fics I read

She set aside the tea cup and said, "I'll prepare another place to have the book stored by the end of the week. For now, let it be known to others that the book was destroyed by the Mandarin's disintegration beam."

Harry nodded and was silently happy that she agreed to go along with his plan. Harry asked, "So, who is this Mandarin guy?"

The Ancient One took from her robes some items Harry recognized as the tech the Mandarin used to break the magic security. She said, "Place these in your inventory and pause so you can analyze them. Tell me what you have discovered first and I will tell you what I know of the Mandarin."

Harry had no problems complying and did as she asked. He didn't know the Mandarin dropped them when Harry snatched the book from under his nose.

Once paused, Harry quickly realized whatever this tech was, it wasn't earth based. Sure, it used electricity, but that wasn't all it used. Some of the materials seemed to use principals which Harry did even know those materials had. Harry would have to experiment with them later to learn more since they worked off logic Harry wasn't familiar with.

Harry unpaused and said, "It was built on earth but it's not earth tech."

The Ancient One nodded and said, "It is said that the Mandarin discovered an alien ship many decades ago and mastered the technology. He crafted the energy sources of the ship into ten rings which have granted him great power as you know. Many know of the Mandarin as he is not afraid of showing off and many fear his power. His disintegration beam most of all."

"Decades?" Harry asked.

She nodded weakly. "Yes. Though the source of his health at that age is not the rings. He is more than just a master martial artist. He has completely harnessed his Chi, his life force and has strengthened it to the point where he can maintain his youth as he pleases."

Harry read a few books about life force which mentioned the power of chi and the possibility of youth extension, but Harry didn't know anyone was actually capable of it. The quantity and quality of the Chi required were not things that could be obtained in a modern world or so he thought. Thousands of years ago someone with that much Chi would be called an Immortal. But in this day and age, even the Immortals had died.

The Ancient One said, "You're to avoid open exercise for three days to avoid suspicion on your recovery from fighting the Mandarin. That will be all and good work."

Harry thanked the Ancient One and turned to leave, but before he got to the door she said, "And Harry, do be careful. Some books are sentient and many such books will not have the best intentions of the reader. I do not know how your power will react to such a book, so in the future, be careful of what you place in your inventory."

Harry felt the blood drain from his face for a moment before his mind automatically steadied itself. Harry could already think of half a dozen books that fell under the criteria the Ancient One described. When he placed a book into his inventory, it practically became a part of him. What if the book was already someone else? He didn't want to think about it.

Secrets were not well kept in Kamar-Taj and eventually some details about what occurred came out. Harry bravely took the book that the Mandarin had come for and lasted long enough against him to use the book to block his disintegration beam. At least that was the story the Ancient One encouraged and she doubted the Mandarin would refute the details.

Once Harry 'recovered,' Mordo took him under his wing and began training him in earnest. There were several masters who often took time to personally teach disciples, but Mordo was considered the best when it came to combat. Kaecilius was also very skilled but the man had a sadistic side that came out when fighting someone weaker than him which included much of Kamar-Taj. Few if any of his sparring partners didn't require some medical attention for cuts, broken bones, or concussions. Harry avoided sparring with him for that reason and Mordo never allowed it in the first place.

After a year of crafting, Harry had successfully created bracers which increased the amount of momentum he needed to move. This did not increase his weight or make him fall faster as any sparring partner would notice such a thing, it simply increased the amount of energy and effort he needed to make any movement. In order words he would have to go all out to fight someone at a lower fitness level and he would strengthen himself better doing it.

Harry used these to spar with Mordo and train under him with everything he had, which from Mordo's perspective looked to be quite promising but still human. Harry finally used his long cutter sword while sparring which made Mordo very relieved he would not have to talk Harry out of using that ridiculous heavy sword. The sword style Harry used still worked with the longer than normal sword but Harry used more footwork variations to strike, dodge, and counter than before.

Mordo also began training Harry with his insights into the Heart Palace. He said, "You know Harry I must admit some jealousy in how easily you achieved it. I was not so lucky."

Harry could sense a story and asked, "What happened?"

He smiled wryly and said, "When the Ancient One knows you can succeed in a difficult training means, she won't let you use an easier means. Because of this, I didn't learn even basic control for some time. Many who came after me seemed to achieve results quickly, but not me. I didn't even know she had given me the training for the Heart Palace until later."

He shook his head in reminiscence and continued, "One day, I told her I just couldn't do it. She told me I wasn't surrendering to the energy and trying to control it instead. She opened a portal and told me to follow."

Harry wondered where someone could be taken for that. "Where'd you go?"

"Mt. Everest. She took me to the top of Mt. Everest and told me someone without proper attire would likely go into shock in two minutes. She then re-entered the portal and left me there."

He stayed silent for a moment before continuing, "I understood then that what I had been trying to fight until that moment, had never been an enemy. I had in fact wasted so much time fighting myself. I gave up the fight, you cannot win a fight against yourself. In the barren cold of Everest I felt the cold numb my flesh and bones, but in doing so, my other senses became more attuned. I felt the energy of space at the peak of the world and accepted it within me, changing it and changing myself. Once I had done this, the first stage of the Heart Palace had been completed and I could control the energy as if it were a part of me. I escaped Everest that day. The Ancient One guided me not where I wanted to go, but where I needed to go. And I have risen far since then."

Harry wondered how the Ancient One would feel if she knew Mordo turned a lesson plan into a religious experience.

Harry was somewhat thankful he was able to spend another full year of training under the Ancient One and Mordo before Mordo decided to take him along on a small mission. After two and a half years of Kamar-Taj, Harry's stats had gone through several breakthroughs.

[Harry Potter

Level 170 Age 14

STR 235 AGI 267

INT 355 WIS 350

LUK 20

Warrior Path rank 26

Scholar Path rank 38

Magic Path rank 36

Tech Path rank 23

Business Path rank 11

Crafting Path rank 15]

First was Harry's martial technique. Though still leagues below someone like the Mandarin, Harry was at least as skilled as Mordo. Though since he still fought with the training bracers, from Mordo's perspective Harry was simply, 'competent enough not to die pointlessly.' The reason he reached Mordo's level was that although the man held back his strength in the spars, he did not hold back his skill to ensure Harry's technique was not lacking in any way he couldn't fix.

Harry had fully memorized the content of every book in the library including the Ancient One's private collection. He asked permission once he comprehended the content of the Master's Library and after she made Harry promise not to use any spells or rituals contained within for any reason without first consulting her, she agreed. The fact that Harry didn't summon any demons was good evidence he didn't see temptation in the same way most do. Harry did in fact come to her with three or so spells he learned and wanted to try out and she was willing to walk him through the dangers and supervise the practice.

Harry's heart palace had accumulated large amounts of nature energy, strength energy, antimagic energy, and illusion energy. He spent several months on each over the last two years and eventually synchronized the energies with his life force and soul, allowing him to control those energies as easily as he did Dimensional energy. Each energy was from a specific dimension the Ancient One led him to in the astral plane. Strength Energy for example can be easily found within the Crimson cosmos, a plane of existence currently ruled by Cyttorak. Usually to control strength energy one must invoke Cyttorak's name, but Harry could bypass that requirement meaning he didn't even need to chant the spell. This was one of the great advantages of the Heart palace method and Harry had surpassed Mordo in its usage since Mordo was still trying to absorb energy he couldn't even feel.

Harry's scholar path increased when he learned something or comprehended something new so it increased suitably of course. The whole of wizard knowledge is only about controlling exotic energy. Sure, exotic energy is formidable, but it is still only one type of energy. Harry had been learning about dozens of types of energies, their uses and their various permutations. He expanded his knowledge of those studies with what he knew of nuclear physics, theoretical physics, and astrophysics and merged them together. Harry now knew more of the science of magic than even the Ancient One, though she could mentally calculate it faster as she had better instincts from centuries of practice.

Harry's Tech Path jumped when he finally cracked the secret behind the Mandarin's toys. Since they basically interfaced around magic Harry had a base to work from in figuring them out. What Harry found interesting was that they basically overloaded the security spells and were likely powered by the Mandarin's rings. No one else could use them which was likely why he didn't care if he left them. He probably didn't think a sorcerer in a temple would have any use of it.

The Business Path increased slowly on its own with or without Harry's input, though it did increase faster when Harry participated in his business interests.

The red headed twins had opened their store filled with fun prank and gag merchandise and Harry would often head over to see what they had that was new. Sirius still ran much of it and was having a great time. He and Amelia got married a few months ago and Harry enjoyed the wedding as it was the first reunion he had with many of his friends. He still wrote Hermione a short letter every month or so and she would write back. They were still friends but she was getting on with her life. Harry realized at the wedding that Neville and Hermione sat very close to each other and he was happy for them.

The other, larger part of his business interest was the Muggle Bank that Gringotts had opened using computers. They named it P & G Bank and Trust, and hired squibs and muggleborns to be the face of the bank as they continued to research muggle companies and use them to gain more money. They would often give loans of Harry's gold converted into British Pounds to up and coming businesses at a decent interest and were making long term money goals from such. What was interesting was that if a business failed, the business would be forfeited to the Goblins who would delegate muggleborns to it to fix up the place using magic and make the business worth something, then sell it to someone else. This method required quite a bit of trial and error and more than a little help from Harry himself but eventually they figured out what to look out for when giving loans. If the company was any good, the Goblins would also retain the rights to buy partial ownership of the company and in doing so, P & G Bank and Trust slowly but surely grew.

As far as the world knew, P & G stood for Potter and Gold which were both old families of Britain which decided to open a bank. The Government knew the truth of course, but when the Royal Family learned the magicals were finally leaving the Victorian era, they had no problem approving it and the bank did in fact make a minor boost to the economy and paid their taxes properly as good citizens of the crown.

Harry's Crafting Path improved from two sources. The first was the obvious, Harry would take materials and mold them with magic and intent and try to create artifacts. He was already considered a master of metallurgy, tanning, carving, and material physics and chemistry in general. The second source was unexpected but fruitful. Turned out cooking was considered crafting so Harry started cooking all the time. The higher the Crafting Path, the easier it was to craft something so even if Harry rose the Path through cooking it still made it easier to craft working artifacts.

Harry would put every cook book he found in his inventory, practice at least one sophisticated meal a day, and every once in a while he would find some cooking contest in Britain to participate in. So far the best he had done was come in third, but that was not too surprising. Cooking really was an art and there were many geniuses who surpassed him.

Although Mordo had no clue as to the depth of Harry's actual strength, he still requested Harry's accompaniment on a routine retrieval mission to show Harry the ropes. The Ancient One couldn't see Harry's future so had no idea what would happen. She still agreed to the request and basically said, 'Have fun.'

Another reason Mordo requested Harry was that the mission took place in London and he didn't want to ask Kaecelius to join him since most missions needed two regardless of the difficulty or lack thereof. Mordo knew Harry often returned to London for various things so Harry likely knew the layout as well as the sadistic jerk did.

The mission itself was to find a specific item which had been stolen from Kamar-Taj long ago. It was a relic called the Visconti-Sforza deck. It was apparently the very first tarot deck ever created and also the most powerful. It was gifted to Kamar-Taj in the 15th century but lost in the 17th century and rumors of its reappearance had reached Kamar-Taj.

Mordo had a few places he wanted to check out and explained most of them to Harry. Though it was late December they both wore robes that kept them warm so neither were bothered.

Harry himself was wondering why he didn't receive a game generated quest. He actually had no idea why a quest would generate for something or why it wouldn't for something else. He got a quest for making Hermione prank a teacher but didn't get one for protecting the Grand Grimoire from the Mandarin. It was slightly irksome since if he got the quest he'd get a nice map pointer showing him exactly where the thing was. But then again, he didn't want to get spoiled.

The search took three days and it was actually Christmas by the time they found it in a gift shop. Harry bought it since the man selling it had no idea it was real and if Mordo tried to convince him it was, the seller was more likely to increase the price than give it to them.

The relic itself seemed dormant to Harry. Mordo explained that relics would appear so until they chose the one they wished to wield them. The deck was actually a fairly powerful relic that in addition to its ability to predict coming events, its cards could also could sharpen themselves and fly at the user's command like a swarm of blades.

Rather than return, Harry said he would spend the day admiring the Christmas decorations around London which Mordo was fine with.

Not long after admiring the giant tree, Harry sensed something that was more than a little odd. Time energy, and a lot of it. Harry followed the source around a corner and three people ran straight into him.

One of them, a man wearing a bow tie, said, "Oh Hello, sorry about that," as he got up.

Harry said, "What's with the rush?"

The bow tie wearer Harry confirmed was the source of the time energy said, "Yes, well, we're being chased so got to run."

A redheaded woman and a skinny man in a striped sweater followed him.

*Ping*

[New Quest: Rescue the Time Lord]

Help the Doctor stop the Carrionites and find his way home.]

Three shadow-like specters flew over Harry but almost immediately turned around.

"Fallen before our eyes, a feast!" One of them practically screeched.

The other said, "Lead us to what we crave our spell has done."

Harry wasn't sure if that strange croaking sound was a giggle. The three looked like a cross between a Dementor and a crow and Harry realized they seemed to have decided to eat him.

The redhead shouted, "Doctor!" When she realized their pursuers were more intent on eating Harry than following them.

The spectral trio descended on Harry and the three from before seemed to be yelling at Harry to run.

One of the bird creatures moved to snatch something from Harry's head, a hair perhaps, but Harry ducked and kicked it back before sending a flying roundhouse at the other two, sending them into a wall.

Harry calmly approached the three he ran into earlier and said, "Those aren't friends of yours I suppose."

The one he initially kicked recovered and shouted, "I shall drink from the blood of your heart!"

The group gave a look at Harry and grabbed him while shouting, "Run!"

Harry decided to follow along.

While gaining distance the redhead said, "Wait, kicking them works? Why can't we go back to that?"

The man with the bow tie said, "They don't exist on our physical realm, kicking them only pisses them off."

Harry wondered how much experience these people had at running while talking.

Harry said, "I'm Harry by the way."

The redhead said, "I'm Amy, this is my husband Rory."

The man in the sweater gave a small wave as they continued to run down the street. Harry figured the man must be used to being introduced by her.

The bow tie wearing leader said, "I'm the Doctor."

Harry asked, "Of what?"

"What?" he asked back.

"What are you the Doctor of?"

Rory chuckled which made Harry look to him. The man finally spoke up and said, "Most people say Doctor who."

Harry said, "'What' is far more interesting."

Amy said, "Come to think of it, what are you a doctor of?"

"Is now really the best time for this?!" he almost shouted.

The three bird things were flying fast at them and Harry said, "So do you have a plan?"

The Doctor said, "Not really, making things up as I go."

"Do you want me to kick them again?"

"What good will that do us?" the Doctor asked.

"Buy us some time to make a better plan?"

"We need something to distract them and throw them off our scent! Something I'll think of any second now."

Harry felt them getting closer and casually took out a Patronus grenade.

Rory noticed it in Harry's hand and said, "What's that?"

Harry threw it behind him a after a moment of blinding light, the space suddenly contained a massive shining dragon that barely fit in the space between the buildings on the street. The glowing white construct took a look at the specters and roared. The ghastly creatures turned and flew away immediately but the massive Patronus did not give chase.

The trio stopped dead and turned to see the massive glowing white dragon that looked both real and illusionary. Harry noticed that all three of them could see it even though muggles couldn't see exotic energy based magic. Harry attributed it to the fact that even the two normal seeming ones did have an excess amount of time energy which allowed them to see things others could not. The bird creatures also seemed to have a field around them which made them harder to notice which explained the lack of shrieking on the streets from the ghostly specters flying down London.

All the lights in the surroundings started going off and coming back on as the Patronus faded away. This was a newer version of the spell grenade which had less Exotic energy emission but it still had some effect. The fact that the lights came back on at all was a good sign to Harry. The Exotic energy hadn't done permanent damage to the lines in the area.

Rory was the first to speak up, barely. "W-What. What was that?"

Harry shrugged. "Dragon in a can. Useless in a fight but scary enough. Those bird thingys will probably figure out it's not dangerous soon so let's go."

The Doctor led them down a few more streets and they stopped running when he felt they lost them. Rory and Amy looked decently out of breath but seemed to recover quickly enough.

Harry took the moment to say, "So, what were they, why did they talk about eating me, and what exactly are you a Doctor of?"

The Doctor recovered after just a few breaths and said, "Carrionites. They feed off life energy and you look delicious to them. And everything."

Harry frowned and said, "Wait a second."

The Doctor looked like he was about to try to convince Harry he wasn't lying about the Carrionites, but Harry said, "You're a Doctor of everything?"

The possible 'not an actual Doctor' looked taken aback, "Yes, yes I am." He straightened his bow tie as if that proved his point.

Harry asked, "So you've written a dissertation on every single subject that exists and after a review by your peers it was accepted and published?"

When Amy saw the dumbstruck look on the Not a Doctor's face, she started laughing hysterically and Rory also seemed to have trouble keeping himself from joining her.

"Well, I um.. Yes, well. Shut up."

This caused her to laugh even harder.

"I'm an honorary Doctor ok!"

Rory said, "So you never actually got a degree on earth or Gallifrey or anything?"

He shook his head and said, "It wasn't called a Doctorate when I graduated on Gallifrey but I was given the title ok? I am the Doctor."

Harry said, "That's nice. Got a plan to deal with the Carrionites before they eat anyone? I doubt I'm the only tasty morsel in London."

Amy looked oddly at Harry and said, "You're what, sixteen? How are you so calm about this and why did you have a canned dragon?"

"I'm fourteen and a half actually. And weird things happen to me all the time. I'm used to it by now. And I have a canned dragon because I put it there. I like to make things like that."

Harry had the Doctor's attention at that point, "You made that? How?"

"I doubt you'd understand if I told you."

"Oh yeah? Try me."

Harry smiled and said, "Magic."

Amy said, "Wait, real magic? Are you a wizard or something?"

Rory picked up on this and said, "I don't think wizards have canned dragons. I mean why put it in a can?"

Harry said with mock accusation, "Well, where else am I'm going to put it?"

Amy stifled a laugh and said teasingly, "Yeah Rory, where else is he going to put it?"

The Doctor shook his head and said, "Ok, Harry the Wizard, we need to find someplace safe. Carrionites are as picky as they are vindictive so they won't target anyone else until they get to you."

Harry shrugged, at least that was convenient. "I've got a place up the street."

He rarely used it since Kamar-Taj was quieter and had more dimensional energy but he needed a place for his mail to go when the PO Box complained about the smell of the mail he usually got.

*DBZ Announcer who randomly snuck in*

What is it the Carrionites want and what is there plan? Will the Doctor and his companions ever return home? Find out next time on Dragon Ball- I mean Harry Potter the Gamer Mutant Orchid, or something.

Once they got inside Harry said, "Alright, pick something you want for Christmas Dinner."

Rory said, "Anchovy pizza."

The Doctor said, "Fish fingers, and custard if you have any."

Amy sighed and said, "I'm not hungry."

Harry set up a table and took some of the prepared dishes from him inventory. Plenty of meals were easier to make in larger servings than small ones so he had hundreds of different dishes in his inventory.

"Ok, dinner's ready," he called out less than a minute later.

They came in to find a table plated with three slices of handmade anchovy pizza, a plate of hand breaded beer battered fried fish fingers and homemade from scratch custard, a bowl of freshly chopped caesar salad and chips, and a plate of chicken alfredo where Harry sat down. In the center of the table was a steaming teapot and Harry was pouring out four cups of tea from it.

Amy said, "Ok, that was too~ fast."

Harry shrugged and said, "Magic."

When Amy saw that the place left for her wasn't empty, she decided not to complain as the salad did look delicious. Harry had enough experience cooking to know what 'I'm not hungry' translated to when it came to women and food.

The Doctor dipped the fish fingers into the custard and said between bites, "So you live on your own?"

Harry took a sip of tea before answering back, "That's right. I'm emancipated. So you got a plan yet?"

Rory said, "What happened to the Tardis? I mean I get that we crashed and those carri-... things.. started chasing us. But where did they come from and why did we crash?"

Amy said, "The lights went off right, is the Tardis broken?"

The Doctor gave a slightly pained smile and said, "Not broken Amy, dead. The Tardis will never move again."

Rory said, "What? How?"

The Doctor let his head drop and said, "The Tardis is powered by the universe it was built in. Those Carrionites shifted the course of the Tardis into another universe. This is London, 2006, but not your London 2006."

Amy said, "They shifted the course? But how can they do that?"

"It's my fault," he groaned. "They were sealed in a magic ball when Shakespeare reversed the spell that was supposed to free them. I kept the ball in my Tardis but it was a ball they made. It's been about two hundred years since then and I suppose they came up with a way to not only free themselves but drag me down."

Harry said, "So these Carrionites use magic? One of them said their spell led them to what they crave. Another tried to snatch one of my hairs. How does their magic work and if they dragged you here what is it here that they want?"

After finishing another fish finger the Doctor said, "Their magic works on Quantum Mnemonics, the right word in the right place at the right time."

Harry said, "Sounds like hacking." Harry wondered if a hair from his head was like a password to access his data.

The Doctor nodded and said, "A bit like that yeah. Their whole species save those three were banished to the deep dark, the emptiness beyond the void."

Harry thought that sounded exactly like the Dark Dimension.

"As for here, well, I'm not sure. I suppose there must be something here they really want."

Harry said, "Well, this reality does overlap with a few others and one of them happens to be a dimension beyond time and death called the Dark Dimension. Maybe those Carrionites came here because it would be easier to open a door here and free the rest of them?"

The Doctor made no effort to hide his surprise. "Well, that could be it, yeah."

Harry set his cup down and said, "And if the Carrionites are hackers of the universe, then we need to do something soon. Some computers are easier to hack than others and I doubt this universe is harder to hack than yours is. Once they get familiar enough with the operating system of this universe, they could become very powerful very quickly."

"Oh, yes, that could be bad," he said as he pieced together the realizations.

Amy said, "If you're a wizard, do you have any ideas?"

"I don't use hacks. I know how to write programs that affect the universe and how to overwrite existing programs. Unless you have a book on Universe Hacking 101, I wouldn't know where to begin."

Amy and Rory simultaneously looked at the Doctor who said, "Well, there might be something in my Tardis. But I don't think-"

Harry interrupted, "I'm a very fast reader. Where is your Tardis?"

Rory said, "Across from the intersection of St Martin's ave and Barking rd."

Harry questioned, "You parked a spaceship in the middle of London?"

This brought a smile to the Doctor's face, "Yes I did."

After finishing supper Rory got up to head to the door but Harry said, "Where are you going?"

"Umm, to the Tardis?"

Harry got up and moved to the living room and started circling his hand. A portal of rust colored sparks opened and showed a blue police box on the other side. Harry asked, "That's your Tardis?"

Amy said, "Oh my god that's real magic!"

Harry smiled and said, "That's nothing." He threw the portal forward where it swallowed the Tardis and vanished, but now there was a police box in Harry's living room.

Harry sensed a large amount of dimensional energy from the box, far more than any artifact or relic he had ever seen.

Amy opened the door to the phone box revealing only a dimly lit space within. "Come on," she said.

Rory and the Doctor walked into the box and Harry followed shortly behind.

The space inside ended up being much larger than the exterior. But it was more than that. The space itself was different. Pocket dimension maybe. Nope, definitely.

Harry said, "Nice pocket dimension."

Amy saw the Doctor frown at the lack of excitement and patted his shoulder. "Not everyone is going to be flabbergasted Doctor."

Rory asked, "So where is the book?"

The Doctor answered, "In the library."

"And where is the library?"

Amy answered for him, "Next to the swimming pool."

"Right, of course. Next to the swimming pool. How could I have forgotten," Rory plainly stated.

Harry felt the space change and the door closed behind them.

"The Doctor comes for his Tardis," echoed voices from the darkness.

"A constant of the universe it is, any universe it seems."

"So easy a trap to set. And you've brought dinner with you, how lovely."

Harry paused the world and walked around a bit. He'd never been inside a pocket dimension, much less a pocket dimension created in another universe. The dimensional energy around him didn't respond to the energy in his heart palace meaning he couldn't use it. The space itself was also clean of almost any other type of energy save Time Energy which he still had a long way to go before he could use it.

The witch things weren't in the room, they seemed to be echoing their voices from elsewhere. Maybe they wanted to direct the group?

The Honorary Doctor said they didn't exist in the physical realm meaning they were basically projections. Technically that's what a hacker was. A hacker didn't exist in the computer he was hacking, but usually somewhere else. Their presence in the computer was virtual. So how do you stop a hacker? Security, firewalls, and passwords would hold one back, but not truly stop them.

The only way to stop a hacker was a counter hack. That was going to be a problem. Sorcery didn't work here and Harry already suspected using Exotic energy magic in a pocket dimension containing what looked to be a spaceship that could travel through time might not be the brightest idea. Luckily he had lots of stuff in his inventory.

Harry unpaused and took four swords from his inventory, "Alright, everyone gets a sword."

Rory said, "wh-where did you get that?"

Amy grabbed two swords and passed one to him.

The Doctor said, "Ah, swords, love a good sword. Not sure what good it'll do us though."

Harry said, "They're more useful than glow sticks. Let there be light."

At the command phrase the swords started glowing, shining light all around the rooms.

The Doctor smiled and said, "Oh that's cool."

Amy swung it around and said, "I feel like a Jedi."

Harry nodded, "They were kinda the inspiration."

Amy looked surprised and said, "This earth has Star Wars?"

Harry nodded and said, "Yeah, I wonder if it's different from yours though."

Amy smiled and said, "Ok, we're so having a marathon once this is over."

The Doctor said "Library's this way, let's go." He raised his glowing sword and ran down the hall with the others following.

The halls filled with chanting as they reached further into the ship. The same set of lines, over and over.

"~Blood and magic leads the way~

~Darkness ends the final day~

~Twist and crumble minds shall fall~

~Bend and shatter mortals all!"

Amy said, "Doctor, what are they doing?"

"Nothing, let's go," he lied easily.

Amy recognized the lie but didn't question it. Harry figured she was used to it. Harry knew what they were doing, of course. He could feel it. It wasn't even a bad idea. They intended to change the laws of the pocket dimension into a giant computer virus then crack the whole thing open. The virus would infect the dimensional energy of the whole earth faster than anyone could possibly stop it.

The virus, or spell as it were, would strengthen their own power while driving mortals insane, all over the world, all at once.

Of course, it would drive the mortals in here insane long before that point. Luckily Harry wasn't mortal. The others though..

Harry said, "Honorary Doctor, we have fifteen minutes until saturation and an hour until critical mass."

Rory said, "Saturation of what?"

Harry answered, "The witches are filling the space with madness. As the saturation increases it will become harder to think logical and coherent thoughts. Once the space has reached complete saturation, any mortal within the space won't be capable of sane thought."

Amy said, "Ok, that's bad."

Harry shrugged. "Kinda. There are ways around it. Sane thoughts are not always the best, if you don't trust yourself, work on instinct and ignore your own thoughts."

The Doctor said, "Hang on, how can you possibly know that?"

"I read a lot. And my mind is protected from mind magics so get us to the library."

He looked concerned and said, "Do you have a way to read really really really really fast?"

"I do, why?"

"Just making sure. This way."

The chant of the Carrionites continued to echo and they got more and more lost. Since this was a Quest, his map did have a pointer but rather than pointing to the Library, it seemed to be pointing to areas of interest. Harry suspected there may have been several ways to succeed but he could only think of one of them and hoped he knew what he was doing.

To find the Library, Harry occasionally used a nonverbal 'Point me' spell to check for its direction. Harry's map filled in as they went about and using the Point Me spell for triangulation he figured out where the library actually was.

When used wandlessly, the Point Me spell was a purely internal spell so he didn't emit Exotic energy. Sure, he could have ditched the group and went straight for the book, but he needed to get into contact with the space witches again to get a target lock on them or he wouldn't be able to find them for the counter hack. They were luring the group into a trap to eat him so they should be around somewhere. Probably one of those areas of interest.

Each room of the Tardis was unique yet several rooms seemed to be repeats of others. Some were almost identical but according to Harry's map they were in fact in different rooms. Rory started mumbling to himself and Amy told him to be quiet, seemingly unaware that she had been humming a catchy tune for the last three minutes.

Amy said, "Doctor, we're going in circles. We should go in a straight line." She then used the sword to chop into a wall and slice through it. Harry's swords were enchanted with single dimension edge magic that only turned on when used by him or someone he authorized to carry the sword for safety reasons. It could cut through almost anything that didn't have magic defense.

The Doctor said, "Hey hey hey! That's dangerous!"

He then turned to Harry and said, "Do something!"

Harry asked, "Do you have a better idea of getting through a depowered door?"

He lifted a small metal glow stick and said, "Yes, I have this!"

Rory and Amy were hacking through the wall and had just gotten through. Rory seemed to agree with Amy that this was the best idea.

Harry turned to him and said, "Alright, put your sword down." The Doctor did so and Harry said, "Lights out."

Amy and Rory dropped unconscious after being knocked out by their swords.

"Better?"

The Doctor confirmed they were both alright and said, "Alright, now what?"

Harry got a potion from his inventory and fed it to them both.

"What's that?"

A moment later Rory and Amy turned into stone.

"What did you do?!" he accused.

Harry answered, "They'll be fine. We both know the longer they remain here the higher the possibility of permanent damage. The Carrionites won't let us find them until after saturation. I'll turn them back after we're done. We still have a marathon to watch."

The pair continued down the hall and the Doctor quietly said, "Thank you." He was more than aware that the space was not safe for them and was getting worse but he didn't have a better option. If they were stone however they wouldn't be affected.

A few minutes later they came into an open room and one of the Carrionites swooped down and tried to grab the Doctor. He slashed his sword with more skill than Harry thought he had in him and the spectral crow flew to the side.

"Sword and steel shall rust and burn.

To the earth it shall return."

With the call of the alien witch the space changed again and suddenly their swords turned to rust and dirt. Normally the swords would be spell resistant but due to the saturation of the space their hack type spells could break Harry's enchantments.

The Carrionite cackled at the broken weapons and said, "And now for you Doctor."

"Bind his flesh and bones and hearts.

End the fight before it starts."

The Doctor cried out in pain and dropped, grinding his teeth in agony. He wasn't dead but he could no longer move.

The other two Carrionites appeared and one said, "Powerful child, you shall not escape us."

All three chanted, "Mortals rise and mortal fall."

The Doctor shouted, "No! Stop!"

They continued, "None resist the reaper's call!"

*Ping*

[Instant Death successfully resisted due to Instant Death Immunity.]

Harry fell over like a puppet whose strings were cut. A bit theatrical but he wanted to sell it.

The Doctor shouted, "No! How could you!"

The three creatures floated over to Harry, one said, "Freshly cut life force, my favorite."

As soon as one got close enough Harry grabbed it by the arm and swung into the others. He then proceeded to bash it over and over into the floor and smash it into the other two Carronites like something out of a cartoon.

Harry could tell it really wasn't doing anything to them but he used the contact he maintained to get a clear reading of their signature. Mordo wasn't the only one who could use physical contact to absorb or get a read on energy. Harry was tempted to try absorbing their energy but that trick had consequences and he already had another plan so he decided against it.

Harry threw the creature into a wall and grabbed the Doctor still struggling against the spell. He teleported them to the hall closest to the library they passed and he lifted the man over his shoulders and ran to the library. His teleportation wasn't as bad as before when it came to emitting Exotic energy but it would still likely mess with the surroundings. Unfortunately he didn't have time to wait as the clock was ticking.

A few moments later they arrived at the door. The Doctor said, "Oh, you found the library."

Harry set him down and said, "Yes, now please open the door."

He wiggled around a bit and said, "Umm. I still can't move."

Harry reached into his pocket and grabbed the glow stick and said, "How does this work?"

"It works off a psychic command field."

Harry wasn't great with psionic energy but he was familiar enough to give mental commands. The glow stick glowed and emitted some type of autonomous molecularly synchronizing sound frequency. It sent a pitch at the door, recorded and analyzed the echo, then sent another pitch which matched the resonant frequency of the material to physically interact with it. It constantly recorded the echo and analyzed it to determine how the structure moved so it could change how the material was resonating to achieve a specific task. In this case, opening a locked door.

The door opened a moment later and Harry picked up the doctor and set him in a beach chair which was next to the pool. The fact that there were bookcases in the same room as a pool didn't even phase Harry.

He used Point Me to find the book from the shelves and pulled it out. Harry said, "Is this it, the Big Book of Time and Space? It's a bit thin." The book was thinner than most books in Hermione's library.

The Doctor shouted from the beach chair, "It's bigger on the inside," with just a little too much enthusiasm, as if he had been waiting to say that for some time.

Harry flipped through the pages only to realize no matter how many he flipped, the number of pages didn't change on either side of what he was flipping through. He shouted, "Fingers crossed Doctor," and placed the book inside his inventory. The glow stick too. Yeah, he wasn't passing up a chance to learn how that thing worked.

Harry paused and found another chair to sit down. Sitting while paused was uncomfortable as anything he sat on felt like stone. Harry immediately realized why the Doctor had doubts on Harry's ability to read the Big Book. If the space the book took up was not folded in on itself, the book would be thousands of miles long. It was like someone took the full coding of a highly advanced computer's operating system, assigned each individual character a ideographic page and put them all in order in a book.

Not surprisingly, the book was not in english or any language Harry had encountered. This was another reason Harry had been ok with wandering around the ship. He paused in each room to memorize the symbols and already had a decent grasp of the written language. The book itself was also similar in structure to an advanced math textbook or programming text. Full mastery of the language wasn't completely needed to learn the content.

Years passed by in frozen time. Harry would often switch back and forth between analyzing the device he now knew to be called a Sonic Screwdriver and the Big Book of Time and Space.

If translated to english the math would be called Block Transfer Computation. It was basically how to shift one space to another space and how to fit one space into another space through pure calculation. Simply calculating the process of the action would cause the action to happen. Up to this point there was nothing on time travel but Harry had only gotten through the first several hundred million pages. That was a few tens of kilometers for a book that was over four thousand kilometers long.

Block Transfer Computation was funny in that it didn't use base ten or base eight math. It literally used Dimensional energy for units and described how it behaved under different circumstances. Thanks to this Harry was able to get the basics down and even figure out the language the rest of the book was in. A majority of the pictures resembled the mandalas one could create using dimensional energy which Harry was already very familiar deciphering those using Arithmancy. There was also a lot of crossover with Sorcery magic and the shapes and symbols reminded him of Ancient Runes which were some of his better subjects.

At some point Harry's mind lost awareness of the passing moments and simply continued grinding itself through the book. The book itself would be completely unintelligible to most and the rest would burn themselves out trying to read it in a single setting. Literally.

Harry however had an Intellect and Wisdom of 350 a piece, and his scholar path was at 38. With the necklace of the Chosen Path he wore it was bumped to 41. Even the Doctor himself only had a Scholar path of about 32. That meant Harry was four times a better learner than the Doctor was without the Necklace of the Chosen Path equipped. Keep in mind that a man who had six Doctorates would likely have a Scholar Path of 22. In the Richter scale like Path Ranking system, the Doctor was ten times the Scholar of such a man, the equivalent of 60 Doctorates.

On the planet earth there were only about 50 types of Doctorates which showed how much knowledge a man like the Doctor possessed. However even the Doctor would lose out when it came to studying before the Ancient One and Harry had already surpassed her when it came to being a Scholar. The Doctor acquired his knowledge through experience and necessity, not through intensive, monotonous study.

Not that Harry necessarily knew more than the Doctor. The Scholar Path did not measure knowledge accumulated, but the skill one had to learn and teach. It simply meant that Harry and the Ancient One were more skilled at learning and teaching. In sheer volume the Doctor still knew far more than they did as he was a curious wanderer while the Ancient One was a protector and only concerned herself with learning what she needed to better protect the Earth.

Harry lost awareness, his mind shut down all functions except the processing of the book. He neither breathed nor blinked. He had no awareness of the color or feel of his surroundings, he went completely into automatic pilot.

Once Harry finished, the abrupt end caused him to wake up. He realized he had no idea how long he had been paused but he now had full understanding of the book.

Harry looked at a list of pop ups that appeared while he was reading and realized his INT and WIS both increased by 40 points and his Scholar Path actually reached 41. Harry took a few moments to collect himself and turn the rest of his brain back on. He wasn't sure what state he was just in but he wasn't going to complain. He saw the Doctor on the chair near the pool and remembered he was supposed to defeat the space witches. After figuring out a relatively simple plan, he unpaused and said, "Ok, I'm done."

"Was that a joke?!" the Doctor cried from his chair. Block Transfer Computations literally could not be kept in a computer because it would change the computer it was a part of and break it which was why it had to be written in a book to begin with. But this was still the science behind the power of the Time Lords and very, very few ever truly learned it. The only reason the book was there was because a copy existed in every Tardis to reference from if they broke it.

Harry mentally calculated the paths of dimensional energy binding the Doctor and snapped his fingers.

The Doctor found he was able to move again and said, "Oh. Well alright then."

Harry felt the energies in the Tardis, the spell the Carrionites weaved would reach critical density in five minutes and the pocket space would breach, spilling out into the earth space.

He could now feel how the space witches magic worked through the dimensional energy. Harry almost wanted to laugh when he saw how big of a hole their own defenses possessed. No wonder their species was defeated.

Harry focused his intent on the path of the witch's spell and after performing a brief mental calculation shouted into the space itself.

"Light and hope shall seal the way.

Dawn shall break the darkest day.

Right and whole your foes shall rise.

Lost eternal is your prize!"

The space itself shuddered and nearly turned in on itself. The echoing spell from before was replaced by shrieking wails. Harry's didn't just counter their spell. He took all the energy they put into it and reversed it back to the sender. He didn't close out the hacker, he caused their computer to explode in their face.

The Doctor felt the space change and cried out in relief. "You did it. You actually did it!"

Harry was then hug-tackled to the ground.

*Author's note*

For those who think the Doctor wasn't all that useful, please note that he has openly admitted on several occasions his pretty much always relies on plot armor. Here is a direct quote of his, "I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens. Take the credit. That's generally how it works." I didn't feel like writing any plot armor for him and he really was caught off guard by this. Feel free to comment any questions you have though most will probably be answered in the next chapter regardless. Please note that I tend to write myself into a corner then try to figure a clever way out so when I write something like this in the beginning, I have no idea how I'm going to actually get Harry out of it even though it seems like I knew what I was writing the whole time and actually had a plan. Nope, I am literally running at a cliff blindfolded. The next few chapters will include several examples of me writing myself into worse and worse corners just to see if I can write myself out of them in exciting and unexpected ways. From the reader's perspective it will be awesome, from my perspective I'm screaming, "Why did I do that?!" and "I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing," and "Please Inspiration God, save me from myself."

«

Amy and Rory were restored from stone and the Doctor asked if he could have some of that and the antidote. Being able to turn someone to and from stone could save from injury, poison, and even the vacuum of space. Unfortunately Harry had to apologize and explain that he couldn't. The potion would expire in a day and a time locked storage cabinet would fry if it was placed inside.

Harry was moderately surprised that Exotic energy was bad with frozen time considering his pause feature. This meant no one could freeze Harry in time.

Amy and Rory weren't completely happy with being knocked out and petrified but they understood the need. As a consolation prize Harry let them keep the swords and a list of the command phrases. He wasn't going to tell them their original swords also broke due to the Carrionite's spells so Harry had to pull out two more.

Once Harry stepped out of the Tardis, he noticed something rather depressing. The method of Block Transfer Computation he just learned was almost completely ineffective with dimensional energy of this universe. It worked in the Tardis because the math matched the universe the Tardis was a pocket dimension of. Harry would have to calculate Block Transfer Computation for this universe on his own from scratch. He wasn't exactly happy about that but at least it would be a good way to grind the Scholar Path.

Amy said, "So, marathon time."

Harry smiled but said, "Sorry, no marathon, I need to get you guys home."

Rory picked up on that and said, "You can get us home?"

"Yeah. The path you traveled should still be open but will close in a few hours. The faster we get you back, the safer the ride." Now that Harry understood how the Tardis worked, he knew how to get them home.

The Doctor asked, "How are you going to get us back though, my Tardis is still dead."

Harry held up the Sonic Screwdriver and said, "With this." He may not have Block Transfer Computation in this universe, but he did fully comprehend how the screwdriver worked. It gave him some ideas.

Harry went to his computer and wrote up some very complex programs and loaded them onto some predesigned transmitters he had. Harry used the screwdriver to alter the materials slightly on each to give them the properties he needed.

Rory and Amy were doing their own thing and the Doctor was trying to figure out what Harry was doing.

Once finished, Harry opened several very small portals and attached the transmitters to what appeared to be metal towers on the other end, though he didn't let the Doctor peak as he was still trying to guess what Harry was up to.

Once done, he sent the Tardis back to where it was after casting a simple Notice-Me-Not spell on the area preventing people from realizing it wasn't always there.

When the Doctor saw it he said, "Ah, perception filter. Very retro."

Amy said, "So what's the plan?"

Harry smiled and said, "Well, did you notice how today is Christmas?"

Rory pointed out all the decorations around the street and said, "Yes, yes we did."

Harry held his hand to his ear and the rest did the same.

'Hark how the bells,

Sweet silver bells,

All seem to say,

Throw cares away.'

Rory said, "Christmas music."

The Doctor started looking around and said, "But where is the music coming from?"

Amy said, "I don't know."

The Doctor cried out, "Resonance! Oh! That's genius!" he was smiling ear to ear.

Rory asked, "What's happening?"

Before Harry could answer the Doctor said, "Harry turned the radio towers around here into Sonic Screwdrivers and had them all play the same song at the same time! Each is playing with a specific tone but here at the point where they all meet, the resonance achieved will-"

The Tardis started making a wheezing noise and the lights within started going on one after another.

Harry picked up where the Doctor left off, "I widened the door and this spot now has energy from your own dimension. Your Tardis should be able to get you back now."

Amy hugged Harry and said, "Thank you Harry."

Harry hugged her back and said, "You're welcome. Best be off though, the song will end soon."

Rory patted Harry's shoulder in thanks and entered the Tardis followed by the Doctor. Rory told the Doctor, "Too bad we couldn't meet Shakespeare right?"

Amy slugged his shoulder in jest and said, "Harry was fine."

The wheezing sound of the Tardis started up again and the blue box began to fade. Harry said, "Sorry Rory for just being Harry Potter."

Amy looked shocked at that statement and shouted, "Harry Potter?!" just as the sound faded and the Tardis vanished.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Rescue the Time Lord]

Reward: Ring of Recovery.]

Harry was pleased that his quest was over but he did wonder why she reacted to his name like that. He hoped they hadn't heard of him. He had enough problems remaining low profile in his own dimension.

The ring that appeared in his inventory would remove one status ailment from himself or someone he touched once a day. It would also automatically cure him of an ailment if he was incapable of choosing not to use it. That meant if someone got him with a sleep dart or instantly petrified him this would help. Very useful. It was also bound to him so it could not be stolen or lost through death.

He returned home and found out what Rory and Amy had been doing. There was a pile of wrapped presents on his table. Harry couldn't keep himself from grinning at the six DVDs titled Star Wars.

Harry spent the next two days enjoying the marathon which seemed to have different actors than the ones he was familiar with and when finished he returned to Kamar-Taj just before New Years.

The Ancient One asked for a meeting and Harry was more than happy to comply. She didn't think Harry would have such a normal boring mission and Harry was slightly embarrassed to give a 100% confirmation of that.

Since Harry was involved she didn't see the hole made in space by the Doctor's arrival nor the closing of the hole when he left. One reason Harry sent them home the way he did was to force the hole completely shut after being wrenched open. The Ancient One confirmed through her own means there was no issue with it now.

She was interested in Block Transfer Computation but insisted Harry not write down any progress he made on getting it to work in this dimension. Even should he master it, it was not something this Universe was ready for, or perhaps would ever be ready for.

Neither felt the details of Harry's adventures should be spread though she did show interest in Star Wars as she never watched it before. She organized a movie night over the next few weekends where one movie would be played a week. Some hadn't even seen their universe's version of it and almost everyone liked it. Only Kaecelius left a few minutes into Phantom Menace saying he wasn't interested. Harry wasn't surprised a few scenes with Jar Jar Binks drove him off. No one liked Jar Jar.

Winter passed and spring began and Harry continued training. Harry successfully acquired and synchronized with a source of energy from Valtorr's realm as well as Krakkan's giving Harry easy access to cloud, lightning, binding, and unlocking magic.

As long as Harry was not in an isolated or pocket dimension, all forms of energy existed in nearly all dimensions, they were simply hidden beneath the layers of the more obvious energies. That meant Harry could use binding energy to invoke chains capable of locking a target's movement or suppressing their abilities almost anywhere. Apparently Krakkan was known for keys and chains. The energy under his command could not only bind things, but it could also unlock things by conjuring a replica of the Kestrel Key of Krakkan. He was very glad he wouldn't have to shout that aloud to conjure the thing or people would definitely stare at him.

Harry spent much of his time building this universe's version of Block Transfer Computation but hit a long series of snags. The largest of which was that he couldn't confirm if he was going in the right direction without a test or experiment. On a cloudy spring evening Harry reached a roadblock he was unable to get past without confirming if a specific theory he had on how the system worked was functional or not. If he went further without confirming it he could be wasting his time if he was wrong.

In order to test this theory, Harry was going to see if he could build a bridge that sent an item one second into the future. He used magic to construct several dozen pillars intricately inscribed with five dimensional math which would calculate the process of moving a small piece of matter a moment into the future in the center of the formation.

Once Harry was done, he tossed a rock into the space he created. If it worked, it would vanish for a second and reappear. He was almost certain it would, the test was just to make sure.

He was wrong.

Once the rock reached the focal point the physical space shattered as if the rock had shattered glass. The crack collapsed the local space time and swallowed everything in the area before reforming. The pillars had shattered from the strain of the calculation and Harry was gone.

If Harry's body was normal, he would have been ripped apart by the tidal forces of space itself but Harry had been so focused on getting his defense up he had increased his STR more than needed which allowed him to survive being swallowed by a fissure in reality. Had he died, he would have reappeared in his room. He was not so fortunate this time.

The feeling of being thrown through space could not be accurately described, but the closest approximation would be being tossed through the air by a category twenty hurricane that was filled with hammers and bowling balls while every limb was tied to a rope connecting to massive weights thrown about by the storm threatening to at any moment tear him to pieces.

After an unknown period of being stretched, crushed, and thrown through the tides of reality, Harry was finally ejected from the space between spaces and shot into a hill. The angle was low enough to prevent Harry from getting flattened and the hill was soft enough to give way and make a nice Harry shaped dent. In other words, Harry wasn't instantly killed.

Harry could feel his so-called health bar was near depletion but it wasn't getting worse. After being chewed up and spit out by space itself Harry had only one thing to say. "Owwww."

Harry waited a few moments for the damage to return to normal and got out his strongest potion. It was stronger than Skele Gro, Nerve Restoration, and Blood Replenishing Potion together and in a normal person could heal any injury except a severed limb or deadly poison. It was appropriately disgusting but Harry could use his settings to turn dull or remove his sense of taste which was very useful.

Used on Harry, the potion would restore most of his health while increasing his health regeneration to take care of the rest later. It was practically pure healing energy.

Sure, he could have used healing magic, but magic had too many risks and he didn't want to make a bad habit of it.

The first thing Harry noticed was that it was sunny. That meant he was no longer in the practice area he made near the Potter Manor of Highrock. Was it a different place or a different time?

Harry gathered the dimensional energy into a mandala before him and had it spin and expand. It changed as it did so, automatically adjusting to the time and place he found himself in. Once done, Harry let the mandala scatter and let himself fall back into the grass.

Good news. He was still in Britain. Bad news. It was June of 623 A.D.

The only good side he could think of in this whole mess was that he could see exactly where he went wrong in his setup for the time folding array. He was paying very close attention to how the cracks emerged and propagated so he could infer how it happened and why.

After taking a moment to admire how good and bad his luck was, Harry transformed into an owl and flew south where he figured he'd find people. Before coming up with a plan he needed to figure out what he had to work with, so he needed to get the lay of the land.

Most people would be worried about affecting the past and changing the future, but Harry understood Time better than any physicist on earth. Most agreed that when you looked at the future, it would change simply from looking at it. What few knew was that the past was the same. Why do history texts change? Is it because someone made a mistake and it was corrected? Is it because it was formerly a guess and now there was evidence? Yes and no.

The past itself did in fact change. It was possible to find evidence the past was one way then a few hundred years later new evidence would be discovered that proved the past was a completely different way. Then further down the line more evidence would conclude the past was different than either of the first two theories predicted. Just like the future, the past could in fact change just by looking at it.

It was possible that Harry could greatly change the past and when he returned, new evidence would show that the history books of this time were all lies to cover up the truth and further evidence would show a completely different history. So no, Harry wasn't concerned about changing the past. He wasn't going to actively try to mess with things but as long as he didn't remain in the past for too long, the future would still be there when he returned.

With Harry's stats he could fly very fast as an owl and it didn't take him long to find a farm. He observed the peasant clothes and flew a distance away before returning to normal and transfiguring his clothes into a similar style of serf wardrobe. One benefit of the past was no tech and since his Exotic energy couldn't be detected he could use wizard magic as he pleased.

As it was spring there wasn't much to stand behind so once Harry was close enough for the farmer to spot him, Harry shouted, "Morning, do you know a place I could find work?"

"Town's that way son, heard the Lord's looking for young backs," he answered amiably.

"Bless you sir," Harry replied and headed off. He didn't know how people of the day conversed outside of books so until he got the hang of it he wanted to keep his sentences short.

Once out of sight he returned to owl form and flew off for the town.

Harry first thought the wind would be fresher and more pleasant in the past but there was an ominous taint that lingered in the air. It made Harry doubt his stay in the past would be peaceful.

From a distance the town seemed stereotypical. Homes of wooden walls with thatch covered roofs to keep in the heat littered the outskirts and further in the center were some sturdier, partially elevated homes with some made of stone. Harry saw a gathering of people and landed on a nearby rooftop as the crowd grew larger.

A man in a somewhat finer quality of clothing shouted, "Gather round, gather round. We have a summons from Lord Morigon's Army. All healthy males above the age of twelve are required to enlist. Failure to do so is punishable by execution for yourself and your family."

The one standing next to the one shouting wore dark tinted armor which, combined with the whole, enlist or die thing they had gave the general tone of what was going on.

Harry gave a loud 'Hoot' in owl form which got a few stares including the attention of the black knight character. When he met Harry's eyes, Harry used Legilimency to read the man's mind.

Once Harry understood why these men were here, he only had one opinion on the guy. 'What a dick.'

Harry flew to an empty area and shifted back to normal before he took out an Aging Potion. Harry took five drops which changed his age from fourteen and a half to seventeen. It wouldn't last longer than a day but he could take it again once the effect wore off.

He used a few more transfigurations on his clothes and hair to make himself look suitably plain looking and walked out from behind the corner to where the group of adults and barely adults were gathering.

Some of the others noticed the stranger but under the gaze of the black knight no one was in the mood to raise any questions.

Once the crowd was gathered they were marched out of the village and south to where the battle would take place. They were told they would be given weapons on arrival but none were asked if they had experience with them. They didn't give food or rest or water to those that asked for it and after the better part of the day, they arrived at the field where the battle would occur the following morning. Dozens if not more of similar looking groups were marched to the field by others and all converged together.

The reason they had no intention of giving food or water was because they fully expected everyone to die. The field itself had been prepared for a massive Undead Raising spell. Once most of the drafted peasants were dead, the field would activate and turn their peasant army into an undead army.

Yeah, they were the bad guys.

Once they were taken to the section they were told they would have to defend from the invaders arriving the next day, Harry vanished without anyone noticing him. He wandered around the camp while invisible and used Legilimency on the important looking ones to find out the details of the battle. There were in fact about a dozen weak wizards following the orders of three stronger wizards. They were the ones in charge though they used a lot of runners for messages and orders who all had specific uniforms.

Each section of the peasants was to be led by an armored commander, one of those men who gathered the groups from their homes.

After thinking over a few plans, Harry decided on a plan to change the outcome of the battle.

Harry walked through the whole group of peasants, about four hundred of them and found a few leader types and their names.

Once it was dark he knocked out a message runner and took some of his blood for a polyjuice potion. It was a variant of the type he made with Snape before and was even better. Still tasted horrible of course, but it could hold a transformation for a full day.

Once he looked like the runner and took as much knowledge from his mind as he could to play the part, he went from peasant group to peasant group stating he had orders to collect specific people and gather them together for a secret project. They came nervously over one by one and Harry lead them off to another area.

Once together he said, "Alright guys, who here knows why we are here?"

One of the more clever ones said, "To hold back the forces of Lord Johnsborn."

Harry nodded and said, "Yup, but the guys giving the orders are evil. Turns out they want everyone to die and get resurrected as an undead to make an undead army."

Harry cast an invisible calming charm on them as a few of the smarter ones seemed like they were likely to keel over from such an admission.

The best way to get people to follow you is to sound like you know where you're going even if you're completely lost. So Harry continued with a tone that was filled with 100% confidence, "But there is a way to stop them. Here's the plan."

Of course even after explaining his plan with confidence, no one believed Harry's plan would actually work. He had to call over one of the armored knights to where they were gathered for a demonstration. Harry had to use a few compulsion charms to ensure they would actually follow the plan but he eventually got the kinks worked out and before the sun rose everything was set.

Harry set himself up in an invisible chair next to the three strong wizards and the dozen or so weaker ones ready to activate the Undead Raising Field. For something that only took a few moments of prep, he was quite pleased with himself. This would likely be the best prank pulled off in a thousand years.

The black knight commanders had been instructed to distribute weapons at first light and call all peasants to march into the center of the Undead Raising Field once the other army was spotted and hold that position.

First light's arrival set in motion the distribution of weapons. The menacing armored knights prevented any groups from getting any funny ideas which pleased the wizards watching from afar.

Harry tried not to pay attention to the conversation of the wizards as it made him nearly forgo his plan and crush them all then and there. In addition to the men, they each took a woman from the villages they went to and were sharing the details of how they spent the night with them. Harry knew he couldn't save everyone but such a thing still greatly enraged him.

Once the enemy army was seen coming over, orders were shouted and the mass of untrained peasants were marched to the field. The other army didn't exactly look like they were the best of the best either but at least they had swords and shields and somewhat matching uniforms.

The peasants gathered in the field and the incoming army marched closer, swords drawn. The wizards were shouting commands and preparing the rituals required to activate the Undead Raising Field.

Then, the entire peasant army dropped their weapons, sat down, and laid face down on the ground.

The wizards noticed this and one shouted, "What are they doing?!"

A group of runners was heading up to the wizards and once within earshot they shouted, "My Lords!, The Commanders have ordered the filth to lay down their arms and surrender!"

Several other runners arrived with the same message. The general response of the wizards amounted to a flabbergasted, "What?!" Most looked like they had just be slapped with a fish.

From the stain of Death Energy over their flesh and the overall feel of these wizards, Harry sensed that they seemed to specialize in Necromancy and pain magic. Death Energy wasn't something the living could use without cost and each of them looked to be withered husks of skin and bone. They really couldn't do much in a situation without people to threaten with pain or corpses to turn into undead.

The latter problem however the wizards decided to fix when they saw the arrival of the other runners.

Before they could kill anyone though, several red flashes of light shot out from Harry's invisible position and stunned the wizards about to strike. The remaining wizards turned and started chanting their spells but before the first one could finish their chant all fifteen wizards had fallen. Harry then shot his stunners at the runners which made for amusing moving targets. Too bad Harry was very accurate and Stunners were the second fastest moving spell behind the disarming charm.

Harry got out some thick iron bands and attached them to the wizard's necks. They required a drop of their target's blood to activate and when they did, they would saturate the body with Anti Magic. This was an alternative use of one of Harry's training tools as practicing magic when saturated with Anti Magic energy was like physical exercise with weights. Though Harry only put a small amount of Anti Magic in them when he used them and he placed them on his wrists. For these wizards, he had the saturation at max level and set them on their necks so they couldn't just cut off their hands to free their magic.

It was somewhat cruel but this was already the limit of Harry's mercy for them. The best part was that if the bands weren't removed, any children they sired while wearing the bands would be guaranteed squibs, though the descendants of those squibs may eventually get magic back.

The bands themselves weren't that complicated as they simply an artifact version of a spell called Rings of Raggadorr which called Anti Magic energy from Raggadorr's realm to disable the magic of those bound by it. It worked on Wizard Magic just as easily as it did Sorcerer Magic so it was very useful. It couldn't be used on someone stronger than him but the strongest of these guys were only a little stronger than Cedric Diggory meaning the bands would work just fine. A security feature he built into them was that if they were removed from the one they were tied to by blood, the enchantment would collapse meaning they couldn't be removed and studied once placed unless the absorbed blood within the band belonging to the person they were bound to vanished.

A leader of the very confused army which just witnessed the peasants surrender was heading over to Harry's location where he spotted Harry sitting down and the evil wizards unconscious and bound in chains Harry conjured.

Putting two and two together the man said, "Friend Wizard, I understand it was you who set this stage and prevented the needless shedding of innocent blood. For this I thank thee."

A small use of Legilimency on the field leader's surface thoughts gave Harry a summary of the situation which led to this war. Merlin had been captured by Morgan Le Fay and was being held prisoner, guarded by something called the Black Dragon.