fetch his laptop, and then back downstairs into the Common Room, where he wouldn't be interrupted. He spent the rest of the night reading through Techno-Magic spells, where he managed to not only increase his training, but also find the spell of Cantworth.

~ ~ ~

On Monday morning, after Harry wolfed down his 'healthy breakfast', he headed down to the Great Hall to get the results of the exams. Finding a seat next to Hermione, who was in turn seated next to Ron, Harry chatted with them about the days lessons, before the results were passed around.

"Here's yours, mate," Ron said, as he gave Harry's to him. "Pass the rest down."

Harry did so, before turning to his own envelope. Crossing his fingers, he made to open it, but stopped when Ron gave a whoop of joy, though he was surrounded by groans of disappointment from other applicants. "Seventy-eight percent!" he cried gleefully, shoving the small piece of parchment over to where Hermione and Harry were sitting. "Third in the whole lot! I'm in the top ten!"

"Well done!" Harry congratulated him, and Hermione beamed. "I knew you could do it!"

From down the table, Harry noticed Angelina Johnson was being clapped on the back - she'd made it in, too. Taking a deep breath, Harry wondered why he was so afraid - after all, he'd found it easy. With this sense knocked into his head, Harry slit the envelope open, and read the parchment inside. "I don't believe it!" he crowed, a broad grin appearing on his face. "I came first!"

He let Ron grab the parchment, and read his score. "Bloody hell, Harry! How the heck did you get ninety-four percent?" At that, Hermione herself gave a yelp of amazement, and leaned over to check.

"Harry! You did it, you beat everyone! And ninety-four percent, that must be a record - how did you do it?"

"With a little help from some rods," Harry admitted honestly.

Hermione still smiled. "Well, all the same, it's still an amazing score. I mean, it doesn't really matter how you learn it, as long as you do... oh, Harry, this is brilliant. I mean, if you do this well in your studies, you could get a scholarship to any university you like - you could do any job you wanted!"

Harry looked at her pointedly. "Hermione, you're the one that's going to be getting a ton of offers. Anyway, I'm not really sure I want to go to university; actually, I'm not sure what I want to do at all."

Hermione waved that aside. "Well, that's what Career Day's for. And of course you'll have a career interview, anyway, so I'm sure you'll figure something out."

"Why not be an Auror?" Ron suggested, but Harry shook his head.

"I don't know... I mean, it sounds good, but I've had my share of Dark wizards. Once Vol - fine, I'll say it this once, 'You-Know-Who's over and done with, I just want to do a nice, normal job. Not running around, hunting down the remaining Death Eaters and everything."

Ron brightened. "Hey, you could always try your hand as a Quidditch player! You could play for England."

Hermione rolled her eyes, but Harry grinned. "That's a good idea, actually. I'll have to think about that."

"Or perhaps," said Hermione pointedly, "we could think about going to lessons?"

Realising most of the students had already left, Harry and Ron jumped to their feet and followed her out.

~ ~ ~

In Magical Languages, Harry stunned Professor Clayton with his sudden mastery of Mermish. "I was practising over the weekend," Harry shrugged when questioned, after he'd won twenty more points for Gryffindor, and come first in a mini-test. Hermione masked a smile - she'd worked out exactly how Harry had suddenly become so good - and Harry shot to the top of the class. The lessons after break, Defence Against the Dark Arts, found Professor Figg praising Ron and Harry; the teachers all knew who had made it into BAT (Basic Auror Training), and everyone was impressed with Harry's astounding score, which was fast becoming common knowledge in the school.

Although Hermione was still the best at Charms - the ones in the 'Cosmic Classic', Harry hadn't had a chance to show yet - Harry was feeling so high, that he managed to perfect a freezing charm on his first try without even realising it. After that they attempted warming charms, which Harry had quite a bit of experience at, gaining another ten points for Gryffindor house.

At five o'clock in the evening, Harry had left his friends to go to the Amulet Making lesson in the Charms classroom. This first lesson was mainly theory; Professor 'Carnaena' explained how jewellery, ornaments, talismans and clothing could be given magical properties; not by spells, but with herbs and spices or oils, or carvings, pieces of hair, and so on. She gave a demonstration of the creation of an amulet, by taking a thick, hollow, bangle of mahogany. "Mahogany is a rich wood, so I'll be making it attract money," she explained.

She took small sachets of buckeye and camomile, comfrey, ginger and heliotrope, explaining that herbs always worked best in groups of five, and that these were excellent for attracting money, before grinding and mixing them together, and pouring them inside the bangle.

She also carved the rune for Feoh, the sign for wealth, into the centre and sides of the bangle, and then rubbed rose otto oil over the entire bangle, plugging the open end of the wood with a sliver of mahogany, which had a miniature Feoh symbol in it.

"This," she said, holding the bangle up, "is one of the simplest possible. I only did this to show you the utter basics. However, in this class, you may make something like this to give yourself an idea how to do it, but otherwise you'll be making much harder ones." She glanced around at everyone, who looked worried.

"Not only will you need to memorise all the uses of different herbs, oils, spices, woods, metals, crystals, symbols, colours, numbers, cloth, and much more, but you'll also need to know basic runes, the star-signs, and you'll also need to know the current movement of the moon; if this was a proper bangle, not only would it have more money-attracting power put into it, but I'd have to make it at a proper time - under Scorpio, the time for finance, and when the moon is waxing, on a Tuesday."

Harry wasn't particularly anxious about all this - if he could find a book on amulet making, and Levina gave him any more blank rods, he would be able to gain an E-Level within a day of 'reading' it.

Levina handed out a list of herbs and their magical properties to each of the twenty-six students just before it became six o'clock, and the end of the lesson.

Most of the students were groaning about how difficult the lesson was, and two of them were seriously considering dropping out. Harry, though, had found it quite interesting, and knew that if he could get a rod on the subject, he would definitely be attempting to gain the end of course E-Level.

Harry returned to Gryffindor tower, where he set about borrowing Hermione's ancient runes book, and copying all the different runes and their meanings down onto parchment. To his utter amazement and horror, he found that the 'basic runes' which Levina had told them they would memorise, numbered four-hundred and eighteen.

Dutifully (though quite sure the world was ending), he began copying them down at a fast pace, managing to reach three-hundred and sixty-four before ten o'clock which was when his wrist was hurting far too much, and he was forced to go upstairs to bed, where he tossed and turned before finally falling asleep.

~ ~ ~

At breakfast, the news came on the wings of the owls, tucked in the pages of the Daily Prophets; Voldemort, now prepared for all-out war, had (probably provoked by the Minister finally admitting his existence) ended his sudden silence, and had tortured and flayed a family of Muggles before stringing their bodies up in Diagon Alley.

Harry, feeling quite sick, didn't read the entire article which boldly announced how they had been tortured and killed (he didn't want to know the details, thank you very much), and instead chose to just feel sorry for the Muggles, two of which were under twelve years old, hate for Voldemort, and thankfulness for himself that he hadn't dreamed their murders the previous night (which would have really ruined his sleep).

Harry had only just gone down to the breakfast table, having finished his own restricted diet in the dormitory, when the Daily Prophets arrived (as well as a small batch of fan-mail that he had been getting for the past few days, ever since he had been declared not only sane, but one of the people who - as the papers said - helped to fight a daemon off school grounds. He stuck these letters into his pocket to read later).

It was Herbology first, which Harry found quite boring; Neville was thrilled by the Raffiathistle vine, which had slick buds and tiny yellow spines spiralling up its length, and tried to snag people as they walked by.

At break, Harry sorted through his fan-mail, finally finding his latest Gringotts letter for the previous month.

Money put into account (September): 0

Money taken out (September): 40 Galleons

Amount in account (September): 5,909,200 G

Interest - 4% (September): 236,368 G

Total (September): 6,145,568 G

This gave Harry a grand total of fifteen-million, three-hundred and sixty-three thousand, nine-hundred and twenty pounds. And of course, Harry remembered suddenly, there were all those houses, which were probably also highly expensive - and what about those keys? Which of the houses did they unlock?

He hadn't looked in that compartment of his multi-sectioned trunk in ages; not since he'd first opened it! Deciding it didn't really matter, Harry made his way to Potions, where he stunned Snape by not only gaining full marks on an ingredient quiz and getting the Alphic brew perfect, but also by managing to get the potion correct without even looking at the instructions on the board. 'Thank you, 'Apprentice Masters Potions',' Harry grinned as he stirred the watery substance. 'I couldn't have done it without you.'

He spent the lunch-time finishing copying down the runes, and also writing the stages of the moon, and different days. He grabbed a quick lunch - his stomach was now getting used to this 'healthy eating' stuff, and went to Divination early so that he could talk to Levina.

She wasn't marking - she was reading a book entitled 'Common Superstitions Regarding The Child-Rearing Habits of Unicorns', which didn't look particularly like thrilling reading material to Harry.

When Harry entered, she looked puzzled. "Has my internal clock gone wrong?"

Harry grinned, and set his bag down under his desk. "No. I just came up early, to ask about the rods."

"Let me guess - you want more blank ones?" Levina asked, rolling her eyes in mock despair. "I knew you would. Look, have you got the other ones?"

Harry had; he passed the case over to Levina, who pushed them under the table, and brought out another case. "Right, then. This is carrying 'The Longsword: A Concise Examination of Variations', 'Sendings and Dismissals', 'Basic Summoning', 'The Book of Summons' - look, I know you don't think you need all of them, but they're very useful - 'The Animal Gods' Prayers'; that's magic using creatures, and 'Enchantments of Y'Laagrondd'. That's mostly snake and dragon magic." She pointed to four transparent ones. "These are more blank ones. Try to make them last, will you? There's only a few thousand remaining in the stores, and at the rate you're going they'll be gone by Christmas."

"Very amusing," Harry said, and thanked her as he pulled down the lid of the case, and fit it into his bag. "Are you still taking my blocks down tomorrow?"

Levina nodded, and returned to her book. "Unless something unexpected comes up. Don't forget to bring Ajax - and if you've finished with the rods, bring them back as well. I'll give you some more empty ones then."

Harry didn't want to risk starting to use one of the rods, and then someone walking in, so he finished reading 'Within the Mind, Beyond the Sight', just before the rest of the class entered, and the lesson began.

~ ~ ~

"Professor Carnaena's much better than Trelawney," Hermione decided as they watched Fred and George booby-trap the floors against Slytherins. "I'm really glad I came back to Divination now."

Ron snorted. "I thought it was because you had to?"

Hermione looked annoyed. "Well, it is true that as I didn't officially drop out, I was technically still going to class - which means still having to do my OWL; but I could just have gone to Professor McGonagall and asked her to take me out of Divination, like I did with Muggle Studies."

"Mm," agreed Harry, not really listening. The Careers Day had been announced as January the fifth, after the holidays, so he had decided to write to the Ministry of Magic's education department, and request information on subjects available for E-Level. Hermione had thought this a good idea, and done the same, and together the pair had bullied Ron into doing it with them.

Hermione volunteered to take the letters to the Owlery to be posted, so Harry and Ron returned to their room, from which Neville was just leaving. Opening his bag, Harry brought out the case of rods, and pulled out the blanks.

"Right - which books should I copy?" he asked Ron, pulling all his books out of the trunk as well. "I've only got a limited supply of these, so I want to make them useful."

Ron started sorting through the books. "Well - you said your Amulet Making class was pretty hard, so you should leave one for that -"

"I'm getting some more tomorrow night," Harry added, and Ron shrugged.

"Okay, never mind. So, you've got to choose four books, right? How about this one - and this - and you've got to have the Astronomy textbook - and; no, never mind, how about this one?"

Harry looked them over. Ron had picked 'Animals, Beasts and Creatures; The ABC Guide', 'Cursed: Werewolves, Vampires and other Once-Humans', 'The Elegant Universe', and 'Magical Art and Sculpture'. "Good choice!" he commended, and passed over two of the rods. "Here - if you're going to use them as well, you can help me scan them in." He copied a few pages so that Ron could see how to do it, and whizzed through the books, now a master of the art of running tubes up and down writing.

Together they finished scanning the books within a few minutes, and began the even easier task of reading them. While Harry read the rods on longswords and basic Summoning, Ron used the rods on the COMC and DADA books. After that, Ron (still unused to the pounding headaches) took a long break, but as Harry's aches were getting smaller and less painful each time, he raced through the same rods Ron had been using, as well as the Astronomy book, Magical art, and 'The Animal Gods' Prayers' before having to rest.

He was still remembering far more of the information than he would have if he had read it in books - they really were the best way to study. With only a faint twinge in his head by five o'clock, Harry made his way to Animagus lessons in the Transfiguration classroom, along with Ron, Hermione, Parvati Patil, and Dean Thomas.

Professor McGonagall was teaching this; the fifth years and above, the only ones allowed to take the class, had already learned the theories and the basics of achieving the Animagus transformations in their lessons, so it was straight on to the harder stuff. "If there is any messing about," McGonagall announced, her hawk-like eyes watching every movement of the class, "you will be removed from this class. If your concentration wavers for just a second while you're in the middle of transforming yourself, you could find yourself with some pretty nasty problems."

She went on to detail one woman who burst out laughing while she was turning into a goose, and ended up in St Mungoes with a beak and feathered tail for the next two months, and a boy who tried to do the whole transformation on his first try instead of gradually working up to it, and was forced to live the rest of his life with hamster ears.

"Now, the first thing to do, is to find out what type of animal you're going to become," she explained. "Before you, you should see a small vial of pink liquid. Take the stopper out of the end - not yet, Mr Thomas, put it back on - after taking one of your hairs. Note that it must be a living hair, not one that's come off onto your robes."

Harry pinched one of his black hairs off his head, and at the teacher's command, pulled the stopper out of the vial. It contained a rose-pink liquid, slightly watery, which smelt like salt. At another order, the class dropped their hairs into their respective vials, the liquid turning slightly paler as the hairs touched it.

After the stoppers were put back on, McGonagall collected the vials back up. "These will need a few days before the hair is fully absorbed and your form is revealed," she told them briskly, marking each vial with the students' names. "These will be returned to you this time next week."

After that, they continued the rest of the lesson with advanced tutorials in becoming an Animagus, which explained exactly how they were going to do it, and how much they could be expected to do by the holidays.

~ ~ ~

The next morning was History, which Harry (having memorised the entire textbook) spent reading 'The Dictionary of Magical Languages', which was basically a list of extinct and continuing languages of Wizards and magical species, examples of phrases, where they were spoken, by what species, how long they would take to learn, where they could be learned, an estimated amount who spoke the language, how difficult they were and even more.

Transfiguration was after break, and after that (and lunch) was Care of Magical Creatures. This made Harry wish more than ever that Hagrid was back; the next time he'd see him would be December the sixth, at his wedding.

Harry finished the remaining rods before nine o'clock, and slipped on his Invisibility Cloak to go to the Room of Requirement. This time, there was a near miss, as Filch was limping up a nearby corridor, and Harry had to breathe in and stay perfectly still to let him pass by without noticing him. Thankfully, Mrs Norris was elsewhere, or else he'd have certainly been caught.

Levina gave him a rather smug greeting when he arrived, and Harry wondered what the matter was. "You," she answered when he voiced his thoughts. "You know I said I'd take your blocks down tonight? Well, yesterday evening, I went out to where Leone had you captured that night, and performed a few tests. You already broke the blocks down yourself, out of sheer desperation, when you cast that banishing spell."

Harry was half delighted by this news, which meant the wouldn't waste any training time and half annoyed, as it meant he'd had to sneak Ajax out of the dormitory for no reason whatsoever. The Familiar, however, didn't seem to mind; telling Harry he'd wait back in the dormitory, he reverted back to his usual croaks and then took flight out of the door. Harry wasn't sure whether he'd be pleased or horrified if Mrs Norris ate him.

Levina had not only engraved and bedecked with jewels the authors and titles of the books Harry had copied a while ago, but she had also retrieved ten more blank rods for Harry to use; she took back the ones Harry had finished with, and slotted these new ones into the old case.

In their fight this time, Harry lasted for over half an hour, and although he was defeated, he was rapidly catching up to Levina; his instincts to parry, lunge, slash, or dodge aside were getting much better, and his new diet was making a visible difference.

The Oxtamed he was taking meant he wouldn't get any sleep for the rest of the night, so Harry lit his wand with 'Lumos', and copied down the books instead. He set aside two rods for any amulet books, and then sorted through his books for more to memorise. He finally settled on 'The Dictionary of Magical Languages', 'Rare Powers and Extinct Abilities', 'The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 5)', 'Pictures in the Mind', and 'A Guide to the Cabbalistic Hierarchy'. He 'read' all of these, only gaining a faint throb in the back of his head, and realised that the next time he did this, he wouldn't feel bad at all. Deciding not to think about that for now, Harry worked out that even without two remaining for the amulet books, there were still three rods spare.

At this thought, another one struck Harry. To test this new theory of his, he pulled his laptop out of the trunk, and turned it on, before re-reading the introductory Notepad file again. To insert a disk or CD, all you would have to do would be to push it into the right-hand side; but would it also work with rods? After all, they stored information as well, didn't they?

Spells, Harry recalled Levina saying, had a bad effect on rods - but the laptop wasn't really a spell, was it? Determined that now was the time to find out, Harry took one of the blank rods and slid it into the right side of the laptop. The area around it rippled slightly, like water, allowing Harry to push it in until only half an inch remained outside. Well, it hadn't exploded yet - so far, so good.

Amazingly, it did work. Harry managed to stifle a whoop of joy that would have woken the others as he opened the Explorer section, to find that 'R Drive' had now appeared. Deciding on the Technology section of Learnings to test it, Harry selected the (extremely large) Technology file, and dragged it over to 'R Drive'.

The rod seemed to take in information at the same rate as usual; though a few minutes later, a small message popped up on screen, telling him that the R Drive was full. Though the laptop had unlimited memory, the rod obviously didn't. Harry was a little disappointed by this, but pulled the rod out anyway.

The use of it was amazing. Whereas using one that contained a book brought up knowledge not only of the information contained within, but the quality of the paper it had been written on, the colour of the ink, and so on, and anything that had been scanned as well, this rod contained pure information.

It took just over six minutes to complete 'reading'; when Harry worked it out, the rod had managed to store about thirty-six-thousand, seven-hundred and twenty pages worth of information - and all of that was now in his head, giving him a splitting headache. Obviously, you couldn't go from 'several books, slight headache' to 'over thirty and a half thousand pages' without gaining mild agony along the way, as his brain worked overtime.

Wincing as he turned off the laptop and hid it with the rods back in his trunk, Harry slowly ran through the types of information in his mind. He'd got about a third of the Technology information onto the rod, and fortunately the final piece of information had been the end of that particular section, so it wasn't cut off half-way through.

He had managed to gain information, he found, on various computer languages and coding, as well as hacking, tracing, explanations on AI and how to make it, making himself untraceable, controlling electrical items through sheer will-power, programming and creating software, building hardware; even, he discovered, how to view things through satellites by opening a window up on the laptop, and then hacking the satellite - good grief!

A manic grin making its way onto his face, Harry whispered 'Nox', and started making plans. The Dursleys wouldn't know what hit them.

~ ~ ~

On Thursday, Harry made another discovery about the connection between the rod and the laptop; by slotting a rod into the 'R Drive' as the laptop called it, he could not only gain information, but delete it. He made use of this by erasing the Technology part he already had, and refilling the rod up with the next section.

This carried the same amount of information as the previous time, and Harry made the mistake of 'reading' it just after lunch, which meant he went through History and Potions with a nasty pounding in his head.

The evening was much better; going out to Hogsmeade with Ron and Hermione, Harry finally found 'Amulets for Beginners', 'Amulets for Adepts', 'Creating Talismans', 'Spell Dates and Ingredients', and 'The Properties of Gems and Jewels'. He wasn't sure which one to buy, so he finally decided to allow himself a treat for his hard work in training (plus he'd be saving a lot of money in chocolates) and much to Hermione's happiness and Ron's amazement - bought the entire lot.

"Bloody Hell - you sure you've got enough?" Ron asked sarcastically, as Hermione placed a feather-weight charm on the bag, so that it wouldn't drag along the ground.

"No," said Harry, partly to annoy him. "I want to get some books for the Ward and Spell creation classes."

The other two admitted they wanted to research these as well, so they pooled money together (Harry insisting on donating the larger part) to purchase 'Defending Against Black Magics', 'Making Your Own Spells', and 'Shields, Wards and Other Protective Magic', as well as 'Animagi: The MOM Authorised Guide'.

Back at Hogwarts, the trio talked about unimportant things while they scanned the books into the rods. Harry had now erased the rods of his own books so that they were blank once again, and within an hour, the nine books had been copied down, leaving just one blank (which Harry planned to copy the remaining text of the Technology section into), and ten minutes later, Hermione had finished 'reading' the defence, Animagi, spell creation and protective magic rods, as had Ron; Harry had not only finished these, but also the beginner and adept books for amulets, and the rod on dates and ingredients.

"Did you know," Ron said suddenly, as they rested to allow the information to sink in, and Hermione's headache to leave. "That Neville was number seven in the Auror exam?"

Neither of the other had known this, so they talked for a while longer before returning to bed, knowing they'd had one of the best days in a long time. Tired as they were, they didn't hear the scrape of claws outside the window, where a black, winged figure clung up against the wall, listening to the heartbeats of the people leaving the room.