November 1990,

Harry looked at the fireball that sat in his hands as he looked at it in wonder. It was the near the size of a tennis ball and had little embers coming up off of it.

"Was it as easy as you thought it would be?" Minerva asked him as she slowly circled him and watched him like a hawk.

"Yes. It's actually easier than I thought. In truth, it's actually more difficult to keep magic around my palms to protect me from the heat though both together aren't hard. Fire is so relatively simple it's almost surprising…" Harry said still somewhat mesmerized by the little flame.

"Would you be able to make it bigger… carefully?" Minerva asked with a small glare at the end. Harry laughed a little at that.

"I think I can manage." Harry said as he concentrated on feeding it. Almost immediately, the flaming ball started expanding rapidly, to his shock. He tried to pull back a little and frowned at how eagerly the fire seemed to soak up his magic and become stronger. Unfortunately, as it grew to the size of a watermelon, he needed to put up a basic shield around not only his hands but the rest of his body to protect himself from the heat.

"Is that the biggest you can make it then?"

"Just… give me a moment please." Harry replied as he tried not to distract himself. Considering how much it seemed the fire wanted to push beyond his limits, he needed to make sure he was properly protected.

Once his new shield was up, he continued to feed more and more magic into the fireball. It got so hot that he had to hold his palms away from him to let it expand further. After a few more moments, he stopped feeding it and once more noticed an unusual amount of difficultly cutting the connection. It wasn't actually hard per se but it was more difficult than it should have been.

"Is that the biggest then?"

"No but it's big enough. It's almost the size of a full-grown man I think." Harry pointed out. Indeed, the fireball was, in fact, reaching ridiculous sizes. Harry looked at it and noticed the small amount of magic that the ball was taking to sustain itself but…

"Do you ever conjure fire?" Harry asked Minerva. The woman was now sitting down and watching. When she heard his question, she nodded in affirmation.

"Of course, though not that often. It's not exactly something that comes up frequently these days." She told him honestly.

"Do you ever… get feelings from the fire?" Harry asked.

"No, what kind of feelings do you believe you are receiving?" Minerva asked him.

"Not an emotion but like… I don't even know how to describe it. Almost like it's thirsty? Or hungry maybe? I'm not sure how I would describe it exactly but… it's like it constantly wants more. It almost seems eager to get bigger and bigger, I guess… I don't know, maybe I am just imagining it."

"Fire, by its very nature desires to spread and consume to keep itself alive. Perhaps with your higher sensitivity you can feel such things from it in a way others cannot?" Minerva suggested. He shrugged at that. Maybe it was true or maybe it wasn't, it didn't change anything for him.

"Either way, I think it is time to put the next part of today's training to the test." Minerva said, standing once again. With a quick wave of her wand, the chair she had just been sitting on rearranged itself until there was suddenly a wooden dummy standing in its place.

"I think so. Fire… well, it doesn't feel very hard to unleash to be honest. In fact, I feel like I am struggling to keep in under control more than anything."

"Well, this time I want you to let it out of control, but in a controlled manner. I want you to hit this dummy with fire from fifteen feet away." Minerva instructed sternly while gesturing him to take a few steps back. Harry complied easily and moved away from the dummy as he started gathering the magic within him once more, already feeling the air heat up around him as if just begging to be unleashed.

"Are you ready?" Minerva asked having stepped away from the dummy as well.

"Yes."

"Then you may attack when you wish." She told him. Harry eyed the dummy for a moment and then moved in to action. He changed his stance and mimicked making a solid punch with his fist pointed right at the dummy. As soon as his arm finished extending at it, he unleashed the heated magic, a stream of hot flame blew out of his hand and roared towards the dummy with a speed that no natural fire could match. It was so much stronger than he thought that Harry's eyes widened as he witnessed it and he immediately cut of the flame in shock at its power. As soon as he did so, he stumbled backwards and fell directly on his butt. He groaned in pain before shakily standing up.

"Well, it seems your control and maintaining composure needs work but, I don't think it can be said that you did not accomplish the goal." Minerva commented as she moved to stand next to him. Harry tilted his head to look at his target and felt his mouth dry at its appearance.

The entire top of the torso of the dummy had been scorched and had seemingly shrunk in size. The head didn't even seem to be there with how small the bump over the dummy's shoulders now was. Further, the entire dummy was covered in a pitch-black color only broken up by the occasionally still glowing embers that lied scattered all over the wooden surface.

"Woah…"

"Woah indeed. It seems you have no issues with casting fire. Now, Harry, I trust I do not need to tell you how dangerous fire is and that you are only allowed to use it in self-defense. I taught you this because I believe that you may run into situations that may be dangerous in the world and I need you to be, at least, somewhat prepared in case you run into them alone. I'm trusting you to be responsible with this." Minerva told him sternly. Harry nodded seriously at her.

"I won't take advantage of it. Besides, I doubt I will be in any sort of rush to do… that to a person." Harry said nodding his head in the direction of the burnt dummy. Minerva looked at the dummy and frowned before seemingly nodding in agreement.

"In truth, most wizards will not find your flames particularly challengingly to deal with. Almost all shields will be able to block non enchanted flames." Minerva told him.

"I read something about that. What does it mean to enchant flames?" Harry asked curiously.

"Most flames used for combat purposes have been altered in some way. Some burn hotter, some are made to be able to ignore or break through shields. There are some that do a combination of those and more." Minerva explained to him.

"If wizards can stop this fire so easily, why bother learning it?" Harry questioned.

"Well, it's more about catching your opponent by surprise. If they don't throw up any sort of protection, normal fire can hurt just as much as any other. As long as you can catch them by surprise, you should be able to get them." Minerva explained to him.

"Ah. And if that doesn't work?"

"We are working to get you more options still, are we not? Besides, you only have a little less than a year until you get your wand and that will extremely expand your options." Minerva told him.

"I guess you're right and this is fine for now. Though, I do think I have some ideas about a few things I want to try in the meantime…" Harry muttered to himself. As soon as the words left his mouth he yelped as he felt a stinging sensation hit him on the backside.

"Ouch! What was that for?" Harry yelled.

"You had the look on your face that you were going to do something dumb again and I was taking preemptive action to stop you before it got out of hand." Minerva gave him her patented stern glare. Harry grumbled at that.

"You don't sting Albus when he says or does something dumb…"

"Albus, despite his looks and advanced age, is still much too fast to be hit but a stinging hex. And much to skilled to be taken by surprise." Minerva growled in annoyance, though this time, not at him.

He recently learned that Dumbledore, despite appearances, could in fact do wrong and make mistakes. He wasn't quite sure what the man did but he knew it had to do with something about the school and its budget. Minerva had given him a verbal tanning even with Harry still in the room. He had watched the old man try to play damage control for nearly ten minutes to get his deputy to calm down.

"That doesn't really seem fair…" Harry mumbled as the pain from the stinging hex she had sent his way eventually faded.

"Life, you will find, is rarely fair. It would be better if you expected it not to be."

"That's… Fair." Harry begrudgingly admitted, ironically, as he sighed and they left the training room of his manor. He had been spending a lot of time in it recently as he continued practicing more and more magic. His protections had improved further and while he couldn't yet make them any stronger, he had found a way to incorporate his illusions into them which apparently made them formidable according to Minerva.

He had also started practicing transfiguration under Minerva's instruction. Well, partial instruction, at least. Since he had no wand, she helped him more with hiccups he had. He had been right in his initial assessment; he was rather good at transfiguration. Turning one thing into another did, in fact, have similarities to illusions. As long as he could visualize what needed to be changed, he had no issue. Furthermore, transfiguration actually used quite a bit of magic!

If he could get away with it, he liked to almost fully drain himself of magic with transfiguration. Minerva would only allow him to do small things so far but as long as he could figure out what was necessary to change the object as in losing mass or changes necessary at the atomic level, he could do it. Actually, the more he knew about what changes needed to be made, the easier it was to do. Yet, the denser an item seemed to be, the harder it was to create. And even further, the less time the transfiguration lasted. It was why wizards didn't simply just transfigure gold. The power it would take do as well as the short amount of time it would take for the item to change back made it rather useless. Also, most stores had some security spells at their checkouts that would identify them as fakes.

Harry hadn't minded finding that out too much though, it's not like he needed more money or anything. Though he remembered he almost blacked out once when he had tried to create an entire steel sword from a bunch of wood sticks, he found outside. The difference in mass and density had meant that his magic had to supplement quite a bit which, apparently, took huge chunks out of it. Even if it didn't exhaust you, Harry learned that if you lost large amounts of magic in too short of time, it could still affect you. Minerva had dragged him out of the room by his ear that day though he knew she had been secretly impressed by his work.

"Shall we call it for today? I believe you still have some things you wish to look into with your personal project, correct?" Minerva asked. Her voice jolted him out of his reminiscing. When he processed her words, his eyes lit up.

"Yes! Actually, I wished to talk to you about it. I had a question for you. I was wondering if you could give a paper to the arithmancy teacher at Hogwarts." Harry told her. Minerva frowned at that.

"I can… I was under the impression you had paused on your Arithmancy for now?"

"I have pulled back on it but have not abandoned it. I now split up my time into different things but I still do Arithmancy." Harry explained as they walked out of the room together and made their way to his library.

Once he was inside, he had an interesting moment of clarity as he looked around it. It looked quite different than when he had first moved into the house. The main empty space in the room was now occupied with several chalkboards that had all sorts of things pinned to them. He had also brought in several long tables placed in a half circle that were also covered in random books and papers.

He ignored the slightly messy looking room though as he walked up to one of the desk and started looking through the papers scattered across it. After a moment, he finally found the page he was looking for.

"Here it is. Would you mind taking this to the professor?" Harry asked while handing her the paper. Minerva took it with ease and looked it over for a moment, though he expected her to.

"I believe this is a basis for determining how much power a spell would need. Though there appear to be some things added and changed. Do you think you have discovered something?"

"Not at all, in fact, the opposite. I am quite sure that nothing I added or change would work out." Harry said cheerily, enjoying the look on the older woman's face.

"If you know it is wrong, why ask to have it looked over?"

"Because, I need to know why it won't work. The changes seem simple therefore there is no way they haven't already been tried. Which means my limited knowledge isn't showing me why it won't work. I would like them to tell me why it won't work in detail. I will then be able to keep knowledge for my next attempt."

"I see." Was all Minerva said as she looked up from the paper and eyed him for a moment. He tilted his head in confusion at the strange look he was being given.

"What?"

"Nothing… Just make sure you aren't overworking yourself again Harry. My punishment will be much harsher if you have another… incident." She told him sternly.

"I won't. I promised I would be careful." Harry reminded easily. He did make a promise and he intended to keep it. A promise was important after all.

"You did, and I suppose you have kept it to this point… Very well, I will take this to my fellow professor and bring it back with me next week. Is there anything else you wish to go over before I leave today? Anything you wish to inform the Headmaster about?" She asked him. Harry shook his head though. Albus had come at the last visit and they had spoken some more on his pet project. He doubted the man had found anything ground breaking in that regard in the week so he was fine leaving it be for now.

"Alright… Then I suppose that will be all for today, Mr. Potter." She told him as she moved closer and pulled him in closer. Harry returned the embrace much easier than he might have several months ago and less comfortable with the woman.

"Until next time then… Minnie." He said with a small smile. He yelped as he felt another stinging sensation on his behind. She looked down at him with a faux glare.

"Cheeky brat. Albus should have never said that in front of you…"

"Ah but he did, and I am so happy he did." Harry said back with a warm smile.

This was probably why he got on so well with Minerva and Albus. They were both older adults and yet they didn't treat him like a normal child. Perhaps it wasn't fully like an adult either but it could be described as a healthy mix between the two. He felt comfortable most times to talk with them as equals rather than superiors though he knew them both to be just exactly that.

"Goodbye Harry."

"Goodbye Minerva."

Several Hours Later

"You look tired." Harry commented him earning a hard shove from his best friend in annoyance.

"I am! We've been traveling for months now." Ciri yelled as she fell on to her back. Harry smiled as he looked down at her.

"How close are you to reaching Kaer Morhen?" Harry asked politely.

"I don't know, another week or two maybe? We just entered the mountains on the edge of Kaedwen. Geralt says he wants us to get to Kaer Morhen before Summer starts so he's been having us pick up the pace. Most days we just ride now. It's so boring. And my ass hurts so much."

"Language." Harry chided calmly. Ciri tried to kick him from the floor but Harry easily stepped away from her and out of her reach.

"Piss off."

"I don't think Geralt would curse nearly as much in front of you if he knew you were repeating everything, he said to me." Harry replied with a side glare at his friend.

"Maybe, but he's not here so he's not going to find out." Ciri said with a cheeky grin. Harry rolled his eyes at his friend.

"Hmph… Well, what would you like to do today?" Harry asked.

"I want you to put me an illusion that takes the soreness out of my ASS!" Ciri yelled at him. Harry crossed his arms as he looked down at Ciri.

"Ciri… Ask correctly." Harry admonished again. Ciri growled before sighing.

"Fine… Harry, can you please put me an illusion that does not have me feel the soreness in my buttocks?" Ciri said with what he referred to as her 'princess' voice. Mainly because of how fake and proper it was.

"Much better. Very well, look me in the eyes for a moment." Harry told her concentrating for a moment on his own feeling in his butt as an easy basis for one not in pain. He then cast a complex illusion on her.

"Ahhh…. That feels so much better… Honestly, your illusions are too powerful to be real. Being able to manipulate people's senses is too crazy." Ciri commented. Harry smiled at that.

"Only to people who can't use or resist magic. Magic users can detect and dispel illusions easily unless they're pretty powerful. I still need to figure out a way to get my illusions to affect magical people easier. Dumbledore said my more complex ones can still fool the common wizards. Anyone who has training in a mind art known as Occlumency can throw off my illusions with ease. There should be a way to get past that though." Harry spoke, getting a little lost in his own issues.

"Still. It's unfair that you can even cast them on yourself. Like, what if you get your arm cut off in battle? You could just cast an illusion on yourself so you don't feel it… That's not fair." Ciri pointed out. Harry blinked at her words. He hadn't really ever thought about that. That would could also mean that he couldn't necessarily be tortured either. He'd still have to deal with the physical ramifications but the mental ones could be mitigated through that.

"Hmm, I will have to explore that. I wonder if I could cast an illusion on myself right before combat to make sure I don't feel pain during." Harry pondered.

"See! That's cheating." Ciri complained.

"Using one's natural advantages in combat is not cheating. It's being smart." Harry countered.

"Ugh. Such a sorcerer thing to say…"

"How many sorcerers have you met exactly?"

"It doesn't matter. It's true… Why don't we do a sword fight today then?" She suggested with a smirk.

"Hmm… you just want to beat me at something."

"Are you scared?"

"No, just pointing out the facts."

Harry did in fact cast an illusion to start their sword training after that though. They went for several matches against each other and Ciri seemed to relax as time seemed to go on. Harry had even upgraded them recently from wooden swords to steel swords. They were heavier and had taken a few days to get used to. Ciri had been happy with the changeover though. It didn't mean much in their dreamscape of course. It's not like they built muscle mass or anything but they could build muscle memory and get used to dealing with the extra weight.

Unfortunately, Ciri had already surpassed him in terms of sword skill so, most lessons actually ended up with him just getting his butt kicked by Ciri. He knew Geralt had already given her a few lessons which had given Ciri a noticeable edge. It also probably helped that he hadn't had a legitimate sword lesson in months. He remembered when he told Ciri that, she had actually taken it rather well, almost seemed pleased by it. He wasn't entirely sure but he had a feeling that it had been because he wouldn't be seeing Olivia anymore. Ciri… didn't seem to like her.

"That's my win again." Ciri said proudly as she stabbed her sword into the illusionary ground. Harry rolled his eyes as he dropped his sword and watched it disappear midfall. Ciri chuckled as she laid on the ground.

"You really need to figure out a way to make furniture Harry." She complained. Harry chuckled at that.

"Well, I can already do some transfiguration. It shouldn't be too much longer until I figure it out."

"Isn't that where you can already create stuff?" Ciri asked.

"I can turn one thing into another although if I don't have enough material my magic supplements…" Harry drifted off as he thought about that. If his magic could supplement material then… could it potentially supplement all the material? Could he just make things out of nothing at the cost of more magic?

"Actually, hold on a moment, let me see something." Harry said as he turned away from Ciri and started concentrating once more. As usual, his magic took longer to build up in their dream world so it took him close to two minutes just to build up enough activation energy to start his little experiment. Once he did, he started releasing his magic and shaping it into the form of what he wanted.

It took quite a while because his magic was sluggish and because he was using a lot of it but it was indeed starting to take shape. After nearly five minutes, it was finally done and a brown cushiony looking couch now stood in front of him. Harry was feeling exhausted some he immediately turned and plopped his behind down on the couch. He sighed in appreciation as he sunk in to it by just the right amount.

"Ah… That's nice." Harry said as he shut his eyes. A moment later, he felt a weight plop down next to him.

"Ahhhh… Is this what furniture feels like in your world?"

"Some. There's a lot of variation of feeling and it depends, but yeah, I imagine our furniture is a lot more comfortable than yours is." Harry explained softly as he started to drift. He couldn't actually fall asleep here but he could rest with his eyes closed.

"It's so nice…"

"I guess it is. So… "

"So?"

"It's been a while since we did this…"

"Did what?"

"Just relaxed like this, I guess. Well, we relax all the time but… This feels like the first time again, doesn't it?" Harry asked as he looked up at the blue illusionary sky.

"I guess you could say that… Does it bother you when we do just this?" She asked.

"No… Why would it?"

"I don't know I just hope it doesn't feel like you're wasting time that could be used on something useful."

"More useful than enjoying time with you?"

"Geez. There you go again… Really makes you wonder which one of us is truly royalty with how easily you switch to charming people."

"I don't think I charm other people. After all, I only talk this way with you."

"You just can't stop doing it can you?" She asked rhetorically though he could hear the smile she had on her face.

"I'll stop when I'm dead."