The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 50

“You discovered Hogwarts’ sentient ward room and you took our Lord to see it and you never even told me?” Barty had a look of utter hurt and betrayal on his face after Harry was done telling him about his discoveries.

Well, when you put it like that, Harry did feel a bit bad about forgetting to include Barty in his amazing discoveries. “Sorry. I’ll take you to see it next Saturday. Just have Tom side-apparate you to the Chamber of Secrets, and we’ll use the invisibility cloak.”

Barty’s face cleared up at once and he gave Harry a huge grin. “Deal. If you do that, I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Harry sighed, letting himself fall back onto his bed in sheer relief. “The Flamels insist I write a paper about my discoveries but I have no idea how to write one.”

“All right, get some paper and quill,” Barty said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, not at all put off by the idea of advanced academics. If anything, he looked like this was his moment to shine, finally.

Harry scrambled for his trunk and got what he needed and then he spent an hour listening to Barty lecture about academic papers while Harry took notes as if his life depended on it. Possibly also his sanity. But Barty was an excellent teacher and when they said their goodbyes Harry had an idea of where to start at least. Barty also promised to read through every draft Harry sent him and correct what was needed.

As he turned on his side, Harry placed the mirror beside the other communication mirrors he now had. One from Sirius, and one from the Flamels. This was getting ludicrous. Imagine if he eventually also made some mirrors for his friends, so they could easily talk over he summer. He’d be stuck with a dozen mirrors then.

Frowning, Harry turned on his back and stared at the green curtains above him. That was a great idea, actually. If they all had mirrors they could easily talk throughout the summer, perhaps set up some dates to meet up in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. And when Harry decided to quite Hogwarts early, which he was fairly certain he would at some point, he could still keep in touch with his friends here and keep those relationships current and active. Besides, Harry truly wanted to stay in touch with his friends. He’d miss them whenever he finally decided to leave Hogwarts behind.

That could be a new project, though, couldn’t it? While he worked diligently on writing the paper on sentient wards, Harry could start constructing a communications mirror that could hold as many contacts as was needed. Or that worked with specific identifiers, like a number for a muggle telephone. It was just about February, so that gave Harry a month or four to get the project done before they went home for the summer.

As Harry’s eyes drooped shut he made a mental note to talk to Tom about this. His soulmate knew how to create communication mirror from scratch, so he was bound to have some decent advice.

“It’s a lot more complicated than it seems,” Tom told him the next evening after Harry explained his new project to him. “The reason I was able to link our three mirrors was because they were together when I created them. That is not a problem. But it is as of yet impossible to add a mirror that wasn’t in the vicinity to it after the creation of the main mirror.”

“Okay,” Harry whispered with a thoughtful frown. “So I can at least make one mirror for all my friends, as long as I create them all at the same time.”

Tom nodded in agreement. “Exactly. But you cannot add your Godfather’s mirror to ours. That is something you must work on if that is what you want to do. I suspect you’ll need a better grasp of ancient runes than you have now.”