Insignificant information: I am starting to gain more and more respect for authors. I have already noticed two big problems I am having trouble with such as describing things and using 'he' too much. I even had trouble writing a few thousand words and it felt like so much, but it is actually so little. This is much harder than I thought it would be.

P.S. I like the metric system better.

Chapter 2: The benefits of hard work

One of the first things Harry understood about magic is that it is very tiring. He had barely done any magic, but he was having trouble standing. He hoped that it would at least become easier to do it for longer periods of time, because if all magic is this exhausting then he will never get anywhere. He needed a plan. No, not a plan, a list! Yes, he would make a list of all his problems regarding magic and then he would start planning accordingly.

"So, a plan then? I will just have to be careful not to burn the house down. Heh, like I care.

Alright, that probably isn't a very good idea. I would be blamed and it wouldn't be worth it so no burned down houses."

Harry grabbed a pen and paper from his bag and started making a list.

Magical problems:

Endurance. Will it get better?

Dangers of exhaustion? What happens if I try to vanish something too large?

Unintentional use of magic? Could I vanish a human?

How much magic do I have? Can it be measured?

He already understood that using magic made him hungry. That will be a problem, because he didn't have many opportunities to get a lot of food. He had already noticed that using too much magic too quickly made him pass out, because of what happened on Sunday. That could also be a problem, because the Dursleys wouldn't be too sympathetic if he was sleeping when he should be working, so he will need to be careful when he starts to get exhausted. It was the beginning of summer so he would have a moderate amount of free time. Harry hadn't noticed any bad side effects as of yet.

"Now all I need to do is test If it is possible to unintentionally vanish something. I should also check if I can vanish any living beings. Starting with a bug of some kind would be best."

Harry went up to the attic again to begin his experiments. First he tried to offhandedly vanish something by not really thinking about it, but doing the correct gestures with as many mistakes as possible. It didn't work.

"Well that's a relief."

And like that he continued until he was as sure as possible that he wouldn't vanish anything unintentionally. From what he observed it was impossible to vanish something without good concentration and he was having trouble focusing. After he had vanished the third paperclip, he started getting very tired, so he decided to make dinner in case something went wrong. While he was cutting the ham, he ate a few pieces. Harry had been doing this every time he made the Dursleys dinner, breakfast or lunch. It was the only way he could get enough food, because the Dursleys never allowed him to take anything. At least they weren't smart enough to notice when he stole a few bites here and there.

"Small victories. Harry, small victories."

After setting the dinner table, he went to sit down in the attic for some rest.

The attic didn't have any comfortable chairs, pillows or anything like that, but Harry was used to sleeping on the floor so he sat down and started thinking of his plans for the next day.

"I will need to visit the library to look for anything that I could use to improve my focus. I think meditation was one of the things that was supposed to help. I also need to find some other way of using magic. Vanishing objects is all well and good, but I will at some point run out of viable things to use. What other things would be useful? A pushing spell? A summoning spell? Was that even possible? Those will be the first things that I try, because that will help me against Dudley. He will never even understand what happened.." The thought made Harry laugh. "Those two spells should at least be possible if I am able to vanish things. Maybe I could even try full on telekinesis. Now that sounds far fetched. Maybe creating something from nothing is also possible. Since I can vanish things I should be able to create them too." He had a feeling that it would be much more complicated than that. "I have to remember to try vanishing water, so that I know I can vanish liquids too."

Afterwards Harry decided to try vanishing a spider, since there were plenty of those in the attic. He concentrated, started doing the hand gestures and-

He woke up. He could barely move. He tried to stand up, but it was impossible. His eyelids were heavy. It felt like he had been working all day after getting beat up by Dudley and his friends. He lay there thinking that maybe he should not have tried to do something new while he was exhausted.

"Definitely not going to try that again any time soon."

The last thing he felt before passing out was a feeling of emptiness. "Now I know how magical exhaustion feels like and I definitely do not want to experience it again." Slowly feeling started returning to his limbs and he was able to stand. After wobbling a bit, while trying to climb down the few steps of the attic, Harry decided to go to the bathroom and look at himself in the mirror. He did not like what he saw. Harry had messy pitch black hair and emerald green eyes, there was also a scar on his forehead. He had asked his aunt and uncle where he got it from and they told him it was from when his parents died in the car accident. Again he got angry for some reason. Those where his defining features, he was also quite scrawny and wearing baggy clothes that were much too big for him. That is how he normally looked like, but looking in the mirror now, Harry thought he wouldn't even need to dress up if it was Halloween.

"I have no idea if Dudley will run screaming when he sees me or start laughing that I look like a zombie.. I guess we shall see." Harry thought, amused.

"I might be able to scare him if I vanish some of his stuff. No, I have no idea how he would react. Dudley would either run to his parents, start beating me up or if I am lucky maybe he would be scared and leave me alone. I need something better."

Quickly understanding that it would not be a good idea to be in the bathroom when the Dursleys arrived, He decided to try to go to sleep in his cupboard. Only just as he was at the bottom of the squeaky stairs, He could hear keys rattling. Soon the front door would be open and either his aunt or uncle would start quizzing him about his work. He knew they wouldn't care about his appearance. They never had before when he came home with bruises or a swollen eye. The big white doors didn't have any windows only a visor, but Harry knew better than to try and use it. He had already broken his nose once when Dudley somehow noticed he was on the other side. As they opened Harry understood that aunt Petunia was home first. "She is the only one who ever opens the doors this slowly." Dudley and uncle Vernon liked to throw the doors open hard, so that everyone knew that they are home. Harry like it that way. He had plenty of warning whenever either of them arrived.

"Good day aunt Petunia." Harry always had to say that when they got home, otherwise they got angry.

"Did you finish cleaning the house freak?" They obviously weren't as courteous with him.

"Yes, aunt Petunia. Dinner is ready too." He had left the roasted ham and potatoes in the oven so that they would stay warm. Petunia just huffed and walked into the kitchen without acknowledging him again.

"Now at least I will not be bothered anymore until morning. As long as Dudley doesn't decide he is bored." Harry's last thought before everything went black was. "I wonder if sleeping too much causes problems."

Then next morning was much like the last one, a heavy pounding, a small meal and a list of things to do. After he had finished cleaning up after the Dursleys, Harry decided to go to the library. The road to the library was about twenty minutes by foot. On the way you would see nothing but rows of houses that look almost exactly the same. The library and the park are the only two things that stand out in Harry's neighbourhood. The park was not one of Harry's favourite places. It had a playground, but all Harry had ever done there was get beaten or chased. The only sanctuary here was the library. Dudley would never willingly go there. Which means Harry went there as often as possible. The library itself wasn't big at all, but it still contained more books than he could ever read. It was a nondescript building with white walls a curved roof and big rectangular windows. The doors were double doors made out of oak and his young body always had trouble opening them. Inside the library there were two floors. On the first floor there were a lot of tables for reading and some fictions books and magazines on the different shelves that were scattered around. There was also the librarians desk where you had to register all the books you wanted to take out and for how long. The librarian herself was and old woman with short blonde hair and small glasses. She had a stern face and piercing brown eyes. Harry quite liked the librarian. She was the only person who could and would answer his questions.

"Hello again, Mr Potter. I haven't seen you for a few days. Are you returning the books you took?" She always asks about the books.

"Yes, Miss Hobbs. I am. I would also like to find a book on meditation. I heard they help with focus." Harry had already finished reading the two books he took and it was best to return them.

"Are you sure? I imagine meditation would be a very boring thing for a young lad like you."

"I am sure. Can you tell me anything about it, Ms Hobbs?" Harry hoped it wasn't anything that required a lot of time. He already had too little of it.

"Well, It is an exercise of the mind young man. There is nothing special to it. You just need to sit down and try to focus only on your breathing. It helps you concentrate for longer periods of time. I really do not think it is meant for children, but you are not an ordinary child are you, Mr Potter?" It sounded so ominous when she said that. Harry was the only child that ever went to this library. He had never seen anyone else and it was very lonely, because all the other readers were adults and they rarely listened or spoke to him. He thought it helped him become more mature, since the only conversations he ever had were with adults.

"Um.. I don- I don't know, Ms. Hobbs."

Harry stuttered when he was nervous. He didn't like it, because adults would usually just smile at him after. Like they were proud of him or something. While he was trying to calm down, he remember the letter his aunt mentioned.

"How could I forget about it! She said I will get my letter when I turn eleven. Ugh.. That is about 6 years in the future. At least I will have time to prepare for it."

The librarian was smiling warmly at him. "There is a book on meditation on the second floor, third aisle, second shelf from the right." Harry could never understand how she remembered everything so well. "Thank you, Ms Hobbs."

Harry quickly ran to the round steps in the corner of the library and arrived at the second floor. "Now this is a library." Harry thought. "I should find the book before I forget where it is." He found the book on the second shelf where the librarian said it would be.

"Mindfulness meditation" He read aloud. "I think this will have to do."

Being careful not to drop it Harry ran back to sign out with the book.

"How long will you need this book Mr Potter?" Harry usually kept his books for about a week, but this time he was not so sure.

"How long do you think I will need it, Ms Hobbs?"

"I would say that depends on how good your memory is Mr Potter, but it will probably take you more than a month. I suggest you take this book out for about a month and then if you still need it you can come back and we will discuss it."

"Thank you, Ms Hobbs. I will do that." She was one of the only adults he trusted. He decided that instead of going back home immediately, it would be better to at least skim the book to see if it is useful. Finding a place to sit wasn't hard as the library was almost empty. He sat down on the hard wooden chair and started skimming the book.

"Look like Ms. Hobbs was right. Sit down, clear your mind, focus on your breathing and try to ignore stray thoughts. That shouldn't be too hard should it?" Deciding he had found enough Harry said goodbye to the librarian and walked back home so that he could clean the house.

"The Dursleys really aren't the brightest people. I already cleaned the house yesterday and now they want me to do it again. Like I will. I think today I will read the book and experiment again in the attic."

And that is what Harry did, until he was ten years old. During the five years that he had been experimenting with magic, he had come to the conclusion that you could indeed train your magic. During the first few months Harry could only vanish about a dozen thing each day before exhaustion overtook him. After that he started being able to vanish more and more each day. Harry had also concluded that the weight of the object he was vanishing determined how hard it was to do. At first the heaviest thing he could vanish was about 2kg, but the amount increased over the years. The hardest thing to vanish concentration wise was water. He was able to do it only after about 3 years of continuous training and meditating. Harry had also managed to get the 'pushing spell', as he called it, to work. It took him about 6 months until he perfected it, but he knew it was worth it. only after understanding that he was quite a ways away from being able to push around a person did Harry calm down. He started pushing things around every day, as much as he could. Starting with dust and matchsticks, he slowly built his way up to being able to push over chairs and other heavier things. He wasn't quite strong enough to push over Vernon or Dudley, but he thought he would be able to do it with aunt Petunia.

Harry knew he was missing something, because for all the meditation he had done during the years and his now extraordinary ability to focus, he still couldn't even knock over a fat man.

"I have been practising for four years and although I have made huge amounts of progress, I still haven't been able to learn any other spells and the heaviest thing I have ever vanished is a flower pot." He mused. "Either I am a very weak wizard or I am doing something wrong. I have read in stories about wizards always having staves. Maybe that is what I am missing. A magical staff. I have no idea where I would get something like that."

Harry was getting more and more restless as the day he was supposed to get his letter got closer and closer. He had already started to collect all the letters in the mornings so it wouldn't look suspicious when he did it and he already knew he would have to hide the letter lest Dudley see it and start screaming about it to his aunt and uncle. Harry thought he had gotten a lot smarter since he started meditating. Meditation had turned out to be a lot harder that he thought, because he kept getting side tracked and just wasn't able to clear his mind at all, until after meditating for about 2 weeks he started noticing that it had gotten easier to concentrate and he wasn't getting side tracked as much. It had improved his memory and hardened his will. He was very happy he started doing it, because he believed that otherwise he wouldn't have been able to do as much as he had.

One of the things he noted was that the amount of 'accidents' started decreasing as he learned to meditate, so the Dursleys weren't as angry with him anymore and he had managed to frighten Dudley enough, so that he would stop beating him. That had been one of his greater accomplishments and he was very proud of himself. At first Dudley had only ran to his parents when Harry kept 'throwing' things at him, but he stopped doing it when Harry started blackmailing him, he threatened to do it in front of his friends and since Dudley wouldn't be able to chase down any other kids alone, he stopped. He had felt bad about it at first, but as time passed and he wasn't getting beaten anymore, he understood that it was worth it.

When the book about meditation was no longer useful to him he switched it out for a book on exercises on hand movements including wrist and finger training, because it helped greatly when he did the movements correctly and the spells become much more powerful. It also became very tiring, doing all the necessary gestures for the spells, so he decided to train his hands. The pushing spell had quickly become his favourite thing to do and he had started practicing it. Setting up a target he could shoot at with small paperclips or nails had allowed him to become a lot more accurate and he could now seriously injure or even kill a person if he tried hard enough. One of the things he liked about the pushing spell was that he found out how to keep 'pushing' something even when he stopped the hand movements so now he was able to keep a ball in the air above his hand as if it was levitating or even make it look like something was stuck to the ceiling or the walls. The other interesting things about the spell was that with enough concentration he could determine how hard and fast he wants to push. That had helped him in the Dursley house, because he was able to frighten them into finally allowing him to eat enough food and stop cooking for them. Now all Harry need was the letter he was supposed to get and he would be happy to leave to wherever he was supposed to go.

As he was checking the letters as usual he noticed that one of them was addressed to 'Harry James Potter in the cupboard under the stairs'

This was it. He had finally gotten the letter he had been waiting for and on his eleventh birthday just like his aunt said.

First he hid the letter in one his oversized pockets and quickly delivered the other to uncle Vernon who was reading a magazine. Then after eating breakfast with the Dursleys, Harry bolted himself in the cupboard and opened the letter.

Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Gran Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme

Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

As with all muggleborn students we must inform you that the required books and other necessities can be bought in Diagon alley. You shall find the directions to Diagon alley have been included under your list of books and equipment.

Term begins on September the first. We await your owl by no later than the 31st of July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

A/N: I really like these lines.