During a moment of quiet Harry worked on his latest project, while he hadn't been able to import any extra mithril into the Caribbean that didn't mean he couldn't make more of it whilst there.
He currently had a mithril crow sitting on his arm, if he looked too closely it became blindingly obvious the bird was a fake. The feathers were completely flat and were smooth to the touch and if it caught the light properly it would appear reflective.
But that didn't matter to Harry, all he cared about was the fact his latest version of the crow worked. He still couldn't get it to find anyone based on their name alone but it could track signatures, Dumbledore had sent him a letter wishing him well but he had signed it with his mithril pen.
Harry had then been able to extract that magical signature and load it into the crow's memory. Deep inside the crows chest eight mithril pills were ready to store signatures, currently he had one for Luna, Xeno and now Dumbledore.
Something he had luckily seen in advance was that he couldn't get the crow to track his signature when it needed to return to him, this was due to his mithril making his signature scattered all over Britain. He got around this by tying a metaphysical tether between him and the bird that would be as long as needed.
When his crow needed to return to him it would just follow the tether home. As it worked differently to a normal post owl the crow couldn't be stopped by a mail catching ward or other such charms that were meant to stop owls.
As it had been programmed to give off a strong notice-not while in flight, Harry didn't see the point in making it behave like a real bird. If during its flight it ran into something in its way it would just turn itself metaphysical until it safely passed through. Since it was meant to fly high up in the atmosphere it was unlikely to run into anything mid-flight but it would still need to descend to deliver its cargo.
Harry then attached his letter to Dumbledore and sent the crow on its way. Unhampered by the complex systems which make up a real bird his crow never tired, never slept and never suffered. Theoretically Harry could also make and use different animals according to his needs.
His letter just summarized his time at Mermaid Lagoon, it had been fascinating to watch the mermaids in their natural habitat and how they used their magic. While they couldn't cast actual spells like a wizard or elf they could still exert their will on the world.
Having taken several pages worth of notes on their use of magic Harry felt he now understood why they were so hard to find. They gave off a very strong conditional notice-not, the condition was that you had to know they existed to see them. Before seeing the mermaids Harry had never considered conditional enchantments could be used like that.
He now wanted to try and break the third conditional charm on Dippet's book as he suspected Dumbledore had done exactly what the mermaids did. It also gave him several ideas on how to make his notice-nots stronger.
It also seemed like the mermaids had some mind control magic as they seemed able to talk to each other telepathically, Harry had also noticed that while hunting they would send out beams of magic which made their prey turn around and swim right into their open mouths.
The effects of this magic was eerily similar to the imperious curse, which led to Harry wondering if the curse had been made to mimic the mermaid's power. Considering the sirens were a close relative to the mermaids and were famous for using their power on humans it wasn't as if their power was unheard of.
Having grown bored of studying the mermaids they had decided to go back to Vin's island and sold the information they had collected. Vin had been so eager to get the information first he had paid them enough to pay for their holiday and a bit extra, he had also been delighted with Luna's painting. While Harry and Xeno had collected notes on the mermaids Luna had made a full colour painting.
As they left Vin's office he had been in the process of hanging the painting behind his desk. Any painting made by a witch or wizard would in turn become magical, often this just meant they would move around occasionally and only had low intelligence. To get a more complex painting like at Hogwarts it needed to be painted by a professional and then 'charged' by a powerful witch or wizard.
Luna had asked Harry to charge her painting and he had been happy to help, when he had finished the painting looked like a window into a mermaid enclosure rather than just an oil painting. Tonks even swore the painting had tried to flirt with her although she had been unable to prove it.
Since they only had a few days left in the Caribbean before they had to return home they decided to take the scenic route back to the republican ministry. It was during this trip home that they ran into a storm, they had been fortunate enough to have near perfect weather for their trip but it seemed their luck had run out.
As the rocking of the ship grew in intensity Tonks hurried into the cabin, thinking quickly Harry spread an umbrella of magic over their ship that would redirect most of the raindrops. Without his backup mithril he wouldn't be able to cast any other magic while maintaining the umbrella but that was a minor issue.
The rain became the least of Harry's worries when a huge tentacle rose out of the water, it was only the string of curses Xeno fired which stopped the tentacle crashing down on the deck. The tentacle slipped back into the waves but it did little to settle their nerves.
A huge shark head rose high on the other side of the boat, but where a shark would have a tail fin this creature had over a dozen tentacles. Despite the danger Harry found himself looking at the tentacles that seemed to be resting on the surface of the water, it was as if the water under the creature's tentacles had gone solid.
Tonks stumbled on deck just as Xenophilius shouted the creature's name "It's a Lusca! Aim for its eyes!" As if the creature had heard him, three tentacles rose and started falling onto the ship.
Xeno and Tonks started shooting at one of the tentacles which started to slow but that wasn't enough to stop the other two, thinking quickly Harry dropped his umbrella before twirled his wand anti-clockwise twice and then thrust towards the tentacles. An opaque green shield shimmered into existence between the boat and tentacles.
The shield had been enough to stop a charging yeti, unfortunately for the poor witch it hadn't been enough to stop Lockhart. The shield could only stop physical momentum but it did it well, when the tentacles struck the shield they stopped instantly.
Harry then felt the energy from the tentacles race down his shield straight towards him, rather than let it reach him he turned the energy into thermal energy and directed it at the lusca using his Philosopher's Stone as the catalyst.
With the reaction complete the shield disappeared and was replaced by super hot air, it was easy to see where the heat was as the air steamed around it and the two tentacles blistered painfully. Using the last of the kinetic energy Harry directed it to push the heat forwards, sending the wave of heat directly into the creature's face.
This sent the creature fleeing back into the water but also saw Harry collapse onto the deck, despite the Stone handling most of the energy both the shield and transfusion had cost Harry greatly. Tonks hurried over to Harry to make sure he was alright as Xeno got Luna, Harry was vaguely aware of the two shouting over the storm before he felt the lurch of apparition and fell unconscious.
Harry's crow was unaware of his masters plight, truthfully it wasn't aware of anything. All it knew was where it's target was and how to get there, but thanks to its 'adapt' ideology it could also correct itself should its target move as its maker had wanted. But this wasn't all the adapt ideology did, it also allowed the crow to adapt its own ideologies to best serve its master.
It had looked at its instruction to remain unnoticed and decided the best way to do this was to achieve this was to fly with other birds where possible, but when it had first tried to fly with other birds they had scattered.
After what passed as trial and error the crow decided the birds must recognise it was different, to solve this is started weaving together ideologies written in pure magical intent. By the time it was finished the other birds were incapable of seeing it as anything other than a real bird.
By then it had reached its target and dove steeply, the speed it was traveling at would've killed most birds but the mithril construct barely noticed. Just as it was about to plummet into the ground it extended its wings and performed a levitation charm on itself.
Dumbledore was sitting in his sitting room chatting with Horace, the man still planned on fleeing the country but he had wanted to make sure the ministry had started doing something before he left. Albus thought he had seen almost everything but he almost jumped out of his seat when a crow soared through the window.
Normally that wouldn't be unheard off except for the fact the window was closed and the bird had passed through as if it were a ghost.
"Good lord, what's that!" Slughorn demanded, clutching his chest and breathing deeply.
"I believe you'd call it a crow." Dumbledore said blandly, he had used his own form of magesight to identify the bird and had calmed considerably when he recognised Harry's signature. "It seems Harry has a message for me."
"That bird belongs to Harry? But thought he was in the Caribbean." Slughorn said amazed
"So it would seem" Albus read over Harry's letter quickly and couldn't help laughing, sometimes he wondered if the sorting hat had put Harry in the right house. The boy was often far too rash, such as running headlong into the chamber of secrets or experimenting with possibly dangerous magic.
But then he would show his Ravenclaw tendencies by doubling how much was known about a magical creature while on holiday, the hat must've seen the boy's curiosity and studious nature outweighed his recklessness. Dumbledore could easily see Harry taking his job as Headmaster in a few decades.
"Well while I'm glad to hear Harry is doing well can we get back to business Albus?" Slughorn asked cautiously
"Yes yes, where were we?"
"We were talking about what to do about Fudge, he has the potential to be a great minister but not while Lucius has his ear. We either have to remove Fudge or Lucius and I'm not sure who would be easier." Slughorn said adamantly
"But I fear that should we be too hasty we have find ourselves with somebody even worse"
"Good heavens Albus, if we don't act we'll definitely end up with someone worse anyway. You are in the perfect place to strike, spread the word to other countries and get their support, convince the wizengamot that any war would be bad for them. By merlin teach the children the difference between right and wrong, but don't just stay in your school and hope something happens!"
I see next chapter as Sirius breaking out of Azkaban and the summer holiday ending then Harry returning to Hogwarts, it's rather frustrating since I have so much planned for years 3 and 4 but I first have to get there.
As for why Sirius breaks out after Harry's birthday rather than before is because the Weasleys never went to Egypt in this timeline so never appeared on the paper, what did appear on the paper was Dumbledore saying Voldemort returned which would definitely see Sirius try to leave to protect Harry.