The months passed in a blur for Harry, he never forgot Hermione but the numbness that had consumed him since her passing had faded somewhat, working with Bathsheda helped as the young professor reminded him of Hermione in both her intelligence and passion for knowledge, Christmas was fast approaching, with Hermione gone, Ron excluded and Neville avoiding him Harry mostly avoided the rumours that circulated the school about him, Bathsheda made sure he returned to his dormitory whenever they worked late into the night as she feared Harry would lose all contact with the other students if he slept in his workshop.
Classes had become something of a joke for Harry and he only went to lessons that interested him, Minerva only saw Harry when she was teaching theory, any lesson she taught the practice Harry would cast the transfiguration completely wordlessly without his wand and place it on her desk before walking out, Charms was similar except Flitwick would ask Harry to demonstrate the charm and any alteration with it, Harry would then be allowed to leave, Harry went to every potions and herbology lesson and tried to get to every astrology lesson although without Hermione keeping him on track he often forget he had a lesson to attend, he felt like with Hermione he had subconsciously limited himself and hidden just how far ahead he was to appease Hermione, now she was gone he did not hold back and his reputation grew, first the students whispered about his defeat of the troll, many had scoffed and claimed it to be lies, then they had talked about Malfoy's public defeat and lack of punishments, then some reported Lucius had stormed into the headmasters office and left, Harry Potter had then followed him out and the next day it became public knowledge that Lucius Malfoy had resigned from the board of governors.
As Harry's legend grew, Draco Malfoy's reputation suffered greatly after that fateful Halloween, first he had been publicly humiliated and everyone had decided he was weak and no longer cowered in fear when he mocked them, Crabbe and Goyle had left him to look for a stronger leader and he had realised just how disliked he had made himself, then his father had lost his power over the board of governors and students that had previously avoided Malfoy in fear of being expelled now took glee in bullying Malfoy wherever they could get away with it, his father complained and Dumbledore had tried to get the bullying to stop but the students largely ignored him.
As children reported to their parents that Draco was a pushover, the parents in turn feared Lucius less, almost overnight the social power Lucius held evaporated and even Cornelius did not want to be seen with Lucius as allegation of the man got brought to the surface, he was able to refute each and every claim and managed to avoid azkaban but it became socially taboo to be seen dealing with him, forced with adapting or losing what was left of his family's money Lucius was forced to turn to the muggle world where none knew his name. Lucius got his main source of material from his acromantula farm which produced high quantities of spider silk, to his surprise he found great profit dealing with the Muggles as for everyone one wizard that could afford his silk there was almost a hundred Muggles.
The silk itself was almost identical to normal spider silk except one acromantula produced more silk in one day than a nest of muggle spiders produced in a year, the Malfoy vaults grew much higher than they had even before the blood war Voldemort had started, forced to trade with Muggles and socially exiled from Pureblood society Lucius realised that the ideals he had held dear to him since his school days over his own superiority was flawed, he swore to himself he would not let himself fade from magical society, with his new influx of wealth the purebloods would soon forget his loss of status and welcome him back with arms wide, then he would strike to get revenge… right after he got revenge on Dumbledore of course.
Harry was working on his flask once more, it was one of the only projects he had kept hidden from Bathsheda as he wanted it to be a surprise for Christmas, he had decided that just having a bottomless unbreakable flask wasn't good enough as many such flasks were available to buy for the right price, he decided what would set his flasks apart would be the ability to summon there from anywhere, this is what had led him to forming a ring with the mastery over the flask ideology alongside cushioning, weightlessness and resizing, it was tuned to just his flask and he had added the ideology of being subservient to just his ring, he then added the ideology of no fixed location to his flask and metaphysical, he then added the ideology physically anchored, pull forth and then realisation conditioned to trigger when the flask is nearby and targeting the flask rather than the ring.
He hoped that by giving the flask a metaphysical idea it would not really exist in the physical world but when summoned by the pull forth ideology on the ring it would pull the flask to exactly where the ring is which would trigger the realisation condition making the flask physical allowing the user to drink, then hopefully either dropping the flask or letting the power leave the ring would return the flask to metaphysical space.
Taking a deep breath Harry let the flask reform and nodded when it faded from sight, reaching out he could not feel it so it wasn't invisible, putting on the ring he sent a burst of magic through it triggering it, he felt something heavy collide with his hand and when he looked down he saw that the flask was now stuck to his ring, opening the flask he grinned when he saw the water inside, taking a drink he resealed the flask and let the power leave the ring, the flask dropped and faded from view, getting up Harry left his workshop and sealed the door, activating the ring the flask reappeared in his hand almost instantly, dropping it he ran to his common room and successfully summoned it again, running back to the workshop Harry came to a stop as he realised he had just made a valid form of teleportation.
Awakening on Christmas day Harry rose slowly, he was the only Ravenclaw first year boy to stay over the holiday so he had the dormitory to himself, with a start, he realised that the pile of presents at the foot of his beds must be his, getting down he read the tags and realised he had gotten presents from Ron, Bathsheda, Hagrid, Mrs Weasley, 'Wulfric' and two unnamed Harry suspected were also from Dumbledore.
Ron's present was a photo of Harry and Hermione sitting together and laughing in the library, he had also included a card "Merry Christmas Harry, Since Halloween I have realised I was a huge prat, I have tried to make myself better, I hope you are doing well -Ronald Weasley"
Bathsheda had given Harry a professional rune etching kit with a note saying he might enjoy trying to replicate the enchantments on them
Hagrid had given him a hand made flute that sounded like a bird call when blown, few knew that Harry was quite good at music and he had once told Hagrid and Hermione this, clearly Hagrid had not forgotten and Harry felt a swell of joy that Hagrid had remembered what he had said.
Mrs Weasley had sent him a hand knitted jumper with a large H in blue and black, she also included a hamper of homemade treats.
Wulfric had sent a sculpture of Harry's face that if the note was to be trusted would act as a light source that only he would be able to see, it had been made with alchemy and enchantments both of which were areas of magic Harry had not experimented with yet.
The first unnamed present was a book called "Occluding the mind: An advanced study" and the note included simply said "You may find this book interesting, master it and I may consider tutoring you in magic dark and obscure - SP" the writing was different to anything he had seen before and the slight magical signature was masked
Putting it aside he opened the second unnamed present, when he opened it a cloak spilled out and pooled on the floor, the note said "Your father left this in my possession when he died, it now belongs to you, use it well"
Harry stroked the cloak, it was silky and soft… his father's cloak, wanting to be close to something belonging to his father he threw it over himself, he felt a slight chill run down his spine similar to the disillusionment charm, he wanted to see what he looked like in the cloak, he looked in the mirror and saw his hair looked as messy as ever and he patted it down out of habit, when he looked down however he was shocked to see his body was missing.
Harry realised the cloak must be an invisibility cloak and when he took the cloak off and he felt the chill again, but this time is was running up his spine rather than down and as the chill rose his body and cloak became visible, he put the cloak back on and this time checked to see at what point he became invisible, he found so long as he kept the sides of the cloak apart he remained visible and it was only when he started pulling them together did his body fade from view.
Wanting to be as close as possible to his father he chose to keep this invisibility cloak on underneath his school robes and went down to dinner, upon reaching the great hall he noticed that the two of the four house tables had been combined to make the table wider and all the students and teachers remaining at Hogwarts over the holidays were sat around it, he noticed that Bathsheda had left a seat empty next to her and sat down in it, Dumbledore smiled at him from across the table and although he got a few looks from the students he ignored them.
That Christmas was one of the best Harry had ever had, leaving the great hall he ignored Ron and Draco arguing in the hall, Draco had needed to stay at Hogwarts as his parents did not have the time to look after him as both had needed to work to keep their fortune, Ron had stayed because his parents had gone to Romania, Harry didn't know why they were arguing this time but he also did not care, that was until they both shot jinxes at each other which collided in midair and flew in random directions, Ron's struck Harry's exposed back and Harry turned wand drawn
"I'm so sorry Harry! It was meant for Malfoy"
"If you can't get your jinxes to go where you want them too you shouldn't be firing them" Harry said coldly.
When he reached his workshop he removed his school cloak and realised the spell had burned a small hole right through but seemed to stop when it hit his father cloak, confused Harry shot a weak jinx at the corner only for the cloak to absorb the spell. Harry and Bathsheda experimented with the cloak for many hours and finally concluded that the cloak seemed to be completely invulnerable to damage, both physical and magical.
Harry hadn't wanted to try his saber on it but suspected the saber would be drained like when he stabbed his ward generator.
"This is an exceptionally powerful object to give as a Christmas present" Bathsheda murmured
"Well belonged to my father apparently, it just took ten years to get to me"
"That raises the question of how your father got it… The Potters were never the most well known family and if this was a family heirloom you would have thought it would be well known, such as Ravenclaw's diadem or even the Black's mirror"
"What? Black as in Sirius Black?"
"Yes exactly like him, the Black family was famed to have had a mirror which reflected wherever the wielder wanted to see, sort of like a really powerful scriers bowl, there have been a few tries to replicate it, the mirror of Erised by Lana Grimhilde, Der Spiegel von Immanuel by Immanuel Kant or even the Locke Speculum by John Locke were all rumoured to be based on the Toujours pur réflexion which is the fabled name of the Black's mirror"
"You know a lot about mirrors huh?"
"For my ancient runes NEWT project I had to study how mirrors had been enchanted over magical history and those four and the most well known, for example Immanuel's mirror was able to transport the user wherever a reflection existed, however you had to know there was a reflection to get there."
"I wonder if I could replicate that with mithril?"
"It's worth a shot"
John Locke was a famous English philosopher in the 17th century, Immanuel Kant was a famous German philosopher in the 18th century, the mirror of Erised is most likely based on the witch's mirror in Snow White who's name is Grimhilda and the actress in Once Upon a Time who plays the witch is called Lana.
Also to make up for the lack of an chapter yesterday I have another story suggestion, 'Harry Potter and the Elemental's Power' by Sage Ra, I personally am really enjoying reading it.