Chapter 13

The rest of their beach vacation was filled with laughter, fun and learning, as Harry, Hermione, and Dora were given access to the library not only in the small town near their camp ground, but also at the RAF base that Harry had been treated at. Erica, Susan and her two brothers, Daniel and Matthew Stayed with them in their 'tent' while Admiral Wright headed back to his ship for the War Games he was slated to participate in. Susan and her brothers soon attached themselves to the three caballeros as Emma dubbed them after they spent a day riding horses at a local equestrian center. The three children took to it like they had been born in the saddle, with Harry being fascinated with an American rider who willingly showed them his horse's ability to do barrel racing and other American Rodeo events. Harry loved the speed and apparent danger of riding a horse through sharp cuts at full speed, often with the horse leaning over far enough that he felt he could drag his fingers along the ground to help them turn faster. Dora and Hermione watched while Harry, with a manic smile plastered on his face, put his horse through its paces at top speed almost becoming one with the horse.

It was while watching that the girls met the American rider's wife, who was a real American cowgirl, hat, boots, jeans, lasso and all. When she offered to teach them how to rope a steer, or an errant boy, they were delighted, and they soon found something that they loved to do. Hermione and Dora practiced throughout the week with the ropes that Miss Peggy had given them, and when they returned to ride again, a game of Harry Hunting broke out that was filled with fun and laughter for all involved. Harry much preferred this version of Harry Hunting, though he didn't especially like the two girls hogtieing him to the back of Dora's saddle and parading him around in front of their families as if he were a prize calf. It was only the delighted laughter of Susan and her brothers that made sure that he did not take it personally. He was able to get his revenge on the two girls at the beach when he took first Dora, and then Hermione on a wild kite surfing ride, using the waves to launch them high above the water with the kite foil practically making them fly as he flipped, spun, and inverted the board and its passengers. Both girls agreed that it had been breathtakingly fun, but only when he had finally gotten them back to the safety of a non-moving beach.

By the end of their vacation, there where surfers from all over who had come to check out this new type of surfing that some kid named Harry Potter was demonstrating, and an enterprising young parachute designer had brought out his entire stock of sport chutes that he had designed, and began converting them into foils to meet the new demand. It was when a team of windsurfers from Australia showed up while on a layover in London for a photo shoot, along with a team of photographers from a surfing magazine, that things really got hectic. They were on their way to Florida, USA for a competition, and they heard that something was happening that they needed to see on one of the beaches in southern Britain. They were amazed to see this just turned eight years old kid, flying across the waves at speeds unheard of and getting air that had to be seen to be believed. Soon, they were all wanting to try and see if they could push themselves to the edge using the fusion of surfing and kite flying, and the results were both awe inspiring and comedic in their results.

Hundreds of pictures were taken by the Surfer magazine photographers, and one of the reporters begged Harry and his guardians to let him do a story on the amazing young man. One of the surfers had said that Harry was a little freak of nature, and Harry, who had decided to own the name freak rather than let it hurt him, agreed that yes, he was a freak. It was a guy everyone called Ham who coined Harry's new nickname when he said that Harry wasn't just a freak, but a freak to the extreme, and the name Xtreme Freak was born. The article was written, and though it did mention the name Harry Potter, the title was The Adventures of an Xtreme Freak, and it told about his daring rescue of a little girl from the watery deep, and the version of the sport that he was making popular. It was after much discussion that it was allowed by the Smythe, Tonks, and Granger families, and Ted made sure to go copyright the name Xtreme Freak for Harry in case he became famous in the mundane world like he was in the magical world. Harry was upset enough about the stuff sold in his name in the magical world, without having it happen to him in the wider mundane world as well. The conclusion that they all came to, was that it was highly unlikely that any of the followers of Dumbledore or Voldemort would ever read a muggle surfing magazine, or know anyone who would, and so Harry would be safe. The next month the magazine came out and on the cover, as well as on a mini-poster in the center fold, was a picture of Harry inverted thirty eight feet above the tops of the waves he had launched himself off; it was a very popular poster and was sold all over America in malls and chain stores with the title Xtreme Freak across the top in neon print, which Harry got a percentage of, making him a bit of money.

Another thing that occurred was that with the help of Hogwarts, in the form of the sorting hat, Hermione and Dora were finally able to master the meditation and mind techniques that Harry had been trying to teach them. They were able to create their false minds for protection, and then Harry being Harry and therefore not shackled by the laws of normality, were able to create their inner mindscapes, along with the ability to communicate between them at a purely mental level. Harry had stopped sleeping at the beginning of the summer, as he had realized that his body got enough rest during his meditation and mental sorting sessions that wasting his time by trying to stop thinking was moronic, and he taught his best friends those same techniques so they would not waste their time. It did take them fully immersing themselves into their inner mindscape and then following a path between their mindscapes, so it was not the type of telepathy where they could read each other's minds, only that they could visit each other's interior libraries of knowledge, and sort of borrow the books to add to their own. This opened all new avenues of study for them as they would not have to all read the same books to gain the same knowledge. This became apparent for them when Harry ran across a book on magical theory that Dora had read in the library at Hogwarts, that was sitting on a reading table in her mindscape that the other two were currently visiting, mostly to get away from Elric, who kept grumbling about the impossibility of it all whenever they hung out in Harry's mind.

The book was titled, The Theory of Magic as Practiced by the Mages of Ancient Greece, and was deep in the restricted section when she found it. During the past year at Hogwarts when she was trying to get information about a spell she was struggling with, Dora had found a hidden room that opened into the restricted section of the library from the seventh floor, and she quickly had realized that there were more books that were restricted, than there were in the normal library. It became very obvious to her that knowledge was being restricted from the students so that they would accept the information doled out in small bits by the Ministry and the Headmaster. Now that she had learned Harry's mental techniques, books that she had just flipped through were now available for actual study. Harry asked if he could borrow it, in a joking manner, and she said sure you can, but the late fees if it is not returned on time can be murder. They all laughed and then retreated back to their minds so they could 'wake up' and started the day. The next night, they all met in Harry's mindscape library, mostly because the girls wanted to go play in the area they called Harry's fun house, which contained the giant ball pit along with slides, tunnels, and newly added trampolines.

It was Hermione who let out a shriek as there, lying on the table in Harry's reading room, was a copy of the book he asked to borrow the previous night. Soon their night of play was forgotten as they realized the implications of what they had discovered. As the night progressed, piles of books began to build around them, as Dora brought copies of the books she had read on magic for Harry and Hermione, while they brought her copies of books that they had read in the mundane world. It was even more exciting for them when Hermione's pile got so big, since she was getting books from both Dora and Harry, which she said she needed to take them back to her mindscape. Hedwig, who was lounging about doing a mathematical variance puzzle, turned to her phoenix form, and then flashed away with the entire pile, only to re-appear a few seconds later, smile at them, and then get back to her brain teaser. Hermione leapt to her feet and immediately faded out of Harry's mindscape. They had all found that it was easier to fade yourself into consciousness in the real world, and then back into your own mindscape, rather than following the linked pathway between their minds. A few minutes later, Hermione was back, and she could not speak, she was so excited. Not only were all the books now in her own mental library, but they were on their own shelves waiting for her to study them at her leisure.

Although this was amazing news for the three friends, Harry knew that Hermione would retreat back to her own mind, and it would be weeks subjectively, before she emerged from her new stores of knowledge. A look at Dora showed him that she was in agreement, and Harry dove at Hermione, wrapping her in his arms from behind and tackling her to the floor. Hermione braced herself for impact as her nose was about to crash into the floor, when she passed through it like the surface of water, and she saw that she was now falling at the perfect angle to enter one of the slides in Harry's Funhouse. Harry and Dora were falling next to her, each aimed at their own slide, and soon the race was on. Hermione put her hands to her side and imagined a board like Harry's skateboard, only wider with the wheels attached to the side instead of underneath that she could ride down, beating her two friends to the bottom. She was glad that this was happening in Harry's mindscape, as she knew that at the speeds she was attaining, she would be toast if it was in the real world. It was about two hundred yards away from the end, when the tubular slides turned clear so that you could see where the other racers were. Over to her left, she saw that she was slightly ahead of Dora, who seemed to be riding a Boogie Board in front of a massive wave of water. Hermione smiled that she was beating Dora in the impromptu race, and turned to her right to see where Harry was. At first she thought that she was really out in front of Harry, since she did not see him anywhere near where she was. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of what had to be Harry, wearing a strange body suit, and exiting his slide at high velocity. She and Dora both watched in horrified fascination as Harry shot out like a bullet, and hit the ball pit at almost relativistic speeds, the balls erupting around him in a weird type of colorful explosion.

Harry had disappeared beneath the sea of plastic balls, and when Hermione, and then Dora arrived at the end, they determinedly set out to find what happened to Harry. They were becoming frantic in their search, when Harry's laughter alerted them that he was okay, though he was all the way across the ball pit, hanging upside-down from the Velcro climbing wall he had installed. Both of the girls realized that they had been a little silly, since there was no ball pit four acres square in the real world, and that Harry was fine. It was Hedwig who flashed in and carried them over to where Harry was, before turning back to her human form and chastising him for scaring them. It was the question of what he did that revealed a little piece of the future in the world that Harry inhabited, though it would be years before the implications were felt by others.

"I saw that Dora was using a waterslide, and you were using a wheeled sled, which looked like a lot of fun to me, but I wanted to try something different." Harry had a sheepish look on his face as he continued. "We agreed last time that it had to be in the realm of science and reality, not magic, to keep the race fair. I was going to do ice, but then I would have had a sled like you, so I was going through my options while you two were racing away from me; then it hit me, go frictionless. I read a paper about the use of electrostatic gel and a current of electricity on the surface of a board to create a frictionless surface. I changed my clothes to a suit of material with the proper current flowing over its surface. I then coated the tube with the gel, and I shot forward at speeds that I didn't quite expect. When I started accelerating, you were both over halfway down, but I caught and passed you like you were standing still. The one thing I forgot is that with no friction, there is nothing to slow you down. Those balls hitting you at that speed really kind of hurt and I made it all the way over here and shot up the wall. When I started coming down, I changed the back of my suit to Velcro, and that is how I ended up here upside-down. All I can say is, that I can't wait to try that again, it was so much fun."

Dora grinned just as wide as Harry as she thought about the fun that they could have. Hermione summed up her feelings in one word. "Boys!" She sighed in exasperation, though if you knew her, you would have seen the twinkle in her eyes as she looked at her two best friends. "I think that we should go back and study some and then we can play during the day."

"Hermione," Harry interrupted. "There is a time for study, and there is a time for play, and this is a time for play." The scene changed around them, and where there were once acres of plastic balls, now there was a manicured lawn of soft springy turf stretching to the horizon, interrupted from time to time by those trees you saw on nature documentaries about Africa that looked like giant shade umbrellas. Dora and Hermione were looking around them, taking the new environment in, when a giant ball of twine went rolling past them, followed by a tawny blur of motion. A young male lion pounced on the ball, rolling over it and onto his back, before attacking it like a kitten, play snarls, claws and all. The ball was launched into the air, and the adolescent male set off to get it again with a howl of delight. It wasn't until the piercing green eyes turned their way, that the two girls realized that this was Harry. Dora instantly turned herself into a panther and charged after Harry, trying to win the ball from him. After a few minutes, the two cats noticed that they had not been joined by their friend. The play stopped, and they stalked over to where Hermione was sitting under one of the trees watching them.

"Why aren't you joining us Hermione? It's a lot of fun, and I need you to help me keep it away from Harry." Dora was looking at her friend in question, wondering if this was one of those things that Hermione hid. Who knows, she might not like cats.

"Well, you and Harry can turn into anyone you want, while I don't have those powers. I tried to change my hair, or even just grow my fingernails longer, but I just can't do that." Hermione explained. "So I figure that this is just the next logical step in those powers and I decided that watching the two of you was fun, like watching two kittens play with yarn, just on a much larger scale.

Harry morphed back into his human form, and then pulled Hermione into a hug. "Hermione let your logical brain take a break and realize that this world is in my head, and in my head, I can make it so you can do anything. If you want to be pirates, then we can be pirates." The scene changed to a large ship with three masts and the Jolly Roger flying proudly from its rigging. "If you want to be explorers, then jungle here we come!" The scene before them was right out of the beginning of the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. "If you want to be an astronaut, then we can even walk on the moon!" They were suddenly in spacesuits and there before them was the moon lander and the rover that were left on the lunar surface by the Americans. "Anything is possible here, including turning into whatever animal you want," Harry paused and flickered through the forms of a T-Rex, Cheshire cat, Kodiak bear, and a Purple Dragon, before he became himself once again. "Hermione, the only thing that limits you here in this space is your safety, and your imagination, and since I won't let you get hurt here, then there really are no limits to speak of. Now choose what we do next, and let's have some fun."

Hermione thought for a moment about things that she always wanted to try but was too afraid to because of the danger. One thing stuck in her mind, a fantasy that she had wanted to try ever since she was a little girl sitting on her daddy's knee listening to him tell her stories. Here in this place, fear had no hold on her since she trusted Harry with her very life, and so she closed her eyes and focused on what she wanted to do, and suddenly the very air was filled with noise. She opened her eyes to find that she was in the hold of an airplane with her two friends and a man wearing a helmet and facing a panel filled with lights and dials. They were all wearing matching jump suits, with parachutes on their backs and helmets on the floor by their feet. The man at the controls turned to them and Hermione gasped as she recognized him as her dad's friend Uncle Leo, who daddy had said was a jump instructor in the RAF.

"Okay you soon to be splash patterns," Leo shouted at them. "If you want to use this ride down to get closer to your creator, than go ahead and look outside at the pretty view. For those of you who want to survive this, pay attention while I go over your gear once more. The altimeter on your wrist is there to tell you when to pull your chute. The deck on this jump is between 6000 and 5000 feet, so you will not have much time to pull and too pass qualification for jump school. Your exit will be at 15,000 feet, and you will have approximately one minute after you leave the plane to gather in a snowflake pattern, after that, enjoy your drop until it is time to pull your chute, and then remember your training, as it will get you through. Now put your helmets on and prepare to jump out of this perfectly good airplane built for Her Majesty's service by the lowest bidder."

"I thought that you were afraid of heights?" Dora asked Hermione when they all had their helmets on and their radios set to the same channel. "In fact, I know you are, since you told me that you would not even go on the Ferris wheel, because it went too high."

"I am not afraid of the height; it is the sudden hard stop at the end of a fall that terrifies me. But here, I know that if something goes wrong, it won't matter as Harry will not let me get hurt." Hermione flashed a big smile at Harry before continuing. "So, since I have wanted to try this since I was a little girl, I figured that this was the perfect time and place to try it out." The sound of the rear doors opening and the wind picking up stopped any more attempts at conversation.

"On my signal, approach the yellow line and hold until the jump light turns green, and then you are clear to exit the craft. Good luck and now step to the yellow line."

Hermione stepped forward, Harry on her right, and Dora on her left, and looked out of the plane. Almost three miles below her, the ground beckoned, and she lost her nerve. She turned her head toward Harry just as the light turned green, and together, Dora and Harry grabbed her elbows and took five steps forward, and then there was nothing but sky below her, until she reached the ground. Hermione felt and heard a rushing sound, as her sight narrowed down to a pinpoint, with their landing target in the center. Thirty seconds went by, with Hermione trapped in her own personal hell, as she fell at terminal velocity, when her right hand was grabbed and there was Harry, grinning like a loon as she shouted in joy. Moments later, Dora grabbed on to her left hand, and then she and Harry completed their formation, and just like that, everything was okay.

The roar of the wind, the peace that settles in as you fall, the acrobatics that Harry kept making them do; all of it was fun and soon Hermione was enjoying the experience, wishing it could go on longer than was possible. The beep of the altimeter over their radios, told them that they had 500 feet left before they were under the 6000 feet ceiling. Harry pointed at Dora and told her she was first to pull, followed by Hermione, and then Harry. At just under 6000 feet, Dora pulled her ripcord and with an audible whump, her chute filled with air and the other two fell away from her. Harry was watching his altimeter that was on the wrist of the hand Hermione was holding, while his right was counting down. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 ... Harry released her hand and drifted away so she could pull her cord, smiling at her and giving her confidence, which she used to pull her ripcord. Harry fell away from Hermione as her brake chute opened, and just to show off a little, he did a couple of flips in the air before pulling his own ripcord. The bone jarring whump of his chute opening was the first thing that alerted him to something being wrong, since he had heard that noise from Dora's chute but not from Hermione's. The second was the fact that Hermione went by him screaming in terror, while above her was her chute, tied up in itself and not opened like it was supposed to be.

Here in Harry's internal world, where he was in effect a god of all he saw and thought, and had given some of that power to his two friends, ideas had substance. What had made Hermione afraid of heights, was the one time she had got her father to tell her about his jumps after he had come home from the pub where he was with Leo, drinking to absent companions. Her dad had told her of the jump they had done where they lost half the men who were with them to faulty parachutes, that a supply Sargent had bought at a discount to cover the fact that he had sold the inventory he had to cover a gambling debt. He had meant to then get them destroyed as defective, or past the safety date, but he had been caught by the auditors for something else and arrested before he could get around to it. The new supply Sargent had seen that they were marked as close to their refit or destroy date, and had sent them out with a mission that he knew would not be bringing them back from the field. It was deemed a tragic accident, and no one was held accountable, especially the company who had sold them to the supply Sargent for disposal so they did not lose money. It was something that her dad had never forgotten, and felt guilt that his parachute had worked when so many others didn't.

Intellectually, Hermione knew she was safe here in Harry's world, but emotions often override our common sense in the face of excitement or fear. When her mind started going over all that could go wrong with her chute, she panicked and in doing so changed her chute to be like those that had ended the lives of her father's men. As she plummeted past Harry on her way to the ground, she could only feel relief that her two friends would survive this, since she had read articles that said if you died in your dreams, you died in real life. A small corner of her mind shouted at her that Harry would save her, but it was drowned out by the parts that were screaming in terror, and effectively ensuring that she would in fact plunge to her death.

Harry wasn't worried for Hermione, this was his world after all and nothing happened here without his say so. At least, that's what he thought, until he tried to make Hermione's chute open the way it was supposed to, and found out that he couldn't fix it. Harry tried again, and got the same results, it was as if he was being blocked from helping his friend, and he was afraid that somehow the evil that had been in his scar was still there and was trying to hurt him. His mind racing, Harry cut away his chute, and began to fall while aiming at Hermione, not knowing what he was going to do, but knowing he had to reach her if he wanted to save her. In his mind, he was going over every possible scenario that he could think of as to why he could not just make her chute work. It just didn't make sense to him, until he realized the mistake that he had made. He had given Dora and Hermione the ability to do what he did in his mind, with no default safety override for Harry to activate if something went wrong. Now Harry could be excused from that mistake since, like most children, he saw himself as immortal, but his instincts toward friends was that their lives were worth far more than his. Harry set his jaw in determination, and changed his gear to a body suit, reducing the drag of his jump equipment so that he would reach Hermione in time.

Hermione was only aware of two things while she was falling, one was that her chute had failed her, and the other was the speed at which the ground was approaching. So when Harry caught up to her and grabbed her foot, so that he could pull them together, the terrified little girl could be forgiven for kicking as hard as she could at the monster that grabbed her from below and tried to drag her down faster. Harry was stunned for a moment, and by the time he could stabilize himself, he was a few hundred feet below her, and running out of time. 'If only I had a jet pack, or a rocket, then I could fly up and save her with no problem.' Then he remembered. One day, Dudley had come home from school with a bunch of comic books that he had taken from one of the kids at school.

Ordinarily, the kids would say goodbye to their possessions once Dudley and his gang got ahold of them, but these comics were special. They had been a birthday present to the kid from his uncle who worked at the publisher as an artist, and each one had contributions from him inside. When the kid got home, his mom asked where he had put the comic books, since she had told him not to take them to school until it was his turn for show and tell. When he finally admitted that he had taken them to school, and that Dudley had stolen them, his mother called and got the number for the Dursley's from the school office, and then called Petunia. Petunia could not believe that anyone would accuse her Dudders of anything like that, and told her she was mistaken. Her attitude changed quickly, when the woman informed her that she would be coming over with her husband, as soon as he got back from his job as an Inspector in the London Police. Petunia assured her that it was probably done by her delinquent nephew and she would be sure to find the truth. When she asked Dudley, he told her that he had dumped them in the bin at the park, since they weren't his of course. Harry was pulled out of his cupboard and told that if he didn't retrieve the comics he stole from the bin in the park, then he would not be eating for a week.

Harry found them immediately, as they were thrown on the ground near the bench that Dudley and his friends liked to sit. Since he knew he was going to get punished either way once he got home, he decided to spend a little time reading them before heading back. He found them all fascinating, but the one that he found the most interest in, was the one about a test pilot named Cliff, who found a mysterious rocket pack and became a hero called the Rocketeer. It was mostly because of the flying, and the freedom it represented that hooked Harry on the idea, and many of his more pleasant dreams had featured that rocket pack; now, he got to try it. With a burst of power from the throttle, and a turn of his head to change his course, The Harry-teer, as he called himself in those dreams, launched to the rescue and soon had the damsel in distress in his arms as he saved the day. Hermione buried her face in his chest, her sobs shaking them both as she tried to apologize and take comfort from Harry at the same time. Harry put himself in hover mode, trying to calm her, while awkwardly patting her back, when both were interrupted by a voice right next to them.

"Harry," Dora said, "You can put her down now, I think that she will be fine once her feet are on land."

Harry agreed with her and began to reduce his throttle so that he could slowly descend to the earth far below. He had only dropped about six inches, when his feet hit something solid, and he fell onto his but in surprise. Dora reached over and took the throttle control out of his hand, shutting off the rocket, and then fell over herself as she laughed at the looks on their faces. It took a while for her to stop laughing, but Dora finally explained that, when she saw that Harry had rescued Hermione and slowed to a hover, she brought the ground up to their level, and made herself teleport down next to them. She also pointed out that if Harry hadn't panicked himself, he could have used birds, dragons, or even the boots of Hermes to save her from falling. She gave him some advice that would serve him well throughout his life.

"Let go of your hero complex and assess the situation, evaluating all of your options instead of diving in head first. Panic can cause disaster; while having multiple plans can help you overcome almost any obstacle." Harry asked Dora where she learned that, and she told him that it was the Hufflepuff way, be willing to help and work hard, but only as hard as a situation requires. Harry felt that this was a good creed to live by, and would take it to heart in his future endeavors. Dora explained to Harry and Hermione that those in Hufflepuff were often seen as the left overs in the Hogwarts pantheon. They weren't the house of the brave like Gryffindor, nor the focused intellectuals like Ravenclaw, and they certainly weren't the house of the cunning that the Slytherin were purported to be; but there was no one you would rather have at your back than a Hufflepuff.