As they discussed how they would make the trip could visit girls Harry, they forgot the time as curfew was almost upon them. Harry almost shouted as Callie told him that they should get a move on, or they would be in the corridors when they should be inside their common rooms. Harry wondered on why she didn't tell them sooner she just said that she was compiling data and was occupied. They said their goodbyes to Daphne and were now running up the stairs, Harry wasn't listening to Callie who told him that he was not on the right stairs up. They stopped before a door on the third floor, of which Dumbledor warned them in the beginning of the year.
"Oh, maybe I should have listened to Callie, let's turn back quickly before…" Harry turned around to see the girls froze as they a cat. This specific cat was Filch's pet, Mrs. Norris, when Harry remembered whose cat that was, he realized they were trapped. From what the Weasley twins told Harry, where that cat was, Filch was never far behind. Because he hated the children, always wanting to punish them, the sight of him in a place where they should not be, in his eyes, was never pleasant. Out of options, they chose that they would rather deal with anything that was on the other side of this door until Filch was gone. Because the door was locked, Hermione performed a quick spell to unlock the door and they got through. As Harry listened with his ear by the door if Filch was gone, he felt a tugging on his sleeve and wanted to tell the girls that they should just wait, as he turned to see what the problem was and got a good look at the other occupant in this room.
It was a big, black, three headed dog who now was looking at them surprised. After all, they should not be here, but those children would not be the first ones he scared enough for them to leave in a screaming mess. As it stood up, the kids before him reacted like he expected, the only one who was a bit different was the boy as he stood before the girls with his arms outstretched, but the dog could see the fear in his eyes, so he would just growl a bit and then they would leave. As he got closer and all three heads began to show their teeth, the girl with the bushy hair opened the door again and ran out, looking right and left and then called the others to follow her. Now, what happened then was surprising for the dog, as the boy pulled out his wand and casted a spell which blinded him for a moment, so they could get out and close the door once more. After the dog could see again, he trotted back to his spot, happy that he did his job well.
"WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" Lavender breathed hard, as they arrived in the common room in the tower. They ran the whole way from the door on the third floor until they arrived by the portrait, telling her the password to gain entry. They were lucky that there was no teacher in the way of their escape of whatever that dog was.
"And who the hell keep such a big dog in a school?" Parvati asked, gasping for air herself. She was also sweating a bit, sitting in the armchair away from the fire.
"Well, it was guarding something as there was a trapdoor. But I really want to know is who got it into the school in the first place." Hermione was not breathing as hard, as her training had raised her endurance a bit.
"On that, I agree. As for what it was, I think a read about a cerberus once. It is a dangerous beast but can be trained and is normally found in Greece. And as for who would get one, I can think of only one person who would say that it is not dangerous at all and finds it cute," Harry stood between them, looking for the matrix for Callie to make sure that he did not lose it on his run up to the tower. "And I have to apologize to you Callie. If I had listened to you, we would not have ended up in there after all." He fished the projector out of his pocket and placed it on the table after making sure that they were alone.
"Yeah, well I hope you all learned something. I mean I can't be mad at the girls, as they do not have any device that I could talk to them, but you Harry did ignore me on purpose because you thought you knew the way better than your AI with the map. As for what it was, Harry is right it is a Cerberus, a mythical creature from Greek mythology. As for why it was there, I will talk with Cortana why this is not in the data banks. And as for the suspect who put it there, I agree with Harry it has to be Hagrid who owns that dog."
"You really have to ask Doctor Halsey if she could give us one of these AI too Hermione, they would be so handy." Parvati breathed normally again, now looking at the projector where Callie stood in the middle of the table. "How can she analyze everything even in these stressful situations is marvelous. I would feel much safer with one around."
"Oh, now I alone am not good enough for you all?" Callie placed her hands on her hips and pouted in mock indignation. "And I'm sorry, but I am sure that Doctor Halsey cannot give you an individual AI and splitting me between you four would be too stressful for my matrix, so communicators are out too." She explained, not willing to go into detail how she was created. She then got an inquiry to share her report for the day and asked herself if she should mention the Cerberus. She decided to ask Cortana if she could review her report and give her advice. She was her older Sister in a sense after all.
"Let's ask him tomorrow, we should be in bed by now anyway. Good night," Harry took the matrix from the table and put it back in his pocket as he was going to the boys' dorm. Meanwhile the girls were looking at each other and seemed to think all the same thing. "How is he so calm about all that?"
The next morning, they had just some classes in the morning so they could pack their trunks for the return trip home for holiday break. Because the teachers want to give them enough time to pack everything, they were encouraged to make sure that they got everything in that afternoon. Harry and his friends used that time to walk through the castle and going down to the hut Hagrid lived in to ask him about the cerberus. They were not sure how to approach him, but Harry was sure they would find a solution.
They hadn't to think long however, as Hagrid had a surprised look when they asked him if he knew what a three headed dog was.
"How do yeh know about Fluffy?"
"This cerberus has a name?" Harry was flabbergasted just like Hermione and Lavender.
"O' course, I raised 'im myself. 'e is a cute little fella. But yeh still did not tell me why you know 'e is on the third floor. Were you there?"
Harry explained why they were in this corridor, deciding it would give them no advantage lying to Hagrid. Hagrid was shaking his head, mumbling something about Filch being just petty because he was getting old. As for the question why Fluffy was there, Hagrid let it slip that this was a matter only concerning Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel, resulting in a giant facepalm from the gentle giant.
"Shouldn't 'ave told yeh that."
"Well, it's too late now. Don't worry Hagrid, we will keep it to ourselves. We have to go now, happy Holidays Hagrid." Harry stood up and hugged the giant man before he left with the others.
On their way back to the castle, they were wondering who Nicolas Flamel was, somehow the name rang a bell inside Harry's mind. Callie was going through her databanks but telling them that they should not think about it too much, as whatever the dog was guarding, she was sure that it was secure inside the school. What she did not tell them that some data was behind a firewall where she was not permitted to bypass. Something was not right, but that would be her problem to solve, not the children's.
As the day grew late, they all had packed their bags, as for the brake they would not need to bring their books with them. That what was Harry thought, as Hermione came down with her trunk full of books. "I thought until I could come and visit your place, I need something to read. Something light." She then grabbed one who's title was *The greatest Alchemist in History* and Harry was laughing by the size of this book. It was after all big enough to be a pillow, and she called it light. "Come now, I think we should go to bed, we have to get up early tomorrow." Ron told them to please be silent when they would wake up, because he wanted to sleep in. Harry just said that he was almost everyday still asleep when he stood up for breakfast, so there would be no problem tomorrow either.
The next day they sat inside a train compartment back to London, but because it was an old train it was almost as cold as they would be outside. Harry was wondering why they didn't install some heating inside the compartments at least. But as it was still an old steam-locomotive which pulled the train, it would be complicated to make it work. If there would be no magic that is. He then did something that would be against the rules, but only if they would be in London. As long they are on the train, it still counted as school grounds, Callie informed him. So, he asked the old lady, who brought them hot tea, if he could have some old jars. After he got them, he casted a small fire spell and placed it inside the jars. "Oh, why did I not have that idea." Hermione was now hitting her head jokingly on the wall, as she had done the same thing when Harry played his match against Slytherin as she set fire on Professor Snape back then. As they huddled by the warming jars, they discussed what they would do when they were in London. As Harry knew that he would be picked up by Yen, they would leave as soon he got his things to her. Hermione had to go to the muggle side of the barrier to meet her parents. Daphne would meet her parents like Harry on the platform. The same for Lavender and Parvati, who would also first meet with her twin sister. As only Hermione and Daphne could visit Harry during the break, they also discussed how he would come to collect them.
"It would be the best if we agree on a meeting place where you can wait with your family until we arrive, so they could talk with Yen or Triss, whichever will come to and see that we will care for you until school starts again. That way they could make sure that everything would be okey with you coming to my place."
"I agree with you there Harry, and don't worry Hermione, my parents don't have anything against muggles. My father even told me once that his first girlfriend that he had when he was young was a muggle girl, so they will not be aggressive against you, even when we all where in Slytherin." Daphne tried to calm Hermione down a bit. Sadly, it was not uncommon that some wizarding families did not like muggles or muggle-borns in general. The most known to them was Malfoy, as Daphne told them that he would just tell anyone who wanted to listen, that if he would become the minister of magic, he would forbid that any muggle-borns, or half-bloods would get any jobs in the magical world and should just leave them alone. But even in Slytherin there were many who knew that without the muggle-borns there would never be any progress in the magical community and one day they would die out, as the genetic diversity would not be enough to bear healthy children.
Hermione did calm down a bit, as they arrived in London after hours of traveling through the countryside of Great Britain. After grabbing their bags, or their trunk in Harry's and Hermione's case as they did not want to listen and just took it with them. The corridor of the carriage was full of students getting their stuff. As they pushed through the masses, they climbed down onto the platform and were now looking around for anybody they would know. First came Parvati's sister down the train to meet her and whishing the others a good day as their parents soon where with them and introduced themselves. After they left, not without to be astounded that their daughter was a friend of the Harry Potter, Lavender soon found her mother and said goodbye to them.
Now Daphne became nervous, as her parents should have been here already. As Hermione asked her if they could be on the muggle side of the barrier.
Soon they saw two sets of parents arrived on the platform with the woman laughing at the hilarity as one man was almost falling on his face. As he just prevented that his nose would meet the pavement, he stood back up and straightened his jacket and was looking to the other man.
"Mr. Greengrass, please warn me next time when you want to push me into a wall that is the barrier to this platform." He glared at the other man, who they now knew must be Daphne's father.
"Please forgive me, but I thought a former soldier would have been more aware of his surroundings. Just because you are now a dentist, Mr. Granger, you should not be lax on your training, don't you agree?" Mr. Greengrass was now dusting himself of, looking over the platform in search of his daughter. With his short black hair and blue eyes his only resemblance with his daughter would be his warm smile, that he showed sparingly just like his daughter did.
Meanwhile the woman were now recovering from the laughter and stood now beside their husbands, Harry thought it rather fitting that their mothers just looked like their daughters. As both girls were running over to their parents, Harry wondered where his party was. Before he could look for them, Daphne called him over to them, wanting to introduce him.
"Harry, please meet my parents David and Helena Greengrass. Mother, Father, this is Harry Potter." Harry shook the hands of Daphne's parents, glad that they didn't stare at his scar on his forehead, instead smiling at him and just talked a bit with him, until they said to Daphne that they had to leave now. Saying goodbye to them, Harry turned to Hermione to do the same thing with her parents.
"Hello Mr. Potter, my name is Samuel Granger, and this is my wife, Janet. We must thank you for befriending our daughter, as this was our fear that she would not make any friends. She was always special when studies are concerned, and we know that the youth nowadays does not like to study every minute of the day and reading just about everything she could get her hands on."
"Well, if you must know sir, Hermione had helped me with her knowledge on multiple events. All the time I did not know where to look for an essay, she just opened the book in question and pointed to a paragraph that I would need to understand the topic. And the fact that we push each other further in classes." Harry replied, still respecting his elders.
Mr. Granger nodded and took the Hermione's trunk, groaning about something like that in there had to be the whole library of Hogwarts. Hermione blushed a little by that banter and left with her parents soon after saying goodbye to Harry.
It was at that moment where he felt a hand on his shoulder as he looked to the owner of that hand. The redhead was smiling at him and pointed to the other end of the platform, where they would use a portal to return to Kear Mohen.
At Harry's silent question about John, he was told that he was already waiting for him and was eager to train him even harder until now. Harry asked himself if he had done something stupid back in school, as they walked over to the point and traveled via Portal to the old castle. They arrived in the entrance hall of Kear Mohen, Harry breathing in the cold air into his lungs and smiled. He smelled the scent of grilled chicken over an open fire and the bubbling of hot water in a pot right next to it. As he walked further in, he met the others, with Ciri almost pouncing at him to give him a big hug. He had to catch his breath afterwards but was also happy to be back for a while.
"It is good to be back. How have you all been while I was gone? It seems we got some more people in the castle. Why is that?" Some man had raised their rifles as they arrived but lowered as soon as they saw who it was. As they wore the marine uniform of the UNSC, they had to be a protective detail for Doctor Halsey or other scientists that may be here.
"Those soldiers arrived just yesterday because someone tried to break into the castle. We are not sure who, but some technicians from the UNSC are now installing some surveillance equipment in the castle and around it. Just in case the intruder came back. Geralt is meanwhile out for work; it seems there was a vampire in a town in the middle of Europe. So, he will sadly not be back for Christmas, but he sends you his wishes as we stay in contact thanks to the gear from our friends over there. Those headsets are really a godsend for this business. But tell us, what did you learn?" Yen came out of the kitchen, cleaning her hands as dinner had still some time to finish. It was at that moment that Catherine came up from her laboratory and came to listen to his story's which Callie had not already mentioned in her reports.
As John walked in for dinner, the table was already set, and everyone was seated. They asked the sentries if they wanted something to eat too, but they told them that they would eat in their operation base on the grounds outside when the patrol rotated with the next shift. John just shrugged and sat down. He would look at it the next day, just in case he needed something from the UNSC that they could spare. The discussion was then turned on how they would manage the visit of Hermione and Daphne later this winter break, as the presence of the UNSC was still a secret to them. They only knew of John, Michael, Jerome and Doctor Halsey, beside of course their only known AI Callie, but not where they came from exactly. They decided that if the sentries had to stay while the girls would be here, they would explain it that Catherine was an important person and needed to be protected. John had to tell them that the marines had to change the uniform and equipment to the equivalent of the military from this planet to not raise suspicion.
After a good night's sleep John was walking down to the courtyard before the castle to the FOB from the marines to tell them what they had to do for the sake of secrecy. As he did not see the base, he asked Cortana through his neural interface if she could tell him where it was. Cortana said that he just needed to walk further down the path and by the river go right to the old mine where Geralt told them they did the ritual back in the old days. It seemed that they put the base in there to hide it from satellites of this Earth's governments, as the cloaking technology from the Sangheili were not powerful enough to hide a whole FOB. While he followed her directions, Harry woke up and was going down to the kitchen to make himself a buttered bread and made himself ready for his morning warm up. He grabbed his short swords to train some forms with them, as he saw Ciri already on the training ground pounding the training dummies to the ground with her own sword. He watched her a bit, looking if he could learn something from watching her.
"Like to watch me?" Ciri turned around, looking at Harry who grabbed his sword and pulled it out of its scabbard.
"If you must know Ciri, you have a fighting style much smoother than Geralt's, but I think I'm not fast enough to pull those moves off. But if you can teach me, I would be happy." Harry answered, getting ready to fight against the dummies. Ciri then put her sword back into its scabbard and began to guide Harry, like Geralt had shown her when she was a child. Yen was standing by a window with a mug of tea in her hand and smiling. It brought back memories from long ago, when Ciri herself was as young as Harry is now. Back then it was a peaceful time, but they had to be always on guard because of the wild hunt. Luckily, they were not a problem anymore.
Later that day, after Harry and Ciri cleaned themselves after their training, it was time for lunch. Catherine was in her laboratory as Harry went down to tell her that the food was ready. Right after he opened the door, Catherine told him to come over to the table for his medical examination before lunch. Thanks to the computers it would not take long.
"Ah, that reminds me Grandaunt, did you read the reports from Callie?"
"Yes, I did. Are you referring to the wish for your friends to have their own AI?" Catherine was looking down on her datapad to make sure that Harry was healthy.
"Yes, and I told them that it would be difficult to fulfill that whish, but maybe you have a solution?" Harry looked at her with a pleading look, something that never worked on Catherine before, as she was a woman who thought all the time what the best was.
"As you have correctly guessed, it is not so easy to give them their own AI; after all those AI are strictly speaking military assets. Callie is an exception sanctioned by our superiors, but as soon as we must leave this world, we must take her with us. Of course, I thought about a solution for everything, and I think I have one, but I must wait until the simulation have ended. How far are you with those by the way, Kalmiya?"
"I'm almost finished with it, and thank you Doctor for the second chance. I am so glad that you took the backups with you. Nice to meet you Harry, as you heard my name is Kalmiya, a prototype smart AI that Cortana was based off. Looking at it that way, I am like the older sister of us three AI while Callie is the youngest."
"According to my database from the great war, you should have been deleted. How are you back in action?" Cortana projected herself on a holographic pedestral and folded her arms in front of her bosom, showing her changes in appearance. Catherine was, of course, already familiar with Cortana's new look, but it was the first time to her older sister saw her that way.
"Ah yes, the memory matrix from the AI in the Spirit of Fire was still functional, ready for a new AI for the ship. As they had already filed for a new one including the matrix, Doctor Halsey took the chance and put my backups inside it with the upgrades necessary because of the rampancy and I booted right up once more. Even if my deletion was executed because of the Cole protocol back on reach, Doctor Halsey took my backups just in case she needed it. As she was prepared to jettison it into space in pieces if necessary. So, here I am, ready to serve you once more. As for the simulation I was tasked with, I will send you the report Doctor Halsey." Kalmiya was not projecting herself on the pedestal as it was not in her character to do that. She would show herself in the digital plane to the other three AI, as Auntie Dot was also in there because she helped Michael with his missions back on Reach and decided to stay with him.
"Thank you Kalmiya. Now as for the solution I thought about, I hope the girls are not allergic to contact lenses. I am tasked from the UNSC to develop another way to show battlefield information that could be used without a helmet or neural interfaces. Your glasses are one prototype, but it would be too obvious if someone did not need any glasses wearing them all the sudden. So, I developed some lenses you could wear right over your eye, but then the user will be limited to text messages and maps as well as markers inside their field of view, as even if the lens has miniscule sensors to gather enough data to work and understand what the wearer wanted to do, I can, for the life of me, not fit anything remotely usable enough so they can talk with their AI like you do with Callie. But for useability it should be enough for this case with the girls. I just need the permission from my superiors, not that I would listen to them anyway but better be sure than sorry. I would then link them to Callie, as her computing power should be enough to handle that. If not, we will find a way." Catherine was always a step ahead, that was something Harry liked about her. Even if she was responsible for the abduction of children in the Spartan II program, she tried to find a save way that everybody could survive. In her eyes, all the Spartan II were her children, as her daughter that she had with Captain Keyes left with her father. Not that she minded, she was sure that he would be a better parent then she was.
"Doctor, what if we split the task with those lenses between me and Callie? That would free her up for Harry, because they cannot hear us, it would be secure that they would not gather enough information about us. I guess they know that Callie is not the only AI right now, but it would not show them how easy it is to make one nowadays." Cortana interjected, wanting some more work for herself as the patrols with John were not fulfilling enough for her. Helping those girls would made her days a bit more exciting and she could connect a bit more with Callie this way.
"Let me think about that Cortana. But now we need to go up for lunch or they may send a search party for us." Catherine laughed at her joke, as she powered down her computer and closed the door after Harry left it and was going up the stairs.