Titles are hard

Charles led Harry to the study, where they spent the rest of the day training. He thought of it as training, even though it was basically just Charles giving him specific instructions that the professor and Hank had come up with together with his mutation in mind.

These instructions would help him with strengthening not only his mind but making it resistant to anything that targeted it. There were a few ways for him to strengthen it on his own, without any outside stimulus, but it would be far slower.

The pressure a telepath could exert on his mind, should in theory be enough to stimulate his mutation into activating and thus strengthen it considerably in a smaller time frame.

Harry's main goal in all of this, was to strengthen and fortify his mind enough that he could withstand the attacks of the dragon even on his own. There would be other benefits, of course.

Charles himself was specific in telling him what benefits the strengthening of a mind had on an individual. Heightened memory, empathy, and intelligence. The greatest benefit of them all, though, would have to be the elevated ability to withstand stress of any kind.

It would help them maintain the calm even in the most desperate and hopeless of situations, usually. There were limits, but that depended on the strength of the individual's mind.

Harry thought that maybe even without having access to the key that directed his mutation, he might be able to develop new powers with the right stimulus. He had no idea how the metaphorical key worked, as it was in the possession of the dragon, but it had enabled it to gain such powers.

His body certainly hadn't been in a situation that would have made it evolve into having scales, claws, wings, and the ability to breathe fire. The fact that they were also tied to the dragon aspect seemed to be somehow tied to the key.

They spent the day like that, without a single break. Harry, constantly memorizing each word the professor said, and Charles instructing the young man on how to maximize the future training.

"That's it." Charles said, slightly exhausted. "We're done."

There was a different kind of headache inside of Harry's head right now, but it didn't deter him at all.

"You should get some sleep; you still have class in the morning." Charles said as he started moving towards the door. "Good night."

Harry didn't respond, and just stared outside the window. The moon was shining bright in the sky, illuminating the world outside. It was beautiful.

He rose up slowly and deliberately made his way outside the study, and back towards his room. Not many students were up and about still, but those who were still awake shot him a single look before scurrying away from him as fast as possible.

Some tried to be discreet, others just straight up bolted upon noticing him.

'I would do the same.' Harry thought as he continued walking towards his room, ignoring the students who seemed to be avoiding him like the plague.

He would have been scared of himself too, if he had been one of them. Well, maybe now he could be alone without anyone pestering him. Something positive, at least.

His room was in the same state he had left it that night, except with the dust visible in the spots where the moonlight hit.

There was a stack of papers on his desk with a note on top.

"Hahaha." -Scott

Each paper was an assignment he had missed during his beauty sleep. They apparently hadn't granted him mercy from homework. Harry could hear Scott laughing as he read the note.

He squinted at the papers, before taking the note and crumbling it and tossing it in the trashcan that was underneath the table.

While the stack was about ten papers tall, it wasn't even half of what Scott had. Harry guessed that the idiot had been happy that someone other than Kitty had so much homework. There was a saying, 'misery loves company'.

Maybe not everyone was as scared of him as he had previously thought. With that, he went and laid down on his bed.

Sleep did not come easily to him that night, but eventually it claimed him.

/-/

Scott woke up as usual, five minutes till class started. With practiced grace and calm, he threw his clothes on, adjusted his ruby quartz glasses before taking the bag he utilized as his school bag and leaving the room.

There were a few other students who used the same practice he did, and were currently rushing towards their classes, wherever they were.

His first period consisted of Ororo's class, again. He already dreaded the moment in which she asked for the homework she had assigned. Scott was even more late on his assignments than usual. Jean had been busy training with the professor for the past week or so and Harry was out cold, sleeping his little beauty sleep and skipping school like it was nothing.

He had to admit, he might have been a tad too happy once he discovered that Harry's homework wasn't voided and instead kept accumulating. Scott might even be able to copy his work, and not have to do it on his own.

He just wondered when Harry would wake up, it was getting really hard to finish all the assignments Hank and Ororo wanted him to do. They had even complimented him about his progress the day after Harry's incident, but then it went downwards pretty quickly.

Scott shook out the depressing and time-consuming amount of homework he had as he opened the door to the classroom.

He was surprised to see Harry sitting at the back of the classroom, on the desk in front of his. Most of the other students looked wary and were obviously staring at him.

Scott just shrugged as he sat down on his desk, Harry noticed him but didn't say anything.

"Hey, man." Scott said. "When did you wake up?"

"Yesterday." Harry replied without turning to look at him.

"Yesterday? Man, if you'd told me I could have pestered you to help me."

'At least he looks and sounds normal.' Scott thought as Harry turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"A good thing then that I didn't tell you."

"Rude."

Scott surveyed the room and noticed that some of the students had stopped staring and looked more relaxed. What were they so scared of; he didn't quite understand.

"So, will you help me and Kitty after school?" Scott asked just as Ororo walked into the classroom.

"You still want my help?" Harry asked confusedly even as he brought out the assignment Ororo had given them yesterday.

"Duh, I'll never get back my free time if I don't have help." Scott replied. "Why wouldn't I want it?"

Harry shrugged in response. Scott couldn't read his mind like Jean to know exactly what he was thinking about, but he had a rough idea.

"Look, man. Neither me nor Kitty are afraid of you, if that's what you're worried about."

The papers on their tables started levitating once again towards the teacher's hands. She thumbed through them and once she was done, she looked straight at him.

"In my defense, I tried." Scott said. Ororo only sighed in response and started the lesson without any further confrontation. She was too used to this to make anything out of it. He already knew that he was going to get some 'extra' help, again.

"I'll help you, when I have time, and I don't know when that is." Harry suddenly said. There was pity in his eyes. It annoyed him slightly.

"Good, you can always do your homework while helping me."

"And let you copy them?" Harry smirked.

"That sounds like a great idea, let's do that." Scott smirked back.

/-/

The rest of the school day went by in a flash, with no notable events worth mentioning.

Harry didn't exactly know when the time for his training was supposed to be at, so he just followed Scott to the library. Maybe Jean would be there, and he could ask her, as she was supposed to train with him. He hadn't had the chance to ask her about it earlier.

The library was already packed full of people, most of them doing their own homework. Scott made his way to the same table as before and Harry followed him.

Neither of them had seen either Jean or Kitty since class, so they didn't wait for them and instead began doing their own homework.

In reality, it was more Harry doing his and Scott constantly trying to peek at his sheet, getting increasingly creative at every blocked attempt. The situation soon devolved into Harry just trying to block Scott from looking at it.

"If you just copy them, you won't learn anything!" Harry almost shouted as it was getting increasingly harder to block him out.

"I don't care! I want to be free!" Scott lunged at his side of the table, sending the paper flying. Harry tried to block Scott from reaching it but missed by an inch.

Scott extended his hand and had almost grasped it, when gravity suddenly seemed to stop working on it, and it stayed floating in the air.

"Ah, shit. So close." Scott said as he smoothed out his clothes and sat back down on his seat as if nothing had happened.

"Come on, Scott." A feminine voice called out.

"You were so slow." Another slightly more energetic voice called out. "It was an utter failure; how could you do this to me."

Scott just scoffed. "You should have been here to help me then." Jean and Kitty both appeared at the table, Harry's paper then gently floated down in front of him on the desk. "Now we both have to actually study."

Kitty stuck out his tongue in response.

"You have to be more careful around these two." Jean smiled at him as she sat down.

"It seems so." Harry breathed out.

Now seemed to be as good of a situation as any to ask about the training as the idiot duo in front of him were amidst their own little squabble.

"Hey, Jea-" His words were cut short as a voice resonated inside his head.

'Will you and Jean both come to my study? We can start the training now.' Charles' voice informed him, it seemed that Jean had received the same message and was already packing up the papers she had just placed down.

Harry did the same, and it seemed that their actions were enough to get the homework duo's attention.

"Where are you going?" Scott asked.

"The professor called us." Jean replied while smiling. "You two are going to have to study alone."

Harry mirrored Jean's smile. While Scott just looked torn between joyful and desperate.

"I know you mean well, but they will kill me if I don't start returning these assignments."

Kitty just looked confused.

"Tough luck, See ya later." Harry replied as both he and Jean started making their way out of the library.

They weren't even out of the library before they could hear that the duo was definitely not studying and were playing again, instead.

Jean just sighed, it prompted Harry to look at her with a curious gaze.

"It's hopeless, there's nothing we can do to prevent that." She replied to his unasked question. "Only remedy to that is to be present, and even then, it's not always effective."

"How long have you been helping them?" Harry asked with morbid curiosity.

"Almost a year…" Jean trailed off and stopped.

"My condolences." Harry kept walking forward without noticing her stopping, he didn't get far.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, he turned to look to see Jean smiling at him, she looked cute.

"Save them, you're going to need them for yourself now that you're in this with me." Suddenly, the smile wasn't as cute anymore. It was more terrifying.

'Uh, oh.' He thought as he nodded. She responded with a satisfied nod of her own, the smile once again transforming into a cute one from the previously scary one.

"Let's go, the professor is waiting for us." She said as she skipped ahead with a pep in her step. She certainly looked happy.