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That raised some eyebrows, but they remained silent as Jean and Harry bent down to look at the bodies more closely. They didn't find anything incriminating of course, the locals and the X-Men had done the same thing.
Harry got Jean's attention subtly, before gesturing slightly at his head. She willingly opened the telepathic communication between them and Harry asked "Do you think you could find anything that would point to their place of origin from the cyborg's parts?"
"It's worth a try," Jean replied dubiously. "Though whoever designed the kill switch on the bruisers thought of the same thing obviously. Still, I'll relay that suggestion to Kitty. She can put one of her illusion ward stones on one of the bruiser's bodies while you work the crowd. I wish we could take them all but I don't think we can."
"You're right about that, way too much physical evidence for any kind of cover up to work. All I can do there is use a magical suggestion on them all to not talk about it with strangers or record our words. I was doing that while you were wowing the crowd with your entrance. Other than that, I'll contact SHIELD, that'll get the two sheriffs off our back, and get a cleanup crew in here for this lot. If we let them take the girl called Roulette away, her interrogation might also open up a second avenue of attack on Shaw if SHIELD can get any info out of her."
Jean shrugged at that, not wanting to be drawn on that subject, since she doubted the girl would know anything major. If whoever was behind this was willing to implant kill switches in their troops, then it was doubtful even the mutants among said group had any real information.
With that they both straightened up. While Jean moved back to Shadowcat, Harry immediately moved to the two sheriffs and the older, tougher looking man standing with them. "I understand that you two might feel a little ambivalent about the lawlessness of what happened last night, but we do have connections with one of the secret agencies in America, and if you let me I'll call them in to help clean up this mess. While they are on the way however, I want to tell you all about why we were looking for Paige, and what I wish to offer her and her family."
The two sheriffs and Tom Lawson as well as the mayor who really wasn't as powerful as Tom since the mine was really the only large employer in the town, got together and nodded eventually. Tom strode forward clasping Harry's hand. "That sounds fair enough Sir, but realize if you try to take the Guthrie kids by force there's gonna be a rumble, as that song your redheaded lady friend was playing said."
Harry smiled. "Sounds fair to me gentlemen." He liked people like this, tough, down to earth sorts who looked after their own whatever came. He wished rather wistfully that more of America was like this rather than, as Ororo had once put it 'namby-pamby democrats who don't know what liberty really means or that freedom has to be paid for'. She had routinely voted democrat since Charles brought her to the States and to say that Ororo had been increasingly angered at the fact that her party hadn't gotten behind mutant rights and pushed was putting it mildly.
Harry pulled out his phone, calling the line he had shared with Duggan. The Bronx born secret agent cursed like a sailor for a few minutes, but replied that a cleanup crew would be on the way, though he wasn't in a position to lead it at present. The team would arrive in ten minutes. This was because the helicarrier was over Virginia at present, and their VTOLs were somewhat faster than the new black-jet Charles had received from one of his backers.
After that Harry conjured up a box, causing a bit of an exclamation of surprise from the locals, but they all simply put it down to it being some kind of mutant power or other. Harry didn't comment on that, not seeing the point of the moment. He raised his hand, getting their attention including Paige who had been trying to flirt outrageously with Colossus at that moment, and was succeeding. The two steel clad youths had a bit in common after all, and Paige had already shown she had a bit of a brain and a fighting spirit underneath her outgoing nature.
"Can I have your attention up here, please? Now, I won't go into why last night happened, I have no idea what motivated the Hellions as they're called, to come here."
He looked over at Scott and the other youngsters who had been in the house and Sam replied, taking that cue to spread that part of the story first hand. "They were here spouting some neo-Nazi crap or other, about how Homo-Superiors are some kind of master race."
The mutterings of the crowd began to crescendo at that. Many of these people after all had fathers or grandfathers who had fought in World War 2. Harry simply shook his head. "If I ever find the first person who labeled mutants Homo Superior, I will knock their lights out."
That won him a chuckle and the attention of the crowd once more. "I do not think mutants are superior to humanity. I think we are all human, it is just that mutants have powers beyond the norm, they do not define us as individuals or as a subset of humanity. Yet with power comes responsibility, the responsibility to use that power if not for the betterment of their fellow man then at least in a way that doesn't harm anyone else. That is what I offer, training in your powers, Paige Guthrie. You don't have to sign up with my team, you just have to learn how to use your powers wisely, how to make certain that your decisions don't harm those around you. To that end, I wish to offer Paige, Sam and their family room, board, jobs and education. At the moment we've had a bit of a setback in the education area because a lot of the mutants we found recently are young kids, so we're set off up only at the elementary level, but that will change."
Cyclops spoke up from where he stood by the others, standing at attention as the crowd turned to him. "I actually represent a smaller group that's primarily American-based while Guardian here is international. We do have a high school nearby that's pretty good, and if you room with us we'll be able to get you in there easily. I would say we are very strict about grades though." That caused a chuckle but also some nods of approval. "Sam here has already signed on with us for that purpose, and the option is open for Paige. We don't have enough room at the Institute to take in their family however."
That tossed the ball back to Harry rather neatly and he smirked inside at how well Scott had backed him up there. That young man has come a long way.
"I am not going to be taking her family away from Paige. They will still live together and have all the same opportunities, and I will in fact allow them to communicate with anyone they want here. I'd like to believe that if I simply left her family here they could go on with their lives communicating long-distance with their daughter or sister like any family with a family member away at school could. Last night however proved otherwise. If they're willing to attack anyone who gets in their way of recruiting someone, they might be willing to take hostages."
"You said something about jobs," Tom asked quickly. That was the important point to him. As chief mining supervisor he knew that the mine was running out, and with it the lifeblood of the little town. They had been bleeding people ever since he was a young man, and it was only going to get worse. Sam had a good head on his shoulders, and it would be good to see him getting an education even if it happened elsewhere.
"At present, I can only say that I will be offering scholarships, jobs will come later, and will be dependent on individual effort and drive. In the future however, I'm going to…" Harry paused thinking for a moment before he shrugged, it wasn't exactly like he wanted to keep this part a secret after all, and thanks to the spells he had hit the area with before getting out of his car they wouldn't be able to share anything he said outside it anyway. "In the future, I'm going to look to the stars. Anyone ever hear about asteroid mining?"
That got him some exclamations of surprise, but Tom frowned. He'd worked as a young man on an oil rig, and had been part of the team that did some underwater repairs. He knew the trouble working underwater had, space would be much worse. "Working in space would be a stone cold bitch." he said out loud looking up towards Harry.
"We know that. However, we will be looking into solving problems there, not only as they crop up but as we can imagine them in the future. This is all building up of course, it's not set in stone when that will happen, but I guarantee that it will. This will be a major opportunity for anyone, not just mutants, but anyone who can weld, mine, knows anything about mineralogy, or anything of that nature, well when the time comes I'll be advertising for those jobs, and I hope you all think of signing up as well."
From there he went on to describe what he was offering now, as well as what he would demand education-wise. Harry was a little surprised at how the crowd had grasped on to the economic and educational aspects of what he was saying rather than the mutant angle, but he shouldn't have been.
This was a small-town community, and they didn't really care much for international or national politics. They kept themselves to themselves, and trusted their neighbors more than somebody on TV. They had all heard the anti-mutant rhetoric, and maybe one or two of them might have been swayed before this. But Sam and Paige were good kids, and that plus the evenings doings, and the impressions Peter and the others had made on them held more water than anything else. There were still a few naysayers, but none of them had a problem with mutants per-se, they had more of a problem with Harry having recruited to Russkies than anything else.
The Shield crew had arrived during Harry's speech, led by Carol Danvers. While her men began to load up the bodies to be taken away for autopsies, Carol moved through the crowd listening with more than a little shock to the speech and the mutters of surprise and support that it was answered with.
Harry had charisma with a capital C, when he spoke people listened. Nick Fury would have been appalled with him sharing as much as he had, but he really haven't shared any details, he had shared enough however to get the crowd behind him, and he came across as real, human and trustworthy. Even Carol smiled in approval at his plans going forward.
The four local spokespeople gathered together, whispering with one another and with the Guthrie matriarch whose decision it would be in the end. Her two kids were over by her two older children, and she glanced their way occasionally, wondering if this mutant thing ran in families. If Paige and Sam were both mutants, what chance was there her other two were? If so, she wanted to get them training now.
For her the education aspect was a major draw as well. She'd been proud, despite learning of his superpower, when Sam had been able to pass Professor Xavier's tests a few months back so that he could enter high school at the junior level as his age should have commanded. If he kept his grades up, Sam would become the first person in her family to graduate high school. She was determined that the rest of her kids would continue that trend. She asked Harry some questions about that topic which he fielded easily enough, while Tom grilled him about his future plans, and his stance towards America in general, something Carol listened to as well.
That was a bit of a sticking point, because Harry actually wasn't pro-America. He felt America had tremendous potential, but he didn't see America applying itself, he didn't see the American government following the 'all men are created equal' portion of the Constitution.
"But if you're asking if I'm an enemy or something like that of America the answer is a firm hell no." Harry said simply. "I don't get along with people in charge until they prove themselves worth it, so I don't get along with the government. But I don't have any problem with the people, and I think that's there's a lot of things to admire about America." After which he went on to enumerate a few.
That seemed to be the appropriate response, and the crowd nodded and muttered approval. Eventually the Guthrie matron nodded as well. "Alright Mr. Guardian, I think mah family will be takin' you up on your generous offer, and thank you very much for saving us and my two eldest from whatever was being planned for them last night."
Harry smiled, hopped off his conjured box, moving over to shake her hand. With that everything calmed down even further, and the crowd dispersed, most of them stopping by the Guthries to wish them well. A few volunteered to help them clear out the house though Shadowcat interjected that that wouldn't be necessary since they had help that would do the job in mere minutes.
Carol moved towards Harry through the crowd, stopping out of speaking range as he and the local big fish exchanged a handshake and a few words, then as the older man moved on to shake hands with Colossus and exchange salutes with Cyclops and Vanguard she moved in. "Interesting plans you've got Mr. Guardian, I wonder what Director Fury will think of them?" In fact Fury would be too enraged to know Domino, the result of an American Super-soldier program, was apparently working for terrorists, to do more than grumble automatically at Harry's sharing his plans or even said plans. "I also notice you took a live prisoner, you do realize I can't let you take her with you? She could give us a lead on this new pro-mutant terrorist group."
"Please don't call them pro-mutant." Harry replied mildly, though there was nothing mild about his eyes. "I really doubt their vision of pro-mutant supremacy is really pro mutant so much as simply pro-themselves, I really doubt they care overmuch about mutants unless they have useful powers. I also knew that you couldn't let me take Roulette before you spoke, Ms. Danvers. If you could find it in your heart to share anything you find out from her questioning, I'll give you something to counteract the potion that is keeping her in suspended animation, though I would recommend that you figure out how to get whatever kind of device is inside her before using it. As for Fury, he'll probably see the downside and imagine me as some sort of villain who's going to create a death ray in orbit or something." He shrugged. "Fury's a little too used to seeing the worst in people, and too wedded to the status quo."
"I'll agree with you on a bit of that," She replied shaking her head. "I can't promise to share anything with you, but I can promise I'll try, that's the best you're going to get I'm afraid, though I will make certain our medical staff is standing by. Incidentally, about these space-going ventures of yours, I don't suppose you have any job openings right now do you?"
Harry looked at her askance at that, though the bit about not being able to promise to share didn't surprise him. He also knew that with Emma on the inside funneling information to him, that Roulette was worth more to SHIELD than to him. But he didn't have any background in Danvers, so didn't know what her own interests were. He eventually shrugged. "I'll tell you my hiring practices are very strict, and I won't hire someone who's already got a job. Other than that, keep an eye on the news, and if you want, come and see me when the time comes."
"Don't think I won't." Carol warned. With that they shook hands and she moved off, wondering how long she'd have to wait until Harry was ready to move into space in the open, and she could kiss this SHIELD job goodbye.
She liked Nick Fury, and she liked many of the senior operatives she worked with, but she was sick to death of all the claptrap she had to deal with, the bureaucracy, and above all the narrow-minded focus that they were being forced to concentrate on. It seemed to be changing gradually under pressure from Nick, but it would be years yet before they were in any position to tackle what she saw as a major concern: space and what could be coming out of the great dark aimed at their little puny world.
After a bit more, the group broke up, with Harry using a portkey to get the X-Men back to their mansion, and using the same method and along with Hedwig to get the Guthrie clan, Vanguard and Colossus through the wards to Hogwarts, with a house-elf following up with their belongings.
Shadowcat would've gone with them, but Harry told her Storm was at the mansion, which changed her mind. Kitty wanted some time with her older sister/role model after what had happened with Roulette.
Harry and Jean were the last to go, and they only did so after the SHIELD agents were finished taking away the bodies save for the one that Cory had already taken to Hogwarts, frowning thoughtfully as they stared after them before exchanging a glance. "I think Sebastian's Shaw's time on this world has just begun to suddenly shrink." Jean sent down their link.
"Oh yes," Harry's said grimly. "If Emma or you can find us a target, we're going to start going after him as soon as we can. I want us as a team to have a few weeks of training, but then yes, Shaw has just become a target, if we can find some way to hit him where it hurts."
'Sounds good to me Harry," Jean said as the two of them got into the car and started up driving away. "Sounds good to me."
OOOOOOO
"I see…" Sebastian Shaw sighed, leaning back and sipping at his whiskey. Domino had just finished giving her report of the events that had occurred in Kentucky, a brutally honest one that pulled no punches and spared her none of the blame, something Shaw approved of.
After a moment of silent contemplation he shrugged. "You had no reason to expect you would run into opposition, with that said you performed well enough, especially since you covered your trial as you should have. The losses can be born easily enough, with our recent acquisitions Beef, Roulette and the others on your team save Random would have been surplus to requirements in any event going forward. I am going to switch you over to training our newcomers, I trust that you will incorporate the skills of this group that you ran into in your future training."
Domino nodded, glancing over to a screen on which three young people were currently exercising on three separate screens. One was a blond with a surfer tan blasting out beams of force from his hands, while next to him stood a woman with green hair who was somehow lifting up a huge metal container with a greenish sphere of force, then crushing it. The other was a man whose body seemed encompassed by some kind of burning black energy, which he could fire off from his hands. It could also apparently give him flight ability.
"Yes indeed, I think the next team of Hellions will be far more deadly than the previous version." Her employers words brought Domino's attention back to him. "In fact I should have a target for your team in a month or so, a job I will be joining you on. It is time to prune the Hellfire Club of one of its subversive elements. I trust you and the team will be ready by that time?"
He went on without waiting for Domino's response. "However, you may have the rest of this day and the next off, it will take that much time for my doctors to see if Jetstream can be saved. Spend time with Dr. Thurman if you wish, though try not to mention anything about world news. He seems to have run into something he can't predict for some reason, and it's been throwing off his normal sunny disposition."
Domino smiled at that, and bowed her way out to see her beau. His rescue from an attempted kidnapping, which incidentally got them both away from the feds, was the reason she worked for the man at all. Ruthless he might be, but he repaid loyalty to those worth it, and had set up Milo and her in a lifestyle they could never have paid for on their own along with security from whoever was after Milo and her.
Sebastian waited until Domino left. He spent a brief moment at his terminal, sending out his own kill order, one could never be too careful after all. After that he composed a memo to his spies, to see what they could find out about these X-men, wondering if they had anything to do with the teen his recruiters had failed to bring in months back in upstate New York. But for now, he had other fish to fry. Shaw finished his work on that quickly, then began to go over his list of targets for the actions against Pierce and his so-called Reavers.
OOOOOOO
"FUCK, what just happened?" A male voice shouted. The automated hands he had been using turned to slag as the small device he had just removed from the young woman's chest exploded, peppering the young woman's still open upper body with shrapnel. "SHIT, Shit, Shit! I need everyone in there, shrapnel wound to the chest, I can't do it from in here!"
As the doctor and her team rushed from the safe zone into the isolation room, Carol cursed angrily, her fist pounding the wall from where she had been leaning up against it. "Doc, any chance…"
"Not now Danvers! Right now I've got more important things to do than tell you lies!" The doctor rushed away, leaving the blonde special agent to rub her face irritably.
At that moment the nearby phone ran,g and a second later a voice came over the speaker. "All medical personnel, we just detected a signal aimed at us, location aboard ship indicates it was in the medical wing, anything happen down there?"
"Oh yeah, asshole, something happened alright." Carol muttered, rubbing at her forehead harder. "Someone out there believes in redundancy. Fuck!" With that, Carol leaned back against the wall, waiting for news, either good or bad.
OOOOOOO
By the time Jean and Harry arrived at the mansion, the blackbird was back carrying Kurt and the mother and daughter pair. Charles was still working with the telepathic woman, and had barely begun to make any head way bringing her mind back to her body. The young woman had retreated into the deepest, darkest corners of astral space, leaving only a faint connection to her body in a desperate attempt to escape the horror that had been inflicted on her. But Charles was the best and most powerful telepath the world had seen yet and he would find her and lead her back eventually.
Ororo had taken command of the medical side of things the moment she arrived via Clare teleporting her in, and had the medi-bay ready and waiting. The team itself had only a few wounds worth mentioning, Scott's broken upper arm. Nightcrawler had caught a bullet to the chest, but his suit of unstable molecules had kept it from penetrating, and his general level of toughness allowed him to walk away with only a major bruise. Vanguard had a cracked rib and Shiang-Chi a large gash across his chest along with numerous other wounds for both form their battle against Domino. Sam had a cut on his forearm from a piece of glass which had caught him after Domino shot through the window of his home. Rogue, Paige and Colossus had been literally unstoppable, not taking a single injury.
This allowed Ororo to concentrate on stabilizing the new, and as yet unknown telepath's mother. She had numerous internal injuries, both her legs had been broken, her hands mangled, and that wasn't even considering the internal damage she had taken in the actual gang rape. When Harry arrived he immediately moved to aid her, his spells aiding the potions and regular medicine she had already used. Eventually they got her to the point where she was stable, but magic could do only so much for the mental and physical injuries she had taken from the pirates. She had fallen into a deep coma, but they were both glad to report she would eventually come out of it.
Once they were done healing the woman, Ororo immediately searched out Kitty, enveloping the girl in a hug as the two of them moved into the room that had been her bedroom to talk Kitty was still shaky from Beef's death, so some time with her big sister/role model was just what she needed right now.
After hours, Charles sighed leaning back form the bed the young girl now inhabited. "I've done all I can for now. Her psyche once more inhabits her own mind, but it is now up to her to do the rest."
He looked up as a hand held out a steaming mug of tea. "Good work Charles." Harry smiled sadly at the man, while he waved his hands over the girl, casting spells to heal as much of the damage as he could. The girl hadn't been nearly as badly battered or used as her mother, something Harry was thankful for.
"Harry. I understand Cyclops and the others called you in to deal with tier issue once it became too public?" Charles sipped gratefully at the tea as he watched the other man work, always amazed at this aspect of magic. Healing was one area where wizards had a significant edge over any other type of magic user, even witchcraft and druidism was slower than the results.
"I think we handled it as well as we could. Both the X-men and my team handled themselves well enough." Harry explained what had happened, missing Charles frown at some portions of his speech, though all in all the older man was happy enough with the way things went as well as the steps Harry had taken to keep on a neutral stance with SHIELD. Moreover, Charles felt he knew more now about what had formed the man Harry Potter had become. There was just some evil that changed who faced it, and what he and Kurt had run into was an example of such. Charles just hoped that Kurt would come through it.
After a moment Harry stepped back, nodding. "I've done all I can for her body, though obviously there are some things even magic can't fix. The rest, as you said, is up to her. I trust though you'll be here to help her."
"Of course." The two of them stayed silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts as they looked at the young girl who had been so horribly victimized. After a few moments Harry patted the older man on the shoulder then left, heading out to find Kurt to see if he wanted to talk.
He found Kurt already out of his uniform and with his image inducer on, arguing softly with Cyclops by the doorway. "I understand what you say miun fruend, but I would still prefer to go and speak to a priest about this. There are some questions I require god's guidance to answer about this nights business."
Cyclops frowned, knowing his friend was religious, but not really wanting to trust a complete stranger to give him good advice about this. Harry however injected before the argument could go further. "Perhaps I could suggest an alternative. About a week ago I rescued a Russian Priest who is also a mutant at the same time I recruited Piotr and Nikolai. Father Garnoff is trustworthy, and you can share everything about this deplorable episode."
The young German frowned for a moment, but nodded. "That would help, thank you Mr. Potter." He had been a little distant from his former pranking role model since he had learned he was dating Ororo and Jean. Polyamory like that was immoral in his eyes, no matter what the guys at school said about dating two girls being a man's dream. He still liked Harry, it was just taking some getting used to.
"Excellent, you can come with Jean and I back to the castle. Oh, and don't try to teleport while you're there, I'm really not certain what the anti-apparition wards would do to you if you tried. Scott, if you can come with us we can get the AAR out of the way now." This way Harry would use the pensieve to go over everything, which would be a better learning experience for Scott and Nikolai.
Scott nodded. "Just let me go get changed sir."
With that he walked off, leaving Harry to round up the others coming back to the castle. Ororo, Evan, Kitty, Rogue stayed to hang out, both young women wanting to ask the former teacher some advice. Piotr had already been transported back to the castle with Nikolai to show the Guthries around. Jean came with them back to Hogwarts then flew down via the flying carpet (it was faster than her in atmosphere) to check them out of the lodge they had been staying at.
Soon Nikolai and Scott were watching as Harry extracted their memories of the battle one after another then put them in the modified pensieve. After viewing them he nodded. "You made one mistake right at the beginning Scott, and that was retaining control of the team before you were out of the house. You should have turned it over to Nikolai or Spyke until you could break out and assess the situation. As it was though with the amount of chaos, the fact it was a nighttime action, everything beyond that was well done, though you put a lot of pressure on Evan in those few moments before Colossus arrived, something you should watch out for in the future when facing enemies on multiple axis of attack."
Scott nodded in relief while Harry went on. "Nikolai, you probably already know this, but you got too caught up in your one on one battle with Domino. You need to keep one eye on the larger picture at all times. Other than that, good job, that woman was obviously a piece of work, extremely well trained and tough regardless of her power. Now, lets go over some specifics…" The rest of that discussion wasn't nearly so nice on the younger men's ego as the beginning, but it was still a good learning experience.
Later that day, Harry used the pensieve to look at his own battle in Mephisto's realm. Not only did he analyze his battle against Mephisto in order to learn a few tricks that the devil had used against him, he also used it to analyze Dr. Doom.
He came away very impressed indeed with the Latverian king. Harry had long thought that science could eventually duplicate many magical abilities, if in bulkier and more time-consuming forms, but to have the truth of it staring it in his face was a different story. As the battle continued throughout Mephisto's dimension Dr. Doom's defenses became more and more adapted to the attacks, his assaults more deadly. It almost looked as if the frequencies of his shields and repulsor blasts keyed themselves to be the most effective. That was startling, as was the way Doom was able to offset much of the advantages magic gave their enemies.
His research into Mephisto's weaknesses also showed, which was worrisome considering the man knew some of what Harry could do now, and would plan for it. Harry doubted that any kind of straightforward spell Doom had already seen would work on him now, either via his own magic or his technology, which would make him that much more dangerous. Still, Harry felt he could do the same to the abilities Doom had shown him in time.
OOOOOOO
"Sir, I realize you never wish to be disturbed while conducting research, but something important has come up."
The man that Mystique and Irene knew as Nathaniel Essex was anything but a normal man, as most people would think of the term applied. Here in his inner sanctum, he had allowed his normal appearance out. He had utterly white skin, not Caucasian, but white, like paper, standing out even more on his face thanks to his matte black hair, a small perfectly formed triangle goatee and red eyes. He stood a little over six feet tall, with decently broad shoulders though he was no musclebound man. A ruby, or something that looked like one anyway, was centered in his forehead like the bindi of Hindu women, though the comparison would not please any Hindu woman who knew this man.
He wore a from fitting black outfit with a high collar that couldn't seem to decide if it was armor or normal leather, having at times the appearance of metal in the light of the lab, at other times cloth. In the center of his chest was a red diamond shape, and on his back he wore a very odd cape that wasn't so much a cape but several long strips of cloth that curved up over his shoulders before falling back down.
With the lighting of the lab around him, coupled with the fact that he was currently operating on a unconscious man, his chest open, he looked the very picture of a mad scientist. Which most of the world would agree, if his exploits became known, fit him perfectly. The small scowl on his chalk white face completed the image as he turned to the small featureless droid with a large screen for a face that had interrupted him. "What is so important that you would interrupt me?"
Despite its robotic appearance, the droid's voice sounded almost human as it spoke. "One of our robotic observers on the Guthrie clan reported in. We/I have the full report here, but one thing was clear. Subject Jean Gray and subject Summers were not together, they didn't even seem to be on the same team."
That caused Essex to raise an eyebrow in surprise. "Give me the report." The droid reached behind it after a second of buzzing and handed over a printout consisting of several sheets of notes. The man who had… donated his mind to the android watching the Guthrie's had been ex-CIA, and retained the need to make copious, often times irritatingly so, notes, hence why this report went to one of his robotic minions rather than Essex himself.
The notes about the battle that occurred was interesting, as was the sighting of Domino, the results of yet another American attempt to create a super-soldier who had turned mercenary. He had been watching on and off for years. Her 'luck' based power was interesting, but not powerful enough to truly excite him, but couple it with something else and maybe it would turn into something more impressive.
He idly wondered who she was working for now. Whoever she was reporting to was ruthless enough to kill his pawns was telling, as well as the calculated resources needed to put these bruisers along with the regular troops into the field. Oh, he had a short list of suspects, but who on that list was something he wasn't particularly interested into looking into before this.
Essex frowned when he got to the part where his robotic agent began to talk about the crowd and what happened after this Guardian person showed up. As his aide had said, the redhead with him did indeed match Jean Gray's description, though the clothing was something he would never have thought she would wear. The reaction of the crowd, the speech this Guardian made, all of it pointed to a new, possibly dangerous, voice in the world of mutants, one who seemed on the side of Xavier. "Get me all of the reports we have on the Xavier estate for the last few weeks, but tell me when the last sighting of subject Gray was?"
"The last sighting we had it was at her graduation, she might have been inside after that, but that was the last sure sighting. As you know we cannot access the mansion itself, either physically or through hacking."
So Jean Gray has moved on. The man who had indeed been named Nathaniel Essex at one point, thought to himself. And she has joined someone who is apparently very passionate about Homo superior/Homo sapien equality. It was always a tossup of whether or not Jean Gray would be able to throw off my suggestions that I implanted in her as a baby, Scott of course won't have, and they're buried so deeply that even Xavier would never find them unless he had reason to go looking. But this is not good, to put it mildly my project X is in jeopardy if Gray and Summers don't produce a child. Perhaps I have been wrong in concentrating solely in America, that seems to have bitten me on the ass lately given how my search for Mystique has led to no result, I must figure out a way to enlarge my sphere of influence without running into any of my 'masters' other tools.
It was that master who had given him the name Sinister, the last word Essex's dying wife said to him. Over the decades since, that was how the man had come to think of himself. Now he moved over to the computer console. A moments typing brought up a screen, one that he had viewed many times over the centuries, showing what would happen if Summers DNA and Gray DNA merged.
Ever since he had first experimented on Summers ancestors in England, he had been obsessed with figuring out ways to use their powers. The Grey line, while at first despite his experiments on it back in England as well had yielded little result, it had produced Jean Gray, a telepath/telekinetic of incredible power. For several years he had been concerned by the fact that none of his agents in Bayville had reported that the girl had as much power as she should have. But the last report had shown significant progress when she battled Magneto's follower Pyro in one of the town parks.
Perhaps she had a mental issue of some kind holding her back from using her full powers, but right now that was immaterial to Sinister's true concerns. What he was concerned about was the fact that he had worked for years to bring about a union of those two lines because his tests proved that a baby of Scott Summers and Jean Gray would be super-mutant, possibly powerful enough to battle his 'master' while leading mutantkind to their destiny.
He frowned in thought, then decided. I need to put more resources into figuring out what has gone on in Bayville and where Grey is now. I personally might have to become involved as well, if only to discover the extent of the changes since the last time I checked in with them.
Sinister had honestly expected something to happen with between the two during their college years, since he knew Xavier would be pure death on anything that smacked of teenage pregnancy, so he had thought he had another year or so before he had to start truly observing the two. But if they never got together in the first place, then all of his plans were forfeit.
Perhaps…Sinister glanced over at one specific medical cabinet at the far back of his lab, which held several small vials, each of them filled with DNA samples of particular interest to him. One held a sample taken from Scott Summers when he was a boy at the orphanage Sinister had run for a few years. Another held his brother, and a third the father.
Still, to have the true genetics imprint of both of them, I will need to replicate Jean Gray's DNA, and even then merely making a clone of them will not produce a true offspring, the cloning process cannot take the place of the true genetic mixing that goes into a child of the body. To do that I need to follow her, find out where she has disappeared to, if I can. The fact that none of my agents have reported her anywhere since her graduation is disturbing in the extreme.
He frowned thinking hard, and decided he would have to reassign the agents currently trying to find Mystique. They had narrowed their search down to India but that wasn't narrowed down enough really, especially since she'd had nearly a week to get lost in that monstrously large country.
To that end he turned completely away from his current subject, ignoring the man's groaning. He slapped a button to administer some more knockout gas then walked away, already devising plans to use what contacts he had in the world, wondering how the hell Jean was keeping herself hidden and wondering how he could find her. Or perhaps, I can figure out a way to make her come out of hiding instead…
OOOOOOO
The day after the Guthrie clan moved in, Harry paused as he noticed something while leading the way from the trio's room down to the dining hall. "Huh, I wonder where Hedwig is? She's normally still sleeping at this hour." Ororo and Jean both shrugged, and they continued their way down to breakfast.
A few hours later, Harry had his answer. Hedwig flew in landing on the table Harry was working at, which was covered with pages of notes on runic arrays, as well as notes on magical properties of gems. There were also a few notes Harry had made on the spells Selene had cast on various knickknacks from the third cache. The curses on them were interesting, but it was some of the other spells that interested him. For example, two of the carved ruby lions had extremely advanced spells on them designed to let the caster hear what was going on around them no matter how far away they were. Those were very interesting indeed, though Harry had to wonder why they had been kept with the rest of Selene's 'artsy' cache.
But what interested Harry most was that there was a distinct difference in the magical potential of the various carved gemstones. He'd had to borrow a microscope to find out why, but it looked like high grade rubies were able to contain charms and other spells much better than any other gem. This was an area of magic that no one back home, outside the goblins, the little conniving hate-mongers, had delved into, at least to the best of his knowledge.
Now he was testing how well precisely gems, or in this case, gem dust, ground as fine as he could do it, retained magic. If they could retain enough power, they could be used to possibly power runic arrays if 'charged' by, say, being in a magically active environment like Hogwarts. Later, it would turn out that they would retain magic for long stretches of time even under heavy use, though their output was very low even so. Still, it gave Harry a lot of ideas of things he could bring to the discussion he wanted to have with Kitty, Nikolai, and Jean sometime soon.
Still, he looked up in welcome as Hedwig held up a letter tied along one leg. "What do you have there, girl?" Through their link he could sense his familiar's smugness, as if she had recently surprised someone or done something amazing. Still, he opened the note, and read it through quickly.
Mr. Wizard, Phoenix, or whoever this reaches:
I do not know if you remember me, but my name is Amara Aquila. I met Phoenix as she flew through Brazil.
She mentioned how you were trying to put together a team of powered and non-powered individuals to stand for mutant rights as well as other problems.
I was interested then, and am interested now, in joining such a force, but a matter has arisen here demanding an immediate response.
My asshole father has been in contact with characters in Greece and elsewhere who I feel are not as honorable as he thinks.
Two in particular worry me, and he has decided to marry me off to one (no that is not the whole reason why he worries me).
Again, I would like to join your cause, but it must be soon.
Signed, Amara Aquila
After a moment's thought, he shook his head. "I had hoped to wait and get in contact with her after we had the school set up, but since it looks as if we'll be set up first as an elementary school with only tutors for the older students, I suppose we don't have any reason not to. Though I wonder what her father and these 'characters' Amara mentions are up to."
So saying, Harry summoned up a Patronus. "Ororo, it looks as if we might have to go and get the Amara girl Jean ran into down in Brazil, she seems to have run into something. I think we should go now, Hedwig was able to feel her desire to contact me despite the two of us never having actually met in person, that means her desire was very strong indeed." While the Patronus pranced off, Harry scratched Hedwig's plumage for a moment, then sent her to the kitchen for an extra-large portion of her blessed bacon, while he went to get Jean.
Unfortunately, Jean was literally hip deep in parts taken from the two powered armor units Harry had demolished in Russia, which Nikolai had called the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man. None of them were under any illusions that they wouldn't eventually run into other examples of said armor, and knowing how they ticked would be helpful in knowing how to stop them doing so.
Jean also wanted to learn about the movement actuators in the hands, the Heads Up Displays they used, as well as the programming for said. The HUD would help her program one for the team to use in the field, one that would tell them enough information on the team without getting in the way.
When told about the trouble Amara might be in, she looked conflicted, but shrugged. "It doesn't sound like you're heading into a warzone Harry, so I'm afraid I'm going to bow out. This is really interesting stuff, and if I try, I can get through both suits today. I've already determined the Titanium Man's is actually a much more viable armor type, but the movement actuators in the other suit is almost up to what I would think Iron Man uses. After the suits are done, I'm going to start in on their onboard weapons, which will be very interesting indeed."
Harry nodded agreeably, kissing her on the cheek before turning back towards the door. "Nikolai is out with his sister shopping for her and the other girls. I'll see if Piotr is busy, and we'll see you when we get back." Shiang Chi trained them all morning until two in the afternoon, but the team had the afternoon's free dinnertime while he trained the youngsters (including Paige, much to her vocal displeasure) after they all finished taking classes with Ms. Brown.
Today Piotr had decided to have a 'me day'. Harry found him outside on the lawn with an easel in front of him, painting. He seemed to be painting the castle, and stopped as Harry came out and moved over to him. "Piotr, do you think I could pull you away for a bit? Ororo and I are going to go pick up a prospective team member/student Jean met a few weeks ago. She mentions some trouble down there, so it might be good to have another pair of eyes along."
"I suppose," Piotr sighed. "I would like to finish this before the weather turns however." While in America the weather wasn't nearly ready turn to fall, here in Scotland that change was underway.
"I think you've got another week or two before it becomes real autumn weather my friend, no come on." Piotr sighed again, but willingly set aside his paints and moved with Harry back up to the castle, finding Ororo dressed in one of her conservative teacher's uniforms. Piotr was dressed in heavy jeans and a long sleeved plaid shirt, which was spattered with a few drops of paint here and there.
Moments later, the three of them used the magic carpet, which had been further magically enhanced since Harry had used it two weeks past to head to Buckingham palace, to take them to Brazil. With its new enchantments this trip took a bare hour, though trying to find the new city was more difficult since it wasn't yet on modern maps, even online ones. Dennis, who was once more guiding them in, had to hack into a few satellites to find it for them. So it took them in total two and a half hours to get to Nova Roma.
The volcano sitting right next to the city, along with the general construction which was in the Roman style to the light, made Harry shudder a little and think of pictures he had seen of Pompeii. Although, he thought to himself, given the powers this Amara girl has, that could be more accurate than I want to think about if she becomes too pissed off. Let's hope her father hasn't tried to cross that line just yet.
Harry set them down on the cleared side of the volcano nearest the city, and the three of them walked into the city from there. With Hedwig guiding them they made their way through the crowded streets, though many people, who seemed to dress in either Roman togas or modern Brazilian clothes, turned to look at them from time to time.
Ororo in particular drew some admiring glances from many, though from her twitching fingers, the words many of the men muttered were not pleasing to her. Thankfully Piotr's size and the sword of Gryffindor, which Harry had summoned to his side to add that little bit of panache to his otherwise ordinary (almost like Piotr but a good silk shirt rather than cotton and no suspenders) appearance, made her admirers keep their distance. Her haughty, cold face, which became more pinched with every phrase muttered her way, might also have had something to do with that.
Soon enough however Hedwig had guided them to a large manse set along the edge of the city nearest the volcano. "So Amara is here?" Hedwig bobbed her head at Harry's question, and the wizard pushed open the outer gate of the property, heading inside.
The inside was wide and open beyond the two staircases leading up to either side, and they immediately ran into trouble. A somewhat large, not up to Piotr's height, man came toward them, his eyes narrowed. "Yes foreigners, can I help you?"
Harry wondered about the whole foreign thing, considering this entire city was sitting inside another nation's borders it seemed rather stupid to him, but he answered readily enough. "I am here to speak to Amara Aquila about a learning opportunity, you might say. I believe she is expecting us."
That seemed to mollify the man, who led the way up the stairs. Two rooms down, they entered a third which had a simple cloth doorway, which the servant pushed aside. Amara sat inside looking out the window, though she turned quickly after the servant had ushered her guests inside.
Amara was a teenage girl around seventeen or so, with a lithe, the girl was lithe, gymnast's build with black hair falling to midway down her back, and tanned skin. After sending the servant away, the girl asked. "Are you Mr. Wizard?"
She spoke in the same language the crowd outside and the servant used, a very old fashioned form of Greek. Harry had anticipated this and hit all three of them with a translation charm, something which made Ororo wince, but she had gotten past her original anger at such a spell.
"I am, though I go by Guardian now in the field. I received your message. I take it you want to get out of here soonest? Be aware the school portion of what we offer isn't open just yet, though the training portion is rolling along nicely. This is Storm and Colossus by the way." Harry smirked a little. "Believe me, the codenames make a lot more sense when we've got our game faces on."
Amara was studying the three of them keenly, though she blinked at the odd bit of modern speech there. It was obvious to her that the African woman and this Guardian person were together, they were standing too close for it to be anything else. But the large young man was interesting too, handsome in a rugged way, and his eyes were looking around warily, showing he was more intelligent then he looked at first. "Yes I do, in fact if we can we should leave right now."
"What about your father?" Ororo asked. "I read the message you sent to Guardian, but surely your father loves you, even if he is trying to use you as he is. Wasn't that sort of thing normal for Roman times?"
"Roman times yes, but those needed the first time the Brazilians found us, and they disappeared entirely, or should have, after the first McDonalds opened downtown." Amara replied dryly. "No, this is something else. He's trying to drum up support for some move in Greece, our ancestral home, for some reason. I don't know what it is, but he and few contacts he made in Greece in the past few days are courting a Luchino Nefaria, some kind of Italian noble or something. He gives me a creepy sort of feeling, not just because my father wants me to marry him. He's, well he's got manners and seems courtly enough, but I can tell he has a lot more going on under the surface, and the Brazilian ambassador was not pleased to see him. I think he said something about Luchino being indicted on connections to organized crime, but it never going to court thanks to how corrupt Italy's government is."
That last was probably untrue or at least an exaggeration, but she had followed up on the first bit, and found the man had indeed been accused of such, but his accusers had a tendency to not survive to the trial. Luchino, though no one here knew it at present, was a long standing member of the Maggia, and shared with the other leaders the infatuation with high tech toys.
Harry and Ororo exchanged a glance. "Well, I'd still like to talk to the man, but if you're certain he wants to get involved in something like that, We'll be taking you with us in any event." At Amara's quizzical expression, Harry shrugged. "I can get us out of here regardless of anything your father tries, so it isn't difficult."
The young girl still looked a little dubious, but led the way to her father. Surprisingly the man was happy to see her go, though to her regret it was because he feared her powers going out of control, as well as wanting to remarry. Amara's mother had died a few months before her powers activated, and he hadn't decided on who to court before her powers activated. After that, no Nova Roman woman would marry him if she had to deal with the Volcano caller. He wanted, in his own words, 'a son to succeed me, a pliable daughter to wed off to expand my influence, and a wife to bed.' To say there was no love lost between them was underestimating the facts.
He was a little irritated that his plans to marry her off to Luchino for his monetary and tech support of a coup in Greece wasn't going to happen. But he was old fashioned and chauvinistic, not stupid or criminal. He too had done some background work on the Italian, and had found that while his aid would give the coup weapons the other side couldn't possibly match, he was also personally corrupt and dishonorable behind his noble affectations. So, with a little work, Harry was able to talk him around to letting them take his daughter for training in her power, rather than continuing his attempt and possibly resulting in a Krakatoa moment on his doorstep.
Not ten minutes later, Amara gasped as the carpet Harry had told her to join them on, something she had initially thought was a joke, rose into the air. "Oh, wow!"
Harry laughed at the young woman's expression, then commanded the carpet to rise further into the air before turning to home. "By the way," he asked twenty minutes later as Amara looked over the side at the ocean far below. "You mentioned to Jean another mutant in Brazil, a Roberto Da-Costa?"
"I did, though I am afraid he disappeared the very next day. I went with my father to some party or other in the capital, and his father informed us he had gotten an offer from someone he knew to help train him in his powers." She shrugged. "It didn't sound as if he was taken by force, so I have no idea where he is now." She turned to strike up a conversation with Piotr about painting. She had spotted the paint splatters on his clothing ,and it was something she had dabbled in a time or two.
Harry frowned, wondering what that was about, but shrugged it off for now. If the kid turned up and needed help, Harry would bother about it then. Until then, he had enough on his plate, and a new member for the team to put through her paces. Luckily, Shiang Chi has asked for us all to spend an entire day training with him, so we'll see what she is up to quickly enough. Part of me is hoping that she's at Paige's level. That girl is going to be trouble, she's already pushing for more training time in order to catch up to the rest of the team, but she's so young, and her mother hasn't really given her permission to join us for anything other than training in control of her powers.
At that point Harry was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Amara laughing at something Piotr said, and he looked over at the two youngsters, who were smiling at one another. Huh, first Paige, now Amara, seems Piotr has that whole 'handsome artiste' thing going for him. Amusing.
Later that day, as the rest of the team, Paige and Amara were laughing at him, Harry had little to find amusing. "Oooof!" Because that was the sound he sound he had been making ever since Shiang Chi had asked him to make part in the one on one unarmed competitions, and he made it once more as his ass hit the padded floor of the training area.
Harry, despite what was an education in various styles that amounted to a brown belt, wasn't really trained in hand to hand to the level Shiang-Chi was. He was fast, had insane reflexes, and, thanks to his magic being at so high a level, was now much stronger than he looked. If he could land a single blow that might well have done it, even with him suppressing his magic to the point it was literally painful.
But that amounted to naught at all against the supremely trained marital artist. Harry had tells, lots of them. He didn't have enough experience in hand to hand to spot his tells despite his skill at cold reading. What was worse was he didn't use his legs or footwork nearly enough to match his trainer's.
As Shiang-Chi chuckled, Harry shook his head. I suppose this means I too am still human. The thought actually brought him some comfort for some reason and he joined in the laughter as he flipped himself up over his head, to crouch low on the ground, before moving in quickly, trying a feint, before kicking out low as swiftly as he could, barely pulling back in time to avoid Shiang-Chi's attempt to grab his leg.
The rest of the day was a humbling experience for Harry, but also a learning one for both him and Shiang-Chi. By the end of the day Harry was actually making Shiang Chi martial artist work for it, and only Nikolai and Ororo could keep up with him. Ororo was actually a little better with knives than Shiang-Chi, making any armed match between them with those weapons an almost even one. Nikolai's mastery of Sanbo, a style built around grappling, gave Shiang-Chi trouble, since the two of them had fought several times, and learned eachother tells and moves before this.
Harry never fell for the same trick twice, his reaction time allowed him to stay in the fight longer than most would have with his training. His tells also slowly disappeared as the day went on, though his footwork and use of his legs still needed a lot of work.
Surprisingly, Amara was quite a bit tougher and better trained than Harry had expected or hoped in interest of parity. She was already trained in the roman sword style, and wielded a gladius very well. As a weapon it left much to be desired, but it gave Shiang-Chi a very good starting point for armed combat. He decided however to test her on various blades, to see which one was best for her strength and speed at the moment before deciding on a set style for her to learn.
Her unarmed skills were based off mobility and use of her legs and takedowns as well as elbow blows. It seemed like a very rough version of capoeira, the Brazilian martial art, but there was no dance moves to it, or wasted motion. Since Nova Roma had last been seen hundreds of years before capoeira was developed before it was found again a bare few months back, that made sense. She didn't have nearly as much training in that style, but again, it gave the martial artist a darn good starting point.
Paige was ambidextrous, which was actually excellent for a budding martial artist, and had good body control. That was it. She had never gotten into a real fight with anyone but her siblings and a few neighbor children, she was tough, fought dirty, but she was utterly untrained. The Kentucky native knew how far behind even the newcomer she was, but was determined to catch up as soon as she could.
Both girls showed off their powers of the rest of the team later that day, and Harry noted how Amara was able to change into a magma based energy form at will, yet needed to do that to use most of her powers. Many of those were so destructive, Harry was glad it happened in the confines of the RoR. Her powers were not however based on magma or the control of said, but based on the control of seismic forces. She could cause earthquakes, rupture the very earth, and even cause miniature volcanos, from which she could pull magma and use it as a projectile. All in all very dangerous powers, coupled with the fact her energy form gave her improved stamina, a lot more durability, and immunity to fire.
Paige's abilities, on the surface at least, were a lot less destructive, but they could be even more useful, something Harry pointed out after they were finished for the evening. "You've shown us a metal form, and a rock for so far Paige, but there's no reason to assume that would be all you can do. I bet you can learn to be other things, merlin, I bet you could even change your body shape. That could possibly let you blend into your surroundings, or turn into something like the Orihalcum metal, though I think that might take a while. Still a fantastic power, Paige."
The Guthrie matriarch frowned from where she sat with Ms. Brown surrounded by her brood and the other youngsters save Illyana and Melody, who sat next to Harry and Piotr at the other end of the table. She didn't like what she was hearing, and particularly didn't like the wide, happy grin she saw on her daughter's face. She wasn't against her children fighting for a cause. If Sam had wanted to join the army or something like that she would have said yes, so had no problem with Sam joining the X-men. But Paige was fifteen, too young in her opinion to be fighting. Training in her power fine, she could see the point to that, but actually fighting, no. It looked as if that battle however was going to be an uphill one, even though Harry had told her Paige wouldn't be allowed out on missions until she was at least sixteen without her consent.
OOOOOOOO
Over the next week, while the new residents got used to living inside the Castle, other projects proceeded apace. While Ororo and Emma had dinner with one another every other evening, Kitty and Jean would continue their talks, putting together the battle rattle. Nikolai would often join them, but he would more often than not join Harry and Piotr, simply talking and hanging out, introducing Harry to sports outside football, which the American Kitty insisted on calling soccer.
Training continued apace for all of the students in the respective powers as well as their martial arts. Shiang-Chi decided to teach Penckat Silat to all of them, which would aid their footwork and mobility, while deciding on Escrima, a martial art based around the use of paired weapons, in this case iron sticks in both hands from the Philippines for Paige. That style included hand to hand, emphasizing grappling and joint locks, which would work well with her various bodies abilities.
He was still debating on what specific style to teach Harry and Amara however. Harry was insanely quick so a dual blade style was possible there, as well as building up his knowledge of Judo, maybe some more Krav Maga. Amara obviously had an armed style, all that was left was to modernize it, but unarmed was still something the Vietnamese specialist was thinking about. Well that and his two countrywomen, neither of whom had woken up yet form their ordeal over at the mansion. He had asked for and gotten leave to head over there whenever he could, though he took pains in his appearance to make certain he looked nothing like the pirates that had so brutalized the two of them.
Nikolai took over training everyone in ranged weapons. Paige had a natural hunter's eye along with other skills that hinted she had stolen the family's rifle a time or two to go hunting with the boys. Amara had no knowledge at all about guns, but good eyes and hand/eye coordination. Piotr had okay eyes but would never be a sniper. Ororo could shoot easily enough, as could Jean, but Harry's accuracy was incredible.
Harry also spent time down at the area that had been designated as Magical Mind's headquarters. With the help of the crown he had been able to gloss over the fact that the wards had come down, the fact that some kind of magic finally died away went over surprisingly well for the populace of the area, most Brits were more at home with the idea of magic than Americans, who in the main refused to believe in it.
The work was continuing apace, with the house-elves he had assigned to the task setting to with a will but it would take them two weeks considering all that had to be done, including the amount of magical defenses Harry was installing, which included one of his two hearth stones. While the building would never be as well defended as Hogwarts, it certainly was going to be well defended, both in terms of security and in terms of physical defense. This was especially important because it would also double as a distribution point for now.
He also met with Stephen O'Cairn and began to vet some workers, including PR directors and other managerial positions, as well as working with Frost Pharmaceuticals to work out the distribution to their three current clients, who had given Harry the locations they wanted the first shipments to be dropped off at. The man found Harry easy-going and likable enough, but very stern in terms of what he was looking for, and many a time prospective employees were turned away.
He didn't realize that the chairs Harry had specifically set up in the little office he had taken over in London for these interviews had Kitty's lie detector arrays on them. Since some of these people would be in very good position to hurt him if they turned out to not be very trustworthy, Harry wanted to start as he would continue. The company wouldn't' go public until the building was completed, but by then Harry wanted the staff for said building and as many other positions as they could get filled.
Even so, Harry spent most of his time working on a few minor mysteries one of which he had been very interested in looking into properly, that of the nature of magical cores in this dimension. To that end he had developed a new runic array which could read a person's magical aura, based off a series of healing spells that Madame Pomphrey had once used in his presence. It was set up on a raised dais, because he wanted to add this into the future medical examination that any student would go through at Hogwarts.
First he looked at his own core, and was unsurprised to find it had grown considerably since he had last examined it closely. Next he looked at Melody, who volunteered for the duty and found not even a trace of a magical core growing in her. That was a surprise considered what he suspected, but he shrugged it off. Then he looked at Illyana, fobbing it off as another medical review, and found that Illyana did have a magical core, in point of fact she had a decently sized one already, almost as large as a Hogwarts student in her fourth year, which was a telling sign of her magical potential.
Kitty was next. He scanned her surreptitiously using the original spell, not wanting to get the girls hopes up in case he was wrong. To his shock however, Kitty now had a bit of magic in her. It wasn't a large core, she had nowhere near the potential that Illyana had, but it was there, where before there hadn't even been a hint of magical potential in her.
Or perhaps I didn't know what to look for, Harry mused as he moved on to his final target of this experiment. Ororo looked up as she felt something hit her then looked over at Harry. He was looking at some kind of reading that had appeared before him, his eyes widening. "What was that Harry?"
"Something I'm going to talk to you about later," he said obliquely looking around at the other students who Ororo was just about to lead out onto a nature walk. "When you're done talking to Emma this evening, I'll want to talk to you before we head to bed." Ororo looked at him askance at that, but nodded.
Later that evening she ascended the stairs to their rooms, finding Jean nowhere about at the moment. Apparently Harry wanted to speak with her before talking to Jean about whatever was bothering him.
Ororo sat down at the table where he was sitting, and looked at the odd images that were hovering above him. They had to be magically created, not scientific hard light holograms, since that system haven't been set up in their rooms yet, nor would they be until after Harry began to make connections in the business world. They just weren't important to have everywhere just yet. "Yes Harry, you said you wanted to speak to me? Is this about whatever you are looking at?" She noticed her name as one of them, and wondered what it was.
Harry looked up at her and smiled faintly waving her to a seat. "Yes it is. You know how I've wondered about how magic was different here from my old dimension?" Ororo nodded and Harry went on. "I've mentioned that in my old dimension there were people who were not related to any pure bloods but who developed magic? I think I found out the reason why here. For whatever reason, I think it's because wizards began so much later in this dimension and retreated so much more quickly, so they didn't have time to interbreed as much with mundanes. I also have a theory about how the ley lines here are set up, there were much more of them spread out though each was less powerful in my old dimension, but I don't know if that's really a part of the reason or really has anything to with this, its just a theory on prevalent magic…"
"Harry," Ororo said firmly reaching out to take hold of his chin. "You're babbling. Stop it. Simply say what you mean."
Harry smiled, took a deep breath and then went on. "I have been trying to figure out the differences in the magical corners here and in my home dimension. A wizard such as myself is born with a magical core already 'on' I have would say, or given what I've found out a better choice for it would be 'kindled'. It's burning, yes? From the moment we come into this world, hell, it's burning in us from the moment we're conceived. Sirius often talked about how much accidental magic occurred even when I was, you know, still growing inside my mother."
He coughed and went on ignoring Ororo slight smile at his expense. "In any event, there are individuals here who have in them the potential to become magic users. Those people need their cores to be 'kindled' somehow. Invocation, the act of calling upon otherworldly sources of power for your magic can do the kindling, but eventually most sorcerers get to the point where their magical core is self-sustaining. After that, they don't actually need to rely on the deities that they have been calling upon. Most sorcerers however would lack the inherent power of a wizard, and they're not quite able to use that power in a manner that a Wizard would. Stephen for example cannot transfigure things as easily as I can, though his ability to use pure magic is a lot better than mine at this point, and the things he can do using invocations go beyond normal wizardry."