Chapter 4: Acclimatizing goes both ways part 2

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."

If you want to help me financially, you can do it on https://www.patreon.com/NeverluckySMILE