Harry was busy for the next several weeks as he worked tirelessly to acclimate himself to this world, and establish his new workshop.
Almost every day he would take a few hours to wander Diagon Alley as he freely browsed the shops for anything that caught his interest, and to get a general idea of the different goods made in this world of magic. Harry would also take the time to secretly people-watch, a pastime he learned from Brynjolf when he first joined the Thieves Guild.
One sure mark of a master thief was knowing who to rob and who not to at a glance. There would be people out there who looked and were poor, people who looked poor but were rich, people who looked rich but were secretly poor, and people who looked and were rich. The trick was figuring out which were which BEFORE sticking your hands into their pockets.
Harry wasn't looking for any potential marks, yet, but was instead watching the people of this world to learn more about them, like their manners and the different social circles.
Though he couldn't claim to be the most studious person, Harry also needed to learn more about this world that he couldn't through people watching. That was where the extra textbooks be bought from Flourish and Blotts came in to play, plus Harry also put in a subscription to the newspaper used by wizarding Britain, the Daily Prophet.
When he wasn't learning about the world, Harry was busy working on setting up his workshop and overseeing the rebuilding of Potter Manor.
A few days after visiting Gringotts and expressing his interest in rebuilding the manor, Harry was visited by Demetrius and a few other officials from the Ministry, mostly surveyers and developers. The group then made their way to the Potter estate to survey the land after ten years of neglect.
The land was mostly forest with a couple fields and a river running through it, which were perfect for the development of the manor.
Harry then went over with the developers the style of manor he wanted, how many rooms he wanted, and so on and so forth. Of course, he also specifically made sure there would be a basement and greenhouse where he could work on other projects and try cultivating some of the seeds he brought with him from Skyrim. He also made plans to add a small barn a short ways from the house, where he could raise some animals to acquire fresh milk, eggs and meat.
Then, when Harry mentioned hiring some extra hands to maintain the place when it was all finished, as well as tending to his greenhouse and animals when he was at school, Demetrius readily explained to him about house elves and their services to wizards. So now Harry was planning to get a few of them as well once the manor was finished.
In his workshop, Harry had spent most of his time building the different work stations that he needed and filling each room with all of the proper furniture.
One room was dedicated to his smithing work, where he put his forge, a tanning rack, grindstone, and workbench for him to improve and maintain the weapons and armor he made. Harry also removed most of the smithing materials he kept in his bag to store in there as well, years of raw and refined ores from all over skyrim that he had bought or mined himself. And if Harry ever ran out, well that was what the Transmute spell was for.
In another room Harry placed his newly crafted enchanting table, a staff enchanter, and another workstation he built after buying the proper books for it, a wand crafting station. Harry also stored the majority of his filled Soul Gems on shelves he built around the room as well.
The third room was dedicated to his Alchemy station and potion work, while the rest of the room was filled with several cabinets where he could store some ingredients as well as some of the potions he had worked on.
The forth was the training room, where Harry had set up numerous dummys and targets to routinely practice his combat skills, as well as the spellwork with his new wand. And lining the walls were racks of all sorts of generic weapons and staves for him to train with.
And finally the last room was set up as a weapon storage/display room, where Harry was storing and safeguarding the majority of unique/dangerous weapons and items he had acquired throughout Skyrim. Also stored there, behind a secure case that Harry built to replicate the Dwemer, were the Daedric Artifacts that he had collected as well. Needless to say the case they were stored in was secured with the strongest sealing spells Harry knew, and were crafted so that the influence of the Daedric Artifacts could seep out as little as possible.
It was also behind such protections that Harry encased his Elder Scrolls, lest someone actually manage to get into his bag somehow. At least the trunk had security measures to keep people out when Harry wasn't using it.
The main room of the trunk though had been turned into something of a library/sitting room/bedroom/kitchen. Bookshelves lined the walls filled with books that Harry brought with him from Skyrim, and never got around to organizing at home, as well as those he had bought from Flourish and Blotts since arriving to Diagon Alley.
Harry had also built a fireplace, to make the room more cozy, arranged the chairs in front of it, placed a spare bed a little ways away, and he even fully stocked the kitchen with the food and ingredients he usually kept on him. On top of all of that, he also placed several planting pots around the rooms in the trunk in an effort to grow Skyrim herbs and fungi before he invested in an entire greenhouse full of them.
By the time he had finished building and arranging everything, it was already almost time for the school term at Hogwarts to start. The only thing left on Harry's list was a proper alter for each of the NINE divines, but with how tricky those were to make he was willing to put them off until he had them completely right.
Right now though, Harry's attention was elsewhere.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! RA!"
Harry's cries were all that could be heard as he furously attacked one of his training dummys, an iron sword in each hand while his entire body shimmered with the power of Restoration magic.
It was a trick he picked up from Isran, the leader of the Dawnguard when Harry helped them with the vampire crisis. When someone was proficient enough in Restoration magic, then they could prolong their training, and physical labor, by constantly applying it to heal their muscles and remove their fatigue.
It was something that Isran said the Vigilants of Stendar came up with, as the training style trained both their muscles and their use in Restoration magic. The first part was the reason why Harry was using it now, since he already was a Master of Restoration magic, because his body was now the body of an untrained eleven year old. Harry wanted to rectify that as soon as possible, as what kind of Nord, a Dragonborn at that, couldn't even properly swing their own weapons?
Even now, Harry was using some of the lightest weapons he had on him since they were all his immature body could really take. But after the last month of working and training, he should be ready to start using heavier weapons again.
After a few more hours of training, Harry decided to call it quits so he could clean up, and prepare for the journey to Howarts the next day.
"..."
"Hey Harry!" Exclaimed the bushy-haired girl that was casually sitting on one of his chairs in front of the fireplace, her nose buried in one of his books while he had been training.
"Shouldn't you be packing?" Harry asked her dryly, ignoring the fact that Hermione had let herself into his trunk while he was training, AGAIN.
The bushy-haired girl had been visiting him regularly since the day they met, all to learn more about Nirn and everything Harry experienced while he was there. And this despite the fact that she was apparently keeping up on reading her Hogwarts textbooks as well.
"Sorry for barging in. And I already finished my packing last night." Hermione said sheepishly, not that Harry necessarily minded her being here. More along the lines of just being exasperated.
But he had already established with her what NOT to touch, and Hermione had already showed she was a person who adhered strictly to the words of authority. The only things that actually worried Harry were the Black Books of Hermaeus Mora, as Hermione was proving herself to be quite the little obsessive beaver when it came to knowledge.
"Also, you have an owl waiting for you outside." Hermione added as an afterthought, making Harry curious as he climbed out of the trunk to investigate.
Outside were two owls, one he bought for himself a couple weeks ago, both to keep him company, and because they were useful in the wizarding world as message carriers. As much as he loved his hounds, Harry sure wished he'd had one of these back in Skyrim.
Harry's owl was a beautiful snowy owl that the shopkeeper had already named Hedwig. And though he would have prefered to give her a proper nord name, one Aela would have loved, Hedwig seemed fine too.
The other owl present though was an inconspicuous brown owl that looked as if it were here for very important business as it readily presented the letter tied to it's leg to Harry.
"Let's see what you got." Harry said while untying the letter, and also giving the owl a few pellets to eat as well before it took off through the window. Harry then opened the letter to see a flamboyant, sprawling script.
~~~
Harry,
I am writing to inform you that the Ministry has finally agreed to accept our trip to Azkaban prison to see Sirius Black. Unfortunately the trip is schelduled a week from now on your first weekend after starting school. While I can think of several other(better) ways to end your first week at Hogwarts, the plus side is that we will be receiving an escort from the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge, along with a full squad of Aurors.
Wishing you a safe and relaxing trip to Hogwarts,
Albus Dumbledore.
~~~
Harry read through the letter with furrowed brows as he thought on what it was actually saying.
Of course Harry had learned about Cornelius Fudge as he read the Daily Prophet, as well as the Ministry itself. And what he saw was perhaps even more disappointing than the Empire in Cyradiil, if that were even possible.
If Harry had to guess, he would assume that Fudge was trying to use him to bolster his own image somehow. After all, if Azkaban was even nearly as bad as Harry had read, then why else would a man like Fudge voluntarily go there?
Shaking his head in exasperation, Harry returned to his trunk to wash up and prepare for the trip to Hogwarts, not that he had much to prepare for since nearly all of his stuff was already in the trunk.
A short while later Harry exited the trunk's bathroom after taking a quick shower, dressed in some of the casual robes he had bought over the last few weeks aside from his Hogwarts robes, with a set for form-fitting leather armor he had freshly made underneath to fit his new youthful figure. Even if Harry didn't mind wearing robes and such, they were also the standard uniform of the College of Winterhold, there was no way he was going to go without at least SOME armor.
When Harry exited the bathroom Hermione was once again absorbed with one of his books, Biography of Barenziah: Volume 2 by the look of it.
"When you finish those ones, check out The Real Barenziah series. They're much more informative than the official versions." Harry said while pointing out another set of books on his shelves.
"What do you mean by the 'official' versions?" Hermione asked curiously while glancing up from the book.
"Technically no one knows who wrote The Real Barenziah series, but the events depicted in it are far different and raw than the offical series, which seems pretty heavily censored in comparison. Some people even speculate that Barenziah herself wrote the Real series."
"Amazing! Do you mind if I read them on the train tomorrow?"
"Sure. I can pull them out and put them in my bag so you don't need to carry them as well." Harry readily offered, as his bag was now light enough he didn't need the Telekinesis spell to carry it anymore. Thankfully, one of the trunk's features was that it negated ALL weight put into it, while Harry's bag only negated most of the weight it carried. Now he was able to use it to carry his school books and such around with him during school.
"So, are you ready to start training?" Harry asked as he made his way back to the training room.
"YES!" Hermione exclaimed as she practically leapt out of her seat to follow him.
In the training room, Harry approached the rack of staves he had before grabbing one with a yellow crystal at the top, which he tossed to Hermione.
"Ah!" Hermione exclaimed as she clumsily caught the staff, nearly dropping it on the ground before clutching it closely.
"You need to work on that hand-eye coordination." Harry said as he looked her up and down as it he were appraising her.
"Sorry...." Hermione said in embarrassment.
"Its fine. That's what practice is for." Harry replied, his years as a teacher coming through as he directed Hermione the proper way to hold the staff.
"Now then, do you remember everything from the books you read on Alteration?"
"Of course!" Hermione declared with sparkling eyes. The book she had found most enlightening was Reality and Other Falsehoods, followed closely by The Lunar Lorkhan.
"Good. Remember, the magic of Nirn is not the same as the magic of Hogwarts. We don't require wands to cast our spells." Harry told her as he conjured a ball of light that hovered over them, using nothing but his bare hands.
"The stave in your hands is basically like a crutch to most mages of Skyrim. We only use them when we need advanced spells from other schools that we are not proficient in, or to preserves our own Magika reserves while in combat since each staff has its own store of energy. But unlike the wands we will be using in school, these staves are keyed in to a specific branch of magic.
"The one in your hands is a staff of Alteration, specifically a staff of magelight. While it can be used to cast other Alteration spells if need be, a Novice such as yourself will only be able to use Magelight with it. For the time being I want you to try casting Magelight with it, something that even those with the tiniest amount of magical talent would be able to do in Nirn."
His explanation finished, Harry stepped back as Hermione stepped forward with a determined expression on her face.
"Right!" She declared while brandishing the staff in front of her as she aimed it at the training dummy.
Harry watched intently, ready to intervene if need be as Hermine tried to cast the Magelight spell, only for nothing to happen.
"..."
"What happened...?" Hermione asked while turning to look at Harry, tears threatening to form in her eyes.
"Hm..." Harry hummed in contemplation.
"Could be any number of things. Could be impossible for people of this world to perform the magic of Nirn, or it could simply be that it takes the people of this world significantly more effort to use the same spells. Only way to know for sure is for you to keep trying." Harry told her, indicating for Hermione to try again.
It wasn't for no reason or on a whim that Harry was teaching Hermione the magic of Nirn.
One of the core subjects he had researched over the last few weeks was Voldemort himself, and his rise to power until he was defeated by Harry as a baby.
According to the books Harry had read, Voldemort had supposedly used all manner of dark magics to become a mage that many regarded as to being on a similar level as Dumbledore, to the point that he barely even looked human in the end. Aside from his own skills and magic power, Voldemort apparently also had entire armies under his control. Fellow dark wizards that called themselves Death Eaters, giants, animated dead known as Inferius, and all manner of other dark creatures.
Back in Skyrim Harry had the support of every single major guild and faction that operated within the nation's borders. Isran and the Dawnguard had marched on the vampires beside him. The network of the Thieves Guild gave him an unprecedented network of information throughout not only Skyrim, but also Solstheim and parts of Cyradiil. Once he became Harbinger of the Companions, any number of them readily marched beside Harry into combat in the name of glory and honor. Through the College of Winterhold Harry had the unrivaled support of the greatest thinkers in all of Skyrim. And finally he also reestablished the Blades alongside Esbern and Delphine to combat the dragons that were terrorizing the land, once Harry made it clear he was NOT going to be their puppet.
Here, he had no such support.
So Harry had decided to take Hermione under his wing and try to teach her the magic of Nirn, not only to see if it was possible for witches and wizards of this world to do so, but also to lay the foundation for his own force for the day he would need to face Voldemort.
The rest of the day was spent with Hermine struggling to cast the Magelight spell, even with the staff acting as her crutch. But it was more along the lines of what Harry had expected from the beginning. Now he had an idea of where to start, because he was determined to make this possible.
They only called it quits for the day when the old grandfather clock Harry bought to keep track of time began to chime loudly, indicating that it was dinnertime. Though Hermione insisted she could have gone longer, Harry still sent her back home for the night since they would be boarding the train to Hogwarts tomorrow.
And sure enough, at 10:30 the next day, Harry found himself staring up at the bright red engine of the Hogwarts Express.