Summary: Harry gets his first project up and running...

Chapter 10: Occasionally, People Remember to Ask for Help

It was extremely annoying that Aurora Sinistra made 'smug' look good. It was even more annoying that Harry knew Pandora wouldn't let him live down his current situation. Which he felt was extremely unfair, given that Pandora hadn't considered the simplest possible solution to their film project's problem anymore than Harry had. Neither of them had, each for their own understandable reasons admittedly, thought to ask for help. Which, in retrospect, was both horribly embarrassing and probably a sign that Harry had trust issues he hadn't been fully aware of.

Thankfully, his ongoing work with Professor Sinistra, which had continued twice a week even after their 'detentions' were over, had led to a slip of the tongue. Specifically, he'd idly mentioned the issue he was having in converting light to sound with magic was his inspiration for something else they were now working on. The original telescope project had ballooned from the magnification efforts he'd first been attempting, into exploring other mundane aspects of astronomy that might help in magic. Incidentally resulting in a second teacher applying to have him as a personal student. Most recently, a month on from their first meeting, the two of them had been considering if there was any benefit of trying to build a magical radio telescope. While not directly related to light, the mental crossover of 'radio' and astronomy had brought the projector project to mind for Harry, leading him to mentioning the issue.

To his embarrassment, Professor Sinistra had solved said issue in about five minutes. Given her expertise with light, maybe that shouldn't have been a surprise. But how was Harry to have known that the Professor had gotten extremely high marks in her own Ancient Runes NEWTS? Of course, it had meant he'd had to explain why he needed to convert patterns of light to sound, since he still couldn't make the runes himself. But the Professor had been delighted at the idea, apparently being a half-blood herself who was perfectly well aware of what a movie was. She'd also been extremely impressed by how far he'd gotten by himself. Enough so that she'd done more than just help finish the projector. She'd overcome all of the other remaining problems with effectively opening a business on Hogwarts Grounds.

Which only made her look more thoroughly smug as she showed Harry the contract she'd gotten from the Headmaster. Apparently, there were actually precedents for this sort of thing. In fact, Professors Babbling, Snape, and Sprout were all three technically running businesses out of Hogwarts themselves. Even if none of them were doing anything involving the students in the process. There had also, apparently, been businesses that did cater to students. So there were even pre-existing contract clause sets for that. Professor Sinistra had dug it all up, taken it to Dumbledore, and gotten approval for them to open the business. All in less than a week. Technically, it did mean that he was losing 20% of any profit to Hogwarts and another 20% to the Professor. But, given that she'd also helped him officially patent the process, that was honestly completely acceptable.

Which didn't mean Harry liked what he was about to have to do.

"Yes, Professor Sinistra. You were right and I was wrong. And I need to learn when to ask for help and permission before I do things like take apart school telescopes or startup businesses inside Hogwarts."

The dead-toned statement would not have galled him nearly as much if the woman wasn't practically radiating essence of smug. He'd discovered quickly that her stern demeanor from class did not carry over to her private time. Instead, to his chagrin, outside of class she was a high-energy, snarky, witty, tease. To say it wasn't helping control his childish crush on her to discover that fact was an understatement if ever there was one.

"There, there, Mr. Potter. I'm sure that even a particularly slow student such as yourself would have gotten there eventually~! Now, why don't you help me set up our new business? We've been given four entire classrooms to work with…and Minerva has been bragging about how good you are at transfiguration. So let's get to work!"

Harry groaned, just knowing that she was going to keep up the teasing the entire time they set up the classrooms. Which, given that he hadn't even made more than the one prototype projector, was probably going to take weeks…

... ...

Harry 'oofed' and fought against tipping over as ninety pounds of Katie Bell jumped on him. In some fashion that he swore had to be magic, she ended up clinging to his back like a koala by the time he righted himself, despite having originally hit him from the side.

"Harrrrry! Why didn't you tell us you were doing something so awesome?!"

Quickly turning back the way Katie had come from, Harry discovered that 'us' was apparently Katie, Angelina, and Alicia. Which, really, should have been expected. They were also grinning, though it was hard to tell if they'd already been smiling, or were just amused by Katie's antics.

"I take it the three of you enjoyed the movie?"

Harry, in an act Pandora insisted was self-preservation, had given free tickets to a 'premier' of the newly opened Hogwarts Movie Theater to all of the Quidditch Team. They'd run just two of the screens the first evening, with Harry and Professor Sinistra each babysitting one of the projectors in case anything went wrong. Nothing had, which meant they could leave them in the hands of a few older students going forward. There were always some, even in NEWT years, that were looking for a few galleons and would happily do odd jobs like that.

Of course, Harry himself had taken the showing of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, rather than sitting through Beauty and the Beast again. He was a thirteen-year-old boy, after all, and if he had to rewatch a movie, he'd prefer it to be more action than romance. Which meant that, since all three of the Chasers had chosen to attend Beauty and the Beast last night, he was only just now seeing their reactions.

"It. Was. Awesome! I wanted to see that movie when it came out! But all my friends back home are guys who thought it was 'too girlie.' Ugh."

Yeah. That tracked. Katie was a tomboy without question. Even if she apparently still liked a good, animated romance. Thankfully, he wasn't stupid enough to say any of that out loud, instead directing a questioning look to the other two. They caught on to what he wanted immediately and smiled, with Angelina speaking for them.

"It was fun. I might be a half-blood, but my family mostly stays on the magic side. That was only the second time I've ever been to a theater before. The movie was pretty good and it was a hell of a lot better than another night of just studying or something."

Alicia added her own bit a moment later.

"I'd actually seen it already, but it was still super good the second time. And Angie's right, it'll be nice to have something else to actually do around the castle, other than studying, quidditch, and Hogsmede."

Katie blew a raspberry from where she was still hanging on Harry.

"Don't even talk to me about Hogsmede! I can't even do that yet! Bloody unfair that I'm stuck here when you two get to escape the castle."

The older duo grinned and fell to bickering with Katie, who thankfully finally let go, sliding off Harry's back so that she could properly gesture with her hands for the friendly argument. Harry smiled at the trio, happy that they'd enjoyed his little addition to Hogwarts. Everyone else had to, or so it seemed. He had a feeling that it was going to be popular for quite a while. Which meant profits for him…and some exposure to wider world for some of the pure bloods. Despite the Indiana Jones movie having been set in 1938, he'd seen more than one wide-eyed pure blood coming out of the movie. He couldn't wait to see how they reacted to something more modern, or even futuristic.

Grinning like a loon at what had to count as a rousing success to his Stage 1 Step 1 plan of modernizing the Wizarding World, Harry followed the Chasers as they headed off to lunch. Now, he just needed to figure out what the hell Step 2 was. Maybe he should have thought ahead a bit more…

... ... ...

A/N: I only mention this once per release, but my stories have a P-atreon page where some early access content is available. In example, I released chapters 11 & 12 of this story there yesterday. This story, Pandora's Box, is also one of three that generally only get updated win they win the Secondary Story Poll I run over there. Though I try to update the losers of those polls at least in a minor way and sporadically, just so no story gets abandoned completely. Similarly, there are at least a few Early Access chapters there for ALL of my stories, though NONE of them are ever permanently paywalled. All fanfiction content I make ends up here (or on Scribblehub) eventually, as new content for each story is released. I'd appreciate your support, but you'll get the content sooner or later one way or the other :-)! You can find directions to my page in my profile. Alternatively, you can just look up 'Novus's Fanfiction Works' on Google or Bing. Alternatively to the alternatively, you can even just as /user?u=93048562 after the dot com in you-know-where's website...