"Why are you crying?" he asked as he sat beside Hermione who had been sobbing quietly at the end corner of the library. It was a sad picture really. Something that he would have easily missed if he had not looking for a book in this particular section of the library.

Reading in the Room of Requirement was good and all but at the end of the day, he was a human as well and became lonely if he spent too much time by himself. So he usually went to read in the library from time to time.

That's what he usually did when he was back in the muggle world and he planned to continue this trend here in Hogwarts as well.

Plus, right now a future version of him was studying in that Room so he did not have any choice in that matter either as meeting that version of him could create a paradox in time and that was not something he wanted to do. Time turners needed to be used with care.

Hemione squeaked a little when she heard his voice and jerked up suddenly to see him sitting beside her.

Oh yes, he had forgot to lower the intensity of his Shroud of Concealment so he must have gone unnoticed if he had not talked with her.

The fact that she had not noticed him even when he was sitting a few inches away from her just went to show how advanced his 'Shroud of Concealment' actually was.

He removed his Shroud of Concealment and watched with a bit of sadness and a bit of annoyance as Hermione paled a little at the sight of his face.

Really, he was not that bad of a person. And he had only made Draco his footstool in the train to teach the ponce a little lesson. That's no reason to be scared of him.

He wondered if any of her fellow Gryffindor (cough! Ron Wesley! Cough!) had told her bad things about Parselmouths or something like that.

"It… It's nothing." she said with a stutter and wiped her tears with her sleeves before gathering her books and getting up to leave before he caught her wrists and sat her down on the chair before covering both of them with his shroud so that no one would notice his actions and think him as some kind of molester.

"Sit down." He said with a slight frown and pulled her down to her chair facing him like he would do with a child that was being unruly. "I'm not a very talkative person but when I ask you something I expect to be answered." He said with a stare and then asked in a kind voice "Now tell me. What's wrong. Why were you crying?"

She fidgeted under his gaze for a moment before looking down at her shoes and bit her lips in an adorable way before she replied "It's nothing."

He raised an eyebrow at her words "So it's your hobby to cry in the library?" he asked with a smirk which became even more pronounced at the glare she sent his way.

"You look cute when you're angry." He said and her eyes widened at once and her whole face turned scarlet before she looked at her feet once again, biting her lips in that adorable way, all signs of previous anger long gone and forgotten.

He sighed a bit before he pulled his chair closer to her and sat in front of her so that they their faces would only be inches apart and took both her cheeks in his hands and wiped her tears with his thumbs.

"It's not nothing Hermione. Now tell me why you're crying?" he asked kindly, ignoring the urge to kneed her soft cheeks. Gods she was cute.

That little bit of kindness was all it took before she came apart and started crying. He gave her a hug and it didn't take very long before she started telling him the whole story all the while sobbing in his arms.

He wondered if he would have shown her the same amount of kindness if he had not known that she would grow up to become so beautiful in the future.

He most likely would. Because her intelligence and drive to work hard was more attractive to him than a pretty face. Although he would admit that her pretty face gave her extra credits in his book.

Her sob story was not that different than he had imagined.

She had come to this magical world thinking that she would show her intelligence and show what an accomplished witch she was and make new friends in the school.

But it so happened that none of the teachers aside from Minerva and Flitwick seemed remotely interested in her ability to cram knowledge in her brain and her house mates were not very pleased with her trying to show them up in the classes either.

Harry had to admit that she did seemed a bit irritating in the classes but that was no excuse for her house mates to treat her so badly and crush her dreams and hopes like that.

The fickle nature of these students was one of the reason why he usually stayed away from the kids even though he felt lonely from time to time. But he knew very well that someone as talented as Hermione was not easy to find and that he was very lucky to realize her true potential so early in his life.

And he didn't planned to let her go now that he'd found her.

By the end of her crying/talking session, Hermione had gained her first friend in the school and Harry had gained his first… well he didn't knew how he saw Hermione. A friend? A minion? A student? All of them?

Well, he didn't knew her relationship with him but he knew that she was someone important to him.

Someone who was worth being cherished.

Someone who was worth being groomed.

—————

Harry looked at the Handgun lying on the table in front of him and then turned to look at the opened book lying beside the table to read the charm written on it once more before applying it on the Handgun.

Then he took out a notepad and started reading the list written on it.

"Charm to handle the Recoil. Done."

"Charm to handle the Noise. Done."

"Charm to duplicate the bullets to shoot more than one bullet at once. Under Progress."

"Charm to duplicate the bullets in order to get an indefinite supply of bullets until the magic runs out. Not started yet."

"Charm to increase the weight of the bullet once it leaves the chamber? Not started yet."

"Do you think I did it right this time Selena?" he asked as he transfigured a large piece of wood into a hand which would hold the gun during the tests in case something went wrong and the gun went Boom before he went and stood at a distance from that hand.

"How am I supposed to know such a thing stupid?" Selena snapped at him. She had not been in a very good mood ever since he hugged and soothed Hermione back in the library.

Turned out that snakes can have a mean jealous streak and can hold their grudges when you don't give them proper attention.

"Oh well. Just wish me luck in that case."

"Eat a weak old dead rotten rat." She hissed and he had to stop himself from picturing the image before he put his focus on the task and used his wand to apply the charm on the transfigured hand that would allow it to shoot the gun at the transfigured human dummy in front of the gun.

He waited with anticipation as the hand pulled the trigger and…

BOOOM!!!

He felt his ear drums ring at the unexpectedly loud noise as the chamber of the hand gun blew apart along with the transfigured hand.

He thanked the gods once again that he was a cautious person and always took his safety in mind when performing dangerous experiments.

Once the smoke and dust settled down, he went forward and started repairing the handgun once again.

It fascinated him how he could know absolutely nothing about an object and still repair it to it's original state with a simple gesture.

He had tried to shoot the gun when the applied the silencing and the recoil handling charm and it had worked perfectly that time so he knew for a fact that the blast must have happened because of the recently applied Gemino charm.

He noted the reason behind the explosion on his notepad before he went ahead and tried to find the solution to the problem.

He knew for a fact that Voldemort had sixty years on him and even if he used his time turners continuously on a daily basis till the end of his fifth year, he would be no match for the dark lord in a magical battle.

But who said that he had to fight fairly when he could simply add enhanced muggle weapons under his belt.

It would not make him as powerful as Voldemort, not by far. In fact, a simple degenerating shield could easily turn his bullets into fine dust before they ever reached the dark lord but it would definitely give him an advantage against unsuspecting opponents.

So after he found out the problem behind the explosion (which happened because the bullets duplicated themselves when they were still within the chamber), he went about applying the charms all over again, in a different way this time of course.

He didn't expect to come up with the perfect weapon within a day.

But sooner or later, he would create weapons that would force the wizarding world to bow down to him.

Not that he had any ambition to see them bow down to him or such but it might prove to be a bit entertaining.