Chapter 306 - bh

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A Third Path to the Future by Vimesenthusiast

 Harry Potter & Marvel Xover Rated: M, English, Adventure & Romance, Harry P., J. Grey/Marvel Girl/Phoenix, Words: 1862k+, Favs: 11k+, Follows: 11k+, Published: Jun 30, 2013 Updated: Jun 2 6,476Chapter 4: Acclimatizing goes both ways

Here is my fourth chapter of my Harry/marvel cross. I think it is a little more raw and unpolished than the others, but that is because we are now moving into areas where I don't have as much information as I would like.

Several people have mentioned that Harry should be able to fly, that was deliberate, to make him fallible and as a bit of a bonding moment, as you will see in this chapter.

thanks go to Xunzar for helping me go back and edit this work!

Chapter 4 Acclimatizing goes both ways

Harry woke up early the next morning at sunrise, and smiled happily at the rays of sunlight coming through the window. He got up, stretched for a moment then felt for his link with his familiar. One eyebrow rose in surprise as he felt Hedwig close by. Following the link he exited his room and went down three doors to the entrance to the large arboretum he had seen as they rode up to the front door.

Inside he found a multitude of plants and trees, all of them growing together in a wild profusion rather than separated into different classes and types. Walking through it he soon found Hedwig perched on a tree. Her eye had been closed but as he walked up to her Hedwig's golden eyes popped open. "Preck."

"Hey Hedwig, just wanted to make certain you were okay after such a long flight, if you want to get some more sleep I'll prepare a rasher of bacon for lunch rather than brekkers."

Hedwig shook her head. "Preck. Preck, guah."

Harry's emerald eyes narrowed. "Really, two of them?"

Hedwig nodded her head. "Preck."

"And one of them really did wear the form of a bird at first? Then changed into a woman?"

"Preck."

"Huh, well I don't know about that one, but the other one I knew about before. I wonder if she was there to watch me or to watch the FF?" Hedwig shrugged eloquently not caring which it was.

Ororo's voice came from behind him. "Good morning Harry, it isn't often that I see anyone else up this early. Is there a problem?"

Harry turned and gasped, all his blood rushing to his cheeks and further down. Ororo was standing there wearing nothing but a small, strangely challenging smile. Her large D cup breasts stood out proudly topped with nipples the color of dark chocolate; her skin was the color of coffee with a hint of cream added; her waist was thin, her legs long, her body without blemish or mark.

Ororo had spent much of her life living alone on the plains of Africa after a young girlhood as a poor thief in Cairo after her parents had died in an earthquake. As such, she had never developed the nudity taboos that Americans took for granted. She had noticed Harry entering her sanctuary and wondered what he was doing. She thought that this would be an interesting test of his personality as well.

Harry gaped for a second then with an effort of will concentrated on just Ororo's face, allowing a smirk to appear on his own. "Um . . . wow. I didn't know this room was clothing optional."

Ororo shrugged. "You may join me if you wish, but what were you discussing with Hedwig? Incidentally," she turned to the snowy owl, "I would appreciate it if you hunted on the grounds outside rather than in here. I doubt there are many animals in here, but I don't want to find any . . . leavings . . . shall we say?" Hedwig bobbed her head in assent, liking how the female human had already gotten used to her intelligence. It normally took the silly two-foots much longer to realize that she was probably as smart as they were if not more so.

Ororo turned and was amused to see Harry already had his shirt and pants off, though he kept his boxers on. His eyes, however, after that first gaping, full-body stare remained on Ororo's face, and he made no move to close the distance between them. "Hedwig says we were being watched by two people when we left the Baxter Building. One of them I knew about. She's been watching . . . well I thought she was bloody watching Johnny Storm and just generally keeping an eye on the Fantastic Four. The other though, she's apparently the local equivalent of an animagus. She was in the form of a crow at first then transformed into a blue-skinned woman when Hedwig knocked her out of the sky."

Ororo frowned then looked over at Hedwig approvingly. "Give her a few extra bacon slices for me Harry. That sounds like Mystique. She's the leader of the local opposition as it were, the Brotherhood of Mutants. Did the others tell you about them?"

Harry nodded. "I understood the Brotherhood is a group of teens like the kids downstairs, but the groups based more about using their powers for personal gain than essentially evil or anything like that. Is Mystique the same way?"

Ororo found her own eyes glued to Harry's pecs and the odd assortment of scars he had. To many they might be a turn off, but to her they spoke of experience and his ability to survive anything the world could throw at him. And it had been a long time for her, and her last (and only second of two) relationship with a man had been disappointing. Going to college had been necessary, but the majority of people she had met were so juvenile and shallow, and the man she had dated and eventually slept with had been no exception, merely better than most at hiding it.

Harry was anything but juvenile, despite his lack of a verbal brake system, and was actually quite a deep thinker as well. And eyes I could drown in, and is handsome and . . . Her eyes tried to trail downward, but she resolutely raised them back to his face. Thankfully Harry was busy stroking Hedwig and hadn't noticed her lack of attention, though she could swear the snowy owl had.

"I would say she is more amoral then truly evil, but she is extremely devoted to the cause of mutant supremacy. Whoever her leader is, she believes him or her the best chance to fulfill that dream and to protect mutant-kind from prosecution."

Harry nodded. Maybe I should talk to this Mystique woman. I definitely want to hear both sides of this argument before I really choose a side, after all there might be more reasons to fear a normal human backlash than Charles knows or is prepared to admit. "I see. Well, enough about that for now, when do the others wake up? And do you want me to cook breakfast for everyone? Any preferences or dietary needs?"

Ororo chuckled, going back to using her powers to water her plants. Harry stared, his control fraying as he saw her laugh a little under the rain she had summoned, the water glistening on her dark skin. "No, no dietary needs, though the girls, especially Jean, seem to think they need to diet. I have tried to convince them otherwise, but if you wish to try you are more than welcome. They won't awake for at least another two hours though, so we have time. Tell me more of your adventures? Where did you get the one odd scar on your arm—it looks as if it's from a giant tooth. And you mentioned creating a . . . 'ward' I believe you called it, to cut me off from local weather patterns?"

Harry grinned, pushing aside his desire for now to just enjoy the aesthetics of watching Ororo move about her arboretum uncaring of her nudity. If she isn't going to make a big deal out of it, I'll try not to as well. "Well, I did yes, and I can try to come up with something later today once the kids have gone to school. I may have to use trial and error at first, of course, as your ability isn't based off magic, but I'm certain I can come up with something. As for my scar, since we've already played 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine', how about I tell you mine and you tell me yours, a story for a story?"

Ororo laughed aloud, spinning in place and setting the clouds she had summoned to twisting and twirling in a slight eddy. "Of course, if you go first."

Harry nodded and sat down, leaning back against a tree. "Well in that case, that particular scar came from a monstrous snake called a basilisk. I don't know if you've heard of them but…."

OOOOOOO

A very pleasant hour later, Harry excused himself reluctantly from the 'goddess's presence' to go shower and then head down to cook breakfast for the horde. He had found Ororo pleasant, very intelligent company, with a very solid knowledge of current events and an ear for languages that he had never seen the equal of. She could speak in twelve languages like a native, and read and write in all with equal proficiency. And here I thought that speaking French, Italian, and Latin was impressive. Her story about her parent's death and how she had lived on the street reminded him over much of how the Durlseys had mistreated him. While he had been abused because of who he was, she had been beaten whenever she failed to steal something.

She was incredibly lucky even so, he thought grimly, remembering coming in after a particularly nasty Death Eater raid where the two young daughters of the house had been left, their minds broken and bodies mauled after the Death Eaters had used them for their pleasure. Yes, very lucky indeed. And so was the rest of the world. He shuddered, wondering what could have happened if Ororo's powers had woken up early from such trauma, wild and uncontrolled. Hurricanes, tornadoes and massive storms would have done untold damage. With an effort he put aside such dark thoughts and concentrated on making breakfast.

The others got up in their own order and were surprised to find the new teacher already up, save for Kurt who cursed at missing an opportunity to pay the new guy back for smacking them around the previous evening. Most of them sat down talking amongst themselves. The guys were loud, but moving gingerly, Scott most of all due to that final paint claymore, while Kitty was quiet, chewing on a pen and contemplating a letter she was evidently writing. Rogue, too, sat quietly, listening to some music on her headphones and tapping along to the beat, trying to ignore the injuries she had sustained. Jean, however, after stopping off to get some more burn cream and still nursing her burned chest walked into the kitchen. "Do you need any help Mr. Potter?"

"Gah, outside of lessons call me Harry. I'm not really interested in formality for formality's sake, especially from someone only a few years younger than me. And no, I don't need any help thanks, though if you could get everyone some drinks that would be fine if they're too lazy to get up and get their own." Jean giggled a little at that, but his next words, spoken loud enough for the others in the dining room to hear, wiped the smile off her face. "And Ororo told me that you girls seem to want to diet. That ends now. You lot are active and in training; you need all the energy you can get. You'll have a full plate and like it."

Jean glared at him, but he glared right back emerald against green. Jean sighed and nodded, giving up in the face of the inevitable, after all it wasn't like he could force her to eat, could he? "Alright fine. But can you tell me why I couldn't get a read on you in yesterday's match? I can't even find your mind for goodness sake!"

Harry smirked, waving a finger at her to come closer. Jean sighed but did so and Harry whispered. "Have you ever heard of indivisibility cloaks?" Jean shrugged, but the name seemed self-explanatory to her. "I imagine one then cover my mind with it, so that no one else can see it."

Jean gaped. "B-but that can't work! Your mind can't be that organized! Our thoughts fly all over the place, I've been meditating ever since the professor told me about my power, but I've never heard of anyone being able to organize his mind like that."

Harry looked at her thoughtfully as his hands worked without conscious thought on finishing the food. "How much free time do you have on a day to day basis?"

Jean frowned at the odd question. "Not much really, I get home around 7; I'm part of the cheerleading squad and the soccer team right now. Then I'm part of the basketball team when in season, the floor hockey team when in season, and of course I've got homework for school and daily workouts with Logan and the others."

Harry's eyebrows rose in amusement. "That much, huh? Well aren't you a busy little bee." Jean frowned at the slightly mocking tone, but Harry went on. "See, the problem is I could loan you some books on occlumency, the magical method of organizing and protecting your mind, but I don't know how far you could get with that little time a day to devote to it, nor am I certain that a mundane—sorry, non-magical—could use it in the first place. When I was learning, I had to devote at least four hours a day to meditating and organizing my mind."

Jean kept frowning. "I'm not certain I could take that much time off. I mean I've got obligations and I want to keep my A+ average."

"Good grief, you're like an athletic Hermione!" Harry shook his head, a slightly sad smile on his face. "Well, I'll give you the books in any case. I'll also give Xavier a set, see what he thinks of them. Honestly though it's not the first thing I was going to teach you."

Kurt popped in to help set the table, wincing a little as his aching ribs twanged. "Oh, you already thought of what you vanted to teach us Harry?"

"Yep, different things for each of you actually, and a lot of team exercises. For you Kurt I'm thinking of a lot of martial arts, like Krav Maga—we'll see what Logan thinks about that—and maybe some medical knowledge to know where to aim your blows." Kurt blanched a little at the serious nature of Harry's suggested lessons. "And for you Red," Jean growled, making stabbing motions with a handful of forks she had grabbed for the table, but Harry ignored her. "I want to see how many ways you can use your powers. I haven't much of a handle on them, but I think they could be damn powerful."

"Well maybe if you hadn't taken me out so fast each time, you'd know what all I was capable of," Jean said snippily, irritated by his continued use of that hated nickname.

"I had to, your powers were the most unknown therefore the most dangerous. I was able to tell what the limitations of everyone else's were, but not yours. If you think about it, given what you and Charles said about telekinesis last night, you could probably have countered most of what I did by yourself if you had known what to expect."

Harry brought out the food and everyone piled in as Jean thought about that. It was actually kind of professionally flattering in a way, that Harry thought she was the most dangerous of the team, even if she knew it wasn't true.

Ororo and the other adults were at one end of the table, and Harry sat down next to Ororo, who smiled in welcome. She'd had a lovely morning with him earlier, and he had passed her little test this morning with flying colors. Other than that first initial glance and another when she started watering her plants—and even she had to admit that she looked quite enticing when doing that—he had ignored her nakedness and been able to carry on a perfectly normal conversation. And it wasn't like she hadn't enjoyed the view of his pecs and hard muscles. There was a surprising amount of power in his lithe frame.

The stories they had shared also showed her they had a lot in common; both of their childhoods had been hard, marked with hardship, lack of food and horrible home life (in her case because of the thieves that had taken her in after her parents died, and in his case because of the Dursleys).

Evan saw the smile on his aunt's face and scowled, wondering what the hell was happening between her and this new guy.

Scott looked around at the others. He was so sore from the other day's fights that he didn't even want to think about moving, but he had to. "Professor, will we have any time in the Danger Room after school? I've been thinking about yesterday's battles and I've thought of what we did wrong."

Harry answered him. "Good, in that case your AAR will be easy to write, and I'll work with you one on one this afternoon after school." Scott frowned wanting to correct the team problems first, but Harry went on inexorably. "First you work on the individual issues. Learn your own strengths and weaknesses, then see how you can put them all together to be stronger as a team." Charles smiled at the sentiment, and the others all nodded.

Scott did too, after a moment, though he didn't think he had done anything physically wrong. He had made a lot of wrong decisions, but that was all. If he had known Harry was a wizard, he would have been able to come up with an appropriate plan. Harry smirked at him as if he could read his mind and shook his head.

Kurt tried to reach over to a plate of bacon that Harry had placed between him and Ororo. They both stopped him however, saying together, "I wouldn't do that if I were you" then smirking at one another.

Kurt looked at the two adults in surprise but his answer came swooping in on silent wings. Hedwig landed before her just reward, and immediately began to gobble the bacon down. All of the girls oohed at the beautiful bird, and Harry regaled them with the story of how he and Hedwig had been introduced by Hagrid, his half-giant acquaintance, and what being a familiar entailed both for him and for Hedwig.

Kitty broke in at this point, having put her letter down to stare at the bird. "Like, is there any magic you could teach us?"

Harry frowned in thought. "Well, I don't know, I want to introduce Red here," Jean growled again at the name causing Kurt and Scott to look at her in surprise. Who knew she had an issue with being called such a simple nickname? "To occlumency, the mental discipline of us wizards; I suppose I could see if you could get a reaction out of runes or wards. Agatha says people in this dimension can use magical items, so we'll see. I know in my home dimension, mundanes couldn't; Hermione tried to teach her parents how to use some magical items, especially a magic communication mirror so they could talk during the school year, and they couldn't."

"Who's Hermione?" Kitty asked.

Harry paused, his emerald eyes dimming for a moment. "She was my best friend my own age, and my first girlfriend. She and her family were also the first to die when Voldermort, the evil wizard I mentioned last night, came back to life and power, because an old man who was supposed to be leading the so-called 'light side' thought I would come to rely on his advice if I didn't have her by my side, and so didn't bother protecting her when he should have." Everyone looked at him in horror, but he shrugged. "It was the start of a very bad time, but it was at least five and a half years or so ago, so I've had time to get over it."

That wasn't true of course, he'd had time, but getting over it, no. Harry looked over at Kitty's sad face and smirked a little. "You and little miss honors student," he waved over at Jean, "remind me a bit of her honestly. So sure, let's find out what you all can use, huh?"

Kitty nodded happily, wanting desperately to add some more offensive punch to her repertoire. As it was, she was pretty much dependent on her mutant power for all her offense and defense. As Harry had proved last night, that wasn't going to be enough all the time, and becoming dependent on it might get her killed.

The rest of the breakfast passed quickly and the kids swiftly left for school, leaving Harry and the adults to their own devices.

Logan turned to Harry, an almost challenging look on his face. "If you ain't up to anything this morning, do you want to have a spar in the danger room?"

Harry looked at him eyebrow raised then nodded. He had a good idea of Ororo's skill, but getting an idea of how dangerous other more experienced mutants could be was a good idea.

OOOOOOO

About an hour later, Logan and Harry were facing off against one another in the Danger Room. Harry smirked, stretching his arms above his head and cracking his neck. "I don't suppose you'd be such a good sport as to tell me your powers before we begin, would you?"

Logan grinned wickedly. "Trust me kid, you'll see it soon enough."

Harry shook his head resignedly then, without warning, shot off a Stupefy, starting with the least dangerous of his spells.

This didn't startle his opponent at all, and Logan was able to easily dodge the beam of red light. He then charged in and suddenly claws, metal claws, popped out from behind his knuckles, three of them to a hand, about six inches long and wickedly pointed. Harry jumped back, putting up a Protego between them, the weakest of his shield spells. "Ah," he said blandly. "I do see your point now."

Logan barked a laugh and struck out, shattering the magic shield with a squeal as it broke, then tried to close in again.

Harry fired off a Difindo and then a Bombarda, but Logan took the first one without blinking, and dodged the second. To Harry's surprise, the cutting spell didn't do much damage; even underpowered, it should have cut a small slash into Logan from shoulder to hip, but it had barely cut into his shoulder and as Harry watched, that too closed.

"Huh" he said intelligently, then had to duck a slash and twist away from a follow up uppercut topped with claw points. He punched out, his fist glowing with a second Bombarda spell that smashed into Logan's face, blowing the older man off his feet and away. Yet even that wasn't able to keep him down for long. Logan jumped up, the blast on his face already healing in front of Harry's surprised eyes. "It's like you've got an intravenous tube feeding you healing droughts!" He was again forced to dodge, diving to the ground to avoid a roundhouse blow tipped with gleaming points. A half–powered Rifela, a penetrating attack spell, caught Logan on the kneecap, punched into the skin, but then bounced off the bone. "What the bloody fuck!"

This went on for some time. Harry was fast and had insane reflexes and hand/eye coordination, and was well—if eclectically—trained in hand to hand. Logan, however, was simply a monster in close combat; he had a healing speed that was insane, reflexes almost as good as Harry's, his claws, and more training. More, he was smart enough to not give Harry any time or distance, keeping the pressure on and the battle in close. So while Harry could land about two blows for every nick he took, neither fighter could land a knockout punch. Even Harry's lightning spells didn't do more than slow Logan down. He had a powerful sense of smell, and could tell when Harry tried to use illusions or conjure beasts to draw Logan's attention and always matched them easily if they tried to attack him.

After about an hour of this, Harry was bleeding from several places and wishing he had changed into his crisis suit. All right, his bones are metal and he's got a healing ability that is just crazy. In that case, let's see what happens if I attack his brain box. Harry stopped using his spells, building up a spell-chain in both hands as he dodged around one slash or stab after another. He built the chain from a series of simple spells and one advanced spell he had created in the Negative Zone called 'shatter-shaker'. A moment later, he saw his chance and first used a tickling charm, which caught Logan mid-leap.

Logan began to convulse in laughter, but he still swung his claws around, trying automatically to force Harry to keep his distance. Harry, however, was more than happy to oblige. He jumped back and fired off a glue-making spell, pinning Logan in one place then fired a series of shatter-shakers. This spell was designed to hit something and then cause a vibration to shake it apart. It had been created to take out defensive positions by shaking the walls apart. Now these spells were underpowered and targeted specifically, but even so, the jolts and continued shaking of Logan's brain inside his skull were eventually able to put him down and out.

As soon as Logan hit the floor, Harry cancelled the spells, and used a Leviosa to pick Logan up and head out of the Danger Room. This fight had proven one thing above and beyond anything else, the X-kids had a lot of learning to do before they were anywhere near as good as an adult mutant at using their powers, and Harry now knew that he wasn't going to be powering through any mutant he met—a good thing to learn now, before he faced an actual enemy.

Logan woke up as Harry was levitating him toward the medical center. After growling angrily at having lost, he made Harry put him down. "You're good kid, real good. I thought I was winning there for a few minutes." Moreover, he could tell the kid wasn't putting as much into the fight as he could have, there were several times he could tell the kid switched from a more dangerous spell to the one he used.

Harry nodded. "Yep; you were, but then I changed tactics. On another topic, you look like you might know how to do this: how do I go about converting gold into cash?"

OOOOOOO

Harry spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon learning about the wonderful world of the criminal element, how computers could be used, laundering money, and offshore accounts. Harry was a little leery about using this information though, as he would not get nearly as good a return on his gold as he would if he went to legitimate businesses. So instead, Logan told him about pawnshops, and agreed to go with him into New York and Philadelphia, which between them had hundreds of stores which would buy gold, few questions asked and no questions answered. However, that would be a full day trip, and thus would have to wait for a bit, as Harry wanted to get the kids started own their individual exercises/lessons before pursuing his own interests.

Charles spent his time in the medical wing, trying to glean any clues about Harry's mutant power he could, but was stymied at every turn. There were no readings from the Danger Room sessions that indicated a mutant power—his speed and reflexes, while incredible, were still within the bounds of what a normal human could achieve. And he certainly didn't have any extra durability, given the number of injuries he took from his spar with Logan. Everything that had happened around Harry could be 'easily' explained away with his ability to use magic, and it was frustrating the professor no end.

Ororo spent her time as she always did, preparing the kid's language lessons, which occurred every other day, practicing with her own powers in the Danger room, and as Harry had asked, cataloguing what things and how quickly she could do said things with the local weather, both consciously and unconsciously, which would help him create the ward he was thinking about creating for her. The thought occurred to her to mention he might want to create one for Rogue if he could, but she was also wary of doing so; getting the girl's hopes up like that might backfire badly if it turned out he couldn't. She had become used to controlling her emotions, so while the ward for her would be an excellent thing to have, it wouldn't be as earth shattering to not have as it would for Rogue.

Harry was coming back from jogging in the woods that made up part of the mansion's property when the kids came back. Scott, being the only one with a license and thus a car, brought Kitty and Rogue home with him, while Evan and Kurt skateboarded home, and thus would be arriving a bit later than the first trio. Jean would arrive even later, busy with all her after school activities.

Kitty hopped out of the car, excitedly running up to Harry. "Hey Harry! Like, are we going to start learning about runes and stuff now? Oh! I've had so many ideas on how to use 'em, like maybe we could embed spells in 'em and give me a bit more offensive oomph, or maybe defensive woven into our uniforms somehow, or . . ."

Harry laughed, pulling at her curly hair with a lazy hand. "Easy Curly, I've been thinking of those ideas too, but we'll still need to see if you can consciously use runes at all before anything else. That'll be part of your lessons, if you want to, we can start on that kind of thing tomorrow."

Kitty grinned at him, raising two fingers in a v sign. "All right, like I'll get my homework and stuff done for today and tomorrow and we can spend all evening on it. Like, this is going to be so exciting!"

Harry chuckled shaking her head and hoping she wouldn't be too disappointed if they didn't work for her, then turned to Scott. "You ready to go?"

Scott really wasn't, he was still sore from last evening, but he wasn't about to admit to that. "Sure, just let me go get changed."

Harry nodded. "Meet me back here, we'll warm up with a jog and then we'll play a game in the danger room."

Scott almost shuddered at that but nodded and went off to change. He came back and followed Harry on a three mile jog through the woods, finished with a sprint from the edge of the woods back to the house. Then some stretching exercises and the two adjourned to the Danger Room.

Harry entered first setting up the exercise he wanted to put the kid through, then called Cyclops in. "Alright mate, this is going to be a game to test your situational awareness, accuracy with your beams, and threat recognition."

Scott nodded and went to stand in the center of the field Harry indicated with a nod. Harry started the program and suddenly small spheres began to shoot out at Scott from all sides, then after a time which he spent firing off small beams and dodging wildly, more things appeared, arrows, robots, and others.

Harry stood to one side, stopping the program occasionally to give advice on the threat recognition, but otherwise let Scott take his lumps, which was the best way for anyone to learn. Scott got better as time went on in terms of control, being able to pare his beam down to deal with each of the different threats without overpowering them too much.

Yet he had a major problem with threat recognition, wanting to treat them all the same. When Harry began to mix in soft targets, i.e. noncombatants, the public and pedestrians, it became even worse. Scott seemed to oscillate wildly from being too quick to shoot and hitting bystanders to not shooting at all and taking shots in return. Still, that kind of reaction could be taught over time.

After an hour, Harry shut the program down and then spent the next hour going over the recording of the X-Men's fight against him the day before. Here Scott began to fall apart. Rather than admit to the main two problems—that he had tried to stick to a very specific plan and hadn't really taken anyone else's advice—he concentrated more on everyone else's reactions rather than his own. He also didn't seem to want to take advice from Harry, probably because of Harry being only a few years older than him.

The problem is, Harry reflected, he seems to be the leader, and he gives orders like one but he doesn't really have any leadership qualities. Daphne had explained it to him once, it had nothing to do with his power or his fighting ability. No, it had to do with charisma, with being able to bring out the best in others, with a certain amount of empathy, and the ability to think into the future near and far. Scott had no real empathy and all the charisma of a brick. It remained to be seen whether he could plan for the future and learn from his mistakes in truth.

Harry ended the session by saying blandly, "And you might want to remember not to talk about your plans out loud in enemy territory; you never know who might be listening."

Scott stared at him for a moment, not understanding then it dawned and he scowled angrily. "That's cheating!"

Harry shook his head wearily. "Mate, this isn't a bloody game, it's real life; there are no rules except 'he who survives wins'. You have a telepath on your team that could, theoretically anyway, handle all the communication you could bloody use." In fact Jean could probably do far more than that, but that alone was a major advantage.

Scott looked uncomfortable for a minute, but nodded, and Harry ended the session by assigning some reading about modern infantry weapons available on the market for both civilians and the military, to acclimatize Scott to the weapons he might face. Scott protested this though. "But our job isn't to fight normal humans, it's to fight other mutants who use their powers against them. If we fight normal humans we're no better than the Brotherhood."

"Hate and the need to feel superior over anyone different doesn't all go one way mate. I bet if you look for it, there're probably already hate groups springing up that target mutant-kind." Scott frowned but didn't argue the point; he just didn't want to thinking about it. The idea of using his powers on normal people made him think he was more of a bully than a hero, but he realized it might eventually be necessary.

Harry went back outside to get away from the noise of Evan and Kurt, who had arrived while he and his reluctant student were in the Danger Room, running around the main hall, skateboarding around on the smooth floor. They both stopped as he came by, but he just waved a hand at them and moved on, uncaring.

OOOOOOO

As the sun was setting, Harry looked up from working on his laptop under a tree by the entrance to the mansion to see a sports car of some kind drive up. As it came to a stop Jean got out from the passenger side looking a little irritated. "Hey Red, guess you weren't kidding about how late you usually get home."

As Jean turned to give him a wan smile, a tall, strongly built blond teen got out, staring at him intently before turning to Jean. "Seriously Jean, just ask, they can't keep you in here all the time. Even if it is a school night, we could go out and catch a movie at least."

Jean shook her head. "Duncan, you know that won't work. Besides, we just got assigned a long term physics project and I want to get a leg up on it tonight. Oh, and this is Harry Potter, he's our new history instructor, and our cook too. Mr. Potter, this is Duncan."

Duncan smirked a little at that. "Oh a cook huh, does he come complete with an apron?"

Harry grinned unpleasantly. "Nah boyo, I just have an extra large barbecue to use on blokes that make fun of my cooking. And I told you not to call me Mr. Potter out of class, Red; it makes me feel old."

Jean rolled her eyes, but a smile did steal along her face at his initial joke. Duncan shrugged eloquently. "Well, if you're alright with doing something so girly as cooking I guess that's alright for some." His toned implied what kind of 'some' he meant and Jean's eyes narrowed but Harry merely shrugged. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow alright Jean?"

Jean nodded and he tried to lean in for a kiss but she moved away, never liking public displays of affection. Duncan scowled a little, but wiped it off his face quickly got in his car and gunned it moving away.

Harry cocked his head to one side as he looked at Jean. "So that's your boyfriend, huh? An interesting sense of humor he's got."

Jean rubbed her face wearily. "Sorry about that dig, he's usually nicer than that, but the football team had a really horrible practice today, half of their offensive line was out with a stomach bug, and Duncan got sacked several times, which always puts him in a bad mood."

Harry's eyebrows crinkled in query. "What's an offensive line got to do with football?"

Jean looked at him then laughed aloud. "Oh right, you're British. I forgot they don't have that over there, I guess you could call it a more advanced form of rugby then, what you call football, we call soccer here in the states." Harry nodded in understanding and she went on. "Listen, I wasn't actually assigned all that much homework tonight. Do you think you could give me those meditation books and walk me through some of them tonight?"

Harry nodded. "Sure, Red, though we might want to get Ororo involved. Sometimes when you start to organize your mind, you realize things you didn't think about or notice before, and it can get bloody emotional at times. A female shoulder might be needed."

Jean stopped and stared at him, growling a little. "Alright, what the hell is up with the nicknames? I hate being called Red! It makes me think I'm being stereotyped, like all redheaded people have tempers and other sh-stuff!"

"Ooh, nice correction there. Would you prefer 'luv' then? That's what I'd normally call female acquaintances, but I figure being yanks, you lot would take it the wrong way." It wasn't actually, but he'd be damned if anyone got out of having a nickname until they became more than an irritating bunch of kids to him.

Jean flushed slightly, but that was all. "I would prefer that to Red, but you're right; I think people would react badly to that if you used that to any of us girls."

Harry smirked, and led the way inside holding the door open for her. "Duly noted, Red." Jean scowled, but couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her.

The two found Ororo in the solarium, and when informed of what they were doing, she nodded agreement to join them, but asked "Have you run this idea by Professor Xavier?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't even know if it will work for non-magicals. This is more of an experiment than anything else from my point of view. I'm not certain why Jean wants to learn it so much."

Jean frowned but, at Ororo's insistent look, decided she had to elaborate. "You said that occlumency can keep other people from getting into your mind. I'm hoping to be able to do much the same. My powers . . . I . . . well sometimes even when I'm not actively using my telepathy, I pick up things from the minds around me that I rather I wouldn't. So I'm hoping occlumency helps me more than the professor's lessons on clearing my mind."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "So in essence, you want to learn to keep your mind to yourself?" The words were whimsical, but his eyes showed his understanding of how uncomfortable it could be to have other people's thoughts in your head.

Ororo, too, was looking at her with understanding and concern. "And you say that Charles' lessons haven't helped?"

Jean nodded a little miserably. "He came into his powers after he had already developed mental discipline and control. Right now, I would liken it to trying to organize a defense against a massive flood while the flood is going on." And being a teenager and all that entails is not helping any, she thought angrily.

"I'll get the books, if that's all right with you. We can use this space, yes?"

Ororo nodded. "I'll go and talk to Charles; perhaps he will be able to help." It turned out that he did want to sit in, but was a little worried about how it was going to turn out; yet when Ororo told him the metaphor Jean used, he understood.

Harry brought back the books and walked Jean through the first chapter's meditation. This was a way of meditating through the use of picturing a fire and throwing stray thoughts and emotions into it until you were completely calm. Once you were able to do that, you could go onto the next stage, exploring your memories and organizing them in whatever way you were most comfortable with. Harry had his organized like a house, but he told Jean that one of his friends imagined them as a forest, with each tree having its own dryad protector, and another organized it like a computer complete with dozens of passwords. Luna and Hermione had been very different in their thought processes, but they had been very good at occlumency, in very different ways, but still.

After an hour, Jean was feeling much calmer and more focused than she had been, and determined to do this at least twice a day, once before school and once after. Charles was happy with her progress, though he urged her to find other metaphors other than fire, which he said was because fire was something destructive, and it might interfere with her getting rid of feelings of anger. Harry shrugged, not caring either way. The important things was to get rid of the emotions and stray thoughts, not how you did it.

They broke up and went down to have a late dinner. Everyone else had already eaten, wanting to hit the sack and get over their bruises that much faster.

OOOOOOO

The next morning found Harry and Ororo once again spending time together in the arboretum, sharing more stories and talking about current events and politics, getting into a really fascinating discussion comparing the government of Britain to America. Harry went back to his room once again in a good mood, only to halt outside his door as he heard sounds of movement inside.

Though nowhere near as much as Evan, who was still stiff and really sore from the pain (not helped by his decision to skate to school), Kurt had been a little bruised and battered around the edges yesterday morning, and had not been up to getting a little revenge on their torturer just then. Thus Kurt had gotten up a little earlier than normal and made his way upstairs to the teacher level to see if he could prank Potter.

Unfortunately he ran into problems immediately. First, Harry was already up and gone, leaving Kurt to figure out some way of booby-trapping something, which he wasn't so good at. His next problem occurred when he chose his target. He decided to try his hand at the huge trunk at the foot of the bed rather than the closet, but when he went to open it he found his hands suddenly frozen in place. He jerked and tired to break free of whatever was holding him, he even tried to bamf away, but the weight of the trunk must have been immense, as he couldn't take it with him and he was stuck there.

Harry opened his door to look inside and smirked at Kurt's predicament. It seemed as if the stasis ward was able to shut down Kurt's teleporting abilities somehow, something for him to research later, if only to find a way Kurt could combat it. "Well, well, what do we have here? Trying to find out more about me, or trying to set up a prank, blueboy?"

Kurt groaned, unable to even turn and face him. "Um, vhich one would make you less unhappy vith me, mine freund?"

"Oh pranking definitely. If you've got questions about me just ask them politely I'll probably answer them unless they're too personal. Now, what to do with you hmm? I know, I'll let you choose: painful or humiliating?"

Kurt actually thought about it. "Given I'm still a little sore from our matches the other day, I'm afraid I'll have to go for humiliating." Besides he knew he could get out of it when he went to school by using his image inducer.

"Humiliating it is." Harry stared at him, imagining the effect he wanted to achieve when he cast the color-changing spell. Then with a wave of his hand, Kurt's dark blue fur became a veritable riot of colors, lime, pink, red, orange and yellow in a strange rainbow pattern from the feet up. Another wave and the words 'I tried to prank a Marauder' appeared on Kurt's chest in green.

Kurt gaped down at his body and groaned, closing his eyes even as the stasis field released him when Harry touched the edge of the trunk. "Is it too late to change my mind?"

"Yep, but don't worry mate it'll go away in a few hours. Better luck next time, or you could ask me for some advice; I am quite the prank master myself, you know. In fact, I've been thinking of pranking the Hairy One and Baldy since I met them, and I've already got a few ideas."

Kurt gaped at him, he'd have never even thought of pranking those two. Why that would be the pranks of all pranks! With that thought, he knelt before Harry in homage. "Oh vise master, please take this penitent one and show him the ways of the prank!"

Harry grinned at him and raised a hand magnanimously in benediction. Elsewhere in the mansion, both the men he'd mentioned and several others felt a shiver of fear go down their spines.

OOOOOOO

Ororo knocked on Jean's door and entered when she heard a muffled 'come in', smiling softly at seeing Jean already up and sitting Indian style on the floor, her eyes closed. "Hello Jean, I have more burn cream for you, and breakfast should be ready soon. How are you feeling?"

Jean looked up at Ms. Munroe and smiled. "I'm fine, I think. A little sore, but as long as I put on more cream now and before practice this afternoon I should be fine. And I don't know really, I'm more focused and less stressed—a lot less stressed really—so that part is good, though I want to see if what I've learned so far will help me keep out other people's thoughts when I go to school."

"You've only just started, give it time. Even if you can't do the specific defenses Harry can, the organization aspect should help you a lot." Jean nodded, and followed the other woman out, frowning a little at the thought of another meal from Harry. He actually had forced her to eat a full plate at both breakfast and dinner yesterday. He had done something to their chairs so that all three of the girls had to sit there and eat a full plate before it let them go. I hope he doesn't do that again, I really do have to diet to keep my figure, especially at this time of year with the cheerleader season. This thought would soon spark what would become a bit of daily breakfast theater for the others.

OOOOOOO

When Kurt entered dining area from the kitchen carrying a plate of bagels and toppings, it was to the sounds of yells of laughter and shock. Evan in particular was laughing it up, even Logan had a smirk on his face. The girls were all saying how cute he looked ('like a normal Kurt crossed with a Care Bear stare,' in Kitty's words), but he simply shook his head and said, "Laugh it up guys, you're all next."

That shut them all up and Scott asked warily, "what do you mean?"

Harry came in and clapped a hand on Kurt's shoulder as he brought in the food for breakfast, bacon again (Hedwig would eat his ears if he didn't make some) and home fries. "It means that the last Marauder now has an apprentice. I would suggest starting to lock your doors gentlemen and ladies. Pranks are the greatest things in the universe and I believe it is my beholden duty to the Marauders to bring this truth to everyone around me."

Logan grumbled while Storm simply shook her head, seeing much amusement and irritation in her future, but not having a problem with it as long as they didn't include her plants or her piano in things. The kids, however, looked from one prankster to another taking in their matching evil grins and shuddered.

With the kids recovered from their beating at Harry's hands, the breakfast was much more boisterous, so much so that to carry on a conversation, Harry actually had to cast a silence spell on the adult section of the table. This allowed him and Logan to talk about where they wanted to take the kids' training. Logan agreed to his ideas for training most of them, but wanted to train Kurt himself, as he didn't think that the kid had enough of a killer streak to really get the most out of krav maga, which was one of the most brutal styles in the world. Harry nodded, but said that he would also be teaching Kurt about situational awareness, so he would know where he was and where everything was all around him, regardless of where he was actually looking whenever he teleported into a new place. He also wanted to teach Rogue some martial arts as well, mainly judo and aikido, which had an emphasis on grappling skills and that Logan agreed to.

Storm broke in at this point and asked softly, "Do you think you could make a ward, I believe you call it, to cut off Rogue's powers as well? Her powers are always on you see, and if she touches someone even a little bit, she'll start to absorb their powers and life force."

Harry grimaced, realizing that being a mutant wasn't all fun and games, there were a lot of issues with their powers as well, above and beyond the racism. "I can look into it," he said slowly, "the ward might be a little different from yours however, with you I'm trying to cut off a mental connection between you and the local weather pattern, what you're describing with her is a physical thing . . ."

He looked over at Rogue, canceling his spell. "Hey Rogue, I've got a quick question? And is that your name or your code name?"

Rogue, not one to open up to new people so easily, had spent most of her time around Harry being quiet, letting the others interact with their new teacher, but she looked up as she was addressed. "It's mah code name," she said her southern drawl apparent, "ahh hate mah real name."

"Gotcha. Anyway, your power, it's based on touch right? As in you actually feel the skin of the other person before you start doing whatever it is you do?"

Rogue nodded morosely, "yeah thah's the way it works, it's why ahh was tryin' to catch you so often in our matches; ahh can only absorb and shut down powers via touch."

"And you just take their powers?"

Charles answered for her. "Unfortunately not, and that is the problem. She absorbs memories and even a person's abilities in a limited fashion."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "In that case, I would request that you try not to touch me; some of my memories are . . ." he trailed off and shook his head. "Let's just say that they're bad and leave it at that okay?" Logan snorted in agreement, having said much the same to the younger girl.

But Harry went on and said thoughtfully. "In that case, maybe a shield of some kind, something that will cover the skin and keep you from actually touching other people? That could work, but I'm not sure how much of the sensation of touching you'll still get, so there might not be a point to it. I'm not certain what I can do, but I'll try, just don't get your hopes up okay?"

Rogue nodded, and despite his warning she was still looking a little hopeful. Science didn't have an answer to controlling her powers, but maybe magic did.

Later, as everyone made to get up, Jean sat there angrily, not being able to rise as there was still half a bagel and bit of home fry on her plate. She looked up and noticed the other girls had all cleaned their plates and so were able to leave. She glared over at Harry who was calmly sipping tea, seemingly ignoring her irritation.

She stared down at the food and suddenly decided she wasn't going to take this. With a thought, she summoned her telekinetic power and ripped her seat apart, sending shards of wood everywhere and breaking out of whatever had been holding her. With another thought, she was able to keep herself from falling and stood there, smiling happily. "Well, I've had enough, thanks for the meal Mr. Potter."

Harry calmly put down his tea and waved a hand, repairing the chair as everyone else, especially Charles, who had no idea what was going on, looked on in surprise. Then Harry looked up at her and said blandly "Of course you know, this means war."

Jean smirked at him moving off to grab her backpack. "Bring it on, Mr. Potter, bring it on." Scott gaped at her, wondering where the sudden violence came from, but Kitty and Rogue both laughed with her, having tried to leave with food still on their plates the day before.

Ororo giggled a little, causing the others to all look at her in surprise, never having heard her giggle before. With that, Jean walked off leaving Harry to explain what was happening to the others, and was picked up by Duncan at the front gates. Everyone else soon followed, Rogue and Kitty piling into Scott's car while Evan and Kurt skateboarded again.

OOOOOOO

Lance Alvers, pro tem field leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants (well they called themselves that, to everyone else they were just the Brotherhood, which was still cool, but not as all-inclusive) saw Kitty Pryde at her locker. He noticed a smile on her face and wondered what was up. Deciding to see what was up he left Toad and Blob where they were, motioning them to continue into the classroom. Pietro was off flirting with someone, and this left Lance alone to talk to the X-girl.

As he neared, he saw Nightcrawler, in his image-inducer-created body, step up to the locker next to her. When Lance saw the other boy's chest, he laughed aloud, alerting them both to his presence. "Who's a Marauder, and why'd you try to prank him?"

Kurt looked at the other boy questioningly, then gaped as Kitty broke into giggles while looking away from him. Kurt frowned and looked down at his chest and saw the phrase Harry had printed there, still visible somehow and looking as if it had been spray-painted on his shirt. "V-hat the—how'd he do that?"

"He? He who?" Lance asked, suddenly worried. I hope the X-dorks didn't get another member, we're outnumbered as it is.

Kitty frowned but quickly realized that she could tell the other boy, who had tried to help her in his own way when her powers activated, the truth here. "He's our new history teacher and cook at the institute, though I wouldn't make fun of that if I were you, he might be a bit touchy about it."

Lance latched onto the most important part of that, and connected the dots from how sore all the X-kids had been yesterday. "Teacher?" He leaned in toward the two of them, keeping his novice low. "Is he the reason you all were so battered yesterday?" Jean had even gotten a medical exception for cheerleader training (hell, he might not like her, but he was a hot-blooded young man and never missed a cheerleader practice. High kicks + hot chicks in short skirts = yay!) and the others had looked sore and slow.

Kitty nodded, while Kurt frowned, feeling his sore ribs in remembrance. "Ja, he dealt with all of us easily." He looked up, eyeing Lance shrewdly, "Even once taking us on with no powers, just military training."

Lance blinked in shock at that, but discounted it as the X-people having gotten cocky or plain stupid. "But he's a teacher right . . . Wait is he the guy that jock Duncan was making jokes about this morning?" Lance shared several classes and a homeroom with two of the football star's friends, and had heard him talking about . . . "The dunce described him as gay or something?"

Kitty giggled and Kurt shook his head. "Not from how vell he and Ms. Monroe are getting along. And Jean said that he and Duncan traded some barbs or something when he dropped her off last night." Kurt didn't actually like Duncan all that much, but he was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt since he was going out with Jean. Kitty on the other hand, thought they were all wrong for one another, but didn't really see a way to say it without being shot down by the slightly older redhead.

Lance whistled. "Damn, it would take serious balls to mess with that lady." He wasn't kidding; on his 'don't piss off' list Storm was higher than anyone but Mystique. Wolverine would smack you down and maybe hurt you, but getting fried by a lightning bolt and then smacked around with gale force winds was worse. Still, he had the information he wanted. He was going to continue talking to Kitty for a bit, but the bell rang for the next class and he cursed under his breath and turned away.

OOOOOOO

The rest of the day passed uneventfully for those at the Institute until the kids came home, each of the adults working on their own projects. Logan worked on the place's defenses, while Harry prepared what he would need for Kitty's lessons, and exploring what all the laptop Mr. Richards had given him could do. It turned out to be quite a lot, and he spent the rest of the day playing with the interactive 3-D system it projected around his room. He only pulled himself away to greet the kiddies as they came through the door.

When she saw him, Kitty immediately grabbed Harry and pulled him along shouting excitedly. "So what are we going to learn today? Like this is so exciting!"

Harry laughed a little and said, "Well, first we're going to do your physical exercises and then we're going to do some work in the Danger Room and then we'll see if you can activate a simple runic array."

In her exercises, Harry had Kitty building up endurance are running, as well as working on her speed. Then in the Danger room Harry had her test her phasing power by phasing her hand through different energies, much like the lightning attack he had used on her. This didn't turn out very well, as she was only able to phase through coherent light attacks, like Scott's beams or laser beams. Other powers impacted her such as magic and surprisingly, lightning or electrical attacks, though the impact of lightning was greatly reduced. Fire, water, and other more physical elements passed right through her.

After that, they adjourned to his room and Harry began to talk about runes and what they could accomplish, giving a brief outline of their abilities and history as well as the four runic languages he knew and why it was a BAD IDEA to mix them (explosions were the usual result and the best you could hope for, both he and Hermione had tried it).

He then brought out a simple one, which was attached to a light and was intended to simply power the light by creating a small electrical current. To his surprise, she was able to make it work, but only after Harry had powered the rune by putting in some of his own magical power. "Interesting," he said thoughtfully. "So you would be able to activate them, but you wouldn't be able to actually power them. So if you ever get to the point of creating your own runic arrays you'd have to get me to power them before use . . . Hmmm . . ." He trailed off, thinking of ways to power the runes without magic, something he hadn't thought about before; he had been busy trying to find ways to recreate the effects and abilities of his crisis suit with technology rather than magical arrays.

Kitty was a little irritated, but also ecstatic. "So, like, if we are able to create stuff, you'll power it and I'll be able to use it?"

Harry scratched his hair for a moment then nodded, "pretty much, but everything we create that way will be a one shot; you'd need to get me to power them again after each use." For the next few hours, the two of them started to talk about runes, and what could be done with them and what runic arrays were.

Kitty was absolutely fascinated with magic, and wondered how the hell it obeyed the laws of energy, but decided that she wouldn't question a good thing.

They went down for dinner, and as Harry was entering the kitchen, Kitty asked innocently, "So Harry, you have a copy of the runic array that's used for brooms and other flying things, right?"

Harry paused and nodded, looking at her, "yes, why?"

"Well, I was just wondering if, like, you could you put them on something else, like a suit or something? That way you could fly and still have your hands free." And she and the X-men could all get similar suits and be able to fly, which would just be damn awesome.

Harry gaped at her for a moment then solemnly turned and started banging his head against the frame of the door. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"

Storm came in at that point and the others after her, having just finished their language lesson for the evening, except for Jean, who had not returned yet. "Whatever is wrong with him?" She asked, pointing at Harry.

Kitty giggled a little. "Like, I think I just explained something really obvious to him that he had missed." Harry's reply was unintelligible, but was almost certainly vulgar.

OOOOOOO

A few days passed like this, with Harry using the time when the kids weren't around for his own projects and research, sparring with Logan or Storm, and discussing politics and history with them and Charles. Well, that and pranking all and sundry with Kurt's willing assistance. Logan woke up to find his hair had been changed into an afro, Charles had his wheelchair changed to look like a mini car complete with vroom noises every time it moved, and Kitty and Rogue found their hairstyles switched. Thankfully all of these pranks only lasted a few hours, and as everyone, even the pranked (bar Logan of course) got a kick out of it Charles didn't ask Harry to stop, much like his ongoing feud with Jean about her diet.

Harry started each of the kids' personal training exercises and Charles was impressed by how Harry was able to personalize these lessons to each of their needs, above and beyond going over each of their AARs from his battles with them.

He walked Rogue through various exercises while wearing his crisis suit, which allowed them to actually practice against one another. Harry had Kurt do blind jumps with his eyes closed to build up his sense of space. He also would randomly throw things at Kurt to make him working on his dodging skills. He had both Rogue and Kurt look at modern weapons as well, much like Scott, something Logan agreed with fervently, though Charles had his doubts about it. Harry made Evan study sword styles and made him practice his aim and the speed he could pull out his bone weapons as well as the variety of forms of those bones.

Jean, on the other hand, he took a completely different approach to. He would show her various spells and effects and ask her to figure out ways to counter or duplicate them, thus building up her attack repertoire. He also had her hold up large weights with her power, building up the amount of power she had, treating it like every other muscle. Jean was surprised by how fast this worked; by the end of the first lesson she was lifting 500 pound objects and had a far vaster number of attacks (she especially liked her version of the Rifela and Bombarda spells) and effects she could create through her telekinetic powers. All this on top of exercising with Logan and their school work had all the kids exhausted, but all of them knew they were also getting stronger.

This routine was interrupted, however, when Evan began to create a video project of his home life to make up for failing to properly do a project for his literature course. He began to run into problems almost immediately, as certain rooms couldn't be entered any longer.

One of the first projects Charles, once he learned of their interest, had Harry and Kitty do with runic arrays was to create a no-male zone around and in the girl's bathroom. Apparently one of the guys had accidentally used it at one point, and nearly walked in on a few of the girls, something none of the girls were happy about. Moreover, as a telepath, Charles was well aware of what young people could get up to given the opportunity. All of his charges were energetic, good looking teens, so he thought it best to try and nip that sort of thing in the bud as much as possible since it would interfere with the team dynamic.

Thus, when Evan went to try to record Jean in the bathroom combing her hair, (or more, he refused to be drawn on this point and the twitching of his aunt's eyebrows indicated that silence was the best policy), he couldn't get in. When he tried to open the door, he found himself frozen in place, much like Kurt had been when he tried to get into Harry's luggage. When Jean opened the door to find him there, she marched him straight down to the others and made him promise on pain of pain not to do it again.

He persevered and was close to having a final product to turn in, when he lost the video camera for a few hours when he was at school. It was stolen for those few hours by a man named Sabertooth. Sabertooth was an old foe of Logan's, whose history was as wide and varied as Logan's, and their relationship was complex yet at the very same time very simple: they loathed one another. However, at the behest of Charles, Evan hadn't recorded Harry at all, which would prove detrimental to Sabertooth in his attack on the mansion.

OOOOOOO

Sabertooth ripped the gates leading up to the plush mansion and raced down the road snarling in anger and growing battle lust. Little bastard must be living it up in a place like this, well that's just one more reason for me to kill him!

However, between one step and the next he found himself in the air. He looked around, realizing he'd been grabbed by a telekinetic or something and he saw two kids, one teen the other college age. The teen had strange white locks in her brown hair and grey eyes, while the other had messy black hair and emerald eyes which at the moment were looking up at him questioningly. The owner of those eyes addressed him, saying, "You know, in polite society when visiting a house you're supposed to knock. And possibly call ahead."

Sabertooth snarled and tried to break out of whatever was holding him and the man frowned, but that was all, then raised a hand and suddenly Sabertooth couldn't even move a muscle.

Harry chuckled, pleased this man didn't have any of Logan's magical immunity. It gave more credence to the idea that it was the metal that was part of Wolverine's skeleton and its properties that gave Logan the immunity to most of his low to medium spells. Oh, his healing factor was why he didn't take much damage from attack spells, but it was the metal that protected him from most of the other types of spells. The only one of those he'd dared try that worked, beyond the ones that weren't too powerful for him to want to try on a ally, was the shatter-shaker. "Hmm, now what to do with you Mr. Growly . . . Rogue what do you think, change him to some kind of pastel coloration? Or perhaps remodel him to match those bloody sparkly vampire pictures Kitty has up on her wall?"

Sabertooth gaped at that while Rogue chuckled, but before Harry could do anything, Logan burst out of the main house in his uniform and charged down the road toward them. Sabertooth growled louder than ever, seeing the enemy he had been hunting for so long coming toward him, but try as he might, he couldn't break the paralysis holding him in place.

Wolverine stopped almost directly below him and turned to Harry. "Nice job, Harry, now let him go and we can finish this!"

"Finish what exactly, and who is Mr. Growly up there anyway?"

"Victor up there and I go way back kid. We've been rivals and enemies for more years than I can count. The specifics none of ya need to know, just know he's a killer without any conscience, a more a beast than a man, a traitor, and more! He found me this time by stealing Evan's stupid video cam." Evan, who along with Scott and the others (besides Jean, who was still at cheerleader practice) flinched a little at that, but his aunt put a comforting hand on his shoulder. This calmed him down for now, but he was still a little embarrassed about how badly he had screwed up. Logan ignored the impact of his words and went on. "Now I have a chance here and now to finish this."

Harry nodded, looking up at the wild man with his head cocked. If Logan's words were true, then it would be a good thing to kill the man now, but this could just be a personal thing between the two older men, and he knew well that Logan wasn't any kind of saint. Hell, when it came down to it, Harry wasn't a saint either. "Well, I suppose we could take the two of you down to the danger room throw you in and see what happens, but . . ."

"There will be no finishing or needless bloodshed today." Those words shot through everyone but Harry standing there. Telepathic communication was a literal meeting of the minds, and Charles couldn't find Harry's mind to connect with, yet Harry could tell from the expressions of those around him what was going on. Charles came down the driveway, wheeling himself down. Scott saw this and hurried back to help, but Charles merely nodded at him and went on, now communicating verbally rather than telepathically. "I will not have anyone killed here today, nor fighting of any kind that might result in a death on my property." He looked at Harry and Logan sharply, both of whom looked a little abashed, the one for coming up with the idea and the other for thinking it was a good idea. "No, I will merely erase the memories of this mansion and then we can drop him somewhere else, maybe up in Canada. Nor will I allow you to go after him, Logan. You know as well as I do that any match between the two of you would be so equal as to make the victor a matter of chance more than skill. And I won't allow you to take such a chance needlessly."

Harry frowned at how easily Xavier mentioned modifying memories, but reluctantly agreed it was a solution. Not the one he would use, but still a solution. Logan growled a little, but also nodded and once Charles saw that, he went on. "Now, Harry if you can keep him under control for a little longer, we can go now." Harry nodded and with a wave of his hand, Sabertooth began to move toward the mansion, still held in the air by his original Leviosa spell.

Ororo went ahead to start up the jet, and with that, the crisis was solved easily, thanks to the spells of a mage and the fact he had been out running with Rogue when Sabertooth showed up. The man named Victor Creed would wake up in the mountains of Canada with vague memories of a monster sized binge in his mind. It would be many weeks before he would once more try to find Wolverine's trail.

OOOOOOO

That, however, was the only bit of excitement for the week, and everything else continued apace. That peace, however, was once more broken when Jean became fed up with her lack of progress at learning occlumency and decided to ask for more help from Harry. After a particularly trying day with the cheerleader squad (who the hell knew girls were just as perverted as men,) she burst into Harry's room as he was changing after spending another morning talking to Ororo.

He turned and said thoughtfully "Maybe I should've put a ward on my room as well. Was there something you needed?"

Jean blushed a little, staring at the hard muscles and scars that Harry had on display, very thankful that he already had his pants on. She turned away and asked, "Can you help me some more with my mental defenses? I haven't gotten past the first chapter yet of that book you gave me."

What she wasn't going to say was that her powers were fluctuating a little lately. While the exercises Harry had taught were helping her telekinetic control and power immensely, her telepathy was acting up. Often times in stressful situations, such as when she was dealing with the fact that her boyfriend might be a bit of a bully (practically every day), or when the Brotherhood was acting up at school or even during cheerleading practice, she could hear the thoughts of other people without even trying to. She was getting sick and tired of hearing the thoughts of her fellow girls during that time in particular, who knew they were such . . . such whiny, snippy bitches! It was making her wonder why she was even on the team in the first place.

Harry frowned thoughtfully as he pulled the shirt over his head and turned to look at her. Her progress in their first session had convinced him she was a natural, but it had been a week and if she still wasn't past the first chapter, then there might be something blocking her progress, some thought or other that she couldn't get passed. "I could check how well you're doing in organizing your mind and your defenses," he said slowly. "I could also show you my mind as an example, but I'm not certain if you would be comfortable with that. Going into someone else's mind isn't really something you should do on a whim, especially when you're not certain if you can control yourself. You might find yourself seeing things you don't want to see. Also, remember occlumency was designed for wizards, you might just have done as much of it as a non-magical can do. Are you sure you want to do this, Red?"

Jean nodded her head emphatically. "I've got a few tests coming up in a week and I need to know that I can keep out other people's thoughts." And I have a cheerleading competition coming up too. She thought grimly, and I really don't want to hear the other team's thoughts at all, if my own team is any kind of example.

Harry nodded reluctantly and motioned her over to the chair by the one desk. He sat down on the floor in front of her and said softly "all right, I'm going to fold away my invisibility cloak. See if you can find my mind."

Jean nodded and pushed a focused tendril of her telepathy forward, touching the older boy's mind. A moment later, she found herself in the astral plane, standing in front of a large, well kept and very sturdy looking house. The door opened a little and she went in. She blinked as she found a mental representation of Harry standing there waiting for her. As he wasn't a telepath, he couldn't traverse the astral realm and had to directly link minds without that medium so had simply been waiting for her. She came in and looked around, amazed at the detail and the organization she saw.

Harry, however, knew what could happen if he allowed her to just roam around and brought her attention to the outer walls of his house. "If you're interested in shoring up your defenses, then you need to start with a strong foundation. Look, see here," he waved her over to look at the walls, motioning towards where they met the floor. "You can imagine whatever you wants as a defense, as long as you can imagine the details enough to make it real." With a gesture, the paint peeled back to show the brick and concrete underneath. "The problem is it takes a lot of concentration to do at first, which is why you need to start by organizing and clearing your mind of clutter. After you have a first defense set up, you can add to it later, but the foundation is the most important part.

Jean nodded, that matched what she had seen in the next few chapters of the book he had loaned her and she looked at the wall, shaking her head slightly. "The problem is: I can organize my thoughts okay, but I'm having a lot of problems doing the same with my emotions and memories for some reason. Is there any kind of quick fix I can use for a few days to get me through a week or so?"

Harry sighed. "I wish you told me about this sooner; I could have been working on a ward for you like I am for Ororo and Rogue. The problem is, you're not really asking me to keep other minds out, you want to keep your own mind in, and that would be a whole different working. Maybe you need to change whatever image you're using for defense?"

"Could you take a look at it? I would ask the professor, but all he says is I just need to concentrate on control more." Honestly, the professor seemed frazzled recently, the mystery of figuring out Harry's mutant power seemed to be taking up much of his time, and so he hadn't been free to help her as much as she could wish. Also, he had easily mastered occlumency from the books Harry gave him but, like many geniuses, had trouble explaining the process to others.

Harry hesitated then nodded. "Sure, though you'll have to bring me in with you, I'm pants at legelimancy, can't control I at all, and I don't think you'd want that." Jean nodded and grasped his hand firmly, pulling his astral projection out into the astral realm and into her own mind.

It wasn't anywhere near as organized as Harry's of course. Small books, magazines and other items were scattered around haphazardly, and a bare foundation of stones circled the area they were in to make what looked like the base of a tower of some sort. But what grabbed his attention was that there were several memories—he guessed they were memories anyway, in the shape of books, they could have been anything really—locked down tight under chains and bolted to the ground. Underneath them there was what looked like a badly patched over fissure.

Jean waved her hand around in exasperation. "This is as far as I've gotten, and as you can see, I haven't made much progress." Her astral from walked right through one of the odd, overly defended things as if she couldn't see it, and Harry's eyes narrowed for a moment before purposefully looking away. He followed her, looking around while feigning interest as his mind worked. There was obviously more going on here than he thought; it wasn't natural that Jean was unable to see part of her mind, and he was determined to have a very serious conversation with Xavier before doing anything else.

After a suitable interval he sighed shaking his head. "Well, from what I can tell, you're making good progress, even if it isn't going as fast as you want it to. I would concentrate on your mental defenses for now, once you have prepared the rest of your mind, you can tear them down again and rebuild them around the new organization. Try different concepts and ideas, maybe that is what is holding you up; don't try to follow my example of walls and an invisibility cloak, that won't work for you, not if you want to keep your own powers to yourself." He suggested a few things, mostly creatures and foliage that could 'catch' errant thoughts and telepathic spurts and rein them in. Jean sighed, realizing there wasn't going to be an easy fix for her, and agreed to try them all out some other time. With that the two broke apart, with Jean none the wiser to Harry's inner anger.

OOOOOOO

The next day was a Saturday, the second such Harry had since he moved in with the X-Men and the day he would lead the kids in their first joint exercise under him. But he had something more pressing to see to first. As soon as the kids were gone with Logan on a endurance run, Harry entered the professor's office, face carefully blank, but his eyes glittered with power.

Charles looked up from their monthly electric bill and smiled pleasantly. "Yes Harry, what can I do for you?"

Harry didn't answer until he sat down in the chair in front of the other man's desk. He interlaced his fingers over his chest, leaning back a little before looking at the older man with a level eyed stare, speaking in controlled tone of voice. "As you know, in my world we didn't have mutants, we didn't have people with eye beams. we didn't have telepathy or telekinetic powers, we had magic, which in practice could achieve some of the same effects . . . One of the most controlled and regulated magical disciplines were mind magics, and they fell under two main headings. The one whose books I loaned you and Jean, and the opposite, legilemency, the spells used to mentally attack or search another person's mind. There were so many laws about it because of the damage you could do to a mind, worse and longer lasting than the Imperio, a spell designed to override the will of a person for a set amount of time. After all, if it's a foreign voice in your head you can fight back, but if your own thoughts betray you, what can you do against that? One of the worst things—one that could see anyone immediately executed no matter who you were, if there was any evidence at all that it was true—was creating mental blocks on someone else without their knowledge."

Charles frowned a little wondering where this was going and fearing he already knew as harry went on inexorably. "Imagine my surprise when Jean comes to me and asks for help in setting up her mental defenses and when I enter her mind, I see what could only be a major mental block on her, cutting her off from either memories or emotions or something else. Now, I'm a fair man, and I always want to give someone time to explain themselves if he can. So you have precisely five minutes to explain to me why you put a block on her before I decide to remove your brain via your eyeballs."

End chapter

First major difference of opinion coming up as you can see. Hope everyone liked how all the characters interacted

While some of this chapter basically wrote itself, hence my putting it out at all, other aspects irritated the bleep out of me, such as trying to figure out how the astral realm worked and how Harry would/would not interact with it.

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