Harry waved Tonks and Penny goodbye as they boarded the self-moving carriages that would take them to the Hogwarts Express and back to their families for the break. Hagrid would be bringing the charcoal around noon tomorrow and until then Harry planned to finish all of the homework given to them for the break. With it out of the way Harry could spend the rest of the break working in his smithy to make more metal for his Enchanting. In between that he'd continue to work on the Rune Safe array. He'd made a breakthrough with getting all of the security sequences to work together but he still needed to tweak the mana absorption sequence to get it to integrate. Maybe if he upped the strength of the absorption? Or the rate that it could absorb mana? He'd rewrite it again and see if either version of the sequence worked.
The next day Hagrid delivered Harry his charcoal as promised. After a grateful thank you to his friend Harry had made his way to his hidden workshop and set about getting his forge ready. With a bit of metal he'd managed to 'reclaim' from an abandoned classroom on the sixth floor, Harry set about his first attempt at metallurgy. The results were better than he expected, the metal had been properly imbued with his mana and it had become the shape he'd wanted it. Harry was fairly sure that the fire had been a bit too hot a few times as three of the metal bars he'd made had melted out of shape. He'd had to pound them with one of his hammers back into the correct thin bar he was aiming for. He still had five more glass lenses so he was going to make another set of Scouters. Four of them would go through Owl Order again while he'd be writing to Madam Aveline in France about selling her the fifth one.
On Sunday Harry had written his letter to Madam Aveline with his offer of selling her the Scouter she wanted directly for ten Galleons. He'd sent the missive off with one of the school owls and then passed Hedwig the gifts for Penny and Tonks.
"Have a safe flight, Hedwig, feel free to stay at whoever's house you deliver to last if you want." Harry smiled as he stroked Hedwig's feathers. With a hoot Hedwig had taken flight from the Owlery and headed south. The gifts for Padma, Mandy and Hermione were each given to a different school owl and Harry watched them fly away until he couldn't see them anymore. He'd give Hagrid his present on Christmas morning in the Great Hall, he was sure the gentle giant would like it.
The next day just after lunch Harry had been sitting in the Great Hall waiting for what he knew was coming. Within a few minutes of most of the students leaving four owls from the Owl Order Service landed on the table in front of Harry. Each of the highly trained owls waited patiently as Harry first took off the small parcel that contained his Galleons from their legs before replacing them with the wrapped packages containing the Scouters he'd sold. Once the packages were secure the four owls took flight and were out of the Great Hall in less than a minute. With that done Harry quickly retreated to his workshop to stash his new gold. Having secured his Galleons in the back of the bottom drawer of the Professor's desk he'd commandeered as his work table Harry started work on his newest trinket.
"Just have to etch the sequence and then I can get to testing." Harry smiled to himself as he pulled out the last two flat metal bars he'd forged and pulled out the metal etching tool from his Rune Carving Kit. Several minutes later Harry was finished with the etching and admiring his new trinket. This time he'd gone for another simple design, he called it a Silent Step. Attaching this trinket to the bottom of a person's shoes should make their steps silent. Harry quickly used a Sticking Charm, from his wand since he hadn't gotten this particular Charm to work wandlessly yet, to attach one bar to the bottom of his left trainer before doing the same with his right. Once both small bars were attached horizontally across the soles of his shoes, so they wouldn't impede the soles' ability to bend, Harry had taken a few steps across the room. When no sound was made by his steps Harry grinned and started stomping and jumping up and down. Still no sound was made and Harry cheered in triumph. Even if it was just a simple trinket it always felt good to succeed with a creation.
When Christmas morning came Harry was happy as any eleven year old to see a few gifts on top of his trunk. Smiling Harry picked up the first one and laughed when he saw that it was from Tonks. Honestly the wrapping paper gave it away, who else would use a Color Changing Charm to swap the traditional green and red coloration of Christmas for neon blue and hot pink? Opening the gift he was met with the sight of a new Rune Carving Kit. This one looked much fancier than the three he'd found in his workshop. Reading the card Tonks had sent he was surprised to learn she'd been planning this since October. The tools in this kit were made with alchemical metal alloys allowing them to be used with almost every material imaginable.