It was Saturday after breakfast and Harry found himself walking around the castle. He was currently looking for a place to practice his Magic. Hogwarts was large and had a plethora of empty classrooms. While he could work on most of his trinkets in the privacy of his dorm room, casting spells could potentially destroy his bed or his possessions. So here he was roaming the halls of the castle looking for an out of the way place to practice. Imagine his surprise when he came across what appeared to be an old Ancient Runes classroom. There were charts on the wall detailing various Runes and their affects. Harry looked around the room finding nothing of interest until he looked through what would be the Professor's desk. Inside a drawer of the desk laid three wooden cases. Upon opening said cases Harry found three Rune carving kits, most likely they'd been extras for the class when it was still held in this room.
"This is great!" Harry exclaimed excitedly. He'd been convinced that he'd have to spend some of his limited funds to Owl Order a kit for himself. Both Tonks and Penelope had offered at dinner to pick one up for him on the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, but that wasn't until near the end of October and Penelope told him the kits in Hogsmeade cost a Galleon and six Knuts. Owl Order kits cost a Galleon and three Knuts but had the standard eight Knut delivery fee added on top of that. Finding three kits in good condition would be a major boon to Harry's crafting. Plus this room had plenty of space, it was a classroom at one point meant to house upwards of twenty students, so he could probably practice spells here too.
It was a happy Harry that made his way to dinner that evening. He'd left two of the kits in his newfound practice room and taken the third up to his dorm room. He'd immediately started looking into Rune-based locks in his Advanced Magical Crafting book. While he'd made sure to lock the room's door a standard Alohomora would allow anyone to enter. It hadn't taken him long to find the basics of a runic sequence meant to secure things and he'd used his new carving kit to make himself a Ward Lock. A Ward Lock was a fairly simple trinket that was made of either stone or metal. It required two pieces of either material and they had to be the same size to be paired together. The first object would be carved with the actual ward, the runic sequence that carried the effect of keeping people out. The second of the pair would be carved with the runic sequence for allowing someone to pass through the first object's ward. When the first object was placed on a door that door became un-openable to anyone that didn't have the 'key' to the ward. It didn't stop anyone from knocking the door down or blasting it to pieces though. The other major weakness of a Ward Lock was that anyone could pick it up and move it. If you placed the Ward Object on the outside of the door it wouldn't open, but any half-wit could figure out that taking the object off the door would remove the ward. Harry resolved himself to finishing his homework tonight so that he could attach his Ward Lock to the back of his practice room's door tomorrow morning.
"Good evening Harry." Penelope greeted her friend as she sat next to him for dinner. Tonks was over at the Hufflepuff table messing around with her House mates and causing much laughter. Harry knew the older teen had many friends and acquaintances but was still surprised to see just how much of her House Table she could pull into her ruckus.
"Evening Penelope." Harry replied only to get a frown from the older girl.
"Harry I told you we're friends now, you can call me Penny." Penelope reminded him.
"Right, sorry, good evening Penny." Harry corrected with a small smile. It was nice having some friends.
"Much better. Potatoes?" Penelope smiled as she offered him the large serving spoon.
"Yes, thank you." Harry smiled back as he took the spoon and put some potatoes on his plate. The two engaged in mild chatting for the rest of the meal, mostly about how his classes were going. Just like Tonks, Penelope had no recommendations for dealing with Snape. The man was just dour all the time and unpleasant at the best of times. Dinner finished with a wonderful dessert, treacle tart for Harry, before they were all ushered back to their Common Rooms for the evening. A couple of hours later a satisfied Harry climbed into bed with all of his homework completed.
The next morning Harry had gotten dressed for the day and headed down to breakfast. Tonks was apparently having a lie in as he didn't see her in the hall. Penelope was comforting another first year, Mandy if Harry remembered right, who was still hit with bouts of homesickness from time to time. A quick meal and Harry was walking out of the hall towards his practice room. He'd only gotten a few steps out of the Great Hall when a thought occurred to him. Even if he installed his Ward Lock on the practice room door any student who came across the un-openable door would most likely become curious about it. With a moment of thought Harry altered his course to his dorm room. Once in the privacy of his room he quickly opened his trunk and opened one of the expanded space drawers. Inside were dozens of stones he'd collected from Privet Drive and brought with him to use as testing material for new trinkets. Many simple trinkets and talismans could be made simply by carving the proper runic sequence into stone of the right size and shape. Metal also worked well for this purpose but until his Transfiguration skills increased, or he found a way to safely make a forge of his own somewhere in the school, he had no way to shape more metal. He was saving his last five metal bars from the summer day camp to make more Scouters later.