As Luna was staying at Hogwarts over Christmas Harry was first meeting Tonks in Dumbledore's office, then the two would meet the man at Hogsmeade Station. Technically Harry should be at the leaving feast but instead he was breaking into Dumbledore's office… again.
He let the identifier ward tell Albus he was attempting to get into the office, but then started disabling the anti-lockpicking ward. His saber could rip straight through everything just like the chamber of secrets but if he wanted it easy he'd just ask the gargoyle to move.
Another self imposed restraint was that he couldn't leave the wards open for someone else to just walk in, because he didn't want to be delayed in leaving simply because Dumbledore needed to reapply the wards he broke. It was a game he and Albus had started playing ever since the headmaster had first "broken in" the first Halloween.
With Sirius Black breaking out of Azkaban and Voldemort almost breaking in the year before, the game had evolved from a fun pastime to an important element in their security.
Using his mage sight he was meticulously adding a conditional rule to the wards that would allow his signature to enter without triggering the ward. It took forever and if it wasn't a feast he probably would've been caught, as it was he eventually got to the gargoyle having been seen by the Grey Lady.
The statue grinned at him cheekily and Harry soon found out why, his previous break-in had involved lifting the gargoyle with magic and moving it to the side. Now the bottom of the statue had fused to the floor and would only release when given a signal from the office.
As it was now part of the castle it also gained the indestructible protection of Hogwarts, meaning simply blowing it up wasn't an option either. Seeing no alternative he formed four mithril balls and stuck them to the four corners of the archway, once they were all in place he reached out for them with his magic and activated them simultaneously.
Together they formed an amateur expansion charm that made the archway marginally bigger, this meant the gap between gargoyle and archway was big enough for Harry to slip through when he breathed in.
Now inside the staircase he needed a way up, the door wouldn't unlock until the rising staircase came to a stop. The runic equation to undo the locking charm had been split in half, one side just below the doorway and the other on the side of the top step. Once the spiral staircase finished rising the two would be perfectly in line and allow the door to be opened.
But because of the runes the top step couldn't lower into the ground which gave Harry room to look at it and etch it, he then put sticking charms on his hands and climbed up to the doorway. Trusting in his charms he used one hand to keep himself steady while the other lined up the drawing with the rune.
When he got the paper in the right place he stuck it to the stone and stepped into the office. Fawkes chirped happily from his ashes and Harry carefully scooped him up and popped him in his pocket, which was small enough for baby Fawkes to peek over the top.
There was a common misconception that phoenixes have a burning day every month and that they grew from a chick to adult practically overnight, while in actuality a phoenix can naturally go up to 30 years without having a single burning. But the raw magic that lived within the phoenix was extremely destructive and would kill its host over time, every time a phoenix used its magic the rate of decay would practically double.
When the decay grew too great the phoenix could release their magic in one great burst, which would completely heal it and rejuvenate it back into a chick. If a phoenix was killed too soon after a burning day then they would stay dead as they didn't have the power to heal, this was why pet phoenixes were often hidden until they recovered.
As Fawkes was a relatively active phoenix he often burned every five to ten years, but after the events in the Chamber of secrets Fawkes had been delivering messages across the world at a young age and so had burned out quicker than expected.
After the burning Albus had given the spare ashes to Snape who had used them in his modified Wolfsbane potion.
"While your idea of mixing the dementor ash with ground salamander claw has merit, such a combination would completely counter the effect of the ash without leaving anything behind. The resulting potion would kill any werewolf near instantaneously while leaving any non-werewolves unaffected, an interesting way to identify the creatures but not what we need.
"But when I followed your idea of countering the dementor ash I discovered phoenix ash would nullify the negative aspects of the dementor while enhancing the beneficial." Snape had explained
Harry had even been allowed to sit in as the professor carefully prepared the modified potion, due to the conflicting nature of the two ashes Snape needed to split the potion in half. One cauldron contained the first half of the potion with the dementor ash while the other contained the second half and phoenix ash.
He admitted without Harry's modified cauldrons which could keep a potion in stasis, the potion would've been impossible to brew without two expert potion master's working in sync. As it was he soon finished the two halves and then carefully mixed the two together, it was obvious the two didn't want to mix.
Getting Harry to continue stirring the potion Snape dashed to his store and returned with matricaria chamomilla leaves, he ripped the leaves to shreds and told Harry to stir six times clockwise then once counter clockwise. Everytime he went counter clockwise Snape would sprinkle some of the shreds into the potion, slowly the potion started mixing as the stirring became easier.
The potion finally settled into a smooth pastel blue colour but when he breathed in he felt a stinging in his throat, Snape quickly pulled him away and produced a shield specifically designed to stop potions and gases. "I can only assume the sharp smell is from the two ashes reacting with each other, neither should hurt you but it is best to be prepared."
Over the holidays Snape would inspect the potion and see if he could detect any problems with it, if it worked correctly they hoped it would make the transformation completely optional. If the werewolf didn't transform then they were less likely to accidentally infect somebody else.
Once Fawkes was old enough to no longer need the ash he and Nicolas were going to use it as a catalyst to try and transmute his mithril. To change the mithril would require a huge amount of power so they hoped the raw energy of the ash combined with the infinite potential of the Stone would give them enough to permanently change the mithril.
Back in the office Harry took the time to write a small note, poking fun at the headmaster's defences when the fire flared green. He checked the incoming signature and recognised it as Tonks', so after activating his gauntlet he cautiously opened the floo.
While he was ready to fight anyone getting through he breathed a sigh of relief when just Tonks stumbled out of the fireplace. Once she was through and there were no other travellers he sealed it behind her.
"Hi Tonks, fancy meeting you here." He said cheekily, in truth he was surprised to see her as she was ten minutes early. After hearing his voice, Tonks quickly stood up and brushed the soot off her clothes.
"Oh hey Harry, what are you doing here?"
"Didn't feel like going to the feast" Harry shrugged, having decided to let Tonks think Dumbledore let him in the office "What are you doing here, I thought you wouldn't be here for another few minutes?"
"Moody got called in to deal with a rogue earth golem, as that's far beyond my current training he let me go early." He wondered who had been stupid enough to let a golem loose, it too a lot of power to create one but even then they were slow.
But it was incredibly hard to destroy a golem if you weren't the creator, the magic of them meant that for as long as they were charged they could rebuild themselves from anything around them. The only tried and tested way to destroy a rogue golem was to keep shooting it till it ran out of power and died.
"Right, well then are we just waiting for the Headmaster then?" Tonks asked cheerfully, clearly eager to start her holiday. Officially she was working as Harry's bodyguard but she doubted anyone, not even Sirius Black, would be mad enough to attack Harry at Dumbledore's house.
"Nah, he wanted to make sure everyone leaving got on the train safely so we've got plenty of time to kill. Let's go down to the lake, there's something I want to try but I haven't had time to test it."
On the way down to the lake Harry stopped to get the model boat Dumbledore had given him for his birthday, which also gave him the opportunity to show off his workshop to yet another person. He enjoyed surprising people with his powers and inventions, it was like they were validating the effort he put into his projects.
Once at the lake he carefully lowered the boat into the water and then activated the mithril, after he had finished building the boat he had started improving it with a mix of runes and mithril. For a start he had made the hull completely waterproof and a rune on the sails controlled how fast the boat would go.
Finally he used his mithril to remotely control the boat. His training with Snape had taught him to split his consciousness between his physical body and mithril, so while he talked to Tonks he could also test how the boat acted on the open water.
"That's the boat Dumbledore got you right? It looks good." Tonks said kindly
"Thanks, but could you cast a reducto at it please?"
"You sure" She asked hesitantly
"Yeah, it should be able to absorb the spell… but if it doesn't I can make a new one easily enough."
With that Tonks took aim and fired the blasting curse, it skimmed across the water and even without his magesight Harry could see it was losing power. But Tonks' aim was true and it splashed against the boat's hull, but rather than destroy the tiny boat a green shield briefly appeared.
Glad that his runes had worked, Harry drew more of his consciousness out of the boat and let it drift in the waves. With one of his questions answered he now wanted to check another project.
"Tonks, would you mind just randomly changing your body for a bit?" She gave him a weird look at that, but having grown used to his somewhat odd requests she did as asked.
Every time she changed her core would send out a faint pulse of magic throughout her body, when he had first met her Harry had noticed the structure of her magical signature changing. Now he could see what made the change possible.
The magical signature which made up her body acted independently of her magic, the reason he couldn't change his own body at will was because his magical core couldn't change its own structure. But Tonks' core and signature were two separate entities, the magic existed just under the surface of her signature.
But just because he couldn't change his own signature didn't mean his mithril couldn't. His 'mutatio' watch, literally changing watch, currently just applied a disguise over him, so anyone looking at his signature would easily see through it.
It would be almost impossible for somebody else dispelling his disguise, but once somebody had seen through it the jig was up regardless. Snape had given him an idea on how to improve his mithril when they had started exploring the limitations of his mithril when combined with external magic.
"It is imperative you don't imbue your blood into this mithril, as we don't currently know what your mithril is capable of. Your blood may lead to your mithril trying to copy you and assume your identity." Personally Harry thought Snape was overreacting but he had kept his promise, but he had never promised to not imbue somebody else's magic.
They assumed combining blood with the mithril would produce a sympathetic bond between blood donor and mithril, so if his blood combined with his magic there would be nothing to distinguish himself from the metal. But if Tonks imbued her blood within the mithril, he hoped his mithril would copy the metamorph ability without establishing a bond.
But without the mithraite his dreams would never become reality.
Tonks was more than happy to talk to Harry about her ability, having spent most of the summer with him she felt a connection to him. Just like Harry the students of Hogwarts would regularly turn on her, of course unlike Harry she wasn't a super genius so had nothing to distract her from being hated.
She had started treating the boy like a younger brother, a younger brother that seemed to effortless cast magic beyond even her level without breaking a sweat and treated the Headmaster like an equal. Being around Harry was extremely refreshing as he just accepted her for who she was, rather than who she could be.
Whenever he talked about his projects she would get lost within moments, but as he seemed to enjoy explaining stuff to her she saw no reason to stop him. When he had satisfied whatever he wanted to know about her ability they started down to Hogsmeade, he fiddled with his watch and soon had sandy blonde hair and slightly taller.
Tonks was shocked to admit he was now just smaller than her current form, only then did she realise that Harry wasn't a metamorphmagus.
"How did you do that?"
"Well, it's my attempt at copying your power. It's not very good at the moment since it gives off a lot of magic to those that can see magic, but for a casual glance it works well enough. It still has a lot of work to go."
Shaking her head she followed slightly behind him, as they moved she would casually look around while keeping an eye out for any dangers. Luckily she saw nothing of note, except for a large black dog in the shade of the trees. Due to the size of the dog she regarded it carefully but it didn't seem to care about them.
Once in Hogsmeade village Harry did some cursory window shopping but didn't buy anything, as she had brought her presents a while ago she didn't need to enter either. Soon they ended up at the train station, having never arrived at the platform early before, Tonks was surprised that the Express hadn't arrived yet.
Harry happily sat on the edge of the platform and swung his legs back and forth, as he gazed intently at the rails. Tonks decided to join him and after spreading her awareness as Moody had taught her, laid back and gazed at the clouds.
Sirius had been keeping track of the newspapers but there had been no further mention of Voldemort, in fact him breaking out seemed to be the most important headline for months. As there was no obvious danger to Harry he decided to take his time and plan, to protect Harry he would first need to clear his name.
The problem was providing proof, so far his easiest plan was to convince Moony of his innocence and then together they would track down the rat. That was until he learned Moony was in Hogwarts, he couldn't just waltz into the school after all.
Which was why he was waiting outside the gates, hoping he could somehow talk to Moony. Another part of him was also hoping he would get to see Harry for the first time in a decade. He had checked the Dursleys, but there was no sign of him living with them and with Frank and Alice in St Mungos he didn't know who Harry would've gone to.
He had been suspicious of the girl and boy who had come through the gates early, but neither looked like James or Lily so he didn't bother giving them a second glance. Soon the students started flooding out of the gates but none of them looked like how he imagined Harry either, although he did see Moony which got him wagging his tail.
Then he noticed a red headed boy walking next to who must've been Frank's son, there was nothing extraordinary about them but as they were some of the last students to leave he found himself watching them. The red head was showing the other boy a frail looking rat. A part of Sirius thought he recognised the pet, but put it out of mind for the time being, he was too excited at the thought of talking to his long lost friend to worry about students and their pets.
This chapter was kind of rushed, I wanted to write about the changing of the wards but I didn't think I would have time to write it, polish it and upload it so cut it out for next chapter. But I am going to be quite busy this week so I'm not sure how much writing I'm going to get done, so my question is what do you guys prefer: Weekly chapters of various lengths or long chapters roughly once a week (As in between 7 - 10 days)?