As they ate, Harry asked several questions about things he'd read about the day before. He'd finished another of the books, then gone back over each chapter and taken notes.
Snape answered as he drank his coffee, and then went over several safety rules about the mines.
"As I said before, you are not to enter the mines on your own until I give you permission to do so. The mines are stable and will not collapse, but the ores inside can be dangerous and unstable. You may not practice removing ores unless I am with you. If extracted the wrong way, the surrounding ore can be contaminated and will be wasted. I will be extremely unhappy if an entire tunnel has to be closed off and abandoned because the wrong method of extraction was used."
"Yes sir."
They went to the door down the short hall and then down into the mines, Harry wearing his hoodie again to ward off the cold.
"Tell me which of these tunnels contains which ores."
Harry led him down the long main corridor and pointed to each side corridor as they went, telling Snape which held Hearth Gems, which held Fire Quartz and so on.
"And how are deposits like this created in the earth?"
"An asteroid struck the earth's surface here and the heat and impact created the Fire Quartz, Luminous Rocks and Hearth Gems. You grow and harvest the Heat Crystals with magic."
Snape didn't praise him when he got the right answer, but he didn't berate him either, and that was just as good. It was the best Harry could hope for.
Through the archway with runes engraved around the edges at the end of the main corridor they followed a narrow tunnel until they reached a chamber. Their wand light glinted off of arm length red crystals jutting out of the cave walls at odd angles. Some were in clusters and others were by themselves. Harry noted some of the Fire Quartz crystals were bright red, and others were deep blood red.
"It looks like," Harry got closer to one of the bright red crystals and peered inside, "fire." The way their wandlight danced off of each crystal made it look as though there were flames inside, even though no flames were coming from Harry's wand.
"Have you learned about Fire Quartz in Transfiguration yet?"
"No."
"These are the only ores that were not created by the asteroid's impact. These have been grown and cultivated by my family for generations. They can be grown in any cave or from any rock with quartz, but they require an absolute lack of sunlight for ten years, and a potion that alchemists take knowledge of to the grave with them."
"But you have it?"
"It is always memorized and never written down. The potion when poured over pure quartz initiates a reaction in the minerals and begins the ten year process of growing the crystals. The longer they are left after the ten year period, the bigger they become. Larger crystals are more powerful, however there are not many uses for larger crystals. Typically the smaller ones are harvested as soon as they are ready."
Harry inspected a cluster of crystals, each the size of his thumb as Snape spoke.
"Some are made into talismans that can be worn around the neck to help with difficult transfigurations. If you should see someone wearing one, be aware they can likely change their appearance. There are some wizards that can do so at will, but that is a rare occurrence. Larger crystals can be used by Seers as a crude crystal ball, as the crystals cost less. Crystal balls cost a small fortune. They're also used in Scorching Staffs by mages."
"Scorching Staffs?"
"Mages reject the use of wands and opt to have staffs instead. Staffs typically have minerals such as Fire Quartz embedded into them to channel magic as opposed to a wand which have parts of living creatures. Mages believe themselves to draw magic from the earth, instead of from wildlife, despite that no magic is drawn from anywhere but from within yourself."
Harry was flooded with questions because aside from hearing snippets of stray conversations at school about mages, warlocks and other types of magic folk, he didn't know anything about them. Snape had more to say about the crystals however, so Harry held his questions in.
"The last known use for Fire Quartz is to make a device that can communicate over long distances. If one can find two crystals that are from the same cluster and are near identical, and can also find a skilled craftsman, then an Ember Seeing Stone can be made from each identical crystal. It is rare to find two that are remotely similar, let alone identical. Only two sets of identical Fire Quartz crystals have come from this nursery in the nine generations since it was started, though it is said that once or twice in a thousand years a cluster will present with all identical crystals. Myth says there was once a set of seven Ember Seeing Stones used by kings and queens to communicate battle plans over vast distances that were lost over time."
Harry was thoroughly impressed and soaking up the information like a sponge. He loved learning about magic, and loved being at Hogwarts, but there was a lot he had missed out on growing up in the Muggle world. There was a lot he still didn't know, and things like Ember Seeing Stones intrigued him. He would love to have a set so he and Ron could each have one and talk every day.
"Is information about the seeing stones in my books?"
"In the book with the red cover near the back. There are other types of crystals that can produce seeing stones, though they are not found in this part of the world."
Snape walked to a wall of the cave Harry hadn't noticed yet and to a box attached to the wall. He opened it and revealed a cloth basket, a small pick barely bigger than Harry's hand, a large pick Harry wasn't sure he would be able to lift, and a clipboard with an aging piece of parchment attached. It had instructions on how to harvest the crystals for each of their uses.
"Today I will show you how to harvest small crystals for talismans, and then you will practise."
"What if I break them?"
"It is expected that you will break some occasionally. They are difficult to work with, especially for the inexperienced."
Snape took the small pick and the cloth basket and led Harry to a small cluster of crystals the size of a pinky finger, all connected together at the base. Snape carefully tapped at the base of one of the crystals and it made a ‘chink' sound and fell into his hand.
"If it is fractured, it is of no use." He handed the crystal to Harry, who inspected it. The crystal was perfect and unblemished.
"There is a sanding tool upstairs that is used to clean up the bottom of the crystal where we made the break. When we have a large enough batch, they are taken to a seller in Bristol who creates the Transfiguration Talismans. Small crystals of this size are sold to him for four Galleons a piece. He sells them for seven when he is finished making them."
He showed Harry three more times, and then handed the small pick to Harry, who took it nervously.
"Angle it down at the base. Too much force will result in a crack, not enough force will not shear the crystal off."
Harry broke the first two crystals, and was waiting for Snape to shout at him, but he didn't. On Harry's third crystal he made a clean break and was able to add it to the bag with Snape's perfect four.
At noon they headed back up to the house and ate lunch, and then Snape showed Harry the sanding tool and they sanded the bottoms of the twelve crystals they had harvested.
"We will go back to the Fire Quartz chamber tomorrow, and for the next several days to harvest some of the larger crystals."
Harry nodded and went up to his room. Snape had let him keep the useless broken crystals, and Harry pulled them out of his pockets now and set them along the edge of the desk and on the empty shelf above the desk where he could see them. They didn't dance with light now that they were broken, but they were still pretty when the light shined through them, and he thought his friends might like to have them.
Today hadn't been so bad, he thought. Snape had only grown irritated with him a few times, and he'd had fun learning about the crystals and what they were used for. After he'd gotten over his nervousness about breaking them, he'd had fun harvesting them too. It was dark and cold in the mines, but Snape had been there with him and he didn't feel claustrophobic surrounded by all the Fire Quartz like he had all those years in his cupboard under the stairs.
As he stared at the broken red crystals and searched through his book for information on the Mage's staffs and seeing stones, Harry recognized anxiety creeping up through him. It took him a while to figure out what he was anxious about, but when he did it unsettled him. He was starting to like it here, and was having trouble quashing down the hope that he would get to stay.
* * *
Every couple of days Harry made a trip into Hawes for donuts, pastries, or one of the caramel coffees, and brought the pastries back to share with Snape. The man was still irritated with him often, especially if Harry couldn't remember information from a previous lesson, but Harry was growing used to it as they went to the mines and spent several hours each morning learning about the crystals.
They practiced in the Fire Quartz chamber for almost a week before moving into the Heat Crystal chamber where they had to wear dragonhide gloves to manually mine the clear warm crystals that radiated heat. Snape quizzed Harry daily until he knew backwards and forwards the information on how the Heat Crystals were used in certain anti-poison potions to draw poisons out of the body. They had to be administered at St. Mungos if you had to take one because they could also do damage to the body. The Heat Crystals could also be used to create magical fires that burn very hot when combined with several spells in the ‘Blaze' category.
They practiced removing Heat Crystals in all five chambers before Snape was satisfied that Harry had enough information to move on to the next type of ore.
They only spent one Saturday in the two corridors with the Hearth Gems. These also had to be removed manually from the gold vein without the use of magic or potions, but it wasn't as hard as Harry might have expected. They had picks that were about as long as Harry's arm, and they drove the picks into the gold, which was a soft precious metal, and then used the pick to wedge the orange gems out. These weren't always smooth and shiny like the Fire Quartz and Heat Crystals, and sometimes looked like regular round rocks embedded in the gold vein, but when cleaned up, polished or cut open, they looked like liquid orange gel, though they were solid.
"Hearth Gems are also used to make new connections to the Floo Network," Snape explained to him as they carried out two baskets of the gems. "They are valuable, but not in as high of demand as the other ores since each can be used up to ten times to create a new floo connection, or twice to set a protective ward around a home if the home or property is not large. We are not the only ones with a supply of Hearth Gems in the isles, and they are not considered rare in North America. However, a basket of them like the one mined today will go for a hundred and twenty Galleons."
"What about the gold?" Harry asked. "Don't you mine that for money?"
"If there was a need for it, it could be done. The gold in the vein is full of impurities and would take a lot of work to smelt down into pure gold. So far the need has not been there. There are enough other precious gems to continue the family business for several generations. Even then, there are other pockets of the ores that have not yet been tunneled to."
As with the Fire Quartz, Harry was allowed to keep damaged ores that couldn't be sold or wouldn't be useful, and he was beginning to have a nice collection that had spilled over to the window sill. The broken bits of Heat Crystals no longer radiated heat, and sparkled in the sunlight, and Harry couldn't help but play with half a piece of Hearth Gem that made him think of smooth orange jelly.
* * *
"Millie?"
Harry heard Arran come in the front door. It must have been around lunch time if he was looking for Millie. Harry hadn't seen her yet today, but he didn't have time to stop what he was doing to tell Arran that, because Snape was waiting for him down in the mines. He would tell Arran when he found the small pickaxe Snape had sent him up to the house to look for in the cupboard under the stairs. There were old baskets in here, a stack of old books, and a bucket with a mop, but Harry couldn't find the pickaxe. There was plenty of room to crouch over and look, but it just wasn't there. He hated to think of going back down into the mines empty handed and getting yelled at.
"Millie?" The door to the cupboard Harry was in snapped shut as Arran went by to look in the bathroom next to the stairs, and Harry stood straight, hitting his head on the underside of the stairs. He fumbled in the darkness for the door handle, and jiggled it when he found it, but it was locked from the outside. What had seemed like a lot of empty space a moment ago suddenly seemed like a tomb. It was Harry's tomb under the stairs at Privet Drive and he was sealed in.
Harry jiggled the handle again anxiously but it didn't budge. He backed up, expecting to back into his cot, but it wasn't there. Aunt Petunia's mop and bucket were there though. He reached up for the light pull but couldn't find it and bit his lip to keep from shouting out. His Aunt hated when he shouted after being locked in, and she'd tell Uncle Vernon when he got home. Then Harry would really be in for it for making a scene.
He reached for the light pull again, and when he couldn't find it or his cot the panic bubbled up in him faster than he would have thought. Trapped. Trapped. He was never getting out. The last time they'd locked him in they didn't feed him for a week. It had been over a break from school so the teacher's never called to ask if he was ok or why he was missing.
Harry didn't care if he got in trouble for shouting and making a fuss. He couldn't spend another moment locked in his cupboard! He began pulling on the door handle, kicking the door, and pounding with his fists on the walls. Why had they taken down his light pull? What had he done to deserve this?
The door opened suddenly and Harry fell out at Arran's feet, tears streaked down his cheeks.
"Harry- what?"
Gentle hands reached down to pull Harry up, and Harry let him, eyes darting around to be certain it wasn't his uncle there to thrash him, though if it was, it would still be better than being locked in the cupboard under the stairs.
"Hey, hey, calm down now. Did I shut you in there? I'm sorry lad, I was looking for Millie. I didn't realize you were in there when I passed in the hall and shut it."
Harry swiped at his eyes, making one last look around the short hall and finding only Arran there, looking at him with surprise and concern. He tried to force his breathing to calm and found it difficult. "S- s'all right," Harry said.
"Are you sure? Do you want me to get Master Snape?"
"I- no, no, I'm ok." He swiped at his eyes again and said, "I have to go back downstairs. He's waiting for me."
Harry hurried around to the other side of the stairs and to the door leading down to the mines, but when he opened it, the darkness threatened to engulf him. Not the cupboard, not the cupboard, he told himself. He stepped inside and shut the door, wand suddenly remembered in his back pocket and lit. If he would have remembered when he'd been locked in the cupboard a moment ago he might not have panicked, but he hadn't been in the cupboard in Snape's house, it had been the cupboard at Four Privet Drive.
Harry breathed heavily for several moments and then steeled himself for the descent back down to the Potions Master, pickaxe forgotten. All of Harry's energy was focused on making it down the dark stairs, and reminding himself that Snape was waiting for him at the bottom and that he wasn't alone.
* * *
Lucius Malfoy was too impatient to wait until the end of the summer. Snape had told Harry that, and he was right. It was only July and the man had come knocking uninvited, Draco at his side. Fortunately for Harry it was a day they weren't scheduled to go down into the mines, and Harry had dressed in his best to go out with Snape when the Malfoy's came knocking. They were supposed to go to Bristol to take the Fire Quartz to the craftsman to make Transfiguration talismans. Now it would have to wait.
Snape opened the front door and Harry was surprised the man didn't sneer.
"Hello dear cousin," Lucius said, and Snape stepped back to let him in. Lucius didn't seem happy to see Snape despite the friendly words. He patted Snape's shoulder and said, "I hear you have a new son. Where is he?"
Snape motioned to the stairs where Harry had paused halfway down. Lucius looked up and his lip curled to see Harry. Draco looked surprised but quickly sneered at him by way of greeting.
"Ah, young master Snape," Lucius said slowly, "or is it Master Potter?"
Harry came the rest of the way down the stairs and held out his hand to shake. He'd rather lose his hand than shake with the elder Malfoy after what had happened with Dobby just over a month ago at the end of his second year, but the recently read books on decorum and wizarding traditions were fresh in his mind.
"I'm pleased to see you cousin," Harry greeted, though he couldn't force the friendliness into his voice that Lucius had for Snape.
"Say hello Draco," Lucius said, pushing Draco forward a little, and Draco looked disgusted at Harry's outstretched hand. He took it in a shake, squeezing hard as though he wanted Harry's fingers to pop off, and said, "Cousin."
"Perhaps we can speak privately for a moment while the children catch up. I'm sure they have a lot to talk about."
Snape motioned for Lucius to follow him to the library and left Harry and Draco alone in the entryway. As soon as the adults were gone, Draco looked Harry up and down and said, "Amazing what a little money can do eh Potter? How'd you lie and cheat your way into this? Did you kill the boy he was going to adopt?" Then Draco's eyes glinted and he said, "Tie a hunk of dragon steak around your neck? Dragon's blood is worth forty galleons an ounce. I'm sure even uncle Severus couldn't resist."
Harry clenched his fist behind his back so Draco couldn't see and said, "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Would you like some tea or a pastry?"
Draco ignored his offer and said, "If you think you're taking over the Prince gem business you're wrong. Father has a team of barristers. They'll never let it happen. Potter's aren't even related to the Princes."
Harry turned and grinned at Draco and said, "He's my father, of course I'm related. You and I are fifth cousins now right?"
"He'll never be your father." Draco laughed then. "Honestly Potter, how'd you end up getting adopted by the one person in the world that hates you more than The Dark Lord?"
"I'm not sure what you're talking about. He took me fishing yesterday," Harry made up, "and we went hiking last week. We've spent hours playing chess, though I can't ever beat him at it and he set me up in the biggest room of the house."
"You're lying."
"Am I? How much time has your father spent with you this summer?" Draco's cheeks tinged red and Harry pushed a little further, hoping he wasn't pushing the boy so far that they got into a brawl. Harry was certain he'd be grounded and made to re-read all of the etiquette books if they did. "I'm sure if you asked, father might adopt you as well. Then you could spend hours every day with him working in the mines side by side. Bring some dragon blood when you ask."
They heard the adults coming back a moment later, and if Draco was going to start shouting at Harry he never got a chance to. Lucius didn't fail to notice Draco's red cheeks however. His eyes snapped to Harry and he said, "How much does twelve ounces of Luminous Rock dust sell for?"
Harry stopped himself from biting his lip. They hadn't worked with the Luminous Rocks yet and he didn't know. All Harry could do was say what he did know and try to insert some of the fake confidence into his voice he'd used with Draco a minute before. "The price varies. It's the rarest thing we mine and nothing goes to waste. The dust is valuable and we process and reprocess every scrap of material until the dust is exhausted." Harry hoped he'd used all the words right. He didn't want the man to laugh at him or Snape to yell at him later for embarrassing him.
"Fifty Galleons an ounce Potter," Draco said from behind him. He sounded excited to have once again one-upped him.
This time Snape asked a question of Draco before Lucius could open his mouth again. "How many Ember Seeing Stones should a Fire Quartz nursery produce in it's lifetime?"
Draco frowned and shook his head, and Harry answered instead, "Two to three pairs at most."
Snape stepped forward and quickly asked Draco, "And where must one hit a Fire Quartz Crystal the size of a finger, as opposed to the size of an arm to break it cleanly off?"
"At the base on both," Draco said.
"That is incorrect," Snape told him, and turned to Harry.
"At the base with a medium tap of a small pickaxe on finger size crystals, and for large crystals you have to use a small diamond hand drill to drill holes around the base and then pour a freezing potion in to expand the holes and break the piece off." They'd only processed one large crystal so far and an Alchemist had already come to pick it up, but Harry remembered things by doing them, and it had taken them two days to remove the massive red crystal, so the memory was sure to be with him for a long time.
"Come along Draco," Lucious said, and moved towards the front door. He opened it and pushed Draco out ahead of him and into the sunlight. Before he left he turned to Severus and said, "This isn't over cousin. Expect a letter from my Barrister."
Snape didn't respond and moved to close the door after Lucius apparated away with Draco.
They were quiet for a moment and Harry tried to quash the anxiety he was feeling, wondering if he'd done enough to not get yelled at or thrown out. Finally Snape said, "You did well. I fully expect Lucius and his barristers to want a test administered at some point by the Ministry between you and Draco to see who has more knowledge. However, it's unreasonable to expect someone to learn a trade in such a short time. I do not believe the Ministry will administer that sort of test until at least a few years have passed."
Harry was certain he wouldn't be here in a few years. Maybe Snape should just adopt Draco. Then he'd have an heir who would do him proud and not have to worry about Lucious Malfoy at all.
"Gather the basket of Fire Quartz. We have an appointment to keep."
Harry picked up the basket from the kitchen counter and came back to the entryway where Snape apparated them away to Blackpool. Harry wasn't going to let himself see past the end of the summer. If he could just make it back to Hogwarts without going back to the orphanage then Draco would have no reason to make fun of him. That was his goal.
* * *
"It seems like he's doing well with his studies?" Millie asked Severus as she put a pot roast in to cook for the day. It would be ready for Severus and Harry by dinner.
Severus unfolded his paper at the table and said, "Surprisingly."
"He passed inspection by the Malfoy's then?"
"Lucious practically threw a fit and threatened me with a team of barristers before trying to quiz him."
"You're not worried are you?"
"No. He does not have a leg to stand on. The burden is on him to prove that I should not have the mine, or that I am not training Harry to take care of it. Given that we have already distributed almost eight hundred Galleons of ore out into the magical community at large through various channels since returning from Hogwarts, the Ministry will have nothing to complain about."
"Especially not since Harry helped mine it."
"No."
Mille accidentally dropped the cup of rice she was getting ready to put into the pot to cook with the roast and it scattered across the kitchen floor. "Oh, is it going to be one of those days?" she asked the rice on the floor. Severus set his paper down on the table and stood to go into the entryway. He opened the closet door under the stairs intending to retrieve a broom, but was met with a cascade of items that came tumbling out.
"Master Snape? What was that?" Millie came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and stopped at the sight of the mess on the floor. There was a broom, mop bucket, a chair on it's side, a tall lamp with a shade that had broken when it hit the floor, and a myriad of other household items. "What's all of that doing in there?"
"I assumed you were ferreting items away to take home later," Severus said, as confused as she was. None of the items were of value.
She walked the few steps over to him and lightly hit him in the shoulder with her hand at his dry joke. "Well if you didn't do it, how did it all end up in here?" she asked.
Harry walked in the front door at that moment and paused at the sight of them staring at the mess on the other side of the stairs.
"Would you care to explain?" Snape asked. He seemed confused, but not angry, so Harry hazarded an answer he wouldn't normally give an adult, "No?"
"Put everything back where you took it from."
"Yes sir."
Snape cast a quick reparo at the lampshade that had broken, and then left the mess there for Harry as he went back to the kitchen with Mrs. Mayer.
"He's an odd child," Severus told her a few minutes later when Harry had taken several items to another part of the house.
"All children are," she told him, and went back to preparing the pot roast.