03-12-2016, 02:12 PM
Harry was bored. Bored and sitting in the library with Ginny asleep on his shoulder while he stared at a fifty year old novel of some sort about warped gods from beyond the normal ‘world’. And by staring he meant staring, not actually reading. At this point he’d even take going to a double potions class with Snape over... well...this! And unfortunately he’d go out on a limb and say the feeling was mutual for Ginny. At least the antagonism their Potions Professor would heap on them would be a change from the unending dullness that their lives had become.
Tom was rarely ever available, trying to shore up the school.
There was the occasional House Elf who would bring them anything they wanted but they seemed lack Dobby’s communication skills or simply were unused to having a conversation. Whatever the case was, the two of them were lacking in entertainment, which was maddening.
With a quiet grunt he bookmarked and closed the completed works of HP Lovecraft before setting it on the table, careful to not try and wake Ginny up. In the last few days it was hard not to feel somewhat protective over her. She was the only person who really seemed to care, more so than Tom.
“H-Harry?“ his partner yawned out, apparently blinking herself awake only for her to jump when she realized the position she’d been in.
Harry winced, so much for not disturbing her. “Yeah Ginny?”
“S-sorry! I hadn’t r-realized-“ She stuttered out before Harry cut off her budding tirade of misplaced guilt.
“Its fine, we’re here together, might as well get used to each other’s company.” Harry said hesitantly before as he grabbed her hand. That always seemed to calm her some for whatever reason. It still felt weird. Touching someone but… if it helped her then what was just one hand? The blush it often elicited was also a bonus. Not uncommon, slightly predictable even, but enough to at least add some variation to the day.
Ginny flashed him a freckled, grateful if expectant smile.
Now if only he could get her to stop expecting him be able to pull the moon out from the sky. How could Lockhart stand it let alone like it?
Suppressing a shudder Harry asked the obvious question now, what were they going to do? There was only one thing he could possibly think of since neither he nor Ginny were Hermione. No doubt she’d be using the time to study. That left them to ask Tom for something, anything. Even if it meant interrupting him.
“You’re plotting Potter” Ginny said accusingly, though the glint in her brown eyes were mischievous.
“Well Miss Weasley” Harry started with his best Snape impersonation, sneer and all, “Unlike my marvelously idiotic boy, Mr. Malfoy, I feel there are better ways to entertain myself than doing nothing.”
Ginny giggled at that but still cocked her head questioningly, “Oh?”
Harry nodded and smoothed over his face so as not to look like a greasy haired git and spoke, “Tilly?”
With an enthused pop, a young house elf appeared on the table with a sideways stumbling step as her feet caught themselves on her maroon and gold robe like pillowcase. At the last instant though she righted herself before she could actually fall off the table top.
Tilly like many house elves was small, though slightly more so than Dobby had been and also plainly to see, younger. Or at least as far as Harry could gather she was, as he had never seen a female house elf before, he could only guess what a young female house elf looked like. In fact the other so called House-Elves of Hogwarts had never attended Harry and Ginny’s service. That being said, she did seem like she was better suited to being considered a teenager house-elf, as she was always stumbling about as she wasn’t quite use to growing up. Furthermore she had hair, loosely cropped though it was, of a sandy blond coloring that bounced around almost as much as she did.
“Yes Master and Missus Pottsley?” she squeaked as her long slender ears perked up.
Harry grimaced at the name, “Tilly do you know where Tom is?”
The House Elf practically started to vibrate like Uncle Vernon’s pocket pager right towards the edge of the table, “Yes! Yes, Tilly knows, shall Tilly goes gets him?”
Harry shook his head and in the corner of his eye he could see Ginny doing the same, though for what reason he wasn’t sure why, “No, we just want to know where he is.”
Tilly nodded, “Master Toms is in the deputesmaster study!”
“You mean Deputy-Headmaster’s Study?” Ginny queried.
Tilly began to vibrate again, inching even closer to the edge, “Yes! Thats!”
Harry and Ginny shared a look. In their entire time at Hogwarts, they never known Professor McGonagall to ever have a study, let alone use it. It was always her office, her chambers, the transfiguration room or the Library.
Reading their faces, Tilly began to hop excitedly, “Tilly can shows master and missus Pottsley!”
Both uttered a polite “Please” and before they knew it they were following the excitable House-Elf out of the library and through the halls. Harry also noted that surprisingly all the stairs and bridges were oddly aligned in the proper direction to get to where ever they seemed to be heading. Normally they seemed to zip this way, twirl that way or half the time in transition. Both before and after arrival, however this time that was not that case.
Ginny it seems was thinking the same thing as she spoke up right when the words were on Harry’s tongue, “Tilly, are you controlling the stairs?”
The house-elf nearly tumbled as she tripped over her ‘robe’s’ hem to look back at them and nod vigorously, “Tilly is! Master Toms told Tilly the secret, yous just Wills it at the direction yous wants and theys takes you there!”
Harry didn’t dare confirm Ginny’s surprise as they both leaped over the 1st floor’s vanishing trick step. Hogwarts in their time never was like that, why Ron and Harry on their first day to transfiguration class had tried to do everything in the power, short of kicking the stairs, to get them to turn in the right direction. Tapping their wands certainly hadn’t worked either. Tom really must have been updating Hogwarts!
Had Dumbledore done the same when had become Headmaster?
Immediately Harry began to recognize where they were, the central tower the home of the clock and bells, and more specifically where their rooms were on the third floor, just above the Great Hall. They hadn’t really explored all that much in this tower though they both, Harry was sure, remembered the rumors about how the Central Tower was taller on the inside. It was said that at least once a year a search party had to be sent out for a student who had gone up above the 7th floor of the tower’s top.
Hermione had always been threatening to explore it but with the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone and later the Chamber of Secrets being opened, he didn’t think she had ever found the time.
A pang of guilt threatened to trip him much like their guide only it wasn’t from the hem of his robes. He missed them both, Ron and Hermione, but Tom had tried to summon them. In the end though it hadn’t worked, something had block Tom’s every attempts, something to do with him not being familiar with them.
Tilly led them up quickly one more flight of stairs before the reached a heavy set door that was reinforced with black iron or steel. The wood was a richly carved mahogany that had been set with both runes and a stylized design of all four founders raising the castle. No portraits protected it, no gargoyle defending it. Just a large door and a mighty knocker.
“That’s a big knocker,” Harry commented.
“I don’t know, I think she might be a bit lopsided.” Ginny quipped before turning red and began fighting what looked like a fit of giggles.
Harry just looked at her trying to figure out what she meant before his brain clicked. More specifically thinking back to a movie that Uncle Vernon had loved but had Aunt Petunia scandalized. Knockers…
Boobs.
Ginny-
A great heat filled Harry as he looked from Ginny’s face to her chest which seemed to just set the girl off in furious blushing and equally loud laughing. It was perhaps a full half minute before either one got their self-control and noticed that the door was gone, or more accurately open with Tom standing in its frame looking slightly perplexed.
They both stilled as Tilly disappeared with a pop. It was only after the House-Elf was gone that Harry noticed how harried their benefactor looked. His robes were bloodied, his normally refined hair mussed and there were the beginnings of circles under his eyes. Considering Tom had been a book before all this, his state seemed slightly concerning.
“Tom, are you alright?” Ginny gasped in concern, seemingly spying the same blood that Harry had.
Glancing down at himself in the same direction the duo had, Tom only shook his head, “Mostly, I had to make a statement and deal with some riffraff in the Forbidden Forest. Thankfully they were about as smart as trolls, and not nearly as tough.”
In a flicker of movement his wand just appeared in his hand and scoured the stains away like Snape had so effortlessly removed contents of cauldrons. Another bobbing of his head to check the accessible areas gave Harry a moment to watch in wonder that Tom actually seemed human for once. When Harry could see that Tom was satisfied, he nodded to himself and looked back to them.
“So what brings you two my study?” Tom asked offhandedly.
“We’re bored!” Harry and Ginny practically yelled out at the same time.
Tom raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem particularly surprised but he also didn’t look like he had any idea that such a thing would be his responsibility. In fact more than anything the calculating glance on his face made him seem truly more a Slytherin now than at any other time that Harry could remember. Ron would probably have pitched a fit. Finally though whatever internal debate that had been warring within the older boy resolved.
Tom pulled back from the door’s threshold, “come on in,” he said with an ushering wave.
The room Harry found himself in, with Ginny, reminded him very much of Snape’s own office only with more books, simpler potions equipment and a giant orb of black-silver that… felt impossible, almost wrong. And Harry considered himself quite the expert on seeing the impossible; considering the many times he had used magic before he even knew it was magic! But something about it just rubbed him the wrong way even it seemed strangely familiar.
Without any fanfare Tom sat down on the edge of the counter that held his potions equipment and asked, “So what has you so bored?”
Harry blinked at that. Shouldn’t it be obvious?
A sigh escaped Tom’s lips, “People often don’t know what they want. Let that be a first lesson for you two. You came here because that this place is monotonous but not knowing what would rectify the circumstances that caused this state. And while I am the obvious answer to fixing this particular woe… I cannot conjure up without at least a better idea of what it is you want.”
Harry’s mind ground to a halt while he tried to process what Tom had just said.
“People” Ginny said desperately, “Places to be with them. Like you did with us but those who you can summon. Those from your time.”
Harry nodded in agreement, as he caught on to what Ginny was saying, “Tilly’s nice and all but I’d take professor Snape just for a change of pace.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed as he bowed his head for a moment, chuckling, “Alright. I can work with that though I suspect even Professor Snape is beyond my abilities.”
Harry and Ginny exhaled a breath that neither of them had realized they were holding and scrambled to follow Tom as he moved from his seat to the fireplace, though why Tom would need-
“Floo powder!” Ginny exclaimed.
Harry leaned to peer over her shoulder. They were still sharing a hand but this close to the wall was making it a difficult to position- he caught sight of exactly what she had said. Why hadn’t they notice that before on the fireplaces? Or was this the only one? Swallowing his questions Harry shelved them as a mystery for another time.
“We’re going to the Astonomy Tower, more specifically the Observatory.” Tom said simply as he passed a handful of the powder to each of them before he himself disappeared into a bellowing emerald flame and a command “The Observatory”.
Squeezing her fingers Harry didn’t look forward to his second experience with the powder, “Together?”
A light blush crossed Ginny’s face but she nodded, “Don’t want to end up in Knockturn Alley again?”
“Definitely not,” Harry agreed.
Grinning at each other, they threw the dust and said as one, “The Observatory!”
Stone brick and grates flew passed them and the sensation of gravity quickly lost its hold on them. With each exit they saw flashes of something outside. It wasn’t Hogwarts but something else, like pure space but distorted with floating streaks of glowing runes. Quickly though Harry noticed that there was also a lot of mist seeping in as well and it swirled behind them like-
A fireplace’s maw ahead of them opened up like a snake’s unhinging mouth before open air met them as they flew out into the power arms of Tom before they could face plant into the ground.
“Bit of advice when using the Floo, keep walking even when moving through the network.” Tom said with an exasperated note.
After situating themselves, on their own two sets of feet, Harry was finally able to look around at the bleary grey sky. This ever present cloud layer was getting old in Harry’s opinion which really was going to make midnight astronomy classes far more difficult. And those classes were difficult enough.
Looking back behind him he could see that the fireplace was set as a circular spire at the center of the tower’s radius. Big enough where multiple people could use it for warmth and travel, though oddly enough he didn’t see any stone hands sticking out with cups of floo powder like there had been in Tom’s Study.
Feeling the tug of someone’s gaze Harry turned to face Ginny whose own expression reflected his thoughts. What did the Astronomy Tower’s observation area have to do with giving them something fun to do? Then again he had done so many things since they had arrived it was hard to believe that anything was out of the older boy’s grasp. He had done things they didn’t even know if Professor Dumbledore was capable of.
Turning to Tom, they found he was gazing out west just as the foggy moon was rising on the horizon. But more importantly a silver glow was starting to overtake him along with mother of pearl iridescent colors. With his wand in hand still from when he had first cleaned his robes, Tom drew a sunset-crimson line across the horizon and swiveled around. The line rapidly began to expand and formed a concentric ring with the tower itself. Another lazy wand movement caused the circle to fracture into a wire mesh sphere of hexagons.
“Omnilium is the power to make anything. Magic it seems though makes it easier to wield.”
Harry’s brow creased as he thought on that, omnilium like the Omniverse they were in now? Did that make the stuff liquid reality? Maybe something they could brew in a potion…-
“And with magic we can do anything and omnilium makes it more powerful.” Tom continued as he began tracing runes which moved to various points in the burning sphere that had surrounded them.
Harry perked up, “That means the two are circular.”
Tom inclined his head to Harry, “Ten points to Gryffindor. And because of that I can use what is already here to empower raw omnilium as well.”
Moving away from the wall’s ledge, Ton began casting his wand this way and that, releasing molten jets of light that like his own skin had a metallic rainbow like sheen. The more he seemed to work the more complex the sphere that surrounded them seemed to get as the globules of the reality stuff flew off like missiles to the grounds below. Some into the castle, most further out. This kept up until he was practically dancing with his wand plucking a hexagonal strands; creating and breaking connections into complex shapes until Harry was starting to recognize something.
It looked like a rounded out version of a village. Some points were oddly familiar, others not so much. Wherever a building existed he’d fire more omnilium through it and another rune would disappear as if it were so much spiders web hooked on those time missile like droplets. And then he stopped.
Both Harry and Ginny felt their pulse quicken a rumble shook them in time with Tom lifting his wand once more. And then again into a growing shudder, but this time at his words, “Terra reformos!” It was the same dog latin that Harry was used to hearing but there was another quality to it, a command that expected to be headed… only it was to people but the world around them.
The listening world responded.
Everywhere at once things began to happen causing birds to escape into the air from the distant forests around them, from the ground itself as cracks and crevices began to shift across the entire landscape. Hogwarts was even getting taller and fountains of water into waterfall erupting from below the Entrance Hall. Even more awe inspire though was that the lake that had been fairly shallow to the naked eye was gradually darkening at its center. Deepening, widening.
A gasp from Ginny though averted his eyes to another location as he could see stone, wood and other things rising from the ground but more striking was where stone was predominantly sprouting almost like trees in time lapse. Ginny’s hand tightened sudden as she gave a shout, “Its Gringotts!”
Catching her meaning, Harry looked around for other spots of familiarity and crowd when he realized the general layout, “Hogsmeade too!”
Tom however didn’t reply as he was totally enthralled in whatever work the magic required. But over the next ten minutes Harry and Ginny tried to name as many of the buildings as they grew out from the fen. Slowly though Harry was starting to realize just who was the superior wizard. Tom was literally creating an entire village alone, something it would have taken teams of wizards and witch generations to do and had taken. He had even raised Hogwarts and actually make it make sense after it had been explained to them by Tilly.
Just when they thought he was done though Tom had one more trick to pull out of his hat, thankfully not literally, but one last swoop of his hand and wand in the furthest distances of the now larger open area that surrounded the castle. A heavy wall was growing much like Gringotts had done, only this time it seemed… more powerful. Like it meant to serve a purpose.
A defensive barricade that towered over the trees, separate the fen from the forest, though in the case of the north side cut through a portion. Harry could already see where soldiers or wizards in this case could patrol it. Which brought up the question, who would? The barrier was growing huge, circling the Hogwart’s grounds that was acres upon acres of land now.
Seemingly reading his mind Tom finally slumped a bit and spoke, “That’s as much as I can do for now. I summoned everyone I could remember from Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley… there’s also a Cultor Alley which will be where agricultural development will be most needed but with nothing else to work with we will need to recruit people. Perhaps from Darkshire.”
Darkshire? That was the muggle village down west of them.
“Now if you don’t mind I’d like to rest. It’s been a long day; I suggest you visit the Three Broom Sticks. Try not to alarm them.” Tom said warily.
Harry and Ginny nodded bade Tom a good day as he stumbled to the fire and was consumed by emerald heat. Neither one caught what he said though to command it to take him to.
Tom was rarely ever available, trying to shore up the school.
There was the occasional House Elf who would bring them anything they wanted but they seemed lack Dobby’s communication skills or simply were unused to having a conversation. Whatever the case was, the two of them were lacking in entertainment, which was maddening.
With a quiet grunt he bookmarked and closed the completed works of HP Lovecraft before setting it on the table, careful to not try and wake Ginny up. In the last few days it was hard not to feel somewhat protective over her. She was the only person who really seemed to care, more so than Tom.
“H-Harry?“ his partner yawned out, apparently blinking herself awake only for her to jump when she realized the position she’d been in.
Harry winced, so much for not disturbing her. “Yeah Ginny?”
“S-sorry! I hadn’t r-realized-“ She stuttered out before Harry cut off her budding tirade of misplaced guilt.
“Its fine, we’re here together, might as well get used to each other’s company.” Harry said hesitantly before as he grabbed her hand. That always seemed to calm her some for whatever reason. It still felt weird. Touching someone but… if it helped her then what was just one hand? The blush it often elicited was also a bonus. Not uncommon, slightly predictable even, but enough to at least add some variation to the day.
Ginny flashed him a freckled, grateful if expectant smile.
Now if only he could get her to stop expecting him be able to pull the moon out from the sky. How could Lockhart stand it let alone like it?
Suppressing a shudder Harry asked the obvious question now, what were they going to do? There was only one thing he could possibly think of since neither he nor Ginny were Hermione. No doubt she’d be using the time to study. That left them to ask Tom for something, anything. Even if it meant interrupting him.
“You’re plotting Potter” Ginny said accusingly, though the glint in her brown eyes were mischievous.
“Well Miss Weasley” Harry started with his best Snape impersonation, sneer and all, “Unlike my marvelously idiotic boy, Mr. Malfoy, I feel there are better ways to entertain myself than doing nothing.”
Ginny giggled at that but still cocked her head questioningly, “Oh?”
Harry nodded and smoothed over his face so as not to look like a greasy haired git and spoke, “Tilly?”
With an enthused pop, a young house elf appeared on the table with a sideways stumbling step as her feet caught themselves on her maroon and gold robe like pillowcase. At the last instant though she righted herself before she could actually fall off the table top.
Tilly like many house elves was small, though slightly more so than Dobby had been and also plainly to see, younger. Or at least as far as Harry could gather she was, as he had never seen a female house elf before, he could only guess what a young female house elf looked like. In fact the other so called House-Elves of Hogwarts had never attended Harry and Ginny’s service. That being said, she did seem like she was better suited to being considered a teenager house-elf, as she was always stumbling about as she wasn’t quite use to growing up. Furthermore she had hair, loosely cropped though it was, of a sandy blond coloring that bounced around almost as much as she did.
“Yes Master and Missus Pottsley?” she squeaked as her long slender ears perked up.
Harry grimaced at the name, “Tilly do you know where Tom is?”
The House Elf practically started to vibrate like Uncle Vernon’s pocket pager right towards the edge of the table, “Yes! Yes, Tilly knows, shall Tilly goes gets him?”
Harry shook his head and in the corner of his eye he could see Ginny doing the same, though for what reason he wasn’t sure why, “No, we just want to know where he is.”
Tilly nodded, “Master Toms is in the deputesmaster study!”
“You mean Deputy-Headmaster’s Study?” Ginny queried.
Tilly began to vibrate again, inching even closer to the edge, “Yes! Thats!”
Harry and Ginny shared a look. In their entire time at Hogwarts, they never known Professor McGonagall to ever have a study, let alone use it. It was always her office, her chambers, the transfiguration room or the Library.
Reading their faces, Tilly began to hop excitedly, “Tilly can shows master and missus Pottsley!”
Both uttered a polite “Please” and before they knew it they were following the excitable House-Elf out of the library and through the halls. Harry also noted that surprisingly all the stairs and bridges were oddly aligned in the proper direction to get to where ever they seemed to be heading. Normally they seemed to zip this way, twirl that way or half the time in transition. Both before and after arrival, however this time that was not that case.
Ginny it seems was thinking the same thing as she spoke up right when the words were on Harry’s tongue, “Tilly, are you controlling the stairs?”
The house-elf nearly tumbled as she tripped over her ‘robe’s’ hem to look back at them and nod vigorously, “Tilly is! Master Toms told Tilly the secret, yous just Wills it at the direction yous wants and theys takes you there!”
Harry didn’t dare confirm Ginny’s surprise as they both leaped over the 1st floor’s vanishing trick step. Hogwarts in their time never was like that, why Ron and Harry on their first day to transfiguration class had tried to do everything in the power, short of kicking the stairs, to get them to turn in the right direction. Tapping their wands certainly hadn’t worked either. Tom really must have been updating Hogwarts!
Had Dumbledore done the same when had become Headmaster?
Immediately Harry began to recognize where they were, the central tower the home of the clock and bells, and more specifically where their rooms were on the third floor, just above the Great Hall. They hadn’t really explored all that much in this tower though they both, Harry was sure, remembered the rumors about how the Central Tower was taller on the inside. It was said that at least once a year a search party had to be sent out for a student who had gone up above the 7th floor of the tower’s top.
Hermione had always been threatening to explore it but with the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone and later the Chamber of Secrets being opened, he didn’t think she had ever found the time.
A pang of guilt threatened to trip him much like their guide only it wasn’t from the hem of his robes. He missed them both, Ron and Hermione, but Tom had tried to summon them. In the end though it hadn’t worked, something had block Tom’s every attempts, something to do with him not being familiar with them.
Tilly led them up quickly one more flight of stairs before the reached a heavy set door that was reinforced with black iron or steel. The wood was a richly carved mahogany that had been set with both runes and a stylized design of all four founders raising the castle. No portraits protected it, no gargoyle defending it. Just a large door and a mighty knocker.
“That’s a big knocker,” Harry commented.
“I don’t know, I think she might be a bit lopsided.” Ginny quipped before turning red and began fighting what looked like a fit of giggles.
Harry just looked at her trying to figure out what she meant before his brain clicked. More specifically thinking back to a movie that Uncle Vernon had loved but had Aunt Petunia scandalized. Knockers…
Boobs.
Ginny-
A great heat filled Harry as he looked from Ginny’s face to her chest which seemed to just set the girl off in furious blushing and equally loud laughing. It was perhaps a full half minute before either one got their self-control and noticed that the door was gone, or more accurately open with Tom standing in its frame looking slightly perplexed.
They both stilled as Tilly disappeared with a pop. It was only after the House-Elf was gone that Harry noticed how harried their benefactor looked. His robes were bloodied, his normally refined hair mussed and there were the beginnings of circles under his eyes. Considering Tom had been a book before all this, his state seemed slightly concerning.
“Tom, are you alright?” Ginny gasped in concern, seemingly spying the same blood that Harry had.
Glancing down at himself in the same direction the duo had, Tom only shook his head, “Mostly, I had to make a statement and deal with some riffraff in the Forbidden Forest. Thankfully they were about as smart as trolls, and not nearly as tough.”
In a flicker of movement his wand just appeared in his hand and scoured the stains away like Snape had so effortlessly removed contents of cauldrons. Another bobbing of his head to check the accessible areas gave Harry a moment to watch in wonder that Tom actually seemed human for once. When Harry could see that Tom was satisfied, he nodded to himself and looked back to them.
“So what brings you two my study?” Tom asked offhandedly.
“We’re bored!” Harry and Ginny practically yelled out at the same time.
Tom raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem particularly surprised but he also didn’t look like he had any idea that such a thing would be his responsibility. In fact more than anything the calculating glance on his face made him seem truly more a Slytherin now than at any other time that Harry could remember. Ron would probably have pitched a fit. Finally though whatever internal debate that had been warring within the older boy resolved.
Tom pulled back from the door’s threshold, “come on in,” he said with an ushering wave.
The room Harry found himself in, with Ginny, reminded him very much of Snape’s own office only with more books, simpler potions equipment and a giant orb of black-silver that… felt impossible, almost wrong. And Harry considered himself quite the expert on seeing the impossible; considering the many times he had used magic before he even knew it was magic! But something about it just rubbed him the wrong way even it seemed strangely familiar.
Without any fanfare Tom sat down on the edge of the counter that held his potions equipment and asked, “So what has you so bored?”
Harry blinked at that. Shouldn’t it be obvious?
A sigh escaped Tom’s lips, “People often don’t know what they want. Let that be a first lesson for you two. You came here because that this place is monotonous but not knowing what would rectify the circumstances that caused this state. And while I am the obvious answer to fixing this particular woe… I cannot conjure up without at least a better idea of what it is you want.”
Harry’s mind ground to a halt while he tried to process what Tom had just said.
“People” Ginny said desperately, “Places to be with them. Like you did with us but those who you can summon. Those from your time.”
Harry nodded in agreement, as he caught on to what Ginny was saying, “Tilly’s nice and all but I’d take professor Snape just for a change of pace.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed as he bowed his head for a moment, chuckling, “Alright. I can work with that though I suspect even Professor Snape is beyond my abilities.”
Harry and Ginny exhaled a breath that neither of them had realized they were holding and scrambled to follow Tom as he moved from his seat to the fireplace, though why Tom would need-
“Floo powder!” Ginny exclaimed.
Harry leaned to peer over her shoulder. They were still sharing a hand but this close to the wall was making it a difficult to position- he caught sight of exactly what she had said. Why hadn’t they notice that before on the fireplaces? Or was this the only one? Swallowing his questions Harry shelved them as a mystery for another time.
“We’re going to the Astonomy Tower, more specifically the Observatory.” Tom said simply as he passed a handful of the powder to each of them before he himself disappeared into a bellowing emerald flame and a command “The Observatory”.
Squeezing her fingers Harry didn’t look forward to his second experience with the powder, “Together?”
A light blush crossed Ginny’s face but she nodded, “Don’t want to end up in Knockturn Alley again?”
“Definitely not,” Harry agreed.
Grinning at each other, they threw the dust and said as one, “The Observatory!”
Stone brick and grates flew passed them and the sensation of gravity quickly lost its hold on them. With each exit they saw flashes of something outside. It wasn’t Hogwarts but something else, like pure space but distorted with floating streaks of glowing runes. Quickly though Harry noticed that there was also a lot of mist seeping in as well and it swirled behind them like-
A fireplace’s maw ahead of them opened up like a snake’s unhinging mouth before open air met them as they flew out into the power arms of Tom before they could face plant into the ground.
“Bit of advice when using the Floo, keep walking even when moving through the network.” Tom said with an exasperated note.
After situating themselves, on their own two sets of feet, Harry was finally able to look around at the bleary grey sky. This ever present cloud layer was getting old in Harry’s opinion which really was going to make midnight astronomy classes far more difficult. And those classes were difficult enough.
Looking back behind him he could see that the fireplace was set as a circular spire at the center of the tower’s radius. Big enough where multiple people could use it for warmth and travel, though oddly enough he didn’t see any stone hands sticking out with cups of floo powder like there had been in Tom’s Study.
Feeling the tug of someone’s gaze Harry turned to face Ginny whose own expression reflected his thoughts. What did the Astronomy Tower’s observation area have to do with giving them something fun to do? Then again he had done so many things since they had arrived it was hard to believe that anything was out of the older boy’s grasp. He had done things they didn’t even know if Professor Dumbledore was capable of.
Turning to Tom, they found he was gazing out west just as the foggy moon was rising on the horizon. But more importantly a silver glow was starting to overtake him along with mother of pearl iridescent colors. With his wand in hand still from when he had first cleaned his robes, Tom drew a sunset-crimson line across the horizon and swiveled around. The line rapidly began to expand and formed a concentric ring with the tower itself. Another lazy wand movement caused the circle to fracture into a wire mesh sphere of hexagons.
“Omnilium is the power to make anything. Magic it seems though makes it easier to wield.”
Harry’s brow creased as he thought on that, omnilium like the Omniverse they were in now? Did that make the stuff liquid reality? Maybe something they could brew in a potion…-
“And with magic we can do anything and omnilium makes it more powerful.” Tom continued as he began tracing runes which moved to various points in the burning sphere that had surrounded them.
Harry perked up, “That means the two are circular.”
Tom inclined his head to Harry, “Ten points to Gryffindor. And because of that I can use what is already here to empower raw omnilium as well.”
Moving away from the wall’s ledge, Ton began casting his wand this way and that, releasing molten jets of light that like his own skin had a metallic rainbow like sheen. The more he seemed to work the more complex the sphere that surrounded them seemed to get as the globules of the reality stuff flew off like missiles to the grounds below. Some into the castle, most further out. This kept up until he was practically dancing with his wand plucking a hexagonal strands; creating and breaking connections into complex shapes until Harry was starting to recognize something.
It looked like a rounded out version of a village. Some points were oddly familiar, others not so much. Wherever a building existed he’d fire more omnilium through it and another rune would disappear as if it were so much spiders web hooked on those time missile like droplets. And then he stopped.
Both Harry and Ginny felt their pulse quicken a rumble shook them in time with Tom lifting his wand once more. And then again into a growing shudder, but this time at his words, “Terra reformos!” It was the same dog latin that Harry was used to hearing but there was another quality to it, a command that expected to be headed… only it was to people but the world around them.
The listening world responded.
Everywhere at once things began to happen causing birds to escape into the air from the distant forests around them, from the ground itself as cracks and crevices began to shift across the entire landscape. Hogwarts was even getting taller and fountains of water into waterfall erupting from below the Entrance Hall. Even more awe inspire though was that the lake that had been fairly shallow to the naked eye was gradually darkening at its center. Deepening, widening.
A gasp from Ginny though averted his eyes to another location as he could see stone, wood and other things rising from the ground but more striking was where stone was predominantly sprouting almost like trees in time lapse. Ginny’s hand tightened sudden as she gave a shout, “Its Gringotts!”
Catching her meaning, Harry looked around for other spots of familiarity and crowd when he realized the general layout, “Hogsmeade too!”
Tom however didn’t reply as he was totally enthralled in whatever work the magic required. But over the next ten minutes Harry and Ginny tried to name as many of the buildings as they grew out from the fen. Slowly though Harry was starting to realize just who was the superior wizard. Tom was literally creating an entire village alone, something it would have taken teams of wizards and witch generations to do and had taken. He had even raised Hogwarts and actually make it make sense after it had been explained to them by Tilly.
Just when they thought he was done though Tom had one more trick to pull out of his hat, thankfully not literally, but one last swoop of his hand and wand in the furthest distances of the now larger open area that surrounded the castle. A heavy wall was growing much like Gringotts had done, only this time it seemed… more powerful. Like it meant to serve a purpose.
A defensive barricade that towered over the trees, separate the fen from the forest, though in the case of the north side cut through a portion. Harry could already see where soldiers or wizards in this case could patrol it. Which brought up the question, who would? The barrier was growing huge, circling the Hogwart’s grounds that was acres upon acres of land now.
Seemingly reading his mind Tom finally slumped a bit and spoke, “That’s as much as I can do for now. I summoned everyone I could remember from Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley… there’s also a Cultor Alley which will be where agricultural development will be most needed but with nothing else to work with we will need to recruit people. Perhaps from Darkshire.”
Darkshire? That was the muggle village down west of them.
“Now if you don’t mind I’d like to rest. It’s been a long day; I suggest you visit the Three Broom Sticks. Try not to alarm them.” Tom said warily.
Harry and Ginny nodded bade Tom a good day as he stumbled to the fire and was consumed by emerald heat. Neither one caught what he said though to command it to take him to.