Harry did not stop practicing his magic, though its limits frustrated him.
He could manipulate his own light only in specific ways, all related to touch or a range of around ten feet.
Farther than that, and he felt like he was stretching out an arm, unable to reach.
His aunt spoke of wands; she also spoke of an alley for his kind, Diagonal or something, reached from a pub she could not see from a certain muggle street.
His aunt had waited in the car with her mother, afraid to enter, when she was young. Later, an older teen and puffed up with bravery, she had let her sister lead her inside and show her the magical world.
Harry saw his aunt's light pulse with emotion when speaking of it; and its agitation only increased when Harry insisted he must go there.
He had to get a wand, for experimental purposes of course. And why shouldn't he? Surely just because the school had rebuffed him did not mean he was not allowed a wand.
And with more convincing, his aunt finally agreed, to make him happy.
He rarely asked for much, after all.
His aunt warned him.
She told him that he was something special in the wizarding world, though they did not know of his condition. He did not understand all of it. That the man, the wizard, who killed his mother had been a criminal of the worst sort, feared by wizarding kind. That Harry had somehow been instrumental in the man's death, and that all of the wizarding world seemed to know his name.
That the scars he had heard whispered about across his face were the sign of a curse, scars that would identify him to every wizard and witch who knew the story.
The letter that had come with him when he was brought to the Dursleys said as much.
His temporary solution was easy. He had no desire to be recognized when making his first foray into the wizarding shopping alley with his aunt. He only wanted a wand, and perhaps a few books his aunt or Dudley could translate aloud for him.
He tied a soft cloth around his eyes, his aunt assuring him that the black material covered all of the pale, jagged marks, and did not look horrid.
Then, with a determined smile, he prepared to enter a place neither he nor his aunt could see.
She knew the street; when they arrived, Harry could see the magic, the bright light streaming forth in a wide circle.
He led them both into the light, and when they were inside, his aunt sighed in relief.
At the entrance to the alley, his aunt described a brick wall blocking the way.
Harry, instead, saw a spider web, delicate and precise, with a few key knots that held the design.
He tapped those knots with his light, and the thing transformed into open air. His aunt gasped with amazement, her trembling hand tight in his own.
He smiled.
That day, Harry confirmed something new, something that changed everything.
Magic was indeed part of the light he saw, bright and strong.
He had made some guesses, from seeing the way he manipulated objects with his own light, from the glimpses of Viola in London. But on his first glance around the Leaky Cauldron, and his first gaze into Diagon Alley, both sights not altered in the least by the synthetic cloth across his eyes, his guess was confirmed.
Magic flowed in thicker streams inside witches and wizards than it did his aunt. Magic lit the streets in details, the stones alive with it, the building so thick with its light that he felt both blinded and able to see for the first time in his life.
It was too much. And he could not close his eyes, could not look down or away to filter the sight. His mind was awake and taking it in, despite what his physical eyes might wish.
For long minutes, Harry stood, holding his aunt's hand in a tight grip, his walking stick in the other, trying to put some sort of filter on what he saw.
It was like standing in the center of the sun, everything was so alive with color and frantic movement.
And the sky! The air above him streamed with light, swirling as if in some foreign wind, moving to music he did not know.
Magic was everywhere, in everything.
And Harry Potter could see it all.
He let go of his aunt's hand, and began to walk.
His aunt told him he had money in the wizarding bank, that his father was rich and that his own kind counted money differently.
The goblin bank, with its orange creatures and sharp metal, fascinated him. Wizarding money, gleaming with golden magic, was heavy in his hands.
The Potter's did have money, though his key had been misplaced. It was simple to get a replacement; a drop of blood, and thus life, as proof of who he was.
His aunt did not like the goblins; Harry thought that he probably would not either, if he could see them with her eyes. But their magic knew no ugliness, and gleamed in an echo of the precious riches they guarded.
And with a wizards money, Harry prepared to find himself a wand.
Diagon Alley was loud; so many confusing noises, some sounds so foreign he could only assume they were from creatures the muggle world did not know. He was constantly surrounded now by not only the new lights, but the smells and sounds of a culture he had never experienced before.
It was chaos, and it was everything he hoped it would be.
Along their path, his aunt reading to him the signs of stores they passed, Harry made two stops.
The first was to a clothing store, where all the materials where natural, cotton gleaming with brown light and the many hues of animals, some he did not recognize.
But the boots in the window glowed with orange fire.
Dragons.
It made his heart stir with excitement, and though his aunt baulked at the extravagant price, he would not be swayed.
He walked out of that store with firelight around his feet, a orange and yellow glow only he could see, and a cloak around his shoulders that streamed with silver light like the moon.
The second was to the bookstore, where Harry learned that magical kind did not use braille or any writing like it. With his Aunt's help he bought a spare three books, their bindings in leather, their pages alight with magic but not words that he could read.
It was frustrating, and disappointing, and expected. If his kind had taught blind students they would not have turned him away, after all.
The wand shop of Ollivanders glowed like the sun in an alley of smaller stars, so full of light that he faltered upon entering.
But it smelled of wood and musty boxes, of water and fire and an electric charge he could only think of as magic, and that scent spurred him to walk forward into the silent store and what opportunities it held.
The wizard who waited for them at the counter gleamed in a rainbow of colors, like what he imagined a kaleidoscope would look like to normal eyes. And each of those colors seemed connected to the bright lights that filled the store, the gleam of woods too numerous to count, the fibers of pulp and the now familiar twang of dragon mixed with new signatures he could only guess at.
The wizard's magic came upon him in a wave, evaluating him more than the tape measure that whirled through the air.
"Mr. Dursley, you say? A bit old for a Hogwarts student... you have a familiar look about you. I dare say you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Heh heh..."
The old man chuckled with dry humor, one hand gesturing towards the cloth over Harry's face.
Harry smiled, but remained silent. He heard his aunt shuffle nervously behind him.
"Not many blind wizards, you know. Justin the Brave, in the stories, was a blind wizard, a knight who slew a particularly troublesome griffin... In modern times, only two of my acquaintance. It doesn't happen much, in magical folk. Not naturally…"
Again, the old wizard drifted off, and again Harry only nodded.
The man huffed.
"Usually, I can't get customers to shut up about themselves. You're an odd one, and I don't mean those eyes. Now."
The man stepped away.
"You have options, Mr. Dursley."
Harry waited, watching with avid eyes as the man's magic seemed to split and swirl in multiple directions at once.
"Normally, children of your age bond and learn with a singular wand, purposefully suited to themselves. But I see you already carry something that may be much more in tune to yourself."
Harry's hand tightened around the walking stick he carried. It was fine grained wood; oak, to be exact. He had liked the way its steady green light held still in his vision, wood from a tree that had lived a hundred years in peace, then died and been reshaped into solid support.
There were many things that did not contain a spark of life, black holes in his sight, in the normal world. Concrete in particular was like walking upon darkness, and curbs had caused him to stumble more than once.
The more processed the object, the less life it continued. And when others had tried to press plastic and carbon fiber, lighter weight sticks for his use he had turned the dark shadows of them away with a grimace. He preferred to see the thing that guided him, and hold the echo of its life in his hand.
Harry shrugged. "It's just a wooden walking stick."
"Ah, that it is..." Ollivander drawled. "But every wand I own was also once just a slice of wood. I give it shape, I give it its core, and I make it something new and unique. Length is important, and type, and even the day in which it was made. And every creature who gives a piece of themselves to make a wand magical also gives it personality all its own. A dragon's heartstring for fierceness and pride; a unicorn hair for confidence and purity, a phoenix feather for courage and loyalty. My specialties, each and every one, and yet possessing infinite possibilities."
The wizard paused, and his magic was bringing something to him, something long and streaming with the oozing green life of wood newly hewn.
"A wand bonds with its master, and will work better for its bonded than anyone else. The bond grows stronger with every use, with every day spent on your person. But tell me, what do you carry with you always already? That walking stick. For you, I recommend something different."
Harry frowned. "My mother used a wand at Hogwarts. I assumed they would be best."
Ollivander sighed.
"Unimaginative. I find structured schools to lack something important. Experimentation, the celebration of being different. Only certain ingredients, only certain pets, only certain clothing. Rigid, confining, bah!"
The man coughed and grumbled, then thrust something towards him, and by reflex Harry reached out to grasp it.
"That, my boy, is a wizard's staff. Out of date, yes, most youngsters prefer modern wands, and for good reason. More mobile, more flexibility for the newer flashy spells. Quick and light. A staff, now, that takes courage to wield in these days. I carved that from a yew branch only weeks ago."
Harry set his walking stick aside and ran his hands over the wood, feeling the grain, watching the slow swirl of green light.
But there was only green, none of the flavors of magical creatures he had seen in the wands around him.
"Where is its core?" Harry asked, and the man grunted in surprise.
"Ah, yes, I'm surprised you guessed. Most wizards now who use staffs prefer to slide their wands inside. A cheat, a way to have both the usefulness of a wand and the occasional look of a staff to make them seem more important or powerful. But it doesn't work properly as a staff that way. Few these days desire or could even actually wield a true staff, so I seldom make them. This here has not yet been converted."
"Then how would I use it?" Harry asked, and Ollivander sighed.
"You don't. We find you a wand that likes you, and I find a branch of its wood and carve you a staff and take the wand's core to place inside it. Perhaps add a stone or two for focus."
"Just like that?" Harry questioned, and Ollivander sniffed.
"Of course not!I am a master of the craft. Do you think I will tell just anyone my secrets?"
Harry shook his head, and the old wizard sighed.
"Or, I can simply give you the wand. Which do you prefer?"
The man seemed resigned. Harry rather thought the wizard wanted a challenge more than he wanted to sell a wand.
And a staff seemed infinitely more useful than a wand, when it could double as his walking stick. He could take it with him to school, to the park. Always have the ability to magnify his magic through a focus if needed in an emergency.
And he wasn't going to a magical school, where the staff would be commented upon. He would be in the muggle world, with a new more elaborate cane, but still just a blind boy's cane.
"The staff." He said, and saw the man's spectrum of light thrum with excitement.
It took a long hour to find a wand that accepted him. Its wood was holly, a pattern Harry recognized from the tree that graced the park near his house. Inside, scarlet light streamed in a feathered design that hinted at fire even as it also gave off a slight melody that warmed his heart.
"Phoenix feather." Ollivander said simply, and his voice was odd, his light dim with some conclusion the man did not like.
But he said no more, and Harry did not ask. He found himself reluctant to give up the thin length of wood, feeling as if something precious had been taken from him.
"A week, perhaps more." Ollivander said simply. "I will owl you the finished product, if you prefer."
His aunt stepped closer.
"Harry, I think that would be best."
He knew she would rather not return to the alley. Her normal hue was dark with uneasiness, out of her element among so many of the people she did not understand.
Harry turned towards her and carefully reached out, fumbling slightly before holding her hand and squeezing softly.
It was harder to see a normal person, he realized. Their light was dimmer now to him, compared to the bright halos of the witches and wizards they had passed. Ollivanders hands had been cylinders of streaming light, easy to see in his path.
His aunt's were dull by comparison, hardly recognizable from the rest of her solid shape.
"Alright." Harry looked at the wandmaker. "Though best deliver it at night. We live in a muggle area."
His aunt sighed in relief, and Ollivander clapped his hands together with agreement.
When the staff came, it was held in the talons of two owls, their forms pale blue and white at his window. Harry accepted the package, wrapped in textured paper that he carefully pulled away.
It glowed with scarlet light, red as the eyes of the monster that slew his mother, phoenix fire, singing under his hands.
He felt it warm at his touch, saw his light flow inside of it and bond, two separate creatures becoming one, recognizing in each other a brother.
He wished he could meet the owner of the feather he now carried. He rather thought they would get along well.
With the staff, new wonders became possible.
In the privacy of his room, his cousin occasionally sitting in, Harry manipulated his world. He made himself impervious to fire; he made himself levitate. He made Dudley fly; he made his bed disappear.
He healed his cousins broken finger from boxing. He played pranks upon the kids at the park who once whispered behind his back. He made a dead tree live again, and took a branch and made it into coal that burned with red fire. He turned a bird into glass and gave it to his aunt. He fixed the dining room table when a leg broke, and changed the black shadowy vinyl of the kitchen floor to green wood streaming with life.
In a months time, the Dursley home no longer looked the same as he made it his playground, and the spells he cast did not fade.
They stayed strong and bright.
And Harry's desire to learn more only grew stronger along with them.
When term resumed, Harry searched for Viola with new determination.
A witch or wizard was in his school, another outcast, and their presence now meant more than ever.
Because together with another magical person, one with eyes that could see, the magical world would no longer be out of his grasp, limited to the readings of his aunt from magical tomes she did not understand.
And when he finally saw the blue-violet light, he made his move.
Hermione knew right away what was different, and the only possible conclusion made her mind spin.
The previous term she had made it her mission to learn everything about Harry Potter, both the boy at her own school, and what was written about the wizarding celebrity. The more she learned, the more certain she was that her Harry Potter was not the Boy-Who-Lived.
The Boy-Who-Lived had defeated hags, and studied with aurors, and had a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. The papers showed a drawing of a tall boy, the scar shooting downward in stylized grandeur, holding a wand aloft in confident hands, dark hair slicked back in perfect lines. He was out of the country somewhere, traveling with tutors, too busy to attend Hogwarts, avoiding the fury of the eager wizarding press, with good reason.
The muggle Harry Potter had a scar, yes; but it was an ugly thing across his eyes, perhaps vaguely lightning shaped, but nothing pretty or grand about it. It branched and cut the skin, pale spidery lines that split his eyebrows and made bad work of his noble face. His hair was black, yes, but it was wild, falling across his face in long strands that he never seemed to notice.
There was nothing that truly linked him to the wizarding world but his name.
Until the first day of the new term, when Hermione saw him walking the halls in what had to be dragonhide boots.
That she noticed them first might have been odd; but her eyes tended towards the floor on most days, avoiding the gazes of her peers, and she had seen some boots just like it in the window of Madam Malkin's her first trip to Diagon Alley and been awed by them, knowing they were from the skin of a dragon, a beast she had thought only myth days prior. Their existence had gotten her attention; and their price tag her horror.
Anyone who had seen dragonhide before would never mistake its shape or quality for anything else.
But then she saw the cane in his hand, a different one from the simple pale wood of the year before. It was made of deep brown wood, polished with a golden sheen. On the top curve gleamed two small red stones like the eyes of a serpent.
And most telling of all were the runes carved with painstaking patience along its surface in a gentle spiral. Wizarding runes, like in her books.
Did he even know they were there? Was his blindness all an act?
She was so caught in her startled confusion that she did not have time to sidestep him as he approached.
His startling green eyes looked at her face, not quite meeting her eyes, but seeming to stare straight at her nonetheless.
He saw her.
"Viola." He murmured, and reached out his left hand toward her. "I need to talk to you."
Hermione shifted, uncertain, glancing from his hand to his face.
"I… I'm not w-who you th-th-think I am."
Her stutter embarrassed her to no end, red rushing over her cheeks in a flood.
Harry Potter smiled.
"You're a witch, aren't you?"
And Hermione Granger felt the last of her doubts disappear.
"H-h-how did you k-k-know?" She whispered, and he took another step forward, his hand questing until it brushed her shoulder gently and squeezed.
"That's what I want to talk to you about. Please?"
And there was no way she could possibly say no to that.