Harry was staring at his mithril ring intently, ever since he had come to the realisation that if he could change the shape of his mithril's signature he could make anything, not just a very accurate imitation of an object but an exact replica.
Despite his determination he wasn't making, the mithril changed some of its shapes when he reformed it but many of the shapes remained static. The shapes that didn't change most likely identified or created the material of the mithril, since even when he made the mithril act like wood or stone it was still, ultimately mithril.
Alchemy was the only known way to actually change something's form permanently, such as when he had turned the copper candlestick into iron, he hadn't just made the copper act and look like iron, he had changed the very structure of the copper into the structure of iron.
As Nicolas had explained "Transfiguration is making an object believe it is another, Alchemy is making an object become another. If you transfigure a stone into a bird it will think it is a bird, but once it's magic runs out it will become a stone again. If you transmute a stone into a diamond it will become a diamond and when it's magic runs out you will still have a diamond. Oh, transmutation is the technical term for when you use alchemy to change an object's properties."
It wasn't possible to make a living creature with alchemy. This is because even the most ordinary slug needs some form of energy to survive, with alchemy that energy has to originate from magic until it can produce its own. The problem was that it took at least several days for a living creature to begin producing a sustainable amount of energy, during which time it would need a constant supply of magic.
If the lifeform was given magic externally, such as runes or a spell then the creature would become dependent on that magic. This would invariably create a golem or spirit, capable of completing any task given to it, they also never needed to eat or sleep, some considered them the perfect servants. But these lifeforms had no free thought or independence and if they ever ran out of magic they would begin to unravel and collapse.
Despite knowing it would take him years to learn how to transmute his mithril into something else he kept at it, the only alternative was to leave his workshop and face the whisperings and mutterings of the students. The fact he had been the one to find Mrs. Norris and that he had never been the most sociable student had been enough for most of the school to condemn him as the heir of Slytherin.
He had needed to improve the quality of the notice-nots that protected the door and they had added one of their experimental ward generators, he and Bathsheda had still not been able to fix the issue of the runes burning out when the ward absorbed too much power.
Their idea of using mithril runes had gone nowhere, if they shaped the mithril into a rune then it would work individually, but even the simplest ward needed at least three runes, Power or Charge, Protect or Shield and Distance or Area. The mithril runes refused to work together so the only useful rune they could use was Shield which would make a green shield cover the mithril rune.
They had then tried to replicate the runes as ideologies but he couldn't get the mithril to make a proper magical shield, if he told the rune to protect a specific area then the mithril would expand to cover that area, great when you wanted to stop something but for a school an impenetrable wall of mithril wasn't ideal.
Bathsheda was trying to find out a way to combine all three runes needed for a basic ward into one single rune that could be copied by the mithril, there was also a few minor issues that needed dealing with, such as the unfortunate habit of the mithril occasionally sapping some of the power from the ward itself.
Despite the flaws in the ward Harry still felt safe as he doubted any student other than himself was capable of sending enough magic into the ward long enough for the runes to collapse, even Dumbledore had admitted that it would take a while for him to completely burn out the ward.
The students had gotten so bad he couldn't go anywhere in the school without students either fleeing from him or mocking him, some of the students had even come up to him and asked him to attack someone else. Just like the year before, Harry decided he would rather hide than put up with the students. If Dumbledore disapproved of him skipping lessons then he didn't let Harry know.
"Considering that we have an unknown foe, one which neither of us can detect, I called in a favour and was able to and procure these two invisibility cloaks, I thought it might be beneficial for you to investigate them and see what you can learn from them."
The first of the cloaks was clearly of high quality. The fabric was smooth and silky along with a silver sheen, it was fairly similar to his own Cloak of invisibility except it was bulkier and heavier.
The second cloak was of a much lower quality, it felt like it had been made of scratchy wool and the edges seemed to be constantly changing between visible and invisible.
When he looked at the material of the first cloak it seemed to be made from the creatures that pulled the carriages, it seemed the material retained the creatures natural invisibility. Now that he had more lime to Look he saw what looked like a conditional clause which made the creature almost entirely undetectable to anyone that hadn't activated the clause.
Underneath the magic of the material was a mix of notice-nots and disillusionment, each enchantment was tied to its own individual thread which then held the cloak together, in order to break the invisibility first the material, the hide of the create, needed to be broken before you could even begin to attack the enchantments.
The second cloak was far more basic, it was made of what must have been the hide of a demiguise, like the first cloak it had disillusion enchantments alongside the natural invisibility, but they were tied on top of the hide rather than the thread. This seemed to be because the demiguise invisibility didn't have a conditional clause which made it easier to unravel.
When both cloaks were activated the first faded from his Sight just like his own, while the second began to glow brighter, this could have been the notice-not but Harry suspected it was some innate property of the material mixed with enchantments. With the first cloak the hide was responsible for most of the invisibility so more magic was able to put into hiding the magic.
If he compared either cloak to his own cloak both were painfully primitive, if either cloak where to get hit by a strong enough spell then the cloak would either break apart or lose its invisibility, his own cloak would only ever lose its invisibility when he told it to deactivate no matter how many times it got hit.
"Where did you get the cloaks from? I can tell neither belong to you and I don't recognise any of the signatures on it"
"You can see the signatures from those that have used it?" Dumbledore asked amazed
"Sort of, I can see an imprint of where they have touched it, the rust like orange stands out above the rest so I assume that one belongs to the owner."
"You and your powers have come a very long way in such a short time Harry… Yes, both cloaks belong to a good friend of mine, an auror called Alastor Moody. One of the cloaks is the best money could buy… well it was some 50 years ago when it was standard issue for aurors. The second cloak, the one made from the hide of a thestral was made by myself and Nicolas as a 60th birthday present for Alastor. As you should be able to tell, invisibility cloaks aren't very common and shop bought are often mass produced and lack in quality, so what can you tell from these two?"
"I assume the one you and Nicolas made is one of the best cloaks available? Possible only beaten by The Cloak itself, but even then I can see where it isn't, against the walls of Hogwarts even my own Cloak stands out. Which means that whatever attacked Mrs Norris can't have been using an invisibility cloak… or at least they must have been using something alongside a cloak. I'm fairly sure I would have recognized the effect of a notice-not, but if it was powerful enough I might have missed it…"
"I can tell you that there were no notice-nots cast anywhere in Hogwarts during the feast and nobody entered or exited the wards that day. Whoever attacked Mrs Norris must have either been inside already and left after I had checked the wards or… the attacker was… and perhaps still is here, within the castle."
The two took a moment to digest this thought, it was frightening to think that someone capable of completely petrifying someone without leaving any evidence or hint of their identity.
"How goes your attempt at undoing whatever is keeping Mrs Norris petrified?"
"Slowly, I would need to lift the entire spell at once otherwise it would kill her, but I currently lack the power to do it, I can't even use my mithril since it's not directly magical power. I've just been looking at it to try and find any weaknesses."
"And have you found any?" Dumbledore asked eagerly
"Only one so far, it's the conditional that allows it to be so powerful. It seems that if the intended victim has a specific shape in their signature then they should be unaffected."
"But you don't know what that shape is?"
"Well… I know what it should look like but I don't know what it exactly is."
Dumbledore's fireplace suddenly flared up with a bright green blaze before they could say anything else.
"Albus? Damnit Albus are you there?" A gruff voice came from the fire, Dumbledore swiftly got up and crouched by the fireplace
"Yes. Alastor is that you?"
"Yes, I need you to come through, somethings come up… do you still have that magical expert with you?"
"He is, what's happened?"
"Easier to show you, come through I'll leave the connection open."
Dumbledore turned to see Harry standing close by
"I assume you heard? I cannot in good conscience ask you to come… but I fear you will be needed so I won't tell you to stay away…"
"Of course I'm coming, what's the worst that could happen? Even Voldemort fled from both of us last year."
"Voldemort was greatly weakened last year… but I suppose you are correct, even now few could hope to match you in terms of power and anyone that could would need to put up with me too. But if you are to join me then I insist that you follow any order myself or Alastor may give you... Very well, shall we be off then?"
Dumbledore stepped into the flame and seemed to be sucked up into them, Harry took a deep breath before following him into the fire.
The floo wasn't as bad as apparition but still something he vowed to avoid where possible. When eventually stopped spinning and exited the floo network he stumbled and crashed onto the floor, covered in ash and bruised all over.
"This is your expert? A boy?" Harry looked up and saw a single leg next to a wooden peg leg, looking even further up revealed the most scared man he had ever seen.
"Honestly Alastor, you should know by now that magic cares not for age."
The man, Alastor gave a bark that could have been a laugh, as Harry stood he casually attempted to Look at the man with his mage sight, instantly he was stopped by a barrier that seemed to originate from the man's thick coat.
Alastor's eyebrows rose in surprise, leading Harry to notice he only had one eye, one was small and dark but where its twin should have been a vivid, electric blue magical eye sat. It moved around frantically, taking in everything in the room completely independently of his normal eye.
"Alastor may I introduce you to Mr. Harry Potter, Harry this is Auror Alastor Moody".
"It's nice to meet you Mr. Moody"
"None of that, call me Alastor or Moody, none of this Mr nonsense"
Harry took a moment to look at the room itself, which seemed to be his office, filing cabinets covered an entire wall, the only other piece of furniture was a solid oak desk which was layered in protective wards and enchantments.
The magical blue eye focused on Harry and he felt his magic… tingle, it felt similar to when Snape used legilimency on him except rather than his mind being read it was his magic. He quickly turned his magic inside out and pulled it close so that his signature was harder to see, this also hid the various magical objects that he kept on him at all times.
"He's skilled, I'll give you that… not many can detect my eye and fewer still can actually try to hide from it. He's not quite there yet but he's well on his way to hiding fully, I guess he might be able to see what we can't."
Dumbledore hummed in agreement "Quite… So what exactly is the situation? You weren't exactly very forthcoming with the details."
"In short, a robbery. Someone broke into one of Lucius Malfoy's manors and into his vault, he says nothing has been taken but you can bet he went through it before alerting the aurors. But it's not the break in itself that's important, what's important is that there is no evidence there was a break in… Malfoy only realised something was up because he happened to take a look at his vault and saw it was open. The wards weren't broken, none of the doors have been tampered with and none of the family opened the vault."
"And you think there might be something me and Harry might see that you haven't?"
"Always a possibility, but I was also thinking we could use the opportunity to try and see what Malfoy might have missed. You know I need clear evidence to bring him to justice and my eye has never been considered valid evidence, but if you were to find something, well the Wizengamot can't turn you away can they?"
"I see… you would prefer punishing Lucius Malfoy further over catching this thief that can break into his manor and vault without being detected?" There was a hint of disappointment in Dumbledore's voice but Alastor either didn't notice or didn't care.
Harry couldn't really follow what was happening but from what he could understand it seemed Alastor was trying to use Dumbledore to frame Mr Malfoy. Considering how Mr. Malfoy had acted the year before Harry couldn't decide if he deserved it.
Dumbledore sighed deeply but nodded and said "Very well then, how are we getting to Malfoy Manor?"
"There is a portkey, I sent Nyphadora to go get it, she's just about to open the door."
Just as he predicted the door opened and a woman with bright purple hair stumbled, in having tripped on the door frame, when Harry glanced at the man's magical eye which seemed to be looking through his skull at the door. Harry realised the man could not only see through the back of his head but also through the door, something he hadn't yet achieved with his own Mage Sight.
"I got that portkey Mad-Eye… Oh wotcher, I'm Tonks" Harry was stunned to see her hair change through many colours. When he Looked at her he was amazed to see that her signature's structure was the most fluid he had ever seen. Her shapes weren't tethered together like the Elder Wand, instead each shape glowed as if they had been drawn by pure magic.
As her hair changed what must have been the relevant shapes glowed brighter and changed, Harry also began recognising some of the shapes, one of the shapes was currently a perfect representation of the arcanic rune for the colour red, when he looked at her hair he saw she now had bright red hair.
Arcanic runes were the more primal version of the Norse runes taught by Bathsheda, much like all fields in the arcane family the magic was closer to raw magic, it seemed that the shapes which made up the structure of an object's signature were actually arcanic runes. Nicolas had only taught Harry the most basic of arcanic runes, most of which needed other, more powerful runes to activate to guarantee that he wouldn't mess around with them and accidently blew up all of Hogwarts.
Harry realised the woman was looking very awkward and realised he must have zoned out staring at her for a fair bit.
"I can see you've been teaching him well." Alastor said before he gave off another bark of mirth
"Indeed… Shall we be off then?"
The portkey turned out to be a muggle frisbee, Harry barely had a moment to Look at the portkey before they were whisked away, yet another magical form of travel that's rubbish Harry thought.
For some reason I had accidently moved part of the beginning into the next chapter, luckily the chapter still worked without it which made it hard to notice, but now it has more world building, yay.
Originally I was going to include Harry investigating Malfoy manor but I decided to move it to next week to ensure there was an actual chapter this week.
The way I see the cloak is like a green screen, on TV you can't see the green screen itself but you can see where it is when someone walks behind one even though it is still "invisible"