Chapter 39

March 14th.

Sirius would have hated this.

That was what Harry's thoughts boiled down to as he attended his godfather's funeral, along with his girls, Narcissa, Andromeda, Ted, Penny, Remus and the two house-elves.

The Blacks had a personal graveyard for their family members, though Harry knew that Sirius would have also hated to have his final resting place here. Not that it really was his final resting place since there was no body to bury, nor was Sirius in a position to care anymore, on account of being dead. The idea of caring what happened to your body after you died had always struck Harry as being rather absurd. What difference did it make? You were dead!

Even as a young child, he had been puzzled by what exactly a funeral was supposed to accomplish. To him, it had always felt like funerals were being used as yet another venue for people to show off how sympathetic, virtuous and dignified they were by offering condolences that they didn't feel to the grievers.

Maybe that was just his upbringing at work, but Harry knew that he would be tempted to punch someone if he had to put up with that.

This private little ceremony at least spared him from that, even if he still thought it was pointless. Nonetheless, Sirius would have hated this, this somberness.

He wondered if any of the others felt the same and were just playing along because they didn't know what else to do.

Harry would miss Sirius, but he found it hard to feel bad for him. Yes, he was dead, but death was no terrible thing and everyone had to go eventually anyway. It would have been better to remember him for his life rather than for his death, if they had to do this at all. People might say that that was what funerals were for, but Harry wasn't seeing it. This subdued affair had no connection to Sirius' life at all.

I'm going to have a permanent reminder of his death as it is. He thought, rubbing the left side of his face.

The scars from where Imhotep had laid his face open hadn't healed and at this point were obviously not going to.

Luna gave his other hand a squeeze and he gave her a small smile in return. She, Dora and Fleur were probably more affected by Sirius' death than him, being rather more emotional. It was the only reason he was even at this funeral to be perfectly honest.

March 15th. Egypt.

Harry was back in Egypt, chasing a loose end. The girls had protested and only relented once he had sworn that he would run at the first sight of trouble. Something was not adding up with the whole Imhotep adventure and he meant to get to the bottom of it. He just had to find another sphinx to talk to.

That part was rather easy as it turned out. There were several of them near Imhotep's tomb.

Harry walked up to one of them, recognising the very same sphinx that he had spoken to back in the hedge maze at the end of his fourth year.

"Spellweaver." The sphinx greeted.

"Why did you lead me to Imhotep's tomb." Harry asked without preamble.

"Egypt is fallen." She said solemnly. "It fell long ago, never to rise again and our duty was thus voided, but Imhotep's magic still bound us. We reinterpreted the wording of his commands in the hope that someone would have the strength to free us."

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. He didn't appreciate being used, but he had known they were up to something before they ever set foot in the tomb and there was more to this besides.

"Imhotep was supposed to protect Egypt according to the inscription on his sarcophagus." He pointed out. "What went wrong?"

"The secret sect of Ra's priesthood that was meant to awaken Imhotep when the need arose was murdered by a powerful vampire, but not before he learned of their duty. Ever since, that vampire's bloodline has kept watch to prevent him from being awoken again. You were the first seeker of the tomb they had not slain."

And there was the missing piece of the puzzle that explained why the tomb had remained sealed for so long.

Harry remembered his first talk with Bjomolf, when the ancient vampire had briefly mentioned their conflict with the Sun-sorcerers of the past. He had been allowed to find the tomb, free of vampire interference, in the hopes that he would dispose of a longstanding problem for them. A risky gamble, he could have just as easily ended up freeing the ancient lich.

"Why did Imhotep attack us?" Harry asked his final question. He already had a good idea, but he'd like to have it confirmed.

"One among your number was veela, Imhotep would have recognised her as a spawn of the succubi and they have ever been his enemy. Whether he would have attacked you regardless none can truly say. Perhaps he would have, simply because you were not garbed in the vestments of Ra's priesthood or perhaps his long sleep had driven him to madness."

Harry nodded with a sigh, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Do you intend to take vengeance against us?" The sphinx asked, nothing more than mild curiousity in her tone.

What an odd thing to ask. Harry knew that he could be spiteful and petty at times, but he felt no particular impulse to lash out right now. He had no grudge against the sphinxes and he could understand, even sympathise with, their motivation. Besides, it wasn't like they had forced him to do anything. They may have laid out the hints, but the five of them had walked into danger willingly, knowing full well that something was fishy about the whole thing. Taking revenge on the sphinxes would serve no purpose, he wouldn't even gain any satisfaction out of it.

"No." He said simply and turned to walk away.

"Then we are in your debt, Spellweaver." The sphinx said with a slight incline of her head. "You may call on us, if you have the need. It would be nice to have purpose again."

That did surprise Harry, but he wasn't going to refuse an offer like that.

"I'll keep it in mind."

The girls were less than amused when he conveyed his findings to them.

"You mean they set us up?" Fleur asked furiously.

"If you could classify letting us blunder into trouble as 'setting us up'." Harry replied with a sigh.

"How can you be so calm about this?" Dora demanded. "Sirius is dead because of them!"

Grief and some guilt for Sirius' death had taken hold as soon as they were out of danger, now that was turned to anger as they learned that they had been taken advantage of.

"And what am I supposed to do?" Harry asked, a light trace of sarcasm entering his tone. "Should I knock down Bjomolf's front door and demand to know why his people stayed out of our way exactly like I wanted them to?"

"They could have warned us." Fleur insisted, still angry.

"They could have," Harry agreed. "but would we have listened? Speaking for myself, I know that I would have been even more interested if I was told that there was a lich entombed there. Maybe my curiousity would have gotten the better of me and I would have gone down there myself, confident in my own power. Maybe Imhotep would not have been hostile without you there, or maybe I would have seen that I was overmatched and fled, letting him lay waste to the country."

Fleur went quiet at that. It was a hard thing to admit, but she knew that she might have insisted on going too, perhaps simply to spite the vampires that she disliked on an instinctive level.

She nodded silently and sat down next to him, a clear indication that she was done arguing.

"I can't believe you're making apologies for them." Dora glowered at him.

"I'm not." Harry said tersely. "I have no doubt that they had some scheme ready to point us at that tomb, but the fact remains that we walked into it of our own free wil."

"Sirius wouldn't want us to risk our lives trying to avenge him." Luna spoke up quietly from where she was sitting in Harry's lap, stopping the conversation in its tracks.

"Luna's right." Harry agreed with a sigh a few moments later. "Even if we had a more justifiable reason to be pissed at the vampires, I wouldn't be eager to make an enemy of them, especially not with the threat of Voldemort still looming over us."

Dora exhaled gustily and sat on his free side, leaning in for a hug.

"He was my favorite cousin." She said sadly.

"I thought I was your favorite cousin?" Harry quipped with a crooked smile.

"Prat." She muttered in retaliation.

"How about we go to Black Island for a little while, just the four of us?" He suggested. "We did expect to be gone a lot longer than this and I'm personally not too eager to be back quite yet."

While still a bit subdued, all three of the girls liked that idea.

March 30th. Black Island.

Another beautiful day. Dora thought contently as she made her way down to the beach.

This extra bit of vacation had been a good idea. It had allowed them time to come to grips with Sirius' death without any external pressures. He would be missed, but the pain of his passing was no longer so acute.

Harry was already at the beach, sitting naked on a large blanket charmed to repel sand. She was naked too - none of them had bothered putting any clothes on since the second day of their arrival. There was nobody to see except the four of them and Etal anyway, and the quetzalcoatl had flown over to South America in a fit of nostalgia over a week ago and hadn't been seen since.

Her lover's eyes raked over her naked form hungrily and she could see his erection swelling into readiness. She privately enjoyed his obvious attraction, but a romantic shag on the beach wasn't what either of them were here for.

"So, what are we doing today?" She asked, plopping herself across from him on the blanket.

"I think you're about ready to get started on Spellweaving." Harry said, giving her a proud smile.

"Alright!" She cheered, grinning. She'd wanted to move on from Will Manifestation for months already, but Harry wouldn't budge and insisted that she keep practicing until she was able to call up magic with the same ease as she moved her arms.

"Spellweaving will be different from what I've taught you so far." Harry began, his voice carrying a warning tone. "Above all else you must remember that you are working without a buffer that a wand provides. Any spells you weave will be influenced by your emotions much more than you're used to."

"I know, you've said this before." Dora said impatiently.

"And I'll say it again." Harry replied sternly and then held up his right arm, which of course still had the old burn scars going up to the elbow. "Or else you might find yourself with one of these too."

Dora could have flippantly said that she could just morph the scars away, but his unamused gaze and scarred face kept her quiet. It would be insensitive, but that wasn't the reason it would be a dumb thing to say. Harry wasn't self-conscious about his scars and carried them with an indifferent sort of dignity that prevented them from truly detracting from his looks, but he would not be happy if she dismissed the hard lessons that had been learned when he got them.

"I understand." She said with a nod.

"Good, then we can get started. As we've established before, Will Manifestation is essentially just focusing enough magic into a specific desire that the regular order of the universe is briefly suspended in favor of your will. It is energy inefficient, has mostly straightforward effects and isn't directly dangerous to you. With Spellweaving, you will be crafting an altered subset of reality that functions on different rules compared to mundane physical reality. This is dangerous and requires a rigid control of your thoughts for it to be stable. Emotions influence people to a very large degree, so anything you try to cast will be tinted with whatever emotions you're feeling at the time."

"Alright, how do I do it then?" Dora said with a slow nod, forehead scrunched in concentration as she tried to follow what she sometimes privately referred to as 'Harry's metaphysical mumbo-jumbo'. That she even knew what 'metaphysical' meant was something else to blame Harry for.

"First, it would probably benefit you to get a feel for the world around you."

Dora cocked her head quizzically, having no idea what he was talking about.

"We're going to have to relocate for this one." Harry said and held out his hand, clearly intending side-along Apparition.

With a small shrug, she went along with it.

They reappeared in a small clearing somewhere on the island's forest, which had a semi-large boulder as its most defining feature.

"Go sit on the boulder." Harry said.

"Alright, now what?" She asked once she was on it, bemused.

"Close your eyes." Harry instructed patiently.

She did so, plunging her perception into darkness. Her lover's powerful magic glowed in her mind like a beacon.

"Now relax and listen . Not with your ears, they are deaf to what you want to hear. I want you to listen with your magic."

Once upon a time, she would have needed to rearrage her ears so that they were truly deaf to have any hope of doing that, but she had learned since then.

Still, she couldn't really 'hear' anything except for Harry's magic.

"The rocks, the trees and the earth here are all magically inert, but that doesn't mean they don't have memory of a sort. I'll go back to the beach so that I'm not distracting you. I'll come back in two hours if you fail, come find me if you succeed."

"How will I know if I've succeeded?" She asked archly, opening her eyes.

"You'll know." He said with a smile and apparated away.

"Such a gentleman, leaving me sitting alone and naked on top of a rock in the middle of nowhere." Dora said to herself mockingly and closed her eyes again.

The rock was a bit uncomfortable on her naked bum and she had no idea what Harry wanted her to achieve, but she ignored that and tried to do as he said. Harry wouldn't have had her doing something pointless, that much she was sure of.

The echoes of his presence slowly dissipated, leaving the clearing empty of any magic save her own. Time slowly slipped away as she lost herself in the various noises of forest and the whispering of the wind through the trees. Her state could almost be called a light doze if not for the hyper-awareness that her magical senses provided.

Still, there was nothing much to sense. Her magic was spread all over the clearing, trying to listen as Harry had told her to do, but there was nothing to sense. There was only the breeze, the birdsong, the chattering of insects, the flow of the ocean…

Dora's eyes snapped open in bewilderment. The sensation of being underwater had crept into her perception so stealthily that she had barely noticed it, yet once she did it was jarringly discordant with everything else.

With renewed purpose, she sank back into meditation, seeking the elusive sensation. It had come from the boulder she was sitting on, that much she knew, so that was where she focused her efforts.

It took some doing to return to the right mindset, but she did have at least some idea what she was after now and managed it without great difficulty. It wasn't so much a memory as it was an impression of a great length of time passing by while submerged in salty ocean water… then a change. Lifted from the depths by a powerful force and moved to this forest. Partially buried in the earth and once more left alone.

Dora apparated back to Harry, eager to share her success with him and get an explanation on what exactly she had succeeded at.

"An hour and a half, give or take." He said as soon as she popped into existence. "Not bad at all."

"What was that?" She asked, plopping herself on the blanket after giving her sore bottom a little rub. "That boulder… I just… knew that it had been taken from the ocean a while ago. You moved it, didn't you?"

"The world has a voice too, though almost nobody learns how to listen to it in this day and age, not that it was likely to be common in any age." Harry explained. "Yes, I moved that boulder the day after we arrived here. I thought you'd need something a little louder to listen to."

"But what is this 'voice'?" She pressed.

"The voice is the soul and yes, inanimate objects have souls too. Humans naturally like to equate the mind and the soul, but that's just fear of death talking. The soul is essentially an existential fingerprint, comprised of everything a person or object is and has happened to them. It is theoretically possible to learn everything about any person or object simply by listening to their souls, but our minds are too limited to grasp more than a tiny fraction of that information."

"That's… pretty amazing, but how does it relate to Spellweaving?"

"Ah, yes. Wizards and witches are, as usual, an anomaly. Due to the tangible link between our minds and souls, our souls are more… alive, for lack of a better word. Ours are the only souls I've found so far that are receivers as well as transmitters, aside from maybe the goblins."

Dora blinked at the sudden radio analogy. "Yeah, you're going to need to explain that one."

"Like I said, everything that exists has a soul, a voice, but not just anyone can learn to listen. In essence, most of humanity and all other life is born deaf to this layer of existence. Tell me, could you have detected the use of a levitation spell on that boulder after two weeks with conventional means? Or that that I took it from the ocean?"

"Of course not." Dora answered. Levitation left few enough magical traces as it was, detecting them after two weeks would be impossible by means of any spell she knew. Trying to detect that the boulder had been lifted from the ocean… that she couldn't even begin to figure out how to do with any conventional spell.

"Of course not." Harry agreed. "But you could 'hear' the memory of the ocean and the echo of my spell on the soul of the stone. That spell was formed of my mind and will and carried the imprint of my soul. Wanded magic carries the traces of the creature whose parts were used in its making, plus the impression of the caster, rather than the unfiltered imprint that wandless magic creates. We'll come back to how this is going to help you learn Spellweaving a bit later. For now, let's just say that this little exercise was to give you some appreciation for context."

"Context?" She asked curiously.

"All actions, even mundane ones, leave a memory of sorts on the world. Most of these just blend into the background unless they are of a cataclysmic variety like volcanoes erupting, meteor impacts, wars or other kinds of abrupt and extremely disruptive events. Magical actions however, even relatively small ones, make a big splash when they are first done and leave a much stronger memory. It will take a very long time before that boulder will 'forget' my levitation spell."

Dora considered that for a while. When teaching, Harry always preferred to make you question whenever possible rather than spoon-feeding you information one bit at a time. His favorite questions were how and why and she'd already asked how earlier.

"Why does using magic make a big 'splash'?" She asked.

Harry smiled at her approvingly and projected a sense of satisfaction through his aura. That made her smile back and thrust her chest out proudly, sending her currently-D-cup breasts bouncing. His eyes flicked towards them - which turned her smile into a grin - but he didn't otherwise react.

As he often did, he answered with another question.

"How old is magic?"

That threw her. How was she supposed to answer that?

"I have no idea." She admitted.

"Think about it." He said. "The truth is fairly obvious once you eliminate all the ridiculous answers."

Think about it, huh?

Well if she was going to eliminate the ridiculous answers then the first thing that came to mind was that one persistent theory among certain purebloods that magic itself chose which bloodlines would be magical at the beginning of the world. This theory was plagued with many problems, chief among them the existence of muggleborns and those purebloods' stubborn belief that the world's age was measured in thousands of years rather than billions.

Still, despite the egotistical stupidity of it, they almost definitely got one thing right. Magic had to be older than humanity.

She recalled a conversation she'd overheard back during her early Hogwarts days. She'd been studying in the library and overheard two boys a year ahead of her speculating if dragons were related to dinosaurs. The idea had stuck with her simply because of how plausible it was.

Furthermore, she knew that while it was up to the individual magical governments to contain breaches to the Statute of Secrecy made by their citizens, the ICW itself employed a very large contingent of obliviators whose sole duty - aside from being on standby in case of a truly severe breach - was to keep a close eye on the muggle world and make any paleontological or archeological evidence that might hint at magic disappear. Harry had also looked into the history of the ICW and found that there had been a vast undertaking to remove any trace of such knowledge from public view back when the ICW was first founded, finishing the job that European wizards and witches had been doing somewhat haphazardly for centuries before then.

So, if dragons were indeed related to dinosaurs, then that meant that magic was probably older than them too. Seeing as there was no particular reason to think it would stop there, it followed that magic was probably older than the planet itself. Factoring in Harry's explanations on the stars and the Void… yeah, magic was probably as old as the universe. Huh, what do you know, it really was obvious.

"As old as the universe?" She asked in a lofty tone.

"At least that old, yes. The scale of it is far too great to have simply popped into existence randomly or been created artificially, so it must have existed from the start." Harry nodded agreeably.

"Alright." Dora said and paused. "How does that answer my question?"

Harry chuckled. "It doesn't, not yet. I'm afraid we'll have to digress once or twice more before I can give you a straight answer."

Dora snorted in amusement and rolled her eyes, but nodded anyway. She knew how Harry's lessons worked now. His digressions always happened when there was some underlying concept that had to be explained before any answer would make sense.

"Alright then, digress away." She said with an imperious wave of her hand.

And so he did. "Mundane science recognises that our universe is governed by four fundamental forces, those being gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. Magic doesn't fit in, it flagrantly warps the basic principles of one or more of these every single time it's used for even the most miniscule reason. Levitation? It counters the effects of gravity with no obvious force being used from the perspective of physics. Transfiguration? It changes the molecular and even atomic structure of objects as if it was no more noteworthy than rearranging some sand. There's an example like that for every spell you care to name."

"So you're saying that magic is an aberration?" Dora asked slowly, brows knit close together as she tried to discern what he was getting at.

"Not exactly." Harry said with a small smile. "While it is definitely aberrant if viewed from a conventional perspective, it is also indisputably part of our existence and therefore must have a place somewhere. If magic cannot be placed within the limits of the world that mundane senses are able to perceive, then it must exist outside of them."

"How would that work?" She asked skeptically.

Harry seemed to have been expecting the question. Perhaps Fleur and Luna had already asked it, or he had asked it himself. Either way, he was prepared to answer it.

"Imagine a world that exists in only two dimensions. Everything in this world would be defined only by length and width. To the people living in this 'Flatland', the mere concept of height would be more foreign to them than Britain's trade relations with Japan are to a slug. If you looked down on Flatland, you would be able to see it and its people in their entirety. The borders of their bodies would be their skin, but it wouldn't hide anything from your three-dimensional gaze. If you looked close enough you could even see the individual brain synapses firing or poke your finger right into their guts and they would be helpless to stop you - they wouldn't even be able to perceive you. Similarly, these two-dimensional people would be beyond the perception of anyone that lived in a single dimension, defined only as backward and forward. By the same token, anything above the third dimension is beyond the perception of regular three-dimensional beings."

The stress on 'regular' in that last sentence was as clear a hint as anyone could ask for.

"But not us?" Dora asked.

"Not us." Harry agreed. "At least not completely. We may still be merely human and have human limitations, but we exist partially beyond those limitations as well. Remember how we talked about the soul being an existential fingerprint earlier? This is an ontological concept undefined by physical reality and might as well not exist for all the effect it has on the non-magical, but we are different. Most wizards and witches - when they can be bothered to even think about it in the first place - do so like to imagine that there is a core of energy inside them that powers their spells, but it isn't nearly that simple. You could say that magic exists parallel to the physical universe and we have, through some cosmic stroke of good fortune, been gifted with the ability to perceive and interact with it in whatever limited degree our minds are capable of."

"You said that we have magic because of some 'cosmic stroke of good fortune', but it's well documented that magical ability follows bloodlines. How do you explain that then?"

"That is an excellent question!" Harry beamed at her, an expression that looked decidedly odd on his scarred face. "The short answer is that magic begets more magic. Wizards and witches happen to release a powerful burst of raw magic during orgasm, which is what veela are so thirsty for by the way, but any sufficiently high concentration of magic present during conception will also greatly increase the chances of the resulting child being magical."

"And how exactly did you figure that out?" Dora asked skeptically.

Harry suddenly looked shifty.

"Harry…" She said warningly.

"Well, I may have… tracked down a few young couples that were trying to have a baby, broken into their homes and enchanted the ever-loving shite out of their beds." He admitted reluctantly.

"Harry!" Dora exclaimed, too incredulous to be properly upset. "You can't just randomly enchant peoples' beds to satisfy your curiousity!"

"What's the harm?" Harry asked defensively. "Those couples will have the best, most satisfying sex lives in town. I probably prevented a divorce or two."

Dora pinched the bridge of her nose. How does a girl tell her too mature, but still teenaged, authority-hating boyfriend that treating random people like test subjects for his experiments was wrong, even if they benefitted from it?

"Three of them have already had children, two of which were magical, so I'm definitely on to something even though there is obviously also an element of chance involved." Harry went on, oblivious to her thoughts. Probably, you could never be sure with him. "And I have Teeny keeping an eye on things in case any magical pests are drawn to the beds, though it does drive her to distraction that she isn't allowed to clean anything else."

"I can't believe you." She muttered, shaking her head in exasperation. "I turn my back for one moment and you go off, creating new muggleborns. I suppose I should be glad you didn't poke holes into someone's condoms."

"It was for science." Harry said haughtily.

Dora snorted contemptously. "Well then, oh great scientist, how do you explain muggleborns, the naturally ocurring ones?"

"I have no idea." Harry admitted. "It's probably some combination of factors both terrestrial and cosmic happening at just the right time. The birth rates of magical children are certainly low enough in areas bereft of any other magic for it. Happens with animals occasionally too, but humans seem to be far more susceptible. Must have something to do with sapience."

Dora shook her head, feeling rather exhausted by this heavy conversation. She wanted to do stuff!

"Can we just get to the lesson? My arse is starting to fall asleep here and so far we haven't done anything but talk ."

Harry looked amused. "Alright then. You asked me earlier why using magic makes a big 'splash'. Could you answer your own question now?"

Dora was not a person naturally given to philosophy and deep existential debates, being more of a doer than a thinker, but months of listening to Harry wax elonquent on the nature of magic and whatever else came to mind had instilled a certain ability to make sense of what lesson he was trying to teach.

"Because magic is disruptive to the natural order of things?" She hazarded.

"Ten points to Hufflepuff!" Harry praised jokingly.

"Could I convince you to make it twenty?" She cooed, batting her eyelashes at him coquettishly and sticking her chest out. Aside from the ability to make sense of Harry's philosophical ramblings, Dora had also gained an ability to tell when a shag was imminent and she had a feeling that this lesson would end in one, which she was more than fine with. Some sticky fun would be the perfect way to unwind after this heavy conversation. Fleur must be rubbing off on me.

"We will discuss point allocation during your detention." He replied sternly, though he was making no attempt to hide his lusty leering.

"Detention?!" She demanded in mock outrage."For what?"

"Criminal sexiness." He smirked.

Dora huffed and stuck her nose in the air, hiding her amusement. Then she shrank her breasts until her chest was flat as a board.

"How's that then?" She asked, pretending to sulk.

"Hey, I was enjoying those." Harry complained. "Bring them back."

"No." She said snootily, still feigning offence. "You called my girls criminals and now they don't want to see you."

"Will they forgive me if I give them a kiss?" He asked with a bemused expression.

"Maybe." She shrugged carelessly, keeping her chest flat. Metamorphmagi might be capable of giving themselves the most perfect set of tits imaginable, but gravity was still a thing and having a pair of D-cup organic milk bags hanging from your chest for a extended period of time wasn't easy on one's back.

"I'll be sure to give it my all then." He declared in the manner of a valiant hero about to embark on a quest to save a princess from a tower. Doubly ridiculous given his generally cynical personality. "For now, let's get back to the lesson."

Dora smiled, not so much at the thought of getting back to the lesson, but at his attitude at her current lack of breasts. She'd gone boobless with a few of her past boyfriends, it being a good way to test them. Their reactions had without fail been negative. Of course, Harry had seen her do much weirder things than this with her powers, even suggested some of them, but it was a nice reminder of the fact that he didn't see her ability as a means to turn her into his ideal image of a woman or something like that.

"Yes, let's get back to the lesson." She said warmly, causing him to blink at the clearly unexpected affection in her tone.

Either way, he didn't call her out on it and got back on track."Right, well, you also only got ten points because your answer was only partially correct. To be more precise, spells are disruptive to the mundane order of things. Some people like to antropomorphise magic, but those people are idiots. If there were no humans, the only sign of magic even existing would be the occasional freak occurence of a new species emerging that blatantly breaks the laws of physics like dragons, unicorns or phoenixes. Interesting side note, have you noticed how only magical species that evolved on their own, without wizard meddling, have parts that work as wand cores?"

"What about veela?" She asked archly. "Their hair can be used as a wand core."

"Doesn't count. They have phoenix ancestry and only veela ca use veela hair as wand cores."

"Fine, but lets get back on topic before you digress on me again." Dora said sternly.

"As you wish." He said mildly. "We'll start you off with something simple then, levitation."

"But I can already do that." Dora protested. It was the truth, an understated one in fact. She'd long since lost count of the number of things she had levitated over the past few months.

"Not with a proper spell you can't." Harry denied.

"Fine, what do I do then?" She conceded.

"Before we begin, we need something to levitate." Harry said and held out his hand. A rock sailed into it a second later and he set it down between them. "Perfect. Now, you learned a little earlier how to listen . Listen to the rock."

Dora scrunched her eyes and tried to do exactly that. It was harder to listen to the world this time because of Harry's powerful presence and the enchanted blanket they were on, plus she was still a novice at this, but she did eventually manage it.

"I have it." She said, still focusing on the rock.

"Good, notice how it relates to the world around it?"

"Yes." She answered absently.

It was just sitting there, at rest. The echo of Harry's Summoning Charm was still very strong upon it, but at the moment it was placidly staying still and would continue to do so until the end of time unless something else moved it.

"You know the principles behind levitation spells as well as anyone. Create a mental construct and apply it to the rock."

Dora frowned in concentration, staring at the rock. It rose into the air and she gave Harry a triumphant smile.

"That's not a spell Dora, you're still using Will Manifestation. If we stick with the sound analogy from earlier, you're just screaming at the world rather than composing a song."

The rock dropped as she stopped focusing, making an almost accusatory little thud.

"Try again."

She did, with similar results. And then several times more until she was starting to get frustrated.

"Anger won't help you." Harry said, no doubt noticing her decreasing patience. "Emotion is great for Will Manifestation if you know how to channel it properly and it can be useful to give certain spells a little extra zing, but it will also twist any spells you try to use so that they satisfy whatever emotional impulse you're under at the time. So please, calm down. I don't fancy being smashed in the face with a rock. "

Dora snickered at the joke.

"Alright, I'm good now." She said.

"Let's try another approach. Forget the rock for now. Take your time, close your eyes and carefully structure the spell until you're sure that it's stable. Once you've managed that we can move on to applying it."

With another deep breath, she closed her eyes and focused.

"Remember that a spell, once finished, is a hard and inflexible imposition on the world. Its limits must be carefully defined in order to work properly."

Right, carefully defined. Float between them at eye level should do it.

"I think I have it." Dora said after nearly five whole minutes of struggling to keep the spell stable.

"Good, then cast it on the rock, but maintain control to the very end so that it doesn't unravel."

"Very nice." Harry praised a minute later as he grabbed the rock out of the air, easily breaking her spell. "A bit wobbly, but very nice indeed for a first attempt."

"It took me forever to do it." She said in frustration.

"You're working without any of the crutches you're used to." Harry pointed out. "The mind is an easily distracted thing, so without vocalisation or wand waving to focus your intent, you're naturally prone to drifting away from the task at hand. Practice will sharpen your focus."

"I suppose we'll be working on that next?" She asked shrewdly.

"We've been working on it from the start, but yes." He nodded in confirmation. "Ideally, you will reach a state of mind that is pure in its focus and immune to external distraction. Zen Buddhism calls this state fudōshin, the immovable mind."

"Zen Buddhism?" She repeated in an amused drawl. "You're really pushing this grasshopper kung fu bullshit, aren't ya?"

"There's only so many Yoda quotes that I can use." He quipped. "Besides, I can't help it if we Europeans were too busy being uncultured savages to bother with philosophy."

"I think you took some splash damage there." She pointed out wryly.

"Nah, Europe is pretty cultured these days." He countered with a smirk. "Took us over fifteen hundred years after the fall of Rome, but we got there eventually."

"Point." She snickered and looked at him speculatively. "So, how far ahead of me are Fleur and Luna?"

"You shouldn't compare yourself to them." Harry chided.

"I'm not, but I still want to know." She did talk about this with Fleur and Luna of course, but Harry was the only one who could give an estimation like that.

Harry sighed with some exasperation as he answered. "They're maybe a couple of months of work ahead of you, but they each have their own set of problems. Luna's thoughts are prone to wandering, so it takes her longer to master an individual spell. On the other hand, she is an excellent multitasker and is fully capable of moving while weaving spells with no discernable loss of focus, something that I suspect you'll probably have some trouble with. Fleur has control issues, as always. Her combat spells are more volatile than I'm happy with, so she probably won't be doing anything too sophisticated for quite some time. As for her non-combat spells… well, they tend to come out a bit… sexy, for lack of a better term."

"Sexy?" Dora asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, sexy." Harry confirmed wryly. "She has a great handle on her Allure nowadays, but at the end of the day she is still a magical creature and the Allure is an intrinsic part of her nature and tends to seep into any spells she casts without the buffer of a wand. Let's say that she tried to cast some cleaning charms or what have you on the bed or any spells that affected the whole room, then anyone entering that room and sleeping in that bed will find themselves feeling unusually amourous."

"Wait, is that why I've been feeling so damn randy lately?" Dora demanded.

"Could be." Harry said seriously, though his lips were twitching.

"That sneaky bitch!" Dora laughed. "Now I know why she was so insistent on taking over all the housekeeping around here."

"Well I did tell her to practice and who knows, maybe deliberately tainting her spells with lust will teach her how to filter it out later." He shrugged.

Dora snorted contemptously. As if Fleur would ever want to learn how to do something like that.

"Speaking of Fleur, we should check if she and Luna are done with the food." As they had elected to not bring even house elves with them this time, they had to make their own meals. That was… interesting.

Fleur was actually not half-bad in the kitchen, but did have an unfortunate predilection for fish that nobody else shared.

Luna liked pudding. Really liked pudding. It was best to not leave her unsupervised for too long.

Harry was a very patient man in many respects, but not when it came to food. He had spent pretty much his whole life having other people make it for him, was always busy with something and suffered from a low-key resentment of the time it took to prepare meals. Left to his own devices, he would probably quickly get fed up with cooking and start eating the ingredients raw when possible, eventually defaulting to nothing but nuts, fruit, vegetables and bread. Or he might even make some alchemically concoted nutrient dust that could be added to a glass of water and replace eating altogether. It would be just like the silly bugger to do something like that.

Not that Dora had room to talk. Before moving in with Harry, her meals had mostly consisted of take-out and whatever could be microwaved into edibility, though her reason was laziness rather than impatience.

"Yes, I suppose we should." Harry agreed, standing up and stretching.

Dora withheld a slight frown. Had she misread the situation? She'd been certain that Harry was intending to take advantage of the opportunity for a little private sexy time.

Hiding her disappointment, she nodded and got up to stretch as well.

… and then failed to keep the grin off her face as Harry stepped up behind her and pulled her into an embrace.

"You didn't really think I was going to let you go so easily, did you?" He purred, nibbling on her ear.

Dora shivered in pleasure and melted into the embrace. "For a second there I did think that I'd stumbled upon a turn off for you." She admitted.

"What, a flat chest?" He scoffed, reaching up to lightly pinch her nipples and making her yelp in surprise. "I like a nice set of knockers as much as the next guy, but this isn't nearly enough take away from your sexiness. Speaking of which, I do believe I promised them restitution for calling them criminal."

Dora smiled at the compliment and let out a pleased groan as he bit into her neck exactly the way she liked it, going down to his knees and taking her with him in the process. The feel of his member throbbing in the cleft between her buttocks had her loins burning with need.

Half an hour later she was running her fingers across the rune scars on Harry's back as he lay atop her and slowly nibbled at her earlobe. 'Post-coital bliss' took on an entirely new meaning when the participants were magically connected on such a deep level that words became redundant and all of life's petty problems faded into insignificance.

Why had she ever been afraid of this?

April 5th. Potter Manor.

Luna smiled sadly as she gently ran her finger down Boo's fuzzy back. He was getting old and was noticeably less energetic than he used to be. Even miniature giant space hamsters weren't immune to old age.

"Is your little friend alright?" A concerned voice asked.

"Just old, Grandmum." Luna said to the portrait of Harry's paternal grandmother.

Harry didn't talk to his grandparents' portraits much these days since he didn't really need them anymore. He didn't see the point in wasting time talking to the echoes of the long dead. Luna understood, even if she did think it was a bit callous of him. Dorea and Charlus were very nice people, even if they were portraits. They had even insisted that she, Nymphadora and Fleur call them Grandmum and Granddad. They had tried to warn Harry away from a relationship with Fleur of course, but had relented once he had set things straight.

That's why Boo's terrarium was in this room. It gave Luna a chance to talk to them while she took care of her hamster's needs, modest as they were. Teeny and Kreacher were a bit put out that she insisted on doing this herself, but she enjoyed it.

Luna spent another ten minutes chatting to the two portraits before deciding to see what her lovers were up to. They were supposed to have a meeting and she was already a bit late.

"Tell that grandson of ours to come talk to us soon, will you, dear?" Charlus asked hopefully.

"Of course, Granddad." Luna said with a wide smile, despite knowing that Harry would just roll his eyes in exasperation.

She decided to skip her way to the study, despite Narcissa's admonishments about it being undignified.

"… get what you're saying, Dora, but we can't just train up a private army." Harry was saying just as she entered. "No matter how spineless Fudge is, that isn't something I'd be able to get away with without being accused of plotting to take over the country."

"Hello." Luna chirped in response to the nods of greeting she received. "What did i miss?"

"Nymmie had an interesting idea." Fleur said.

"Something about a private army." Luna said, cocking her head sideways. "Are we going into the dark lord business? We should coordinate names if we are. I already picked out my dark lady name in case Harry decided to go evil."

"That's nice, but we are not going into the dark lord business." Nymphadora sounded exasperated for some reason. "I just don't like this Voldemort situation. We got rid of as many of his supporters as we could find and aside from chasing the ones that did a runner we can't do any more there, but we're still in the dark about any remaining horcruxes. If we're going to be reduced to sitting on our arses until he comes back, then we might as well train some people to fight so that we aren't outnumbered."

"And like I said, we'd never get away with it." Harry countered. "Even Fudge would have to put his foot down on that one. Or, to be more precise, the rest of the Ministry would have to put its foot down."

"We could say it was a security detail or something."

"Except there's no such thing as professional private security in the magical world outside of an auror guard." Harry pointed out, smiling strangely.

"You've already started up a mobile phone company analogue, we could make a security firm too and what is it with that smile?" Nymphadora finished suspiciously.

"This actually ties in rather neatly to something I wanted to talk to you three about."

That threw the metamorphmagus for a bit of a loop and all three of them simply stared back at him expectantly.

"I got an update from Septima yesterday and it seems that the people at R&D have managed to make a viable prototype for a magical television."

"Alright, I get that you've been considering that application for a while, but why do you need to talk to us about it?" Fleur asked, looking puzzled by the change of subject. Luna was a bit puzzled herself. "Do you want us to head it or something?"

"I could run a channel dedicated to magical animals, we could call it Wizarding Animal Planet. It would be great." Luna enthused. The Quibbler had fallen into disuse after her father'd death and she missed writing articles on exotic creatures.

"I'm sure it would." Harry replied in fond amusement. "And while I would definitely appreciate you taking charge of something like this in my stead, that's not what I wanted to talk about. Narcissa was also present and noted that I'm going to end up employing so many people, many of them foreign, that it would make sense to establish a new town rather than have them scattered all across the country."

"My aunt wants you to found a new town?" Nymphadora asked incredulously.

"Yep." Harry nodded. "Her arguments make sense, but I have a feeling that she's got a bit of an ulterior motive. Narcissa has always been frustrated by my lack of ambition and seems to have decided that she's going to be ambitious on my behalf. I'm pretty sure this is another one of her schemes to elevate my status."

"I think it's sweet of her." Luna opined. It also made Narcissa happy to be trusted to do the bulk of Harry's political and social maneuvering for him.

"You would be a lord in more than just name then." Fleur noted. She sounded intrigued.

"The Ministry would never let it stand." Nymphadora shook her head.

"Why not?" Luna asked.

"Because it would imply a certain degree of autonomy and the Ministry hates autonomy. They've been trying to take control of Hogwarts away from the headmaster position for centuries and have had some minor success with imposing things like the Hogwarts Board of Governors and the Wizarding Examinations Authority on the school, but the headmaster still has far too much power for their liking. Same thing with the Wizengamot, they've managed to add a few Ministry seats to it, but they'd like nothing better than to just usurp all the legislative power for themselves. I just don't see them allowing us to establish what is essentially a personal fiefdom."

"Correct on all points, ten points to Hufflepuff." Harry said jokingly.

"Why not twenty?" Nymphadora asked with a smirk.

"Because you once again overlooked something important." Harry replied smoothly. "Namely, that Fudge is a short-sighted idiot. Much of his reputation is reliant on my continued support and any increase in status for me will also reflect well on him as a result. I doubt he'd even consider the implications before it was too late."

"But you don't want to do that." Fleur stated, sounding quite sure of herself. Luna agreed.

"No, I had something else in mind." He said with a nod towards her. "I want us to avoid the issue altogether by making our own island."

"Where?" Luna asked curiously.

"What do you mean 'where'?" Nymphadora asked incredulously. "The bigger question is why ?"

"I want to do it because having a territory that isn't beholden to any government would allow us to do anything we want on it, including raising a private army to fight Voldemort." Harry replied, unruffled.

"Mm, and what kind of experiments were you hoping to run there?" Luna continued to question, still curious.

"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Harry asked, clearly amused.

Luna blinked slowly and without understanding. It seemed obvious to her. Harry was too averse to most human contact to exert himself so just to make a town that he would then have to be responsible for. Nymphadora's idea of training their own minions to match Voldemort's could just as easily be accomplished by getting Fudge to grant Harry special privileges. Being neither politically ambitious nor sentimental, Harry would happily abandon the town he created to Ministry control once it was no longer useful as a cover. Creating a new island that didn't fall under any existing jurisdiction was a long term investment and there were only four things he cared about enough to make long term investments for. Three of those reasons were in the room with him and the fourth was magic.

"Harry," Nymphadora said sweetly. "explain."

"There isn't much to explain." Harry replied. "Raising an island would be an interesting challenge and it would afford me the opportunity to try a few things."

"What kind of things?" Fleur asked with interest.

"Well, the first thing would be a fertility ritual I've designed to give vegetation growth a magical boost." Harry admitted.

"Harry, did it ever occur to you that we might not want to have our sex life turned into an experiment for you?" Nymphadora asked, looking a bit irritated for some reason.

"I'm in." Fleur said with a grin.

"Me too." Luna smiled.

"Damn it." Nymphadora huffed.

"It's just an idea." Harry said mildly. "And you have the unique opportunity to decide whether you want to participate as a male, female or both."

"I'm not interested in getting pregnant just yet." Nymphadora raised her next objection.

Luna frowned in confusion. Why would the metamorphmagus think she would be getting pregnant? Harry would probably have to be badgered into giving them babies, so it wasn't likely that he would design a ritual that would get them pregnant.

"That's good then, because the ritual would actually prevent pregnancy for us. It sacrifices the potential for conception and channels it into the earth, along with the energy release of our orgasm. This would unfortunately make the climax feel rather empty for you, Fleur, if not downright unpleasant. Sorry." Harry said, giving an apologetic look to the veela.

Fleur's smile faded into a pensive expression.

"Does it completely sacrifice our ability to have children or just in that one instance?" Luna wanted clarification. "Because I do want babies eventually, so I couldn't agree to perform the ritual with you if it takes that away from me."

"Just in that one instance."

"Alright then."

"And another thing." Nymphadora spoke up again. "You said that high concentrations of magic in an area can cause life to mutate strangely. Wouldn't a sex-based ritual do that too?"

"Yes, though it is a bit of a crapshoot." Harry confirmed with an amused smile. "Especially if Fleur decides to participate. Being a magical creature, the magic that is an instrinsic part of her nature would have a more pronounced effect on the island's ecosystem. I'm terribly curious to see what it would do to the flora and fauna."

"You want to see if you can spread the Allure to the plants." Nymphadora groaned in realisation. "And you need people to test them on."

Harry shrugged unapologetically.

"Harry, I can't in good conscience agree to let you breed an island full of rapey plants and expose people to them." The metamorphmagus sighed a long-suffering sigh.

"They wouldn't be rapey." Harry defended. "Now if the ritual was desgined around rape, that would definitely be a concern, but with the sex being consensual, they would at worst be horny plants."

"And the Allure?" Nymphadora asked archly.

"I'm not sure what form it would take." Harry admitted. "But I am sure that its strength would be diluted, just like a veela's Allure is a diluted form of the one possessed by the succubi. Only people with weaker than average willpower should have any trouble resisting it."

"Right." Nymphadora sighed. "What other things were you hoping to use this for?"

Harry seemed oddly discomfitted by that question. "Well… I've found that I rather enjoy teaching you girls, so I was thinking of maybe establishing another school on the island somewhere down the line after Voldemort is taken care of, a school focused more on general magical knowledge than any specific field. I wouldn't teach people everything that I'm teaching you of course, but I would like to see more competent magi in the world and to do that, I'd need to be away from the stifling regulations that bureaucrats are so damn fond of."

"Wow, that's…" Nymphadora trailed off, unsure of what to say.

"Downright respectable?" Fleur offered.

"I was expecting something less legal." Luna chimed in.

"Hey." Harry complained.

"Sorry, Harry, but you have a history of questionable interests." Luna replied calmly.

"I'd say that some of his interests are a bit more than just questionable." Nymphadora added.

"If he was less careful, he'd have been sent to prison already, for all the good that would do." Fleur finished with a nod.

That was true, imprisoning Harry would be very difficult. There was no such thing as magic-inhibiting wards or restraints, so taking his magic away from him was quite impossible.

"Don't worry, I'm sure that lots of things happening on that island will be illegal according to the rest of the world." Harry said grouchily.

"That reminds me, aren't we going to run into legal trouble if we try raising an island?" Nymphadora asked.

"There's no law against it." Harry shrugged.

"Yes, just like there is no law against attempting to pet a nundu." Fleur drawled with a chuckle. "Nobody ever considers that someone might try it."

"Where were you thinking of doing this anyway?" Nymphadora asked.

"That's what I asked five minutes ago." Luna pouted.

"Not everyone has your knack for getting right to the point." Harry said with a grin. "Anyway, I did some research on possible locations and I think that an area near the Azores archipelago would be best."

"Never heard of it." Nymphadora said.

"It's a chain of volcanic islands due west of Portugal and sits more or less right in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. We'd have to pick a spot some distance away in international waters so that we don't give mundane Portugal or the Iberian magical government any technicalities to work with, but that shouldn't be too hard since the entire area is a volcanic hotspot."

"Are we going to set off a volcano?" Luna asked excitedly.

"Just a little." Harry said, holding his thumb and index finger close together in the universally accepted gesture of 'just a little'.

"Harry, don't take this the wrong way, but are you out of your fucking mind?!" Nymphadora finished with a dull roar. "How is that in any way a good idea?"

"Dora, I don't want to set off a tsunami any more than you do." Harry replied mildly. "I'm not suggesting we play around with plate tectonics, not that we have the power for that anyway. My plan was to transfigure an artificial volcano to get at the magma beneath ocean floor."

"And can you be sure that that won't result in setting off an actual volcanic eruption somewhere else?" Nymphadora challenged.

"Quite sure." Harry assured. "If anything, the pressure release would lower the chances of it happening. Trust me, I googled."

Nymphadora snorted in amusement, but seemed mollified all the same. "That makes sense, I guess."

"Couldn't we just use Black Island for this?" Fleur asked.

"We could." Harry admitted. "But it's both a bit on the small side, has an already established ecosystem, isn't in international waters and I'm frankly not sure if I want to give up our private island retreat."

Fleur nodded and spoke her next words as if they pained her. "I wouldn't be of any use underwater."

"I know, but you could keep us hidden from prying eyes while we're down there."

"That I could do." Fleur said, confidence regained.

"We're seriously doing this then?" Nymphadora asked with a sigh.

"You don't have to help if you don't want to, but we'd miss you." Harry said, looking at the metamorphmagus soulfully.

"Please, Nymphadora." Luna added the weight of her own soulful look to Harry's.

"Pleeease, Nymmie." Fleur pouted, bending forward to give the metamorphmagus a view down her blouse.

"Now that's just not fair." Nymphadora groused. "Fine, I'll help. Cheating arseholes, the lot of you."

Luna tuned out the grumbling and glomped the metamorphmagus with a happy squeal.

The four of them, plus one curious quetzalcoatl, made their way to the Azores by mundane means. Well, Etal flew under his own power, but the rest of them took a plane.

Once they arrived, a simple application of money got them a comfortably sized boat and they headed out to the open seas after a crash course in actually using it.

Two days were spent mucking about with scrying spells, looking for a place that was away from any shipping lanes, in international waters and where the magma flow was relatively close beneath the surface and then another day was spent checking over the enchantments on their gear to make sure that all was as it should be. They would be diving fairly deep after all and didn't want to discover what the water pressure would do to them if the protection spells crapped out.

When they were assured that all was as it should be, they spent another day placing attention deflecting spells to make sure that nobody would take notice of their actions. It was a bit tricky with no solid ground to focus the spells on, but it would work well enough until their fledgling island broke the surface.

While Fleur stayed aboard the boat, the other three dove into the sea. Armed with knowledge attained through their earlier scrying, they picked a likely spot, arranged themselves into a triangular formation and began working.

It went relatively quickly at first, but slowed to a crawl as the base continued to get wider and wider. It was still more narrow than what a naturally occuring mountain or volcano would look like, but there were only so many liberties that any of them were willing to take with physics when playing with something this dangerous, even with spells to fortify the rock thrown in. The work was tedius and exhausting but not overly complex. Just over a week passed before the tip broke the water's surface and they had themselves a miniature party that night to celebrate an end to that bit of drudgery. A bit prematurely it had to be said, as the following two days featured more tedium as they raised it further above water level, but Fleur insisted because she was finally able to participate.

Now having room, they placed more powerful, better anchored concealing spells and turned their attention to the main event.

The top of their artificial mountain was widened into the distinct shape of a volcanic caldera, which was then covered with spells to disperse ash, steam and anything else that might give away their position. It took almost another full day to open up a hole down into the underground magma flows, carefully shunting the excess rock to the sides and making it wider. They could have gone faster, but once again, none of them were keen to have any accidents when playing with molten magma.

A good thing too, as their displacing of that much rock had shifted the pressure and brought the magma considerably closer than they'd expected. Fortunately, they had been both shielded and well away when the last of the rocky plate cracked and exploded upwards from the pressure of a gas pocket in the lava below, kind of like a zit. A big, flaming zit.

Now having an outlet, the magma slowly burbled upwards and spilled over the lip of the caldera, eventually hitting the water and cooling into basaltic rock.

"Now what?" Luna asked, her voice slightly muffled by the enchanted scarf and face mask she was wearing to protect her from the fumes.

"Now we wait." Harry replied, sitting astride his own broom next to her, equally swaddled in magically protected clothing.

"This is too fucking slow." Harry declared a mere few hours later and started applying spells to their volcano that turned it into a giant suction pump.

It worked and soon they had more lava to play with than they honestly knew what to do with. The lowest level of Transfiguration was changing the shape of something without altering its nature and magma turned out to be especially easy to work with due to its lack of solidity. Thus it was that the four of them discovered wizard's playdough, magma edition, adults only.

Abundance of lava or not, the formation of a new island wasn't something that happened quickly and it was nigh on a month before the font of molten rock was 'turned off' as it were.

Harry frowned as he gazed on the irregular-shaped island. It didn't quite have the geographical variance that nature would have given it, but it was easy to spot the differing hands at work.

Fleur had attempted to create a lagoon, with some success it had to be said, though it wasn't a very attractive sight at the moment, what with the black basalt it was formed from. Still, basalt was made largely from silica, so it should be easily within the realm of possibility to reduce it to sand and change its color to something less off-putting.

Luna's area of influence was clearly marked with goofy little hills and dells and who knew what else. Harry wouldn't be surprised to find some other oddball feature hidden among them.

Dora had attempted… something, but it had clearly not gone according to plan, after which she had joined him in simply expanding the surface area of the island to make way for the enchanted forest he had envisioned there.

But that wasn't the cause of his frown. No, that was reserved for the size of it. An eyeball estimate of the surface are would be somewhere around sixty square kilometers. A respectable sized island to be sure, more than enough for a magical settlement and only possible this quickly thanks to the unnaturally prolific lava flow he had coaxed out of their artificial volcano. Said volcano had actually gained quite a bit in both height and width thanks to the occasional application of spells to leech heat energy out of the magma.

Still, Harry had hoped for more. Greedy of him perhaps, but he wanted the forest he was planning to have as much space as possible. Unfortunately, they couldn't just sit around here and wait for the island to triple in size. Not only would it take too long, but he was leery of leaving it unsupervised for any length of time. True, they had left it alone while they slept, but they had still been right there. Ah well, the possibility of future expansion was always there he supposed.

The very first thing that Harry did was to magically claim ownership of the newly made island. It was an obscure bit of magic that was most commonly applied to old magical residences and such. Hogwarts was also a good example, where such a ritual conferred ownership of the school to the reigning headmaster.

As long as he lived, the island was his. No other could lay claim to it, no other could place wards anywhere on it without his permission, no other could give away its Secret to be used in a Fidelius Charm. It didn't give him absolute mastery of the island of course, but it did make it his in a way far more tangible than what normal land ownership conferred.

Next came the full complement of concealing spells, which took another three days of work.

After that was the adding of soil, bare rock not being conducive to the growth of much of anything besides moss and lichen. Harry had assumed at first that there was no law against stealing dirt, but it was not so. Turns out that people actually do steal dirt often enough for there to be a law against it. He was somehow not surprised.

They could have tried to obtain the required dirt by legal means, but that would mean dealing with the mundane world since there was no magical company in the business of selling it. Aside from the logistical difficulties, the hassle of pretending that they didn't have magically expanded chests and the time it would take to get the required amount of dirt ready by mundane means, even formerly-employed-in-elite-law-enforcement Nymphadora Tonks scoffed at the thought of paying for dirt. So it was that remote areas of Scotland, Britain and France found themselves approximately fifty thousand tons of dirt poorer.

Spreading the stuff around took up another couple of days, as well as required repeat dirt raids when they found that they had underestimated how much they'd need.

Harry also had Penny buy up an even dozen tons of dragon shit, which he then mixed into the newly laid soil that would become the heart of the forest. Expensive considering that he was literally buying shit, but he figured that he might as well go for broke.

"Alright, looks like we're almost done." He said with satisfaction, looking over the results of their work.

"Except for the most fun part!" Luna burbled excitedly, tugging on his arm.

"Yes, let's fuck some fertility into the land." Harry joked.

Alas, the fun atmosphere didn't last long. Fleur had decided to participate in the fertility ritual along with them despite Harry's warning and quickly came to regret it. With sexually charged magical energy being almost as important to a veela as food was, a ritual designed to suck it up was a deeply unpleasant experience for her and resulted in them abandoning any further attempts for the rest of the day so that they could 'feed' her.

They did restart the effort to fuck some magic into the land the next day, but Fleur no longer participated.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world…

Lord Voldemort, newly restored to physical form, experimentally flexed his hand and considered the situation.

Nearly six years had gone by since his last attempt at returning fully to the living. He'd thought that it hadn't been more than a year at most. Then again, when he had encountered Quirrel after the disaster at Godric's Hollow, he had thought that it couldn't have been more than a year either. One's sense of time was badly distorted in spirit form.

Quirrel… that had been a mistake. He had been so eager to have a body again that he had possessed the man with barely a thought. He should have used him to prepare the Bone-Flesh-Blood ritual and his impatience had cost him dearly.

Lucius' son would be rewarded greatly for the service he had done him, but the news he had brought was more than a bit disconcerting, not to mention infuriating.

While possessing Quirrel, Voldemort had carefully taken notice of the situation in Britain and been tentatively pleased with what his old followers had done. He had still intended to punish them harshly for their failure to seek him out, but they had created fertile ground for his return nonetheless.

Fertile ground that had since been sown with salt and sulfur.

Voldemort had fully expected that Dumbledore would mould the Potter boy in his own image. The old fool knew the prophecy in full and would surely not leave it up to chance.

But young Draco's words indicated otherwise. Potter was not interested in being Dumbledore's tool. Potter was in fact far more like him than Dumbledore. Dumbledore didn't have the stomach to plan out and execute a plan to murder his followers and was too moralistic to throw his reputation around in the political arena so blatantly. Potter had done more damage to Voldemort's cause in a few short years than Dumbledore had managed in decades and it only served to assure him that he had been right to be more wary of the Potter boy than the Longbottom one.

If not for the prophecy, he would have seriously considered trying to recruit him.

But what to do now? Though Voldemort was confident that he could overcome the young upstart, the boy had still become a formidable wizard and not someone to be taken lightly. His followers had already proven unreliable should he need another resurrection, so contingencies would have to be made just in case his body was destroyed again.

That was background stuff however. A more pressing concern was his current lack of followers. Most of his inner circle was either dead or imprisoned, with only a few having escaped Potter's purges. The lower ranks hadn't fared any better. Their identities had been less carefully guarded and Potter had clearly tortured that information out of the higher ranked Death Eaters he had captured.

His power base was gutted and needed to be replenished before he could act openly again. It was time to summon what remained of his followers and see if they had managed to do anything useful while Draco had been doing what they should have done over fifteen years ago.