While a muggle ship may need an entire crew to sail, a magical ship could be enchanted to handle everything all by itself. As such Xeno was able to sail the boat all by himself, despite this he clearly knew his way around the boat, he even showed Harry how to steer the boat.
That night they had dinner on the deck and Xeno happily pointed out star constellations, Harry had never heard the names he gave but it was fun nonetheless and found he enjoyed life out at sea. Tonks didn't agree with him, the constant rocking of the boat along with the sea air was getting to her, meaning she spent most of her time inside the cabin.
Tonks did help Harry and Luna with their transfiguration homework and even taught them some useful tricks to get better results, it turned out that doing self transfiguration practically every day made it easy to achieve an O+ for the NEWT exam. She also taught them some basic auror shields that would block most attacks, Harry was proud to say he had already known about most of them as he had used them in his mithril shield.
However he felt it made sense to learn how to successfully cast them by himself as he wouldn't always have his mithril on hand, if somebody attacked him right now he only had his gauntlet to save him. When he wasn't training with Tonks or chatting with Luna and Xeno he was reading a fascinating book Xeno had given him at the start of their trip.
It was the life story of a wizard called Harold Black who had lived centuries ago, he had been born blind but had the ability to see magic. It sounded exactly like Harry's mage sight except much stronger, Harold Black had used his ability to practically rewrite the way transfiguration was taught. But that wasn't why Xeno had suggested it.
Harold Black had inherited an invisibility cloak from his father and had been famous for his own personal symbol, a triangle with a circle and line. The exact same symbol that would later be adopted as the symbol of the Deathly Hallows and later by Grindlewald.
The story goes that he had been the target of an assassination, the explosion had been set off right next to him and had reduced most of Diagon Alley to rubble. When the dust had settled Harold had stood there, completely untouched. He had then walked down the street saying the names of the dying and the wounded, for each name he said he would spin his ring three times and the person would rise again.
It was a miracle of magic which had never been seen again. It seemed to be one of the few mentions of the Resurrection Stone, as while the ring was never named it matched the Three Brothers tale. That his cloak matched Harry's cloak also helped them believe it was accurate.
"Do you know if Harold ever got the wand?" Harry asked Xeno
"Legend never tells us but I would think not, we know he passed the Cloak onto his daughter who later married into the Potter line. But the Stone remains a mystery, they say it was buried with him in Hangleton. Unfortunately I was unable to find his grave, which may mean he wasn't buried there… or was buried under a different name."
"I assume… he is actually dead? Like if he had the Cloak and Stone maybe was made immortal?" Harry asked hesitantly
"If so I suspect it would require the pair to do so, the Cloak to protect about physical damage while the Stone protects from amortal ailments, such as age and decay. As you clearly have the Cloak in your possession unless Harold found the Wand I don't see how he could still be alive so many years later." Xeno said dismissively.
After several days of sailing they came across their first magical island, there were two easy ways to identify a magical island: The first clue were the powerful wards that needed to be passed to even see the island, the second were the giant towers that looked over the entire island and maintained the wards.
The wards only repelled the muggles and stopped the islands being found but even then the drain on the wards was incredible, these wards often went far underwater and it was a well known that salt water was corrosive to wards.
This was why the towers had been built, their main purpose was to power the wards by drawing in as much natural magic as possible and channeling it into the wards. This had the side effect of weakening the magic of everything else on the island, including witches and wizards.
As they sailed closer to the island and its tower Harry could feel his magic slowly slipping away. his mithril ring was also being affected and Harry noted with some concern it had began to grow cold, the Philosophers Stone had also lost its bright red colouration and had become a dull orange.
The only thing stopping Harry panicking and trying to get away as fast as possible was Nicolas' assurance, the alchemist had helped set up some of the towers and knew from experience that the Stone would go back to normal after leaving the range of the tower. Harry grinned when he imagined the tower workers trying to work out why they had suddenly gotten a spike in magic.
When they reached the harbour Xeno tapped his wand on a knot of wood near the ship's wheel, which sent ropes flying and moored the boat to the nearest jetty. Tonks was one of the first off the ship under the pretense of "making sure the ropes were done properly", Harry and Luna then joined her on the jetty as Xeno made sure everything was locked up.
Most locking charms and runes would be drained or weakened of course but at the same time any lock picking charm would be equally weakened. As it was their boat had been made with the magical islands in mind so the doors had muggle locks alongside magical ones.
Xeno and Luna then led them through the small town until they reached a hut that overlooked the harbour, it was obvious both had been here before as they had hardly hesitated the entire journey. After knocking Xeno opened the door and led their party inside.
"Ah Xeno! So long has it been, sit sit." The owner of the voice reminded Harry strongly of Dumbledore in both age and the twinkling eyes, the old Jamaican man exuded the same sense of calm authority as the headmaster. The room itself was bare apart from a desk that had been made to look like a ship and several muggle filing cabinets that looked like they had seen better days.
"Greetings Vin, you of course know my daughter Luna and this is her friend Harry Potter and his guardian Nymphadora Tonks. Everyone, this is Vincent Talin, the Map Master for the area and an expert in marine zoology."
Harry was pleased to see Vin didn't seem to recognise his name, as Voldemort had never affected the Republic of Caribbean Wizardry his defeat and thus the name of Harry Potter had never reached its shores. The fact Vin was a Map Master was a surprise to him however, being a map master meant that in the early days of the Republic one of his ancestors had sailed around as much of the Caribbean as they could and mapped as much as they could see.
They had then made each area unplottable so anyone that wanted a map of the area had to visit the map master, any map they gave out would also be impossible to copy and would destroy itself after a certain amount of time had passed. As the Map Masters made sure their government profited from their activities nothing could be done about them.
"So tell me Xeno, what brings you to my shores? I never did find those Snorkacks and if they exist they don't live here." Vin said happily, his accent wasn't as strong as it had been when they had entered making Harry believe he used it to impress visitors.
"Oh we aren't looking for Snorkacks this time, I thought we might try and track down the mermaids." Xeno seemed to take some delight from the shocked look on Vin's face at this, the man then smirked and started rummaging through his filing cabinets. Expansion charms had obviously been used as Vin stuck his entire arm inside one cabinet, he returned with a file marked 'mermaids and other humanoid water spirits'.
He then threw the file onto the desk which creaked ominously and pushed it over to Xeno
"We been studying these creatures for as long as I can remember and all we know can fit inside a single folder." Vin said regretfully
Xeno drew out a detailed drawing of what Harry considered at first a typical mermaid, half woman, half fish. Harry noticed her eyes were distinctly bigger than a humans and she didn't seem to have any eyelids, her iris also filled the eye socket meaning her entire eye was a brilliant blue. The eye sockets themselves were slightly higher up her head so that when she could see forward while swimming.
Her hands had webbing going up the knuckles, there were also small fins jutting from her forearms. Her nose was almost completely flat with only two small slits and her neck had two pouches that could've been gills, although the annotation indicated they were actually air sacks.
"What we do know about them is that they prefer the deep sea, you may be lucky to catch them surfacing for air as from what we can tell they don't have gills. From what we can tell their magic slows down cell decay and can take in a small amount of oxygen by swimming, so they can often last several weeks on a single breath." It was obvious Vin knew what he was talking about and he became more animated the longer he talked.
"They be omnivores like us so their diet consists of both flora and fauna, so be careful when you approach them. While we've never caught them eating a human there's nothing to say they won't. Unlike their whale brethren their natural magic allows them to survive on land too, so don't be tricked into thinking you're safe cause you're not in the water."
"If we do need to flee from a mermaid what would you suggest?" Tonks said, as an auror it was her job to not only predict possible attacks but to ensure there was a way to escape.
"If you were attacked? Flee to the sky or somewhere dense like a forest, they can't follow you to the sky directly although they can jump bloody high. Underwater your best hope is to try and apparate away, I've never seen an animal move as fast as a mermaid, especially when they be hunting their prey."
Xeno and Vin then started talking about popular spots for finding mermaids and then they were off again, when they left the wards the island behind them disappeared instantly and Harry could feel his energy slowly recharging.
Theoretically the mermaids should be easy to find as the wards which kept muggles finding the islands would kill a mermaid, as such the Republic just kept a watch over areas the mermaids frequented and obliviated any muggle that saw something they shouldn't.
"Would your power allow you to turn into a mermaid Tonks?" Luna asked suddenly
"Erm… maybe, I've never tried before. It would probably use up a lot of energy to change, honestly I've never experimented too much with non-human features." Tonks said
"So you couldn't grow wings or extra limbs?" Harry asked sadly, one of the reason he had wanted to replicate Tonks' ability was because he liked the idea of having wings that were a part of him and not just artificial.
"I… don't know, I would need to study a bird's wings and then in order to grow them I would need to sacrifice material from elsewhere, such as my arms. On top of that extra limbs or wings aren't that useful in my line of work, we all carry brooms which would presumably be faster than wings anyway."
"Hmm, but what if you were able to make limbs without sacrificing something else, such as an alchemical matrix that would provide you the material as you need it?" Technically alchemy wasn't capable of doing something that advanced as the energy required would be immense, however both the Philosopher's Stone and mithril would solve that issue.
"If I had an infinite supply of material? Yeah I guess if I had that anything would be possible, but this is all theoretical right?" Tonks said doubtful
"Sure" Harry said easily, he didn't yet trust Tonks enough to reveal either the Stone or mithril but that wouldn't stop him trying to get Tonks to teach him how to become a metamorphmagus.
"Mermaid dead ahead" Xeno cried out cheerfully, Harry and Luna rushed to the side of the boat and looked over eagerly. Harry was disappointed to only see a dark shadow far below them but then the shadow started moving, Harry thought it only looked large because of the distance until it erupted out of the surface and flew over them.
The mermaid was easily as large as their boat and her tail would've put a blue whale to shame, Harry immediately understood what Vin had said about them jumping high. That single jump had sent the gigantic mermaid high enough to clear the mast and dive the other side of the boat.
Harry expected a huge splash but she cut into the water easily. Where a human shoulder came out almost at a 90 degree angle the mermaid's shoulder was streamlined at 45 degrees to lower the water resistance, up close it was obvious her skin was also much smoother than a humans and seemed to be coated in an oily substance.
Under the water she seemed to just disappear into the deeps, it was as if the light was absorbed rather than reflected meaning even just a few feet under the surface she became blended into the bottom of the ocean. From what Harry could see it looked like she swam like a dolphin and was easily going 40 knots.
Aside from the physical differences between a human and mermaid there were a few subtle differences. Her spine moved in a way that wasn't possible for a human to replicate and her hair seemed to direct the water around her like a muggle windscreen, even though Harry would swear he saw her hair move freely when she had surfaced.
"Look at the way they're swimming, they have a pack structure but every so often one will dart off and circle the congregation, possibly the protector looking for threats. As Vin said this is a popular mating spot for them as that lagoon over there allows them to hatch their young without worrying about predators attacking. You can actually see where the cove has been eroded by generations of merfolk using it, see." Xeno was in his element here, pointing out odd little details that Harry doubted he would've seen otherwise.
They anchored the ship some distance from the lagoon as they didn't want the mermaids to see them as a threat. They planned to spend the next day studying them up close and taking some pictures and would then see if they wanted to stay for a second day or move on to find another tribe of merfolk.
"So Harry, any theories on the mermaids?" Xeno asked
"Yeah Harry, I saw you how closely you looked at those mermaids." Tonks added, winking at Harry, for his part Harry didn't understand what Tonks was hinting at so decided to just ignore her.
"Well obviously they have a high store of magic. Their skin is so densely packed with magic that when I used my magesight I could hardly penetrate it, the magic seems to take the oxygen from the water and keep what remains away from their skin. Like a shield charm, but what is really cool is as there is less magic underwater they draw their energy from the water resistance, so the faster they move the more power they have and the longer they can last without breathing."
"And did you see inside her?" Xeno asked eagerly, he had written down everything Harry had come up with, as having just glanced at a mermaid Harry had almost doubled how much they knew about them. Mostly this was because nobody had been crazy enough to get close enough to a mermaid and those that had gotten close didn't have mage sight as strong as Harry's.
"Yeah, their lungs seem to have a natural form of expansion charms since the inside appears larger than the outside, the organs of the mermaid also have some sort of magical enhancement, possibly to let them cope with their huge bodies. Again when below water they draw their magic from moving, which indicates if they were to be trapped underwater and couldn't move they would last an hour max before dying."
"And above water?" Xeno asked, Luna and Tonks forgotten
"Well their magic could be drawn from the surroundings but I expect they would lose magic quicker than they gain. When underwater most of their magic goes to converting water to oxygen but above water the magic would need to compensate for the stronger gravity."
Lost track of the week again, luckily this time I noticed in time to get a chapter written on time. Harold Black is a thinly veiled reference to 'Blindness' by AngelaStarCat, it should be noted that I have only loosely based the story on Blindness mainly to avoid spoiling someone else's story. I strongly suggest you read Blindness as it is easily one of the top 10 fanfics I have ever read.
I feel I should also mention that Harry's motivation in this for the moment is mostly a desire to be like a wizard from his books, meaning anything that sounds 'cool' to him will be studied. As a 13 year old nobody really cares and those that should like Dumbledore are just happy to see him act like a kid.