If there was one thing that living alone in the wilderness provided, it was time to think. Eragon came by for a week each month for more lessons. Harry was ecstatic to find that Eragon had managed to cast his first spell wandlessly. Since the kid had come up to the castle to proudly display his floating feather, it had opened up possibilities for magic lessons that weren't there before. Now that he'd done it once, Eragon was able to replicate other spells, if weakly.
He seemed petrified to try any spell without first casting it at the smallest replicable scale. And after the first attempt at transfiguration, Eragon vowed never to try it again. He had looked on Death's doorstep after trying to turn a grain of sand into a grain of glass.
He started to regard Harry differently when he conjured big things like the Apiarist's hut near the hives, or the next set of docks as the lake filled to the halfway mark. Like he was witnessing the acts of a god or something. Harry was uncomfortable with it, and did not mention it.
Still there was lots of time between the farmer kid's visits, time Harry had to fill by himself. He'd taken to journaling his discoveries about magic as he stretched it to fit his needs running a castle by himself. It had made him appreciate House Elves even more, to know what their jobs entailed. For every mundane task, he could either do it by hand or automate it with magic, a task which always included myriad sub-spells and crude logic he could brute force into the magic he cast with intent.
Getting the food supply automated involved enchanting the planter boxes themselves with the herbivicus charm, a task harder than it seemed, since his magic nearly refused to catch on the conjured wrought iron boxes.
Then he had to find a way to harvest the plants, but only when they were grown, but only the food bits of the plant, and then get rid of the rest of the stuff into the compost bin. And the harvesting and growing spells had to stop when the output hoppers were full. It was several steps in logic, all of which he had to hold in his head at once while casting his most versatile spell; Pack.
He'd taken to calling it sort, since that was more apt for what he was using it for. The spell already worked to put things in certain orders according to his desire, to move things from one place to another, and was easily configurable with minor tweaks to his casting.
Harry had noticed something very interesting with the planter boxes and the output hoppers. As more and more spells accumulated and presumably, he put more mental effort into his magic, building an idea in the object of what he wanted it to do, further spells became easier as the object was 'primed' to accept his vision. And eventually, they began to make inferences that he had not exactingly programmed into their behavior. They started to grow personalities.
Was that how Mr. Weasley's Ford Anglia had come alive? He'd spent so long working on it that it had imprinted on him, in a manner of speaking?
Whatever the case, Harry was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The unpredictable, living, magical way it happened was exactly what he wanted for his castle. Seeing the produce hoppers race each other to the cellar before vomiting their contents into their respective stockpiles was amusing, and reminded him of the stuff the suits of armor would get up to at Hogwarts when they thought nobody was watching.
Everything he learned and more, he wrote down in his journal in the evening.
And at night, he was treated to more visions.
Harry was becoming used to waking in the dawn hours, wrapped in the Cloak with no memory of putting it on. The dreams had begun to follow a familiar character. The boy with the eagle's nose, and the royal purple dragon he'd bonded with. Last he'd seen, the boy had left with the pointy-eared woman on her dragon, a great orange beast named Aupho.
They had traveled for a while on dragonback before flying over familiar terrain. Harry recognized the valley they glided over. He found himself interested in what would happen next. Strange dreams were not so bad when they weren't just a recap of all the tortures and murders Voldemort had committed. He found himself becoming attached to the boy, hoping things would work out for him, and wondering where Aupho and her rider were headed.
The bees were coming along well. The queen had taken to the uppermost rack of the left apiary and already, the first frames were filling in with honeycomb. Harry had used the orchideous charm to make a field of flowers in bloom that the bees could pollinate.
After the first honey harvest, Harry finally had enough ingredients to start trying to brew something. It was totally possible to substitute things around in brewing potions to come up with the same effect. He had the medicinal herbs he'd gotten from Gertrude, plus the honey, plus whatever nonmagical flowers he needed through the orchideous charm.
He built a lab off a hallway that sprouted from the west side of the main tower. It ran down a floor into the ground, then turned onto a stone hallway and split into rooms on either side. With every additional wing, hallway, room, and passage, the castle felt more and more real. Harry spent some time adding statues and mosaics to the trims around the doors, alcoves in the walls, and carved into the stone walls.
He put up a mural of Draco Malfoy, done in the likeness of the Stages of Evolution picture. A ferret squealing in the air, then a whiny firstie pinching his nose at the sight of a cutting board of slugs, as a spoilt troublemaker rousing trouble during the basilisk debacle, but then Harry turned the images more flattering. He felt like he owed it to Malfoy to show who he'd become in the future. Draco in third year flew on a broomstick, neck-and-neck with a silhouette of another seeker barely outflying him for the Snitch. Draco in fourth year, telling Hermione to flee the oncoming Death Eaters in the forest at the World Cup. Draco as a member of the Inquisitor's Squad (Harry left out all the times he egregiously abused his authority in that position) and in sixth year, Draco struggling under the weight of the Dark Mark. Finally, he showed Draco lying to try and protect Harry in Malfoy Manor.
For the door to the Potions lab, Harry transfigured a silhouette of Snape standing half-covered by the trim around the door frame, as if waiting behind it to jump out and start a dramatic monologue on how impressive Potioneering was. He couldn't keep a smile off his face as he tweaked the figure to be unmistakable from the profile.
The problem with brewing, Harry was coming to realize, was that he was missing magic. In every recipe he brewed, no matter how he fiddled with the ingredients, no matter how sure he was that a brew ought to produce a certain effect, the resultant potion was always weak. Almost to the point that he'd expect the results he got from muggle medicine.
Maybe that was a good thing for keeping his magic secret from Carvahall. If he intended to sell his remedies to the village, he couldn't very well give them cures that were blatantly magical. Yet it bothered him that if he truly needed a powerful cure to save a life, he'd be unable to produce it.
Every recipe called for some kind of powerful magical reagent. Pepper-up needed bicorn horns, mandrake leaves, and dragon's blood. The effects of those ingredients could be obtained through different plants, but the potency they brought would always be missing without something significant.
Harry had done some experimenting on workarounds. The only other ingredienet he had access to that he was sure was magical, was himself. Substituting dragon's blood for wizard's blood increased the efficacy of the brew. In Pepper-up, he could get a thin stream of air out his ears. Nothing like the tea kettle whistling the real potion was supposed to do, but strong enough that Harry was confident it would work, if slower and more weakly than normal.
Thus he began working towards the Blood Replenishing potion. For each new brew he seet his sights on, the ingredient list put him on many bizarre and varied miniature quests. They also continued to evolve the castle.
Spider eyes and spider hearts led him to leave out crumbs in a little bait box by the edge of the wall near the gated forest. Just a tiny roof over a little paved square, sheltered from the breeze by paper on three sides. When he got his first few specimens, he built a zoo compound near the lake and started the insect wing. The spiders themselves caught enough bugs for mosquito wings.
When he needed serpent scales, fangs, and venom, Harry set out into the forest with his ears open for the faint hissing of parseltongue. Thus the ophidiarium was born. He baited mice with crumbs of his failed bread batches and caught the vermin that took the bait. They went into a rodent pen. They mostly ended up as food for the snakes.
Harry built a huge glass-walled aquarium in another wing and began to hike out to the upper end of the mountain stream to fish for occupants. He still needed more exotic varieties of aquatic life, but little river fish served for a start, and provided scales and eyeballs that let Harry expand his medicinal brews.
Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the subject in Hogwarts, he found brewing to be enjoyable enough. It gave him an excuse to explore the Spine in search of ingredients to catch.
Due to his determination not to be tied down by all the chores a castle's upkeep would generate, each new facility stretched his magical ingenuity as he strove to automate all the menial tasks involved. Food automatically carted to the cellars was brought back up to the kitchens to be rendered into animal feed and fish food by floating knives, whisks, cook pans and bowls, then raced off to the zoo and the barn to be eaten.
"You should have seen Garrow's face," Eragon laughed. "Roran was out with Baldor and Albreich. We finished with supper and in an instant- bam. Scourgify. The whole kitchen was clean." He made a face. "It made this ball of gross stuff, though. I floated it out to the compost heap."
"He's okay with you learning magic, then?" Harry asked. They were in Harry's new laboratory. Eragon had marveled at the carvings on the way in, but noticed they seemed a sensitive topic to Harry and so kept silent.
Eragon nodded. That might be fudging it a bit. Garrow never seemed to know exactly what to think about his magic. Nor did he ever say it was okay for him to visit Harry. Eragon always said he was going out to hunt. They both knew otherwise, but Garrow was content to let it lay.
"That's good," Harry said, relieved. "Did you have any questions for me?"
Eragon nodded. "I saw all the animals you caught for brewing potions. What do they do?" The aquarium in particular was unbelievable. He was sure there was nothing like it in all the rest of the world. A giant wall of glass holding back a room full of water. Like bringing the bottom of the ocean to the surface.
Harry sighed. "Not enough. Potions need loads of weird ingredients, so that's what they're there for, but I'm starting to realize I'm missing a crucial ingredient that I don't know how to replace."
Eragon frowned. "What's that?"
"Magic," the wizard grumbled. "I need something strong. Unicorn horns, phoenix tears, mooncalf milk, really any ingredient from a magical creature or plant. I dunno where the first magical creatures and plants came from. Some of them must've been created, only I have no idea how to do it."
Eragon frowned. "The only creature of magic I know of is the dragon, and they are all but-"
"-extinct," Harry finished. "Not much help there."
Eragon picked up a flask labeled in spidery script. He could not read, yet the label was longer than most, and the liquid inside was a silvery-aqua. "What does this one do?"
Harry grinned. "It's supposed to be a cold-blood draft. It seems to actually work, too, something to do with using my own blood to brew it. I made it so I could swim in the lake. I wanted to hybridize it with some form of water breathing, but-" he shrugged. "No gillyweed."
Excited, Eragon swilled the fluid in its glass flask. "Can we try it?"
"Why not?"
They headed out to the docks of the lake. Since it hit the halfway mark, the rate of filling had slowed so much it seemed to stop. Eragon hardly had to touch it to know it would be frigid. It had to be fed by snowmelt from the peaks further up the mountains. No amount of midsummer weather would completely erase the fact that the lake was filled with meltwater.
Harry padded barefoot over the wooden dock. The water level was near to the boards. The day was still, but even the slow breeze chilled his bare skin. He prodded it with a toe. "I'll have to make another one soon."
"Docks?" Eragon frowned. Harry snickered and pointed at the water. Eragon peered through the waves. There was a very similar shape submerged right beneath the docks. "You just keep making new ones as the old ones submerge?"
"Why not?" Harry flicked his wand and conjured a pile of fluffy towels. Another flick and they radiated warm air. "For when we get out." He brought out the shimmery flask and a pair of brass goblets. "You know how to swim, right?"
Eragon shrugged a bit self-consciously. "Garrow taught us the basics."
Nodding, Harry poured their cups. "Don't go too far out until you're confident. I won't let you drown, but it's not a fun experience." his gaze turned haunted. "At least we can see the sky," he murmured.
He shook off his low mood and handed Eragon his cup. "Bottoms up," he grinned.
They both drank at once. Eragon had not asked what exactly was in the potion, but he could have made inferences based on the zoo Harry had built. Thankfully, the potion was not as disgusting as its constituent parts. He shuddered as it went down. It tasted musty and felt like scales sliding down his throat.
Almost immediately, Eragon felt its effects kick in. His sense of temperature shifted. Suddenly, the sunlight on his bare chest was a much more acute sensation. At the same time, his heart rate slowed. Eragon was conscious of his blood moving sluggishly beneath his skin.
He put a toe into the lake as Harry did the same.
The cold water no longer stung his skin and seized his muscles. He still perceived the cold, but it was a much lower urgency. Unpleasant, but not acutely frigid.
Harry slipped into the water. "Careful," he slurred. His speech sounded half drunken. "Woah. Yeah, I don't know exactly how this'll affect your energy, so stay near the docks." He stroked out a few yards from the dock. "Much nicer now. Should wear off in an hour. I gave you a bit less for your weight."
Eragon followed him in. Up to his neck, the water felt cool on his skin. Once he brought his head beneath the water, his heart slowed even further.
Oddly, he felt little pressure to resurface. He was content to float face down in the lake, gazing at the clear water and the barren lake floor. Everything slowed down. It was relaxing, just floating with the wavelets caused by the breeze over the surface.
The urge to breathe did not strike him until two full minutes in. He straightened up and breathed deeply.
"I was about to check on you," Harry raised a brow. His hair was damp and plastered to his skin, greatly reducing the volume of his head. Usually hidden behind his bangs, Eragon caught sight of a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. Harry flipped his hair back, spraying water across Eragon's chest.
"I didn't even feel like breathing at all," Eragon told him. "I could have held my breath twice as long, at least. I just feel…relaxed."
Harry sank back into the water up to his neck. He frowned, stood, and fetched his wand, conjuring a chair beneath the water to sink into. "The very next thing I'm building is a pool and hot tub," he promised Eragon. "Just-" he yawned. "-later." He flicked his wand idly, producing another chair for Eragon to sit in. He took his seat.
"What's with the scar?" Eragon wondered. "Peculiar shape."
Harry plastered his bangs over it. Eragon cursed himself for being insensitive and prying. "Long story. How's the summer been?"
"Good," Eragon decided. Though his weeks at the castle always made him wish he could live there instead of the farm, taking his magic back to Garrow made it feel grander. In the castle, he was constantly confronted with how much grander Harry's magic was, and how little he could do. On the farm, he was the only magician around, and Garrow was always impressed with what he showed him when Roran wasn't around.
"Chores are chores," Eragon told Harry. "It's frustrating to learn magic to do them in a second, and not be able to use them because we have to hide."
Harry tipped his head back, letting it loll against the headrest as he gazed into the azure summer sky. Fluffy white clouds hung frozen in the still day.
"At least when you're here, you can do what you want."
Eragon nodded. He brushed against the store of energy in his mind and pointed at the surface of the water. "Wingardium Leviosa." A fist-sized blob of water rose from the surface. Eragon made it float in circles with nudges from his mind.
"I'm jealous of you," Harry admitted. "Learning everything wandlessly. I've tried a few times, but I can never get the same feeling of power as I get from holding a wand."
Eragon grinned. Harry may be able to raise castles, but he was reliant on a tool. Eragon would not be rendered helpless if a stick broke or got lost. He sent the ball of water wiggling, twisting it into different shapes and knots with his imagination and willpower.
Fatigue crept up on him much quicker than it usually did. Eragon abandoned his spell to exhaustion after a few minutes of playing. They did not speak much after that, merely sitting in their underwater chairs and enjoying the summer warmth on their cold-blooded faces.
When sensation began to return to his limbs and the cold grew unbearable, he and Harry hauled themselves out of the water. Harry passed him a towel and took up his own. They were heavenly. Dry, fluffy, and warm, they drove away the lake's chill at once. They padded over the grass to the Great Hall, getting grass and mud on their bare feet the whole way. Harry hosed them down with water from his wandtip when they reached the stone square around the fountain out front, then scourgified their path behind them.
Eragon accompanied Harry on his rounds through the castle grounds. They started at the barn, a wooden building painted red with hay bales stacked against one wall, and a thick coating inside the animal pens.
"You look like you took to this well," Eragon remarked, holding back a laugh as a manger full of feed came wheeling across the central aisle to greet Harry. The wizard petted it like a dog and sent it scampering back to fill the pigs' trough.
"Easy enough when magic does most of the work," Harry grunted, lifting the latch to the chicken coop and slipping inside. He collected a stack of racks, each containing dozens upon dozens of eggs. "I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to actually kill any of them."
Eragon nodded solemnly. "Garrow has made Roran do the job a few times. I am not looking forward to the time he decides I need to learn how to do the same." He used to resent Garrow for slaughtering their livestock as a child. "It helps not to get attached," he advised. "You're raising them for a purpose. They are not dogs or cats for companionship. They are food."
Harry raked his fingers through his hair, gazing at his cow pen. There were eight heifers in the giant enclosure, the back of which was open to a large fenced area to graze in. "Too late."
Eragon rolled his eyes and tugged Harry from the barn and out of his funk. "Come on. You told me you'd show me the bees."
They trotted through the sprouting field of wheat and up the path to the apiaries. A little hut was just before the field of flowers and apiaries themselves. Harry paused there briefly to hand Eragon a beekeeper's suit and don his own.
Harry checked the racks of only one of the four towers. Bees clouded around the wooden construction. Despite knowing his gear protected him, Eragon could not help but flinch away from the buzzing sound that assaulted his instincts from every side.
"They've been working a couple months," Harry told him, drawing out the second drawer. One of the frames was completely full and dripping with honey. "I've been careful to ensure there are no checks whatsoever to population growth so they fill all the apiaries. I come by and refresh the flower orchard every day, each time a seventh pie slice. So every week they have new flowers to pollinate and new nectar to collect. From one queen, I've counted three in this one, and another has taken to that tower. But that one's new, so I won't harvest it until the colony is big enough."
Harry smoked the bees off the frame and spread wax paper over one side of the honeycomb. Pushing gently at the edges, he peeled the honeycomb from the frame and spread another sheet of paper on the other side. The brick went into a basket, and was joined by others as Harry worked through the full frames.
When the harvesting was done, they left their beekeeping suits at the hut and headed to the mill by the river. "Another go at baking bread?" Harry wondered.
He started out making the dough. Eragon had brought salt with him from home this time, in hopes of making edible bread. The last attempt had been like chewing crusty clay, both in taste and consistency. The other secret ingredient was yeast, which he'd begged a pinch of off Grady in Carvahall on an errand with Roran.
Eragon couldn't understand how someone so smart could be so terrible at something as simple as baking bread. "Not yet," Eragon caught Harry's wrist before he could throw in the yeast. "You can't use it all," he rolled his eyes. "Or I'm going to have to bring you another bit from Grady. Just use a tiny bit and leave the rest to grow. And it's not time to put it in, anyways."
Harry put the jar back down. Eragon helped him through what to look for while kneading. "Too long and it'll get thick and tough."
When the bread pans were set to rise, Harry suggested they start on more batches. "We'll need more yeast."
Harry patted the flour from his apron and smacked his hands together, giving off puffs of white dust. "Do you know how they make more?"
Eragon did. Fortuitously, they had just harvested exactly what they needed to make more. "Put it in honey," he advised. "Just a tiny bit, and it will grow."
When all was said and done, they feasted on bread and honey with berry preserves.
"Could use butter," Eragon said around a mouthful. Harry nodded.
"The cows don't give milk."
Eragon covered his smile with a hand. "Cows only do that after giving birth. And they stop when you stop milking them."
Harry groaned. The Great Hall had gotten cheerier as a result of his efforts. He'd remodeled the ceiling to be ten feet higher, and used the very topmost walls for great glass windows that let in even late afternoon light in. While he was up there, he added a secret walkway around the bottom of the upper windows, accessible only by a secret passageway of ladders and spiral staircases inside the back wall. "A new chore to take care of."
Eragon shrugged. When he left on trips to the spine, Garrow or Roran took up those chores from him. "The milk is supposed to be for the calves. Milking tricks the cow into thinking it still has babies to feed."
"I never thought I'd miss House Elves this much," Harry told Eragon. He was unfamiliar with the term.
When asked, Harry's eyes got that far away look. "Nobody's quite sure how they came about. Hagrid told us all he knows, though, and I'd always trust his instinct on magical creatures first. He thought they might be domesticated or enslaved brownies. Essentially, they're little people with strong magic who like being enslaved to wizards and doing their housework for them."
Eragon raised a brow. "Really?"
Harry snorted. "Yeah. They were as intelligent as you or I. And a hyperactive bundle of contradictions. Whoever created them must have been unspeakably evil, but it seems the best thing to do now is just let them be happy and make laws against abusing them. That was Hermione's dream. To take SPEW to the Ministry."
The Great Hall was among the only places in the castle not decorated with statuary Eragon was certain was more significant than Harry let on. Eragon felt bad for Harry. It was like he was trying to replicate the friends he'd lost in stone memorials all over the place. More statues had appeared of Hermione and Ron at different ages, all in different poses. Some heroic, some quiet, some just…normal. Laughing or smiling.
He prodded the fresh loaf between them. "You're getting better at this."
"You're getting better at this," Harry corrected, pointing a spoonful of honey at him. "I have no doubt that the next loaf I try to make by myself will be just as much of a trainwreck."
"What's a train?" Eragon wondered. He did not deny Harry's assertion.
"A whole caravan of solid steel carriages linked together that can run at faster than a gallop."
Oh. Well okay then.
"Come on, there's watermelons and lemons in the greenhouse," Harry grinned. "We can make pink lemonade."
"What, this will cure the common cold?" Gertrude lifted the big flask and swirled the cherry-red liquid. Harry sat across from her on her porch. It was hard not to be disappointed every time he came down to Carvahall, expecting it to be Hogsmeade, only for it to fall short every time. "I don't mean to offend, but some folk knowing where this comes from will put them off taking it."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Do you want me to drink some, to prove it's safe? And why would I give you poison? Maybe it'd kill one person, and you'd know exactly who to blame."
Gertrude shook her curly hair. "Nay. They may think it unnatural, that it will change them in some weird way."
"I've tested it myself," Harry pointed out. "Give it to one person and it'll be pretty obvious it works."
Gertrude set it aside. "I think you're misunderstanding me. Imagine a stranger appearing, claiming to be from a place no one has heard of, then disappearing into the mountains. Your reputation has suffered for your absence. You haven't been here long enough to build a reputation. Now one will be given to you."
"Why are you telling me?" Harry frowned.
Gertrude sighed. "Just…a warning. Folks trust me to treat them at their most vulnerable. You will not find many patients if people think you a queer hermit who lives beyond the village."
Harry threw up his hands. "Then you be the healer. I'll bring you cures to give to people. You can refer desperate cases to me."
But she was shaking her head. "I do not make enough coin doing this to support you and myself. I cannot buy enough of your cures to pay a fair income."
Harry hummed. "Don't worry about it. Pay what you can spare, I'll find other ways to make money. Someone mentioned traders that come through Carvahall?" He left Eragon's name out. If his reputation was that of a dangerous weirdo, he did not want to drag him down with him.
Gertrude shrugged. "So be it." She picked up the flask. "How much for this?"
Harry indicated that he'd accept whatever she thought a fair price for fifty doses of cure for the common cold. He walked away from the transaction with enough coin to actually live on, if briefly.
He still could not bring himself to duplicate the coins with magic, nor attempt to use magic to summon precious gems and ores from the ground. Carvahall had a small economy he could easily break if he was careless. Until the traders came by, he would live only on the coin he earned directly from the villagers. He had honey and beeswax to sell, too. He bought twine from Uma who spun her own thread for weaving. Next time he came around, he'd sell candles. How hard could it be?
In Carvahall, summer was in full swing. While children worked for their parents much younger than was expected in Britain, they were not always beholden to their responsibilities, and spent much of the daytime playing in the village. And the younger still were free to do as they pleased during the warmest months. The sky was blue and the grass green. Laughter and children yelling in their games floated on the air in the fields and squares. The children moved in groups, running through alleys and getting underfoot of the people working for a living.
It felt a lot more like Hogsmeade.
Harry found his feet taking him to Horst's. He was the only other person who knew his secret that Harry did not know. Baldor and Albreich were with him today, working a construction that looked like a stone chimney set in the dirt. Smoke issued from the top, and a glow came from the bottom where a little hole in the earth had been dug.
Horst caught sight of him. Harry watched his reaction. He could not read fear, anger, or disgust in his expression. "Harry," he waved. "What brings you to town?"
"Selling cures to Gertrude."
He frowned. "Really? I had thought you intended to be a healer yourself."
Harry shrugged. "She thinks people think I'm too strange to trust to heal them."
"Surely not," Albreich denied. Baldor nodded in agreement. But Horst did not deny the assertion.
"That may not be enough to make a living," Horst advised.
Harry gestured to him. "I hoped to find more things to do."
The smith helped his sons take the top off the brick device. With tongs, he extricated a chunk of steel from within. They set about resetting the thing, prying a brick of slag from the hole beneath, shoveling charcoal into a shelf inside, and nestling a head-sized chunk of ore into the charcoal. Baldor stacked the top bricks back over it. Albreich lit the oven with a stick from beneath, and the three of them began taking turns on the bellows.
"Well if it's an apprenticeship you want, I'm afraid I've already got two students." Horst nodded to his kids.
Harry shook his head. "I was hoping to employ a different talent of mine."
Horst's eyes narrowed. His gaze skipped over Albreich and Baldor. "Why don't the two of you take the rest of the day off," he offered them. "Harry's business deserves privacy. I'll finish on the bloomery myself."
Without complaint, his sons doffed their sooty aprons and chased after the sounds of playing kids.
Horst glanced around. "You mean magic." His voice was flat.
Harry nodded. "Yeah. There are plenty of things I can do for you that won't give anything away."
"Oh?" Horst raised a brow. "What sorts of things?"
Harry cast about in the workshop for an object in particular. He spotted it and showed Horst.
"A nail."
Harry raised a brow, getting out his wand. Horst crossed his arms. "Geminio."
The nail became an overflowing fistful of perfect copies. Horst whistled. "Well I'll be damned. That's a neat trick. But I can't accept it. People will wonder where they came from. If not me and if not the villagers who aren't watching me close enough to notice, my boys definitely will."
Harry stuffed the nails frustratedly into the box of their kin. He scraped up a broken-handled axe with a crack through the metal head. "Reparo."
Same deal.
Nor could he scourgify the metal shop without Horst's kids noticing someone had cleaned it, nor could he magic the forge hot without people wondering why Horst had stopped buying charcoal and wood. Any task he could do for Horst, any resource his magic could replace, Carvahall was too tight-knit not to notice.
"I never thought magic would be useless, but I guess nobody wants it."
Horst's expression softened. "The Empire is unkind to magicians, but not all of Alagaesia is so. Ask Brom, if you will. There are places that would welcome your talent, I'm sure of it. You need only find them."
But Harry did not want to leave. For obvious reasons, he'd already set down deep roots in the Spine. But further, Carvahall was familiar to him, and stepping into the unknown again so soon after doing it before daunted him.
"I could find you ore, coal-" Horst held up his hand.
"I think what Brom told you has not sunk in yet, Harry." he gestured at Harry's wand. "If the Empire finds out about you, soldiers will descend upon our village, determined to press you into service. We pay our taxes and send the collectors on their way. Carvahall wants nothing to do with the Empire. I want to employ you, Harry, I truly do. But nothing is worth the risk."
Harry clenched his wand angrily. This nameless king's reputation was keeping him out of a job in the middle of a tiny, far-flung village. He cast about Horst's workshop. His eyes caught on the metal statue of a raven Horst had made. Harry picked it up. "If you change your mind," he said levelly. He touched the tip of the Elder Wand to the bird. "Piertotum Locomotor."
He was not sure exactly how the spell worked. There were parts of the magic he cast that he knew were not included in the spell, yet nonetheless his clear vision of what he wanted guided his magic. The Elder Wand soaked up his intent and added to it. Ribbons of light burst from the tip and twisted around the statue, binding the bird and sinking into the feather patterns Horst had scratched into the metal.
The raven vibrated, sloughing off flakes of blackened iron. With tinny squeaks of metal on metal, the statue woke, twisting its head and ruffling its iron feathers. Horst's eyes went wide. Harry had no words, no spell for the last bit. He impressed it upon the raven with pure force of will, and nameless magic coursing through his wand. Come alive only when only Horst can see you. Him, and those who would keep your secret. When everyone else can see, you are a statue.
It hopped on the table, stretched, and took flight. Horst watched it circle beneath the awning with upturned eyes and a dumbfounded expression. Perhaps a bit smugly, Harry rolled his wand between his fingers.
Suddenly, the bird fell from the air. Like a stone, it plummeted into the dirt floor of the workshop with a thud. Horst startled. "Why-"
Harry glanced over his shoulder. An aproned man with beady eyes approached, holding a knife with a crack in it. Harry quickly put his wand away. Horst turned, still a bit awestruck. "Sloan," he bit out. "How can I help you."
Sloan lofted the big knife. "It broke. Can you fix it?"
Horst shook himself out of his stupor. He accepted the big knife. At his table, he examined the crack in the blade, running from the edge halfway up to the back. "This?" he thumbed the fissure. "I'll have to reforge it."
"How much?"
Horst quoted a price, but Sloan was no longer listening. He had honed in on the metal bird. With more care than his frame would have suggested, he extricated it from the dirt, brushing it off the metal feathers.
"Got frustrated?" Sloan snorted.
Horst glanced up from the knife. "What- Oh. No. It couldn't fly."
Sloan made a face that suggested he thought Horst was an idiot. But his beady eyes remained focused on the statue. "I remember this having its wings tucked in."
"I wasn't aware you were so familiar with my work," Horst said with a hint of ridicule.
Sloan put the raven down. "Just fix the knife." But his eyes were on Harry now. Harry met the man's gaze evenly. Horst quoted the price at him again, but he waved it off. "Fine. I'll come back for it in a couple days."
They both watched him go. "Sloan's the butcher," Horst explained to Harry, once he'd gone. "He hates the Spine, so he probably already dislikes you, and he can be petty. Of the worst people who might learn your secret, he is not far from the top."
"He didn't seem very friendly," Harry agreed. He glanced at the raven statue. Already it was blinking, watching the two of them talk. "Give it a letter and tell it to deliver it to me. If you change your mind."
Horst nodded slowly. "I shall."
Harry was headed towards Garrow's farm when Brom cornered him at the edge of the square. The storyteller herded him towards a house that on the outside, was about as unremarkable as the rest.
However the inside of Brom's house reminded Harry a bit of Dumbledore's office. There was paper everywhere. On every chair and shelf, every upturned surface was stacked high with scrolls, sheafs of parchment bound with twine, entire books, letters, and scraps with scribbles. About the only surface free of the written word was an armchair by the fireplace.
Brom swept the other chair of its stacks of letters. "Sit."
Harry took a seat. He glanced down at a letter. While many of the documents were written in English, most were in a bizarre script made of pointy, curving shapes. It was like no other writing system Harry knew of, and bore no resemblance to east asian writing, runes, or hieroglyphs
Brom busied himself setting the fireplace. He spent an awkward minute trying to start the fire with a flint. "I can help-" Harry offered.
"I know how to start a fire," Brom snorted. "Brisingr." That did the trick for him. The fire caught quickly. He turned to study Harry's face for a reaction. Harry again got the feeling Brom was testing him. He just wasn't sure if he'd passed or failed.
"I've never heard that swear," Harry commented.
Brom bobbed his head. "I bet you haven't." He fetched a leather packet and tossed it to Harry. "Grow these, won't you? For next time I make the hike to the Spine."
Harry opened the packet. He immediately recognized the buds inside, and the smell they gave off. "Marijuana?" he demanded. "When you said pipeweed, I thought you meant tobacco."
Brom chuckled. "So you know it?"
Harry closed the packet. "Yes. My cousin smoked it and the stench never goes away. It's also illegal in Britain."
Brom crowed. "I knew there was something terrible about that place. It sounded too good to be true. Why in the blazes would anyone outlaw such a magnificent plant?"
"Blazing is right," Harry muttered under his breath. He thought he'd smelled something like that familiar scent. After fifth year, it was increasingly difficult to walk past Dudley's bedroom without the distinct smell hitting him in the face. How Petunia didn't know, Harry had no idea. It was just so unexpected to encounter it in Carvahall of all places.
Brom lit a pipe and began to smoke. "You are teaching Eragon magic."
He choked. "What?" The statement was so unexpected Harry wasn't able to come up with a convincing rejection in time.
"He told me," Brom continued. "So there is no point in denying it. I only bring this up to inform you that if Eragon dies under your tutelage, I shall hold you responsible. That is all."
Harry blinked. Magic could be dangerous, but he wasn't so bad a teacher he'd get his students killed. "Okay," he said. "Is that all you wanted?"
"No, sit." Brom snapped, when Harry made to get up from the chair. He took a drag and puffed that familiar smell back out. Harry pinched his nose. He pulled out his wand and cast the bubblehead charm over himself. Brom rolled his eyes. "You look like you're wearing a fishbowl over your mouth and nose. I wanted to ask you what you knew about the King."
"He's got a big black dragon named Shruikan, he wants all the magicians to himself, and Eragon thinks he collects too many taxes," Harry listed off. "Other than that, I dunno what even his name is."
"Galbatorix," Brom answered. "I could have sworn I mentioned it."
"Poor guy," Harry muttered. "What was his mum thinking?"
Brom cracked a smile. "Be that as it may, he is also over a hundred years old and looks in his mid thirties by the measures of mortal men. He rose to fame by killing dragons; hundreds upon hundreds of them in his ascension to power. He is the reason there is only one dragon left."
"He's a bad guy, then?" Harry concluded. Brom's nostrils flared.
"Yes. The worst. And he had servants, countless scores of them. But thirteen greater than the rest." Brom eyed Harry. "The Forsworn. They were all dragon riders, learned in magic and arms, granted powers by the King. The last of them died years ago."
"...Why are you telling me this?" Brom met Harry's eyes.
All of a sudden, dragons came to mind. The horntail came first, chasing him on his broomstick as he baited it to take off from its nest, then diving to snatch the golden egg. He remembered the four dragons chained in the Forbidden Forest when Hagrid brought him to see them, then Norberta, hatching from her egg in Hagrid's hut. The dragon beneath Gringotts flitted through his memory. Harry remembered walking in from Diagon Alley, then why they came. The Cup. The Horcrux. He had to-
Harry shut the train of thought out. He leapt to his feet, the Elder Wand in his hand. "What the hell was that!?" he demanded.
Brom twisted the ring on his finger, clenching the gem in his fist. "I just had to be sure," he placated.
"Sure of what?"
Brom shook his head. "You have dragons, where you are from?"
"Yeah," Harry said hotly. "What of it?" The nervous energy in his body wanted to get out, he wanted to hex Brom for daring to use Legilimency on him.
"Nothing." The storyteller smiled faintly. "It is just heartening to hear."
"'S that all, then? You called me here to attack my mind?" Harry glared at Brom. "Does this mean you're a wizard, too?"
Brom shook his head. "I am not a wizard. Entering the minds of others exists separately from magic. Anyone can do it, with the right training."
"What then?" Harry demanded. "Because there's no way I'm believing you're just a storyteller."
"Certainly," Brom agreed. "But you've not earned my life story yet. Go. And remember, if Eragon dies-"
"You'll hold me responsible," Harry finished. "Yeah, whatever. If you try that again you'll get what's coming to you."
Brom puffed his pipe, bemused. "Farewell, Harry Evans."
"Bye."
AN: We're getting into the main storyline soon, I promise. Harry just needs emotional attachments to his home so it hurts when I rip him away from it :)
Also I'm laying the groundwork for a (hopefully) more interesting Roran storyline when Eldest comes around.
I also want to head off complaints early about Harry and how strong he'll be in Alagaesia. We'll get to the details later, somewhere on the road with Brom and Eragon, but this is your heads-up that Harry will not be a strong as he was in HEFMA. Last time he could do everything, and that caused problems with where he fit into the story and how he wound up stealing Eragon's thunder a lot, or else forced me to contrive a reason why he couldn't solve Eragon's problems.
This time, his magic and Eragon's magic will be distinct. They both have their own strengths and weaknesses, which means that Harry has to actually have weaknesses. Who appears more powerful at a moment will shift back and forth between Harry and Eragon as they discover new powers and hone their skills, but you have to trust when Harry feels underpowered, that I have plans for him.