During their next lesson with Moody, he had announced he was going to cast the imperius on each of them. Instantly several of his classmates had started complaining and tried to tell the professor it was illegal. Unsurprisingly Moody had brushed aside their complaints, citing Dumbledore wanted them to know what it felt like.

Harry wanted to say that Moody was lying, that he was using the excuse to satisfy his paranoia and push his students as far as possible. Unfortunately he could also see Dumbledore using Moody to prepare the students to resist the imperius, then claiming plausible deniability if the ministry got involved.

Lining up, Harry got to watch as each of his classmates were bent to Moody's will, none of them strong enough to throw off the curse. Despite the situation, he was fascinated as he got to watch the curse envelope Ernie, who seemed to breathe in the magic. The magic oozed into Ernie's head, where it quickly vanished beneath Ernie's dull orange magic.

Even when Moody lifted the curse and Ernie stopped pirouetting, Harry couldn't tell if the magic was still there, lingering under the surface. When it was his turn, he had barely a moment to see the magic race towards him, finally revealing Moody's coffee brown signature, before his mithrilium rose up to defend his mind.

Except, rather than repel the attack like it had done with the legilimency curse, the imperius seemed to burn right through the mithrilium, sending a burning pain straight into Harry's mind. As he was blinded by pain he felt the curse leak through his previously impenetrable defences and settled over his mind.

It was like somebody had taken the effects of firewhiskey and dialled it up to a hundred. He wanted nothing more than to obey the soft voice that was instructing him to turn his wand on his classmates and begin casting. The part of his mind which was favoured by his mithrilium was rebelling against the curse, while shoring up whatever control it had left.

The other side was under the full domination of the curse, which was trying to both obey the commands and take over the rest of his mind. The result was a huge headache, which prevented him from fighting or following the curse. All he was able to do was slowly chip away at Moody's magic within his mind, gradually expanding his control.

Eventually he was able to gain enough ground that he was able to safely split his focus, allowing him to attack from multiple angles. It was like when he had been fighting the basilisk's deadly stare, except this time his defences had been incapable of withstanding the initial attack. In terms of power, the basilisk easily won, however it was far harder to force Moody's relatively weaker magic out of the insides of his mind.

With one final mental shrug he was able to destroy the last of Moody's magic, completely freeing his mind from the curse's control.

"Now, that's more like it! It may have taken him five minutes to do it, but he not only fought it, he won! Come back tomorrow after your final lesson and we can work on lowering the time it takes to fight it, if I have any say in it you'll be able to throw off the curse the moment it's applied!"

"Potter, a word." Moody growled as the class was let out. "I noticed you reacted badly to the imperius and wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Yeah, it seems like when the imperius encountered my mental defences, they rather violently tore through them. Now that I know what to expect I'm hoping it won't be so bad."

"Good lad, we'll be working on the imperius for a while, so you'll have plenty of time to work on it. Take this as a lesson on what happens when you rely on shortcuts. Take my enchanted eye for example; it effortlessly allows me to detect threats, but I still keep my awareness with my natural awareness just in case. Constant Vigilance!"

"Dear Harry,

It has been officially confirmed that I will be one of the students within the Beauxbatons delegation, so I'll look forward to us meeting again! Perhaps you could give me a tour of your Hogwarts? It occurred to me that we know very little about each other. For instance, I'm in my final year at Beauxbatons. I'm the top of my class, especially when it comes to charms, veterinarian studies and duelling.

My grandfather says that my spoken English is 'Passable', which is high praise from him. Of course, he's been able to speak English fluently for longer than my papa's been alive, so I am hoping I am more than just passable. Fortunately, my written English is much better, even if I still get confused. Plus the use of translation charms means I can read your letters as if they were written in French.

What year are you in? I took you to be around my age, although it has occurred to me you could be younger. In that vein, at the risk of sounding impolite, I don't even know your surname. Perhaps you could tell me a bit about yourself?

- Fleur Delacour."

"Dear Fleur,

That's great to hear, I shall await your arrival. I would love to give you a tour, Hogwarts is a second home for me. You are correct in that I am younger than you, my 14th birthday was a month before the World Cup. As such I am in my fourth year at Hogwarts. I am also at the top of my year, although my best subjects are Transfiguration, Potions and Runes.

As for my surname, I must first admit to a bit of deception. You see, when we first met I was under a disguise. You see, my full name is Harry Potter, which makes it very hard to go somewhere without people noticing and trying to get my attention. When you get here I can prove my identity should you wish it, I just hope you can understand why I wanted to keep a low profile.

- Your friend, Harry Potter."

Upon entering Harry's workshop, Bathsheda was mildly surprised to see Harry standing in the testing environment. The testing environment was a plain hexagonal room connected to the main room by a simple arch, with an iridescent mithril ward protecting the entire room. After several failed projects, Harry had created the environment to safely test his projects without risking the other projects or people within the workshop.

The ward stopped any magic escaping or entering the room, along with stopping any object with a velocity higher than the allowance. This meant in an emergency Harry could leave the room without any resistance, while dangerous shrapnel would be contained. The ward also gave off a specific magical frequency, which allowed Harry to program any experimental mithril to self-destruct if they crossed the boundary.

Inside the room, Harry stood close to the archway, gauntlet raised and staring intently at a floating sword. Jerkily, the sword began to swing around, attacking invisible targets. To Bathsheda's eyes, the sword movements looked stilted. She let him go through a few more moves before interrupting.

"What's with the sword?"

"Oh, hi. It's an idea I had, where I try and mentally control the sword from as far away. I could then enchant it to fight for me. It's one of the few things I'd do to improve the sword of Gryffindor if I still had it."

"I'm assuming it has an intangible tether, which you use to modify the sword?" she asked

"Yup, the only problem is I have to be exact on what I want it to do, hence the jerkiness. That's with it linked to the gauntlet too, without the gauntlet it's basically impossible to move it around through a tether.

If I had some mithraite I'd be able to add a crystal in a controller and in the sword itself, which I'm hoping will let me move the sword on intent alone. If I can get this to work, then I could create something to get the soul gem to work… without freezing the user to death."

"So what, you'd hold the controller and the sword would fly around attacking people?"

"I mean, technically there could be more than one sword. I could have a dozen all flying around me. But I was planning on incorporating the controller into my suit of armour, although given it currently needs skin contact to work it would be a pain to get it to work."

The suit of armour he was referring to was still standing by the shelf, although Luna had started sketching an intricate pattern along the breastplate.

"However I'm thinking in order to get the intent right, I'm going to have to blood-bind it to me." Harry added casually.

"What? No, absolutely not! We agreed you wouldn't imbue your blood into your mithril. We have no idea what could happen."

"Exactly. I'm assuming it will form a sympathetic bond between myself and the metal, which will let me modify the mithril as if it was mithrilium. That would give me way more control.

"Yes and what happens if somebody takes that mithril and breaks it? There is a reason why sympathetic magic is illegal. What happens if you try to change the mithril and it tries to apply the same change onto you?"

"All very good questions… If I could create a one way sympathetic bond, then I'd be able to manipulate the mithril, but the mithril wouldn't be able to affect me."

Sighing, Bathsheda asked "And how are you going to do that? Without testing it on yourself I might add."

"Err, I could try it on a mouse or something? I won't know till I get to try it. If it helps, I'm fairly sure the goblins' blood-bind their artifacts, which explains why they are so upset whenever wizards don't return them."

"What do you mean, why would that upset the goblins?"

"Because if their mithrilium contains their blood and magic then even if their physical body dies, it would be nearly impossible for their soul to actually move on."

"And you want to make one yourself?" She exclaimed.

"Well I'm already immortal, so I don't think my soul is capable of being trapped. Anyway, unlike my mithril, they can't modify their metal once it's set, which is why they wouldn't be able to free themselves. If my soul did get trapped I could just possess the mithril and make it release me."

As Halloween neared, a notice went up informing the students the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations would arrive on the 30th October, which was only a week away. During that week, Harry stayed within his workshop as much as possible, in a futile attempt at avoiding the near constant Triwizard Tournament gossip. During their group session, Harry had gotten very close to throwing Ron and Draco out of the room when they had began arguing over who the Hogwarts champion should be.

"Now, if you are quite finished, I believe Daphne wanted to prove she could last more than a minute against me?"

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why you seem to dislike the tournament so much." Ron interrupted.

"Look, I've seen enough people die at the hands of dangerous creatures in this school, alright? Besides, people keep asking me if I'm going to compete and it's getting extremely annoying."

"I mean, you could probably win. You're easily the best in our year and probably the year above too." Ron said encouragingly.

"Well, we'll never know, because I have no intention of deliberately endangering myself simply to appease other students. I don't have anything to spend the galleons on, the glory clearly isn't eternal given nobody knows who the last winner was and it would cut into my research time."

"But a thousand galleons!" Ron whined.

"Weasley, the Potter family makes around 1,000 galleons per year in interest alone. Harry doesn't need to risk his life to make that money." Daphne cut in, clearly irritated, "Now Harry, you promised me a duel and I don't want you to hold back."

Standing back in the duelling ring, Harry looked across at Daphne as Ron counted down. The moment Ron went "Begin!" Harry began sending a scattering of stunning spells at Daphne. Each spell was overpowered, draining a huge amount of power out of him.

On the other side of the ring, Daphne's eyes widened as the spells flew towards her, valiantly raising her best shield. The very first stunning spell struck the shield dead centre, shattering it instantly and clipping her arm. The shield weakened the spell enough that she only went drowsy instead of unconscious, until the third curse struck her in the face. Two more spells hit her as she fell, with the rest hitting the ring's shield behind her.

"And after five seconds, Harry wins." Ron announced, sounding unimpressed with the result.

"What… what was that?" Daphne asked slowly after Luna woke her up.

"That was Harry, not holding back." Neville replied gleefully.

"But, it broke my shield?" she groaned, talking slow enough that Luna decided to strike her with another rennervate.

"Yup and it was still strong enough to make you stumble, before you were struck by the second stunner. Trust me, compared to a hundred dementors, you aren't anything." Ron explained.

"Just how powerful are you, Harry?" Daphne demanded, staring at Harry in shock.

"My actual magical core is not quite as strong as Dumbledore's, however I have several advantages that means my magic recovers quicker than normal. I'm probably one of the strongest students though."

"I don't suppose there's a way for us to get that strong?" Draco asked hopefully.

"Ehh, there are a few ways. The best way would be to simply exercise your magic more, such as casting several powerful spells per day. That will encourage your magic to regenerate quicker. Another way is to make your body healthier, such as eating properly and physically exercising. That will decrease how much magic your body has to spend to keep you healthy."

"What does that mean?" Crabbe spoke up from beside Draco, giving off an air of shyness.

"Basically, your magic wants your body to stay at peak performance. As such, it will actively try and keep you healthy. That's why we live so long and don't suffer from Muggle diseases, since even at 100 our bodies will almost always be healthier than the majority of Muggles. However, the magic being used to keep you healthy is magic you can't use.

"For instance, Dumbledore tries his best to eat healthy and stays in shape, so he has the least amount of magic being lost. Then you have his younger brother who was stronger than Dumbledore in school, but because he is nowhere near as healthy, Dumbledore's magic surpassed him decades ago. Stronger body equals stronger magic, which will also mean a longer life."

"Is that why aurors always seem so powerful?" Neville questioned.

"Precisely. Of course, the older you get, the stronger you become. Over your lifetime, you get a few dramatic boosts to your core, mainly around the ages of 8, 11, 15 and finally at 17. However, outside of a medical condition, your core is going to constantly grow. However, if you become unhealthy, then your body is going to use up the magic as it grows. Then, once you use your magic quicker than it grows, you start to die."

"Oh… so somebody who exercises will live longer than somebody who doesn't?" Daphne asked, seemingly lost in thought.

"Basically, yeah. That's sort of why every recorded Thaumaturgist has lived for at least 100 years, unless they were murdered or some such. Because even if their body is being supported entirely by magic, where it would otherwise have given up decades ago, they normally have more than enough magic to burn."

"What's a 'forma-tergist'?" Ron asked.

"'Thaumaturgist', commonly called Mages. It means somebody with a significant amount of power. I'm not sure how they're determined, but I know the Headmaster and you-know-who were both Thaumaturgists. In fact, I'm fairly sure in order to go from a dark witch or wizard to a Dark Lady or Lord you need to be strong enough to be a Mage." Daphne explained.

"It's basically determined by seeing how spells it takes to exhaust your core, then divide the number by your age. Then, if you can multiply that number by 3 and get a number higher than one you get to call yourself a Thaumaturgist." Harry added, having been told the procedure by Nicholas.

"What spell? And where do you rank?" Ron asked excitedly.

Sighing, Harry decided it would be best to answer honestly, seeing as the information would be publicly available anyway. "The spell is the Undetectable Extension Charm, since it always takes the same power to create and the inner size can easily be measured. We guessed I could hypothetically probably cast around 6 before I needed to recover, which would give me a score of 1.29 on the scale. Dumbledore can get 46 charms at last count, meaning he has a score of 1.23. Voldemort was measured at around 1.46, but he's never actually sat down to take the test."

Nicholas had taken the test and while he could cast the charm 97 times, due to his age he only got a 0.47.

"So, you're stronger than Dumbledore?" Draco questioned eagerly, with a hungry gleam in his eye.

"No, even with my advantages he is still stronger than me, however if I were to instantly age a hundred years while retaining my current health, then I'd be the stronger wizard. But, currently I will probably never get naturally stronger than Dumbledore while he's alive, because we will both be gaining power at roughly the same time. We'd both need to live for hundreds of years before the distance starts to decrease."

"How many times do you think we could cast this Expansion charm?" Ron asked.

"Individually? On power alone Neville might get one finished before running out of energy. However you have to keep in mind the charm needs knowledge and a huge amount of control. I can't actually cast it since I lack the precision and understanding required. If you were interested, Merlin is supposed to have had a score around 2.10, which nobody in recorded history has gotten close to."

"So what, you're like the next Merlin?" Harry noticed Ron had a touch of jealousy in his voice as he said that, something that he hadn't heard since their first year.

"No, although I guess I'd have a better chance at being Merlin. No, this test is just to find the one or two wizards born every few decades with an extraordinarily large core. To be the next Merlin you'd need to be a Mage and be an Elder, which you only get awarded if you either create a whole new magical subject or significantly improve a pre-existing subject.

"For instance, both Grindelwald and Voldemort rank as a Mage, but only Voldemort was able to significantly improve a pre-existing subject, in this case the dark arts. Then you have people like Nicholas Flamel, who has done enough to be considered an Elder three times over, but he is only a 0.47. Dumbledore is both a Thaumaturgist and an Elder.

"Now, most Elders naturally develop a large magical core, for two reasons: The first is that in order to sufficiently study a field, you end up having to be able to cast numerous powerful spells. As I already said, that encourages your core to start to regenerate faster and as a result it will grow slightly. The second reason is because as your understanding of magic increases, simply doing magic becomes easier."

"So basically, you're telling us to study more and exercise?" Ron moaned, looking downcast.

"Yup!"

The day before the delegations were to arrive, Harry and Luna were sitting by the lake, with two miniature ships in front of them. Harry was using his HMS Warrior model, which he had recently finished retrofitting with numerous mithril upgrades. Luna meanwhile was using the RCWS Mami Wata model; there had been very few Republic of Caribbean Wizardry Ships, with Mami Wata being the flagship of the time.

Being a fully magical ship, Harry had very little to upgrade, with his mithril easily copying most of the magical effects. During its heyday, the Mami Wata was over twice as fast as a Muggle ship of equal size. It was also capable of reaching that speed regardless of wind speed or direction, allowing it to make laps around the Muggle ships.

Even after the Statute of Secrecy was enacted, the Republic refused to withdraw the Mami Wata, giving rise to several ghost ship tales whenever it was spotted by passing Muggles. The ship primarily helped protect cargo ships from both pirates and sea creatures, allowing them to deliver their resources to the Republic's islands.

Then, unnoticed by the Republic, the Muggle's iron-clad steamships began popping up around the Caribbean. It then wasn't long until the Mami Wata was fired upon by one such iron-clad, having assumed the Magical ship was an enemy. Their long range magical attacks had been absorbed by the iron plating, while the ship's long range guns had no trouble penetrating the Mami Wata's wooden hull.

Of course, Harry's model ships were nowhere near as strong as their real life counterparts, even when scaled up to the correct size. For a start, what few weaponry the Mami Wata possessed were all magical in nature, having depended primarily on its crew and their magical staves. After the crew, the primary ship's weapon was its hull, which originally had been enchanted and runed to be durable and sharp.

At top speed, the Mami Wata could ram right through another ship, without taking any noticeable damage. This had been easy enough to recreate with his own runes and mithril bracing. The other notable offensive weapon was its twin ballista's on the foredeck, which used conjured bolts.

The Warrior had been easier, given its weapons all purely Muggle. The model's guns used mithril to conjure tiny pea sized balls of metal, which were then propelled by banishment runes. He had even been able to transmute the model's plastic hull into a cast-iron hull, giving it the same defences. He could've used his mithril to form the hull for both ships, however he wanted these particular ships to be authentic.

In order to control her ship, Luna had a small box with several buttons, each of which were connected to the Mami Wata via individual insubstantial mithril wires. He had recently learned that when he made his mithril insubstantial, he was actually cutting it off from their material plane.

Luna had happened to explain that there were two planes of reality involved, the material plane and the astral. In theory, they were two completely different planes, with completely different laws of physics. However, magic was able to permeate into both realities, providing small links between them.

If the magic was allowed to condense enough in or around a structure, then that structure would leave an imprint onto the linked reality. This was apparently how ghosts were able to fly through most material objects while still having a limited effect when affected by magic. Apparition then worked by sending the witch or wizard into the astral plane, sending them to their destination then transferring them back into the material plane, leaving them unaffected by physical barriers.

However, because they were created entirely by magic, Harry's mithril existed within every reality, which is why they could affect both the flow of magic and the permeability of spirits. When Harry made his mithril insubstantial, he was subconsciously removing his mithril from the material plane, while leaving it within the astral.

At first he had been alarmed when he had been told that his mithril acted like a beacon to anything within the astral plane, until Luna had told him that his magical core alone was already enough of a beacon to attract attention. He was then relieved when she followed that up by saying pretty much every astral being had better things to do than mess with beings in the material plane, aside from a few minor spirits like poltergeists or pixies.

Unfortunately for Luna, all her remote control could do was move the ship and fire the forward facing ballista. Due to the fact he was possessing the Warrior, he was capable of full movement, minimal gun rotation and even choosing which guns to fire. He had placed a large block of mithril on the captain's bridge, through which everything was connected using physical mithril wires.

While his insubstantial wires were easier to use, he was slightly scared of using anything insubstantial while possessing his mithril. His official reason however was that he wanted to avoid the slight delay between the material and astral mithril, which was admittedly a fairly big issue during combat. Regardless, the physical wires worked a treat, as while possessing the helm it was as if the ship was his body. He could raise or lower the sails as easily as he would raise or lower his leg, or aim the guns as if they were his fingers.

Therefore, because of how inferior Luna's ship was, they had decided to play a game of ship Bulldog. Harry's ship was located in roughly the center of the lake, while Luna's remained by the shore, Luna would then have to race past him and make it to the other shore without sinking.

To further increase the fairness, Luna's ballista's were enchanted to easily pierce Harry's hull. Then the range of Harry's guns had been scaled down to an accurate distance relative to the model, going from the actual HMS Warrior's 3500 metre range to a 3.5 metre range.

Just as the game began, Harry received a ping from the suit of armour guarding the staircase at the bottom of his workshop. Leaving it be for now, Harry moved his ship to intercept Luna's ship, sending up a whoosh of spray as the propellers were kicked into gear. Regrettably, with the telescopic funnels at their lowest position, the steam from the boilers started being blown into Harry's vision.

The soft breeze that ran over the lake was in Luna's favour, meaning Harry had to depend entirely upon steam power, while she merily skipped over the waves. Just as he was closing into weapon range, Luna suddenly veered off to port. This brought her slightly closer to Harry, even if it meant he now had to turn around if he wanted to give chase.

While the Mami Wata had a very responsive turning circle, the Warrior had suffered from a poor turning circle. Frustrated at falling for such an obvious trap, Harry fired two of his guns, which just barely fell short. As he finished his turn, he chuckled as he realised Luna had made a mistake. While he was moving away from the centre of the lake he had been going into the wind, but now that he was chasing her, he had the wind behind him.

Opening his sails to full, he sped off after Luna, trying desperately to catch her before she could make it to the other side. Firing his bow chasers, he was able to clip Luna's rudder, drastically reducing her control. However, given the race was in a straight line, what little control she retained would be enough to let her cross the finishing line.

Just as he was closing into the broadside firing range, the breeze blowing across the lake decided to change direction. This forced Harry back onto relying on his overworked boilers, while Luna's enchanted sails generated their own localised wind speed. No matter which direction Luna' ship faced, she would always have sails full of wind.

Desperately, Harry spun to starboard and opened fire with his guns, gambling on one good hit before she escaped his reach. Most of the cannonballs merely bounced off the reinforced hull, although one lucky shot got a direct hit on the central mast. Where multiple shots struck close together, they often had enough combined energy to overpower the hull's enchantments. In most cases this simply dented the wood, although Harry did notice one ball lodged within the hull.

While she didn't immediately slow down, Harry wanted to believe he could see her losing speed. Her sails definitely seemed more strained, as if it had become harder to move the ship through the water. Pulling about, Harry continued the chase, hoping he could decrease the distance.

As the shore grew larger, Harry was able to close the gap enough to have his bow chasers pierce the stern of Luna's ship, leaving a fairly large hole and no doubt causing damage within the ship. This time the drop in speed was immediately noticeable, even if it was clear Luna would reach the shore before Harry would have time to catch her.

On the deck, Harry could see Luna aiming her ballista, before two bolts tore through his sails. Giving a soft growl, Harry judged the distance between the two ships was close enough, prompting him to pull to port and open fire with his broadside. Unlike the previous onslaught, Harry didn't plan to let up until Luna had either sunk or had reached the other shore.

After each barrage Luna's hull took more damage, causing it to sit lower in the water. By the time she cut into the sand and came to a halt the water was almost reaching the upper deck, unfortunately that still counted as reaching the other side.

So, one of my favourite fanfictions, The Mind Arts by Wu Gang got updated the other day, so I'd strongly suggest checking it out and sending them some love.

Things I think need explaining:

- Mami Wata is a Caribbean and African water spirit, so I felt it was fitting to have their flagship named after it. As for the ship itself, I was imagining a ship similar to HMS Victory, with a few differences, since the wizard's would probably just copy the current Muggle ship design instead of inventing their own.

- Also, for anyone unaware, Bulldog is a game we played in England where you have a bunch of kids on one side of a field with 2 or 3 in the middle called bulldogs, then the bulldogs need to tag the kids before they can reach the other side. Basically a more violent version of It (Or tag)