Chapter 13 – Reflections, Requirements and Research

"Three?" Poppy asked, shocked.

"Myself included." Harry elaborated. "There's one which I'm assuming is the diary, because it's close to Voldemort's container. Then there's another one in a hidden room, up on the seventh floor. I don't know how to open that, just yet." He couldn't sense Voldemort's main spirit, since it was properly contained, but he could feel the magic of the runes on the box.

"Seventh floor?" Poppy asked. She'd been working here for quite a few years, and she didn't know about a hidden room up there. "Maybe we should speak to the headmaster about it?" she suggested.

"It's worth a shot." Harry allowed.

"Why haven't you acted on this information?" Poppy asked. She had no doubt that he'd have acted on it, if he was able, unless there was an issue. Well, she hoped he'd include her, of course.

"The horcrux detection system picked up that there's at least three more, outside of Hogwarts." Harry said, sighing. "And I think one of them is in Gringotts. I didn't have the system fully functioning when we went there, during the summer holiday, but I think I recognized something through the system, then."

Poppy frowned. "That could be problematic." she admitted. "We'd need to pinpoint it, and identify it, for one. Then… I don't know. If it's in someone's vault, it could be irretrievable."

"And that's the problem." Harry said. "We'll need to get as many of them as we can, first. Maybe use them to summon the other, or something."

Poppy decided to accept that. They weren't pressed for time, or anything, but this was going to bother her, now. If they couldn't get them all, the dark lord would remain a threat, even if they could contain his spirit in… wherever the hat had sent it off to. Harry would then never allow the horcrux in him to be removed. It was their only sure-fire way of finding them. "Let's start on the one we can find, and go from there, then?" she asked.

"Yup." Harry agreed. "I'll go back up to the seventh floor later. Maybe we can take the headmaster?"

It turned out, the old man did know.

"Ah, what you are referring to, is the room of requirement." Dumbledore said, as he sat on a couch in Poppy's apartment, sipping some tea. "I discovered the room, while I was in dire need of a toilet, and the room appeared, with a most luxurious lavatory. There is a trick to making the room appear, however."

"And you know this trick." Harry stated. It wasn't a question.

"Indeed." Dumbledore said, nodding. "I would prefer to be with you, when you go there, however. It is not a matter of trust, I assure you. It's more a matter of preferring to back you up. If it is, where I think, then there's a likelihood of other threats in the room."

"What do you mean?" Poppy asked.

"The room can become many things." Dumbledore said. "One of the rooms I've seen it make, is a room for hiding things. Many generations of Hogwarts students have used it to dispose of evidence of wrongdoing. Broken items and things that were magically altered, in unexpected ways. I actually used it to store the Mirror of Erised, last year, until I placed it on the third floor."

"So, you think it would be there?" Harry asked.

"Almost certainly." Dumbledore said, nodding. "The room is quite large, with thousands of things, and many places to hide something. Especially something that we don't know what it looks like."

"Except if I can narrow it down, once we're inside." Harry said.

"That is the hope." Dumbledore said, nodding. "Shall we go looking, today?" he asked.

"I don't see why not." Harry said, shrugging before he looked at Poppy.

"I'll go with you, of course." Poppy said.

"And me." the hat said, from where he was sitting, next to Hedwig, who was just watching them, seemingly content to just be present. "I may even be able to identify the item. With some luck, it could lead us to the others, or at least give us a clue as to what they might be."

"I agree." Dumbledore said, thinking that the hat was definitely more useful, recently. It had even started doing things in his office. He realised it was just doing things, because it could, now, but it was still nice to have the hat surprise him with a cup of tea, or a glass of brandy, when he was too busy to think about some things. It had even gone to fetch him a sandwich, one day.

"Well, I don't really mind." Harry said. "Like I've told you people, I may know a lot, but I don't know everything. I'll likely rely on people wiser and more experienced than myself, for many years. Maybe even for the rest of my life."

"I don't know." the hat said, sounding contemplative. "I think you could take over as headmaster in another two… maybe three years." Poppy and Dumbledore looked at the hat, frowning.

Harry chuckled at that, but the hat didn't laugh. "Tell me you're joking, please?" he asked.

"Well, maybe a little bit." the hat allowed. "But at the pace you're going, you could likely finish your magical education by the end of this year. If you got Septima involved, you'd likely be able to finish your Arithmancy, too. You're almost at seventh-year level, with the increased effort you've been putting in lately."

"I hadn't realised." Dumbledore said. "The system really allows you to learn that quickly?" he asked. He had seen some of the advantages, especially when Harry put ingredients into his interface and brewed a potion in it, which was something that he still didn't really understand. He did understand why he didn't do that in Potions class, though, and why he chafed at still needing to attend class. That had been something Harry had shared with him, while they were at their joined study sessions.

"Harry's system may be the basis of what our grants allows us, but because he started young, I suspect his is capable of more than ours." Poppy said. "The only thing that advances more quickly for me, is medical magics, something that I've spent many years on. I even woke up the other day, with my interface having come up with a possible spell, that could wipe out dragon pox in one spell. It's a little power-hungry, though, and I have yet to test it."

"So, because of his wide range of interests, and because his mind is still fresh, it is learning more quickly." Dumbledore said, nodding and frowning. What an advantage. Maybe he should spend more time with the boy? He could very easily become a very powerful influence in many branches of the magical world.

"That's my theory." Poppy said. "They do say that when you start young, the information sticks better. Harry has been increasing his capabilities basically from day one, and he's not shown any signs of slowing down."

"Anyway, the reason I want him to become headmaster is really just because he's my friend." the hat said. "It has nothing to do with the paperwork, and all the politics involved with the position. He'd hate that anyway. Maybe I'll just keep Poppy's place like this, and Harry can live here, when he's done with his studies. Then we can work on changing the world, together."

"I'm not planning on changing the whole world." Harry said. "Just, you know, medicine, and spell-crafting, and rune-scribing, and maybe a bit of magical engineering… Well, maybe it would be better to say I intend to have an influence on the magical world. Nothing that can come back to me, either. With Beth's latest gift, we can actually focus on just creating the programs, which people can then buy from us without needing access to the interface at all."

"With your gift to her, they'd even see what the system is doing." the hat said, agreeing. "And that's just something that you were working on to make life easier for each-other. Imagine what you could do when you're actually working on specific projects."

"We could probably set Beth up with a safer environment for rune-development, and teaching, too." Harry said. "I could see the students pulling up runes, placing them, and tracing them into proper forms, while needing to still do things in a certain order, but without mishaps."

"There's much, it seems, that I still do not know." Dumbledore said, as he placed his now-empty cup down. "But for now, let's focus on the actual purpose of our visit?" he suggested.

III-III

They were soon up on the seventh floor. Harry was happy with how the stairs all moved to accommodate where he was going. The badge was in one of his pockets, but he didn't intend to share that with anyone. The headmaster had just smiled at their luck. He had no idea.

He took them to the location, and started walking up and down, where the room would appear, and soon, it did. Dumbledore opened the door for them, and Harry, Poppy and the hat moved in. "Welcome, to the Room of Requirement." he said. "As I understand it, this room was added by the founders themselves."

"Rowena did it." the hat said. "Of course, she never told the others where it was. It was supposed to be a challenge to them, to find it. I believe Salazar found it first, and he showed it to Helga. He refused to tell Godric, though. It was a bit of a game between them. Godric had his secrets, too, after all. He never did tell the others how the magic worked to make me, even though he did include them in finishing me."

"That's kind of fun to know." Harry said, smiling. "You'll need to tell me more about my ancestors, at some point, please." he requested.

"I have no problem with that, Harry." the hat said. "In fact, if you want, I'll teach you anything that I know they wouldn't mind you knowing. Godric was an expert at magical and martial combat, incorporating his wandless magical talents to outperform any challenger in a duel. Helga was in-tune with life, and was quite similar to Pomona, but she could also heal most any illness. Ravenclaw was their academic and had a repertoire of spells that could put the other three combined to shame. Salazar was quite proficient at spell-crafting, but he didn't know a lick of arithmancy. Back then, it was done by force of will. The reason that method isn't taught, is because the people in charge don't like encouraging people to do things that they can't control or learn, themselves. Well, that, and the possibility of strange side-effects, using magic that way."

"Perhaps we should discuss what you wish to teach Harry, before you decide to make him any more capable?" Dumbledore suggested.

"You don't even know everything Harry can do, right now." the hat pointed out, thinking that Harry could likely do most of what he just mentioned, rather easily.

"Still." Dumbledore insisted.

"It's that way." Harry said, pointing, trying to interrupt the conversation, because he was worried that someone would say something that he'd rather not get out.

Deciding to drop it, Dumbledore became serious and took them down a path in the indicated direction with the others following. It took them only a few minutes before they found something. It was high up on a stack of a lot of things, but the hat easily floated up and found what Harry had picked up on. It wouldn't move when he tried to use a levitation charm, but that didn't stop him from levitating the upturned chair it was resting on.

"It's Ravenclaw's Diadem." the hat said as he put it down. He sounded disappointed. "It would be a shame to destroy it."

Harry considered that, while Dumbledore replied. "It is a shame, but we don't have much choice. Only the dark lord would be able to remove it, without destroying the artefact."

"I've heard that before." Harry said, frowning. "You said the same thing about my scar."

"We still don't know for certain that your method will succeed." Dumbledore said.

"It will." Harry said. "And I'm almost certain I can do the same for the tiara. I'd still need to have the connection to do it, but I'm almost certain."

"Harry, would it not be prudent, to rather just destroy the diadem?" Dumbledore asked. "We have the basilisk's venom. We could do it today, even."

"Let Harry try." Poppy said, deciding to trust the boy. She'd like to know that his process worked, after all. "He's proven that he's capable, multiple times now. I'm willing to give him the opportunity, but let's not do it right now. Let's wait until we have the other three."

"Three?" Dumbledore asked. "You know how many he has?"

"Including me, he's got six." Harry said. "Seven, if you include his remaining spirit."

Dumbledore frowned. "I suspect he's accidentally succeeded in splitting his soul a magically potent number of times." he said. "It was likely his goal to achieve that, before he was defeated. It could even potentially explain why Harry was the last one."

"Having seven parts of a soul, could potentially stabilize him." the hat mused. "He'd need to gather all of them, for a ritual, but he could potentially set them up, to have seven times his normal magical regeneration."

"Well, since he's captured, and we've got two of them now, he can't do that, so let's just forget all that." Harry said. "For the time being, I'd like to request that the hat stores both horcruxes with the other item. We'll want everything together, when we finish him off, one day, and only the hat can get to where the item is being kept."

Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment, but then actually nodded. "Agreed. If even I don't know, nobody can come demand anything from me, either." he said, as he started leaving the room of requirement, leading the others.

"You're worried someone finds out that you've found a lost founder artifact." Poppy said.

"We all know that the founder artifacts are widely sought after." Dumbledore said. "Just one of them, would be worth a fortune. If the dark lord somehow got his hands on one, I'm worried about what we'll find with his other horcruxes. If he found more artifacts of historic value, it would explain why he felt secure in leaving the diadem here. Anyone that realised what it was, would take it away, either for personal gain, fame or fortune."

"Rowena's diadem was her attempt at creating something like me." the hat confessed. "In the end, she succeeded in creating what Godric had originally tried, when he made me. The diadem has the ability to allow a person to have two conscious thoughts, at the same time, where it was found that human beings are limited in conscious attention, to one thing, normally."

"Parallel processing?" Harry asked. He'd only heard about that in computing technology. It was something that higher grade computer servers and things could do. Multiple brains… CPU's, in one computer. Harry also remembered that the hat had told him that that was what Godric had been trying to do when he made the hat.

"Essentially." the hat agreed. "It wasn't widely understood back then, so it was just said to increase one's intelligence, which it technically does."

"How did that happen?" Harry asked, frowning.

"She couldn't figure me out but put her research together into one artifact." the hat said. "Don't ask me what she was studying, however, because she was quite a bit smarter than myself."

When they reached the headmaster's office, a familiar set of armour stood in Dumbledore's office, already holding the diary.

"Ah, good." Dumbledore said, nodding, and handing the diadem over, as well. "Do try and store the items a bit apart from each-other, if possible?" he asked the armour.

The armour didn't respond, but took the diadem, and started walking to the door.

"Hold on." Dumbledore said, as he went to his desk, pulled out a vial, and handed it to the armour as well. "Could you please take some of this, as well? It's basilisk venom. If there is ever a need for us to destroy the artifacts, in a hurry, it would be best that you have the means, mister armour."

"It doesn't have a personality." the hat said. "It's an automaton." he added, as the armour left the office.

Harry's face developed a smile, at hearing that. "Like, a machine that functions on its own?" he asked.

"There is more involved to that, than simply casting Piertotum Locomotor." the hat said. "This was, in part, a goblin creation, back before the laws against creating permanently animated things were put in action. As I understand it, there were many automatons in the vaults of Gringotts, before that law outlawed it. Just another reason why the goblins rebelled."

"It's against the law?" Harry asked.

"Non-thinking animated items have a high likelihood of malfunctioning." Dumbledore said, knowing this one. "If something like that makes it to the muggle world, it could accidentally out the wizarding world. Thus, it was deemed necessary to limit such creations. You can still do it, in certain ways, but automatons, like this armour, were completely outlawed, unless bound to a place, like Hogwarts, Like Golden Snitches are confined to a Quidditch Pitch." The goblin kind didn't ever stop functioning, so they couldn't limit theirs that way, which was why they couldn't use them, anymore.

"So… it's okay if I make one, here?" Harry asked, hopefully.

Poppy sighed. She still smiled. Harry had a look of childlike excitement, again. She couldn't resist that look, which he thankfully didn't know. "If you want to play, Harry, I'll help you, when the time comes, okay? I'm sure Beth wouldn't mind helping, too."

"I could show you the spell the hat mentioned, too." the headmaster offered. He'd noted the look and damn him if he didn't instantly understand Poppy's dilemma. The boy looked so excited that he didn't want to break his heart.

Harry's smile just grew. "Thank you." he said.

All the adults in the room, including the hat, smiled at Harry. "It's no problem, my boy. I'd be happy to help you experiment, within the bounds of the castle. I've never tried my hands at anything like this, but I could see how it might be fun." Dumbledore said.

"Can we start now?" Harry asked, hopefully. He had an idea of using something like this, with his latest ideas. A fun little piece of information about air elemental magic, was that it was also the element that was in use for invisibility. The air could be magically charged, to bend light around an object. This was usually used on stationary objects, but if his project worked out…

"You're hiding your thoughts from me, again." the hat said, accusingly. He could pick up that Harry's mind was busy, but he couldn't see what.

"I'll tell you later." Harry promised. He didn't want it reacting, just then. He let the hat read that much from him, too.

"Ah, okay." the hat said, actually nodding. This was a fun little development for it. It could actually move to do things like that, now, and seemed to love doing it.

Poppy decided to leave Harry there, when the headmaster decided to teach Harry a bit of magic. She'd picked up that Albus liked doing that, and took any opportunity he could, to teach Harry.

It had started after Harry taught him about the interface. Harry still had a massive advantage in his interface, and the headmaster had loved his time opening up, with his paperwork mostly handling itself, these days. He just fed it into the interface, handled them in the interface, and saved a bunch of time, that way.

What used to take hours, daily, was now a fifteen-minute chore. Since Harry had freed up that time, Dumbledore was of the opinion that he owed that time to Harry, whenever he asked for it.

"So, the Piertotum Locomotor is a spell routed in Transfiguration…" he started, as he conjured a small model statue.

III-III

The holiday soon came to an end, unfortunately. Harry had not had enough time to make anything very useful, in that time. He'd had a bit of success with making compressed air that could be moved with items on them, but it couldn't handle Harry's weight for very long, just yet, and cost a significant bit of power. Fortunately, Harry was a bright young man, and had developed a trick.

He couldn't move the air, but he could automate a model for making still-standing air. Doing this, allowed him to make stairs, which he could walk on, the stair that he was over already disappearing, once he was off of it, and appearing in front and above him. This way, he just needed two to be there at any given time, and he could basically climb the air, this way.

Similarly, he could use this to come down rather quickly, by making slivers of still air, which disappeared in a sequence, down, so that it looked like he was slowly descending. Like an invisible elevator that could only take him down. He could also use this, to make a physical shield, around him. It wouldn't stop spells, but it could stop physical items, or people.

As a bit of a fringe benefit, it could also not be dispelled easily, because you couldn't see it, to focus a spell on it. A lot of spells relied on what people saw, affecting only that which people perceived. Dumbledore had tested that for Harry, and had a simple work-around, instantly. He simply touched the still air and dispelled what he felt. Fortunately, not everyone would know to do that, but it still got a nod of respect from Harry. The old man was experienced, after all.

Harry had started spending more time with the old man, too. It was nothing to slight Poppy or Beth, but the old man had quite a bit of experience, and he was, despite Harry's want to dislike him, fun to be around. He'd smile, or make a bad joke, or tell an anecdote, while he discussed whatever was on Harry's mind, recently. Usually, a new application of whatever he was working on. The headmaster didn't know all of what Harry was doing with what he was learning, but he had snippets, which was starting to form a picture.

He'd also introduced Harry to Professor Septima Vector and asked her to help him. He'd mentioned to her, in private, that the boy seemed to be a bit of a prodigy, and encouraged her to help Harry expand his knowledge, but to keep quiet about it, because the boy didn't want attention for his private studies.

Septima, for her part, hadn't believed him, until Harry had showed her the results of his latest studies, by creating and performing a spell that had never been cast before, in living memory. He'd created a spell, which turned water, into rum. It was achievable, using transfiguration, obviously, but this had been a spell, disconnected from transfiguration, entirely. He'd obviously been thinking of Seamus, and his never-ending quest to perform what Harry just had. What had shocked the professor, was that it was a permanent change. Something that should have been impossible, would be impossible, with transfiguration. He also refused to share his spell, much to her regret.

Still, it seemed that the boy truly was a prodigy, and she decided that it would be a disservice to his future, if she didn't help him, which she did, with gusto. He was just a little bit away from finishing his seventh years' studies, and then he'd need to go into mastery subjects, something she could help him with, too, considering it was what she had a mastery in, herself.

III-III

The rest of the year was spent on normal studies, hanging out with his friends, helping them with their interfaces, on the sly, and working on his projects and his studies. Nothing else happened that year, and after the initial scare of the petrified cat and the writing on the wall, nothing else had happened, and people just assumed it was a prank, if one in bad taste.

Poppy had actually figured out how to de-petrify the cat, too, without the help of the research Harry was doing, or a mandrake potion. Considering Harry's want to help, and maybe to gain the favour of the man, she'd showed Harry what she'd come up with, shared the spell with him, and let him cast it, with the caretaker there. She wanted him to see that Harry was the one that helped his cat, explaining that it was a family secret, that Harry had shared, that had allowed the feat.

Unfortunately, the man was a paranoid one, and he started suspecting Harry of being the one that had petrified the cat, to begin with, despite the fact that the cat seemed to disagree, since she was suddenly very friendly with Harry, rubbing up against him, like she'd not done with any student in recent memory. Oh well.

Still, Poppy was proud of Harry. With this, she could actually start working on simplifying the spell, using her own arithmancy knowledge, and could potentially introduce this new spell to the healing community, without revealing her methods. It would be very useful to the wizarding world, and would get her some recognition, and put her name in the history books as a contributor to the healing art, in general.

With everything that Harry was doing and how busy he tended to be, the year passed before he knew it, and he took the train home with his friends. Poppy gave him the time to just be with his friends, because she knew he wanted to say goodbye. Hermione would be going oversees for her holiday, with her parents, and he'd not get to see her until the next school year. He'd still be able to see Neville, but it wouldn't be very often, if Neville's suspicions about his holiday turned out to be correct. He was of the opinion that since he was getting older, his gran would be arranging even more social events for him to participate in. Thirteen was a big number for pureblood heirs, apparently.

Harry knew that, because he'd already received an invitation to join Draco, for his thirteenth. They weren't what anyone would call bosom buddies, but they had never stopped being lab-partners in Potions. Harry had put some effort in hearing the boy and voicing his own opinions without sounding insulting. Severus Snape, being Draco's godfather, had actually had a few good words to say about Potter, when Lucius asked. He wouldn't call Harry a prodigy, but he had yet to fail in making a proper potion ever since first year, and he'd actually helped raise Draco's overall score in that class due to his efforts.

Draco was also more contained, due to Harry's influence. Thoughtful and contemplative. Good qualities for the Slytherin house. He'd learned to tolerate things that he'd normally openly spat venom at, due to his father's example, at home. He'd not known, then, that his father only voiced his true opinion at home, and that's all he'd seen, but after meeting and sort-of befriending Harry, he'd seen that there was a difference, after he started paying closer attention. Now, he contained his true emotions, watched, learned, and only spoke after thinking carefully.

Lucious had noted the difference, of course. He was not a stupid man. He'd even agreed that it was a good change, which was why he'd specifically planned for the diary to not target Harry. He'd written in the book, while he planned his little gift to the Weasley girl. The diary, which was also a younger memory of the dark lord's time in Hogwarts, had not liked hearing that the person that had supposedly slain him, was friends with a proper pureblood, but Lucious had heard from his son, that Harry himself accredited the feat to his parents.

He had been a baby, after all. There was no chance that a baby had power over a fully trained dark wizard. The diary had actually agreed, and decided to leave the boy alone, considering he may be useful to him, later. The diary had not mentioned, obviously, that Tom Riddle was also a half-blood. He saw value in people that were like himself, which was also why he'd accepted Severus Snape, when he joined the Death Eaters, which was not something that the diary itself knew, though. It also knew nothing about the prophecy, because that information had not existed, back when the diary was created.

Dobby the house elf, had been watching and paying attention, as was a house-elf's duty, and had sighed in relief, when it seemed the great Harry Potter would not be a target. He'd still gone to observe, though, but it seemed that Harry Potter was more than a mere schoolboy. He was quickly growing into a powerful wizard, if the feats he'd witnessed in secret, was anything to go by.

III-III

Third year was a big one for Harry, and Hermione too, to a lesser degree. They both went through all the subject matter that was taught in Hogwarts, and Harry had even gotten most of the professors to test him, personally, so that he could stay at the school, but start working on developing his own skills, with what he'd learned. Come forth-year, Harry would only need to go to class for Potions.

Hermione had finished her academic education, but unfortunately, she wasn't powerful enough, yet, to cast every spell. That would require practice and effort, which she'd have to focus on, from then on, while she also increased the size of her personal library and continued working on things for her interface to do for her. Harry hadn't shown her everything he could do, and she'd not shown him everything, either. It was sort of a contest between them. They were unspoken competitors in a competition nobody but them knew about. Nobody kept score, or compared them, but they were both spurred on by the effort that they knew the other was putting in.

Their defence professor was a better one, that year, an old friend of Harry's father's, too. Remus Lupin. He'd spent quite a bit of time with him, talking to him about his parents. Harry had figured the man's secret out, before Hermione, even, but then, he was predisposed to finding patterns, and Harry had figured out the man was a werewolf, after the first full-moon of the year. Still, he was a decent guy. Sirius had even showed up, once or twice, to take the man away for a weekend of fun. They'd already reconnected, and Sirius had insisted that the man comes to live with him, in Kent, close to where Harry was living with Poppy, during summer holidays. He'd already taken precautions so that the man could lock himself up, during full moons, too, whether he could afford Wolfsbane, or not.

As for Neville, with his increased cognitive abilities, due to the Occlumency-system, he'd started gaining in confidence and skill. He had a few things in his interface, but his most valued one, was his personal calendar. He'd started making notes of deadlines for tasks, and took time to consider his workload, every night before bed, so that he had estimates of completion time, and what free time he'd have.

Strangely, that function started automating, for him, too. He'd put so much effort into it, his system had changed to work as an early warning system. He was never late for class, never struggled to get work done on time, and ended up having free time for his hobbies, which were mostly just talking to people, and making friends, and helping out with things he'd already finished. He was actually quite popular with the younger years, because he was very approachable, friendly and helpful, when anyone had questions. When he had time and nobody needed help, he was building a map of his own having been quite impressed with Harry's.

During the holiday, between third and fourth-year, Harry accompanied Poppy to a medical conference, where she presented her completed de-petrification spell, while Harry presented his new petrification spell. Harry realised that it could be abused, but if they taught it to healers, under their medical oaths, they couldn't share it with people outside the profession.

Being able to petrify a patient, when they were dying, due to not having resources they needed to heal someone, meant that they could put someone in stasis, until they were ready to help, or could call someone in, that could.

Obviously, they'd all need to learn to de-petrify, first, which they did with test animals, which the sponsors for the medical conference had actually provided. Everything from mice to monkeys were there, and Harry had been able to petrify one and all. The magic was obviously gained from his studies into the effects of the basilisk's gaze. He didn't emulate the full effect, but then, he didn't want to kill, either. As an added bonus, he didn't need to make the spell target someone's eyes, as the basilisk needed to. He could just cast it at someone or something, and it would work, without a shield or counter-curse.

Harry had created the counter, which was apparently standard practice, when creating curses, specifically. Anything offensive, when taught to others, needed a counter, so that your own creation couldn't be used against you, after all. You didn't need to teach anyone the counter, though. Fortunately, once a spell like this is seen, and heard, a master arithmancer could figure out how to create a counter, too, which Harry was certain would happen, at some point, but likely not soon, considering the only people that knew it were Dumbledore, Poppy, himself, and Professor Vector, who'd helped him perfect it. She'd even told him that he'd be getting his EE for seventh-year NEWTs, when the time came, because the spell was an inspired bit of magic, and would have made a master, like herself, proud of their own achievement, had they been the one to make it.

As for how Harry was powerful enough to cast the spell, which was admittedly not something he should be able to cast yet, at his age; it was due to another experiment working out for him.

He'd created a bi-directional flow control with a push effect built-in and put it between the core orb and his own magical reserves. He'd then experimented with putting more power in his reserves than they could take. It didn't seem to work at first, but repeatedly changing how it worked and playing with throughput and speed, he'd set up an automated system that would force a bit in, and let it recede slowly, back into the orb, constantly. The constant strain and pressure had started working like a magical exercise for his reserves, like a balloon, that was blown up regularly, and started stretching, the base size becoming larger, the more regularly the limits were pressured.

At this point, Harry's reserves almost resembled Poppy's own. She was a far way off from Dumbledore's own reserves, but Harry was already the student with the largest reserves available to him in the entire school, when compared to even seventh years, according to Poppy. The process wasn't slowing down, either. By Harry's estimate, he'd have bigger reserves than even Dumbledore, by the time that he finished his seventh year, if he didn't reach some sort of natural upper limit, which could only be exceeded with more age.

Then you had to consider the size of his new self-made core-orb. He'd taken the time to figure out Beth's own method and had produced his own. He hadn't stopped there, either. He'd figured out where the core was actually stored. When put in his interface the orb actually took up space inside his magic. Thus his own core, had a core basically. Knowing this, he'd drained a bit out of his new orb, to 'make space', loaded in an interface, and placed the old orb inside the new one. Strangely, that seemed to work.

He'd obviously proceeded to make more and had eventually topped out at seven orbs, which was apparently a limit that couldn't be exceeded. There also seemed to be an effect on the amount of power that they could store, in total, and it ended up being something along the lines of a total of five large orbs' worth of power. Still, that gave Harry a lot of extra power, even though he didn't recharge his power any faster than anyone else. He wasn't certain, but he suspected that with the stack, he had more powerful than Dumbledore, now.

Trying to start a new 'stack' of stored orbs, also didn't work out, since he ended up needing to empty his own stores, with the amount that he intended to store in the second orb, which meant that there was only space for one to store without that limit being placed on his own. Harry suspected that it was just a limitation of magic. One couldn't have infinite storage for power, after all. There would always be a limit. Discovering those limits didn't bother Harry, as it made things easier to understand and account for. He liked discovery, so it wasn't even disappointing.

He'd found a few other limits, too, including the fact that the second-tier orbs and higher couldn't ever be completely drained, or the orbs would start falling out of the interfaces. Since he never intended to let anyone know about those, Harry had placed hard limits on the runes themselves, which would not allow them to lose the last five percent of their power, which basically ensured they'd never simply pop out of him and leave him without. He could bypass that in a pinch, but he doubted he ever would.

Therefore, when Harry performed his petrifying curse, multiple times, in front of those healers that were present, and they discovered how much power it took, they all started looking at Harry with respect. The boy-who-lived was no slouch, it seemed. In fact, it seemed that he was capable of more than most.

After the conference, Harry went about finishing a pet-project he'd been working on, ever since second year. He'd tested a few things, of course, and had test models of his latest concept already tested and perfected.

By the time they, Harry, Poppy, Beth, Hedwig, and Gryff, needed to go home, he'd decided to reveal his latest invention.

"What are we doing, kid?" Beth asked. He'd asked them not to get a portkey home, which was something that Healers could get much more cheaply, than the average person, considering their oaths would prevent them from using them for nefarious reasons. "I know you like the beach, and all, but we've got to be home by tomorrow."

Harry smirked at her, as he opened his interface, and pulled up the latest item. Hedwig knew what was coming, and flew off his shoulder, flapping to a nearby rock. Using his magic directly to manifest the model, using compressed air and hardening, he'd created a shield around them. It encompassed the sand that they were standing on, too, and they remained standing, as the sand lifted up, with them still inside the ball of compressed air.

"Welcome, to my latest achievement." Harry said. "An elemental- and rune-based transportation shield."

"Transportation shield?" Poppy asked, as she looked down at the beach, which was quickly receding below them. "Wait! We'll be seen!"

"The air bends the light around us, Aunty Poppy." Harry said, smiling at her. "That was a big part of the project. Well, that, and making it so that we won't run out of air, as we go."

Beth was smiling wide, as she looked at the sand around them, noting that there were actually runes, which were quickly inlaying themselves into the edge of the sand, which had seemingly hardened into stone. She pointed her wand and transfigured a few seats for them. "I'm assuming we'll be going fast?" she asked, as she sat down on her stone seat.

"Really fast." Harry agreed, still smiling, but now with a bit of an evil smirk.

"Harry, please tell me you've not been testing things like this without telling me?" Poppy asked.

"Please tell me that you have this properly tested." the hat added.

"Which do you want?" Harry asked jokingly, as the runes finished and they started moving in a direction he'd indicated using his interface, over the ocean. "Of course, I've tested it." he said. "On a much smaller scale, of course, when I was actually using it. I used an interface link on a programming interface, to remote control the fast ones, first."

"Harry?" Poppy asked, as she saw that they were just picking up speed, as the sand below them tilted slightly. "Is it supposed to do that?" she asked.

"Our acceleration is shifting the sand to the rear of the pulling force." Harry said. "Basically, it does that, because we're accelerating really fast." he added, as he looked down at the sea, which was starting to move past them faster and faster.

"Whoo!" Beth exclaimed, once their speed was faster than she'd ever moved. They were still accelerating, but they could hear the wind picking up pace, too, and it was starting to get quite loud. "How are we moving this fast!?" she yelled over the noise.

"The air-control-system is separating the air in front of us, making a vacuum, which is pulling us forward, faster!" Harry reported, as he took the seat that Beth had made, at Poppy all but pushing him into it. She transfigured a bar over his seat, once he was in it, like those muggle roller-coaster contraptions they'd tried earlier in the holiday. She hadn't liked the experience, but Harry had. "Thanks!" he exclaimed, once she was done. She was doing the same with Beth.

"Maybe we should slow down a bit?!" Poppy requested, a little white in the face.

"Oh, come on!" Beth objected. "Harry obviously knows what he's doing! Where's your sense of adventure!?"

"Wait!" the hat exclaimed. "You left Hedwig behind!"

"No, I didn't." Harry said, pointing next to them.

They all looked and saw Hedwig becoming visible for a moment, flying right next to them. Her wings were extended, but she was also encompassed in a shield.

"You gave her this?!" Beth asked, shocked.

"She got all pissed off at me, because I shouldn't be allowed to fly without her!" Harry replied. "She wouldn't stop glaring at me, until I gave her something, too!"

"You're sharing this with me, later!" Beth exclaimed, still smiling from ear-to-ear. She'd not had time to inspect the runes, but she'd looked at them all, and stored images, which was one of the first things she'd ever added to her interface. She didn't know about how he got everything to work together, though. "How fast are we going?!" she asked.

"No idea!" Harry exclaimed, smiling. He didn't really care, either. He just wanted to push it to the limits, and they weren't there, yet. He continued accelerating them, as they went, until he felt himself needing to expend too much power to continue accelerating. He'd call that an upper limit, for the time-being. He could technically go faster still, by using a bit of the fire-elemental magic and an air construct for jet-like propulsion, but he knew that that would be visible, because bending the air and light around that would affect their effectiveness, and he'd rather not risk it. That, and Poppy looked like she was barely stopping herself from demanding they stop.

"I'll work on something!" Beth promised. "I want to know, next time!"

Harry shrugged and nodded, just looking ahead of them, as they carried on going forward, with not a hint of moving air touching them. The sand below them had levelled off again once they stopped accelerating. Curious, he looked behind them, and started laughing. They were leaving a white trail in the water, as they went. He lifted them up a bit, and that disappeared.

It seemed to take no time at all, before they were back in Scotland, and Harry had to take a bit of time slowing them down, because as the sand tilted, it became difficult to see where they were flying, so slow was the only recourse. Well, either that, or he could just start making long turns, which would allow him to see better, which ended up being what he did, as they shot out over Hogwarts, rather than landing.

After a few minutes, Harry slowly set them down right at the front door of the castle. As Harry dismissed the construct, freeing the magic, and breaking up the runes, which supported the structure of both the sand and the sphere, the sand spilled out around them and they sank into it a bit, as it lost its support.

"You'd better have a plan with all this." Beth said, still smiling. "Mister Filch would not be happy if he needed to clean all this up, himself."

Harry shrugged, looked at the sand, and transfigured it into a ball of rock. A shrinking spell, and a featherlight spell later, and the rock was small enough and light enough to put in his pocket. "I'll just toss this in the lake, later." He had a trick with air magic, that he could use to shoot it into the water of the lake from where they were, but it was really fast, and he was worried that he'd hurt something in the lake, if he did that.

Poppy was finally catching her breath. The whole trip had scared the hell out of her. No soon-to-be fourth year student should be this capable. They'd just flown thousands of miles, on nothing but a patch of sand, over the ocean and land, using nothing but Harry's interface and his personal research. "That… was scary." she admitted.

"I'd say fun!" Beth exclaimed, as she pulled Harry into a one-armed hug. "Thanks, kid. That was great!" she couldn't help exclaiming again.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it." Harry said. "This was the culmination of multiple different projects, and I was hoping to use it, when the Headmaster takes me for that trip, later this week."

"I still don't like that he's taking only you." Poppy said, frowning.

"I mean, I kind of do." Beth said. "You could protect Harry sure, but you're a healer. Harry's basically a researcher and to be fair, in a fight between him and you, my money would be on him. No offense."

"None taken, and I agree, even." Poppy said. "Frankly, I don't doubt Harry's abilities. He could likely fix himself faster than I could at this point, but still. I'm not supposed to be happy that he's going off to Merlin-knows where to look for a possible artifact that contains a part of the dark lord's soul."

Harry nodded at that. He didn't want to leave Poppy behind, but he also didn't want her in danger. He knew himself, and his capabilities. He could trust the headmaster to look after himself, too, which was all he expected of the man. The hat couldn't tell him more, and Harry had asked, so it was likely protected information. Harry would be pressing for more information before they left, though.

III-III

As it turned out, Dumbledore had a few questions, too, when Harry went to meet with him, that evening still.

"You want me to tell you everything I can do?" Harry asked, frowning.

"I would like to know your capabilities, so that we can work together better." Dumbledore said, reasonably. "I do know you are capable, my boy, and I think you'll likely be surprising me for many years to come, but for now, I think I'd like to know what you're capable of, so that we can plan the outing properly."

"You first." Harry challenged.

Dumbledore frowned, not understanding.

"You want to know 'everything' I can do?" Harry asked. "Then I want to know everything you can do. I think it's only fair. I'd also like to know why I'm the only one you are taking. It's high time you tell me whatever it is you've been hiding from me."

"Ha!" the hat laughed. "Told you so." it added, looking at Dumbledore, smugly.

"You're not supposed to be able to tell him that." Dumbledore said, frowning.

"I didn't." the hat said. "Harry likes to analyse things. Everything, actually. He probably remembers your every interaction and has been keeping an ear out for anything that you don't talk about."

"Basically." Harry said, nodding. "You've never mentioned why my parents were personally targeted, or why the wizarding world believes that an untrained one-year-old could defeat a dark lord. My current theory is that you either had a spy in the dark lord's inner circle, or you are aware of a prophecy, that you haven't been telling anyone about. That would also explain Neville's parents, if the prophecy indicated a specific time of year, rather than a person, by name. That one doesn't make sense, though, because if you're not telling anyone, then how did the dark lord know to target my family, or me, specifically."

Dumbledore sighed, after he took all that in. At first, he'd thought the boy was getting information from someone else, but now, after how he explained it, it seemed that these were just rather accurate assumptions. Brilliant ones, with a lot of information based on perceived facts and confirmable information, but still assumptions.

Harry wasn't looking at the headmaster, just then. He was looking at the portraits around the room. He'd seen a few nods and smiles, at his guess, and he suspected that they were also bound from saying anything that the headmaster didn't want known but could at least give that much.

Dumbledore saw this, of course, and sighed again. "There is a prophecy, which indicates the one that would be capable of defeating the dark lord, born at a certain time, and marked by the dark lord." he said, finally spilling the beans.

Harry's hand went to his scar, as he considered it.

"Yes, I believe that your scar is that mark." Dumbledore said. "The prophecy also states that you would have power that the dark lord didn't. My current theory is that your systemized magic is that power."

"That's why you want to know everything I can do." Harry said. "If we end up facing some sort of incarnation of the dark lord, then you want to know what I have up my sleeve."

"Not necessarily." Dumbledore said. "I realise that with your system, you could potentially do many unexpected things. I've been watching, too, and know you've been playing with the elements. I believe I've seen you manipulate all four the basic elements, with relative ease."

Harry smirked. "Six." he said.

"Six?" Dumbledore asked. "You've started playing with other ones? You have been staying away from things like spirit and life magic, right?"

"No." Harry said, shaking his head. "I'm saying there's more basic elements than you think. Gravity, for one. Force, for two. I believe there are more, as well. Light, for example, is a basic element, that can be affected by all the others. Bending light is rather simple by affecting air, in certain ways. Then there's also heat, which I know you think is just another form of fire, but I suspect it is the other way around. Energy, after all, is what makes fire, possible. You can't have it, without other elements, either. Not usually anyway."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. He'd not lie and say he'd considered that, before, but he had heard people discussing things like that in the past. He'd just thought it was academic discussions, not something that had physical, or magical, applications. "Can you manipulate those?" he asked.

"Gravity was the more difficult of the two." Harry admitted. "Turns out that affecting your own gravity has all sorts of counter-indicators. I killed a few test animals, before I figured out how to do that properly. Force is rather simple, by comparison. I've had that one worked into my system from somewhere in second year, already." He'd worked it into his enhancement-system. If a bullet hit him in the head, the bullet would not survive it, and Harry would hardly feel it. That system also activated automatically. If it ever came down to it, Harry's system would also activate a few other things, at that point.

"Could you… give me an example?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry shrugged, and conjured a hand-sized lump of coal, which he then pointed his wand at, levitating it. Concentrating, he started applying force on the coal, which was, at first just floating there, before it started to release a grinding sound, as the force increased.

Dumbledore, looked, astounded, as the coal started to shrink, and change.

Harry put quite a bit of force into it, and before long, the coal had shrunk down to about half the original size. Then he stopped. "I was thinking of trying to create diamonds with this, but it simply takes too much force. I don't think it would be possible for even someone of your power."

Dumbledore considered that. As a transfiguration professor, he knew that there were rules to things like that. He knew conjured coal, which was actually air, would still return to being air, at some point, but somehow, he suspected Harry had already taken that into consideration. "You've done this with coal that wasn't conjured?" he asked, anyway.

"Of course." Harry said, nodding. "A proper test requires that all the variables are taken into consideration. I wouldn't want the experiment being affected by too many unknows."

Dumbledore nodded at that, thinking the boy was starting to sound like a scientist. "How much force did you apply to that?" he asked, indicating the now jagged and shiny piece of coal, which was what it ended up looking like.

"If I applied the same to an animal, it would basically be paste, afterwards. Most animals are mostly water, like us, and water doesn't compress under pressure. The force simply breaks the things that aren't liquids apart." Harry said. "I don't like torturing animals, though. Only when I think it would be safe, do I involve living creatures. Auntie Poppy also insists on being informed before I do something with live animals, so when I'm working on something secret, I use transfigured animals, until I know how things should be affected."

Dumbledore had lost a bit of colour on that one and sighed in relief when Harry finished. "That is likely for the best, yes." he admitted. "So, you've identified new basic elements, and can manipulate them, as you see fit?" he asked.

"I'm not nearly done with research into what all can be done with them, but I can control them to a degree." Harry said. "Now, I think it's time for you to tell me a few things, headmaster." he said, reminding the man that he wasn't that easy to distract.

Sighing, again, Dumbledore nodded. Then, he started talking.