24 Chapter 23

He led them outside and the massive door of the Prometheus appeared as it opened for them and the ramp extended.

"Harry?" Doctor Hawk asked.

"Welcome, to the Prometheus." Harry said proudly, as he led them on-board, up the ramp, which was long enough to allow the ship to hover, invisibly, without someone walking by, accidentally hitting it.

"What is the Prometheus?" Hawk persisted.

"Come and see." Harry beckoned as the door closed behind them. He led them through the storage corridor and to the lab area. Harry had purposefully bypassed this area on the tours before. "These are the labs." he said as he showed them the area. Then he pointed down the corridor. "If you continued through those doors, you would go to the common area, with the kitchen, bar, entertainment, etc."

He didn't go through those doors, though. He turned into one of the rooms and said, "This is your lab, Doctor Hawk. You can do with the space what you want." He pointed off to a corner, with another door, "That's your observation deck. It's got the best view on the ship. I'm hoping we can build you the world's strongest telescope in there. I'll help with construction, if you don't mind. It's something I've wanted to do for a while."

"You created a hidden, mobile lab?" Doctor Pike asked. The other guests were just smiling at this point, not wanting to spoil Harry's fun. Doctor Hawk had already started rushing to the observation deck, and Harry followed to see her reaction. She walked through and saw what looked to be an unimpeded view of what was around the ship, except for the metal gangway, which culminated in a large circular platform with a railing, in the dead centre of a spherical room.

"The Prometheus is a long range space ship." Harry corrected, smiling as Doctor Hawk turned around to stare at him. Pike and Thomson were also staring at him, mouths agape.

"You're making plans to travel the solar system?" Hawk finally asked. Her mind was only slightly blown, but she wouldn't be denied.

"For now." Harry agreed. "Once we've had a bit of time to prepare, and know more about what we're doing, I'm thinking Alpha Centauri will be a nice place to visit."

This had the astrophysicist wanting to hug the boy. She never thought she'd experience space, being too old to be considered for it, but this boy was offering not only space, or the solar system. He was offering the universe. She looked between Harry's girls, then. "You wouldn't mind if I hugged the smug git, would you?" she asked.

Harry soon showed the other labs to the guests and had to answer questions about why there were six of them. His simple answer was that he suspected he'd need more before they left the solar system. No doubt there would be a need at that point. He suspected Hermione would be claiming one at some point as well, and he really needed one for himself, where he could work on things that he didn't want to expose to the world yet. Once they were in orbit, it would be the most secure place available.

"I'll need two of these before we're done." Doctor Pike said.

"I can still expand the rooms quite a bit, so don't worry." Harry said easily. "Come on. I want to show you the rest, before we take the ship into orbit." He turned to Bill. "I need you to show Lieutenant Thomson how the controls on the Saucer works. He'll be training to be my co-pilot. I can't be the only one that knows how these things work, and he's proven himself to me."

"Me?" Lieutenant Thomson asked. "Wouldn't Doctor Pike be the better choice?"

"You aren't just her helper, David." Harry denied. "I want someone on-board who knows how to control the systems. When I'm piloting, I also intend to have Doctor Pike on monitoring duty. You're also the most qualified to be in control of the weapons system, but I won't be giving you access to them, until we've figured out some things."

"This thing has weapons?��� Hawk asked.

"Mostly just because I wanted to ensure the safety of the Prometheus." Harry said. "They are powerful, but would need me to power them at this point."

"That seems more like my speed." Thomson agreed. "Okay, I'd like to be more useful around here anyway." He turned to Bill. "Lieutenant David Thomson, Royal Marines." he introduced himself again.

"Bill Weasley." Bill said, with a smile. "Curse breaker."

Harry led them through the common room and past the sleeping quarters, where he pointed out the people's rooms. Then they reached the large bridge, where Harry had Bill sit in the co-pilot's chair and pointed out the locations of everyone's positions, letting the guests take their own places. There were seatbelts, but Harry didn't put his on since they'd only be necessary if the inertial dampening failed for some reason. If that happened, they'd have bigger problems. He intended to make a backup, just in case.

It took only a minute for them to reach the outer edges of the atmosphere and floated there. Harry had decided to use suspension, rather than orbit. They were technically still inside the atmosphere, but out of range, should someone decide to push a plane as high as possible. In short, it was a test to see how the suspension function worked. Locking the four beams into place, he monitored the accelerometer and noted they were at a dead stand-still.

"Cool." he said with a smile. Then he got up from his seat and said, "I'm going to go see what your observation deck looks like. I've not had a chance to do that, yet." Then he left the pilot's seat. Everyone decided to go with him, of course. On the way, Harry turned to Doctor Hawk. "Remind me to connect your Comm to the system that monitors the altitude. It will be able to notify you should anything change, though I don't think that will happen."

Doctor Hawk sighed. She had seen how high up they were and knew the ship was still not at a proper height to maintain altitude. The internal size of the ship also had her wonder how much the ship weighed. If it was as big as she suspected, they'd need to be quite a bit out to achieve orbit. No matter Harry's assurances, she was still on an unknown flying vessel, which was suspended in the air using nothing but magic. "Thanks." she replied.

"No problem." Harry said.

"While this has all been very entertaining, I think I have a few more questions." Filius spoke up for the first time. Harry had been overloading them with more information and he had questions bubbling in his brain.

"Let's get everything sorted first, okay?" Harry asked. No doubt this would be another long conversation.

When they arrived at the observation deck, it was to a completely unimpeded view of space, when they looked up, and a wonderful view of the planet, when they looked down.

"How did you make it so that we don't see the ship?" Remus asked.

"The ship has a lot of recording discs." Harry said. "They are all connected to a central system, which I can access to add to any display on the ship. I just used ones that look outward and connected them here."

"Why are there no lines, where the displays connect?" Pike asked.

"It's magic." Harry said with a smile and a shrug. "I just make them function that way. Wouldn't want an impeded view, after all. How stupid would it be to make an observation deck that you can't trust to give you a proper view?"

"I can see the sun, though." Hawk said. "Why am I not blind?"

"Tinting charm." Harry said.

"Harry invented it, back in first year." Hermione said. "When he was still designing The Saucer."

"Three years." Hawk said. It was still a marvel to think that the boy had invented a means and applied said means to reach space in such a short time. Not to mention the new ship they were currently on.

"A little bit more." Harry corrected. "That doesn't matter though. The needed spells and applications would take me a year to teach someone, so that they could safely produce a ship like this. I'd been studying my mundane subjects before first year, though." He indicated Hermione, then. "Hermione, however has caught up with me in less than three years and she's been studying more subjects than me in that time."

"Are you interested in the sciences?" Hawk asked.

"Not as much as Harry, but I do intend to work with him, when we finish school, so that I can help him stay safe." Hermione said.

"Some of us have been studying muggle high-school subjects, with Hermione's help." Daphne said.

"We'd like to stay with him as well." Pansy said, nodding along. "We can't spend all the time he'd likely spend experimenting and building things, sitting on our hands."

"When the time comes, we'll be glad for the help." Doctor Pike said. "With the help Harry has given us, we've been able to do months of work in days. If we had dedicated magical assistance, we could achieve lifetimes of work in a few short years."

"What kind of help?" Neville asked, interestedly.

"Making things and changing them, for me." Pike said. "My job is much simpler, now that I just have to help in construction and working on design."

"Transfiguration?" McGonagall asked.

"That's what I've been helping her with, yes." Harry said. "Though, Doctor Hawk will likely need a wider range of help. Her qualifications makes her an expert on anything to do with space."

"That's what my doctorate is for." Doctor Hawk agreed. "It's not the limit of my knowledge though. I could, for example, help with Runes and Arithmancy, since my experience with and knowledge of mathematics gives me quite the insight into how some of the functions work and affect each other."

"Muggles, practicing the magical arts." Snape said.

"They likely have a better understanding of Runes than you do, Severus." Professor Babbling said. "Don't scoff, simply because you don't know."

"You think you're better than me, just because you have magic?" Doctor Hawk asked hotly.

"Not in the slightest." Snape defended. "I'm more amazed, really. I was never given the opportunity to really get to know any good muggles in my life." He was thinking of his own family and Harry's aunt. He'd scarcely had good influences from the muggles.

"Well, don't sound so shocked." Doctor Hawk said. "I know things that could make you feel insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe."

"I wouldn't tempt her, Professor." Harry said. "She once gave me a lecture on particle physics that nearly blew my mind. Did you know, that if you removed all the space between the particles, the entire human race would fit inside a sugar-cube?"

Snape's eyebrows lifted up at hearing that. "Really?" he asked. He knew some things about chemistry, but he'd never gone quite that far. Perhaps he could learn something from the muggle scientist, which could help even him with his potions.

"That's just the tip of the iceberg." Harry scoffed. Then he sighed. "Okay, I think this is enough talk about this. We have one more thing to do." He led them off to the docking bay, but took the transport room for the first time, shocking the astronauts again.

"Really? A transporter?" Pike asked incredulously. How many things did this boy know, which could revolutionise the mundane world.

"You like that, do you?" Harry smirked. "Wait until you see what I have planned, next."

They took the Saucer back to the Hangar. It was a quick trip, since Harry made the ship a portkey. When they appeared in the Hangar, Harry landed them softly and they disembarked. He walked to the corner of the Hangar, where his own station was and pulled out a box, from his pocket. He placed it in the corner and expanded it.

When it was done, they realised it was another transporter room, identical to the ones on the ship. This one would transport them to the Labs, where there was another transporter, with a special display for the Hangar. "Tada!" Harry exclaimed. "Instant transport between the Prometheus and the Hangar. I'll be placing it under protections, of course, but you'll be able to come and go between the two, whenever you want."

"So, we'll be spending the next couple of days setting up our labs on the ship?" Thomson asked, with a sigh. As the only man in the group, he'd be doing a lot of physical labour, he suspected.

"I'll help you out, while I teach you how the Saucer works." Bill volunteered. He turned to Harry. "I'm assuming you'll give me a way to come here?" he asked.

Harry reached into a pocket and tossed him a ring. "There you go. Just activate it. It's two-way. I'll be adding an inertial dampener to the Saucer in the next couple of days, and changing the layout of the controls, so that they are the same as on the Prometheus." He turned to Thomson, then. "I'm afraid the information and training you receive on this will be completely off the record. Nothing personal. I trust you, but I don't necessarily trust any government with what I've made. If you're asked or forced to reveal how this works, you'll lose the information."

"I completely understand, Harry." Thomson said. "I worked for the government, as you know. While their intentions may be noble, some parts of government would not be able to resist the temptation of owning something like the Saucer, not to mention the Prometheus."

"We also know your character, having worked with you for a while now." Pike added. "You're doing good work. I wouldn't mind losing the knowledge, if it guarantees that you can continue your efforts."

"Can we tell the PM of the existence of the Prometheus?" Doctor Hawk asked.

"I don't have a problem with that." Harry agreed. "In-fact, if he wants to see it himself, I'd not object, but he'll need to know that it's not going on any written reports. Nothing can get out. The wolves recently got wind of the Russians trying to get information about the new satellite. We can't leave a paper trail."

"The Russians?" Thomson asked, his face becoming serious. If they caught wind of their work, their families may not be safe. He'd seen and heard of some of the stuff they could or would do, to get information. "Should we be on alert?" he asked.

"The wolves have been monitoring the Hangar." Harry said. He'd put a couple of charms in place to dissuade aggressive actions both at the Hangar and at his people's homes. It wasn't strictly legal, but Harry didn't really care. His people's safety was paramount. "Your homes and the homes of your families also have a few added magical protections."

"When did you do that?" Hawk asked.

"Two weeks after meeting you." Harry said with a shrug.

"I had the wolves handle it." Remus said. "They are trained for stealth, so they were able to put everything in place without raising suspicions."

"Thank you, mister Lupin." Hawk said. Her mother was staying at her house, since she was healed. It was not a pleasant thought to think that she might come home one day, just to find her gone, or invaders waiting for her.

"It's a pleasure." Remus said. "And call me Remus. We'll be working together for the foreseeable future, after all."

"Sidney, then." Doctor Hawk insisted.

The introduction part of the day was done, but before they left, Hermione asked if Harry could take some of the collected carbon, so that she could start working on trying to understand some of the work he was doing. He was happy to fill a bag for her and she shrunk it and placed it in her pocket.

"It's still amazing to see you do that, without a wand." Dumbledore said.

"It's still a trade secret." Harry said. "Stop trying to get her to slip you some information."

"I really wasn't trying for that." Dumbledore said, honestly. "I'm just impressed. I've never seen such casual command of magic, as what you do. Now I find out that another fourth-year student, who you trained, can also do it. It speaks highly of both your ability as an instructor and the ability and intelligence of Miss Granger, here."

"She's a quick study." Harry agreed, smiling at her. "Neville is almost at her level, and Luna is just behind him. The other girls are probably going to reach their level in the next year, but they started later than Hermione."

"Neville started with us though." Padma complained.

"Neville has a natural aptitude for the ability, though." Harry said. "You shouldn't feel bad that it takes you a bit longer."

"But Luna started after us." Neville added. "She's probably more talented than me."

"Luna has a different skillset entirely." Harry said, as he hugged her to his side. "I've told you before, it's your understanding that shapes the magic. Luna has a very unique perspective of how her magic works."

"My transfiguration still needs work." Luna confirmed, with that dreamy smile on her face as Harry hugged her.

"I think that's because you are more creative, artistic." Hermione pondered out loud. "It's not a weakness, but rather, as Harry suggested, a different skillset. It leans to different applications for your magic. I still don't know how you do some of the stuff you do. As I understand it, that means you are right-brain dominant, whereas I am definitely more analytical, like Harry."

"It's part of her charm." Harry said proudly.

They soon left, leaving Bill behind to start helping. Professors Babbling and Flitwick wanted to stay, but Harry said that they could accompany him, once everyone was situated on the Prometheus.

Everyone went back to the resort, and Harry was not surprised, when Flitwick wouldn't leave his side. He really wanted to help Harry with his werewolf project. Harry welcomed the help, though, since he had his theories, but not the experience. Flitwick was a master at his subject and would likely love to help create a solution for werewolves. Dumbledore had excused himself, though. He needed to get to the ministry and have a couple of conversations with the people in charge of the hunt for the escaped convicts.

Speaking of which, there had been a few more arrests, and the number of people still missing was slowly decreasing. Unsurprisingly, the escaped Death Eaters had been the most difficult to round up. The wolves had detected most of their scents together, so they were on the lookout for signs of a large group, but they suspected they had made it to a warded and protected location. They were also being very careful.

Unfortunately that meant that they had no leads. Until some sort of attack happened, there wasn't much to be done. Remus had trained a few of the wolves how to cast the identification magic used on the Marauders Map, to make a monitoring system and they had charmed a few prominent locations in secret. It wasn't a map, per se, but it would let them know where, or if, a convict decided to go to places like Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, or any of the shops there.

They had wanted to take it a step further, though, and Harry had been asked during the following week to allow one of the wolves to access the index, so that they could look through the feeds of the Comms of people who might be contacted. Harry refused that, though. He understood it could be an invaluable tool, but he felt it was an invasion of people's privacy. He relented on one or two points though, and looked for any signs of contact, through the Comms of released prisoners and old acquaintances, but that hadn't panned out anything useful.

Harry and Flitwick spent the first few days working on a ritual, having realised that the Werewolf curse was likely tied into one of the ancient moon-based rituals for enhancing a person's personal power. Fortunately they had that to start the process on. Harry had needed to teach the Charms Master how to cast his magical charging block charm, though, and he had a few ideas he wanted to try, so after the first few days, he decided to go about his own research for a while.

That gave Harry a bit of free time, since he had no idea what the man was up to, except that he seemed quite excited, when a certain idea struck. This wasn't unusual for the diminutive professor, though Harry had still smiled. Flitwick's excitement about magic was always so contagious. He suspected the little man had learned to do that on purpose, to inspire the children.

When Filius started working on that, Harry decided to treat his friends and their families. They spent a few days at Disney World in Orlando, taking The Saucer to the location. Bill and Thomson had finished the move to the new labs, so they took them there in the morning, and picked them up in the evenings. Money wasn't really a problem for Harry and they had spent a lot of time enjoying all the attractions of the theme park. The pureblood parents in attendance had been mostly amazed at what the muggles had made and achieved. The rides, unfortunately scared most of them and they refused to take one, after their first experience. Instead they waited and watched as the children enjoyed themselves. Harry had even invited Hannah and her family, for Neville.

When the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang terms finally ended, Harry went to pick up Victor and his family, along with Karkaroff. Fleur had decided to apparate to them, much as Harry had suspected she might. He had not expected Madam Maxime and Hagrid to join her, but he was more than happy to have them there. That night, there was a large celebration for the two, who were now considered fully trained adults in the magical world.

That night ended up with all his girls gathered in his room, talking and laughing and simply enjoying the fact that they were all together. It was the first time that they could all gather and simply spend time together. Fleur was slightly upset that they had gone to Disney World, without her, but decided to capitalise on it by claiming the next evening for a date with Harry. The other girls grumbled about having to go to bed, when Fleur had no plans to leave his room, when it became too late.

That evening, Harry and Fleur enjoyed the hot tub again, while chatting about the future and her plans for what she would like to do with her time. Fleur had stated that she was going to be helping Harry and that she would be accompanying him from now on, to see where she could be useful. She also wanted to learn about the Muggle sciences, since she'd realised what Harry was doing was ground-breaking and would likely lead the way into the future for the magical world.

It was for that reason that Harry set her up with a Library index, with all the muggle textbooks he and Hermione had been studying. Unfortunately, he didn't have recordings of high school classes for her, but he suspected that that might be a good idea and decided to, rather than recording the chaos which was the mundane high-school experience, hire her a couple of tutors over the next year, to bring her up to speed. He'd record those sessions, and then have a record for future studies.

He also started giving Fleur some training in Occlumency, to help her study and memorise the material better and faster. After the initial discussion, Harry was distracted, when he noticed Fleur's bathing costume was drifting in the water again.

BTB-BTB

The next day, he woke up with a very naked and squirming Fleur attached to his side. It was a very good way to wake up, though he needed to take another shower afterward, which Fleur joined him for. It took a while for the two to finish, and it had almost gone too far again. Her Veela heritage may not drive her to acts of intimacy, but they were both still teenagers and their passion was only barely held in check, when Harry forced his emotions back under control, against the urgings of his young libido.

That day, they went out on the town, since Molly Weasley really needed to go do some shopping. She tended to make food for her family and often invited Harry and his guardians to dinner. She was not subtle in her attempts to have Harry spend time with Ginny, so he ended up telling her, more often than not, that he already had plans or was busy with projects. Molly wasn't happy about it, but Harry had encouraged the youngest Weasley for years now, to see him as only a friend and his effort seemed to have paid off. She was more interested in Neville, actually, and had been quite upset that he already had a girlfriend. Harry couldn't be happier, for himself, that is. Poor Neville had to deal with her pouting, whenever Hannah was around.

The date that evening was a new experience for Harry, and he had amazed Fleur by making himself look older, so that they didn't look like a strange couple, while they were out on the town. The mood was slightly hampered by the fact that Sirius and McGonagall had insisted on accompanying them. It wasn't that they didn't trust them, but more to do with the fact that there were still Death Eaters on the loose.

BTB-BTB

The holiday started falling into that routine. Harry would spend the start of every day with his friends, doing whatever activities they came up with. Then he'd go to the Prometheus, to work on his other projects and to help his people with their own projects, while his friends went about their own further studies, using his resources and the recordings from the higher year classes. He did not know that they were spending one day on magical learning and the other on mundane, with Hermione helping them through the material.

Harry was very happily surprised, when he had seen their labs for the first time. They had power and their machinery was working as it should, even in the highly magical environment. He'd needed to put the extension cords into ducting he transfigured for them, but that was a simple process and took negligent effort.

Doctor Hawk had shown him the results of the experiment she had run with the box with the lights. It seemed that she had worked a rune cluster that converted the magical energy into electrical energy, which was funnelled into a battery. It wasn't stable or efficient, yet, but it showed great promise. If they could figure out how to cleanly convert magic into power, it could impact their lives greatly.

Doctor Hawk and Pike had also been designing her telescope. Harry was disappointed to realise they had already taken his ability to expand space into consideration, so he couldn't surprise them with that. Then again, if they couldn't plan with knowledge they'd gained about the magical world, he'd be disappointed as well, so he helped them construct it, during that first week.

Doctor Pike had been working on another side-project that would use his ability to manipulate the structure and space of an object and using strengthening charms to make solar panels. Harry had needed to learn the entire concept, but was happy to learn that with them nearly out of the atmosphere and with the influence of magic, the solar panels would be more efficient than anything the mundane world had.

That project took only two days, with the help of Doctor Pike, who really knew her stuff. The longest part of the project, had been planning the route that the conductive cabling would take to enter the ship. The runes at work on protecting the hull was not meant to ever be disabled and Harry doubted he could affect them with how much work had gone into them. In the end, they'd needed to run it along the hull, to the docking bay and back through the ship from there.

That wouldn't be optimal, though, and Harry had plans to experiment with his Blue Diamond Lasers, to see if he could use the light to transport the current. After all, if you could transport magic, and it was a form of energy, why not electricity? He couldn't focus on that theory for long, though, since Professor Flitwick contacted him with news about the research he had been working on.

Harry went to pick him up and the moment they were back on the Prometheus, the Charms Master started telling him about his findings.

"I was wondering why the moon affected the wolves in the first place, and your research into the scientific effects of the moon on the Earth actually helped there." Flitwick started, as Harry poured them something to drink. He would have a butterbeer, while Flitwick looked like he needed some coffee.

"What did you find?" Harry asked.

"As you suspected, the magic of the moon, was related to the protection the Earth gave the moon during the full moon, but that's not all." Filius said. "Your revelation about the ability of magic to move through light, with your Blue Diamond Laser, gave me the largest clue.

"It has been speculated for a long time about what made magic work in the first place. What exactly is it that makes us magical. The biggest and most researched theory, was that magic and life had a correlation, giving credence to how blood magic was so powerful, even with blood from animals and in some horrible cases, humans.

"I don't know if you knew this, but the younger such a sacrifice is, the more powerful the magic." Flitwick said with a bit of a scowl. "That is why virgin and child sacrifices in the dark ages held such power. Especially willing ones.

"That's not the point though." Filius said, shaking himself from the dark thoughts. "The point is that without life, there would be no magic. If that was true, then what about where that life came from?"

"The sun." Harry said easily. It was a commonly accepted fact that without the light and the heat from the sun, there could be no life on the planet.

"Exactly!" Flitwick exclaimed. "But it doesn't just carry heat and light, does it?" he asked, almost echoing Harry's previous thought.

"No." Harry agreed. "It generates all kinds of radiation. The light and heat are just a large part of what is required to sustain life."

"I've got a new theory." Flitwick said with a bit of a smile. "Have you ever heard of the Incan Empire, from South America?"

"Yes." Harry allowed.

"They were an empire built on the worship of the sun-god, Inti." Flitwick explained. "Now, muggle history doesn't know this, but their priests were all magicals and they believed the power of magic came from the sun, which was placed there to give them both life and power by their god. They were some of the strongest magicals in recorded history, and their rituals all, supposedly, took power from both the sun and the moon.

"Your research has led me to believe that the sun is not just giving us life, through light and heat-" Filius started.

"It also radiates magic!" Harry finally exclaimed in realisation.

"Exactly!" Filius said excitedly.

"But if that's true…" Harry said, as he pondered the theory. The implications were very large. Immense, in fact. "Wait. We need to try something." he said as he put his drink down.

"What are you thinking, Harry?" Flitwick asked. He'd not finished his findings.

Harry beckoned to him and led him to the transporter. When they exited the Hangar back on Earth, Harry focussed on his ring. He had never considered the fact that the sun might be responsible for magic. If it was true, he just needed to focus on connecting to the light, which would obviously already contain magic, much like his lasers did. He'd inadvertently created a device that should already be able to harness the power.

As he focussed, he became aware of a definite trickle of magic. "It's there." he said in wonder. "It's just a little, but… AHHH!" he yelled, before he lost consciousness.

BTB-BTB

When Harry woke up, he was in bed. He came to wakefulness slowly, to the sound of whispering around him. He recognised those voices, though, so he wasn't worried that he'd been ambushed. His last memory was of exiting the hangar and… "Ouch." He said hoarsely as the memory came back to him. He hadn't opened his eyes yet.

"Harry!" a chorus of voices exclaimed from around him.

"I said, ouch." Harry repeated. "Don't yell, my head is pounding."

"Harry?" the voice of his Aunt Poppy asked. "What happened? Filius doesn't know what you did, so we didn't know how to help you."

"Information overload." Harry said as he opened his eyes for the first time. "I'll need to organise and file the information away, before my headache goes away, I think."

"But what happened?" Hermione persisted.

"Who all are here?" Harry asked, as he closed his eyes again. Everything seemed too bright.

"Only people you trust." Pansy said. "You can speak freely."

"I've put up privacy charms." Remus's voice added.

"Thanks Remus." Harry said, with a sigh. "Can I have a headache potion, please?" he asked the matron.

She had apparently been prepared, and handed him a vial, which he downed gratefully.

The moment his headache lessened, he opened his eyes again. He saw all his friends, his guardians and a few Professors. "How long was I out?" he asked.

"It's been a couple of hours." Flitwick said. He looked relieved, but there also seemed to be a hard cast to his eyes.

"Don't blame yourself Filius." Harry said. "This would likely have happened sooner or later, knowing what I do now."

"I did this." Flitwick castigated himself. "I should have insisted that you tell me your plan. What happened?" he asked again.

"Fine." Harry relented. "Have you told anyone of your findings?"

"I'd rather not, in case something like this happens again." Flitwick said. If anyone else had the same idea, or capability, like Hermione, he'd rather not risk it.

"It couldn't happen." Harry refuted. "You'd need a very specific tool, to do what I tried." he said, as he touched his finger to his ring, which became visible for a moment. "The problem with my telling you all this, is that it's connected with a family magic discovery, so you'll need to keep it to yourselves."

There were a chorus of nods. Nobody would betray his confidence.

"Tell us." Fleur insisted.

"I recently discovered that magic can be carried through light." Harry started. "Not just any light, though. It had to use a special process I came up with. My ring has some of that built into it. Filius theorised, correctly I might add," he nodded at Flitwick, "that the sun is the source of not just life on the planet, but the magic for it. I used my special means, to try and connect to that. I discovered a very small amount of power flowing through the light."

"If it was a small amount, why did you pass out?" Dumbledore asked. This was a very interesting discovery, but the boy's health was more important to him, just now.

"I have other theories that work on the transport of magic through light." Harry said. "I stupidly cast a detection spell into the magical trickle and it travelled to the sun instantly and from there tried to tell me everything the sun's light touches." There was silence at that statement.

"You fucking moron!" Neville exclaimed, angrily. He had forgotten his company for a moment. He wasn't the brightest of students, but even he knew what was being described was not intelligent in the slightest. His anger was directed at the fact that he knew his parents were in their current state, because their minds couldn't take all of that pain. All of that sensory information drove them mad. "You can't do things like that! You've got people that care about you!"

Harry was taken aback at the exclamation from the normally calm and friendly boy. He didn't know his thoughts, but he suspected. "I'm-" he started.

"Neville is right." Hermione interrupted. "Don't say sorry. You are supposed to know better!"

Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he held his tongue. Most of the occupants in the room looked angry at him. Dumbledore looked saddened. Luna spoke up though. "He made a mistake." she said. "He wouldn't have done this, if he knew the consequences." She didn't ask it. She said it, like a statement. Her faith in Harry, had him smile at her. "That doesn't mean I'm feeling better, though." she added, her dreamy smile completely absent from her face. "You shouldn't do these things without discussing them first. What if the sun decided to send you power through the connection? You'd likely be dead."

Harry's face went pale at that. Why hadn't he considered that? "I'm sorry for worrying you all." he finally said. "I'll not do something like that, without discussing them first."

"You're normally so careful, Harry." McGonagall said. "We trusted you to take care of yourself, because you always do."

"I was there and did nothing to stop him." Flitwick continued his thought from before. People might trust Harry, but they also trusted him to protect the student he was with. He'd caused this situation.

"I said, don't blame yourself, Filius." Harry reprimanded. "Like I said, even if I had known this was a possibility, I'd likely still have done it at some point. I'd take more precautions, of course, but I'd have done it anyway. Knowing what I do now, interstellar travel just became a real possibility."

There was another stunned silence at that, before Hermione asked worriedly, "You will be careful, though, right? You'll plan it properly and test it on a smaller scale, to ensure that you don't hurt yourself?"

"Or others." Sirius said. If the sun had somehow suddenly transferred power to Harry, there was a likelihood he'd have done damage to the planet, if what he'd learned from Harry over the years was true. If one flame from the sun could envelop the entire planet many times over, what would happen if just a portion of that power had somehow transferred to Harry?

"Overwatch protocol." Remus said.

"Confirmed." a voice said from the corner, where Daniels stood. Harry had not even noticed the wolf there.

"What's overwatch protocol?" Harry asked.

"In case you become a liability, or if you ever showed signs of becoming a danger to yourself or those around you, we planned for an escort to accompany you." Remus said. This wasn't something he had wanted to do, or consider doing, but Harry was a powerful young man. He already knew enough to pose a threat to all mankind, even though they knew he wouldn't do anything on purpose. Yet.

Harry considered that for a moment. He understood the need. Remus was taking his responsibility to the pack and all they protected seriously. If he ever became charmed or lost his moral compass, it would be their responsibility to contain him, or take him out. He finally nodded. "Agreed." he said. He didn't think he'd ever be a threat to anyone that wasn't a threat, themselves, but neither did Dumbledore and look what happened to him.

Remus sighed in relief. A small part of him had expected an outburst. He was relieved that Harry understood the need. "Good." he said. "Daniels will assign someone to you."

"Please don't make it a girl." Luna asked. "I've got enough sisters." she said, her smile coming back. Just like that, the tension of the moment was broken, as a bit of laughter escaped those watching.

"You know what?" Harry asked. "I think I have enough girlfriends as well."

"Good." Daphne said. "I don't want to share you with more people."

"I was considering placing Tonks on duty with him." Daniels said, dubiously. He knew of her metamorphmagus abilities. That would be a great asset. She was one of those who came to them from the Aurors, without being let go. Since Marauders Inc. was becoming a much more effective force than the Aurors, who were quickly becoming a laughing stock after the breakout, many people had applied for positions with the wolves.

"Tonks goes with Remus." Harry said instantly. When Remus made to object, Harry said, "Overwatch protocol."

"Confirmed." Daniels said again. He liked the idea. Tonks was a good recruit and the Alpha could do with some extra protection.

Remus narrowed his eyes at Harry. He knew what he hoped would happen. He didn't necessarily have a problem with the idea, but he disliked being manipulated, even if it was out in the open. "Fine." he finally relented.

The conversation from there was lighter. People still wanted to know what Harry had experienced, but every time he tried to think of it his headache came back, so Madam Pomfrey forbade the subject, until Harry had had time to sort the memories through and to process everything.

When the adults and Neville left, Harry was left with his girls. "I really am sorry." he said again.

"Don't be sorry." Padma said.

"Be careful." Parvati finished.

"Don't start doing the twin-speak thing, as well?" Harry asked, with a bit of a smile.

"Why not, Harry?" they asked together.

"That's just weird." Harry said. "Did you figure out how the Weasleys do it?" he asked.

"It's actually a simple trick." Padma said. "We were able to do it as children, but when we found we had different interests, that diverted some."

"Where you are concerned, we feel the same though." Parvati said with a nod. "It's easy to fall back into the right mind-set."

"I wish I had a twin." Pansy said.

"Someone to take the fall for you, when you commit a heinous crime?" Daphne asked with a smirk.

"No, so I can have someone to go clothes shopping for me, while I take care of our betrothed." Pansy said, as she sat down on the bed next to Harry. "Speaking of which, is there anything we can do for you?" she asked as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

"You don't happen to need a sponge bath, do you?" Daphne asked, smirking at him now.

"Why would I need a bath?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow. "It's only been a few hours. Actually I am getting a little hungry."

There was a pop, as Dobby appeared with a bowl of grapes. "For the missuses, to feed you." he said with a smirk.

"You've been getting instructions from Sirius, haven't you?" Harry asked with narrowed eyes. He could see Sirius teaching Dobby to have his girls feed him grapes, while he lounged about.

"I's not supposed to be saying." Dobby said, as he placed the bowl down and popped away again.

"You know that I know that you can still hear me, right?" Harry asked the room. There was no response, though. Harry laughed at the silence, anyway, imagining Dobby's nervous smile at hearing that. "Cheeky bugger." he muttered good-naturedly.

"He's a good assistant." Daphne said. "Can he say it correctly, or does it still sound like something dirty?"

"Oh, I'm sure he could, if he wanted to." Harry said. "I personally think he likes to say things wrong. I've heard him say the same sentence two different ways, messing up different parts of the sentence and saying the other parts right. Sometimes he refers to himself in the third person and other times he has no problem with 'I'."

"He does it on purpose?" Hermione asked.

"He's free to talk how he likes. Always has been." Harry said, with a shrug. "I'd not force him to speak differently. It's probably one of the first freedoms he ever had."

The girls spent some more time with him, until it became late again. Nobody stayed behind this time, but they urged him to rest, or to work through the memory of the day, so that he could join them the next day, mentioning a bit of sunbathing as incentive. Imagining them all in their swimming costumes definitely motivated him, so he closed his eyes and delved into his memories.

It took a few hours, before he was finished, but when he was, he was astounded at what he had discovered. He'd need to show this to Doctor Hawk. She would no doubt be amazed. Unfortunately he had to remove a lot of what he found. It was simply too much, and the ring was still trying to feed him more results, until he purged the magic still in the ring.

So it was that Harry spent the next day in relative comfort, playing by the pool and teasing his girls. By the time that he left for the Prometheus, he had Fleur, Flitwick and a wolf, by the name of Cooper with him. He was apparently also a marine, the American kind, though. He had served for only a few years, before his infection and was forced to retire. Marauders Inc. had given him the chance to serve again and Thomson told him that even though the man was relatively average looking, his senses were his strongest trait. He was a tracker, with great reflexes and a natural ability to spot traps, even before he was turned into a werewolf.

They arrived in the Lab section, only to find Bill and Thomson wheeling a large piece of equipment out of Doctor Pike's lab, on their way to the transportation room. "Hey guys, why are you removing the Sterling Engine?" Harry asked.

"Unnecessary." Doctor Pike said from the door. "The solar panels are generating all the power we need and Bill helped us implement the planned upgrade to have the panel tilt with the sun. With our batteries up and running, we no longer require power at night, either, so we're good without that taking space in my lab."

"But we only implemented the solar panels a few days ago." Harry said, in confusion. Surely they couldn't have figured it all out?

"She's been running us ragged." Bill said. "We really need more magicals on the ship, Harry. I'm knackered and she's been having me work with my magic in space. You know how tiring that can be."

"When did you start working on the upgrade?" Harry asked. He had had Sirius and Remus prepare space suits for the crew, so he knew that the crew could exit the ship safely, though he suspected they'd used the saucer while they worked.

���Yesterday." Bill said tiredly.

"You've not let them rest all this time?" Harry asked. "I was here yesterday. You had us finish the telescope first. He was working all this time?"

"Innovation waits for no man." Doctor Pike said. "Or woman. We've got a lot of work before our labs are up to our current potential." she added.

"Easy for you to say." Bill said. "You stayed on the deck and watched as Thomson and I did all the work."

"Fine, you can get some rest after this." Pike relented. "We've got Harry here now with… Sorry, who are you?" she finally asked Fleur.

"Oh, right." Harry said, after he sent a commiserating look after Bill. "Doctor Samantha Pike, engineer. Meet Fleur Delacour. She just finished her magical education in France. She'll be joining me for a while, to see what I do and where she'd like to fit in."

"Good afternoon." Fleur said with a smile at the doctor. "Eet ees a pleasure to meet you. 'arry 'as mentioned you. You are ze one wis too many jobs?"

"I'm always busy with something." Doctor Pike agreed. "Call me Sam. A friend of Harry's is a friend of mine."

"I've seen how you treat my friends." Harry said, pointing to the closed transporter, where Bill and Thomson had just disappeared. "Maybe it's better that I tell you that Fleur is one of my girlfriends, so no running her ragged. I like her beautiful and vivacious."

"You are so sweet." Fleur beamed at him. "But I am not a weak man. I can 'andle as much, eef not more zan ze average man."

"Oh, I like her." Sam said with a smile. "And once she's up to speed, I'll be testing that stamina she's boasting."

"She's not educated in the mundane sciences." Harry warned.

"Oh? Well that's too bad." Sam said. "I'll just have to demonstrate things to her, like I have to with Bill. Why do normal magicals think that education is unnecessary?"

"Watch out." Harry warned. "She's one of the winners of the Triwizard Tournament. Best of her school. She's more educated than most magicals and learning my secrets on top of that. I wouldn't anger her either. Her people are said to have vicious tempers."

"Her people?" Sam asked, with a frown.

"Zat is not important." Fleur said with a deceptively pretty smile. "And I only beat 'arry, because he tricked me and Victor into winning."

"That sounds like him." Sam said.

"You've met Professor Flitwick." Harry said indicating the man. "This is my bodyguard, Corporal John Cooper."

"He's new." a new voice said. Doctor Hawk had stepped out of her lab. "Why do you need a bodyguard here?"

"It's to protect the world from me." Harry said, with a smirk. While it was technically also true, he'd rather not discuss that. "He's going to shadow me from now on. I did something… slightly less than thought out yesterday and almost blew my mind."

"He means that literally." Flitwick said. "Fool tried to use… Can I say these things in front of Mister Cooper?"

"Cooper is loyal to the Marauders." Harry said.

"Marauders first. Marauders forever." Cooper said vehemently. He'd been with the company for almost two years. He really liked the job. He got to hunt down real criminals and terrorists. They were all magical, but still. Things had gotten slow recently and he was only slightly upset that he was taken from his squad to bodyguard the cub, but most of the other wolves were jealous of hearing his new placement, seeing as how everyone knew Harry was the one that allowed Marauders Inc. to happen in the first place, so he took solace from that. The significant pay increase helped.

"The wolves are never in question, Filius." Harry said. "If you don't want to discuss something in front of Cooper, that's fine, but I trust Daniels and he trusts Cooper."

"And I trust you to know who to trust." Flitwick said. "Your mental acuity on the other hand, is still in doubt."

"What did he do?" Doctor Hawk asked, with some actual concern in her voice. Even if the boy didn't become a scientist, he was doing so much for the world, she couldn't but start to care for him.

"He used the sun as a focus and cast a detection charm." Filius said, resigned.

"What!?" Doctor Hawk asked.

"It's slightly more complicated than that." Harry defended himself.

"I had a theory that the sun was the source of magic." Filius explained. "It was part of my theory from the work I was doing to assist Harry with the werewolves, considering we were discussing the effect of the moon and the way it affected the wolves. Anyway, Harry had the bright idea to go and see if it was true, considering he had developed a way to channel magic in light."

"The Lasers." Doctor Hawk said in realisation. They never discussed the kind of laser or the gem used in it, since that was a major discovery, which was still being researched. They kept that discovery secret, even in the presence of people who knew some of the secrets.

"Exactly." Filius said. "He used the light to cast a detection spell and somehow the magic connected to the sun and went out from there, detecting everything that the light of the sun touched."

"But, that's billions of light-years!" Sam exclaimed.

"Well, my mind couldn't hold all that information, so it overloaded and I passed out, gaining information till just past Saturn." Harry said. "Those rings are largely made of water and their refraction made the light travel in all kinds of directions."

"Creating a cascading effect for anyone stupid enough to try and see the universe." Doctor Hawk said in understanding. She was both impressed and slightly jealous, but her overwhelming emotion was anger at the stupid boy. Before she could explode about it, Harry spoke up.

"I don't need you to reprimand me." he said. "I've already been raked over the coals and, as you can see, I'm not going anywhere without supervision anymore." He pointed with a thumb at Cooper, over his shoulder.

"Hi." the wolf said, with a small smile on his face.

Both the doctors wanted to still point out his stupidity, but had to relent, when they realised the boy had suffered the consequences of acting without thinking. Doctor Pike, however, decided to add a little warning. "Now you know why we are always careful, why we ask so many questions before we try something new with magic."

"Yes, yes." Harry nodded. "I won't do it again. Seriously, how many people will be going off about this?"

"You cannot blame ze people who care for you, 'arry. We will always be worried for you if you are not careful." Fleur said.

Harry sighed and decided to rather just walk into Doctor Hawk's lab. The rest followed him as he walked through her lab and to the observation deck, where a large telescope stood, mounted to the circular platform on a pedestal. The platform had been modified to have the telescope in the centre of the room, so they had added steps down to the lowered platform.

When they were all gathered there, Harry closed his eyes and concentrated, drawing forth the memory of the sensory information he had gained with the spell, projecting it out as an illusion. What the gathered people saw, was a large representation of the sun, which became smaller and smaller until they saw the Earth fly into the room from off to the side, after Mercury and Venus flew by from different locations. Harry then halted the representation of the half orbs (the light only ever touched the one side of the planets).

"Such detail!" Doctor Hawk said, as she looked at the planets. Never before had anyone seen the full illuminated sides of the inner planets in all their glory like this. When the planets were on the other side of the sun, they could get a partial view of them, but never this clearly. "Could you make this into something we can use?" she asked Harry.

"That'll have to be another project." Harry countered. "I don't have all the details and I definitely don't want to ever cast the spell directly again. If we can find a way to buffer it, through some kind of system, that would be preferable."

"Can you show us the rest?" Doctor Pike asked.

Harry obliged and the representation zoomed further out. First Mars, then Jupiter, then finally a partial view of Saturn and its rings.

"Is this to scale?" Cooper asked, for the first time. The Earth seemed small, compared to the last two planets.

"Yup." Harry said. "Out of the nine planets, we're the fifth in size. Four bigger, four smaller."

(AN: At this point in time, Pluto was still considered a planet.)

"What astronomers the world over would give to see this…" Doctor Hawk said, in awe. She was quickly planning to help Harry with a project to use this somehow. If he could work out a system that could feed this kind of information directly to the Prometheus, she'd be the most informed astrological scientist in the solar system.

"That's not the best part." Harry said, as he zoomed into the Earth, to a place he had focussed on before. The resort soon zoomed into view, and Harry oriented the building so that they could see the sun above them. The roof of the resort had gravel and they looked down at the illusionary stones.

"Now you know why I passed out. I had this level of detail in my head, for everything the sun touched. My brain was still trying to process everything, even when I woke up. I ended up having to remove the rest of the information, which was fortunately still being channelled into me from my focus. If I had all the details in my head, I'd definitely be dead." Harry said.

"This is both astounding and worrying." Filius said, bending down to see the detail. It looked real to his eyes. "We will have to work on a way to use something like this, but I agree with you, Harry. I don't think any human mind was meant to hold such a large amount of information. You say your focus was still feeding you the information?"

"As quickly as my mind could hold it." Harry agreed.

"It's safe to assume that the focus was holding the information for you then?" Doctor Hawk asked, in understanding. She looked at the small professor, with some respect.

Harry nodded in understanding as well. "I see what you're saying. Obviously the… specific materials used in the focus, can store more information and in more detail than I had originally anticipated. I'll add that to my projects. If this form of storage works better, we may have found the best storage medium magically attainable."

Flitwick nodded. "We'll still need to modify the charm, to hold, or filter the information and then be able to feed certain information only to whatever system you work out." he said.

"The wolves still take precedence." Harry said then, as he allowed the illusion to fade away.

"Of course." Flitwick said, nodding in acceptance. "Maybe today you'll allow me to finish with my findings?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Harry nodded at the man. "If you'll excuse us?" he asked the doctors.

"Of course." Doctor Hawk said. She looked at the wolf. "Do keep him out of trouble? I think he still has much to contribute, before he blows himself up, trying something else untested."

"That's why I'm here, ma'am." Cooper said with a nod, before he followed the other three from the room.

"You do realise what the PM would say if he knew about this, right?" Sam asked Sidney, once the others had left the room.

"He'd be very interested in the capabilities of such a system." Doctor Hawk said. "Thank goodness we can't tell him about this, since it's covered by the contract."

"We'll still need to report part of this." Sam replied.

"We'll just underplay its capabilities." Sidney said. "We can't have the government turning this discovery on the world, like they did with so many other scientific discoveries."

"Not that they'd be able to use it without Harry's say so." Sam said. "That boy still shocks me around every corner." She smiled broadly then. "I can't wait to see what he comes up with next."

Sidney just nodded along. That boy… If he could harness this discovery, he could likely detect things as far away as another solar system. If that was true, his plans to explore the universe, just became a little more attainable. "Such potential." she said.