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Harry Potter and the Cracked Reservoir
Chapter 6: Ancient Learning
By Musings of Apathy
Chapter 6: Ancient Learning
Thank you to my Beta’s Donalddeutsch, Kat Armstrong, Cateagle and Sparky40sw.
Late the next morning the Headmaster of Hogwarts stood calmly outside the front door of the summer home of the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts ringing the bell.
"Hello, Albus," Minerva McGonagall greeted, a little surprised at his early summer visit. "Come in for some tea."
"Thank you, Minerva," the Headmaster said graciously.
"What brings you today?" she asked as she poured the tea from her find china set.
"Well, Minerva," Albus said, feeling the weight of his years, "last night some things came to light in Amelia Bones’s interview with Harry that I wanted to discuss with you."
"What is wrong, Albus?" she asked, concerned.
"Well it all started with the news that Umbridge used a blood quill on young Harry."
"WHAT!?!" she shrieked. "When did this happen? Why didn’t he tell me?"
"It happened in each of the nights of detention that he received under her," he told her with his voice as steady as he could force. "He had to write ‘I will not tell lies’ for four or five hours each time."
"But he must have had fifteen or twenty detentions last year by her alone. Why didn’t he tell me?" she heatedly asked.
"Try not to be mad at him, Minerva," he urged. "He was trying to protect us from getting fired by getting on Umbridge’s wrong side. Also he said something about not wanting her to break him. He saw telling anyone as being broken or giving in somehow. He withstood it as a test of wills."
"How is it possible to withstand that much pain without showing it later?" she asked in awe. "He’s still just a child."
"I don’t believe that Harry has ever been just a child," the Headmaster said with a sad tone. "Through some checking with his friends and with Mrs. Figg, I have found some disturbing news. To some extent, he was physically abused, maybe rather heavily, before he entered Hogwarts. After his reentry into our world, I am fairly certain that the abuse was serious still, but limited somewhat to the psychological." The Headmaster took a deep breath in preparation for the most damning of evidence. "Until his letter he lived locked in the cupboard under the stairs at that house. He assumed after he got here that we thought that acceptable and therefore his family’s whole treatment of him, as his letter was addressed to his specific quarters there as they always are. I myself never made a habit of it, but do you read the addresses in the book before or after the letters go out?"
"No, neither of us ever does" she said with utter horror written on her face. "What else were you able to uncover about his childhood?"
"It seems that he was never given enough food. His second year he was given only the minimal ration of cold soup or bread and cheese, which he shared with his owl to keep her from starving. They put bars on his window and locks on his door to prevent him from sending the owl out with letters and that, of course, prevented his owl from hunting."
"But," she said, grasping at proverbial straws, "he always comes back just looking a little skinny as I recall."
"Yes," he confirmed, "that is after weeks of Molly Weasley feeding him as much as she could stuff down his throat and she cooks the heaviest and most fattening food when he is around so that he will get something on him. I don’t think that she serves even one salad when he is there, she cares for him so."
"How in the world did he turn out so kind and caring after the treatment that he received?"
"I don’t know," the Headmaster answered, his shoulders slumped, but with a measure of pride for Harry’s strength of character. "We should just count ourselves lucky as this treatment so mirrors Tom Riddle’s life, right down to his relatives rejecting him because of magic, only Harry had to live with his relatives while they told him he was nothing and a freak because of his magic."
"Yes, lucky," Minerva growled. "But it is amazing that he is so brave and selfless."
"He confessed to me that he does not think that he knows how to love," the Headmaster said. "He seems to have grown up without love and now does not think he can. I told him that he would fall in love someday and then he would figure out what love is."
"Well at least this summer he will be able to go back to the Weasley’s earlier. That should bring some joy into his life," she said with a smile threatening the edges of her lips.
"Quite right," Albus agreed.
"Still," she said, resolute, "after school starts I will have to thank him and tell him never to try to protect us like that again."
"I know that you must," he conceded, "but it will not change him or the way he does things in the future. It is just the way that he is. He would suffer for anyone. A true Gryffindor. Courageous to a fault."
Harry added physical fitness to his training regimen over the next week. He would spend a couple of hours each day flying on his broom, either chasing the snitch or practicing dives. He would fly to several hundred feet in height, tip over and fly directly at the ground with his Firebolt’s maximum acceleration. With repeated practice he learned the limits of his broom and how to pull out each time just at the last possible moment with his robes brushing the grass tips. He also found that the support structure of the stands made a good place to improve his reaction time. At full speed he had no time to think, just react, while dodging the poles and supports.
Harry knew that this was the sort of practice that he would not be able to do when others were around to worry about him. People cared about him, and he appreciated it, but without risk he would never achieve the results that he needed and wanted. In a duel, reactions were key. The difference between life and death could be the difference between instinct and thought.
The other part of his physical fitness training took place in the cave leading to the Chamber of Secrets. Near the beginning cave, where the ceiling collapse had occurred, it was still blocked by fallen rocks that needed to be moved. He could easily have moved them to the sides of the cave with magic, but he wanted the physical benefit with the exercise. He knew that the easy route was not always the best route. He could see the benefit in taking the long route and it dovetailed nicely with his experience of physical labor that kept him fit from doing the Dursley chores.
His time in the library was now split between modification spells for the Chamber and spells for defense and offense. Harry was resigned to the fact that a good part of his life would be spent preparing for and participating in duels. He knew that a duel would most likely be the eventual cause of his death, but he was determined to be as well prepared as possible.
The trip down to the Chamber was starting to get annoying for him. It really was a long way under the school. He was still contemplating the problem days after the annoyance really started to get to him as he browsed books having to do with different stones, rocks and gems. Suddenly the text that he was reading sunk in.
The different stone and gems have different magical properties. Maybe if you were to add the different properties together you would be able to create a spell effect. Reading between the lines he could tell that each different type of stone was like a small portion of a spell’s energy and if you added them together you may be able to do something.
Recalling some things from his earlier perusals of the Restricted Section, Harry raced to collect books that he remembered on Runes and Runic Magic. He was sure that the stones just being next to each other would do nothing despite their innate magical potential. What they needed was something to shape the fine points of the spell that they were to cast. Runes could form the spell and the stones could reinforce the magic and fuel the power burst needed to transport someone or something from one point to another.
His quick reading showed him a problem. Neither the stones nor the Runes would have enough power or complexity to send someone to another destination. However, if he paired the collections of stones, they would support each other. One would be able to send a payload on its journey just as the other received the payload. The connection would allow the complexity to take place.
If he could put a collection of the correct stones as a part of the floor at different places throughout the castle he would be able to make a transportation spell that would allow point-to-point transportation. He could be instantaneously transported to any place in the castle that had the stones.
Further reading caused him to think that he needed to come up with a pattern for each collection of stones in the castle. As a bonus, if he had a third collection acting as a mediator, he could control how the transport points acted. He could transport to random places if someone were to stand on one of the collections or he could transport everyone that stepped on one to a specific location. The possibilities were as endless as they were entertaining.
By the end of the week he had calculated the ratio of stones that he would need. Different opal, quartz, granite, marble and other stones as well as a containment ring of pure gold would be needed to complete the project. How would he get the ingredients? The books were specific that he needed natural stone, as transfigured stones would not have the correct magical properties.
Harry wrote a list of stones needed for a couple dozen collections throughout the castle. Who could get the materials that he would need? He knew that he wanted to keep the fact that he was the one changing the castle to himself, and so the conclusion seemed suddenly obvious.
Harry went to the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room to firecall the owners of Weasley Wizard Wheezes.
"Fred, George, are you there?" Harry yelled.
Harry’s head was floating in a fireplace in the back room of a store with various brightly colored packages stacked around the room. He heard door opening and saw one of the twins come through the door.
"Hey, Harry. That you?" he asked then turned and raised his voice, "Hey, Gred, let Samantha get those customers, the boss is in the fire and wants us."
Both twins stepped up to the fire and knelt down to talk to their principal investor.
"Hey, what is up…"
"oh, silent partner you."
"I have a list of supplies that I need someone to get for me for a project," Harry said.
"Ok, we’re your men."
"What do you need?"
"Here’s the list," Harry produced a parchment roll from his pocket. "Get the stuff to your shop and I’ll get it transported here by portkey."
Harry handed the list out through the fire to one of the twins. They immediately both looked at the list and gaped.
"Harry…"
"this lot won’t be cheap."
"That’s all right," Harry said with a grin. "I’ll firecall Gringotts next and instruct them to allow you two to withdraw the money for this. Don’t worry, I’m good for it."
"Ok…"
"sure."
"Just make sure that all of the stone and supplies are natural or the project will fail," Harry ordered.
"Of…"
"course."
"Thanks, guys," Harry said gratefully. "Oh and keep this a secret as much as possible. I want to have people guessing all year."
"Sure."
"Just make sure that we know what you are doing."
"If you come to the first quidditch match, I’ll tell you about it then," Harry answered as he looked at the large clock in the bright store. "Hey, I got to go if I am going to call Gringotts."
"Okay…"
"Bye."
Harry’s project for the next week was designing the collections of stones. At the beginning he needed just two unique designs but that would increase to more than a dozen fairly quickly. He started off with one for the center of the entry hall and one for just inside the Chamber of Secrets. These would be followed during the school year, unless he was able to finish during the summer, with one in front of each classroom in the school and one in the Headmaster’s office. The one in the Headmaster’s office would be the mediator controlling the others. The Headmaster would be able to shut all of them down or change what mode they are in at any time.
Harry had to come up with a main design that would be the base for the other designs. What leapt in to his mind was the Hogwarts crest. There were enough elements in the original design to make it usable and the students would not think it unusual that school crests were added to the floors.
Harry kept a journal of all of the research and designs that he came up with. He checked several Runic Magic books for the interlinking runes that he’d have to make the entire crest from in order to affect the transportation spell that he needed. He finally found the key to his endeavor in an ancient Atlantian resource book. It seems that Harry’s idea was not as unique as he had assumed. Though the Atlantians didn’t use runes exactly as he wanted, the book was able to tell him enough background for him to proceed. There would be ten sets of runes that would make up the entire structure repeated over and over, each rune just half an inch tall. His design was starting to look like a huge jigsaw puzzle. The seams would be nearly invisible in the field where the stone variety wouldn’t change and would still be hard to see at the edges where differing stones met.
Throughout all of this design and study, Harry kept up his physical and defense training. He had many hours every day to get everything done and tended to work himself into exhaustion after dinner, thus ensuring a full nights sleep. This helped to stave off his frequent nightmares that only made him suffer as his subconscious rehashed the mistakes and unhappy events of his past. He made a habit of casting silencing spells around his bed at night to prevent the other residents of the castle, though few, from being disturbed if he should cry out from a dream.
Harry was feeling better that he had ever felt in his life. The physical training that he was doing was toning and strengthening his muscles and the three large meals a day that he was eating definitely set this beginning of summer apart from his other summers. As usual he would go to the Weasley’s for the last bit of summer, but he was not in a hurry as he had some things that he needed to get done.
"And how was your week, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.
"It was good, Professor," Harry assured him. "I’ve come up with plans to change the Chamber and finished the main details this week. I was wondering if you could make me a portkey to the Chamber of Secrets so that I can get the material down there from Diagon Alley."
"What materials are you getting for that?" the Professor curiously asked.
"Some stone and a couple of bars of gold," Harry minimized.
"Sounds like it will be an interesting transformation," Dumbledore replied, "but, as I have never been down there, I cannot make a portkey to get there. Portkeys have to be made in the place they are to be sent to or the caster has to be very familiar with the destination to have a successful portkey."
"Oh," Harry deflated.
"However, after dinner I would be willing to teach you to make a portkey," the Professor stated. "I will give you a word of caution. Portkeys created away from Hogwarts are supposed to be regulated. They are allowed here because this is a school where you are supposed to learn to create them, but away from school they are regulated."
"It didn’t seem like you got any permission for the portkey a couple of months ago that took me back here to your office," Harry said with a grin.
The headmaster twinkled, "Yes, there is a part of the law that allows them in emergency situations and the definition of emergency is up to the caster. Just be responsible with them and be prepared to pay a tariff on any portkeys of your casting the Ministry catches. I believe the last bill I received was for five galleons for an unauthorized portkey."
"Good to know," Harry smiled.
Harry spent his time waiting for the materials to arrive by practicing the illusion charm to show the sky on the ceiling that he would need to use to repair the damage caused by his over-enthusiastic levitation charm. The ceiling of the Chamber would be the perfect canvas to practice this art on; with the added bonus that it would make for a good design feature to set the Chamber apart from the dank cave that it used to be.
Two days of ceiling practice later, Harry had all of his materials and started to create the first two crests. Before he could inlay the crest into the Chamber he had to transfigure the rough base stone into a smooth granite floor. He ended up with creamy golden granite after four tries and a half hour of rest.
The next step was to take the crest that he had been working on for the last three days and inlay it into the floor. This required the removal of the exact shape of the crest from the floor to allow for the room. He learned all of the techniques for this from the book detailing the construction of the school. Apparently the spells were used a lot around the school.
From that book he learned to carve the stone into the runes and to magically form the tiny individual pieces into the crest that was more than six feet across. The entire crest and some individual elements inside were bordered in pure twenty-four karat gold. This served to isolate the individual elements of the transportation spell and to hold the entire structure together like stained glass.
The crest for the entry hall was much harder to get in place due to its immense size of more than ten feet on a side. He had to move it in sections after midnight to avoid attention from the few other residents of the castle. He levitated it in front of his broom as he flew out of the chamber through Moaning Myrtle’s loo. Once in the entry hall he set everything down and joined the ten individual pieces into one large crest. He then inlayed it and unified the old floor with the new crest into one smooth floor. With care, there was no vertical change when he got done.
He arrived at breakfast the next morning to two surprised fellow castle residents.
"Good morning, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said. "Am I safe in assuming that that beautiful crest in the entry is your doing?"
"Oh, you saw it did you?" Harry asked slyly.
"Yes I did," the Headmaster said, "and I assume that Madame Pomfrey has seen it as well."
"Yes I did, Mister Potter," she said with appreciation. "And you have done beautiful work. What is the purpose?"
"Well, I had hoped that I could persuade the two of you to tell everyone that it is just a part of new decorations for the castle," Harry s pleaded hopefully. "There will be one in front of each classroom, each house and in the library and hospital wing when I’m finished."
"And what is the real purpose if the crests if that is what we are to tell the others?" asked the healer, letting her intelligence show through.
"Well, no telling," Harry leaned forward conspiratorially, "but they are a runic transportation system that can instantaneously transport anyone from one crest to its sister crest with a little direction."
"And what direction is this?" she asked. Albus just sat back and marveled at his favorite student’s hidden brilliance.
Harry answered her, "Each crest has a key figure in it that you have to be picturing perfectly while on another crest and you will be on the crest that you are imagining."
"Could that not be dangerous Mister Potter?" she asked with concern. She had been around in the last war and shared the fear common to the teachers of the castle being breached. Realistically, there were many stands that could take place within the walls, but with transportation, the Deatheaters could outflank them disastrously.
"No," Harry stated with confidence, "I have designed a crest for the Headmaster’s office that controls the others, so that he can shut it down."
"Sounds acceptable to me, Harry," the Headmaster weighed back into the conversation. "I assume that since you did this in the middle of the night, you want your involvement in this to be a secret for now?"
"For now and ever, yes," Harry said. "I’m just leaving my mark on the school and trying to do something unique at the same time."
"Very well," he said as Madame Pomfrey nodded her ascent. "How goes the rest of your training? Are you in full control of your power level?"
"Yes, I believe that I am ready to venture back into the great wide world," Harry said with his chin up and his voice grand. "The only thing that I haven’t practiced is instantly opening up my magic to full power. It takes me about ten seconds to go from complete muggle to full power and the quicker I go up the longer it takes for me to go back down and have full containment."
"That is as good or better than we could have hoped for," the Headmaster said. "Good job, Harry."
"Thanks, Professor," Harry said with a proud smile.
"I shall start to make arrangements for you to go to the Weasley’s in a couple of days," The Professor offered.
Harry was so busy that he didn’t realize what the date was. Dumbledore realized this and was planning a little fun with the Weasley’s for Harry’s birthday. Harry had never had a birthday party before and his professor wanted to have a surprise party that Harry would remember for the rest of his life.
On July 31st, Dumbledore addressed the assembled people in the Weasley garden, a group of his friends and almost family.
"Ok, everyone gather around this spot. The owl should deliver the surprise in a few minutes. Harry has never had a birthday party before and he has been so busy lately that he probably does not realise what day this is and so this will be a real surprise. Let us yell surprise when he arrives and then bring forward the food and presents."
"Professor," said Ginny, "Are you sure that this is a good idea? Harry’s had so many bad surprises, do you think he will react that well to this one?"
"Nonsense. Everyone likes surprise parties, and besides, this is a good surprise," the jovial Professor said.