fics I read

Harry had to return to his room to get more Quartz from his backpack, or at least that's what he told Jean when he left and returned a few minutes later. She was both surprised and a little skeptical that Harry's powers worked by just absorbing specific things for specific effects. Harry didn't mind doubts. If he did, he certainly wouldn't have 'granted a wish' in the kitchen since using a single Smoky Quartz for something like that was pretty big. He already figured out how to rationalize it to those who asked deeper questions but the truth was, his cover was specifically for enemies so if his friends had suspicions, that would be fine as long as they didn't openly share them with outsiders.

Harry never had any real intention of holding back while training, he just wanted others to think his powers had a high cost to use and since it really didn't require that much effort to create such a ruse, it was worth it. To Harry, it was just a very long term prank. He wondered which of the X-Men would figure it out first. His money was on Logan, but the man looked like he knew a thing or two about keeping secrets close to the vest so even if he figured it out, he likely wouldn't bring it up so Harry wouldn't know if he figured it out first or not.

Jean spent her time enjoying the quiet of Harry's mind and reading on Occlumency. The 'book' wasn't simply words, it was Harry's own understanding of the practice perfectly organized for assimilation by others telepaths making a few pages more informative than hours of lectures and personal studies. Ten minutes into her reading she realized Harry's thoughts hadn't echoed in the Library since she started which made her ask, "Harry, can you control which thoughts can be heard by telepaths in your mind?"

Harry left Jean's mind and answered back, "That's right. There is actually a book in the library that constantly updates itself with my thoughts which is also the practice I use to lock away my thoughts from others by having them written out instead of voiced aloud inside my head. However when I choose to, my thoughts can echo through the library as well.

After considering this for a moment, she smacked Harry's shoulder which he responded to by giving a fake hurt look. She said, "That's for saying I was peeping earlier. It isn't peeping if the person allows you to peep."

Harry asked innocently, "So if you allowed me to see you undress, it wouldn't be peeping if I didn't ask permission first?"

Jean smacked his shoulder again and turned slightly to hide her blush before stating, "You are not allowed to peep on myself or anyone undressing."

Harry added, "Without permission."

Jean tried to change the subject and turn her own embarrassment back on him, "So, can my library card be used to find the book with your thoughts or your memories? Maybe find a girlfriend or childhood sweetheart?"

Harry shamelessly said, "That's right and feel free to do so. I only ask that you not share with others anything you find."

"Umm, I was just joking."

Harry said, "My Library card actually can't be taken by someone who means me harm so the fact that you could take it means you can be trusted with any info you find inside my head. There are some restricted pieces that contain secrets that wouldn't do any good to get out which are kept locked away, but memories and thoughts are not among them."

Harry wasn't lying either. His thoughts and plans to gain Jean's trust so he could remove the blocks on her mind were all in one of the books. If she decided to pick it up and read it, she'd know his plans. Harry was curious as to her reactions if she decided to do so but wasn't worried as he had no ill intentions against her and Jean learning directly from him about the blocks in a way she knew he couldn't be lying to her would save him a lot of time.

He doubted she would though. Harry came off as a pervert so free access to his deepest thoughts would not be a priority for the young telepath when she would rather be spending her time looking over the books on mental arts she now had free access to.

Jean said with just a slight tease to her voice, "Maybe later."

Harry shrugged and said, "When you're done with those books, I recommend this one." One of the books on the shelves flew out and over to the table in the reading area Jean had found a comfortable seat in. Harry continued, "It was written by the master of the temple I was at for the last two years and one of the best guides for Astral Creation. She is so skilled, she can push a person's Astral Form directly out of their body and even drag it through different dimensions."

Jean asked, "Your master was a telepath? Wait, you master was a woman?"

"No and yes. All minds have the potential for Psionics, mutants such as yourself and the Professor just have a head start in the art. As for my master, if possible I'll let you meet her one day."

Separating your astral form from your body was difficult even for those who had mastered magic as it was a Psionic ability rather than a magic one, but for another to be able to separate your sense of self directly from your body required a far higher level of mastery.

Jean went back to reading and Harry grabbed another large piece of Quartz and put it in his inventory before taking another dive into Jean's mind. When asked how that worked he basically answered that each piece could allow for a single use of access to specific energies but as long as it was a continuous use, one crystal was all that was required. He was pretty sure at some point Jean would call BS and look for the book Harry kept the knowledge of his abilities in but for now he'd keep up the charade. His money was still on Logan figuring it out first though.

From what he could see while looking through her head, memories of ForgetMeNot were like objects with a frictionless surface. If on the floor, they would remain there, but a single jolt in any direction would cause them to quickly slide away. The harder you tried to hold onto them, the faster they left, like gripping a glass egg with wet, soapy hands. A part of Jean's skilled mind tried to gently hold only her recollection of ForgetMeNot but it still slipped through the cracks. After an hour Jean's mind had nearly forgotten why she had let Harry in so he had to remind her. What was concerning was that each time she was reminded, the memories she previously had of him didn't return. She only remembered him when reminded because there were memories of him that were inactive and once activated, she figured out the rest. However when she forgot, she also forgot the activated memories. This meant that the more she remembered him, the more of him she forgot.

Harry asked and got permission to copy any uncovered memory she had of him so they could be returned to her later. Thankfully, having a piece of ForgetMeNot in Harry's inventory acted like a tether so his own memories of ForgetMeNot were not slipping away. He was tempted to see what would happen if he removed the hair, but the worst case scenario was that he would instantly lose every memory of ForgetMeNot and from what Harry could discern, any memory he lost of his roommate would be unrecoverable. That wasn't acceptable so he would rely on Jean to do the necessary testing. She was alright with that as long as Harry returned to her a copy of any memory she lost during the tests.

While observing her, Harry did his best to, and from what he could sense, succeed in hiding his own awkwardness from Jean. Other than Hermione, this was the closet he'd ever really gotten to a girl around his own age and this was the first time he'd done so since his hormones started acting up. Though hundreds of years spent in the Tutorial and Paused helped his mentality mature, it had little effect on his biology and if caught off guard he'd still blush the same as Jean would do every so often.

While shifting around through her mind he would have to fight his own impulses to look at her thoughts about him as she could sense what he was doing in the same way he could sense her. Their proximity to each other, the fact that she smelled good, and how beautiful she looked while blushing weren't helping the situation at all.

On the matter of the mental blocks, Harry had discovered a few hints as to their nature but nothing obvious. It reminded Harry of what he did with his own mind in that the space was rearranged so that certain pieces of information couldn't be accessed without unfolding the space into a maze first. Without prior experience in doing so, Harry wouldn't have noticed the tell-tale signs of folded space within Jean's mind. However that means he couldn't have a good look at the blocks without first figuring out how to safely unfold the space.

From an outside observer's perspective, both Harry and Jean were in the mansion's library reading a book though neither would turn the pages. However neither were unaware of their surroundings and when three students entered the library, they both looked up to find the identities of the new arrivals. Two Harry recognized, the sunglasses wearing teen he met the previous night and the no longer pink haired demon teleporter. The third was an older pink haired girl with bone like plates framing her face as well as spikes coming from her back.

Jean looked up from her book and said, "Hey Scott, looking for me?"

The teen with the red sunglasses took a quick look at Harry which made him seem like he was struggling not to frown. He answered back, "Yeah, someone ordered a whole buffet or something and there are still left overs in the kitchen."

The older pink haired teen said, "No one ordered it Scott, I heard some new kid made it appear, like magic."

Scott said, "Look, there's no way-"

Harry interrupted, "Ah, that was me. I was playing around and overdid it a little."

The pink haired girl took another look at Harry and said, "You're the new kid? Well, I'm Sarah, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, I'm Harry."

"Well Harry, what are you doing spending your first day here in the Library?" she asked.

"Ah, there is a project I really need help with and Jean was nice enough to assist me. "

Sarah raised an eyebrow and asked skeptically, "Homework during summer on your first day here?"

"Not homework, a special project. I'm calling it Operation Don't Forget. It has to deal with how some things are forgotten easily while others are not. There's a lot of psychology involved and when I begged on my hands and knees for assistance Jean agreed to help out."

Jean gave a half smile at the explanation. Harry wasn't lying about the project, but he was leaving a number of things out.

Sarah nodded and said, "Well make sure to treat out little Marvel Girl right or there will be consequences."

Harry looked over at Jean and smirked, "Marvel Girl?"

Jean let her head fall down to the table in embarrassment which caused Harry's smirk to turn into a grin and caused Sarah to giggle a bit. Sarah said, "That's right, we're all very protective of Marvel Girl, especially Scott here."

Before Scott could say anything, Kurt said, "It's true, you should see him every time she gets hurt in the simulation." Kurt dramatically rose his hand into the air looking off into the distance and theatrically cried out, "Jeeeaan!"

Harry met Scott's gaze with an amused look causing the laser eyed teen to look down slightly. He took a breath and looked back up before saying, "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I can't deny that I overreacted when you were just testing us. It's just.." He looked over at Jean who was now waiting with a half smirk as well for him to continue his explanation. Scott let out another sigh before continuing, "Jean and I have both been in the Institute for years. Most come into their powers around their teens, but we both have had them for far longer and we were the youngest here when we arrived. She's isn't just a team member to me alright, she's family."

Jean gave him a soft look before hardening it and saying to Harry, "And though I've grown up quite a bit since I arrived here, Scott still tends to treat me like I'm still a helpless little girl even though I am fully capable of looking after myself and kicking his ass."

Scott looked part offended and part appalled at the language though Sarah and Kurt both laughed with the latter saying, "Ja, it's true."

Harry added his two cents, "Ah, so the knight in shining sunglasses still seeks to save the fair princess."

This got a few giggles from the girls and caused Kurt to start laughing. Before Scott could say otherwise, Harry said, "Jean, perhaps you should dress in a leather biker chick's outfit so he no longer considers you a princess to be rescued."

Sarah and Kurt erupted into full blown laughter and Jean tried to glare at Harry but stifling her own laughter while doing so didn't make it a very effective glare.

Scott seemed to realize there wasn't a way to defend himself so he gave up on that and asked Harry, "Look, are we ok?"

Harry could tell this was the type of guy who just wanted to be helpful to others. Harry did too, but in truth, that was more of just a hobby he enjoyed, like playing video games. Scott however was different, he emotionally invested himself into others. This would make him a good leader in the future, but it also meant that if he was betrayed by someone he had absolute trust in, he wouldn't take it well. Harry decided to file that obvious foreshadow away for later.

Harry held out his hand for Scott to take and when he took it Harry said, "No problem. If you have time later we can spar if you want. Your power is nice for long distance attacks but you'll definitely want some CQC skills to fall back on."

Jean asked, "CQC?"

Scott answered, "Close Quarters Combat. Though I didn't know anyone besides Logan used that term. He told me the same thing by the way. I can't believe you held your own against him."

Harry shook his head, "Oh, I didn't. That guy was holding back a lot. I mean he didn't even use his claws until I had him chained down. Last guy I fought with that much skill nearly vaporized me."

Kurt frowned and said, "Guys like you remind me that the phrase, 'May you live in interesting times,' is actually a curse. And how did you make that food and turn me pink?"

Scott asked, "Wait, you're the one who turned Kurt pink?"

"It was a reflex. I was minding my own business then this scary blue dude pops out of nowhere and terrifies me."

Kurt half shouted, "You liar! You weren't scared, you flicked my forehead the moment I appeared. Then you took something from your pocket and turned my precious hair pink!"

Harry threateningly said, "Did what I took out from my pocket look like this?" while reaching into his pocket. The blue demon popped away in another puff of brimstone smoke and from what Harry could tell, reappeared behind a nearby wall where he could still listen in. Harry said, "Oh, never mind, I don't have any Smoky Quartz left on me. Oh well."

Scott's frown could be seen beneath his sunglasses and he asked, "How does your power work?"

Jean quickly repeated back what Harry told her earlier, "Harry can absorb things which grant temporary effects like increased strength or access to energies he can use to perform magic like feats."

Harry wasn't sure she bought it but it was nice that she was helping him keep his cover since the others were more likely to believe it coming from her than him.

Scott asked, "What kind of things?

Harry answered this time, "Quartz gives me access to Psionic energy which lets me do things similar to Jean until I release the connection. Smoky Quartz lets me do somewhat random and unstable things and I can't guarantee the outcome or consequences. I used Smoky Quartz to teleport last night, turn Kurt pink, and conjured an assortment of food. I'm not entirely sure where the food came from though and I may have accidentally stolen it from somewhere."

Scott asked in just a slightly higher pitch of voice, "So we've all become accessories to theft?"

Harry said, "Doubt it. If I hear news of a theft I'll make sure they're compensated but I don't even know when then food came from, much less where. It could have all been made in different parts of the world at different times for all I know."

Scott shook his head and said, "Just, just don't do that again, alright?"

"No problem. I'll make it myself next time."

Harry felt another area of space cave-in close to him and paused again. Harry approximated where the blue demon was likely to reappear and unpaused while moving his hand to the space to his side.

Kurt once more reappeared in a puff of blue brimstone smelling smoke just as Harry's hand stopped in front of him and flicked his forehead again.

"Ow, vat vas that for?" he asked, slipping a bit into his German accent."

"Sorry, still a reflex."

Kurt rolled his eyes and asked, "Are you good in the kitchen?"

Harry said, "I'm good in a lot of places, but yes, I can cook."

From the looks on their faces, Scott and Kurt hadn't caught onto the double meaning but from the way Sarah smirked and Jean turned away, Harry figured they both understood.

Kurt said, "Excellent, then you can take my next shift and make lunch tomorrow."

Harry said, "Sure, and if anything horrible happens to those who eat lunch, I'm sure people won't come after you in retaliation."

Kurt considered it and said, "On second thought, I'll go ahead and make lunch tomorrow."

Sarah asked, "So Harry, are you a nerd, a jock, or a pervert?"

Harry gave a mock thoughtful expression and asked, "Do I have to choose just one?"

Kurt said, "Nein, he is a prankster. I vould recognize one of my own anywhere."

Harry said, "Guilty."

Kurt leaned over to Harry and gave a conspiratorial stage whisper, "There are things ve must discuss later." And then leaned out and gave a wink as if none of the others heard what he just told Harry.

Harry gave a sagely nod which sent a shiver up the spine of Scott and Sarah. Jean, for some reason, was looking forward to it.

Kurt, Sarah, and Scott took a seat and started talking about the Institute and themselves while asking Harry questions.

Kurt asked, "How could you live in a temple for two years? I vould be bored out of my mind in two hours!"

Harry knew what he meant and said, "Yeah, no one there would have appreciated a good prank so I have to lay low. The Head of the Temple did in fact have a sense of humor but she was the figurehead and had to lead by example so she couldn't express it outwardly."

Jean asked, "Did you ever prank her?"

Harry's face scrunched up. "Once."

Kurt excitedly asked, "Oh, this I must hear."

Harry sighed and said, "I have access to certain materials with beyond standard properties. For simplicity's sake, we'll call them magic potions and if you want I'll tell you more about them later. Now, the Temple Master is bald, so there was one time I served her some tea that had a little something extra inside so that the next morning she would wake up with a full head of hair. I saw her the next morning and she was still bald so I figured it didn't work. I mean magic potions aren't exactly what you would call reliable. Later that week I had tea with her again and she served it. The next day I woke up looking like a Wookie."

The moment that image came to everyone's mind each of them started madly laughing. Scott had to hold his sunglasses to his face to make sure they didn't fall off and it didn't take long for Sarah and Jean to have tears leaking from their eyes while Kurt was literally on the floor, rolling around and laughing until he couldn't breath.

After they calmed down a bit Harry said, "I'm just a little regretful I ever told her where to buy stuff like that."

Harry was grilled a bit more on the subject but passed it off as a small street in London filled with old, Occult Shops that either sold fake or real stuff, though that wasn't exactly what he said. He didn't lie, but he did give most of them the impression that it was just a slightly weird area, and not a hidden world. Harry wondered how long it would take for Jean to start looking through his memories for that.

The group headed back to the kitchen to grab some of the remaining plates and saw Forge standing in a corner next to an open metal panel. When he saw Harry enter, he said, "New guy, did you do this?"

Harry realized what he was talking about and said, "Yeah, I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

Sarah said, "Wait, why was this a bad thing?"

Forge answered, "The cameras and sensors fried the moment he did whatever he did." Forge had seen the video log which showed Harry taking out a large piece of Smoky Quartz, having the Quartz glow, and then the feed died.

Harry nodded, "Yeah. That form of energy isn't good around electronics, especially for feats that big."

Forge frowned and said, "Magic? Hope you know what you're getting into playing with stuff like that."

Harry asked, "Bad experience with magic?"

Forge took off a glove revealing a metal, mechanical hand and used it to knock on his opposite leg, revealing a metal sound. He said, "That was that last time I used magic. New house rule, no summoning anything, got it?"

Harry's look of recognition let Forge know he figured out what happened and Harry said, "Got it, no summoning anything. I promise."

Forge nodded and said, "Good." He held his metal hand out for Harry to shake and he did so. "I'm Jonathan Silvercloud, everyone calls me Forge though. When the semester starts I teach physical sciences. I hear you know your way around tech."

Harry recognized the Native American name and nodded, "Yes, I'm Harry, and I can write an operating system blindfolded and can probably take apart anything in Dr. McCoy's lab and put it back together."

"Is that right? We'll see about that later." He closed the hatch and left. It seemed he had just finished.

Kurt said, "Oh, you're so gonna get it."

Harry asked, "Why is that?"

Sarah answered, "Forge probably has one of the biggest egos on the planet but not without good reason. You basically challenged him by saying you could take apart his tech."

Scott continued, "That, and he is the one who programs the Danger Room. Him and Logan are number two and three of the top three people you don't mess with here."

Harry asked, "And number one?"

All four answered at the same time, """"Storm.""""

Harry could easily imagine what a Weather Sorceress of her power would be capable of so he didn't question it further.

They each grabbed a plate and finished it while continuing their prior discussion.

At one point Harry realized something and thought out loud to ask the question if the others knew that Jean couldn't control her powers and was hearing their thoughts as well. Jean gave a quick look at him and shook her head showing a bit of anxiety. Harry thought that he had no intention of telling others and as long as she didn't share the information she learned or use it against others, there was no real harm in them not knowing.

Jean sent a telepathic message to Harry, 'It has only been the last couple months that my powers have gotten stronger and this started. They don't know and I thank you for not telling them.'

Harry thought out loud that it wasn't a problem, but privately he wondered if the Phoenix granting him a part of its flame had affected Jean, boosting her own power due to the proximity. If that was the case, it would probably get stronger which meant Harry had to help her control it faster and remove the blocks before they caused permanent damage to her growing psyche.

He did ask if she would be able to reach his mind at night for more time to use his library to study mind arts.

Turns out that her own bedroom wasn't too far from Harry's so it was easy. Harry did his best to avoid the temptation of mentioning how they only knew each other for a day and were already planning ways to sneak into each other's rooms. Mentally at least.

After dinner, Harry and Jean returned to the library and Scott, Kurt, and Sarah headed off to do their own thing. The study group assembled not long after though was smaller than usual as most of its members went home for the summer. The current members included Bobby, Kitty, Sooraya, and Josh, along with Jean. Kitty was a few years older with Bobby being about the same age as Harry while Sooraya and Josh were both a few years younger. Bobby's parents didn't know he was a mutant so he felt awkward around them which was why he stayed. Kitty apparently picked up an cat sized alien dragon when she went to space and brought it back, but her parents wouldn't let it come over so she stayed at the mansion because she didn't want to leave it. Sooraya was Muslim and wore a traditional hajib. She didn't have family and didn't speak of it further. Josh was a young mutant who could heal others, but a few months back he got badly injured and tried to heal himself. It worked, but his skin permanently turned gold in color which made it difficult to walk around outside the mansion without a few hours of heavy makeup application.

Jean was usually the head of the study group but once they got started, Harry's Scholar Path got to work and his inner teacher smoothly took over. Jean didn't mind because he was doing well and it gave her more time to spend looking through the books on mental arts in Harry's head.

According to Harry's senses, Bobby's cells had a constant connection to a dimension that was similar to Ickthalon's but not the same one. There were countless dimensions after all and Ickthalon's was not the only Dimension of endless cold energy. That however meant that Bobby could use the equivalent of ice magic with the power of invocation without giving anything up in exchange. There was no reasonable limit either. If that dimension had no master then Bobby could potentially channel all the energy of that Dimension with enough effort. If there was no one to stop him he could freeze the planet solid if he wanted to. Harry was quite glad he was a good guy. Harry decided to teach him everything there was to know about thermodynamics.

Josh felt strange to Harry's senses. He was actually a bit similar to the energy Harry felt off the Philosopher's stone but also different. That matched what Josh told Harry about his abilities. Harry debated giving him some physical books on Occlumency since there was a possibility he could use his healing ability to reshape his own mind to practice the art. If he could, then it was possible to use Occlumency to learn vast amounts of chemistry, biology, and human anatomy and physiology. A living philosopher's stone with such knowledge would be very interesting. Not even the Flamels knew everything their stone could do after all.

Kitty had an interesting power of physical intangibility. Unlike the few dimension shifting forms of Intangibility Harry knew of, her's allowed her to still see and hear things in this dimension while intangible and she could even affect or be affected by some energies while intangible. She wanted to study engineering and though Harry was a few years younger than her, she had no problem accepting his input. She used to be Dr. McCoy's assistance and knew her stuff, but it seemed there were some issues with her power and she was kind of a klutz so after one too many dropped beakers or wrecking expensive equipment by accidental phasing into it, she was let go from that position.

Harry didn't know Sooraya's power and he didn't ask. Sooraya wanted to study law and though Harry mostly knew business law, he still knew enough criminal law to assist her.

When it came to studies, Jean usually studied the mind but that was more because of the influence of Professor Xavier and her own power than it was for a career. Everyone assumed she would go into the field of Psychology but just because she could go into the minds of others, didn't mean she liked to. Harry found this out while in her mind but that was mostly because she let him see it. From within her mind Harry directly said, "Jean, when you're done mastering mind arts, I'd recommend learning about physics, astrophysics and astronomy."

Within her mind echoed the question, "Oh, and why is that?"

"Learning about the mind will help you control your powers. Learning physics and astrophysics will teach you new ways to use them."

"And Astronomy?"

Harry said, "A hunch. You'll need it."

Harry didn't continue looking through Jean's mind to see what her answer would be. He gained all he needed for now on ForgetMeNot's issue and couldn't do anything about the mental blocks until Jean gained the ability to unfold her own mind which could take several months depending on how much effort she put into it.

That day's study group went on far longer than normal due to the progress each made in their own subject but eventually came to an end and they each returned to their rooms.

On arrival Harry noticed ForgetMeNot go stiff and stare at him for a few moments. Harry said, "I still remember you, so relax."

ForgetMeNot let out a sigh and said, "Sorry. I've had others say they would remember me too."

Harry wanted to tell him of his progress but there wasn't much to speak of at the moment so he said, "Can I have one more lock of your hair? I want to try a few things on it."

ForgetMeNot rolled his eyes and took the scissors from earlier and snipped a lock from the back of his head which Harry took and set aside.

Harry asked, "Are you a part of the second X-Men Team that went into space?"

ForgetMeNot looked surprised and said, "Yeah, but I don't really want to talk about it."

Harry figured the older mutant probably had as little experience talking to people about things as Harry did.

Harry took the papers he wrote earlier out of his inventory along with a portkey box. He created a magic circle in the air above an empty dresser which expanded and contracted, giving Harry the numbers to write down for the space's magical coordinates. He wrote that down and set it in the portkey box before activating it, sending the box to the goblins.

"Um, Harry?"

"Yes ForgetMeNot?"

"What was that?"

"Paperwork."

"No, I mean the taking stuff out of midair thing, and the glowy circle thing, and the vanishing box thing."

"Oh. That's magic. Why?"

"Um, you know what? Forget I asked."

One week after Harry's arrival he got his first Danger Room session. That morning an armored truck had pulled up to the X-Mansion and delivered several crates of various sizes containing the supplies he asked the Goblins to stage the manual delivery of. Setting up such a routine every other month or so would cement the 'weakness' of his power to others watching him, and he had no doubt others were watching him.

According to the Goblins, there had been over a dozen checks into Harry's background done by various companies and several agencies since the open transfer of his funds from overseas to the States. However by this point the Goblins had had four years to create a background and three years to create the foundation of his company so it all looked completely legitimate. The Goblins even included several legal issues into the history of his company which looked to be resolved later because a company with a history of legal issues was less suspicious than a company without them.

There was a reason that the Goblins put so much effort into working for Harry rather than just doing everything themselves with their own gold. Legally speaking due to a large amount of treaties and agreements made in the past, Goblins were not allowed to own land, interact with nonmagicals, or work above ground in most areas. At the moment, they weren't breaking a single law. Although just a technicality, every land or business purchased was purchased only under Harry's name. The taxes were a nightmare but it was perfectly legal. As for the other issues, they were solved by simply using computers or hiring muggleborns or squibs for direct interactions.

One would think that it was possible for Harry to betray them, but the Goblins had Harry sign a large amount of magical contracts which would pretty much end his life if he did so. Not that he would. Also, the contracts didn't prevent the Goblins from trying to cheat him which they would often make attempts to do though Harry caught each one. When Harry was sent stacks of paperwork he would just directly put it into his inventory and pause before going over it all, line by line which was what saved him from a few of the more subtle technicalities and clauses they tried to sneak into some forms for him to sign. Harry knew that the Goblins were not his friends, just business partners. One wrong move or misstep on Harry's part and he would practically become a magic bound puppet to be used by the Goblins yet as long as he stayed a step ahead of them he had a cut-throat workforce more cunning than any lawyer and more vicious than a shark who smelled blood in the water. It was just another battlefield for the Goblins and they enjoyed having a worthy opponent.

The supplies Harry had delivered included a dozen small crates each filled with a hundred or so synthetic gemstones that were flat enough to stack with a shape similar to a full wallet in size. After use hover dollies to transport the crates to the Danger Room, Harry was immediately told to get out one of everything and head in for an examination of his base reading.

Logan said into the speaker system, "Alright brat, it's finally time to show us what you're made of."

The audience included Professor Xavier, Forge, Logan, Dr. McCoy, and a few of the third X-Men team including Scott, Jean, and Kurt. Ms. Munroe was noticeably absent as her attention was already completely wrapped in the book written by her ancestor that arrived with the rest of the materials.

Logan said, "First, we're gonna get a base reading on you. So just go through the course."

From what Harry learned from Forge, the Danger Room had two modes. Obstacle Course and Combat Simulator. The Obstacle Course was where random obstacles came out of the wall and floor and the students were expected to get through them while running laps around the large circular room. The Combat Simulator was a newer function they hadn't fully worked the bugs out of yet that made Hard-Light constructs to use as opponents.

According to Forge, the alien ship Kitty and the second X-Men team returned to earth on had a rudimentary Hard-Light system which is basically a combination of Holograms and force fields. A force field was usually made to cover a surface and didn't move, but it was possible to create an enclosed space where a force field could be made in mid-air and moved around. This combined with a hologram made it look like one could create actual constructs. Of course the construct could not exist outside the Danger Room as an enclosed space was required for their existence, but it was a good way for those with lethal capabilities to test them without holding back.

Harry ran three laps around the Danger Room while wearing a Cursed ring he made. After learning more about the nature of Wizard Magic, Harry had delved deeper into making it his own and less Chaotic which led him to create more personalized spells and such. This curse was similar to the momentum restricting equipment he had before, but far more efficient and since it used his Wizard magic, it was invisible to any form of energy sensing. The curse itself reduced Harry's physical stats to about 30 a piece which for a soon to be 15 year old was just about peak possible fitness.

Logan let him have it on the obstacles as laser turrets, saw blades, and spikes came at him from every direction forcing him to pause nearly every three seconds to check what new gizmo had popped out of the wall. He looked around while not paused of course but that was more for show.

Next was a test of Harry's heightened base. According to Harry's explanation of his abilities, absorbing a rare metal could increase his stats for a week while absorbing a common metal would only increase them for an hour and that these two effects stacked. The limit of how much he could increase his base rose with his fitness level. Harry absorbed some bars of Platinum which were among the delivered items and reduced the effect of the curse from 90% reduction to 50% reduction making his physical stats of STR and AGI about 150 a piece.

Harry did the course once more but the delay between the different obstacles popping up had been drastically reduced the moment Logan got an understanding of Harry's strength and speed.

And last but not least, Harry absorbed some pure Iron bars and he removed the ring completely and showed off his base physique. The ring itself had a Notice-Me-Not charm on it so those watching didn't pay attention to the fact that he wore it or took it off.

While watching Harry's third run from the observation deck, Xavier asked aloud, "How is he?"

Logan answered gruffly, "Strength wise he is about half-way between me and Sabertooth. His speed is closer to Sabertooth's than mine though. Although he has combat experience, from the way he handles himself, I'd say it's mostly one on one. He has little to no experience on a true battlefield."

Xavier commented, "That is not surprising. He trained with others to control his power but he doesn't appear to have experienced war so there would be no reason for him to fight in a battlefield."

Logan agreed with the second part but not the first. He could always tell the difference between those who have killed and those who haven't. There was a fear of death in the eyes of those who have never taken a life and those who have never had someone try to take theirs. He could tell Harry had fought against people who wanted him dead and probably killed them. But he wouldn't say anything, that wasn't his business to share.

Forge took over the speaker and said, "Alright, now we're gonna test those gems. Wait. Harry, what're the fossils for?"

The armored truck dropped off twelve small crates, three medium crates, and two large crates along with Ororo's book. The small crates had all been opened and contained the various palm sized synthetic gemstones Harry used while the large crates contained Iron and one of the medium crates contained the platinum. The other two medium crates hadn't been opened.

One of the twelve small crates however didn't contain gemstones, it contained fossils.

Harry answered, "Those are Tyrannosaurus Rex bone fossils. We should save their use for last."

Forge was more than a little curious but set it aside for now and activated the combat simulation.

The room changed into what looked to be the interior of a large office building as the holograms set the stage and the Hard-Light constructs filled out the room.

A collective grimace appeared on the spectator's faces and Xavier asked, "Did it have to be this scenario? He's a bit young to face him."

Forge smiled and said, "I'm sure the kid can take it."

Harry moved through the rows of empty cubicles and a moment later, the elevator at the end of the hall Dinged.

The door slid open and out charged a man in a red and black custom riding a minigun mounted pink unicorn. He shouted, "Bet you weren't expecting me muthafu***s! Wait, did I just get bleeped? Eh hem. **** your ******* ***** *** with a chimichanga."

Harry found himself far too stunned to acknowledge what he had said. The pink unicorn's saddle had two actual miniguns mounted to the sides and the red guy riding it had swords strapped to his back. Dufuq?

The strange man jumped off the unicorn and said, "Hey kids, I'm Deadpool. And this is Philip."

The unicorn let out a growl and the miniguns started rotating.

Harry grabbed a Citrine from his belt and had it glow before putting it in his inventory. Just as the miniguns started firing, chains wrapped around the unicorn's neck and dragged him to the side aligning his line of fire with Deadpool's back. The man's body partially exploded with a shower of gore and blood and the unicorn was unable to get back up.

From behind him, Harry heard someone shout, "You killed Kenny!"

Harry turned to see another Deadpool standing there and to his side was a third who shouted, "You Bas****! Wait, Bas**** gets censored? What the-"

Harry used a Tourmaline to summon a bolt of heat and light which was sent through the copy's torso before he could finish his sentence. The copy next to him said, "Ok, playtime's over."

He drew his sword and ran over to Harry who pulled out and used a Diamond and generated his Eldritch Heavy Sword. Deadpool struck it a dozen times but his sword bounced off allowing Harry to use it as a shield with his Tidal Sword style. Each sweep of his weapon changed the layout of the office space but Deadpool moved around like a monkey on a sugar high.

Deadpool jumped back a few steps and shouted, "Get him Phillip!"

The gun toting pink unicorn had freed itself from the chains and was revving its miniguns once more. Harry charged forward as the guns went off using his heavy sword as a shield though it was slowly whittled away as he got closer. The unicorn charged forward to meet Harry who jumped to the side and bounced against a wall to face the unicorn once more and with a clean slice the unicorn was bisected.

Deadpool fell to his knees and shouted, "Phillip!" He then pulled two hand guns from behind him and started unloading at Harry who had to jump behind the adjacent desks for cover.

Harry pulled out a Ruby and after making it glow and vanish he started emitting red light as he channeled strength energy from Cyttorak's realm. Harry charged forward through the desks as if they were made of air and tackled Deadpool to the ground before ripping off his arms.

Deadpool looked to his left and right and said, "You know, I don't think this is the proper way to disarm someone."

Harry headbutted him which seemed to knock him out as the red glow faded.

The elevator Dinged once more.

Four more Deadpools came out of the elevator and started shooting Harry at the same time while arguing with each other over... who was the most handsome? Harry decided to ignore their conversation and pulled out the dino fossil and put it in his inventory.

Harry channeled his Dragon Chi causing golden arcs of lightning to flash over his body. One of the Deadpools shouted, "He's going Super Saiyan! Kill him before he gets sued for Copywrite infringement!"

The bullets did nothing to Harry who took a few moments to compose himself before moving faster than the eye could follow over to the group of Deadpools and smashing into one of them with all the force he could muster.

The moment Harry's fist made contact, the hologram vanished and the projection flashed red with a message on the wall *ERROR ERROR.* There was also a five meter tall dent in the wall a few feet in front of where Harry had punched and sparks were coming from the scrap behind it.

The message vanished and the Danger Room opened. Harry looked over at the group and asked, "Who the bloody hell was that?"

Logan answered, "Deadpool. Mercenary who pops up in unexpected places and is troublesome to put down. I've seen him survive decapitation so even if you beat him, expect him to return."

Harry asked, "There's no way that he actually acts like that."

Scott shuddered and said, "No, it's completely accurate. I've seen him twice. He really does spout off endless nonsense which will throw anyone off if they listen to it."

Forge was looking over the damage done to the Danger Room wall and asked, "Was that the dino bone?"

Harry answered, "Yeah, sorry about that."

"I can see why you wanted to save that one for last. This will take a week to fix and another week to recalibrate. My system couldn't detect any energy readings off you which made the sensors give conflicting data."

*Ping*

[New Quest: Greater Danger

-Help Forge Fix Danger Room

-Improve Danger Room with Magic

-Help Danger Room Evolve.]

The quest gave Harry some ideas so he asked, "Can I help?"

Forge looked like he was going to refuse but after a moment of thought said, "Alright, but if you mess around even once, there won't be a second time. Got it?"

"Of course," he answered.

The following week returned Harry to routine except he spent four hours in the morning and four hours in the evening helping Forge.

One of Harry's goals in the past was to make his own Room of Requirements but a more recently he discovered that the core of the RoR was a concentrated Eye of Magic which was actually constructed using instructions from the Darkhold and was what gave birth the chaotic forces needed to make something so impossible. A side effect of this however was that Cthon could witness the contents of the RoR and all within whenever he wanted.

Harry had initially given up on making one, but with the quest he received, he was now considering the means of combining his half finished RoR with the technology of the Danger Room.

The Danger Room's systems were basically made of spaceship parts. The gravity generator could make the occupants feel like they were standing on a slope when they were upright and the wiring, air conditioning, heater, and cooling system of the spaceship could be used to make lightning, fire, ice, and wind in the enclosed space. These combined with the Hard-Light projections gave the Danger Room a lot of possibilities as a training space.

However there was much the Danger Room could not do. A lot of computing power had to be put into minute details such as the impact force of bullets to be both realistic and non lethal to those who failed to dodge in time. Every twitch of the force field while being impacted had to be calculated and even Forge's best computing system couldn't cope with multiple users fighting within which was why the Combat Simulator could only be used for individuals, not groups. There was just not enough computing power.

Harry wrote out a ward scheme which used the same systems as the current Danger Room but focused on control to handle a majority of the computations automatically. Basically the magic would handle the tiny stuff and the mundane systems would doing the heavy lifting.

The only issue was that Harry needed a way to allow the Danger Room to control the Magic without a wizard directing it. He was looking through the software when he noticed something that stood out.

Harry took the tablet he was using to look through the software over to Forge and asked, "What's with the AI in here?"

Forge stopped assembling some replacement parts and said, "There's no AI in the Danger Room. The software can adapt but it can't grow beyond its storage space."

Harry said, "The time stamps on the program history shows the baseline reaction sensors have been updating irregularly. If you're not the one doing that, who is?"

Forge grabbed the tablet and looked over the readings Harry noticed. A moment later he marched to the main terminal and looked for the same lines to confirm it wasn't a mistake.

Five minutes of browsing later and Forge shouted, "Dammit. I can't believe he would do this."

Harry asked, "Who did what?"

Forge answered, "There's a block in my head preventing me from noticing what you showed me. This AI has been here for a while, probably from the ship. All the systems that would show the AI's activities have been placed under hidden files meaning you can only look for it passively, not actively. You'd never find it in here unless you already knew it was there. The only person who has the clearance needed to do this and place those blocks in my head is..."

Harry sighed. After a moment he said, "If I could figure out why he did it without raising suspicion, would you be willing to help?"

Forge asked, "What'd you have in mind?"

After going over the plan, Forge got one of the Professor's spare wheelchairs and Harry opened one of the two crates he hadn't opened earlier. They contained Vibranium and Adamantium.

Forge looked over and said, "Mind if I buy some of this? There are a few projects I could really use it for."

Harry considered it and said, "Only if you let me help you build it. I can swear on my magic not to steal your work, but I'd like to use it as a learning experience."

Forge considered it. He was in fact one of, if not the most brilliant inventor on the planet and personal lessons from him were not in fact inferior in value to the weight of these metals he wanted to use so it was a fair deal. "Alright. But you don't need to swear not to use it, just ask permission and give me a cut if you make money off anything you learn from me."

And with that they had a deal.

Harry used some vibranium and etched it into the replacement wheelchair along with a long term diagnosis spell. If the professor sat in the chair for a full day, it would give a complete framework of his mind.

Forge was quite peeved that he had been manipulated to ignore an AI and had already created an interface to speak with it. The first thing Forge did was ask for forgiveness that he didn't notice it earlier. The AI was pretty pissed, but not at Forge and when asked for forgiveness it was given without issue. According to her, and Forge was the one who declared it a she, the AI had sent a message to Xavier asking what she was not long after the assimilation of the spaceship into the Danger Room and the Professor decided to keep it under wraps. He typed in a core command to never harm the students than locked her away beneath the software.

The next day Harry sent a discrete spell at Xavier's chair and fried it without anyone being the wiser. Forge got out the replacement chair and said he'd have the old one fixed the following day.

When they got the chair back, Harry looked over the diagnosis spell with Forge. Forge didn't use magic, but that was just preference. He certainly knew how to use it and could read of the diagnosis as well as Harry could.

Both let out a depressed sigh at the results and weren't sure what to think.

Danger, which is what the AI called itself, had been kept up to date on their plans and wanted to know what they found.

Forge summarized it for her and afterwards even she felt unsure about it.

Xavier it seemed, wanted to become a symbol that others could get behind. He had succeeded in that, without using his powers on others, many politicians believed in him and stood behind him which is what protected the X-Men from the extremists in the government.

The problem however was that he was human. He had his own character flaws which would get in the way of his goals. So he cheated. He used his own abilities on himself to seal away the negative and darker aspects of his personality.

And because he believed he succeeded, he subconsciously believed sealing some parts of the mind was a viable solution to some problems.

Harry had been trying to figure out how Xavier could have rationalized what he did to Jean and it seemed that because he had sealed part of his own mind, he wasn't in fact thinking rationally.

Thankfully, according to the readings anyways, the only minds he did anything like that too were Jean and Forge. He accessed Logan's mind to try to fix his memories, accessed Beast's mind to walk him through gaining control over his base impulses, and accessed Ororo's mind to help her control her emotions but did nothing to affect them like he had Jean or Forge.

Forge could see this as well from the readings and quickly figured out that Harry had already discovered Jean's tampering which was why he wanted to do this in the first place. When he asked about it Harry said he had it covered and Forge didn't bring it up again.

Rather than hold it against him, Forge decided to pity the Professor. He had sacrificed his own mind to become more than just a man but in doing so he may have lost a core part of his humanity. He explained his reasoning to Danger who also decided not to take action against the man, though she wouldn't forgive him so easily. She calculated that one day he would face the consequences of his actions so there was no need to do anything to him. Such a man was his own worse enemy and didn't need assistance in being torn down.

Once Harry understood how knowledgeable Forge was on magic, he directly brought out his ideas for modifications to the Danger Room using aspects stolen off the Room of Requirements. All they had to do was tie the AI Danger to the rune control scheme and that would allow inhumanely precise control and near limitless possibilities.

Danger understood that she could easily use what was being given to her to harm the students. It wasn't difficult to figure out ways around the core command but she also understood she was being trusted with this power and wanted to keep that trust.

Harry and Forge spend nearly every minute of the following weekend in the Danger Room and food would often be brought to them to ensure they didn't go without.

Forge showed Harry how to build what was basically a quantum computing core using vibranium and magic by introducing Harry to some of the properties of vibranium he had no idea were possible. With this, Danger would have more processing power than the rest of New York combined.

Much of Forge's tech used the principles of magic meaning he was far ahead of Harry in that field which Harry was quite pleased with. No point in having a teacher who wasn't smarter than you. The best part was that Harry had a lot of ideas for things he wanted to make which required processors he couldn't fabricate but using a magic processor and the adaption technique Forge showed him he was no longer limited as much.

That and he now had a perfect understanding for how Hard-Light technology worked. The material required to build it didn't exist on earth but Harry thought of a few substitutions he could make using Sonic modulation on existing materials to change their properties to match what he needed.

In addition to things he stole from the Room of Requirement, Harry also included some rudimentary Time Lord Math he stabilized with space expansion charms to make the inside of the Danger Room far larger than it should be. Forge had to check the numbers a few times and though he didn't understand Block Transfer Computations, he could figure out the scale of the effect and work with it without issue. Of course it only worked because they used adamantium to inscribe the runes and fifth dimensional math which ensured the timespace wouldn't collapse.

The final addition was that Harry inscribed Danger's processor with anti-magic shielding. It wasn't the same type the Goblins made him swear never to spread but since Harry already knew five different ways to make something magic proof at this point, that wasn't an issue. This would ensure Danger couldn't be hacked by a technopath or a superior AI if she ever encountered one.

The Tuesday after the second weekend since they started, the project was finally finished.

*Ping*

[Quest Complete: Greater Danger

Reward: Mindscape Copy]

The pair weren't exactly subtle in their mad scientist montage and everyone at the school knew they two were up to something, but no one had any clue as to what the result would be.

The students and staff assembled outside the entrance to the Danger room and with a bit of fanfare, Forge said, "Ladies and Gentleman. And Logan, I present to you, Danger." He opened the door to reveal the same empty space everyone was familiar with. Nothing looked different or out of place. However, a moment later a group of lights appeared and gathered together to create a form which took the appearance of a beautiful caucasian woman with silver hair.

Evan was the first to break the silence. "You built a girlfriend?"

A few chuckles rolled through the crowd and Forge said flatly, "Ha ha Evan. Danger is the AI who will be designing new simulations for the X-Men. Cross her at your own peril."

Danger smiled and turned around walking further into the room while motioning for others to follow her. Xavier's concerned face was noticed by Logan and Ororo but when Forge and Harry walked into the room and the rest followed, they remained silent on it and followed in as well.

As they entered, the room changed into a forest next to a lake with a log cabin set at the edge.

Logan was the first to notice the difference. Harry had already learned that Logan's senses were superior to others which was why when he first met him, his illusions had no effect. Logan could smell the real Harry among his doppelgangers. Logan took in an audible breath and examined the trees, birds, and water.

Harry walked over and asked him, "How's the smell?"

Without showing surprise, he answered, "Smells like nature."

Evan went over to the lake and said, "This hologram looks really good."

Danger smiled and walked over to him from behind and pushed him into the lake with a smile.

Evan fell in with a splash and got out moments later, completely soaked. "Hey what's going on here? Isn't this a Hard-Light hologram?"

Danger answered in a bell like voice, "It is at the core but there are now layers over that which far more accurately depict reality." She walked over to Forge and kissed him on the cheek which the blush he showed made others realized that felt like a real kiss.

Kitty walked up to Danger and asked, "Why do you look familiar?"

Danger smiled and said, "I choose this form myself, though I did use Ms. Munroe as a base. By human standard she is most beautiful. I hope you don't mind."

Logan grunted, "At least she's got good taste."

Ororo smacked his shoulder and answered back, "Not at all. It is a pleasure to meet you."

The group spent half an hour exploring and a few realized the open space was larger than the Danger Room should be which confused many of the students and had Dr McCoy jumping around various trees to analyze the realism of the forest environment. He had nothing but praise for it complimenting the texture of the wood when he was climbing and the variety of lifelike insects he found through the canopy.

After a full hour, Ororo told everyone it was dinner time and said Harry had no choice but to come along as he hadn't had dinner with the others in over two weeks.

Harry accepted since he needed time to decompress before he started on another project and he had been neglecting the study group. He'd ask for forgiveness and hoped they wouldn't kick him out.

Harry was the last to enter the dining room and as soon as he came through, everyone shouted, "Surprise! Happy Birthday Harry!"

Harry looked at the colorful streamers, the decoration, and the chocolate cake on the table and even with all that, it still took him a moment to remember today's date was in fact his birthday.

Birthdays weren't really celebrated in Kamar-Taj and Harry was always too wrapped up in various projects to celebrate it himself. Sirius threw him a party for his twelfth birthday and Hermione and Neville showed up, but this was the first surprise party he'd ever had, and the second birthday party he'd experienced.

Harry blew out the candles after the lame birthday song was sung aloud and Harry cut the cake to get the first slice while Beast distributed the remaining slices for everyone else.

Harry was barraged with questions about the last two weeks which included a lot of nonsense about if he could do the same for their rooms. Harry noticed ForgetMeNot in the corner and went over to the table to get a slice of cake for him since Beast forgot to. However, on his way over to deliver the cake, the girl he knew as Rogue came around the corner and they walked into each other and fell over. Harry's hand touched her exposed arm which caused her to freeze up, but Harry didn't feel anything.

The room became silent and several others saw this. Rogue looked down at where Harry was holding her with wide eyes.

With this, Harry had decided on his next project.

«

Shortly after Harry's party came to a conclusion, Harry was called to Xavier's office with Rogue and Logan. The moment he entered the door, he got a notification.

*Ping*

[New Quest: Rogue Powers

Assist Ann Marie with gaining control over her powers.]

Harry was going to do it anyways but the quest notification still made him smile. The Ancient One had already concluded that any completed quest would do good for the world which meant Rogue gaining control over her powers would be a great thing. Harry's trust in the quest prompts was one of the reasons he had rationalized giving Danger so much freedom and he was quite proud of his accomplishment.

After entering Xavier's office, Rogue removed a glove and they confirmed through some simple tests that Rogue's power had not changed, it simply didn't affect Harry.

Xavier stated, "Rogue's powers have, to this point, been uncontrollable in nature. I feel this discovery may perhaps be a clue to unraveling a means to provide that control."

Harry had heard a number of things about her power from a few of the students, especially Bobby. Children gossip after all, it was in their nature. However he still wanted to hear answers from the source. Harry answered Xavier, "Maybe, but I'd like a few more details to work with." He turned to Rogue and asked, "Can you describe your power? Give me as many details as you can please."

The look of both hope and pain in her eyes seemed to be fighting each other but after a moment of silence she let out a sigh and answered in a southern belle accent. "Well, when I touch someone, I feel like I become that person, just for a lil' while. The longer I touch 'em, the more that person I become and the longer the effects gonna last. When I do it to a mutant, I get their powers too."

Harry mulled over that for a moment and asked, "What's it like to become someone else?"

She shook her head, "I don't know, it's like, I go away just a bit and someone else steps in. I'm them. I get some of their memories and sometimes I forget I'm me."

Logan added, "Even after the power or memories wear off, she'll sometimes gain personality traits of those she touches. Those wear off too, but the length of time's not always the same."

Harry felt a few dots connecting to a conclusion he'd never have thought of. Harry looked up to Logan and asked with an educated guess, "Did your personality traits last longer in her than other people?"

Logan remained motionless for a moment before giving a curt nod.

Harry added, "Do you trust her and trust her with your power?"

Xavier picked up on the direction he was going and asked, "You think the length of the effect is determined by the donor's connection to Rogue?"

Rogue's eyes widened for a bit and said, "That would explain Mystique. Still got a bit of her in here somewhere," she said while pointing at her head.

Harry figured that meant she'd copied the shapeshifter at some point and they weren't strangers. He turned to Xavier and said, "In any case, the reason she can't get anything from me is simple, my power trumps hers."

She turned to Harry with a partially offended look which forced Harry to quickly explain himself to avoid a misunderstanding, "I mean I can absorb things as well. She can't absorb from another absorber, it cancels out."

Harry was pretty sure they'd buy his excuse since it was close enough to the truth. His mutant power was keeping the energy infused Obscurus particles that made up his body together in the shape of a human. If Rogue could absorb the energy contained within his Obscurus particles, it would likely cause his form to break down. So his power was directly resisting her power. Not that he knew his power would win out over hers. He was quite worried when he first touched her because the worst case scenario was that she could permanently absorb all the energy of his particles leading to a permanent death.

Rogue's posture visibly slumped at Harry's answer but Xavier said, "But it seems you have a few ideas Mr. Potter?"

Harry nodded, "Dealing with magic is basically just dealing with different types of energies. Rogue's ability to absorb and use energies is not impossible to duplicate with magic. Therefore there are means of training that could prove useful to her."

Logan asked, "There are normal guys who can train to do that?"

Harry nodded and explained, "They require a great deal of talent, but in essence, yes. I know of one guy who can permanently drain all the energy out of a person by touching them. Not that he has done so. That is simply an application of what he can do, not the purpose he trains for."

Rogue asked, "Why not? Is there a reason he doesn't?

Harry figured she wanted to know if there were consequences to doing so she didn't know about. After considering it for a moment he said, "I'll tell you later. It is relevant to you, but there is no need for others to know his business," Harry answered while gesturing to Xavier and Logan.

Neither found it offensive such information was not shared with them as long as he would give it freely to Rogue. It was obvious they both cared about her.

Harry and Rogue were excused and Harry took Rogue's ungloved hand and dragged her over to an empty study.

He felt the presence of a certain flame as well as the recently caved-in space that accompanied the arrival of a certain blue prankster behind the open door. Harry didn't mind, he just didn't want Xavier to be analyzing the pair as he gave her the info.

Harry sat Rogue down and said, "You want to know the consequences of absorbing the energy of someone else? Well, the main issue is the taint. The only person you should be is you. When you are someone else, the real you becomes lost. If that guy I know goes around permanently absorbing the energy of everyone he could, he'd certainly become more powerful, but he would permanently lose himself to the taint gained from others and at the end of the day, the one standing in his shoes would not be him, but someone else. A stranger with his memories."

Rogue looked frustrated and tried to say without yelling, "But they keep tellin' me I need to practice my powers which means usin' 'em as much as I can. You're sayin' the more I use 'em, the less me I become?"

Harry considered it and said, "Yes, but I don't think it should be that way. Those pieces of others who affect your personality can be considered taint. But this is your power, it shouldn't bring you harm if you're using it right. There should be a way to use it without absorbing taint and remaining yourself."

Rogue got up and said, "Don't you think I've been tryin'! It's all or nothin' every time I touch anyone. I can't, I," she lost her energy and fell back into the couch with a depressed slump.

Harry sat down and said, "I don't think it's your fault. You may have accumulated too much taint already. There should be a part of your mind you can use to control your power, but it's so gunked up that it's numb to you, preventing you from feeling it out."

Rogue sat in silence for a few moments before saying, "When my powers first kicked in, I was kissin' a boyfriend. It was my first kiss. I didn't know what kisses were supposed to feel like, I just thought it was a hell of a kiss." After a moment of silence she added, "He's still in a coma."

Harry let out a sigh and said, "That's probably what numbed you then."

"So that's it for me?" she asked quietly.

Harry shook his head, "No. We need to remove the taint and get you back to a clean slate."

"Professor already tried that," she listlessly replied.

Harry continued, "He could likely remove the mental aspects, but not the energy, connection, and life force aspects. Taint is not so easily removed. It's supposed to be a consequence of taking what shouldn't be taken. You just got the short end of the straw."

"Story of my life," she replied smoothly.

Harry took her hand again and said, "Hey, I'm pretty creative alright. Don't give up hope. If nothing else, I promise that if you ever need a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on, I'll be available, ok?"

Rogue turned to Harry with glistening eyes and said, "Can I, can I have a hug?"

Harry smiled and pulled her into a hug. She felt her first touch of human warmth in who knows how long and a moment later she started sobbing. Harry patted her back and held her tight until she let it out.

Outside the room Harry could tell that Jean was using subtle suggestions to the kids walking around to avoid the room and Kurt was threatening terrifying pranks to those who looked like they were approaching. They were both making sure no one disturbed Rogue's moment. Harry really smiled at that. This whole place treated even the outcasts like family.

When Rogue was done, she apologized to Harry who said there was nothing to apologize for. She thanked him and after taking a few moments to dry her eyes, she left.

Harry moved his hand to the side just as Kurt teleported in and flicked his forehead 'reflexively' as he appeared. Jean had hitched a ride teleporting in as well after first teleporting out of the hallway to prevent Rogue from seeing the peepers.

Jean cried out, "We're not peepers."

Harry smiled and said, "I didn't say anything." Though he did think it.

Jean rolled her eyes and after letting out a sigh said, "Thanks for helping Rogue. A lot of us really know how bad it is to have no control over their powers and she's always been one of the worst cases."

Kurt rubbed his forehead and said, "Ya, I have it pretty bad because of how I look, but at least I can be touched. Chicks dig the blue fuzz too." He smiled confidently and nodded while Jean seemed to be questioning her choices in acquaintances.

Harry turned to Kurt and said, "Forge and I came up with a few neat breakthroughs with Hard-Light and Hologram tech while upgrading the Danger Room. I'll see what can be done about a Hard-Light hologram disguise for you."

Kurt didn't hide his surprise and asked, "You can do that?"

Harry gave it a moment to roll the idea through his head and allowed a few points to click together and said, "I can try. If it works though, the Hard-Light will press your tail against you, preventing it from swinging around like an extra layer of clothes over everything. It might be uncomfortable."

Kurt did a back flip and said, "No problem. Going outside nowadays needs like five layers already just to hide my features. I'd love an alternative."

Harry nodded and said, "Might take a few months though. Not for the fabrication, but for the program that writes over your appearance. Writing the whole thing myself would take too long, but I set up the program to write itself after preparing a few things. Danger might be able to help so I'll head down later to ask her."

Kurt's smile was infectious and he practically cried out, "Oh thank you Harry! I can't wait!" He then teleported out. Probably to tell others.

Jean said, "For someone who considers helping people just a hobby, you certainly put a lot of effort into it."

Harry smiled and said, "Ah, have you finally gone through the books on my life and my head?"

Jean turned away for a moment before saying, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I, I did look at some memories of your childhood. I saw, I saw those awful people."

Harry sighed and said, "My life before the age of ten wasn't exactly something that you'd find in a children's story." He hoped she'd pick something more interesting than that. Now however she felt guilty for looking at something so painful. When it comes to pain, there are usually two types of people. There are those who show off their pain to others hoping to garner sympathy for attention or an advantage. And there are those who hide their pain from others because they feel it makes them look weak. Harry obviously wasn't the former, which usually by default would make him the latter. Had it not been for his hundreds of years enjoying a family in the afterlife, he figured he probably would be.

Jean asked, "So things got better?"

Harry hesitated on answering. After a moment he said, "Look it up yourself. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what happened, but yes. Things got better."

Deciding to change subjects, Jean started going over her progress in Occlumency, Imagery practice, and mental discipline. She was slowly, brick by brick, building up a solid foundation of a mind.

While thinking about how much work one normally had to go to build things inside the mind, Harry went over the new feature he got from his last quest. Mindscape Copy. It basically took all the work he used to have to do and put it to shame. Harry already had started up a primitive mindscape as a form of mental discipline and knew that to make it worth something, he'd have to put months and years of work into it, even using his various cheats. Mindscape Copy however literally let him copy something directly into his mindscape. He could already do something similar with items in his inventory, but now he could do so with things that could not be placed inside his inventory.

As long as Harry had enough details on something, he could place a copy of nearly anything into his mindscape. While trying it out, he already created a perfect copy of the Tutorial Village and the surrounding areas, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, Kamar-Taj, and almost the whole of London. They weren't empty either. They had copies of people walking around like NPCs. He could even copy places the Ancient One showed him while exploring the Astral Plane.

Harry even found he could copy things like the Basilisk, Voldemort's Death Eaters, and the monsters he fought in the Astral Plane and during Battle Meditation. Of course, they did not yield Experience when defeated, but it was useful as practice for fighting. That being said, he couldn't copy Voldemort since it was Goose who beat him and he couldn't copy the Mandarin since Harry never beat him. The most useful aspect was that he could grind his Paths through combat with the copies, though fighting something you already defeated yielded very little to Path Rank advancement but it did give Harry a practice ground for different strategies.

Of course, not everything could be copied. His copy of Hogwarts didn't have a working Room of Requirements and if he copied the X-Mansion, it wouldn't have a working Danger Room.

Once Jean had given him her progress report, Harry gave her a new exercise to practice, the art of folding and unfolding sections of the mind. Harry's scan of Xavier showed him how he folded and unfolded sections of his own mind to lock things away. Although he never intended Jean to lock parts of herself away, she needed to learn to unfold her mind using Xavier's method to unlock the Phoenix trapped within. Harry explained the dangers of folding the mind permanently and said this was just an exercise that would help her.

The following days returned to routine. School would start in another two weeks so it wouldn't be long before more students would be returning to the mansion. Harry finally had near unlimited access to Forge's lab so he could use the tools to make his own gizmos now and there were too many things he wanted to make.

Harry knew of course that he didn't really need toys. He didn't need Sorcery either. As long as the opponent wasn't magically stronger than he was, there wasn't a single opponent Harry couldn't beat with Wizard Magic. He didn't even need to be fancy. Voldemort and the Triwizard Tournament Cup proved how easy it was to weaponize Portkeys. Harry could set a Portkey's destination to the middle of the ocean and just throw it at a target. If they couldn't resist the magic, it was instant defeat. Harry could even make a heavy duty magic cage and set that as the destination. It wouldn't even be hard.

If an opponent couldn't resist magic, Harry could stun them, shrink them, turn them into a frog, or remove all their memories. And that was just using the legal spells he had.

There were three reasons Harry did not. The first was that anyone who did not have magic resistance would be a small fry to begin with. Magic resistance just means the body possesses energy that would resist changes caused by exotic energy. That speedster, Peitro, had Time energy in his body. It wasn't a lot, but he would likely be able to resist some magics so even if he touched a Portkey, he'd likely be able to resist long enough to release the object and not get sent to the North Pole. Harry also heard about the Brotherhood's Leader, Magneto. That guy sounded like a Sorcerer highly proficient in Electromagnetic Energy. He could definitely resist most magics. Not that such people were immune. The ability to resist magic just means that a Stunner wouldn't put them down 100% of the time and a cutting curse wouldn't cut as deeply. Strong magic resistance just means it would be a fair fight compared to an easy victory.

The second reason was the outward effect. Wizard Magic still fried electronics and getting around that was a giant pain. Even Danger wasn't a perfect attempt. The Wizard Magic he gave to her to use would be buried under layers of other things but if any electronics stayed in the Danger Room for too long, it would likely have corrupted Data. Danger and Forge however felt this was acceptable as it would prevent someone from leaving undetectable foreign hardware within.

And the final reason was that he wanted it to be a trump card, or better yet, a prank. Why do things the easy way when he can do it the fun way? Why turn your foe into a frog when you can project a hologram around them making it look like their gender changed and they're in a pink dress? Why teleport someone into a cage when you can traumatize them with pranks into turning themselves in?

Of course, that was just for fun. Harry still had a few hundred Portkey Galleons with a destination of the North Pole in his inventory. He made them before losing his ability to make portals to be used if needed. If lives were on the line, there would be no shenanigans and no mercy. Until then he was going to continue having fun.

Harry's current project was just what he told Kurt. Exterior Hard-Light Holograms. He wanted to make a floating sphere he could throw that would track and follow those he threw it at. If the Hologram he had in mind worked out, the sphere would be overlaid with an image of the head of the person he threw it at. It would also be on fire and screaming, though he needed to work on the audio. Harry imagined someone acting like a big, tough, bad guy, and suddenly Harry throws their own flaming head at them which stares them in the eye while flying at them while screaming in horror in their own voice.

Spurred on by imaging how traumatizing that would be for others was great motivation and Harry got to work right away.

Unfortunately, Harry was interrupted three days into his project with a phone call. Only Hermione, Sirius, and the Ancient One had his number, and Hermione called a few days ago and Sirius still hadn't figured out how to use a phone.

Harry answered it and unsurprisingly, it was the Ancient One.

Through the phone she said, "Hello Harry, Kamar-Taj has a mission for you."

"Oh, what's going on?"

"Well, some of the Acolytes brought a matter to my attention that was discovered through the forum of that website you made. Some investigations were being done using the website and from the pictures posted on the are signs there is a demon kidnapping children from an orphanage in a small town in Pennsylvania."

Harry was already putting away the equipment in the lab as he asked, "You know I'm not going to refuse to help, but why ask me?"

The Ancient One answered, "From what I can tell, the children at the orphanage consists almost entirely of mutant children. Due to this fact, rather than sending backup, it would be advisable to inform your new acquaintances and have them assist you instead."

*Ping*

[New Quest: Rescue the Orphan Mutants from N'astirh.

Protect and Rescue the captured orphans before they are sacrificed by N'astirh.

Rescue the remaining orphaned mutants from Nanny and Orphan Maker.]

"Ah, I got a quest," Harry commented before reading off the details over the phone.

The Ancient One said, "Well, that confirms a few theories I had. You cannot get a quest to something that is unrelated to you or something you have no knowledge about."

Harry wasn't angry but he still had to ask, "That was a test?"

"Of course it was. Knowledge about your circumstances will prove vital to using your abilities wisely in the future."

Harry answered, "True. Have you heard of N'astirh?"

Harry had memorized the Grand Grimoire but although that made him an expert of the 72 demons Solomon commanded and a number of others, that didn't mean he knew them all. There were probably more demons than there were humans if you actually did the numbers. Demons existed on many planes after all.

The Ancient One answered, "It is not a name I am familiar with in the past or future. That means this is the first time I've encountered it."

Harry didn't let that disappoint him and asked, "Is the forum for that post still up?"

The Ancient One confirmed it was and hung up. Harry pulled up access to the internet and went into the site before reading the details and printing them out.

At the site of the disappearance were some strange symbols and one of the more clever officers at the town searched for similar symbols on the internet which lead them to a match on Harry's website which lead the officer to the forum Harry made sure was followed by some of the more tech savvy acolytes in Kamar-Taj.

The officer who posted in the forum also gave some details on some things he saw at the orphanage. They were passed off as something else, but the Ancient One recognized it as signs that the children were mutants. The Quest pop up even proved it.

Harry prints out the relevant information and heads over to Xavier's office. As the head of the school so close to reopening, he was quite busy and was currently going through a pile of paperwork on his desk.

Seeing this, Harry paused and went over his options. He remembered that most of the X-Men and teachers had actually been out as they were currently being sent to the homes of the students to escort them back to the Institute. This was done to ensure the safety of the students and to prevent incidents, but it also meant that the bulk of the veteran X-Men were currently out.

Logan remained because he was not a people person and was partially charged with security for the institute. However him heading out as well would leave the remaining children vulnerable.

Harry unpaused and asked Xavier, "When is Storm, Colossus, or Domino returning?" In Harry's opinion, of the first Gen X-Men who remained at the school as teachers, those three were the best to bring because they were strong and good with children. Beast couldn't act in public until the Hard-Light disguise was working and the less said about Forge and children the better. The man was brilliant and knew how to teach, but he wasn't exactly the sympathetic ear a kidnapped orphan would need.

Xavier didn't miss the urgency in his voice and answered, "Ms. Munroe should be returning in three days while Mr. Rasputin and Ms. Thurman will not be returning until next Monday. What is the matter?"

Harry sighed and put the papers he'd printed out on Xavier's desk and summarized, "There seems to be an orphanage in Pennsylvania that has a lot of mutant kids and someone or something capable of using darker magics have been kidnapping them. My teacher called me and let me know and asked if I would handle it since the victims were mutants."

Xavier looked pensive as he read through the papers and commented, "I was not aware of any such gathering of mutant children." However Harry's documents were easy to review and the prevalent points about the orphanage and the signs within certainly seemed to indicate the presence of perhaps multiple mutants. But an orphanage of mutants? That was hard to believe as even the act of gathering mutants was not so simple. He should know.

Xavier's chair rolled out from his desk and he said, "Let's visit Cerebro have this looked into. I'll have Logan meet us on the way."

Harry followed him out of the office and shortly after Logan showed and was handed the papers Harry had given the Professor. Down three flights of stairs they encountered a massive door that was unlocked by Xavier's biometrics. A synthesized voice echoed out, 'Welcome Professor,' upon the door's opening which made no sense to Harry. There was no such voice or automated AI system in any other part of the Institute's systems besides Danger. Harry sighed and figured it was for atmosphere.

Cerebro was a massive hollowed out sphere with a platform in the center and a single walkway extending to it from the entrance. The platform had a control system in the center and a metal helmet. The trio headed in as the door closed behind them while Logan continued reading. The occasional growls he released while going through the information clearly gave his stance on such matters. A warrior like him had an innate protective instinct for children afterall.

Xavier put on the helmet and said, "This is your first time in Cerebro, please remain still while it is active."

Harry gave a bare nod as the room came alive with images. The images themselves were not holograms or electronic displays. They were mental projections of Xavier's senses, enhanced many times over through the massive amplifier and displayed in the empty space for observers to see.

Xavier concentrated on the coordinates of the orphanage in Pennsylvania but once he did, the images around them began to distort.

Logan asked, "What's going on Charles?" It was apparent he had not seen something like this before.

Xavier frowned and said, "Something is dulling my senses through Cerebro. I need a moment to compensate."

The images became clearer then fuzzier then clearer again as he seemed to try different tricks to get around the interference. Moments later the images returned to perfect clarity.

"Ah, there we go. Now let us see what has been hidden."

The images zoomed in and the outline of a building became clear as well as the outline of two dozen children, all glowing orange. In the same building in the basement there appeared to be a blue glow and another orange glow, though the shapes of both were distorted. From what Harry could tell, humans glowed blue and mutants glowed orange on this display.

Harry asked, "Can you find any groups of mutants nearby?"

The building zoomed out and the map grew to display more area but other than the individual orange dots scattered about, there were no other groups.

After another moment of searching, the Professor sighed and the images cut as he removed his helmet.

Logan asked, "What was that about?"

Xavier answered, "There is something in that town which shrouds my senses. Had it blocked my senses completely, it would be more noticeable, but as it only numbed it, I could not notice the mutants within had I not specifically been looking for them in that small area."

Logan didn't look surprised, "So someone figured out how to hide from you?" The tone of his voice made it seem like he'd been expecting it to happen at some point.

Xavier nodded and said, "Indeed, though I cannot be certain if the one they are hiding from is myself or perhaps another. In any case, I was unable to get a reading on the minds of anyone in that town. To gather more information, we'll need a closer look."

Logan glanced back at the papers and said, "I got a bad feeling about this Chuck. I don't think waiting for the others is a good call. It might be too late by then."

Xavier frowned pensively. He knew this was not going to be easy.