"What's so funny?" Harry demanded a little incensed at the older girl's teasing.
"Nothing, Harry, don't worry. You might be a nerd but Tonks will still be your pal!" Tonks replied as she got her laughter under control.
"Oi!" Harry called out getting another round of giggles out of Tonks.
"Oh, don't pout Harry, I'm just teasing." Tonks smiled as she leaned back into her seat. Harry didn't think he was pouting at all! "So, if you can understand all of that, does that mean you've made a spell or Enchanted Object before?" She asked curiously and almost burst into giggles again when Harry perked right back up at her question.
"Yeah, I've made two so far. I probably could have made a few more if I'd stuck to simpler trinkets like my first one; but I got really invested into my second project and ended up spending almost a year on it." Harry explained as he reached into his pockets and pulled out his Hiding Stone and his Scouter. Tonks pulled the drop down table up and locked it into place so that Harry could set his trinkets on it. Looking them over Tonks saw a small flat stone with thick twine wrapped around it with a loop of twine left on top. It looked like it was meant to be hung from the twine and had four Runes etched into it. The other was a thin metal bar with a glass lens attached to it. A small plank of wood no thicker than a popsicle' stick was attached to one side of the metal as well.
"So what's this one do?" Tonks asked pointing at the stone. It seemed the simplest so she figured it was probably his first creation.
"That's a Hiding Stone. It makes the one holding it less noticeable. Alternatively you can hang it on something to make the other object less noticeable. It's not very strong, since people that want to find you can see through it, but no one will notice you 'out of the corner of their eye' as the saying goes." Harry explained. Tonks whistled impressed.
"That's still pretty neat Harry. I can think of a few times I would've wanted something like this. Plus you made it before even coming to Hogwarts, so that's doubly impressive." Tonks grinned getting an adorable blush out of the First Year. "So what's this other one do?"
"That's my current best work. I call it a Scouter, it's short for Spell Crafted Ocular Unit Total Energy Reader, and it reads a person's total amount of mana." Harry explained.
"That name would've been way too long if you hadn't shortened it." Tonks chuckled getting a bashful grin from Harry. "One question though?"
"Sure, what is it?" Harry asked.
"What's mana?" Tonks asked confused.
"Right, I borrowed the term from Muggle fiction. I guess most Magically-raised people wouldn't have heard of it." Harry stated as he scratched the side of his head. "Mana is what I call Magical Energy. My Scouter uses a base unit of measurement to calculate a Magical's total Magical strength." He explained.
"Wait, wait, and wait! You've made something that can tell you a person's Magical strength?! No one has ever agreed on a way to truly measure Magic! How the bloody hell did you do it?!" Tonks asked shocked. This was considered impossible for as long as anyone could remember! How had Harry done it before even coming to Hogwarts?!
"I used the Lumos Charm as the base." Harry spat out quickly shocked by Tonks' reaction. "I just kept using less and less mana to cast it until I found out the absolute minimum amount required to get the spell to work."
"So how does it work?" Tonks asked once she'd calmed down slightly. "I see a lens so I'm assuming you look through that."
"Correct, here I'll scan you as a demonstration." Harry offered getting an enthusiastic nod from Tonks.
"Scan away, nerd." Tonks grinned, getting a sigh from Harry at her teasing. Harry held the Scouter up to his eye and added the small amount of mana to activate it. The numbers climbed rapidly before settling on '4460'.
"Wow, you've got quite a bit of mana, Tonks. You rate in at a '4460' on the Scouter, that's stronger than a few of the Witches and Wizards I've seen so far. Tonks looked pleased with herself before turning to face him.
"What's the average so far? I don't know how many you've been able to get readings on but the more people involved the more accurate the average right?" Tonks asked getting Harry to sigh.
"I've only been able to get the readings of eleven people so far so it isn't very accurate yet. But the current average is close to thirty five hundred." Harry informed her.
"Well that means I'm still above average so I'm good!" Tonks smirked in triumph. Harry chuckled at her energetic personality. "You want to walk the train after we depart and try and get some more readings? It would only be of school age children but you could get an average for our age range at least." She offered and Harry nodded happily, the chance to collect more data was always welcome.
Before long the train departed and the two started planning their walk up and down the train. Harry was a bit confused about something and felt like he could ask Tonks about it.
"Hey, Tonks?" Harry asked.
"What's up, Harry?" Tonks questioned.
"Why did you decide to sit with me? You're fun to be around so I figured you'd have a bunch of friends to sit with." Harry wondered getting a grin from Tonks.
"Most of my closer friends graduated last year, so poor old Tonksie got left behind with only a couple of her underclassman friends. But they're already crammed four deep into their compartment and I like room to stretch my legs." Tonks explained as she stretched her legs out until they touched the seat beside Harry's.