"Fools." Harry chuckled darkly, an unusual act for a five-year-old.
"But Aunt Petunia, I could learn to be a proper photographer and help make you some money." begged Harry with wide tearful eyes as he gazed at the basic disposable camera.
"Why would you want to do that freak?!" she hissed.
"You always say I'm a burden but I could help alleviate that by selling pictures. I mean that's not a freaky thing is it?" he said pitifully.
"Very well boy. But you'll have to take some extra chores and maybe get camera lessons so you can learn to be less of a burden."
Harry was fairly certain that Vernon's love of being tied up by his wife was fairly unusual, even amongst the usual mating instincts of humans. And he was sure that such photos would not be the kind to be circulated... Maybe the Dursley family would bow before his demands. He could even make life better for Dudley.
It was a Saturday, Dudley was out on a play date and the elder Dursleys were eating lunch in the dining room. Harry had managed to get an array of blackmail-worthy photographs, each taken perfectly, with expert care and quality. The negatives and two sets of photos were hidden, the third in his hand.
Tapping lightly on the door before entering, he silently walked over to the table and stood out of arm's reach from either of the occupants.
"Yes boy?" said Vernon.
"Uncle Vernon, you are a businessman are you not?" Harry asked.
"What of it?" he snapped.
"You know how appearance is everything in life, as life is business?" enquired Harry.
"Basic principle." grunted his Uncle.
"Well, I'd like to come to an arrangement in return for me not releasing one of several copies of these to the locals." Harry offered, placing the photos on the table.
"What do you want boy." hissed a pale Petunia.
"Apathy. You see, your constant anger is a waste of energy. I never had a chance to know my parents so constantly degrading them has no effect on me. Secondly, I'd like to split the chores with Dudley, after all a bit of exercise will stop him becoming overweight. Have you ever thought about him doing a respectable job in the future where physical fitness is necessary, right now he eats, eats, watches TV, eats, eats and sleeps." Harry replied; "I'd like a room where I can do my own thing. You might like to know I've been faking my report cards from school for a year, I won't change that, but I wasn't lying about helping support this family, Aunt Petunia. I'll even help teach Dudley if you stop his sense of self-entitlement."
"Hmmph. As long as you keep to your side of the bargain." Vernon agreed immediately, glad the boy hadn't asked about why they called him a freak.
"Oh, Uncle Vernon, you've surprisingly been the main male influence on my life. I try to be a shrewd businessman." Harry smirked; "And you can keep that set of photos for free."
A minute later, the walrus-like man glanced at his wife;
"You've got to admit, kid's clever." he admitted grudgingly.
Over the next five years, life in the Dursley Household improved drastically. Harry brought out a copy of the negatives and several copies of the photos and burnt them in a gaining of trust exercise, not that he'd actually destroy a source of control, as he kept a spare.
He managed to destroy the brat in Dudley and began educating him. It turned out that Dudley wasn't all that unintelligent, he simply needed things explained in perspective. Sure he couldn't work out what five times five was, but he could count a group of biscuits five wide and five deep. By the age of eight, he'd ironed that out of Dudley.
Harry had then assisted Vernon when the latter discovered a conspiracy to commit mass-fraud in Grunnings Drills. So, being a businessman, he helped the conspirators set up a Swiss bank account to channel the money into, they would go to collect it. A shame they were arrested five days before they were to leave Britain, leaving Vernon Dursley as the sole benefactor of the scheme.
In his spare time, Harry had begun learning a lot himself. Breezing through a mock SATS test a year after his arrangement, he begun learning what he could of sciences and languages through the computer he'd built. Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Italian. Dudley had, surprisingly, encouraged him to study law. Between them, they'd joined several local campaigns to stop people redeveloping patches of the Green Belt and gained quite a notoriety for digging up laws which hadn't been changed in centuries and wielding them with great effectiveness.
Being 'coached' in business by his Uncle, not that Vernon would actually admit it, just saying that he was using Harry as a secretary, he made several sound investments with a small amount of cash he'd borrowed. Petunia, while also not admitting it, coached him in diplomatics and looking after the home, all in the name of chores.
Harry had always been a better cook than Dudley, but it didn't stop the easy camaraderie they established over the pot.
The two took up fencing, kendo, Krav Maga and karate, as well as kart-racing and shooting. He'd persuaded Petunia that Dudley needed to be able to defend himself and his future family while he persuaded Vernon that a gentleman should be able to drive and shoot.
He even dissuaded them from sending Dudley to Smeltings, instead directing him to the Duke of York's Royal Military School, where he felt Dudley would actually excel. Harry also got his first taste of flying, not in anything special, but he was hooked. Being in the air was freeing, where the usual laws of physics were set aside for the wonderful sensations and images assaulting his senses.
Shortly before Harry's tenth birthday
Harry did his daily chores by laying out towels to warm on the radiator, run a bath for Petunia, headed downstairs and put on some Elgar before heading into the kitchen. Having loaded some bread in the toaster, ready to cook, he headed to the box attached to the back of the front door which he'd carved to catch the post.
Raising an eyebrow as he recognised one of the letters as being made from parchment, he threw them on the table and settled down in his favourite armchair to await the arrival of the Dursleys.
Vernon Dursley had changed greatly over the years, losing a great deal of weight, he now wasn't dissimilar to a moustachioed Timothy Dalton.
"G'd day m'boy!" he said cheerfully as Harry laid out several slices of toast and his favourite honey on the table.
"Morning Uncle. Three letters, though one's a bit unusual." Harry replied, glancing across the shelves at one end of the dining room. Again carved by him with Tolkien-esque Anglo-Saxon motifs in the wood which glowed red in the early morning sun, there were dozens of shooting trophies courtesy of him, boxing ones from Dudley, academic ones from both of them and other sporting ones.
He was a crack shot with the Enfield rifles tucked in the gun cabinet in the cupboard under the stairs, in fact the last week's meals had been shot by him. Rabbit, pheasant, partridge, they'd developed something of a taste for game meats, after all what could be shot or scavenged didn't have to be bought.
And the locals would happily buy game meats for exorbitant prices from them, when a .22 LR round to take out a rabbit, or a bird on the ground cost a handful of pence. And Harry only needed one shot from a Lee Enfield No.8 rifle to take the head off a pheasant up to five-hundred feet away.
Dudley actually found that he preferred fishing, but that also kept bringing food onto the table for a minimal price. Harry sat down in the corner of the room on the floor, an arm around the enormous black German Shepherd, Falke, who had been his companion for several years. The Dursleys allowed Harry to have him on a trial basis until someone tried to break into the house while they were out. Falke had sat next to window for several hours with his jaws set around the burglar's ankle.
He was drawn out of his gently running a brush through the dog's thick fur by Vernon paling and choking. Harry simply raised an eyebrow.
Over the next few hours, the explanation of the magical world came out. It turned out that their hatred of it came from fear and irritation. James Potter had played a rather nasty prank on the Dursleys at his wedding, Petunia also had found out how, in the wizarding world, women were chattel.
"Well, that's interesting." Harry commented after quite a long period of silence where he'd let the two adults speak.
"What do you intend on doing with the information?" asked Vernon curiously.
"If your intelligence on the wizarding world is true, and how it's stuck in the medieval era, bleed it dry, burn it to the ground and rebuild it in an image where I can keep bleeding it for every penny." Harry chuckled sinisterly; "I must say I'm curious of the warrior culture of the Goblins. I've learnt a good bit about the Spartans, the Goblins sound similar, very Darwinian, the weakest get rooted out leaving the strong."
"There's m'boy." Vernon said approvingly. He was very much aware that he'd let loose a kraken in a pond full of minnows; "In fact, I seem to remember that you can get all the magical stuff in London, there's a hidden place on Charing Cross Road that leads to the wizards' shopping district. The Goblins run the bank there. I don't see why we couldn't take you there." he added.
Harry's chuckle became a full evil laugh. Far away a blond ponce shuddered in his crushed velvet slippers.
"I think law and economy will be the first things I'll need to study, then a basic foundation in magic." he mused; "After all, I can't take over the wizarding world without the law and money."
Harry knew it was a risky gamble. Wearing an RAF blue pair of slacks, blazer, and tie, a white shirt, smart brogues and a long dark-blue coat, he strode into Gringotts with Vernon alongside him in a grey suit. A katana custom-made, appropriate for his great height and lithe build, much beyond what should be expected of a ten-year old, was slung at his side, ready to be drawn.
"Were you a goblin, I would let you bring that sword into our bank." said a goblin, approaching them as they entered the impressive banking hall; "Hand over the sword, wizard." he added, spitting out the last word.
"Were I a fool, I would hand over my sword, banker." Harry replied in a similarly cold tone; "Now, I have business for your esteemed establishment. Wouldn't want to wait too long, after all, time is money."
"The sword, wizard." repeated the goblin.
Harry pushed the guard with his thumb so that it clicked, exposing part of the blade.
"Come and get it."
The goblin regarded him with shrewd eyes before breaking into a smirk;
"Very well swordchild, your account manager awaits."
Harry exchanged a glance with Vernon before they followed the goblin behind a counter and down a hallway, passing ornate door after ornate door. Finally, they halted outside a much plainer door, dark, old wood pierced by hundreds of pyramidic studs, huge metal hinges and ornate plates of metal extending from them, nailed into the wood. This was much unlike the ornate elegance of the other doors, it was plain, heavily built and out of place amongst the others.
The wood thundered as the goblin pounded his fist between the metal studs and a moment later it was pulled open by a goblin within, heavily scarred, wearing a chainmail vest, breeches, dragon-hide boots. Strangely, he was wearing a grey pinstriped blazer over the vest.
While the goblin himself was strange, the room itself was more so compared to the few that had been open on the corridor. They were all marble and French eighteenth century furniture. The Potter room was hewn into rock, plain, grey rock. A few worn bookcases were thrown around the room while hundreds of swords, axes, maces, morning-stars, spears, halberds, lances, battle hammers and other weapons lined the walls.
A rough, wood-hewn desk and a dresser stood in one corner, the later supporting several shelves of heads of dragons, Manticores, chimera and other ferocious-looking beasts.
"Master Potter, your family account manager, Blade Master Grimrock the Gaunt." said the goblin next to Harry, almost nervously; "Blade Master, your charge and his non-magical guardian. Master Potter is a swordsman and does not wish to be parted with his blade."
With that, the goblin rapidly retreated.
"Blade Master Grimrock." Harry said, placing his fist over his heart and bowing slightly; "I insist that before any more happens that I apologise for any mistakes and insults I inadvertently make against you, the Goblin Nation and its customs. I have been... inadvertently... insulated from any form of magical culture."
After eyeing him for a minute, the goblin nodded;
"Very well Master Potter. May I point out that you have more respect than most of our customers by the simple fact that you understand a warrior culture and openly defy demands to hand over your blade. Were someone to demand my sword, I would cleave them from head to crotch."
Harry smirked, pushing the katana all the way back into the sheath with a click;
"Very well, but time is money, I have no knowledge of any holdings my parents or their families had or have in either magical or non-magical worlds." he replied after a moment.
"Indeed, you are unaware of the extent of your assets and properties?" asked the goblin rhetorically; "Well, it doesn't particularly matter because when your grandfather, Charlus Potter, and Dorea Potter, formerly Black, died during your father's penultimate year, his will left me complete control of monetary holdings until claimed by his descendants, giving me one two-hundredth of the income per year. Thus, I worked furiously every year since his death as James failed to claim the holdings so that I would earn myself more money, and thus prestige in Gringotts."
"Income increase?" Harry enquired.
"It has increased year on year, current annual income is at approximately at four-hundred and sixty percent of what came in the year prior to your grandfather's death, 1975, he died in 1976." replied Grimrock.
"Fifteen years, four-sixty percent, thus increased by three-sixty which means an average annual increase of twenty-four percent while the overall average income would be two-hundred and sixty-eight percent of the 1975 income." Harry mentally calculated, eyes narrowed in thought; "So each of whatever currency you use would now be four-point-six of that."
"Excellent Master Potter, you have potential." said Grimrock approvingly; "We use bronze Knuts as the basic currency, and there are twenty-nine of those to a silver Sickle, while there are seventeen Sickles to a gold Galleon."
"Thank-you Blade Master Grimrock, but please call me Harry." Harry requested; "But as I'm so very new to the magical world, are there any items you recommend I study, I for one would like to learn your language. I also could do with finding out about my family. You've told me how income has increased but I don't know how much I had to start with, or what status my family had in the worlds."
"Very well... Harry. The Potters in the magical world were the next thing to royalty. They commanded enormous respect, political power and usually a great deal of magical power. There are cases of wizards going bad and becoming 'evil', though the wizards like to throw around the able 'dark' far too much. But only one Potter went bad, and he started the English 'Anarchy' civil war in the twelfth century." replied Grimrock; "And according to the records of my predecessors going right back to then, he did it not out of maliciousness, but boredom. However, he stopped in return for a peerage, an Earl of somewhere-or-other which the Potters hold to this day. Or the Potter, you. Another Potter was granted a peerage by King Richard the Third for bringing forces to help him, another Earldom. A week later said Potter betrayed him and joined the Tudors, noted as just being 'good business'. Henry Tudor granted another peerage. None of these were ever revoked."
"I like my family." Harry smirked; "Power, intelligence, money, and after all, that's just good business."
Vernon's moustache was twitching as he tried to suppress a lot of laughter.
"Yes, money-wise if you want to buy a small country, check your trust vault, there's enough in there to do so. If you want to buy a planet, it might put a bit of a dent in the main vault. When in the sixteen-nineties, the wizarding world went into hiding, the Potters simply became a very powerful aristocratic family. They never gave up their non-magical status but instead killed off a few families and inherited their political power, and lands. Your lands are extensive enough in most countries that it would take days to tell you about them, but as your family started out as a Celtic tribe, you go back to the pre-Roman era. Of course, they rallied the other tribes behind them to oppose the Romans before handing them over to the invaders after robbing the tribes blind, and the Romans paid them well for it." Grimrock added.
"After all, it's just good business." Vernon added between guffaws.
"Indeed, just good business. The Roman Villa they had still exists under a Norman fortress. Again they brought overwhelming forces to Harold Godwinson's side and betrayed him a few days later, having robbed him blind. William of Normandy naturally rewarded the Potters. Titles, lands, rights, money. All phrased carefully to not be able to be revoked. Most recently Charlus Potter assisted the Omani forces in the coup during the Dhofar Rebellion, giving you one of the biggest holdings in Arab Oil owned by one person in the world as he was only adding to his father's pre-World War Two investments in Arab Oil. Edward Potter also bought a few of the larger, more impressive ships of the German fleet sunk at Scapa Flow and performed a mass-obliviation ritual which persuaded everyone they had been scrapped." continued Grimrock.
"I suppose. The German fleet was amongst the most powerful of the time, even accounting for losses. A private navy wouldn't be a bad thing to have." Harry contemplated; "Unfortunately such equipment is rather obsolete in this day and age."
"You think he stopped there?" chuckled the goblin; "Whenever the big navies decommissioned their larger ships, Edward Potter would see that it was 'scrapped' and add to his personal fleet. The World War One super-dreadnoughts, the great battleships right up until 1970 when he died. Edward was convinced of the need for naval power and when he kept the Potter merchant fleet going through the Second World War, his obsession paid off as he didn't loose a single transport ship or their escorts."
"Surely such would need a significant number of crew-members?" Harry asked.
"You'd be surprised how few were needed for each ship. Magic could transport shells to the guns, magic could speed up or slow down the turning of the propellers, magic can do a lot if you have the imagination." shrugged the goblin; "You see, the Potters are the last truly powerful family, not tainted by supremacist ideals, there is success or failure, and they weren't fond of the latter, so they'd succeed through whatever methods."
"Admirable." grunted Vernon; "But surely someone would have noticed a massive fleet of battleships somewhere?"
"The Potters, Mister Dursley, had found the Americas long before Columbus and have an archipelago of Caribbean islands heavily warded, magical defences. The entire fleet of over two hundred ships dating back to the eighteenth century are kept there." replied Grimrock; "Edward was not the first Potter obsessed with military power by any means. In fact Charlus Potter in 1975 had his own private Air Force."
"You know m'boy, I'm liking your family more and more." rumbled Vernon to Harry; "Lots of business sense and not the kind to roll over and take shit from anyone. I trust you'll follow in their footsteps."
"Now I'm afraid Mister Dursley, that you have no status in the wizarding world. You are a nobody. Maybe less." said Grimrock bluntly; "Harry's magical guardian is currently lingering in the magical prison with neither charges nor trial. So, as he has been absent, your charge can have himself emancipated."
"What benefits does that bring?" Harry asked, making a mental note to rip down the government and rip its leaders apart.
"In the magical world, you would be Lord Potter, Lord and Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter." Grimrock replied, ignoring the fuming Vernon, he pulled out a piece of parchment and a pin with which he pierced Harry's hand, taking a few drops of blood onto the paper before healing the wound. "This tells me what families you are set to inherit." he explained.
"You could have given me some warning!" Harry explained.
"Man up." deadpanned the goblin; "But anyway, Heir of Potter. Heir of Slytherin. Heir of Peverell. Heir of Black. Heir of Lestrange. The Potters are extinct save for you. The Slytherins are extinct, as are the Peverells. There is a story of three brothers, the Peverells, I won't bore you with the details, but the eldest, the Lord, died just days after the story was set, and with no heir, it passed to his younger brother. You are the descendant of the youngest. However, the second one died with an heir, passing the line on down to a boy called Tom Riddle, an only-just-legitimate child of a squib and a muggle, the former being born to a magical family without magic and the latter being completely non-magical. Riddle went bad, killed your parents and got knocked out of his body trying to kill you. By right of conquest and being the last blood of the third brother Peverell gets you the titles as you were Riddle's closest relative alive."
"Well, shit." Harry commented; "The rest."
"Blacks have a few members alive, your magical guardian and godfather is in prison without trial and the rest are female so can't inherit. You are the Heir Black. The Lestranges are linked to the Blacks, and are locked up for torturing friends of your parents into insanity. You are the Heir Lestrange." explained Grimrock.
"Can I cast people out of the families?" asked Harry.
"Yep." replied the goblin; "But first you need to say 'I, Hadrian Potter, do claim in my rights of ascension, that which is mine'."
" I, Hadrian Potter, do claim in my rights of ascension, that which is mine!" Harry declared. A moment later, he screamed as a black cloud was thrown into nothingness from his scar, and a number of rings settled on his fingers.
"Well, shit." he repeated, trying to rub his eyes as he couldn't see. Then he knocked off his glasses and realised he could see properly for the first time without glasses; "So, how do I throw people out?"
"I, name, disinherit and disown, name, from the House of, name." replied Grimrock.
"So who are the Lestranges?" asked Harry.
"Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan." the goblin answered; "And also declare that you disband the house and transfer the power to the house of..."
"I, Hadrian Potter, disinherit and disown Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange from the House of Lestrange! I disband the House of Lestrange, let all become part of the House of Black!" he declared; "I hereby combine the Lordships Slytherin and Peverell into the House of Potter!"
Several flashes of light emanated from the rings on his fingers as several of them vanished. The Slytherin coat of arms and the Peverell coat of arms combined with the Potter arms. The Lestrange one simply vanished.
"You'll need these." commented the goblin as he lifted over a huge, thick tome, a smaller one and a strip of serpentine hide with several slots in it; "The larger book is your family grimoire. The old families hoarded knowledge, the Potters have a lot more than any of the others. The second book is a basic introduction to magic for an heir, but by today's fallen standards, probably fourth year magic. The holster contains a pair of wands crafted for you as a baby, only you can take them out."
Harry placed the serpentine hide against his right forearm, and strings burst from it, strapping it firmly, but not uncomfortably to his arm. A twitch of his arm and the intent had an ornately carved wand land in his hand, a huge shower of golden sparks bursting from the tip.
"Technically performing magic outside Hogwarts is illegal, but those wands are untraceable." said Grimrock; "However, I suspect that you won't actually need to do any shopping for a while with that."
"Can you get me some copies of past magical exams? I want to know what levels I'm expected to get to?" Harry requested.
"I'll send them to you with the Potters' courier eagle.
Though he'd also picked up the first year spell books, Harry had managed to get a large number of books on law, culture, rituals and the grey side of magic, where intent governed the use of magic. Vernon upon finding out he was famous insisted Harry get a number of books on combat magic – magic for duelling, and battle magic – an esoteric branch of magic for wide scale battles, mostly forgotten since the institution of the Statute of Secrecy.
The goblins were going to lay down an impressive fortress of wards around Privet Drive as well as delivering several duelling dummies to go in the cellar for Harry to practice against.
Harry was sat in his bedroom, a scalpel in his left hand and his katana on his lap. He had carved a single rune into the grip of the sword where he'd usually put his right hand, and after pushing a numbing charm he'd learnt onto the palm of his right hand, he swiftly cut the same rune into his hand.
"Ligo!" he hissed; 'bind'.
A flash of magic came from the two runes and the wound quickly healed. Re-wrapping the grip, Harry held up his empty hand and pulled on his magic. A moment later, the sword appeared in his hand. Harry's evil laugh echoed through the house. The wizards wouldn't know what was going to hit them.
Using just the point of a geometry compass, he carved several more runes into the surface of the sword, mostly on the back edge. Ever-sharp, unbreakable, even ones that would channel magic. It was some time before he realised that he'd been in the room carving for over fifteen hours. And the runes were no longer simply scratched into the surface, they were engraved artistically, bound in a weave much like some Anglo-Saxon carvings he'd imitated.
After helping the family get breakfast, he retreated to his room, thanking the heavens for his eidetic memory as he spent the entirety of the day memorising every word of the first year books. Another ritual actually combined his spare wand with the sword, which he found to suddenly begin to grow as it kept up with his rapid growth, whereas it would soon have been too small for him.
Harry had gone through every spell in the books within a week of hard work before switching to the Heir's Guide. That took much longer, but he had essentially finished it by the time September 1st came around, his acceptance letter having long-since been sent off with the Potter courier eagle, a massive Golden Eagle easily half the size again of a normal Golden Eagle.
Harry was greatly amused. On the train-ride, he had encountered a ginger moron clutching a rat, who barged in and asked if he was Harry Potter. Apparently he was Harry Potter's best friend. And future brother-in-law.
"No." Harry deadpanned as Falke yawned, his jaw displaying a row of very impressive fangs; "The name's Bond, James Bond."
Sneering at him, the ginger walked off, falling on his face as Harry nailed him with a trip-jinx and resisted the urge to find a curse to cause infertility to stop said ginger creating any special children. Dressed in his favourite RAF-blue suit, he simply sat back to enjoy the ride on the steam train. In his opinion, too much heritage had been sacrificed to the cutter's torch.
Glancing at his personal owl, Hedwig, who was perched on the rack opposite him, he rolled his eyes, the intent directed at the retreating redhead. The owl simply nodded and barked approvingly.
Two girls stuck their heads around the door, one a blonde, the other a brunette.
"Mind if we join you?" asked the latter, seemingly far more bubbly than the blonde whose gaze was icier than the Arctic.
"Why not?" Harry replied, shifting over to next to Falke.
"I'm Tracy Davis and icy here is Daphne Greengrass."
Harry was frankly in admiration of the death-glare the latter shot at her companion.
"Harry Potter at your service." he replied kissing the backs of the offered hands.
"What house do you think you're going to be in?" asked Tracy upon seeing her companion had no intention of starting a conversation.
"I like Slytherin's qualities but I think that the body-count in the first week might be a bit too high." Harry replied; "Than and no true Slytherin goes into Slytherin because then everybody would know you're a Slytherin which isn't a very Slytherin thing to do." he chucked; "Hard work and loyalty are important, but I am loyal to... let's see. My dog. And only because he's unendingly loyal to me. I'll use any method to make my work easier or faster without compensating quality. Courage and bravery are only useful tempered by caution and knowing when to avoid a fight. In a way Ravenclaw would be the best for me. Knowledge is power. Ambition is nothing without knowledge. Courage is nothing without knowing about a fight you're getting into. Hard work is pointless if you're stupid."
"And you're a bookworm." commented Daphne, speaking up for the first time as she gestured at the book on alchemy he was reading. Having apparated first aged seven being chased by local bully Piers, Harry suddenly wanted to do that as he was regarded with a cold, calculating gaze. "Alchemy. I've heard it's fairly difficult."
"Never had any problems myself." Harry shrugged; "Then again I've just found magic, not easy but, it sort-of comes to me."
"Explain." she ordered.
Harry raised an eyebrow at the demand and eventually conceded.
"The only method to find your Animagus form is a potion, correct." he replied.
"Yes." answered Tracy.
Harry pulled out a bit of parchment from his trunk and used a book to prop it up as he began to sketch. A short series of runes at the top. Mind, animal, similar, image. Then dozens more encircling it. Image, create, sand, heat, fire, cold, they all lined up. Soon, he beckoned Daphne over first.
She stared at the circle of runes and the small cluster inside it. It mesmerised her, she couldn't peel her gaze away, then suddenly it seemed to rotate in front of her eyes before bursting into sand. The sand swiftly heated as it floated in the air before it reformed into an extremely elegant Arabian Horse made from glass, bucking wildly, mane swinging and tail held proudly.
Harry smirked and handed it to her.
"Your Animagus form milady." he chuckled.
"Do that for me!" demanded Tracy, bouncing in her seat.
Harry repeated, sketching out the runes on a piece of parchment and then activating it as she gazed into the mesmerising element which put a probe into her mind to seek out the inner animal. A minute later, she too was holding an animal, a highly excitable but loyal spaniel.
"How did you do that?" asked Daphne incredulously.
"Use of logic and an expert knowledge of ancient languages, including a number of runic languages." Harry shrugged, settling into a meditative trance. Having been doing it for years, he was finding Occlumency and Legilimency easy.
A little while later, he was shaken back into his body by one of the girls.
"Do you mind leaving for a minute while we change?" Daphne asked, for the first time not utterly cold. Harry nodded and, unholstering his wand, performed a switching spell to place their Hogwarts robes over their clothes, in his case removing his blazer.
"Better?" he smirked.
"Smartass." she giggled.
"Merlin! Someone made the Ice Queen giggle!" exclaimed Tracey.
Harry smirked as he reached into his trouser pocket, checking a selection of vials. Batrachotoxin from a Golden Poison Frog, Ricin from castor beans, Cyanide concentrate from Elderberries, Tetrodotoxin from pufferfish and Strychnine from the Indian Poison Nut tree. A few healing potions, liquid fire. He was set. Not that he was actually intending on killing someone.
He was seriously disappointed. At the Sorting Feast as he was sorted into Ravenclaw, he felt three mental probes. A very light surface skim from Dumbledore, a somewhat heavier push from the Potions Master, and one with the subtlety of Grond, Sauron's battering ram from Lord of the Rings. From the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.
A touch of healthy paranoia and he'd planted an EMP resistant bug on the teacher. Man wouldn't expect a non-magical listening device. Turned out he was possessed by the murdering bastard who had killed his parents. Harry was irritated. It had taken Harry a bit of calculations as to how long each of his poisons would take to effect the bastard.
He then encased the poisons in hundreds of miniscule slightly enchanted wax pellets, which wouldn't break down when ingested into the bloodstream and release the contents of their magically-expanded compartments unless he allowed them. And he'd activate them the amount of time that the slowest-acting of them would take to work, and the others were timed to release so that they'd all affect him at the same time. He had slaved for hours with a microscope and a mixture of tools to make them.
It had taken several days to get Quirrel to ingest them all, but it was worth it.
Harry was sat at the Ravenclaw table, awaiting the show. He'd activated the poisons through runes, and they would, all together, be taking effect... now.
He wasn't overly sadistic, but watching the man willingly hosting the killer of thousands, including his parents, die was satisfying, though he didn't let it show through his mask of horror. Harry already knew why the man was here. The philosopher's stone.
It had been the first night at Hogwarts and Dumbledore had told them all to stay away from the third floor corridor. He'd immediately gone there, lock-picked the door as using magic could have set off alarms. Seeing a Cerberus, he'd recalled his mythology and sung the beast to sleep. Upon finding Devil's Snare at the bottom of a pit, he simply used a Zippo lighter to cause it to let him free.
A small amount of thermite had got him through the door at the end of the flying key room, and a lot of gunpowder had got him through the chess and troll rooms. The flame-retardant potion in his pocket had seen him through the flames of the riddle room, and sat on a stool in that last chamber, was the pinnacle of alchemy.
He'd gone back around the corner of the third floor corridor having scaled a length of para-cord he'd used to drop down the hole beneath the Cerberus and wound it up behind him by the time Dumbledore had arrived.
Watching the professor go still as a smoky wraith emerged, screaming from him, Harry resisted the urge to bang his head against the table. All he needed was a semi-immortal foe. At least the bastard seemed to be utterly gullible, but it would be nice to kill him once and for all. Or maybe torture him to death once and for all.
"I wonder if we can see Thestrals now." Harry commented, raising an eyebrow as several gazes landed on him and his far-too-sharp favourite suit. At least they didn't know that the sword lapel-pin was actually his katana.
A couple of days later, he was called up to the Headmaster's office to find both Dumbledore and a man with grey hair, a slight goatee and moustache wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, but with a sword slung at his side.
"Harry, I want to ask why you felt it necessary to steal the Philosopher's Stone from me?" the former asked with a grandfatherly tone of voice.
"Mixture of personal amusement, boredom and simply wanting to get an artefact out of a school full of children back to the person who hasn't had it stolen in the what, six-hundred years of existence." Harry drawled, throwing himself in a chair and propping his brogues up on the desk to Dumbledore's visible but silent irritation. "Mind if I ask how you found out?"
"You used in your message to Nicholas the phrases, needing 'Major rest therapy' and not wanting to 'Parrot Her Majesty', both of which are anagrams of your name." Dumbledore said disapprovingly.
"Yeah, I knew you'd find out, and knowing of Riddle's obsession with anagrams, it would drive you up the wall." Harry replied with a careless shrug; "Don't worry, I'm not being influenced by that little lump of dark lord you left in my forehead. See, apparently the rite of ascension for the Potter family has some less than pleasant effects for false claimants, and that bit of him was a false claimant. That bit of him died."
Dumbledore beamed after paling for a moment.
"That's brilliant m'boy!" he exclaimed.
"Could you give the 'I'm your favourite grandfather' act a rest. I actually prefer the other Dumbledore." Harry commented; "You didn't accidentally accumulate a significant amount of political power, and you didn't use lemon drops to get Riddle to fear you, as the wizarding world is so fond of quoting."
"I like you boy!" said the other man.
"Thank-you Master Alchemist Flamel." Harry replied with a slight smirk, which turned to a withering glare at his slight look of surpise. "It's not a hard deduction, and why don't you just slap a Fidelius charm over your stone, and have either your wife or yourself as Secret Keeper. Even a house elf, they're loyal to death and can't disobey orders."
After a moment of silence, Harry commented;
"Bloody wizards and their lack of any sense of logic."
"Could you tell us how you got through the protections?" asked Dumbledore.
"Sure. Lock-picked the door, sung the Cerberus to sleep and used high-tensile rope to rappel down the hole. Used a non-magical fire-lighter to get rid of the Devil's Snare. Used thermite, which is a product of a form of non-magical alchemy, two atoms of iron to three of oxygen. The thermite burns for a short while at a very high temperature, allowing me to break through the door of the flying key room. I then used old-fashioned seventy-five percent potassium nitrate, otherwise known as saltpetre, fifteen percent willow charcoal and ten percent sulphur. Otherwise known as gunpowder. So I exploded your chess set, the next door, the troll and then used a flame-retardant potion I had in my pocket to get through the flame room. Nicked the stone and walked back out, climbed up the rope, sang the Cerberus to sleep and watched you run around like a headless chicken."
"I don't run around like a headless chicken!" Dumbledore protested.
"Yes you do." chorused the other two people in his office.
"Anyway, do you always run around with lockpicks, climbing rope, fire-lighters, thermite, gunpowder and flame-retardant potions?" asked Dumbledore.
Harry summoned the katana to his hand and began twirling it lazily.
"And more." he drawled.
"You can't h-" began Dumbledore.
"Actually..." said Harry.
"There's..." added Nicholas.
"A law." they finished together.
"Of course there is." sighed Dumbledore.
"Hey, is that a phoenix?" Harry asked.
"My faithful familiar Fawkes-" replied the headmaster.
"Enough bloody alliteration." Harry snapped as he strode over to the bird with a hungry look in his eyes. He wasn't cruel so he cast a massively overpowered numbing charm on Fawkes before spraying him from an aerosol can of petrol he happened to have in his pocket. Pulling out his lighter, he set the bird on fire and pulled out a notebook and fountain pen.
"YOU JUST SET MY PHOENIX ON FIRE." yelled Dumbledore.
"It's all for the Greater Good." Harry chided; "In the name of science. Anyway, he sets himself on fire every so often if I remember correctly. Now shut up while I make notes."
The two elder wizards gaped as Harry calmly kept writing as Fawkes began emitting his own, slightly lighter-coloured flames and fought against the petrol. Eventually, he burnt out the petrol, and just as Harry tucked away the notebook, launched himself at the first-year talons and beak outstretched.
Expertly grabbing the phoenix around the neck and beak, he ignored the talons trying to shred his blazer and strode out, cooing at the bird.
"You and I are gonna get on just fine 'lil man."
Harry was missing from class for two full weeks, only eating once a day as a Potter elf brought him meals which he usually forgot about within twenty seconds. A great number of attempts were made to breach his sanctum, but the number of runes carved into the walls, floor, ceiling, door, door-frame, window, window-frame and anywhere else he could get them, protected the room from even letting in the sound of the breaching attempts.
He'd managed to keep the dratted firebird tranquillized until he could create a rune-ward to stop him from flaming out. It also deprived Dumbledore of an access method, not that he actually remembered that. At the end of the two-week period of constant work, he decided to give it a break and sent off a couple of bits of mail he'd been meaning to get rid of for days. Unfortunately, he'd sent his Daily Prophet subscription to Dumbledore and Fawkes to the Daily Prophet with a note for the headmaster. Not that he realised it as he slept for over two days straight. At least the blasted thing wasn't trying to burn his face off anymore.
On the upside, he'd also between experiments, developed an all-purpose magical sedative which worked past the basic magic which stopped normal barbiturate tranquillizers from working. As a side-effect, it cancelled all active magic on that person for a five-minute period but couldn't be overdosed. And he'd made a rifle much like the M14 DMR in appearance to fire darts of the tranquillizer as well as a handgun for the same purpose.
He slipped into the Great Hall, looking pale, drawn and still wearing a lab coat with a selection of his favourite throwing scalpels sticking out of a pocket.
"YOU STOLE MY PHOENIX AND MAILED HIM TO THE DAILY PROPHET!" bellowed Dumbledore.
"Actually, your phoenix threw himself at me he was so eager to help science." Harry corrected; "Anyway, I thought I mailed him back to you?"
"No, you mailed me your Daily Prophet subscription and sent my phoenix to the newspaper. And he wasn't eager to help science, he was trying to claw your face off." thundered the wizard.
Harry just waved his hand dismissively;
"Meh, same difference."
"Harry, my best mate-" began the weird redhead running over. Harry didn't even look at him as he shot him twice with the tranquillizer pistol.
What he hadn't expected on top of the thump of someone unconscious hitting the floor was that he'd hit the rat in the redhead's pocket. And the part of the sedative which cancelled active magic had returned said rat to normal form.
"Who's that?" Harry commented, looking at the chubby man with rat-like features lying unconscious on the floor.
Apparently he wasn't supposed to know as Dumbledore sent all the students back to their dorms while he sorted out Harry's mess... Again.
Harry spent the next week sucking up to Lockhart, the new defence professor. He was quickly made the man's favourite student as he introduced him to Havana Cigars. He even got Lockhart to admit about a number of rape-mind wipes and the fact that he had stolen the stories of others and wiped their minds. Pretending to be enthusiastic about the bastard was difficult, but he managed to show his admiration, for after all, 'if you've got a story and you don't publicise it, you're not worth the story'.
Lockhart had bought a Pensieve and left copies of every rape, every memory robbery and other foul crime in it. T'would be a shame for Law Enforcement to find it.
He was sat at the Ravenclaw table eating breakfast a few days onward when there was a soft, muffled bang from nearby. Stupid bastard should have checked that none of his cigars contained a small stick of dynamite. Or a large stick of dynamite courtesy of a space-expansion charm.
Later that day, at lunchtime, the Minister, a toad-like toady and a pair from the Daily Prophet came in with two Dementors flanking them. Ignoring the stupid effect that the two creatures were giving off, Harry rushed over.
"Ah Minister, so glad to meet you." he said, flashing a brilliant smile at the camera as several photos were taken; "I had heard you make great investment in the modernizing of Britain to keep up with the lesser wizarding countries. Offering two of your Dementors for the improvement of our country and world will surely show the people how you care so very greatly for their future!"
He wrung Fudge's hand for a few more moments for the camera before shooting the Dementors with his tranquillizer pistol. Five times. Each. Rushing off with the unconscious creatures floating behind him and Falke trotting alongside him with a manic grin.
Dog and master were eerily alike.
Naturally he didn't bother coming out of his room for several more weeks. Even Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel's attempts to get into his room failed.
"You're so brave!" a voice wafted out of the defence classroom as Harry walked towards it, once more clad in his suit though he had his katana sticking out of his blazer in the normal position, the grip curving downward as it emerged from the blazer.
"I mean he's killed two defence professors already and we're not yet at Halloween!"
"Yeah, and he stole Dumbledore's phoenix and two Dementors to experiment on."
"I wonder how long before he kills Snape..?"
Harry decided to stride in at that moment, not caring he wasn't in uniform.
"Actually, there's no evidence to tie anyone to either of the cases of the defence professors. One is known to have been willingly possessed by a malignant spirit and I've been too busy playing with the Dementors Fudge gave me to look up the case of the latter." he drawled; "And I don't want to kill Snape, he's actually a pretty good Potions Master, even if potions is the silly little brother of alchemy."
He looked over the defence professor. Tired and careworn would describe him. Then there was the quite skeletal looking man lounging at the back, he was pale, had thin hair hanging limply down to his shoulders and a similar beard.
"Maybe though I can invent something to stop him being a vitriolic bastard though..." he mused and turned around, walking out and ignoring someone calling after him; "Then again, I'm sure there are magical brothels... Maybe not in England, stick-in-the-mud prudish morons."
Harry vanished again for several days, though his lab was deserted, nobody dared cross the boundary-line. His return with a smug smirk coincided with the time that Snape suddenly stopped being a vitriolic bastard but instead began walking around weak-kneed with a massive grin.
"Where on earth have you been?" hissed Daphne as Harry settled down next to her in the Ravenclaw common room for the first time since he'd persuaded Tracy and her to join Ravenclaw.
"Constantinople." Harry deadpanned.
"What!" exclaimed Tracey, sitting down next to him; "And do you have any idea why Snape has become so reasonable in the last few days?"
"Two words, Viagra and hookers." replied Harry; "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got an incompetent politician to manipulate."
Harry was just walking toward Fudge's office, ever smart when he saw a tall man with sharp features and long blond hair. A Malfoy... Perfect.
Harry strode over and offered his hand to the blond.
"Lord Malfoy." he said with a slight bow.
"Yes, and you are..?" replied the man neutrally.
"Harry Potter." Harry introduced himself; "I have heard much about your political and magical prowess during my short time in the magical world, I was wondering if I could arrange a proper meeting with you at some point, I'm rather strapped for time as I need to get back under Dumbledore's overlong nose."
He swore that Malfoy smirked.
"Of course Mr. Potter, do send me an owl when you like, be it to arrange a meeting or utilise my knowledge." he said smoothly.
The two bowed slightly to each-other and went their separate ways, Harry considering using carbolic soap and pumice to scrub out his mouth and hand. A few minutes later, he'd manipulated Fudge into believing that he had summoned Harry to endorse his scientific experiments and give him a license to purchase any creatures off the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for a nominal sum, as well as a license to own any creature, regardless of danger ratings.
It made it legal for him to have that dragon egg he'd liberated from the first defence professor.
Harry had just emerged from a secret passage into the castle when Dumbledore swept around the corner.
"Ah Harry, I was wondering where you had got to." he chuckled.
"Lemon Drop?" Harry offered, holding out a paper bag.
"Don't mind if I do." replied the headmaster. He didn't bother checking for the LSD and several other mild drugs including adrenalin and some hallucinogenics.
He had a project. There were mind controlling spells, but they were to obvious. Harry was going to make a potion which instilled simple orders without the baggage of mind controlling spells.
The Winter Solstice convention of the Wizengamot
"Honourable Chief Warlock, I have business before the Wizengamot." Lucius Malfoy declared.
Dumbledore sighed, when Malfoy had business, it was inevitably bad for him in some way.
"The Honourable Lord Lucius Malfoy has the floor." he accepted.
"I invoke the right of Sermo Sine Intermissione, speech without interruption." Malfoy added; "The magic which binds us within this hall gives me this right."
"Accepted." Dumbledore replied, and a gold flash filled the room for a moment.
"Thank-you Chief Warlock." nodded Malfoy; "Now, passed in the first few years of this council, any beast, creature or other subhuman being which is the property of a person is their responsibility to care for and control, Master Scribe, do you acknowledge this?"
The court scribe scrambled through a huge tome until he found it.
"Correct Lord Malfoy."
"Now, I believe in fifteen-twelve, another law was passed, that upon the death of the owner, the responsibility would be passed to the next acknowledged blood-kin of the owner, and if no such kin were available, it passed to anyone and anybody willing. Again Master Scribe."
"You are once again correct Lord Malfoy." replied the scribe.
"Now, not long after that, the Dark Mark was brought to Britain by Guildford Le Noir, and the spell was declared a form of binding ownership." Malfoy continued; "Making the marked a form of property, not having the rights of proper wizarding humans."
"Correct." said the scribe, this time anticipating the request for confirmation.
"Very well. I would like to declare, that since Tom Riddle, otherwise known as Lord Voldemort, the branded creatures he formerly owned have become the responsibility of the people to destroy, as they are not controlled, and likely won't be, there are no laws protecting them." Lucius declared; "In fact, no spell is illegal on them, look, AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Walden Macnair toppled out of the stands, dead. The ensuing battle resulted in every Death Eater dead, with only the Minister's under-secretary a collateral casualty. Amelia Bones acquitted herself quite well as seven lay dead around her, all ones cleared of her brother's murder.
A viewing charm winked out of existence and a few hundred miles away, a kid smirked grimly.
"Suggestion implant potion is a success."
He'd drained Malfoy for useful information and every one of those killed at the Wizengamot had committed horrific crimes. Even the under-secretary had been running a child prostitution ring. Now he just had to wring every bit of information out of that dratted diary he'd nicked off the Malfoy family.
It had taken several months and a brief trip to China but he'd done it. Voldemort wasn't going to be a problem any more. Carving ever increasing numbers of runes, ever smaller and ever more intricately, he finally laid the diary in the centre and cut his hand.
Blood filled the runes until he healed the cut and siphoned any extra blood off the metal so that each rune was only just full.
"Shāo liàn!" he hissed, lashing out with the katana.
A few hours later, he awoke, feeling better than ever. The magic was roiling under his skin, waiting to get out. Picking up his sword, Harry directed it at the wall. The blast of magic which burst from the tip and punched through three feet of solid stone was... unexpected.
A few minutes later, he'd worked out that whatever magic was left across the chain of bits of soul had been absorbed into him.
Harry cursed. It meant he'd have to re-learn everything to get the proper control.
Upon finally emerging from his lab for a few days without rushing off somewhere, Harry found himself accosted in one of the corridors by the defence professor and his assistant.
"Hey Profs" Harry greeted him; "By the way, what are your names, I've not bothered finding out until now." he noticeably pushed the katana so that it clicked, ready to be drawn.
"Ah Harry." said Dumbledore, sweeping around the corner; "Don't mind if I make sure these defence professors survive a school year."
Harry was the very picture of wide-eyed innocence;
"You really think they'd die mysteriously meeting little old me?"
"No, I'd think they'd suffer either a mysterious accident or you'd kill them in self-defence." deadpanned the headmaster.
"Excuse me, but I was at the table having my meals during the times when the other two died. And so far apart from one being a werewolf and the other an former prisoner, they have, as far as I know, not done anything to threaten the school." Harry replied with a raised eyebrow, hand resting on the katana.
"What, how did you know?!" exclaimed the werewolf.
"One: He's sitting on my chair. Two: He's wearing my clothes. Three: His name's Remus Lupin..." Harry deadpanned, reading from an old OWL defence paper he'd just pulled from his pocket; "By the way Dumbles, I got rid of Riddle, permanently."
"I'm afraid not my-" began Dumbledore.
"Actually, I know about his Horcruxes and I created a small ritual to destroy the chain and anything attached to it. Thus each artefact no longer contains a bit of soul." Harry cut him off before he could finish the 'my boy'.
"How?" he asked in amazement.
"Oh, the Potters have one of the largest dark arts libraries in Europe." replied Harry; "And since immortality comes in two forms, the Philosopher's Stone and dark shit, I assumed the latter since you don't turn into a weird wraith thingy with the stone. Took me five minutes in Secrets of the Darkest Art and ten in Herpo the Foul's diary. Turns out he was a whiny bitch. Anyway, got the information then obliviated everything else from my mind, leaving a message never to look in those books again. It was a simple bit of logic and a brief trip to China via Egypt and I managed to create a ritual to destroy all the linked parts of the soul."
There was a minute of shocked science.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a meeting with a thousand-year-old basilisk. Then I'm building myself a helicopter gunship."
A swish of the sword raised a massive stone wall, stretching from floor to ceiling. He stabbed it into the floor and vanished in a flare of fire.
About an hour later, he emerged looking very satisfied from a girl's bathroom, levitating several large crates behind him.
"May I ask what you're wearing?" asked Dumbledore as Harry arrived at breakfast the next morning with a pane of reflective glass over his right eye, held in place by a plastic frame and an elastic headband.
"Tactical monocle." Harry replied; "It can zoom up to two miles, has night vision, thermal vision, can record in real time and it can analyse magic. For instance, you have a wand in your pocket with a rather nasty blood curse which will begin to take effect fifty years from when you first touched if you use it regularly. The monocle also contains a runic Legilimancer which will simply inform me of your intent and your Animagus form. It can't be blocked by Occlumency."
"How does that work?" the headmaster asked enthusiastically, sitting down opposite Harry, much to the shock of the other students.
Harry pulled out his wand and said clearly;
"Lumos." and then; "Nox."
"So, our wand can be directed by word." he said before non-verbally repeating the spellwork; "However, obviously we don't need words. That was done by intent of the mind. How does the wand access the mind, after all there are a few skilled Occlumens amongst us, and we can all do non-verbal magic. Thus somehow it must bypass Occlumency shields. When I examined a number of wands, I couldn't find how they did it, so I created a method."
"Indeed." commented Dumbledore, stroking his beard.
"So, I then realised that the mind is a huge place, so I targeted two parts, the one where you have your inner animal and the one which displays how you feel. Don't ask for the psychologist side of things, I'm not in the mood to spend the next week explaining it." Harry continued; "The other parts are ideas from non-magical technology. Even at night, there is light, however little. Night-vision amplifies that light that we can barely see into an image, usually in a weird green colour. I took the idea and modified it to work from magic and not have the weird green colour. Thermal imaging displays the heat coming off objects in a rainbow spectrum, the hottest being red going down to, if I remember correctly, purple. I use a military version which displays everything in shades of grey. So the lighter, the hotter, the darker, the colder."
"And the magical analysis bit?" the headmaster asked.
Harry summoned four goblets.
"Put a few wards between those." he ordered, laying them out in a rough square.
Dumbledore did as he was bidden. Harry began staring intensely at the wards which were barely in the visible spectrum to an experienced magical like Dumbledore. Slowly he began to unravel them using a small focus in the monocle. It didn't take long for him to completely pull apart the wards.
"How?"
"Trade secret m'boy." Harry replied, smirking; "But essentially, this contains a self-contained focus and a link to my mind, I therefore am able to focus magic through it. There's also a few tricks in there which do things like remove the spells from the visible spectrum. Unfortunately, it can't do offensive magic, only passive things like countering wards. Or hacking into them and taking control."
"Why do you keep inventing things instead of enjoying childhood?" asked Dumbledore, perplexed.
"Childhood is an excuse for stupidity and laziness." Harry snorted; "Anyway, I've spent nearly as much time inventing explosives as I've spent doing anything useful. Gunpowder just wasn't enough but nuclear weaponry has radioactive fallout. I've managed to create a replacement fuel to take the place of petroleum, so now my generator is running better, I have electricity for all my machines. I've had to move my lab down to the Chamber of Secrets now because I was running out of room and any more expansion charms would cause the room to implode."
"You found the Chamber of Secrets?" Dumbledore gaped.
"Worked it out within five minutes of learning of the opening back in the '40s." Harry drawled; "I offered the basilisk there to be nice or I'd obliterate her from existence. Want to come and see?"
Not waiting for a response, he strode out of the great hall with Dumbledore following him to a set of highly polished wooden door. Harry prodded a button next to them and walked in as they slid open, revealing a room with a great deal of creamy leather and polished walnut.
"This is my personal route down there. A lift."
Then the lift seemed to drop like a puppet with its strings cut, falling, ever falling until it stopped with stomach-wrenching deceleration. Then the doors opened revealing a large hall of pale, glossy green granite with a vaulted roof.
"I got rid of a load of snake statues and a weird monkey-faced man." Harry explained; "Isis is around here somewhere but she's got used to me being around and stopped being a grumpy cow." he chuckled for a moment before pointing out a number of elegantly carved wooden doors, often with serpentine motifs; "I carved those myself, I've got a shooting range attached, gym with a duelling piste and showers, chemistry-slash-potions laboratory, metal-working workshop, carpenter's workshop, an engineering room and a computer-command centre."
He led them into the the gym first, feeling the wards immediately replace their clothes with flexible joggers, t-shirts and trainers, their clothes being switched onto manikins.
"That's because I'm too lazy to bother getting changed." he explained, walking over to a rack full of swords; "Each room has that function, it's automatic, changing you into whatever clothes are most suitable, and they automatically resize to fit the person. So far you're the first person to come in my secret hidey hole."
Dumbledore twinkled and strode over to the rack, drawing two curved sabres with long, thin blades and basket hilts. They automatically blunted upon leaving their sheaths.
"You're not out of practice I hope prof?" Harry asked, twirling the sword as his headmaster settled into the en garde position. He simply raised an eyebrow and saluted him before settling into the same position.
"You don't think I got the title of 'only person Voldemort ever feared' by offering him lemon drops and cheering charms." Dumbledore chuckled; "I like to keep fit, mental and physical fitness are paramount to magical power and long life."
The room provided them with cushioning charms all over their bodies to stop them inflicting injuries, even with blunted weapons, like for instance poking the other's eyes out.
"En garde! Prêt, Allez!" Dumbledore called.
Harry's first move was to draw the blunted knife he had in his sleeve. The second was to lob it at the headmaster. A red mark appeared over his heart where magic had marked the hit.
"That's cheating!" exclaimed Dumbledore.
Harry cocked his head for a moment then nodded slowly.
"Yes, it is. Shame you're too busy dying to point that out." he replied, bringing his sword up to counter a cut to the head before sweeping it down to cut Dumbledore from his left shoulder to right hip.
A few hours later, Harry collapsed into an armchair in his sitting room in the Chamber, Dumbledore having just left. The two of them had been sweat-soaked and bruised even through the cushioning charms. Whatever his many detractors say, the old man was a vicious swordsman and almost as fast-moving as Harry himself, though he had the problem of being bigger than Harry.
They had fought without breaking off for over an hour-and-a-half until they were too tired to lift their swords. Harry's last act before Dumbledore left was to key him into the lift so that he could join him in his daily practice. If it was the last thing he'd do, he'd stop the man going out in the non-magical world to pick up first-generation witches and wizards dressed in ridiculous clothes.
Sighing, he hit himself with a freshening charm and walked into his engineering lab. Sat in the centre amidst huge amounts of machinery, pipework and bits of metal, was his pride and joy, a Rolls-Royce Olympus 593 such as used in Concorde. He'd always wanted to build his own aircraft, and magic gave him a lot of money and the ability to do so.
Harry was happy. Six years at Hogwarts, he was going on sixteen years-old and he'd infected Dumbledore. The man had become as 'eccentric' as he was, shown by when they broke Gellert Grindelwald out of Nuremgard simply to help them write a book 'Defeating Dark Lords and Looking Good While Doing It'. The publicity from that stunt was fairly good, especially when they broke back in and left the retired Dark Lord there with a highly renovated room in all of Dumbledore's favourite lurid colours.
Every day when he was at Hogwarts, the two duelled, be it with magic or with swords. Harry had finally reconnected with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin who held joint professorships of defence and split his time between staying with them and the Dursleys who had moved into a townhouse in London not far from the much-renovated Black Family Townhouse.
He'd given up the Black Headship to Sirius, and with it the Lestrange properties and fortunes, along with the Malfoy ones as according to Malfoy Family Law the heir had to be capable of producing an heir. And since Draco had been cursed with impotence and infertility by one of his classmates, it had passed to Sirius.
And while it had been a bugger to arrange, Sirius had accepted the title of Earl of Blackmore as a hereditary peer and held regency for the numerous Potter peerages as Harry couldn't care less for that at the moment. The Queen had been most unamused when Harry had strolled in and dumped a briefcase on her desk full of papers relating to his titles and rights. Eventually, she'd warmed up to him and his antics.
And now, dressed in a far-too-sharp suit with his katana and wakizashi tucked through hiss belt, Harry strode onto the raised dais at Hogwarts with Falke trotting beside him. The huge dog had participated in a ritual which bound his life-force to his master, extending his life-span to that of Harry, and had also increased his size and health.
They were graduating. Going on sixteen, Master Battle Mage Potter was graduating.
Said master had easily walked his NEWT exams after only three years at the school, and had spent the rest of the time in a joint apprenticeship under Nicholas Flamel, Perenelle Flamel and Albus Dumbledore. His degrees in Islamic Culture and mathematics were in while he awaited the passing of his doctorate in Military History.
Harry spent much of the next year travelling the world, putting hundreds of hours of flying in various aircraft from up to and including an F-4 Phantom. He loved being sixteen and allowed to fly solo in an aircraft. He started close to home flying Chipmunk and Harvard trainers, progressing expensively into the two-seater Hawker Hunter operated for flying lessons in the UK. He even put in a few hours on the Spitfire. America had been excellent, so many fast jets, MiG-21s, a Phantom and a number of other toys.
Fun.
Anyway, he was sure the various bone-yards across the world wouldn't miss a few magically-repaired supersonic jets enhancing his own collection. Following in family tradition was important and since he couldn't really buy any more warships, building up the Potter Air Force was fun. It was just annoying that he'd have to get engineers in to put the aircraft on the civilian register once he managed to confound customs into believing that the various aircraft the family owned had been legally imported.
He was seventeen, he had his Private Pilot's License. While he'd enjoyed broom sports at Hogwarts, there wasn't any point in flying anything without a top speed below four-hundred unless it was a means to get to fly something with a top speed of four-hundred or more.
Problem was, Harry was bored. He'd taken over the magical world, starting with the Leaky Cauldron which now from eight A.M to eight P.M was an elegant restaurant, replaced from eight-thirty P.M to four A.M by a club. There was relative peace, and self-improvement could only go so far.