Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.
Chapter Two
Harry was resolutely ignored the entire drive back to Privet Drive. The car had stopped in front of number four, the three Dursleys proceeded to quickly bustle into the house, leaving Harry to drag his trunk into the house, up the stairs, and into Dudley's second bedroom all by himself. Once he was done Harry flopped onto the creaky old cot that served as his bed, but he guessed anything was better than his cupboard. Harry had just started to relax, well as much he could with the springs sticking into his back, when he heard his Aunt Petunia's screech.
"Boy, get down here and make us dinner!"
Harry sighed, "Yes, Aunt Petunia. I'm coming." This was just the beginning he thought.
After dinner, of which he took no part in, Harry was sent to his room with the looming threat of an endless number of chores for tomorrow. Once in his bedroom he emptied his trunk of his most important artifacts, such as his father's invisibility cloak and the photo album of his parents, and some necessities for doing homework in case his stuff was locked away. As he was unpacking he noticed a book in the pile that he hadn't seen before, Harry looked at the title and in fading gold was written Other Magics. He figured it was a book he picked up by accident that belonged to Hermione. It looked ancient so it was probably pretty valuable, with that in mind he placed it under the loose floorboard with the rest of the stuff he placed aside.
Since his unpacking was done and he was probably going to woken up at the crack of dawn by his banshee of an aunt Harry figured he should get sleep while he could.
Harry tossed and turned attempting to find a comfortable position, but none came so he resigned himself to being awake for a long while. With that in mind Harry reached into his loose floorboard and pulled out his photo album. He poured over the pictures of his parents wedding, him as a baby in their arms, and his parents in their school days. He tried to memorize everything about them as if it would make him more real. He wondered if they were like him or if he was anything like them. He had learned that they were amazing students and wondered if he would ever live up to that particular trait.
In terms of learning, he loved to learn, he loved having more knowledge. Of course with his learning disabilities it made it that much harder. When he was first learning to read and write he had more problems than most of the kids his age. The Dursleys were nothing less than pleased. When his teacher noticed his problems he was taken in for testing to see what exactly the problem was. Apparently he had a slight case of dyslexia and ADD. This meant that he sometimes got letters mixed up and he had trouble concentrating on one thing for too long. Of course for Harry hearing this at the age of five and with only the Dursleys words parroting into his ear only made him more determined to work around his disabilities.
He was determined not to let these problems hold him back, to make him more of a Freak which of course was his only fear after being downtrodden for that very reason by the Dursleys for years. Harry had believed at the time that he truly was a Freak and that his new problems would probably make the Dursleys hate him even more. It was for this reason he decided not to tell anyone besides his teachers who already knew and doggedly work around his problems or even with them so as to make them not existent. Of course this was not easy but he soon learned many tricks to work around his problems. Once he had worked through them Harry found out how much he truly loved learning. He loved learning new things whether it was english, math, or science he loved it all. And while he truly loved learning more about anything and everything the one thing he truly excelled in above everything else was languages. By the time he had started Hogwarts Harry was fluent in Spanish, Latin, Greek, French, and German.
Not that anyone in Hogwarts knew that. When he had first heard he was a wizard he was absolutely ecstatic about having a whole other world to learn about and was immediately ready to jump into the nearest bookshop and read every book there. At least that was until he heard he was famous in this world. When he heard that he knew he couldn't learn and read truly as he wanted to, it was time for Harry Potter to make another mask.
Harry knew all about masks, his entire childhood at the Dursleys was about masking his intelligence making sure they saw him as they wanted to see him. When he heard he was famous he knew that they wouldn't want to see a nerdy little Harry Potter. They would want to see the reluctant, humble hero, so that is who he became. While at the Dursleys he could to afford to play stupid while absorbing every book he could get his hand on on the side due to their blindness and stupidity, but here in this new world he would have to become his mask until he knew how to work around that system. And until just now once that mask had slipped on he never looked bakc.
But now looking down at his parents and wondering if he made them proud did he truly remember who he was. Harry had gotten so used to and comfortable in his mask that he let it become him and had forgotten who he was. Now he remembered and Harry wanted to hit himself on the head for his stupidity. Losing himself like that was not good, he needed to figure out how to keep himself from doing it again. Suddenly it came to him, his books he needed to surround himself with his first friends, books. Books were what he had when he had no one else and when he had believed himself alone.
With that decided he reached down and grabbed the first book his hand came into contact to and started to read. As it turned out the book he grabbed was the book he had thought was Hermione's. It was turning out to be a fascinating read, as it looked at magic in different way from the way he had been taught at Hogwarts. Just in the introduction new theories were presented to Harry that he wanted to try.
Introduction
Magic is an energy that connects everything around us. Every person, animal, and plant has magic whether they are defined as magic, muggle, or something else. In theory, everybody has the ability to use magic or manipulate it, it just depends on their ability to access it. Because magic connects everything with everyone and vice versa it makes it possible for the Imperius and other various spells on muggles. If muggles had no magic at all it would be impossible for the spells to work because the spells connect to the magic of a person in order to work. The same can be said for the killing curse, it wouldn't work if there was no magic for it to destroy.
Magic is like the life force of beings, that is why it often manifests unexpectedly in times of great emotion. Magic is responding to the need or want that it feels. Adrenaline miracles in the muggle world are an example of these magical manifestations. In the magical world these manifestations are known as Accidental Magic. In theory, if someone were to learn to control the emotional release of these manifestations they could learn to control the result as well. This control is known as wandless magic.
There are few wizards that have been known to master even the smallest amount of wandless magic, but my theory is that the younger you learn to use wandless magic and the less dependent on a wand or any other focus you are the easier it will be.
After just reading the first three paragraphs in this book Harry had learned more about magic than in his entire first year at Hogwarts. He decided that since he knew he wasn't allowed to use magic at home and that wizards were dependent on wands that the trace was on the wand. Due to this extremely likely possibility, made even more likely that they didn't trace his Accidental Magic, Harry decided he would attempt this wandless magic so he could catch up in his studies.
After reading about the possibilities with wandless magic and the control of elements, there was a chapter about the occasional manifestation of elementals in the muggles, Harry decided to sleep on it before attempting it tomorrow if he had the time. With that Harry rolled over and fell asleep.
Harry woke up bright and early to the sound of running water, and immediately knew it was time for him to get up and get ready for another day at the Dursleys, the first of many. Harry rolled over and got dressed in Dudley's hand-me-downs that hung off him and required him to wrap a belt around him just to hold his pants up. Once he was done dressing he heard a tapping outside his window. At first Harry thought it was Hedwig until he remembered that she was still locked into her cage, but then he turned to the window and saw a sleek black raven. He opened the window to let the bird in, it immediately flew over to his rickety old desk and dropped a letter and then it turned and flew back out the way it came.
After watching the raven fly away Harry turned back to his desk and looked and the seemingly innocent parchment sitting there. He walked over and picked up the envelope, flipped it over and started at seeing the Gringotts seal. He immediately wondered what the were mailing him for.
"What the hell?" he whispered before he opened it and a single piece of parchment fell out.
To Harry James Potter:
We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we at Gringotts were just doing our annual checks on all of our vaults when we noticed some inconsistencies concerning your accounts. We hope you can come at your earliest convenience to correct our oversights.
May gold grace your accounts,
Potter Account Manager Griphook
Harry looked at surprised and vowed that he learn wandless magic as soon as possible so as to scare the Dursleys into allowing him to travel to London ASAP. He heard the water stop and knew Aunt Petunia would by soon to get him so he could cook breakfast.
"Boy, get down here and get started on breakfast."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia."
Harry headed downstairs where he then went to the kitchen and started cooking breakfast, a breakfast he would have no part in. After cooking he watched as Dudley and Uncle Vernon devoured the meal and then cleaned up and started washing the dishes.
Uncle Vernon walked in behind Harry and said threateningly, "Boy, here is your list of chores for the day. they better be done by the time I get home from work. Listen to your Aunt and no freakish stuff or you'll be back in your cupboard for good."
Harry had backed into the sink during the speech as Uncle Vernon crept closer and closer until he was pounding his finger on his chest.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon." Harry said meekly.
"Right," Uncle Vernon turned to Aunt Petunia. "Well, I'm off to work."
As Uncle Vernon left the kitchen Harry turned back to the dishes. Aunt Petunia came up beside him and said, "Just do what's on the list and stay out of mine and Dudley's way."
Harry nodded, "Yes, Aunt Petunia."
Harry had planned on doing that anyway. He turned and watched as his aunt walked out if the kitchen. Then, Harry went back to the dishes. As his hands went through the mechanical motions his mind wandered thinking about how he was going to get started on the whole wandless magic thing. He figured now was as good a time as any to think back to all of his Accidental magic incidents. First he found the incident, then he thought back to how he was feeling at the time. Once he had that he tried to recreate that feeling within. Harry did this over and over with each specific incident until he was sure that he had picked out and could recreate the common feeling between all of the events. He figured this feeling was his magic, it felt a little tingling but it was mostly indescribable. Harry brought up this feeling over and over and over again until he could bring it up with a single thought.
Harry soon noticed that every time he brought up the feeling of his magic the water from washing the dishes would cling to his hands as if held there. Harry figured this was a step in the right direction and that the next step would be to try something a little more difficult. So with this in mind Harry summoned up the feeling again and focused on the water hovering in his palm. He did this all with his eyes closed so as to concentrate better. When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see that there was a whole handful of water floating in his hand. He was so surprised at his success that he lost his concentration and the water splashed back down into the sink.
With that success in mind Harry focused on attempting different things that might help with doing the dishes. He found that while controlling was as easy as breathing everything else would take a lot longer to get working. He had attempted floating an object but it only wiggled. It was at this time that Harry figured that he should finish up with the dishes and get to work on the rest of the chores so as to experiment later. But Harry knew he had enough for a confrontation tomorrow to get to London to meet the goblins.
So Harry finished up and picked up the list of chores for the day. Harry set out to finish all of the chores. Most were outside, so it was a long hot day without so much as a piece of bread to eat. He had only managed to sneak some water from the hose when Aunt Petunia wasn't looking. Harry was finishing up with his last chore of the day, cooking dinner, when his aunt walked in and handed him a small sandwich with a glass of water and sent him to his room for the rest of the night.
So Harry trudged up to his room exhausted from the days work. As he sunk down into his bed eating his meager meal he worked out his plan for the next day in order to get to Gringotts. He figured in order to get it just right he should practice so he turned to his full glass of water and got to it. He practiced shaping it to his will and got to the point where he could shape it into almost anything he wanted. And with a bit of effort he could even freeze it so it would be more dangerous, it was all about heating or cooling the temperature of the water until it reached the required one. After he had that down Harry figured that he should try something different, so he turned back to attempting to float an object. So he sat down and singular focused on floating the parchment on his desk. It wiggled and floated an inch then fell back down. Harry sighed he could already feel the drain on his system with that little piece of magic, but all of that involving water didn't change anything, in fact he felt almost enlivened every time he used water at all. Harry figured that if the book was right about anything it meant he had a trace, or even more than a trace, of being a water elemental. But to Harry that just meant that he would have to work that much harder at bringing his other areas up.
With that determination in mind he turned back to the parchment and continued to work on floating it. Eventually Harry fell back into bed completely exhausted from the magic expended. He hand gotten the parchment to float without too much effort but he could still feel the pull on his energy, or magic, the longer he kept it afloat. He figured the more he practiced the easier it would become. That being said Harry fell asleep imagining the frightened Dursleys when he pulled the tricks out of the bag and wondering what Gringotts could possibly want with him.