~ Back at Hogwarts.
Inside Harry's room something strange was happening to all the people that were observing. A cheerful little girl was eating her ice-cream while an older boy with an exhausted look was sitting across from her.
"What about this one, Luna?" Harry made a green fireball in his hand, it was his Soul Eating Flames.
"Green, that shade." Luna pointed at a piece of paper.
"Bright purple, hmm, looks similar to that one."
"Blue! What a pretty color! Oh, right, it's this color." Luna forgot about her job for a moment and then pointed at another piece of paper.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hope watched with a confused look on her face. The room was filled with colored pieces of paper. And if she wasn't wrong. This was probably every color in existence. There were hundreds of them.
Harry turned to Hope with tired eyes. "I have absolutely no idea."
"Ha?" Hope just looked at him with her jaw dropped. She quickly pinched herself to make sure this wasn't a dream. Then the panic set in. 'Is this the end of the world?'
WshhhSmack
"Oww" Hope rubbed her forehead, Harry had just thrown a piece of candy at her
"I can read your thoughts just by your face. No, the world isn't ending, and yes even I don't know everything. That's what learning is all about, acquiring knowledge you do not possess. Anyway, I'm just using different kinds of magic and Luna tells me what color she sees. I have no idea what it means, but I'm documenting it just in case I make a breakthrough later."
"So you are just showing her spells and she tells you the color? Wouldn't some spells have similar colors"
Harry just sighed, Hope could feel the exhaustion getting to him "You would think that is the logical step. But NOO~ I showed her five different water spells and she told me five colors, only three were even somewhat similar.
She specifically said that the water snake looks like brown fire. How does that make any sense whatsoever!? I don't understand. Is she measuring power? Magical Nature? Or just what effect the spell has?
It's confusing and just absurd. That's why I decided I'm just going to document all of it and leave this problem for future Harry to solve"
Hope deadpanned at him "You sound like the students who puts off their homework until next week"
"Like me~!" Luna cheered entering the conversation
'She really is too adorable' Hope smiled at the little girl's antics before she turned to Harry "Weren't you looking for the hidden room?"
"Oh I already found it. It has a password so I'm leaving it for later"
Hope gave him a look of disbelief "Huh? Then why are you here? Usually you would be cracking the code with a maniacal grin on your face. You love safecracking, just like you did with Dumbledore's office"
Harry shook his head "First of all, I cheated with Dumbles Office. His office already had the passwords there, I just tried them all until I got the right one. Second, you are underestimating the danger of the hidden rooms.
Most Headmasters reach high Low Class or beginner Mid Class in their lifetimes. Yet none of them returned or even managed to send a message for help. I'm not going anywhere near it until I am fully prepared."
"That's,,, actually mature of you. Are you feeling ill? Did you catch a cold?"
Harry deadpanned at Hope "Har, har, har"
Hope chuckled before continuing "But do you need to take it so seriously? Even the founders are no match for you, what could they have built that could threaten you besides the Basilisk, which was so dangerous due to its age."
"Who said they built it?" Harry says in a serious tone startling Hope. "Never take information at face value Hope. It's well known who built the castle and I'm sure there is a book somewhere that mentions who built the hidden rooms, the date and etcetera.
But remember, we have magic. If the creator really wanted to keep it a secret he could have mind controlled someone to take all the credit. And when people learn some old rich guy, but terrible with magic built them, they rush in, triggering the traps there.
Hell the room might be traps themselves, this is a cliche trap where people go in for greed, get killed and possibly sacrificed to feed something. So if I'm going in, I'm making damn sure I will stay alive and have enough explosives to blow up anything that is in there"
Hope's eye twitched "Harry this is a school. You can't blow it up"
Harry just raised an eyebrow "Is that a challenge?"
And Hope immediately regrated her words "Please don't blow up the school, i just added new decorations to our room"
Harry smirked "No promises"
"Will there be fireworks?" Luna tilted her head causing Harry to chuckle and pat her head " Yeah, really big ones, you could see them from Hogsmeade"
'Not good, he is getting more comfortable with that idea. I have to change the subject and distract him.'
"Harry, what are other clones doing?"
Harry turned to her after a moment of silence, she knew he was just looking at the latest memories he just got.
"Well myself of course is in Hogwarts, given the little danger here I'm a low priority Fragment. Meaning I get less power since I mostly deal with brainstorming, Room of Innovation, discovering Hogwarts Secrets and keeping an eye on this here.
Next are the three fragments at home. One is focused on the Manor's Defense, also low priority. Third one is messing around with the Greenhouses, but he deals with the plants, potions and poisons."
Hope nodded, clearly paying attention to Harry's long list of projects and chores.
"Fourth one is with Helena testing out different Vessels for her, he handles upgrading weapon enchantments designs and the Pots. Third and Fourth together handle the factories with the golems and workers.
Fifth is John Constantine, that cover is useful for information gathering, material gathering and making magical contacts. Now he is a High Priority Fragment since he fights a lot. I mostly keep him Mid Class in strength but that can change.
Sixth is Nicholas Black, my persona for doing business and investments. In mundane, magical and supernatural communities. Since he is a business man i keep him Low priority, high Low Class.
Seventh is on his way to the Chinese Factions to gather information and inspiration for projects. Also High Priority, strength can be adjusted as needed.
Fragment Eight is the ace in the pocket. The HUB. I can freely switch this position depending on the situation, but its mostly me and fragment Eight. He sits at home and trains, all the power is there and he sorts through information. Making everything more efficient for all the other fragments.
Fragment Nine is working on the fire spells and researching the Wyvern Flames.
I also have one more Low Priority that is going around making safe houses, gathering information from prisoners and doing experiments on them. He is Mid Priority. And these are all the fragments I have currently. Ten people, but all part of one whole."
Hope had a look of awe as she was reminded once again how ridiculous Harry was. It was easy to forget with his antics and personality, but the boy in front of her was really something special.
The workload of an entire organization and he handles most of it alone.
'Wait a minute' Hope realized something "Harry your Seventh Fragment has been gone for quite a while, you mentioned this before. Shouldn't he already be there with teleportation?"
Harry shook his head "Nope, he didn't teleport there. Seventh is going to be infiltrating their society to learn and steal a few things. He is currently in Hong Kong learning the language, I never studied Chinese since it was useless to my magic spells and we had translation spells the last time we went there.
But if its infiltration, those aren't going to cut it, the wuxia bastards will notice the spell and it can't nail down accents. So he is going to be kidnaping a few 'rogue cultivators' and interrogating them."
Hope nodded at his answer, that made things clearer. The insane workload Harry put's himself under. Even if she knew some of that beforehand, being organized like this really is mind blowing.
Harry is a literal One Man Army. Research and Development. Information Gathering. Management, Business and Defense. What would take teams and teams of people to accomplish Harry does alone.
Hope clenched her fist frustrated at her own lack of ability to help him more. " Harry can you teach me how to make a permanent Clone like you. The Level 3 clone, I know I'm good with just Thought Projection and should work more on semi-permanent clones to make them last longer. But what kind of assistant would I be if I could only help out with 1/8th of your workload. "
Hope can make clones, but she isn't very good at keeping them on full time, the memory overload is too much for her.
Harry just smiled and patted her head while also being careful not to mess up her hair
"Of course I will help you. I didn't want to rush you, everybody grows at their own pace, sometimes it's slower, other time growth just explodes exponentially." seeing that Hope relaxed a bit Harry continued
"And don't stress yourself about not being able to help. That takes time, you are still young and in your growth phase. It will also take time for the others to become at last as competent as you are now. When that happens my workload will be lighter"
Hope went from smiling to a neutral deadpan face. She clearly didn't believe him and he also ruined the mood
"...okay that's a lie. I'll just shift all of my focus in R&D I will still be just as busy"
Hope just shook her head "Only you Harry can ruin such a nice moment"
Harry just smirked "What can I say. It's a gift"
"Prat" saying that, she couldn't help but also smirk a bit. 'Same Harry as always'
~ A week later. Potter Manor.
In the living room, Melinda was sitting on one of the sofas and catching up on events that happened recently. Even gossip is useful as the truth had to start somewhere.
Melinda raised an eyebrow about the latest news from the Underworld. Apparently both Maou Lucifer and Leviathan got into an argument with their families about arranged marriages being made for their sisters.
' Aren't the sisters still babies? And they are already selling them off? Devils sure have strange practices'
Aside from being somewhat surprised, Melinda really didn't care. She had no love for devil kind. Nor did she have any contracts with them so she cared even less. 'Maybe we will get lucky and those two will get mad enough to wipe out a few hundred devils'
"I did it! I made a complete fragment" Hope says happily as she runs into the room.
Melinda looked up at her in slight shock before jumping up from the sofa and pulling the girl into a big hug "That's my girl. I am so proud of you Hope"
Hope was blushing but she returned the hug. Melinda was like a second mother to her, she raised Hope and is the second most important person to her.
"Thank you. But why didn't you compliment Harry like this" Hope asked curiously with a mischievous smile
"Bah" Melinda snorted "I don't want his head to get any bigger. And that boy is a freak of nature. I can't relate to him at all so when he does something i just nod since I already expect it to happen. But you my dear girl are more normal.
Harry's normal Thought Projection spell is already difficult, but you already learned it a while ago. Now you even learned his Fragmentation Spell as well, which is on another level entirely. You just gave yourself an extra life. And in a world like ours that's by far the most precious thing you could have"
"I disagree"
Melinda raised an eyebrow "Hmm and what is your opinion?"
"Family" Hope says resolutely " It doesn't matter how many lives you have or how long do you live. If you have nobody to share it with then its pointless"
Melinda blinked before she chuckled and pulled on Hope's cheek "You have been listening to Harry's nonsense way to much. You have become cheeky"
Hope huffed with her cheeks puffed up "You are lucky I'm not like him. You'd turn gray even faster"
Melinda shook her head "True. But he is in puberty and teens are known to do stupid things as I'm sure you are aware Hope. But you and Harry are more mature than that, especially Harry... So he won't be making any big irrational mistakes. But he will have some strange justification for more reckless actions."
"You mean he has more logical reasons to blow things up"
Melinda rubbed her temple. It was sad to hear it like that "Yes."
"Maybe this is a bad time to mention that Harry is sneaking a clone into the Chinese Factions"
...
"I'm going to ignore that, so how about you and me braid our hair"
Hope just giggled as she started to braid Melinda's pink hair. Moments like these are what makes life fulfilling.
~ A/N
Opinions about the chap. This was mostly a filler and update on the situation. But i like the ending. Took me a while to think of something nice and in tune with Hope's character. A moment that shows off her warm personality and qualities.
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Word Count 2280