Harry frowned as the nearby fire place roared to life. He had been sitting in the living area putting the finishing touches on his Transfiguration Essay that was by far 100 times easier than his Charms Essay. He had started it while still at the school but after reading through some of the Books Ashleigh had let him borrow, he decided to change a few things around. Before he could call out to Minnie, the flames changed green and a figure stepped through the flames. Closely following was another, and then a third. Harry gripped his wand as the three moved forward and brush themselves off.

"God, it always feels like I'm covered in slime whenever we go through her wards. She's so paranoid."

"Least it's not as bad as the first time, god I thought my lungs were gonna collapse."

"Is that a kid?" Harry blinked at the 3 men; from the way they were talking it was as if they had been here at least once before. He gripped his wand tighter; it was always better to be safe than sorry.

"What's your name kid? I didn't know Ash had a kid. Jackson, the hell have you two been feeding him? Growth potions?"

"I'm Harry."

"Harry….." One man waved his hand urging him to continue.

"…Potter."

"Harry Potter? Oh my god," the man turned to his companions, "You don't think she finally snapped and cloned her dead husband, right?

"Nah, Harry Potter is a famous British kid, popped a dark lord when he was in diapers."

"Even worse then. She must have kidnapped him, or recruited him."

"She took me in for the summer," Harry snapped. "With Sirius Black on the loose, apparently it's not safe for me to be there."

"Ah he escaped that prison right?"

"Azkaban I think they call it, monsters those British are for using that place as a prison. The spells used there tainted it all, even without the Dementors there it's horrible. More humane to just execute everyone if you ask me."

"Probably. Anyways kid, what're you up to? Making trouble for Ash? Got any secrets or embarrassing facts about her you wanna share?"

"She has a body pillow of Dumbledore in her room." Harry lied.

"Really!?"

"of course not," the brunette smacked his friend.

"And how would you know? You haven't been there."

Oh?" the man grinned as the other two laughed, " Ash hasn't mentioned me has she? Typical I suppose, we're uh, acquainted with each other, for lack of… better term."

Harry glared at the man in suspicion. "I don't believe you, she doesn't like anyone enough to show them her room."

The other two men began howling in laughter as Jackson turned bright red, " Uh listen kid, let's just forget this conversation."

He shrugged, "Alright, I'll just ask her about it later."

"No, wait-"

"Ask who about what?"

Harry grinned as Ashleigh walked in, "Did you know he sneaks into your bedroom when you're not here."

"Oh does he now?" She walked up to the burning man and gently patted his cheek, "Ill have to come up with a suitable punishment later."

"Why? You're the one that didn't tell him about us." Harry frowned as the man practically hissed the word.

"And? What? Am I supposed to hold your hand through everything?" She turned around and just missed the man's scowl that he shot into the floor. It made Harry curious as to what was going in between the two.

"Some people like to hold hands." He muttered as he stalked over to a seat beside Harry.

"So boss," the blond man began as he too took a seat, "Now that you have time for little ole me again, what's the sitch?"

"Well I won't be able to do any work outside of the country till the brat here is back in the UK, Albus made me promise I wouldn't go anywhere unless I take him with me, so I'm stuck here. Jack is in charge if the ICW needs anything in the mean time."

"Ugh!"

"Favoritism!"

"Why me?"

"Cause you have more brain cells than these two combined, and know most of my contacts unlike these two. Of course, if anything major happens I'll still be here sitting around, but for the next few months I'm on vacation."

"She's got us there, Mitch."

"Vacation? I don't think I've seen you sleep longer than a second, doesn't sound like a vacation to me." Harry quipped.

"Haha, maybe I'll sleep... maybe I'll open portals to another dimension in your toilet, brat, we'll see."

"Ah the old toilet tentacle, brings back memories." Harry's face grey green at the thought.

"Don't go scaring the kid now, Rich," Jackson said slapping the back of his companions head.

"Ah but look at him, he's green! That's pretty funny mitch."

"Ignore them, brat, they're just fucking with you."

"Ash, you know you can't use that language around kids," Jackson berated her.

"I'll bitch however I want to," she replied as the other two laughed. "Alright brat, make yourself scarce, I need to go over some work with these 3, and would rather not have to explain some of the things we talk about."

"Fine, but can I use the library? I still need to work on Snape's potion essay."

"Snape? Oh right Wulfric's potions professor after Slughorn right? I've read a few of his academic papers one some poison's he's made."

"Yeah, he told me if I don't get at least an Acceptable in his class after staying with you then I'll be banned from his OWLs class."

"Ah, tough teacher huh? We've all had our fair share, kid," Mitch laughed giving him a wink.

"Minnie can help you out with it, if she were human she'd probably be on her way to become a master in Potions. Definitely had journeymen status with all the potions I've had her help me with."

"Really?"

"Yes, now go on brat, adults need to talk."

Harry grumbled at the dismissal before gathering his things and nearly sprinting to the library.

Nearly two hours later, Harry was putting the finishing touches on his essay in the house's library, it was a really nice place, but small, especially compared to how great Ashleigh said it was. It was only about the size of the Gryffindor common room, and the books along the walls were pretty mundane with general knowledge over most things. All in all he was pretty disappointed with the room.

He was just about to get up when a shadow loomed over him.

"Hello, Ms. Ash."

The shadow placed a hand on his shoulder and leaned down to the boys ear. "Wrong gender kid."

Harry leapt out of his seat as the man nearly shouted in his ear, the chair clattered to the floor and Harry fell on his backside as he stared up at the towering man from earlier, Jackson.

"Hahaha, you should see the look on your face kid. You look like you've seen death himself."

"Do you always make a habit of scaring kids, Mr. Jackson?" Harry mumbled as he dusted himself off and picked up his chair.

"Tell you what kid, as an apology I'll let you call me Jackson, or Jack. How's that sound?"

"Okay… Mr. Jackson."

"Oof, harsh kid. Harsh."

"You know, you could help me with something else instead."

"Oh yeah, what's that kid?"

"Any good at defense against the dark arts?"

"Any good? Well I can hold my own against Ashleigh when she's in one of her moods well enough."

"She has bad moods?"

"Uh yeah, you know, when its… that time of the month. You know what, forget what I said kid. Yes am a dab hand at DADA and I have an honorary mastery in Dueling."

"Honorary?"

"Ah well, I didn't have enough money for higher education, but I won enough tournaments to get recognized as top notch, so they gave me a mastery without the schooling, its how I ended up meeting Ash."

The man had begun to smile as he spoke of the woman.

"She helped me out of a tight spot too, ended up joining the Aurors cause of her, then ended up getting my current job standing with her."

"What do you guys do?"

"Oh well, a little but of everything. When there's trouble we have the authority to deal with it in the name of Macusa, even though we're not part of the Aurors. We're exempt from a lot of spell based laws. We're able to take care of any no-majs who see magic. We also do work with the ICW as well, of the 13 of our members only 3 of us are originally from here, so it lets us dip our toes in International affairs easier than it would normally be."

"Wow, but what exactly do you do?"

"Sit around drinking coffee all day really." The man deflected, "Probably nothing exciting for you. But anyways, tell me about this essay of yours?"

Harry debated on pressing the man more, but decided against it and instead slid the beginning of his essay in front of the man, "Well, our old Defense teacher told us this would be our summer homework before he... lost his memories. No one really knows what he meant, but it's supposed to be about over coming fears? Or dealing with monsters that use your own emotions? Or something like that. When I met our new DADA teacher over the summer he gave me some pointers on the topic, and gave me the name of a book that would help, but it wa a library book and now I don't have it anymore."

"Well, what's the books name?"

"Creatures of Emotion By: Leticus Bones."

"Ah that's a good one, goes into, Boggarts, Dementors, Algeas and even touches on the daughters of Mara, as well as a few other less known creatures. Ashleigh probably has that book somewhere in the library. One sec," The man walked over to a large book on a podium across from their table. He flipped it open and started flipping through it, before pulling his wand out and eventually tapping something. Suddenly the room began to change. The bookcases lining the walls began turning and moving backwards, swapping themselves out with new cases and literature.

"Wow..." Harry couldn't help but say.

"Oh, Ashleigh hasn't shown this to you yet? No wonder you couldn't find the book. Well... all you really have to do is find the specific section or type of magic you're researching, place your wand on that section, push a bit of magic into it and it'll bring out the needed sections. There's ALOT more that you can do with the system as well, even fine tuning your search, combining them, and a few other things. But for now," he walked over to one of the bookcases and began looking through books. Eventually he found one and walked it back to Harry. "Here you go kid, one book, don't spend it all in one place."

"Uh, thanks."

"No problem kid, now the book goes through a lot of creatures but I'd recommend the three I mentioned earlier. Boggarts feast on your fears, Dementors on happiness, and Algea on emotions generally placed under sadness. The Daughter's of Mara are actually classed into 3 different types, but they're a little more of a niche subject and you'll really only get into while studying for your mastery, demons are generally not things kids end of dealing with you know."

Harry eagerly took the book from the man and immediately began flipping to the first chapter.

"Oh, before I forget," Harry watched the man run to another bookshelf, and brought back another book. "This, is a great one as well, while it doesn't go over monsters necessarily, it does go over spells, their connection to emotions, and spells that can only be used in the right mindset."

"Motus Magicae?"

"Emotions of Magic, Latin, kinda pretentious but what can you do. Check out the author, they're a half decent writer at least. I mean half the info will just fly over your head, but you'll get the gist of it."

Harry looked at the bottom of the cover and read out loud, "Ashleigh Semenova? She's an author too?"

"Hey, what can I say, she's good at magic, might as well write some of the stuff down. She wrote it after coming back from a trick in South America. Ran into some tomb that made her write it all out. She... never told me or the other's what she encountered, but it was enough for her to lock herself up for a long while."

"Huh, wonder what happened."

"That's what everyone wants to know, but hey, sometimes people can't talk aboiut their experiences til they feel like it. Anyways, kid, I'll see you some other time, got some business to take care of with Ash, you take care now."

"Oh, well thanks for the help Mr. Jack." The man waved behind himself as he walked out of the room. Harry eagerly devoured the contents of the first book over the next few hours, not even bothering to work on his essay til he was done with both books. He hadn't realized the time, until, in a small pop, a plate of food appeared by him with a note attached.

"Donts tries to becomes too much like Mistress, food is important and so is sleep, Goes to beds after dinner."

Harry smiled at the kind letter before checking the clock in the room and noticing that it was now 9 PM. He decided to eat and finish the first book, before diving into the next one sometime tomorrow.

That night, Harry went to bed very happy, and for the first time in a long while, he couldn't wait to wake up and do homework.

Harry sat at his now usual spot in the kitchen, eating his breakfast and trying to think of how to tackle his Defense Essay with all of his new knowledge.

"Morning, kid." Harry turned his head watching Jackson walk into the Kitchen, and began fiddling with a coffee machine. He looked tired and happy at the same time, he looked a little disheveled and dark circles under his eyes.

"Hello Mr. Jackson. How're you?"

"Good kid, doing good," He walked over to the table and Harry finally noticed that he had scratch marks on his neck.

"Are you alright? It looks like you were scratched pretty bad. Did one of Mrs. Ashleigh's experiments get you?"

"Oh, uh, nah kid, just a mosquito bite probably. Itchy, ya know."

"Oh, well, what're you still doing here? Did the three of you have a sleepover with Ashleigh?" Harry asked the man.

"Pffft." the man spit out his drink and began coughing uncontrollably at the question.

Minnie popped in wringing her ears as she glanced at the man, "Ohs noes, is drink bad? Cans Minnie gets yous anything?"

"No, Minnie," Jackson began trying to clear his throat, "No, no I'm good, just, went down the wrong hole."

"Not the only thing that went in the wrong hole," Ashleigh's voice suddenly caused the two to jump out of their seat, "Ah, morning brat, forgot you were here."

Harry turned towards the woman only to be blinded by a flash of light. As his vision came back he squinted and watched as clothes seemed to wrap themselves around the woman using magic. "Something wrong with your clothes?"

The woman threw her head back and laughed out loud, "Yeah, brat, didn't like the color I guess. Now what's got him so worked up?"

"Oh I asked him a question, and he suddenly swallowed his drink wrong."

"It was just a-"

"What question was it?"

"He asked if the other two had a sleepover with you as well." As Harry turned back to Jackson, he noticed the man was bright red again. Maybe he had blood pressure problems like Uncle Vernon.

"Oh? A sleepover, no those two didn't stay, only Jackson was invited. He played with my pillows, and-"

"Ashleigh!"

"What, it's true! He drools so much; I think he tries to eat them in his sleep. I'll have to let Minnie clean them again."

The man turned even redder before grabbing his jacket and shruggin it on. "I'll see you later kid... Ash." He mumbled on the way to the floo.

"Ah, always fun to mess with him."

"He's really nice, maybe you shouldn't be so mean to him."

"Me? Mean? As if brat, besides you only just met him."

"I like Mr. Jackson. He helped me with my defense essay yesterday."

"Defense, I thought you were supposed to be doing your potions?"

Harry blushed at that and mumbled something.

"Didn't quite catch that brat."

"I said, I don't really like potions much, maybe it's just cause of Snape but..."

"Ah so you skipped it and went for a different subject."

"Yeah... but I met my new defense teacher before coming here, and he told me about some books that would help with our defense essay, so I wanted to redo it after he looked over it. And History I don't even know what to do about that."

"What's that one about?"

"Magical events from the 1800s, we have to do a report about that time, but not much happened besides Goblin rebellions or somethings in India."

"Still have Binns then?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, did you?"

"Aye, he was boring back then as well, unless you got him on a rant. He loves niche subjects and actual history; I figure he's going stir crazy with all your Ministry's restrictions on his class. Tell you what, do yours on the rise and fall of the dark Lord Humberdiktch."

Harry laguhed at the name, "Who?"

"He was a Dark Lord who lasted for about 6 months, before tripping and falling down a flight of stairs. Died at the bottom. His luck was horrid, and yet he was probably as powerful as Albus is currently. Not as powerful as his prime, but still a damn sight better than most wizards. I've got a couple books in the library with some information on him, I'll have to get you copies though, a few of the books are cursed by me, so Minnie can't fetch them for you."

"You've cursed your own books? I think a friend of mine would be angry at that."

"Well, there's some knowledge the world shouldn't know, and there's some knowledge that a brat like you shouldn't know. I'll get them to you later today, as well as some potions texts, what's that one on?"

"Oh, it's on potion effects regarding healing and disease cures, but- Hey! You distracted me!"

"Oh? Did I? I don't recall doing any such things."

"About Mr. Jackson. You made him really angry."

"He got angry on his own, I had nothing to do with it."

"You shouldn't be so dismissive of him, he seems to really care about you as a friend."

"That's the thing brat he wants something a little more than being friends, and I can only give him a step up from just being a standard friend."

"What, like best friends? Is that why you two had a sleepover?"

"Little higher than best friends I suppose, and yes, it's why we... had a sleepover."

"You should still try and be nice to him."

"I might take that under advice... brat."

Harry gathered his things before hitting the library, wondering why some people were so complicated. He barely knew anything about having friends, but he wouldn't be so mean to his as Ashleigh was to Jackson, he hoped anyways.