Contemplating the incessant itching, Harry decided that meditation was a bore. Trying for stealth, he subtly scratched again.
"Are you lousy, or afflicted with fleas, Boy? The charms on this trunk should keep the vermin out."
Harry sighed. The old icon must have been intolerable as a living man. "I'm terrible at this."
"What, fidgeting?" The icon almost seemed to lean out of its plank, fixing Harry with its usual pop-eyed glare. "You've made some progress. At least you're not snoring anymore."
Harry shot it a look. "That's not my fault. I have to get up early to run."
"Why is that? Surely the leisurely pace of instruction at this school isn't too much for you. In my day we motivated apprentices… differently."
"Because," mumbled Harry.
"Because?"
"Because the girls want to run with me! They take forever to get ready and then they're just too slow! They get all hurt when I lap them and it wastes half the day. I'm not having it anymore." Harry huffed in annoyance. The healer, Claxon, had told him that he had to 'feel the burn' to really kick start the promised growth spurt and to get the absolute most out of it. Harry wanted to wind up at least as tall as his father and that translated to sprinting until he was exhausted and then pushing it farther.
"It's easier all around if I just get up early and go do it. That way my potions are all activated and everything in time for breakfast and they never know."
"Ah, to have such problems." The icon favored the boy with one of its fondly contemptuous glares. "Instead messing about with a book, why don't you take that lesson to heart and actually try to feel your magic?"
"That's what I'm doing. 'Meditation for the Mage' says that I have to sit quietly and think of nothing-
"Obviously something that comes to you naturally. Books can be useful, but keep your purpose in mind. You're reading some twaddle, trying to do what the book says rather than trying to feel your own magic. Never forget, it's your magic. Why do you think that some fellow that sits about writing books can tell you anything about your magic?"
Harry stared at it. "Hermione says-
"Hermione can't run like you so why do you think that her magic works like yours? Maybe you're just too used to the feel of it. Try to find a source of strong magic and get a feel for that. Perhaps then you could distinguish it from your own. "
lf
Harry lined up in the hall outside of the potions dungeon like usual, but something was wrong. He beetled his brow in concentration, concerned at strangeness. Strange things at school were rarely good things.
After a long moment of trying to understand, he got it. There was no one trying to bait him, no snickers, no all but inaudible conversations featuring the words 'Blood Traitor' or 'Mud Blood,' no red eared Ron, hopping mad and glowering as if one more word would cause him to start foaming and attack.
Everyone was… pleasant. Hermione was talking with Daphine Greengrass and the girls, Gryffindor and Slytherin alike, had flocked into a single group, obviously well acquainted.
Harry frowned when he noticed the girls all look at him at once and giggle. He would have thought it the usual prelude to some kind of baiting but Hermione was doing it too. Deciding to ignore it, he happened to catch Zabini's eye.
"Great, isn't it?" The Slytherin yawned. "Peace and quiet, like a school should be. No Malfoy, no Weasley, no stupid pranks and no toxic shower of liquid shit from an exploding cauldron unless Snape is suicidal enough to keep after Longbottom."
Harry couldn't help smiling at that. "Should have got rid of them ages ago."
"Try to keep your psychotic tendencies in check, Potter. Five points from Gryffindor." Snape strode up, sneering as usual.
Harry usually stared boldly back at Snape when the hook-nosed bastard began his games, but Gramps had broken him of that habit with his lecture on mind magic. Snape was just the sort to use it on a student and then bait him with whatever he found. Harry didn't like Snape and honestly wouldn't throw him a life ring if he were drowning, let alone allow the creepy git to touch him with magic, but he needed to learn. He met the nasty black eyes well prepared, immediately feeling the prodding of an attack.
Snape tried to get him to think of Gringotts, but Harry concentrated on a vivid picture of Snape tied to the stake, the firing squad leveling their rifles. Then he thought of Hermione's discovery that McGonagall routinely replaced every point that Snape took, as did every one of the other head of the houses. Harry made sure that he communicated just how amusing Snape's futile noisemaking was to him.
Snape's scowl made his day. Seeing the bastard's other favorite target arrive, Harry grinned derisively at the bat and thought of a way to subtly bait him. "Neville! How's your Gran like being Chief Witch?"
Neville was still coming to terms with his sudden clout. "She likes it fine, Harry. Getting rid of those Death Eaters has really made her happy."
Harry's grin widened. "Dead Death Eaters make everyone happy, Nev. Next time you see her give her my complements for the great job that she's doing."
Neville smiled. "Sure, Harry."
Snape thought of his fatherless godson and wondered again if the Potter Spawn had actually managed to kill Lucius at twelve years old. It was just possible, given the boy's history. The elf would have certainly reveled in helping dispose of the body. Hate it as he might, Snape couldn't help but recognize Lilly's meticulously logical mind at work behind those tainted eyes. Her eyes had been warm and smiling, but the Potter blood had layered the menacing shine of a killing curse over that warmth and thinned her glorious logic down to a mere ruthless pragmatism.
Reflexively opening his mouth to take points from Longbottom in order to bait the walking offense against nature, Snape abruptly checked himself, stifling his impulse. The boy had communicated that the jig was up and besides, times had changed. Albus had a use for him and would protect him from petty revenge, but he had also lost a lot of clout. For the moment at least the Longbottom Squib probably had enough pull to get him fired, at which point he would no longer be of use to Albus. "Enough! Everybody in!"
Watching avidly, Harry caught Snape's look of sheer outrage, then calculation, though it lasted less than a millisecond. With a sneer, the ugly git flounced into the classroom, all flapping cloak and high drama. It would be interesting to see how far this new and more cautious Snape could be pushed. Behind him, he could hear Zabini's hastily strangled laugh.
lf
Harry was doing turns over the pitch after dinner, practicing his feints in the deepening gloom, when Hedwig landed silently on the broomstick in front of him, her skill such that she didn't disrupt his flight.
"Hedwig! Hello, darling." Harry, having learned to guide his broom with just his legs for this purpose, petted and made much over her. Hedwig chuffed chortled, nipped at his fingers and made her happy sounds, presently directing him to a certain area thick with underbrush but lacking in trees convenient for an owl to watch from.
All it took was a few moments of intense observation for Hedwig to launch herself and bag a hare. Smiling, Harry flew figure eights as his owl devoured her prize, ready to dive in support should a larger predator approach. He didn't know how she managed, but she finished, taking the rest back for her particular friends in the tower.
lf
"What is he doing now?" Tracy, practicing the gemino charm on some pebbles, watched the flier returning to the pitch, twisting in some sort of spirals.
"Quiddich drills, now that the Empress has dismissed him." Daphne snuggled against the heated stone bench, grateful for the warmth. Scotland in May was not the warmest place. "Snakes and owls. It's just unreasonable!"
"He did kill You Know Who." Tracy shook her head. "I don't care what Malfoy said, he's got to be powerful."
Daphine nodded thoughtfully. "I would love to see his actual family tree. You realize that there's no possible connection to Slytherin in the Potter heritage. I don't think that his mother could truly have been muggleborn." She gasped and pointed at a bright ember in the air that resolved itself into a point of living flame circling the broom.
"It's the headmaster's phoenix," breathed Tracy. "Maybe he really can talk to the animals."
"I read in Luce's Compendium that although they aren't normally aggressive, they can be a threat when provoked. They seem to be attracted to power, though there's some controversy about how light they really are." Daphine frowned. A number of respectable wizards had reputedly been attacked and flamed away by the creatures, never to be seen again.
Tracy giggled. "I wonder what the Headmaster will say when he finds out that his phoenix is cheating on him?"
Daphine had to laugh. "Something tells me that Potter should be much more worried about Hedwig."
lf
Harry rocketed after the twisting turning phoenix, laughing and trying to tag the firebird's tail feathers and then evade in turn. Night had gradually fallen but the moon was very bright and the phoenix easy to see. Harry was having more fun than he'd had all year.
After a particularly crazy outside loop, he tagged the laughing bird and then turned away in a lightning fast spiral to evade, but halted in a hover when he saw that he was over the forest.
"Looks like we're out of bounds, Fawks. We'd better get back to the pitch before the headmaster calls me to his office again." He looked over and was relieved to see that the headmaster's tower window was dark.
Fawks made a liquid sound and settled weightlessly on his broom handle, much as Hedwig did. Automatically, Harry started petting him, setting the broom in a smooth glide toward the pitch. When the broom stopped over the goal, he was very surprised to find himself flamed into the dark office.
Harry swallowed as the bird fluttered over to his perch and began to preen.
Landing the broom, he leaned it against the vast desk and looked around. Remembering the portraits advice, he opened himself to feelings and was sure that he could feel Fawks, who chirped at him encouragingly.
"I don't think that I'm supposed to be in here, Fawks." Harry didn't want to get in trouble.
"A visitor! Could that be Mister Potter?"
"Um, yes." Harry recognized the voice and his eyes soon found the source, sitting on its shelf in the flickering phoenix light. "Hat?"
"Indeed. Lights! Sit, Mister Potter, and make yourself comfortable."
Harry sat in the chair and looked around the office. The portraits were absent and there was no sign of the headmaster. "I should really go. I didn't mean to come here."
"But you ARE here, and perhaps it's for the best. Now either entertain an old hat and tell me what adventures you've gotten up to since we last met or else just put me on."
Harry considered it, thinking of his privacy versus the help that he'd gotten with the basilisk. "And you won't tell anyone what you find out?"
"It is not in my nature to share such secrets. I do get rather bored in the summertime though, when the castle shuts down."
"Alright then." Harry stood, walked over and put on the hat.
"Ah, great things indeed! Congratulations on your newfound freedom and wealth, Mister Potter."
"Thanks." Harry grinned, returning to his seat. "Dobby is the best."
The hat shifted on his head. "Oho, now that's rich. The headmaster seems to think he's got you contained, yet he has totally missed his mark with that little fellow."
Harry laughed. He thought it a great joke on the Headmaster, who was clearly trying to run his life. "Ragnok told me that schemers always outsmart themselves in the end."
"That's certainly one of the ordinal truths of our world. The Headmaster truly means well, but the road to hell is oft paved with good intentions."
Harry still wondered if any of this would get back to Dumbledore. "Why wouldn't you tell him about Dobby? Aren't you a school hat?"
"Unless I see that you are in immediate danger I cannot tell him a thing. I was created to sort students by learning ability, Mister Potter, not to steal their secrets."
"Learning ability?" Harry was becoming interested. "Not houses?"
"Houses are a relatively modern affectation. In the ruder days of my creation, students often arrived without the ability to read or speak a language that was even remotely intelligible to the others. Such students required considerable help to join in any sort of common class." The hat hunched down. "The amount of effort required to take on an illiterate peasant boy speaking an obscure tribal dialect and get him up to speed was near incalculable. Most learned a sort of pidgin and picked up a few minor spells, leaving within a year or two. That effort was largely wasted and the cause of considerable acrimony between the founders."
Harry nodded uncertainly. "What did they do about them?"
The hat sighed. "Little of value, I'm afraid. The peasants were supposed to learn to wash themselves, dress properly and bear themselves as befits a wizard. Reading was to be taught after they learned Greek or Latin."
"What, with pensives?" Harry thought pensives brilliant and he wanted one.
"That would have served us well, but the modern pensive was perfected at Pandidakterion school of Magic in Constantinople half a century later. It was our own Rowena Ravenclaw who established the basis for them with her magnificent diadem, a learning device that she used to help the illiterates catch up."
"Wait a minute, you're saying that Ravenclaw started as the house of remedial learning?" Harry laughed. "Hermione will like it, but I don't know what Luna will think. How did the first pensive come about?"
The hat turned solemn. "History is for the most part a quilt of lies darned together out of scraps of rumor. Some truths are best left unspoken. Rowena's great granddaughter, Helena, had only a little magic and chose to attend a school for noble ladies in Sozopolis. After learning that the dowry set aside for her had been embezzled away, she took the diadem of Ravenclaw, planning to sell it in the Empire in order to recoup her loss. It was from the study of that device by a Greek wizard called Paresius that the first general use pensives came into being."
"How was the money stolen? Was this before goblin banks?" Harry was sort of sympathetic as he had a very low opinion of most wizards. It was all too easy to imagine some wizard robbing him blind while he was stuck with the muggles. If that had happened and the school had artifacts of his family, he would certainly consider doing the same.
"Yes. It seemed that Slytherin's last apprentice, Algol Gaunt, had forged a betrothal contract and then borrowed heavily against it. He 'convinced' the fool of a bursar, doubtlessly with a significant honorarium, to cash the forged letters and so withdrew the set-aside amount from the Hogwarts treasury. Headmaster Sayre, a man with less honor than even Gaunt, had no interest in providing justice for a low magic 'wench' as he called her. The number of Godric's successors worth their salt can be counted on one hand."
"Are the Gaunts really Slytherin's descendants?" Harry had personally heard the Dark Twat name himself Slytherin's Heir.
"His legal heirs perhaps, but never his descendants. Salazar was a eunuch, one of many created by order of his elder half-brother so that he could not breed a rival for the Hatran throne. Salazar chose to travel far for obvious reasons. I believe that the Gaunts were but distant relatives of his, illegitimate at that and descended from the servants that he brought with him from the Levant."
Harry grimaced at the idea of a eunuch. "So I guess these Hatrans could all talk to snakes?"
"Sadly no. Salazar suffered from a rather severe case of dementia in his old age and that Gaunt took full advantage. You already know of blood-magic, so you can guess poor Salazar's fate."
Harry thought about that and it was depressing. "First his brother has him mutilated, then he gets murdered for his blood magic by his heir while he's helpless. Why does it seem that everyone that tries to make the world better gets rewarded the same?"
"The higher one climbs, the farther one has to fall. It is something that I have oft seen over the centuries." The Hat squinched around on his head a bit. "Keep in mind, young mage, that no one can be powerful forever. Having a true and loyal blood family is important. Those that you protect and nurture in your prime will be the ones protecting you when you reach the twilight of your life. You get only what you give in this life."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. "So why did everyone let Salazar down? I mean he gave plenty, settling here, teaching people, yet to this day he's got a bad reputation."
"Ah. Well, you see, Salazar was a bit of a scientist and tended to experiment, on those that he regarded as unimportant, subscribing to the philosophy of 'The Greater Good' to excuse the dubious means used to reach his ends. It was an attitude typical of his class and time."
Harry had heard that phrase before. "What did he do?"
"Only what he thought right. Salazar worked tirelessly to solve the problem of the virtually unintelligible fleabitten wretches that were left at the gate for magical instruction and eventually settled on Memory Sharing as the most efficient way to achieve his goal. He created a ritual for directly transferring memory strands from one wizard to another. Salazar meant well, but much like the original ritual in execution it could be… unfortunate."
Harry narrowed his eyes, wondering when some wizard would be breaking it out to use on him. "What was it originally used for?"
"Immortality, of course. Certain very dark wizards would prepare a descendant's body prior to attempting soul migration and usurpation. Even the revised version is both painful and confusing, as well as occasionally fatal. I fear that it failed to create scholarship in the peasants in nearly every case. Many simply ran away after one such ritual."
"I would have been the first to leg it." Harry shuddered at the fate of the poor kids back then. Hogwarts and mad old wizards hadn't changed much over the ages it seemed.
"Yes, well, he was widely feared by a certain segment of the students. The road to hell and all that. Ah, speak of the devil."
The door opened and a very tired looking Albus Dumbledore shuffled into the room. He halted, wand out, eyes widening in surprise. "Harry? What brings you to my office?"
Harry flushed in embarrassment and sprung to his feet. "Um, sorry Headmaster. It was Fawks. We were playing tag over the pitch and I happened to mention your office. He must have thought that I wanted to go, so he flamed me over. I was just talking with Hat before I left." Hurriedly, he returned the hat to its shelf.
"A fortuitous coincidence." The old man shuffled to a chair and sat. "Sit, it's all right. I had been meaning to ask you how you faired anyway."
Harry sat and smiled. "Very well, thank you. It turns out that I had a thing in my forehead. Gringotts infirmary took it out and I feel much better."
Dumbledore smiled, resisting the impulse to take a peek for himself. It would make Tom's demise more difficult to arrange, but the fact that Harry wouldn't have to die was a vast load off of his shoulders. "I was most pleased to hear of it, my boy. Have you noticed anything different with your magic that you might attribute to the passenger's loss?"
Harry shrugged, wondering who had told him, then thought of Mister Moody. "Dunno. I think that my sense of smell may be getting a bit keener." He was starting to notice that the girls smelled a lot better than the boys.
Dumbledore's eyebrows climbed. "And your parseltongue ability?"
"It's fine. Say, do you want to keep that cursed book that had Tom in it? The Goblin Stonefist wants to buy it. He's the head curse breaker and he's offered a discount on uncursing things like it in exchange." Harry briefly considered telling the old man about Dobby getting him all of Voldemort's gold, but habit and his wish to keep Dobby around made him decide to hold his tongue.
The old man's bushy eyebrows climbed even more. "Does he, indeed? Perhaps I shall make the time to visit Gringotts this summer."
Considering his duty toward the matter done, Harry couldn't help his jaw –cracking yawn. "Um, sorry."
Dumbledore yawned in turn. "I had been meaning to have a chat with you, Harry, but this must suffice. It seems that bedtime beckons and I for one do not intend to miss it. I shall bid you a goodnight."
Harry stood, picking up the broom. "Goodnight then, Professor. Goodnight, Hat. Goodnight, Fawks."
Fawks trilled at him and the hat tipped itself in farewell.
Carrying his broom, Harry trudged past the gargoyle, glanced back and then rocketed across the scary courtyard on the broom. It might be against the rules but so what? He had never liked the looks of that causeway. It seemed just the sort of place that serious Harry hunting could break out. Pausing before reentering the castle, he donned his cloak and returned to Gryffindor tower in style.
lf
The next day at the feast, Dean turned, hand up. "Alright, Man, we won the cup!"
Harry returned Dean's high five a bit reluctantly. "Yay."
"What's wrong, Harry? You made it happen after all." Seamus had lost enough points to be curious.
As far as Harry was concerned the million galleons wasn't sufficient reward for having to fight a basilisk, let alone house points and a trophy that wouldn't matter tomorrow. "Yeah, well, hooray for me and all, but I don't care one bit who wins the cup." Snape had taken too many points for 'breathing too loud' for him to care.
"Yeah, Hermione's ruined it." Neville shook his head. Hermione had put the final nail in that particular coffin with her careful analysis of the house point system.
"Where is she, anyway?" Seamus looked around, curiously. He liked to keep track of major threats.
Dean pointed. "Over there with the snakes. All the smart girls are in one study group now. It's a good thing Weasely isn't here." Everyone laughed.
Katy Bell, farther up the table, overheard them and laughed. "It usually takes until the end of third year before you finally get it about house points. Then halfway through your OWLS year you realize that school marks actually count when finding a job and you pretend to care again, but not really."
"I'm a wizard. Why do I need a job?" After talking to Tonks, Harry couldn't understand why everyone was so hung up on playing at muggles.
"Easy for you to say, being rich." Katy shook her head.
"Seriously, even if I had nothing, all I need is my wand. No one starves once the trace is off unless they're really stupid. I can use my wand a thousand ways to get what I want. I can make money even if it's just summoning lost coins out of the sewer or buying an old car, taking the dents out and selling it. I mean, everything is easy if you have magic." Harry made a mental note to learn one truly useful spell every week no matter what the teachers wanted to teach.
"In the muggle world maybe. The wizarding world needs galleons to live in." Neville didn't know anything about muggles.
"It's all the same world, Nev. Everything that we have comes from the muggles." Harry gestured around him. "Hogwarts is a fortress that was built by muggle men. The same with Diagon Ally and Saint Mungos. Every wizard but the Weasleys lives in a muggle built house, so why pay for it in galleons?"
Percy, having been attracted by hearing his name mentioned, pointed out, "That's true, so far as it goes, but it's important for everyone to understand that the Statute of Secrecy must be upheld. Our world is only as secret as we make it and a lot of wizards going about conjuring muggle money or apparating into bank vaults would soon bring it all to light. Generally, if you want to live muggle, you have to do it the right way, with the right papers and that costs galleons."
Harry shrugged. "I suppose it might take a bit of help, but a hungry wizard can summon a fish from the sea where a muggle has to catch one. It's always best to be a wizard."
lf
Settling into the compartment, Harry, made a game of trying to wandlessly levitate the battered old trunk to the overhead rack, failing, but at least getting it to slide about. It was a game that he often played with a bit of rubbish during the summers when the muggles had him locked up. Frowning, he used his wand to put the trunk where he wanted it, reflecting on the summer ahead. There was a polite knock on the door and he slid it open.
Luna Lovegood stood with her trunk. "Hi, Harry."
Harry grinned. "Hi, Luna! Want to ride with me?"
"Yes, thank you." Luna entered, dragging her trunk.
"Could you see my magic through the door?" Harry gestured to her trunk and then levitated it up beside his own when she nodded. He was curious about the full extent of her ability. Gramps had gotten excited about it and suggested that he learn to brew love potions and cast 'obliviate' to deal with her father. The old monster had made it clear that in his day she would have been abducted the instant that her secret got out and pregnant at the first opportunity, no matter the resulting feud, so desirable was this magical trait to add to one's bloodline.
Luna settled in the seat across from him and pulled a large book from a battered old map case that was obviously an expanded bag. "Sort of. It's not much like your glasses. Your magic is distinctive, like metal, lightning and peppermint."
Harry grinned. Once you got past the sheer amount of strange, Luna had style to spare. "I like that case. It's got character."
She smiled. "Harry, Daddy's delayed publication again to rewrite even more and it's turned into an entire series of stories. I hope that you don't mind, but with the Death Eater murders and all the orphaned nargles to cover he's decided to expand the Quibbler's press and wait for a slower news day to break the first one."
He shrugged, unconcerned. "No worries, Luna, the later the better and if he wants to forget the whole thing I won't care. I'm just glad that the Goblins haven't said much." The whole basilisk problem was seemingly forgotten. Somehow, Hogwarts problems seemed to stay in Hogwarts. Of course very few students had any idea of what had actually happened anyway and the ones that did, either weren't in school or didn't want to talk about it.
The here was a knock and the door slid open. A fuming, disgruntled looking Hermione levitated her trunk in, used her wand to slam it up on the rack and then sat, crossing her arms with a scowl.
Luna blinked, then went back to her book.
Harry smiled. "Trouble in the library?" He'd seen her Polaroid camera.
Hermione flushed. "It was worth a try."
Harry turned to Luna. "Hermione wants to copy the reference books from the library. She thinks that the purebloods keep those books out of muggleborn hands."
"They keep them out of everyone's hands." Luna looked up from her book, thoughtfully. "Those references would cost tens of thousands of galleons to buy if you could ever find one for sale, which you can't. Very few magical families have even one of them and no one has them all, not even the oldest families. The Hogwarts library is the reason that such a badly run school has survived for so long."
"Are you telling me that in all that time no one has succeeded in at least hand copying them?" Hermione frowned. Learning that the library would be closed to her when she graduated had been a terrible blow.
Luna gave her enigmatic smile. "If they have, then who would ever know? Knowledge is power and the hoarding of information is just one more reason that a tribe of heavily interrelated magical families numbering not quite the population of Groby can make a pretense of having an aristocracy."
"Groby." Harry frowned. This was very much in line with what Gramps had told him. "So the only way to copy those books is by hand?"
Luna shook her head. "You can only take notes based on what you want to do with the principles that you find within. Any kind of direct copying, even if you paraphrase everything or translate it into another language, will fail. The copyright enchantment used in those books are some fiendish old variations of the confundus charm. Unless you're looking for principles that you intend to apply to actual spell work, you'll get nothing but deceptive gibberish no matter how carefully you copy."
Hermione clenched her fists. "But how could the copyright charms possibly tell that a completely normal camera is taking a picture?"
"Is a Polaroid normal?" Luna shrugged. "Think of the Mirror of Erised."
Hermione frowned. "How do you know about that?"
Luna smiled at Harry. "Harry is a great interview. Think about the mirror."
"I understand." Harry had researched more of what Tonks had told him. "It's like the philosopher's stone in the mirror that couldn't be retrieved if you actually wanted to use it. It's not a charm, more like a ward, and wards turn your own magic against you if you give them any. Just looking in that thing locked you in. Remember what I told you about wards and magical contracts?"
"Yes, and thank you again for that. We've spread it around to everyone and I'm writing a pamphlet for the firsties next term. So I can't magically effect the books in order to take the picture?" Hermione thought of mechanical timers.
"Neither by magic nor by intent. You might even have to be obliviated." Luna smirked. "Or you could just use Tom Riddle's loophole and have someone else do it. Someone that doesn't care about the book or actually know what he's doing."
lf
Harry woke when someone shook him. "Huh?" He sat up, rubbed his eyes and saw that they were pulling into Kings Cross. The two girls had been using their trunks as writing surfaces and were putting books and parchment away. "Did you get it sorted?"
"Overhead projectors. We can use mirrors." Hermione nodded to herself, as if agreeing with an inner voice. "All we'll need is a frame to hold the book, a pair of tilted mirrors and a magical light."
"Hagrid had an electric torch. I asked him if the batteries had runes on, but he wouldn't say." Harry wanted the torch anyway. Lumos didn't compare.
"If we project the image away from the book and then have a mechanical timer take a photo of the image, then neither our magic, intent nor the camera we use will be focused on the book. It should bypass the protection." Luna smiled.
Harry shrugged. "Don't forget the Associative Law. Better to bring real mirrors and no magic at all. We'll just see if it works next term." Given that three out of five of his classes ranged from useless to active misinformation, he was not above forcibly extracting valuable knowledge from Hogwarts in order to recoup his tuition investment.
"It makes sense." Hermione's eyes sparkled with ambition. "I think that it could work."
Harry thought about costs. Hermione's parents would have to pay in what was for them real money and quirky little Luna probably wouldn't be taken seriously. "If you give me the list then I'll find the materials. Share and share alike?"
"Yes, please." Luna smiled in anticipation. She could easily finance the rest of her life just by publishing more accessible books based on a few relevant pages at a time from any one of those impenetrable tomes.
"Agreed. How do we actually do it? We can't possibly remove the books from the library and we will have to sneak all of that apparatus in without being caught." Hermione frowned at the logistics of the matter.
"I have a few ideas." Harry was unaware of his sharply villainous smile. As always, Dobby remained a substantial ace up his sleeve. Ragnok himself had amusedly pointed out the greater ramifications of Dumbledore's ploy to get control of Dobby, speaking fondly of the inevitability of the unintended consequences that inevitably brought such schemers low. Dobby was eager to play the double agent, perfectly willing to lie to the old man's face. The Headmaster was butter-smooth, but he had well and truly outsmarted himself this time, handing Harry's elf the free run of Hogwarts.
"We can call ourselves the Book Club!" cheered Luna. "I wonder what else we can copy?"
"Sounds innocent. Perfect." Harry yawned, stood, and then stretched, lifting his battered old trunk down and setting it on the floor in front of him. Sitting, he waited until the train braked. "Do you ladies want to wait until the crush clears up?"
The two girls nodded and they sat it out as the shouting crowd fought their way out.
"I'll send Hedwig just as soon as I get home." Hermione knew that her parents had commissioned a magnificent perch, lots of owl treats and every other luxury that a hard working post owl could possibly want in their appreciation for Hedwig's sterling service.
Harry smiled at the thought of his freeloading owl's luxurious second home. He often sent her there when the miserable walrus was being extra-difficult. "Give it a few days if you could, Hermione, for things to settle. She likes it better at your house anyway."
Hermione nodded. "Mum just adores Hedwig."
"Daddy thinks that she's a fairy owl." Luna didn't agree, but the owl was disturbingly smart.
Harry grinned. "Just so long as he doesn't try to experiment." Luna had never asked to borrow his owl, but Hedwig ruled the Hogwarts roost with an iron talon. She seemed to consider his friends to be eligible for her somewhat underused services and no owl would dare to cross her.
They exited the train when the crowd had cleared. Most had already left the platform, but there was still a line for the flue. They walked with Luna and chatted until she left, then Harry and Hermione passed through to the muggle platforms.
After chatting a bit with Hermione's parents, cut short due to parking issues, Harry looked at his watch and then dragged the trunk out to wait where the loading zone began, up from the taxi stand. Vernon would pass by on his way, as he liked to arrive late enough that he wouldn't be likely to meet any 'bloody freaks.' This way Vernon could pull up without having to pay and Harry could watch for suspicious people loitering about.
After a not unreasonable twenty minutes, the man pulled up, popped open the boot, then shouted at him, "Hurry it up, Boy! I don't have all bloody day." Even if slightly mollified by not having to come in, Vernon was still deeply unhappy about the annual dose of insanity that was about to be injected into his life.
Harry swung the battered old trunk into the boot and then walked around, ignoring the usual routine of sitting where Vernon could watch him in the mirror. Instead, he opened the passenger door and slipped into the front seat.
Vernon gripped the wheel, flushing red and glaring. "What the hell are you playing at? Sit in the back!" He actually looked directly at the boy this time and frowned at the new wardrobe. "Where did you get all that?"
"None of your business, Dursley." Quick as a flash, Harry pulled his wand, pointing it at the man. "Swing that fist and you'll bloody regret it!"
Vernon lowered his fist, breaking into a sweat. He had been dreading this moment for years. "What's got into you?"
"Freedom. I'll not be living in your house so don't expect me to cringe about when I can just vanish you like any other bit of rubbish." Harry had long overcome his fear of Vernon through sheer contempt. "Drop me off a few blocks down. If you're lucky we'll never meet again."
Vernon stared for a moment, too shocked by this unexpected turn to be angry. "What's that?"
Harry frowned impatiently at him, scanning out of the windows. "Come on, Dursley, there may be watchers and the sooner we're off the sooner you are out of my life."
Vernon grunted and snapped out of it, his bemusement broken by the horn of a waiting car. Checking his mirror, he pulled out. "That's it then? What about these supposed protections? Didn't stop the fire in the hall, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was all just rubbish." He had always thought the whole idea nonsense, but Pet insisted that there was something to it.
Harry watched out of the back window for pursuit. "For all I know it is rubbish, but the Ministry knows about Number Four, which means that everyone knows. Protections or not, it's not safe there."
"Not safe!" Vernon reddened, gripping the wheel. "What was that miserable old freak thinking, involving us in your magical shite?"
Harry shrugged, only half listening as he scanned for disillusioned broom riders. "The Headmaster does what he wants."
Vernon harrumphed angrily. "What about us then? What happens to my family?"
Harry gave him a flat stare. "The same thing that would have happened anyway, I suppose. Anywhere around here is fine."
This triggered an already angry Vernon. "So that's it then. You'll just be off, leaving us to our fate?"
Harry looked at him with disgust. "Was there something else that you expected? Because I've got nothing."
"We took you in!" Dursley glanced at the wand, wondering if being 'vanished' meant what it sounded like.
"Don't make me laugh. I was your servant, Dursley. I earned every scrap of bread and more. Just be glad that I've decided not to listen to Goblin advice, which is usually very sound, and won't be killing you in future."
"Goblins?" Vernon, suddenly aware of the chickens coming home to roost, hunched over the wheel, avoiding the unnatural green eyes. "Where do you want to go?"
Harry frowned. He didn't want this man knowing a thing about him. His destination was none of Vernon's business nor was it the business of any wizard that could read the muggle's simple mind. "Charring Cross Road. Anywhere past Litchfield."
"I can take you that far. So, if we move house will the wizards hound us?" Vernon, caught in traffic, gripped his wheel and turned onto Euston Road.
"I won't." Harry didn't care either way.
They rode in silence for a minute until traffic came to a halt again. Vernon frowned. "What should I say if one of your lot comes calling?"
Harry thought about telling him something guaranteed to get him killed, then decided that it would be a little too 'Tom' like. "Just look them in the eye, tell them the truth as you know it and you'd best be polite, even in your thoughts if you have any. They might leave you alive so that they can check back, but if you act the bull in the china shop then they may decide to play with you. Maybe that would teach you to be decently civil to people, if reincarnation exists."
He looked keenly at Dursley to see if the man was taking his point, then relented a bit. "You're just another muggle, so there won't be any logical reason for anyone to bother with you once they understand that I couldn't possibly care any less about what happens to you. I expect that Dumbledore will eventually pop 'round to obliviate you, so if they do come then you'll never know. Kinder that way I suppose."
"What does 'obliviate' mean?" Vernon figured that he could hold the trunk hostage for the information, but the boy seemed willing enough to answer.
Harry grinned at Vernon's discomfort. "It means to take away your memory. Some wizards can read your mind, so they'll know what you know."
"Mind readers." Vernon shuddered at the thought and reached into his console for a business card. "If our exposure to magical freakishness is no longer compulsory, then we're out of that trap tonight. I can't think why you would ever want to do so, but if it becomes necessary you may contact us through Grunnings." The prospect of Potter possibly getting in touch might give both gangs of the bloody freaks reason to leave them alone.
Surprised at this gesture and not yet recognizing it for a survival tactic, Harry wordlessly took the card and tucked it into a pocket. "The spells have been taken off the trunk and it hasn't anything inside. Someone might have tagged it with a tracking charm, but otherwise it's rubbish. You can put it under the stairs if you want to keep them guessing or just chuck it out here, I don't care which." Harry got out of the car and walked briskly away.
Vernon watched for a moment, but the boy never gave him a backward glance. Finally, he looked away and muttered, "Good riddance to you too, you bloody freak." When he looked back, the boy was gone.
Traffic started moving again, but only fitfully. Since there was no sign of rozzers and a gap in the oncoming lane, he cranked the wheel hard over, bumping up on the walk opposite to complete the U turn. He thought that he heard something, but the sod that was now behind him was leaning on his horn, seemingly offended by his enterprise. Vernon ignored it all, gunning the Audi and flashing the bastard the old two finger salute.
Buoyed by a growing bubble of euphoria at the prospect of escaping the madness of those bloody magicians, Vernon couldn't help the smile stealing across his face. He would dump the trunk at a layby that he knew, make some calls to tell Dudley to stay at school or with a friend and take Pet along to his meetings in Essen, extricating his family from the prison that Number Four had become. The house could be emptied by a service and sold, their magically contaminated goods put in storage until time rendered their connection with the boy moot. The Dursleys were moving on to what he hoped would be blessedly mundane lives, free of the magical freaks that had plagued them.
lf
Harry passed through the Thief's Downfall, spinning with his arms out and ridding himself of any remaining tracking charms, even as he discovered that Dobby had been replacing his clothing with identical items sized too large and shrinking them enough to enable gradual expansion in concert with his growth.
While not the unmanageable elephant skins of Dudley Dursley, the baggy feel and upturned cuffs of his trousers still made him grumble as he consulted the ledger and fetched a magical tent that an ancestor had enchanted. Harry also examined a Restoration Era cloak of warming and an ever-full basin as he pulled out the tent. Most of the enchanted items stored in the vault were like that, old mastery projects, kind of interesting and potentially life changing for muggle or squib, but entirely pointless if one had a wand. He had to wonder what Mister Weasely would make of them, as most were undeniably muggle artifacts.
The only enchanted item that he took beside the tent was a very interesting project of his grandmother's, something that she had crafted for his father after being kidnapped. According to what little he could understand from the description in the ledger, the pendent could mask a magical signature enough to disrupt location spells.
Putting his selected heirlooms into the valise, he reluctantly put his holly wand into the ornate bureau drawer where his father's hornbeam had lain, so that underage tracking charms wouldn't get him into trouble. Already missing the holly wand, Harry boarded the waiting cart.
Leaving the bank, Harry tightened his belt and rushed for the Leaky Cauldron.
An auror was making a spectacle of himself in the taproom, absorbing all of the attention along with a good deal of ale as he made a tipsy show of questioning people about some dodgy wizard that had been found lying out on the sidewalk.
Harry tried to imagine a bobby acting like that and remaining employed and just couldn't picture it. Why did absolutely everyone in the magical world have to be a fool or an awkward sod? Where were all the professionals? Was it the consequence of rituals of sacrifice on their bloodlines that made them stupid? Had they sacrificed their common sense to gain their atrocious dress sense? He passed through the pub unnoticed, learning that some unfortunate soul called 'Dung,' had been knocked down on the sidewalk by a car while wearing an invisibility cloak.
Biting down on his sniggering at the Man Called Dung, Harry exited to Charing Cross Road, unsurprised to hear a snap behind him and feel his clothing tighten back up. Dobby was both vigilant and efficient.
Stopping at Knights Camera, Harry spent over an hour speaking to the very knowledgeable clerk, an expert photographer, explaining exactly what he wanted to do. After seeing his cash, the man never once expressed the slightest interest in why he wanted to carefully and sharply photograph a mirror projection of every page of several dozen large handwritten books, just made some calculations, inquired about ambient light levels and then presented him with exactly the film and equipment that he would need to accomplish his goal.
Harry ended up spending a whopping four thousand pounds on a number of older second hand German cameras, lenses, adjustable tripods, an assortment of battery powered dimmable lamps, a book on photography and a kit bag full of black and white film. There were also a variety of lenses and developing equipment.
Harry paid in advance and had it set it aside for pickup, saying that 'Mister Dobbs' would be around soon. The well-tipped clerk then made further calls, making a purchase on his behalf from an antique store, procuring a clockwork page flipping device that had an automatic toggle robust enough to both turn the pages and actuate an old fashioned camera cable-remote at the proper time.
Further research by the enthusiastic clerk sent him on to a scientific supply house that could equip him with a variety of mirrors. After speaking with the equally knowledgeable and well tipped clerks of the supply house, Harry realized that he absolutely needed to continue learning math and science, especially chemistry. He rejected their suggestion that Mylar and silver spray-paint reflectors were nearly as good for just a few pounds and paid in advance for the manufacture of a set of convex and flat mirrors in adjustable aluminum frames, built to the specifications that they and the Knights clerk worked out for his project.
He made sure to tip heavily, arranging for 'Mister Dobbs' to pick up this apparatus when it was finished at the end of August. Harry's last stop was Lilywhites, where he picked up a bicycle, a ten speed touring bike fitted with virtually every accessory in their catalog. It was quickly assembled and adjusted for his height by the floor clerks. The enterprising sales girl tried to sell him more accessories, but Harry balked at skin-tight lycra, not at all keen on riding about looking the poufter. He did buy special pedaling shoes, accepting her assurance that they would save his feet.
After leaving the store, Harry consulted his map and set out, thankful for the recently installed bicycle lanes. He doubted if any watchers, magical or not, would be able to stay hidden trying to follow him this way.
Harry loved the bicycle, enjoying the ride as much as he ever had his broom. He'd scavenged several old bikes from the skip, fixing them up, hiding them in various bike racks near Privet Drive and riding about in style until Dudley and his gang inevitably destroyed them. Harry hoped to return the favor one day by vanishing a series of cars. Vernon was just blindly stupid and terribly frightened, but the Dud had been twisted into a malicious creature that must be repaid in kind.
It was after evening rush so the traffic was tolerable, but fearing for life and limb in traffic Harry soon took to walking the bike until he reached the path, then did some more London sightseeing, biking along the Mall past the memorials and walking in crowded sections until he was absolutely sure that no one was shadowing him.
Reaching Paddington Station, Harry filled his canteen at a water fountain and pedaled steadily along the canal path until he was seriously reconsidering the bicycling tights that he'd been offered. His jeans and shirt had grown damp and clammy as the great city began to thin out around him.
Four hours and a pepper up potion later, Harry finally reached a secluded section of towpath with trees and shrubbery masking him from eyes in the surrounding buildings, so he stopped and dismounted, wheeling the bike close among the foliage.
"Dobby?"
The elf was there with a pop. "Master calls for Dobby?"
"Can you tell if I've missed any tracking charms?" Harry watched out for muggles, but he knew that Dobby was much better at it and could literally 'feel' eyes upon him before they truly were.
Dobby peered at him. "Dobby has been watching. Master is clean and no one follows." He reached out, touched Harry's leg and they vanished with a pop.
lf
"Bugger." Nymphadora Tonks was abashed as she realized that she had said it aloud, like some daft old shut-in. She had been in the thick of things since graduation, constantly busy and always surrounded by Aurors, but now after just one day off she was bored and lonely. Pulling the tab on her tomato juice, she took a drink and sighed, walking out of her kitchen and looking futilely at her absolutely immaculate apartment. She rather suspected that Dobby was dropping in to clean because she hadn't once raised her wand to the place.
Tonks had caught up on her sleep and was on the second day of a stand-down for all trainees, days off that she just didn't want to take. The Death Eaters and the criminals that they sponsored were being systematically annihilated by the Old Guard and she hated missing even a second of it, even if only from the limited vantage of a desk in the Auror office.
Her gas fireplace lit with a 'whump' and began burning green. Kneeling down, eager to re-plead her case to Mad Eye, she was astonished to see an iconic bearded face. "Professor Dumbledore!"
"Miss Tonks. So very good to see you again." The old man shuffled on his knees, uncomfortable even with cushioning charms.
Tonks saw it at once. "Would you like to come through and sit, Professor?"
"Very much, thank you." Dumbledore winced and climbed to his feet with an ugly sounding crack. He stepped through, pausing to rub his knees.
Tonks bit her lip and then showed him to one of her new armchairs. Thinking quickly about the tradition of hospitality and her empty larder in the face of this unexpectedly eminent guest, she went to her kitchen and returned with the last of her six pack of tomato juice on a small chrome tray. Though otherwise well-equipped, her cupboards contained no proper glassware and her ever-growing collection of plastic take-out cups wouldn't do. Using a transfigured glass that one couldn't check for poison would be quite the faux-pas too, so her sole effort at a civilized presentation was to rinse the top of the can and give it a shake. "May I offer you refreshment, Professor?"
"Thank you, Miss Tonks, your hospitality is much appreciated." Dumbledore looked curiously at the can, then picked it up. "I have seen this type of container before, but there was a little ring that one pulled."
"Really?" Embarrassed, Tonks set the tray on the end table by his chair and sat in her own, vowing to go shopping for proper glassware and anything else the decorator had missed just as soon as Dumbledore left. First Harry Bloody Potter and now Dumbledore himself. She couldn't dismiss the idea of important guests anymore.
"You just pull back on the tab, like this and it pops open." She carefully demonstrated the motion needed to pull the tab on her half empty can. The decorator had designed the corner for cozy little tête-à-têtes, but she had never thought to actually use it. At the time she had never imagined Albus Dumbledore ever speaking to her privately, let alone dropping by for an unannounced visit.
"How very clever." He popped open the can, took a drink and then raised his eyebrows. "I never would have thought to take tomato juice cold, but it's quite surprisingly tasty." Taking another drink, he contemplated the flavor for a moment. New sensations were to be treasured at his age. "How is your apprenticeship going?"
Tonks smiled. "I'm a bit put out that old-Ma- Auror Moody, saw fit to banish me from the action, but overall it's been terrific." She had been stuck on desk duty at the Ministry for ages without her very busy training officer, but even that was exciting as she got to see a lot.
The old man smiled reassuringly. "Have patience, my dear. Few know better than Alastor the forging of a proper auror." He happened to know that the Auror Trainee week off had come at Alastor's direct order, greatly provoking Madame Bones. Alastor had wisely gotten rid of potential witnesses to what he and his terrifying 'heavy mob' were doing to the Death Eaters, sanitizing the situation and making sure that there would be no comebacks for any of them should the reeling Traditionalists ever regain control of the Wizengamot.
Dumbledore felt that Alastor had inadvertently done the trainees a great favor, especially young Nymphadora, sparing her the trauma of getting her hands dirty at her tender age. He found the casual violence of the surviving war aurors disturbing, but a little more blood on their hands would not trouble them. Keeping the new generation of aurors uncontaminated by their philosophy was of paramount importance.
"I suppose. I doubt if anything like this will ever happen again though." Tonks frowned.
"We can but hope." Albus readily accepted the blame due him for the Death Eater resurgence, but he simply hadn't the heart to end so many family lines, so many students of his. It was apparent now that leaving them to fester in the vain hope that the problem would go away as the misguided youth matured had not worked.
"You're right of course." Dora sighed. "It's just that I got used to such an exciting day and now I'm suddenly at loose ends. It's maddening."
Dumbledore smiled at her youth. "Perhaps I can find you something with which to occupy your time. Alastor tells me that you acted as young Mister Potter's bodyguard during his recent foray into London. It seems that he has abandoned the safety of his family home and found some other refuge. I wonder if you might be open to a private commission to find him."
Dora wrinkled her brow giving him an uncertain look. "His family home… Do you mean the Dursleys?"
"Yes." The old man sighed. "The boy is profoundly protected dwelling under that roof with his mother's blood. The wards have not collapsed as quickly as I thought they might and I believe that they may yet revive if he is returned."
He had a tracking charm on Petunia's wedding ring and after catching her and taking a surreptitious peek into the woman's fearful mind, Dumbledore accepted the blame for Harry's entirely reasonable flight. He had always meant to have a word with the Dursleys, but eleven years had gone by in the blink of an eye with him never finding the time to speak with the muggles about the protections.
Petunia was, after all, a low function latent magical herself and as a young girl hopeful for a Hogwarts invitation had eagerly shown him her ability to divine the order of cards off of a freshly shuffled deck. Albus knew that she had purchased several books on magical theory and so it had seemed evident to him that she would easily understand the implications his note, but it seemed that wasn't the case. The Dursleys understood only their fear of magic and their deep resentment of Harry for forcing them to be exposed to its unknowable hazards.
Excuses meant nothing of course, but politics were time consuming and it was becoming increasingly difficult for Albus to keep track of the details. He had a tendency to remember people as they were when he had first seen them. Petunia was not the winsome young girl that he remembered, desperate for magic in her life. Harry was no longer that hollow cheeked first-year under the sorting hat. After surviving several battles for his life, the lad was understandably unwilling to indulge abusive muggles.
"May I ask, why can't you just get him yourself?" Tonks was young, but Moody had oft repeated that it was always what you didn't know that would get you.
Dumbledore took another sip of his tomato juice, reflecting on how times changed. "He's gone to great lengths to remove the monitoring charms that I had placed on him for his safety and has found a way to protect himself from divination spells. With so many critically important roles I simply lack the time to investigate."
"Interesting." Nymphadora Tonks had become somewhat inured to dealing with powerful wizards and would not violate the rules for anyone, not even Dumbledore. "I'll see to it that he's safe because he's sort of a cousin, but I can't accept work for anyone but the DMLE. I won't drag him back to those pathetic muggles either, not unless he wants to go." Though Bones would expect a report, Harry came first. Tonks decided to seek her father's legal advice and her mother's political advice on the matter.
"Given Alastor's efforts, I doubt that there is much danger from Voldemort's followers, but a twelve year old, even one as independent as Harry, needs at least a little supervision. All I ask is for someone to watch over him where my measures have failed." Glumly, Dumbledore drank his tomato juice. Most of his efforts in life had failed. Having great power meant that everyone demanded that he go about waving his wand to solve their problems.
He'd tried to do just that in his youth, joining with a cabal of similarly idealistic young wizards to influence the world's kings and princes and prevent useless war. The treaties signed under that influence had unintended consequences that had exploded madly, wildly, insanely out of control, multiplying what should have been minor colonial clashes between various royal houses into not one, but two nightmarishly deadly world wars, collapsing two of the nations involved into tyrannies so deadly that they had slain uncountable millions of innocents.
The lesson that Albus had taken away from the vast mountains of dreadful carnage created through his efforts at world peace was that the third go around could well end mankind. Politics were more effective in averting such things, which left him as essentially a second or even third rate politician with a first rate wand, mostly used to conjure chairs. So he doggedly occupied every office that he could, trying to make up for his youthful arrogance and stop the fighting.
lf
"It's here." The blade scraped as he cleared away the loose dirt around his objective. Harry threw the last shovel full out of the pit, grimacing as some rained back into his hair and pattered down his back. Making note of how it lay, he grunted with effort and pried half of the broken ward-stone from its old resting place near what had been Potter Manor's threshold and then pushed it up onto the side of the pit. Heaving with exertion, he picked up the shovel and did the same with the other half. Then he carefully cleared all loose dirt from where it had rested, looking for any stone fragments. Scrambling out of the hole, he brushed off his filthy jeans. He had taken off his glasses. "Well?"
Dobby dubiously examined the halves of broken stone. "They is not crumbled. Dobby sees runes well enough."
"Hop to it, Boy! The solstice won't wait!" It greatly amused the icon that the boy hadn't yet conned that failed wards known to one's enemies weren't worth fixing. It was a double lesson, both in magic and in properly thinking things through before mindlessly going along with someone else's plan.
Books and teachers had their place, but too much of that sort of rubbish could narrow one's vision until one forgot how to think. The icon wanted the Peverell heir thinking for himself and using all of the talent that he had, casting magic without limit, creating his own works, gaining experience and becoming adept at accomplishing his own goals without the guidance of others. A proper wizard relied on his wit as much as his wizardry and wit must be exercised to grow strong, just like anything else.
Harry frowned at the icon, not looking so lifelike under natural sunlight. He had it resting on a travelling easel to 'oversee' his efforts. He already regretted the memory transfer that he'd done. Somehow when adding his language abilities to the icon's matrix, he'd made it sound a bit like Vernon. "Going as fast as I can without using magic, Gramps."
The cruel old visage twisted as the icon managed a 'harrumph.' "Thaumaturgy at this stage would doom the whole enterprise. Excuses won't keep you alive when the Dark Lord comes."
"What's 'thaumaturgy?" Harry frowned, wishing that he had a wheelbarrow. It seemed his ancestors had used magic for absolutely everything and the buildings of the estate had almost completely vanished when that magic had failed. There wasn't even an old shed with gardening tools. This was a mistake that he did not intend to repeat.
The icon was surprised that it could feel true joy in its post mortal existence as an object. Making the boy better was very satisfying. "Wand magic. It means miracle working in Greek. Now move!"
"Why there though?" Harry picked up half of the stone, grunting, then carried it to an old well at the center of his land. Puffing, he went back for the other half.
The icon waited until he was out of earshot to say, "Because it's funnier that way."
Fortunately the well was made of quarried stone blocks and the round wooden cover had remained in place. When Harry pushed it open, he saw clear water with a bed of white pebbles lying at the bottom. The sun shone almost directly overhead, giving him a good view of the old stonework.
The windlass had burned, along with the thatch roof, but some past Potter had enchanted the rope impervious. Harry shook the dirt off and after brushing the heavy old oaken bucket out as best he could with his shirt, dropped it over the edge. Letting it fill but not sink, he laboriously pulled it up hand over hand. Grunting with the effort, he sat the bucket on the stone edge and then stood back, panting with exertion.
Dobby climbed up the stone edge of the well and sniffed. "Waters is sweet and good, Master Harry!"
"That's lucky." Harry started to reach in with his hands, then looked around the well area carefully. "Ah! Here's the dipper." Picking it up, he shook some moss loose and then painstakingly polished the ancient wooden utensil clean with his shirt, rinsing it by tipping the bucket. Dipping it in, he drank the water down with a sigh. "I really needed that."
Refilling the dipper, he offered it to Dobby. "Thirsty?"
Dobby smiled widely, then shook his head.
"Right." He kept forgetting that Dobby lived on magic. Harry emptied the dipper and looked at the two stone halves, considering the task at hand. Brushing the stones as clean as possible with his wadded up shirt, he pushed the halves together in a parody of wholeness and then reluctantly fetched the easel.
Ignotius wasted no time getting to the least important lesson of the whole farce, actual magic. "Finally ready? Good! Now this is equivocation, the oldest magic, a form of magic from before the focus. It's a religious magic, very different from thaumaturgy in that you'll have to muster belief in order to entice the residual magic of this land to accomplish your goal. Work fast and don't worry, you can always crawl back to the fat muggle and humbly beg for protection!"
Frowning at his ancestor's 'encouragement,' Harry reluctantly stripped off what remained of his dirty clothes and poured the remains of the bucket over himself. Sighing at his growing exhaustion and wondering if there was a better way to accomplish this nebulous goal, he laboriously refilled the bucket from the well.
After a moment of panting from the effort, Harry began circling around the stones, thinking. When the shadow on the makeshift sundial almost vanished, pointing just a little north, showing it to be exactly high noon on the summer solstice, Harry fetched a dipper of water and ritually bathed the stones, chanting his consent. Then he cut his finger, allowing his blood to drip and redden the blocks, especially on the crack.
Concentrating on the grass under his feet, the heat on his back and the magic around him, he reached out to the magic in his blood in the way that the Ritual Masters had taught him, chanting the first bit of doggerel to come to mind.
'By magic eld, from ancient well,
By blood, by right, by cleansing light,
Of longest day, on Potter's clay
Be purified, be sanctified,
Let ward-stone be renewed.'
Dobby began to caper with joy, thrilled and energized by his master's evocation of the land's sluggish power as the broken stone halves glowed incandescently white, sucked together and the stone mended itself with a sound like a pistol shot.
When Harry finished, he fell on his knees, panting and looking incredulously at the whole stone.
The icon didn't let him rest for so long as a minute. "Up! Bestir yourself! Drop it in the hole just as it sat and get it covered in the next eighteen minutes and maybe we will be able to reestablish the links to reactivate the old perimeter. Hop to it unless you love the muggles!"
Harry did not love the muggles at all, so without further thought he wrapped his shirt around the stone, dragging it back to the old threshold. He got it back in place and saw that his favored Motley Crue shirt was now ruined beyond repair. Covering the stone with a layer of dirt, he finished with seconds to spare. Climbing back out of the hole, he sighed, noting his attire of drying clay.
"Being a homeowner is bloody hard work."
The icon cackled. This was the best and certainly the funniest way that it knew of to break the boy of his habit of slavish obedience. "Now that the master stone is set, all you have to do is cast Custos expergis on each and every one of the perimeter stones! There should be one every hundred yards or so and they're probably about ten feet down. Maybe twenty. Get cracking!"
Harry swallowed, appalled. "Can I use magic?"
"Do you know any spells for digging?" The icon loved motivating its charge. "Grab that shovel! Dig boy, dig! It's do or die time!"