The summer had been eventful, even if Harry hadn't heard from his friends. Ron had tried to call him on the telephone, but that had turned into a disaster and it had been only the first of many.

He'd been lucky to avoid prison. Blowing up his aunt should have landed him in chains in front of the Wizengamot, but it hadn't. Instead, somehow he'd gotten away without even a warning. He suspected it had something to do with his fame.

He was the boy-who-lived, the one...no, now one of two survivors of the Avada Kedavra curse. It was interesting that both of them had been attacked by Voldemort, even if it had just been as a wraith out of the back of Quirrel's head for Steven.

It might have been because both he and Steven were in consideration for Order of Merlin Medals, first class, as was Professor Flitwick. There had been enough witnesses and enough grateful parents that Harry suspected that political pressure of some kind was involved.

In any case, it meant that he got to spend the rest of the summer at the Leaky Cauldron, which was a vast improvement over spending a single moment more with the Dursley's.

The knock at the door startled him. As far as he knew, hardly anyone knew he was here.

Cautiously he approached the door. He held his wand low to his side. There had been reports of an escaped murderer, and although the Leaky Cauldron was mostly safe, it was always better to be cautious.

Opening the door, he stared.

Steven Universe grinned at him and waved.

He seemed shorter than he had even just a few months ago. It took Harry a moment to realize that it was because he'd grown.

Steven, on the other hand hadn't grown at all in the more than two years since he'd known him. It was starting to become obvious; he still looked like a first year.

"How'd you find me?" Harry asked, stepping aside and gesturing for Steven to come in.

"Amethyst was eavesdropping," Steven said. He shrugged. "It helps when you can turn into a cat or a bat."

The gem was still purple, no matter what shape she turned. Someone had been sloppy and not paying attention.

Steven stepped into the room, followed by Amethyst and a strange creature Harry didn't know. She was even more strange looking than Amethyst, if that was possible. She had lime green skin and yellow hair. She wore a transparent visor over her eyes and a green uniform with a V-neck and stars on her chest and knees.

"This place is even more primitive than the last place we visited!" the woman said. "I know humans have better technology; I saw personal transport vehicles on the way here."

"These people use magic instead of technology," Steven said. "Magic interferes with technology, so they do things the old way."

"We'll just have to see about that," the woman grumbled. "Stupid primitive clods."

"This is Peridot," Steven said.

Harry frowned. "This is one of your...aunts?"

Steven shook his head. "She didn't show up later, but she's one of the crystal gems now."

The woman was moving around the room, staring at the fireplace, then at Hedwig's cage and then at the pitcher of water by the bed. She poured some of it on the floor.

"We weren't sure she was going to make it," Steven said in a low voice. "I'm glad she did, though."

"There's not anything of use here," she said. "How am I going to do anything without a usable supply of parts?"

"You'll have to go into Muggle London for anything like that," Harry said. "Wizards don't know a thing about machines."

Considering that Ron hadn't even been able to work a telephone in a socially acceptable manner, and his father was obsessed with all things Muggle, it was an understatement.

"We'll find a good junkyard," Amethyst said. "I bought a couple of wizard's tents, and we can fill them up and bring all the stuff home."

"At least magic is good for something," Peridot sniffed. "It'll be a thousand years before human technology is capable of building diminsionally transendent structures."

"Don't touch that," Harry said absently. The woman was still moving around the room, getting into everything.

"Why no..."

The Monster book of Monsters took that moment to clamp itself onto her hand and refused to let go.

The next two minutes was chaos as the green woman ran around the room screaming followed closely by the book. Amethyst didn't help at all, just laughing uproariously even as Steven chased the book that was chasing the woman.

Finally it settled down when Steven captured the book.

"See? All it needs is a little love and affection," he said, rubbing it's spine.

The book popped open placidly, and Harry could swear that he almost heard it purr.

Peridot, on the other hand was hiding behind Harry and was trembling.

"I hate magic!" she yelled.

"Peri..." Amethyst called from behind them both.

Harry looked behind him and saw Peridot doing the same.

Amethyst had shapeshifted herself into a purple copy of the Monster Book of Monsters. "I'm gonna get yah!"

The chase was on again. This time Steven ignored them both as he carefully closed the book and put it back on the table.

"They've been like this ever since Peridot came back a couple of weeks ago," Steven said. "I think Amethyst is so happy to have at least one other gem to play with that she's overcompensating."

"Have you heard from Ron or Hermione?" Harry asked.

"Hermione's on vacation in France," Steven said. "But she's sent me some letters. She keeps trying to get me to spend my summer reading instead of fighting monsters."

"Still milking Acromantula?"

"No!" Steven said excitedly. He leaned forward. "Me and Amethyst got hired by Gringotts to help fight mutant skeletons in Egypt. They'd grown all sorts of weird heads. It was almost like being back home and fighting gem monsters except that these were kind of weak. They were magic resistant though."

"That's where Ron and his family went," Harry said. "Did you get to see them?"

"Just the one brother that works for Gringotts. Bill's really cool." Harry said. "We had to go home before Ron and his family got there, on account of Peridot coming back. The headmaster had Fawkes watching over the gems while we were gone."

"So why are you here?"

"I don't have an owl," Steven said. "I could have used one of the school owls, but I remembered that your relatives hate magic."

"They're the smart ones!" Peridot shouted. For some reason she was jumping on his bed followed by Amethyst.

"I didn't want to get you in trouble, so I waited to get you your birthday present until now."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box, which grew in size until it was the size of a hatbox.

"You can get them enspelled to do that," Steven said. "Amethyst thought it was really cool."

Harry looked for a place to start unwrapping the box but Steven stopped him.

"You don't have to untie that," Steven said. "It's just a box made to look like I spent a lot of time unwrapping it."

For some reason he looked sad as he said that.

Harry pulled the top of the box open.

"What's this?"

Inside was a coat; it was vividly green, a color that was all too familiar to Harry.

"Is this?"

Steven nodded. "Gringotts spent half the summer cutting the basilisk into parts. They split the money from the sale of it three ways between you, me and Professor Flitwick."

Harry stared at him. That must be why the money in his vault had suddenly doubled over the summer. He'd always been so careful with his spending, worried that the money wouldn't last throughout his school career, and it had only been a few days before when he'd checked his vault.

He'd almost been afraid to ask the goblins what had happened.

"I didn't want the basilisk to die," Steven said uncomfortably. "And this seems kind of ghoulish, but they say this is just as good as dragonhide at reflecting spells. Considering how many people you have that want to kill you..."

Dragonhide was incredibly expensive; Harry couldn't even imagine how much more expensive basilisk skin must be. After all, basilisks were rarer than dragons and even harder to kill.

"It'll grow with you," Steven said. "It's hard to enchant it, but not impossible, and they started with a coat for a full sized man and shrunk it smaller to fit."

Harry pulled the coat out of the box. It was surprisingly heavy and thick.

"This is too much," Harry said.

"You're my friend and people want to hurt you," Steven said. He looked troubled. "Amethyst has been hearing rumors...she won't tell me everything, but I figure it's better safe than sorry."

"Did you get one for yourself?" Harry asked.

Steven shook his head. "It just seems wrong to cut something up like that. I got it for you because I want you to keep living, but I'll be fine without one."

Harry slipped the coat on, and it fit perfectly.

"How does it look?"

"It kind of makes you look like a Slytherin," Steven said. He grinned suddenly. "Draco is going to be jealous that you look more Slytherin than he does."

Considering that even his father was unlikely to get Draco a coat like this one, that was an understatement.

"It's a wonderful gift," Harry said.

Harry could only hope that he wouldn't need a coat like this one, but in his heart he knew. It wouldn't be Hogwarts if it didn't try to kill Harry at least once during the year.

He just hoped he didn't need it very soon.