Alright, that's done. So, first things first, I should lay out a few expectations. First of all, not everything Draco says in this chapter is explicitly true. Oh he certainly believes it, but being a completely different person from Harry and only having insight into the SI's mind due to their years of friendship, a lot of what he thinks he knows is probably somewhat skewed, or missing the necessary context to understand. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, is the specific explanation of how Harry will basically be able to pull bullshitonium out of the air with some clever invention or another. Imagine how much knowledge someone can absorb in a single year, with all their time learning split into seven classes, and copious amounts of free time each day. Now compare that to someone who spends almost every waking hour on one particular subject, with almost no free time. Even at the absolute minimum, Harry would be reaching NEWT levels of Runic ability. More realistically, he has pretty much gotten a Mastery-equivalent knowledge, and is now inventing whole-cloth.
And yes, for those who are wondering, this single-minded focus on things is something I actually do. In real life, of course, my passion is literature, and I could safely say I have probably spent at least a good ninety percent of my life either reading, writing, or planning things to write. Even when I'm at work, I'm usually more focused on the stories in my head than the actual job. There's also a good reason for why Runes has caught the SI's attention so, even beyond the need for power, but I'll get to that later.
XXX
"So you're Draco." A young, female voice said, making Draco look up from the blank spot on the floor he had been staring at. When he saw who the speaker was he paused, struck as ever by her beauty.
Rias Gremory was a dangerous creature, even discounting her nature as a noble Devil and the power which came with. Even Draco, barely into the beginnings of puberty could admit she was one of the prettiest people he would ever meet. Blood red hair, sharp, kind turquoise eyes, and a form too mature for her age, she bled regal authority and strength of will, the kind Draco had only ever seen in Harry or his own mother and father. When Draco first met her on the train he had been more concerned with her unwanted suitors and the fact that such a person was in their compartment to pay much attention, but now? Forearmed and forewarned to at least the basis of her nature, Draco was more wary than enamored, watching her every move carefully.
"That's my name, yeah," He replied after a moment's scrutiny, nodding in greeting to the red-haired devil and the dark-haired girl beside her. He didn't know much about this Himejima Akeno, except that she served as Gremory's queen and what little context he could remember from his few and brief lessons on Devils. She was even more mature, physically, than Rias, and the way her eyes lingered on his casually dressed form sent a shiver down his spine that might have been pleasant if he were a few years older. as it was,he just felt uncomfortable, and silently questioned why he was doing this again, before discarding the concern forcefully.
"So… are we doing this, or what?" HImejima asked after a few moments, when it became clear that Draco wasn't planning on saying more. The silver-haired boy snorted from his position leaning against a bare wall across from the tapestry with dancing trolls, but when she started to glare, answered quickly.
"Yeah, yeah, we're just waiting for someone else." He said, glancing down the other direction of the hall, to no avail. Himejima's eyes narrowed as she watched, her arms crossing defiantly.
"Why?" She demanded harshly, glaring at him. "I mean, what are we even doing here, anyways? First you somehow slip a note into Rias's books asking her to come here and meet you, now we have to wait? Who do you think-
"Akeno." Gremory's voice was not loud as she cut off her queen mid-rant, nor even hard. In fact, it was soft, dangerously so, and Draco gave her an approving glance. The redhead, for her part, seemed almost serene, were it not for her gaze remaining fixed solely on Draco, dark and unreadable as she frowned ever-so-slightly. Himejima turned to give her a petulant look, but Gremory simply shook her head. "He is Potter's friend. If nothing else I would like to ask how our housemate is doing. The wait provides ample opportunity." Draco's eyebrow went up at that, but he decided not to question it, simply shrugging when the two girls turned their gazes to him.
"Harry's fine, for the most part. He'll be in the Hospital Wing for a few days, but he's had worse." Draco barely suppressed a wince as he remembered some of the more vicious wounds his friend had dealt to himself over the last few years. Worse indeed. If it weren't for magical healing, Harry would bear more scars than just the one on his forehead, that was for certain.
"Is that so." Gremory said, but it wasn't phrased as a question. Draco's gaze sharpened, and as he looked closer at the Devil, he suddenly felt like groaning in frustration. Merlin dammit, she was doing that thing Harry always did, where he heard some specific piece of information about somebody and catalogued it, like he was building a mosaic of their character, piece by little piece .It always annoyed Draco when that happened, and he doubted Gremory would be any more endearing about her efforts.
"You'll understand soon." Draco said, trying and failing to hide the way he shifted under her piercing stare. And here he thought it would be the Einzbern girl he would have the most trouble with, what with her sudden-if understandable-attention on Harry after the idiot saved her life. Draco liked his friend, he really did, but some of the things Harry did could make life so difficult it wasn't even funny. Speaking of-
"Hi! Sorry I'm late, I was making this card-" Illyasviel von Einzbern, with her snow-white hair flapping everywhere and grinning widely, came barreling around the corner at top speed, only just managing to slide to a halt before she crashed into not only Gremory, but Himejima beside her. Draco, thankfully, had been out of her path or he would have been run over. That was little comfort, however, as the girl's enthusiasm died a swift death, with Einzbern glancing around in confusion as she regained her balance. "Wait, where's Harry? I thought he would be here."
"Harry's still in the Infirmary," Draco answered easily, standing from his leaning position and rolling his shoulders. Now that they were all here, he could begin. He wasn't really in the mood to deal with energetic lolis, not today, so when she blinked in confusion and opened her mouth to ask another question, he simply raised his hand to stop her. "Please, just wait a few moments and then I'll explain everything." Einzbern, having learned to respect Draco's requests after he had near-bodily thrown her out of the infirmary more than once, snapped her mouth shut, and he smiled grimly. Then he started pacing, thinking hard as he did.
I need to find Harry's Workshop. I need to find Harry's Workshop. I need to find Harry's Workshop. It was an easy thought, one he had experience with, given Harry's tendency to test new protections on his Workshop at Grimmauld Place. The result, however, was not so common, as slowly but surely, a door appeared in the blank space of wall he had been previously leaning against. It wasn't a particularly impressive door, just painted white wood set into a simple doorframe without design or intricate carvings. What was beyond it, however… well, that was where things got interesting, as Harry liked to say.
"That's new." Himejima commented as Draco came to a stop, blinking rapidly while beside her Einzbern stared with awe and Gremory cocked a curious eyebrow. Draco smiled, before answering the unspoken question.
"This is Harry's workshop, right now anyways. Supposedly the room can be a lot of different things if you use it right, but he only really explained how to get this version." Of course, Draco had done his own research on the "Room of Requirement", such as could be done about an urban legend, but he wasn't about to tell them that. Harry would share those secrets if and when he wanted. Draco was just playing the tour guide.
"Workshop?" Einzbern asked in a low, breathy voice, her eyes somehow going even wider. "But- a Workshop is sacred! Why would you show us this?" Draco frowned, confused at the sentiment, before pausing and letting out a sound of understanding as he remembered just who the girl was. Right, Einzbern was a Magus family, from Europe if he remembered correctly, and Magi were weird about personal workplaces. Dammit, he thought, realizing that Harry had probably known that. Why hadn't the asshole reminded him? Shaking his head, he dismissed the thought, and the annoyance that came with it. Whatever, he could make do.
"Harry said it was okay," Draco answered honestly, before sighing and looking the white-haired girl in the eye. "It's not a big deal, really. We're Wizards, not Magi, so a Workshop isn't that important." Of course, Harry was still usually protective of his space, but that was because of the danger inherent within, and only when he was working usually. Otherwise he kept anything important under lock and key, while the actual space he could care less about.
"It certainly seems like a big deal." Gremory cut in, drawing Draco's attention to her, along with his surprise. "You would not have invited us here otherwise, correct?" Draco shivered as she smiled at him, and for once not in a nice way at all. He recognized that kind of smile, that was a 'I'm smug because I"m right, thank you very much' smile. Harry had practically invented that smile, and as his oldest friend, Draco was painfully familiar with it.
"That's part of it, yeah," Draco acquiesced with a shrug, trying not to stare too much. "Look, you guys are Harry's friends, or going to be, right?" He asked, before continuing without waiting for an answer and cutting off a protest from Himejima in the process. "That means you need to know what you're getting into. This is the start of that."
As silence descended, Draco felt the stares of all three girls, each different and yet just as weighty. Einzbern was both interested and confused, her apparent innocence preventing her from understanding the deeper implications of what he had said, despite recognizing that there was a deeper implication. Himejima, on the other hand, was annoyed, and yet somewhat contemplative, her gaze darting towards the plain white door and back as she frowned, while Gremory frowned even harder, an unpleasant twist to her lips forming as she tilted her head in curiosity and thought. Eventually it was the latter of the three who acted, stalking past Draco to pull open the door without another word, and the others filed after, Draco bringing up the rear. What they found inside was a sight both familiar to Draco and not, as the configuration of the room differed just a little bit from how Harry usually set it up, something Draco suspected was simply a result of more accommodating space.
The room itself was simple enough, with hard wood floors and open space, the light coming from a single small window to one side and electric lightbulbs in a plain wrought-iron chandelier. What drew the attention was everything else. First, and most obvious, was the stand located in the dead center of the room, a fancy and classically carved lectern of white marble, Harry's odd dichotomy of taste at work. Upon the lectern was a book, huge and bound in dark and extremely fine leather, laid open to a page covered in dozens of disconnected arcane scrawls and the precise writing of Harry's dicta-quil from where he had taken verbal notes while working, interspersed occasionally by his sprawled but direct handwriting making a minor correction or notation. Around that were tables, nearly a dozen of them, long and carved of wood at about waist height, and each filled to the brim with strange and arcane tools of some sort, at least where there wasn't a project in progress taking up space.
Beyond that were the walls. Across one was bookshelves, hundreds of books stacked neatly upon them, most covered in a thin layer of dust but occasionally there would be one or two clean and worn by use instead. Another was actually a door, one of those sliding ones which led to a clear closet, and while Draco couldn't see into it directly he could easily imagine the various sets of robes, casual clothes, and dozens of accessories likely held within. Draco always found it amusing that a person who had such little interest in fashion owned so many different clothes, even if most were the same basic pattern and only separated by their use. In the far corner was, perhaps more notably, what looked to be a traditional blacksmith's forge, albeit with several extra tools to allow for more mystical or automated manipulations. Then… then there was the last wall, in which was set half a dozen doors, these made out of cold steel and glinting ominously in the light.
"Interesting." Gremory, who had already moved to one of the tables and was curiously examining the tools upon it, said. "What are these supposed to be for?" Draco cocked an eyebrow, noting as he moved deeper into the room that the other girls were listening as well, even as they started to poke around on their own.
"Specifically?" He asked, with just a hint of humor in his tone. "Those are for weaving, without the physical skills necessary for the task. Those," Here he pointed to another table, with sharper and larger tools, "are for carving. There's a few for embossing over there, and some for different kinds of shaping as well. Plus the forge, of course."
"What-what does Harry do with them?" Einzbern asked from where she was looking at the bookcase, red eyes wide as they scanned the numerous titles.
"Makes things, obviously." Himejima interrupted before Draco could answer, rolling her eyes as she poked at a stone tablet that bore several half-complete markings on it."Clothes, tools, carvings… it seems Potter is quite the artist."
"There's a bit more to it than that." Draco corrected dryly, coming to stand in front of the lectern and the book it held. "Come here, and I'll show you." They complied, albeit reluctantly, and soon enough Draco was surrounded on all sides as the three girls peeked over his shoulders.
"This," Draco said, "Is Harry's Book of Verses- a play on the traditional Book of Shadows, or spellbook. In it he has recorded every successful creation he has ever made, how to recreate them, and the principles behind why they work the way they do. So tell me, what is it Harry really does?" At first there was no response, the three girls staring in confusion at the page as they read the disjointed and seemingly nonsensical notes Harry had written. Or at least, they seemed that way to someone without the proper understanding. But this was just the most recent page, only half-written. When he turned the page back one, all three expressions became that of dawning understanding.
There, sprawled across the page, was a diagram, albeit an odd one. Instead of being formed from dots or lines or shapes, it was instead formed out of words, very few of which came from the same language, or even the same alphabet. It looped around, entire sentences and paragraphs twisting and turning across the page in a wild, hypnotic dance that seemed almost alive. It obviously wasn't meant to exist solely on a page, and many of the notes marked around it were instructions on how exactly it was meant to be unfolded and shaped. More than that, however, was the cool blue light with which the design glowed, only noticeable thanks to everyone present having at least somewhat better than normal human eyesight… or cheating.
"Runes." Einzbern was the first to speak, perhaps a sign of her heritage as she digested the strange and unusual sight before her quicker than the others. "Harry uses Runes to make enchanted objects?" Draco smiled at her quick understanding, nodding in her direction.
"Yeah, " He answered, before shaking his head. "Although when you say it like that it seems so mundane. Trust me, the things Harry does are far from mundane."
"What, is he some kind of prodigy?" Himejima interrupted, though for once there wasn't a faint edge of disdain to her tone as she admired the hypnotizing runic design. Draco winced, before shaking his head and closing the book with a heavy thud. The action startled all three girls, drawing their attention to him, and he made sure to look each in the eye before answering.
"Not… exactly." He said, grimacing slightly. "I mean, sure, Harry's smart. Really smart even, although he'll deny it. But what you have to realize is that more than anything else, he's driven. Most wizards, we don't get much schooling. Our parents will teach us basic math and make sure we're literate, sure, but other than that? We absorb the culture and history on our own, or nothing at all. Everything else waits until Hogwarts starts. But Harry?" He had them, Draco knew. Already, all three girls were staring at him, completely silent and enraptured. Good. They need to understand.
"Harry came back to the Wizarding World when he turned eight, and from the moment he was back, he had a plan. He couldn't learn normal magic without a wand, so he settled for Runes. As it turned out, that was just perfect for him, and it turned into a passion, and Harry lives his passions. For three years, he practically ate, drank, and breathed Runes. Even when me or his godfather managed to drag him away from the books, or he was at meals, you could tell he was thinking about them. I can't even count how many times I've caught him muttering to himself about some schema or another. Can you imagine that? Three years, full of a single subject from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. How far could someone go? How much knowledge might they absorb?"
There was silence. Draco looked between the three girls, measuring their responses as he struggled to regain his breath from the rapid explanation. Einzbern, as ever, seemed awed by the revelation, while Himejima was frowning fiercely as if dueling with her own instinct to applaud Harry's dedication. Gremory… Gremory had gone almost completely still, and her eyes bored into his own as he turned to look at her. There was something there, he realised, something that hadn't been there before. An edge of authority, as if she had just come to some great realization and was preparing to face it.
"You said he had a plan." Gremory said, her voice as cool and calm as ever. "That he went straight for runes because he couldn't use other magic, which implies he needed something." There was no question in her words, but Draco knew better than to stay silent before that tone of voice. He nodded.
"Harry knows things. Don't ask me how, or even what exactly, but he does, and it's almost always been true. He'll tell you, usually, if it's important or you ask the right question, but otherwise he probably won't mention anything. According to him, his entire Hogwarts career is going to be an exercise in, and I quote, 'how hard the shit can hit the fan.' And then you showed up." Draco glared at all three of them, and all three girls flinched, even Himejima.
"He was afraid." Einzbern whispered a moment later, voice filled with dawning horror. "He said it was because of my Papa, but…"
"It probably is." Draco cut her off, shaking his head. "Harry doesn't lie, ever. But he does like to use creative truths, and it's probably a lot more complicated than that. Do you remember his exact words?" There is a moment's pause as Einzbern starts to answer, then she pauses, her face going pale.
"Oh."
"Yeah," Draco said, nodding in agreement, although he could only guess at just what she was remembering. "The thing is, none of you were supposed to exist. Paradigm shift, he called it. The game changed, and now he has to juggle half a dozen balls instead of the one or two he was expecting."
"So is that your plan?" Himejima spoke up suddenly, the indecision wiped from her placed and replaced with anger. "Scare us off so Potter doesn't have to deal with us messing up his precious plans?" She glares at him, and as Draco looks back, he just can't help himself. He laughs.
"Scare you off? No, no, That would be a bad thing. Harry's already decided he wants to be your friend, and I won't fight him on it. I'm trying to warn you so that when the truth comes out, you don't try to murder him."
"Warn us about what, exactly?" Gremory asked, her expression as still as ever. Draco's lips quirked upwards, but not in a mirthful smile. No, this was self-deprecating, painful and sad.
"Harry's going to manipulate you." Five words, simple and quiet, yet they set the girls recoiling as if they had been struck. Draco paid it no mind, continuing without pause. "He will poke and prod and twist you, with only a whispered word or small suggestion her and there, until you're a completely different person. And the worst part is, you'll thank him for it. I did." For a moment, there was silence. When finally it broke, Draco was unsurprised to find Gremory the one speaking, the red-haired devil's voice soft and quiet, almost caressing.
"You make him sound almost evil." She said, but Draco shook his head, denying the accusation.
"No, it's just…" He paused, taking a deep breath and ordering his thoughts. "Harry… he sees the world like it's a storybook, and people around him as the characters. Bad guys get bad ends, while good guys and even ambiguous people he gives happy endings. And Harry's good at it, too. Gives them what they need, shows them how to earn it, and makes sure it's the right happy ending, not just objectively good. But at the same time…"
"He makes it happen." It was, surprisingly, Himejima who interrupted, her anger replaced by contemplation. "A suggestion here, a few words of encouragement there, and poof. Your problems dealt with." Draco cocked an eyebrow at the raven-haired girl, mouth twisting just slightly. Harry had already gotten to her, it seemed.
"But is that so bad?" Einzbern asked, looking more and more confused as the conversation went on. "If he makes people happier, isn't that a good thing?" And now Draco had to resist smiling at the sheer innocence of that question. That would explain Harry's capitulation over the girl, then. She was absolutely adorable.
"It depends on whether you mind having your life toyed with." Draco explained, to little avail. When she didn't change her expression, he just shrugged and gave up. "Like I said, you'll probably thank him. Harry saved me from becoming a bigoted, annoying little snotrag like my Father, but it was… difficult. I lost a lot of pride, and almost started to hate him at least once. And yet now he's my best friend."
"Hmm." Gremory hummed lightly, smiling again as she examined Draco curiously. "You say he's your best friend, and yet here you are, telling us all his secrets. Did he give you permission to do that too?" Draco paused, quirking an eye at the girl, before snorting.
"You're joking, right? He practically ordered me to tell you, in his own round-about way." Of course, most people wouldn't be able to tell that, but Draco knew how Harry worked. He had seen right through Draco's little veil of showing off the Armory-which he still had to do, now that he thought of it-and then encouraged his actual goals. Harry, after all, wasn't shy about his nature. He wanted these girls to know exactly what they would be dealing with when befriending him, for much the same reasons as Draco. So that when they realized just how much he had meddled, realized that it was his plan all along, the blow would be softened by the expectation of it.
After that, the four of them were silent for several minutes, each digesting what they had learned, or recovering from the sharing. Eventually, Himejima speaks up, sliding into a tone of voice that made it clear she was looking for a distraction. "Sooo… what's behind those doors?" She asked, pointing at the steel entrances. Draco followed her finger, blinking in surprise.
"Well," Draco said, a grin starting to form on his face. "That would be the Armory. And I believe it's about time I showed you what was in it."