Sorry about missing a week. I got swamped with work and just didn't have the time to throw this up.

January 1991

"So… It's a magical bomb."

"No! It's an equation for starting a chain reaction to destabilize a stable build-up of power causing a much bigger reaction that's output cannot be directly controlled or contained."

"I understand that part, but if I caused it to happen, say… In a house, would the house explode violently outward?"

"… Sure, I mean if you're going to put it in a specific circumstance like that, of course you can make it sound bad."

"And, if a person happened to be standing next to this when it happened, would the person survive?"

"Potentially, if they could throw up some shields really fast."

Dumbledore simply looked at him in silence for a moment after that and it took all of Harry's power not to fidget in place as he did so.

"And… considering this is the basis of a spell that will need to be cast, with a wand, how would the caster survive since they wouldn't be able to cast the shield?"

"Well… I haven't figured that part out yet BUT, this is simply something to do with the first step. No matter what, we know this will take a bunch of power and to generate that much power non-directly…"

"Vetoed."

"What? You don't even know yet if it could work."

"My concern is that it WILL work and that you will try to cast it. Then you will blow yourself up." Albus said in an almost bland tone of voice. Harry scowled for a moment.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"I was considering that. I think we have been approaching this the wrong way. Even if others have accomplished making a spell to open world holes, it does not mean we need to follow in their footsteps. For example, for massive power output works such as this, most people use either Rituals or Runes to achieve power in a safer manner. They are also more stable while achieving the same results with a spell." Dumbledore pointed out. Harry frowned at that.

"Haven't started on Ancient Runes yet. There supposed to be complicated."

"Well so is Arithmancy and you already have competency of the entire third year curriculum and part of the fourth year."

"Wait really?"

"Well, we don't even start teaching it until third year as an elective."

"Oh, so more like competency slightly above beginner… When is spell creation introduced?"

"Usually in fourth year they have an end of the year project where they take their knowledge and try to create any new spell. In fifth year, they go in more depth about implementing their knowledge into spell creation. I am actually impressed by your progress so far. Do all things magic come easy to you?"

"No. I wouldn't say arithmancy comes easy either. It's just… magic makes sense to me. If it doesn't make sense then I know I am doing it wrong. It doesn't always make sense in a scientific way but it does make sense. The only question is how." Harry told him. Albus shrugged.

"Then perhaps, instead of more intelligence, you are simply more driven than many of your peers. There are those who don't find something worth giving themselves to until much later in life."

"Yes, well, I'm not really trying to find this later in life. I am trying to find it as soon as possible." Harry said begrudgingly. Albus simply smiled at him but nodded.

"Indeed, and while there is nothing wrong with that, remember that patience is in fact a virtue. Many don't realize how much so until it is too late." Dumbledore mentioned. Harry looked at him and then away before sighing.

"I know what you're saying. I won't lose myself by going too fast Dumbledore. I am prepared to take things slow… Or slow enough not to endanger myself."

"Hmm. There was a subject I would like to broach with you."

"Oh, what is it?"

"I have thought about it and I believe you would benefit from learning the art of Occlumency." Dumbledore confided. Harry frowned at that.

"Do you believe that I am going to meet someone capable of reading my mind soon?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"No but it helps with all mind protections and it also benefits one's cognitive abilities as well as memory storage. I believe it is something you can benefit from." Dumbledore laid out. Harry thought about it. He was hesitant to dismiss anything Albus said simply due to the old man usually knowing what he was talking about. Even things he didn't know, he usually had good ideas about. If he said it was a good idea to learn Occlumency, it likely was.

"Very well, I suppose I can add it to the list of things I need to get done."

"It'll likely come easy since you already know the first step."

"I do?"

"Yes, the first step is the ability to clear your mind. Which you are able to do already remarkably well."

"Great…"

"It's not so bad. I believe there are several books in this very library you can use to not only teach you the art but also give you helpful hints to do so in a timely manner as possible." Dumbledore pointed. Harry nodded as he was sure the man was right. The Potter Library was expansive and he had noticed it had solid up to date stock of all the most common magic types and several obscure ones. That didn't even touch on the Potter Grimoire which he wouldn't be able to access until he was at least eleven years of age.

"I suppose you're right. I was thinking of starting to experiment with cooking by the way. Would you be able to get me more varied or specially requested ingredients?" Harry asked.

"I don't see why not. Do you have anything in mind?"

"Yes. I actually already made a list. I think it's on that table to your left. It's the paper labelled 'Ingredients'." Harry pointed. Dumbledore smoothly stood and looked over it before nodding.

"Yes, this should all be fine. What encouraged you to expand you're cooking repertoire, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, Ciri hasn't tried a lot of the foods we have in this world. English food is pretty basic so she has already tried most of it. I want her to try some of the other foods we have." Harry replied easily. Albus nodded at him with a smile.

"That brings up another point I think it's about time we had a talk Harry." Dumbledore said hesitantly to him. Harry rose an eyebrow in confusion at that. The man looked… strange, or rather, uncomfortable maybe? Either way, Harry wasn't sure what was coming next.

"Harry… You know… I have no problem with your friendship with young Ciri as you know. That being said, you spend over half your life at this point alone with her and… Well, I know that young men and women can sometimes… I know that when young men and women are alone together, they can start to feel… things."

"… What?"

"Harry, you're a mature young man and sometimes children who are a little more mature than their peers tend to… grow up a bit faster. They start to notice things and… Well, I would rather have this conversation earlier rather than later. Harry, you may start a period of life where you notice a change in yourself and possibly others. From what I understand, young Ciri also may be entering this part of life soon as well and since you're alone together…"

"Oh my god! You're not about to have The Talk with me, are you? Albus, I know about how puberty works and how sex works. I made sure to educate myself on that when I turned ten." Harry told him with some embarrassment as he looked away from the man.

"I know you may understand it logically but it's different than understanding it emotionally and psychologically. You may know what sex is but it's different in the moment. Feelings will be running rampant and…"

"I will allow you to go to the bank and take half my fortune if you stop talking right now."

"Harry, come now…"

"Nope. No more please. I don't even think I have started puberty. I haven't even started to find girls attractive."

"It may end up that you never do, you could be attracted to men as well. It is not as accepted in society but there is nothing wrong with that either."

"I'm not attracted to anyone!" Harry yelled; he was sure his face was now a bright burning red.

"And that's fine. I'm not saying you will be. And maybe you won't be for a long time still. But, as I said, I would rather have this conversation a little too early than a little too late. I believe you are mature enough to have it so I decided now would be a good time. I won't say anything more but I do want you to know that if you ever have questions, you should never be afraid to come to me or Minerva about anything you might wish to know."

"I… Fine. I will come to you if I ever have any questions. Can we be done with this now?" Harry growled. Albus seemed to look at him with an analytical eye for a moment before acquiescing to his demand and nodding.

"Very well. I suppose we can call it a day here. I will leave you to your research. Have a good week Harry.

"Yeah… you as well." Harry said back reluctantly still trying to purge his mind of the conversation that just took place. For god sake, he was going to see Ciri tonight! How would he be able to look her in the eye without this moment coming to mind?

He watched Albus leave with a slight glare until the man was out of view. He then shook his head and tried to clear his mind as he started looking at his various shelves.

In truth, he knew Albus wouldn't go for the arithmetic formula he had come up with. The man was right, it was basically just a magical bomb that came out of your hand. It would likely kill the caster and anyone within thirty feet of him instantly and greatly damage anything else heavily up to fifty feet past that at minimum.

He was rather frustrated the man didn't even consider it though. If they could find some way to control or, at least, direct it so it could be used somewhat safely, then perhaps it could still be useful. He would keep the formula stashed in one of the boxes he kept all his research that was designated as unhelpful. He kept it because there may come a time where he needed to come back with new information that would bring up the viability of something he had dismissed earlier.

Perhaps the problem was that he kept insisting on making equations that would really only work with a wand. If he did it without, it would be one less variable he would have to worry about but he would have to basically recreate already established control margins to match that of warping the magic wandlessly. That would take some experimenting on his part, a lot of it if he wanted to be as accurate as would be needed to do something as advanced as he was planning.

The day wasn't a total loss though. Dumbledore had mentioned two possible alternatives for him. Both Rituals and Runes could be used as a way to supplement the power source issue he had been having. He didn't know about Rituals but he knew arithmancy was also closely tied with Runes, it was just a different formula used. An issue was that you also needed to be competent in both Arithmancy and then also Ancient Runes.

He could probably do it though, and had eventually planned to do it at some point. That being said, he couldn't wait until he was supposed to take the class at Hogwarts either. That would mean he would need to wait at least three years just to normally see if such a route was viable for himself.

Of course, that also left the ritual route. He knew very little about Rituals, but then again, so did most people. He knew that there were only a few commonly known Rituals, most being part of guarded family magic. He would be surprised if the Potter's didn't have at least a ritual or two in the Grimoire. He had yet to see one outlined in any of the books he had read though.

From what he knew, Rituals had more in common with Potions and Alchemy which, while based on logic, as a whole different kind than Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Likely similar to the difference to science and math. The two were related but they were also two distinct types of fields as well.

Rituals would likely be harder to accomplish than using Ancient Runes. He should probably start with the Runes then. Well, he should probably see what he could find in his library first. If for some reason, the Potter's had a lot of knowledge on Rituals, for some reason, then he could still consider it.

With that decided, he started to go through the shelves and look for any titles relating to either subject. Within ten minutes of browsing, he could already tell that it was unlikely he would be working with Rituals. He found maybe one book to do with them but it seemed more to be on known Rituals throughout history. If he had to guess, it would only go into a brief description of the Rituals itself.

Ancient Runes on the other hand, he found plenty of books for. In fact, part way through he started to put some back as he found several beginner level books that he would need some time to go over before he even began to look into the more advanced ones.

With his books selected he went over to one of his tables and immediately cleaned it up and put all the scattered papers on it into a nice, neat, organized pile. He then set the books down across the table and looked at them. He arranged them from newest to oldest. His first instinct was to go for the newest one first but he had found that in the magical world, authors tended to get rid of important information in an effort to streamline their own work. With that in mind, perhaps it was then better to start with the old ones and learn all the knowledge. He could then go forward and perhaps better understand why certain things were taken out for himself and decide whether he should keep them in mind or not.

With that decided, he grabbed the oldest book and moved over to the chair he now thought of as his personal chair. He then cracked open the book to it's very first page. From what he could see, the first chapter seemed to speak on the capabilities of Runes themselves and several of the uses they had over the years. He noticed that several powerful wards used Runes as a basis instead of spell work. That could come in handy at some point. Although they mostly looked as if they were used for big properties.

Another thing Harry seemed to notice after finishing the second chapter was that Runes could be chained together and potentially be just as diverse as spells. This was possible in the modern day because of the combination of several ancient runic alphabets that had many varying uses. Combined together and they formed the United Runic Alphabet which is apparently what the modern-day wizarding standard was.

If that was the case, then runic arrays were basically just written spells. That definitely seemed to make him feel like he had made the right choice in picking this discipline instead of Rituals.

He continued to read the book for several more hours and got a decent way through it before putting it down. With that done, he went back to his book shelves and started looking for a book on Occlumency. He had seen one in passing before so he just needed to figure out where he had seen it.

It only took him five minutes to find and when he grabbed it off the shelf, he simply tucked it under his arm and headed out of the room. It was almost six in the afternoon at this point so he needed to get started on his dinner.

As he got into the kitchen, he set the book down on a book holder that was normally supposed to be used for cookbooks when you wanted to look at recipes. He had yet to use it for that purpose though. He opened the book and looked at the table of contents for a moment. It looked like the first chapter was the one that Dumbledore had mentioned to him, about clearing his mind. From the looks of it, it was the biggest chapter in the book.

He just skipped past it and started reading the next chapter. As he did that, he moved around his kitchen and started pulling out ingredients from both his pantry and a cold box that wizards used as fridges which used chilling spells instead of electricity. A little old fashioned but at least it was efficient. Today he was going to be attempting to make a hamburger for the first time.

The cooking came naturally and even with it being a new recipe, he already knew how to cook all the actual ingredients for it properly. It was just shaping it and such that he needed to remember how to do right.

Any time he was at the proper counter he would read while he cooked. Occlumency seemed… Almost too good to be true. It didn't even require actual magic use as the magic it used never actually left the body. Once you created the barriers you just needed to maintain them until doing so became second nature. He had a feeling he already had an idea on how to put the barriers right now actually. It would take some time though so he would wait until he went to sleep tonight.

He had much more free time now that Ciri was actually at Kaer Morhen. Since all she did all day was either study or go through intense training, she had taken to using their nights together just to relax and speak, especially since Harry could now make actual furniture.

Harry stopped focusing on his book as he finished cooking the meat of the burger and took it off the stove. He then placed it on a pre ready bun and some cheese on top. He then put some condiments and brought his meal over to his dining table with his book.

He pushed further into the book and saw that after forming the barriers around one's mind, it was mainly about reinforcing them. The difficult portion of this came from the fact that it was right outside the brain basically. Hardening magic that close to your brain apparently wasn't dangerous because you could feel it immediately if the slightest thing went wrong and stop the hardening, and even then, it was pretty hard to have things go wrong. However, you can only make a solid shield around your mind. The best Occlumens in the world could rotate the magic around their mind for protection which would make the defense stronger. The added bonus though was that it would literally fling attackers away and could even cause them to hurt themselves if they pushed too hard.

Of course, a master Legilimens could still find ways to get past with a sustained attack. If they could do that though, it meant you were either letting them for practice or you were not in a position to stop them, which meant you likely had other problems as well.

Harry flipped through the book and got to the part about a mindscape. This was actually the most troubling thing. If he was reading this correctly, he should have already accessed his mindscape by now with how often he had cleared his mind.

As he read further about it and how it was described before one put up protections, it sounded very similar to his and Ciri's shared dreamscape. The situation sounded strange but as far as he knew, he and Ciri were a unique situation that even Dumbledore had never quite heard of before so maybe they really were simply sharing their mindscapes with each other. At this point there was only one thing left to do and that was get ready to go to sleep so he could start testing.

He cleaned up his mess and went up to his bedroom where he started getting ready for sleep. It was a quick five-minute procedure that he had down pat at this point. After he finished in the washroom he walked past the house's main bedroom. He hadn't taken that for his own considering it hadn't been slept in since his parents and… Well, he wasn't ready for that. Instead, he had taken one of the spare rooms next to it. It was still huge, of course, and had an entire king-sized bed.

He climbed in and wrapped himself in warm blankets. It had taken him months to get used to not wanting to sleep in the closet of his room. He hadn't even tried to stop until Dumbledore had found out when he had accidently let it slip. The man hadn't been cruel, he had understood and had him take a dreamless sleep until he got used to falling asleep naturally in the room. The hard part was telling Ciri about it, though, she had been understanding, especially when she learned what he was doing and why.

With that, he once more settled his thoughts and felt his mind slip as it usually did. As usual he embraced the feeling wholeheartedly as he disappeared from the world of consciousnesses.

The next time he blinked his eyes and regained consciousness he was surrounded by a world of black. He sighed as he registered where he was and immediately cast the static illusionary spell on the room all around him. He couldn't even take the time to admire the scenery he had thrown up before he felt something collide into his back and wrap around his head. He managed to stay up and didn't even bother commenting on the action. Instead, he tilted his head so it was resting against the one that was right next his face.

"Illusion please."

Harry rolled his eyes in amusement before turning more fully and making eye contact with his friend. A moment later she sighed in relief before snuggling her face aggressively into the side of his.

"I love you." She moaned after finally having her pain relieved.

"Do you? I was under the impression you simply loved my powers?" Harry teased.

"Can't I love both?"

"I suppose you could… Which do you love more though?"

"You, of course… After all, I need you to be able to cast it don't I?"

"Hardy-Har-Har. You're always so funny… I take it that it was another rough day?"

"Urgh. You have no idea. I was so tired I almost couldn't eat dinner. Geralt had to carry me to the table to eat and then to my room because my feet hurt so bad. They gave me some herbs to help with the pain though so I should be better by morning." Ciri explained with some annoyance.

"I'll remind you that you practically have been asking for this all your life. You did know it was going to be hard." Harry pointed out.

"There's a difference between knowing something logically and actually having to do it."

"A lesson you have learned far too late, it looks like."

"Oh, sod off. You're lucky, training your magic rarely hurts."

"Of course, it hurts. I hurt myself all the time. The difference is there are ways to heal much faster so the pain is only a temporary thing. You have to deal with yours much longer. But magic isn't always easy. In fact, I'm probably learning it too fast which means there's a lot of hiccups along the way."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Certain things that might seem obvious to someone older and more experienced, I don't know. This sometimes causes me to make not fun mistakes usually at the cost of my own flesh." Harry frowned.

"Ah. Geralt tells me my mistakes are normal for someone my age so… I suppose I cannot relate."

"I suppose not. So, nothing new happened?"

"Well… I think I may have done something wrong."

"Oh, do tell." Harry pushed.

"All of them having been looking at me strangely recently. I think it has to do with a training accident I had the other day."

"You had a training accident?" Harry immediately snapped upon sitting up straighter which wasn't exactly easy since she was still draped over is shoulders.

"Yeah. I tripped and fell off one of the courses I was running and knocked myself out. Geralt told me I was fine when I came to but I've seen Lambert, Eskel, and Coen giving me strange glances ever since."

"When was this exactly?"

"Hmm… Three days ago, I think." She told him. Harry blinked. Why did that seem familiar to him. He had remembered meeting with her then and hadn't noticed anything particularly strange.

Actually, the strangest thing that happened was during the day. At one point he had collapsed to his knees in pain when a searing headache felt like it was trying to split his head apart. It had been painful but it had only lasted a minute. It was the second time it had happened and he had Dumbledore check him out to make sure nothing was wrong with him. The man had done a full scan and even had Madame Pomfrey do one with no luck. He had just shrugged it off and continued on after that. He also didn't really see how the two things correlated besides seemingly happening at near enough times.

"Hmm, is it possible they are just concerned and don't want you to hurt yourself?"

"I hurt myself every day in training so… No."

"Then I don't know what to tell you."

"I didn't expect you to tell me anything, I am just venting… Alright, make me a couch please."

Harry rolled his eyes as he felt her unfurl from around his neck and move to stand behind him. As soon as she did, he started the transfiguration spell, though it was really just Conjuration since he wasn't actually turning one thing into another. A few moments later and the couch he had gotten used to making was now sitting in the room. Ciri wasted no time to plop down on it.

"Ah… That's nice. So, what have you been up to?"

"Working on my project, learning more transfiguration, working on my illusions, and I am just about to start my Occlumency training."

"What's Occlumency?"

"The protection and organization of the mind. Albus believes I will have a natural inclination for the art." Harry explained.

"Why is that?"

"Because I have already mastered the first step which is apparently the hardest. The problem is actually the second one for me but I will be working on that while I am here today." Harry revealed. Ciri didn't seem put out by that. It's not like it was the first time he had used their time together to practice. She used to do the same after all.

"Okay, well, let me know if I can help in any way." She told him as she closed her eyes to rest. Harry nodded in affirmation even though she couldn't see it before he got into a meditative position and once more began to clear his mind.

It was strange, he could feel it when he cleared his mind but when he tried to discover his mindscape, it felt like he was reaching for nothing. It was just a blankness. Unless the blankness was already his mindscape. Could that be possible? If it was so, shouldn't he be seeing memories or something? He felt no different though. Perhaps, he could call forth a memory. He tried to concentrate on one. He focused on a recent one, his talk with Dumbledore this morning.

"Harry."

"Hmm?"

"What's that?"

"What's what?" Harry asked as he opened his eyes and broke his concentration. He looked over at Ciri who just gestured her head upwards. Harry followed her line of sight up to the sky and blinked in surprise at what he saw. It looked like he as looking at some sort of screen and playing on it was the memory he had just tried to pull out.

"Oh."

"What is that?"

"That would be the memory I just tried to pull up to see if I could…"

"Is it part of the illusion?"

"No, it's… I'm not really sure." Harry said as he watched the silent memory play out.

"What is this supposed to be? It looks recent." Ciri asked as she continued to stare at the giant screen in the sky.

"It's my memory from this morning when I met with my guardian."

"This is Albus Dumbledore then? He looks very old. I don't think I have ever seen anybody that old who could still maintain such energy to sit up straight and move so easily."

"Well, he's a wizard, an extremely powerful wizard. He could easily live for another sixty years or so and even another hundred if he can push it." Harry answered. Wizards didn't naturally seem to live as long as sorcerers for some reason and they certainly aged while doing so.

"Wow… Is there supposed to be noise associated with it?"

"I'm not really sure… let me see." Harry said as he closed his eyes and concentrated further on the memory. A moment later, sound did indeed start coming from the memory screen. They were just at the part of the conversation where Albus encouraged him to switch to possibly Ancient Runes as a focus.

"There we go… This is interesting." Harry said as he looked at the screen.

"How did you do it?"

"Well, it was part of my Occlumency training. I simply cleared my mind and then tried to summon the memory I wanted to see. I was hoping it would play in my head though."

"That sounds fun. Let me see if I can do it." Ciri said in excitement as she got into a cross legged seated position and closed her eyes like he did. A moment later the screen seemed to blur to the point that you couldn't see any picture at all. Then it seemed to refocus, but now the scene playing was different. It looked like Ciri was going through some exercises with a sword. Next to her was a man with white hair doing the same exercises with more speed and precision. After a moment, it was clear Ciri was copying his movements.

"Is that Geralt then? He looks strong." Harry commented looking at the lean but bulky looking man. His face looked like it was permanently stuck in a small scowl. When he stopped his own movements, he would turn to watch as Ciri continued her own constantly pointing out critiques on her form. He seemed rather strict but as he looked closer, he could see what Ciri meant with the man seemingly being more awkward. Like he was going through motions of what he thought was right but wasn't quite sure.

"That is indeed Geralt. This was from today's morning exercises. I look pretty impressive, don't I?" Ciri said with a proud smirk on her face as she held her nose up. Harry rolled her eyes but did idly notice that Ciri did look like she was rather good at the movements she was performing.

"Most impressive…"

"So… What is this?"

"Hmm. Well, considering the fact that we're getting the correct results in the wrong place, I can only conclude that we're already somehow in our mindscape. That would mean that it's not our dreams connecting but our minds themselves…"

"That sounds impossible. Is this the result of magic?"

"As far as am I aware, no. Two people merging their mindscapes shouldn't be possible."

"Why not?"

"A mind is supposed to be a reflection of a person's very soul, in that, each one is supposed to be unique. That being said, anything to do with the soul in magic is heavily restricted and not really well explored." Harry admitted. Ciri tilted her head in thought at that.

"So… what's that mean, for us I mean?"

"It would appear that we share a mindscape to some extent. I guess it explains why we meet up here."

"Then why can we only do it when we go to sleep near the same time?" Ciri asked. Harry frowned as he thought about the question.

"I can only give you guesses…"

"I'll hear them."

"Well… It is possible that the connection because were on different worlds isn't stable and meeting directly with both of us in a shared mindscape can only be done when we are both in a similar mental state." Harry guessed. Ciri looked skeptical at his words and he just shrugged.

"I'm not an expert. I told you it was just a guess." Harry pointed out.

"Well… Can we test it?" Ciri asked.

"I guess I can try to see if I organize my mind whether or not having conscious control over our mindscape stabilizes the connection." Harry replied.

"Okay… Can I actually help with that part?"

"Well…If I can get good enough, I should be able to pull up memories of extreme detail with ease. Once I can do that, I should be able make an illusionary book with the details of Occlumency. You can then try to replicate some of the feats within. You won't be able to make the shields themselves but if our mindscapes are, in fact connected, I may actually be able to make a shield for both of us."

"Okay… Man, magic never makes any sense to me. I don't know how you do it." Ciri bemoaned. Harry shrugged.

"Magic is to me what fighting and such is to you." Was the only way he could think to explain it.

"Fighting makes sense though."

"So does magic. When I don't understand something, it simply means I'm missing something." Harry replied easily not taking any offense to her critique on magic.

"Hmph… How come we see ourselves in the third person in the memories?"

"That I can answer. When viewing one's own memories our mind recreates the scene using our subconscious to pull up details, we didn't pay attention to, allowing the remake to be fully immersive to some extent. It's quite common." Harry explained. That actually had been in the book.

"That's kind of nice actually. Well, I suppose I'll let you go back to your experimenting." Ciri told him. He nodded in appreciation before once more taking up his pose of meditation.

Soon, his mind was once again cleared and he was once more concentrating. The first thing to do was go through his memories and start sorting them. At this point he needed to take all the memories he could still recall and organize them as well as possible in a mental structure. He decided to go with a library since that was both a basic and easy concept to visualize. He imagined as much detail as possible to try and…

"Ow!"

Harry's eyes bolted open as he looked to Ciri again. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was rubbing her head in what looked like pain. He looked around briefly but saw nothing else within the room that might have hurt her.

"What happened?" He asked worriedly.

"I'm not sure. I felt this pressure on my mind and when I tried push it away, I felt a pain in my head." She told him back. Harry frowned, could that have been him?

"Interesting. That may have been me… I'm going to try it again, if you feel that pressure again try not to fight it." Harry told her, having an idea what the issue was.

"Okay… But if I get hurt again, I'm punching you in the face. It's only fair." She told him with a scowl. Harry nodded reluctantly.

"Okay… You're right. That's fair."

This time, when Harry renewed his efforts, he didn't hear anything from Ciri. Which meant she wasn't fighting it or the pain in her head wasn't associated with him. Either way, he wouldn't find out until he was finished. This time, he imagined the entire library. It was modeled after the one in his house with some slight changes and much more expansive.

"Holy shit."

"Language." Harry called out on instinct. He took another moment to imagine the final touches before opening his eyes. It was at that moment that he could see why Ciri had reacted the way she did a moment again.

The illusion around them had been dispelled, he noticed it as soon as he opened his eyes. However, it was not an empty black room as what usually greeted them before he cast his illusion, instead, they now appeared to be in a seating area in the middle of a beautiful library. The very same library that he had actually been creating in his own mind.

"Woah… I suppose this confirms that this in fact a shared mindscape." Harry said as he looked around.

"What is this, another illusion?"

"No… This is what I visualized my mindscape to be to organize my memories… if I did this right then all these books should be my memories." Harry said as he got up and made his way over to one of the shelfs. He noticed that instead of titles, the books had dates written along the spine. He picked one up that seemed to be when he was four and opened it. Immediately he saw the memory of the day seem to flash in his mind.

Despite the happiness he felt at the success, he also frowned as he noticed the memory was nowhere near as clear as the one he pulled up earlier on the screen. Was it a matter of time then? He knew Occlumency helped memory retention. It was possible it only did that from the point you learned it and on. That would make sense. It was probably pulling this memory straight from his consciousness since he didn't actively remember it. It was better than nothing.

"Harry look." Ciri called out to him. He turned and saw her at another shelf with a book in her hand. He frowned, did she see something concerning in his memories. He moved over to her quickly and took a look at the book. She turned the book so the spine was facing them and pointed at the date.

It took him a moment to realize what he was seeing as he looked at the date. It said January third, 1259. Harry blinked as he considered what that could mean.

"Is… is this what I think it is?" Harry asked. Ciri nodded back.

"I already opened it and confirmed the memory was real. It would seem that you altering mindscape had organized my memories as well. What does that mean?"

"I… I guess nothing besides confirming what we already knew that we share this place for some reason." Harry commented as he took a closer look at the bookshelf and noticed they all seemed to be dates that matched more for Ciri. As he took a step back, it looked like the entire right side of the library was dedicated to Ciri while the left was dedicated to him.

"Well… This is pretty cool. We'll have to change it though to give us more room to do stuff again. Maybe, instead of a library we could do like a whole house." Ciri pointed out excitedly. Harry nodded slowly at the suggestion. He could do that and he was already thinking along similar lines himself.

"I think you're right… Do you feel any different?" Harry suddenly questioned. Ciri turned a curious eye to him.

"What do you mean?" She asked him.

"I don't know it's just… I feel slightly different is all. It feels almost like my insides are bubbling and waiting to burst." Harry tried to describe as he looked down at his hands with curiosity.

"Well, now that you mention… I feel a little different too. But the sensation for me is different. It's almost like… pensive maybe? I think I'm using that word right. It's like when I'm watching Geralt perform something that I need to make sure I copy as close to perfect as I can." Ciri murmured. Harry looked at her in thought. It didn't escape his notice the bubbly feeling seemed to diminish as she concentrated on what she was feeling. He looked down at his arm and pinched it, hard. He then looked at her and watched her expression change.

"What about now?" He asked.

"Annoyed. Like when a bug bites me." She said with a scowl. Harry nodded, expecting something like that.

"It seems this has strengthened our connection. You can feel a muted version of what I am feeling and I can do the same with you." Harry commented. As if to confirm his words, he felt excitement start to bubble up again.

"That's so cool!"

"Indeed. I have a feeling these won't be the last changes we notice either." Harry mumbled as he looked around the library. Indeed, it seemed like things were starting to change for them.