Hello friends - thank you thank you thank you! Anyone actually reading this is wonderful in itself so favouriting, following, reviewing... It's all quite astonishing really. Anyway my laptop was repaired - I am too relieved - so I did some more editing of the last chapter from the content I'd saved before, and now I can post this chapter. Hope you enjoy!
P: I don't own Harry Potter or any of J.K Rowling's other creations (including Tom Riddle Jr aka Lord Voldemort. Woe).
Chapter 4 - Wandless Magic
The Dursleys were so pleased with how their dinner had gone the night before that they barely spoke to Harry the next morning. Harry appreciated the respite; it gave him a chance to speak to Tom without worrying about accidentally ignoring his relatives.
"Does your uncle have the key on him?" Tom asked as Harry sipped his morning orange juice at the breakfast table. It had been watered down slightly by Aunt Petunia.
"No," said Harry. "He has a key ring that he keeps his keys on, but when he's home, they're just left on the hallstand." He chewed on a spoonful of cereal, which had long gone soggy. "The only thing I don't understand is how they won't notice my school things in my room."
"There is that," Tom agreed. "But you're a wizard Harry. You can cast a Disillusionment Charm on it."
"But I'm underage!"
Harry imagined that if Tom had a body, he would be smirking. It seemed to be a common expression he imagined upon his new friend. "Plus I'm only a first year, technically. No way could I do that kind of spell, even with a wand."
"Harry. As for the difficulty – well that is a concern. But you have me to help you, and I'm very well acquainted with it. And can't you remember the many times you used magic without a wand? Before Hogwarts? If you put your will behind it, you're capable of many things."
Harry hesitated, mulling over his memories. He earned a querulous glance from Aunt Petunia, in the chair opposite; she thought that he was plotting some mischief due to his introspection. She was right too. "I guess so… There was that time I was running away from Dudley and his friends. They were Harry Hunting."
A flash of rust-flavored fury, ill-concealed from Tom, before a calm, "Please continue…"
"Well," murmured Harry, remembering:
the burning in his legs as he runs, he needs to get away before they trap him, and the
sharp twist of fear, heavy in his heart as he runs, he runs, he needs to get away…
"I kind of just appeared on the school roof. I got into loads of trouble for climbing on school property," he told Tom.
'What were you thinking, doing a thing like that?' said the Principal.
'Stupid boy', said Aunt Petunia.
'FREAK' he remembered most of all. "But I didn't. It was like… I just teleported or something."
Something liked pleased surprise drifted to him from Tom, the brisk flavour of peppermint dancing on Harry's tongue. "You apparated. That's very rare for accidental magic, Harry. I am certain that you are more capable than you think."
Harry felt his face grow hot, and let the silence speak his thoughts about that. He pressed the glass of orange juice (now almost empty) against his cheeks to cool them.
"Any other magical encounters or experience you'd be willing to share?" asked Tom. "Pre-Hogwarts perhaps?"
"Well, I guess there was that time last year," Harry stood, placing the glass down and brought his bowl to the sink. "It was Dudley's birthday, and we all went to the zoo." He began to scrub said cousin's plate, which had been discarded carelessly on the kitchen counter for Harry to clean up."There was this great big boa constrictor there. Now Dudley and his friend Piers were looking at it, and soon got bored. So I kind of, apologized to it for them being rude you know and… well… it talked back."
He had just placed the Dudley's dish on the drying rack, when the definite bolt of shock (it tasted like lightening bolt, though Harry didn't know how he knew that) Tom felt stopped him from continuing.
"You spoke … to the snake? It understood you? You understood it?" There was a strange tone to Tom's voice, as much as there could be to a sound that couldn't be heard.
"Yes," said Harry. "Why? Is it uncommon? I thought all wizards could do it?"
Something like bewildered laughter floated over to him from Tom. "No Harry! Parseltongue, the language of snakes, is an incredibly rare ability. Only certain bloodlines possess it. I didn't think the Potters-"
Harry seized on that thought like gold. "You knew my parents! Could they speak to snakes too?"
Agitated, too agitated to clean up, Harry left the cutlery in the sink and quickly walked back up to room; his relatives had since departed the kitchen. But Tom was silent for a long time, and Harry couldn't feel him at all when he opened his bedroom door. That wall again. How irritating. Finally, just as Harry was beginning to lose hope, and had lain down on his bed ready to mope, Tom answered him.
"No Harry. I didn't know your parents."
Harry tried to restrain his disappointment. "That's alright,' he replied aloud to the silence of his room, trying too hard to sound casual.
"The Potters were quite a… well-known wizarding family," Tom added, causing Harry to sit up in his eagerness. "They were famous for being in Gryffindor, much like the Malfoys are a prominent Slytherin family. They had strong connections in the Ministry of Magic and had seats on the Wizengamot, but otherwise, didn't participate politically. They were however… quite wealthy."
Harry sat like a sponge, soaking in this new information with awe. He instantly wanted to know more, wanted to ask and to learn, wanted to meet them and speak to them, to know them and be a son for once, be normal and not be the Boy Who Lived with dead parents and the mortal enemy of an insane, evil wizard, but – he couldn't. It was impossible. So instead he asked, "What's the Wizengamot?"
Tom, as you can imagine, was only too happy to answer him. Harry hadn't noticed much the rusty anxiety that had emanated from Tom for the conversation. Harry, if he had wondered at it at all, had thought it had been his own.
They were sidetracked enough that they only returned back to the planning of their mission, goal and quest when Harry was back on garden duty that afternoon.
"You'll have to practice casting the Disillusionment Charm," said Tom as Harry snipped a thorn off one of the roses. It had a thin, elegant stem and soft, reddish petals that broke easily. "You'll do one on the cupboard so they don't see what's missing, and one on your trunk, once it is back in your room."
Harry nodded sagely, though inwardly he was a bundle of nerves and excitement. He had pricked his fingers on the rose stems far more times for what was normal, had torn at least six petals from their rose counterparts and his trousers were far dirtier than he'd ever let them become usually due to kneeling in the dirt. It was Harry, who would have to wash them after all.
Of course Tom knew all of this. "There's no need to be anxious, Harry," he was told, feeling his neck go red. "You have me after all."
That evening Harry departed to his room even earlier than usual. He was anxious to start practicing, so much in fact that his friends' letters lay on his nightstand, unopened and unwrapped.
"First off," said Tom, "I want you to close your eyes."
Apprehensive, Harry did so; the world around him fogged into nothingness.
"Good. Now I want you to think of that moment when you first received your wand, Harry. Imagine that warmth going up your arms and into your spinal cord. Do you feel it?"
Harry nodded, forgetting that Tom couldn't see him. He could actually feel prickles of heat flowing along his bones and up his spine. It almost… ticked.
"Imagine those sparks pooling together at your fingertips. They're circulated throughout your entire body, but now they rush to that down your shoulders, to your hands, to your fingers."
The amount of heat slowly increased, and Harry wanted to clench and unclench his hands for the sensation of it.
"Now before it begins to hurt, let that warmth out into the air from your fingertips. Hold your palm out flat, and imagine a ball of that warmth pouring into the air above your hand. Now open your eyes."
To Harry's great delight, there sat upon his hand a small ball of blue light, similar in shade to a lumos. It emitted a faint warmth and he could still feel those sparks pouring through the skin of his palm into the ball of light.
The taste of mint and sweetness now, and a lightness in his very being. Harry remembered his first spell, that same shock of success and wonder too. Always wonder.
"I take it you've never done that before?"
Harry shook his vehemently. "No never. I've never done magic without a wand before, not like that. And I've never… felt that before." The lightness and the warmth and the sheer joy of it.
The blue ball of light faded into nothingness.
"Yes," said Tom. "They don't tend to teach you such things at Hogwarts. Control is… difficult without a wand, and the more difficult spells can be dangerous. However I believe it is important for you to become more sensitive to your magic."
Harry sat down on bed, suddenly reeling from exhaustion. His vision fogged, but he ignored it, curious, so curious. He wanted to sleep, but he wanted this more.
"Will you teach me more? Please…"
A warm feeling arising that wasn't Harry at all. "Yes, of course," said Tom. "After all, you need to be able to cast a Disillusionment Charm. Now… can you do it again?"
By the time Harry had called forth three blue balls of light, it was taking less than a minute. He was however, so exhausted, that when Tom called an end to the lesson, he could hardly stand upright. But he fell asleep to the lovely warm feeling of Tom's smile, which Harry thought as sleep overtook him, was very much like magic.
Harry opened Ron's letters first. He sat on the floor of his bedroom, back to the wardrobe, and caressed the parchment with his hand, tried inhaling its papery perfumes. He recognized the scent of Ron's ink; it reminded Harry of History of Magic essays and it reminded him of Hermione.
Something large and clogging in his throat made it hard to swallow.
Tom was curiously silent. He always seemed to be when Harry mentioned his friends, mentioned how much he missed them.
"You'll love them," he'd told Tom earlier. Although Tom hadn't made any real reply.
He pulled the first letter out of envelope, which was marked in Ron's scrawl with the date of writing. The first week of June, and the first week of the summer holidays.
The contents made Harry laugh, the aching kind that made the thing in his throat thicken. Soon enough he'd read them all, read with smiles Ron's growing concern at Harry's lack of response.
Harry, I think there's something wrong with Errol; you asked me why I haven't responded to any of your letters, and I want to know why you haven't responded to any of mine! I have got yours you know. I spoke to mum; Percy might be getting a new owl if he does well in his Owls (funny I know) so I'll try using it when he gets it. Because of course Percy's going to do well - he never leaves his room I tell you. I have to say, when we're in fifth grade we are not going to act like him Harry. We'll have to keep watch on Hermione – I can just imagine her! But anyway, I'm gonna ask Hermione to send some of my letters to you – I'll send this one to her, but if Errol's been acting up, maybe this one will go missing too… Maybe I should make two copies.
"A nice friend you have," Tom commented, something sour making its way across their connection.
Harry had to choke on a sob. "I know. And I'd thought he'd forgotten all about me. Hermione too," he looked at Hermione's pile of letters, something full and heart-rendering filling up in his chest. "I was so afraid…"
The sourness seemed to depart then, but Tom was similarly silent as Harry read Hermione's letters, being careful not to crease them even a little.
I'm starting to really worry about you Harry; Hermione's third letter began, dated just a day ago.
It's like you're not even receiving our letters! I've spoken to Ron, and he says the same. I really hope you're not thinking we've forgotten about you. Did you get my birthday present? If you haven't I will be so upset – we'll have to see if something's wrong with the owl service at your address in September if you haven't gotten any of them. Your relatives are treating you all right I hope?And if you get this, please reply quickly!
"Oh Hermione," Harry smiled as he read, the sharp relief of before fading into comfortable content. He'd been so quick to assume they' forgotten him, so quick to blame them and make himself the victim. But in reality, he should have trusted them more. Should have known that Ron and Hermione would never abandon him, especially not after last year. They'd been through trolls and chess games, Professor Snape and the Dark Lord, illegal dragon smuggling and Draco Malfoy. A few months of absence shouldn't be anything. But Harry had let it. Let it become more than it was too.
"I think you are being rather hard on yourself," Tom commented. "You have a great deal of trust in your friends. Of course you were upset when you assumed they'd broken that trust."
"You don't understand," Harry replied, carefully folding up Hermione's letter and placing it onto the pile he'd formed. "I'm ashamed that I broke my trust in them by not believing in them."
Tom seemed confused for a moment, and the flavor too was puzzling, an odd mixture of dirt and grass that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. "Not trusting is a form of breaking trust?"
Harry smiled as he placed the bundle of letters carefully in a draw. "Of course. And I'll never do it again. At least not with Ron and Hermione. And you as well, I guess."
Tom didn't reply.
For the next week Harry didn't do much other than practice calling upon his magic directly. After the first few days, Tom had him using it to do his chores even.
"I used to… once. When I was your age."
That biting scent of rot and rust, and Harry didn't ask for more.
Soon enough, he was even better at cleaning and dusting types of magic than he was at a wandless lumos. Harry thought this summarized his life very well.
Tom had him inserting exact amounts of magic into the gardens for greater growth, to better his magical control. This meant soon enough that wandless spells took less and less energy, as Harry wasted less of his magic.
As for the Dursleys, Aunt Petunia was becoming more and more frustrated as to how Harry was completing his chores so quickly. Quite frankly, she was running out of working for dear Harry.
And Harry had not foreseen just how much there was to practice! Tom had him tweaking his ball of light, moving it around, changing its colour and shape, including height, width, length, brightness. Harry had to shrink it down to the size of shilling, and then back up to the size of a balloon, over and over again in three second intervals. But Harry was grateful for it. He was so sensitive to his magic now, could pluck at it with such ease and control. Harry was looking forward to using his wand as well. It felt too good to be true that he could bypass the Underage Magic restriction just without using it.
"It's too rare to regulate," Tom had told him. Tom had told Harry a lot of things. What Harry had learnt of most things, was that it came to, not morality or justice or good or evil, but practicality. What was easy.
Harry thought this sounded very sensible. Tom agreed.
Finally, the day came to learn how to cast the Disillusionment Charm. Tom had told Harry to practice on himself first, as this way the magic had less distance to travel. Again, Harry thought what Tom had said was very sensible.
It wasn't a particularly special day; it was one of those humid, summer days on which it rained every few hours. Uncle Vernon had long since driven to work, and Aunt Petunia had gone shopping, having dropped Dudley off at friend's house (it was mid-afternoon).
He began by standing in the center of his room, facing the door (which was closed, locked, and had the back of a chair underneath the door handle to prevent interruptions when his relatives inevitably arrived home).
"Feel your magic circulating," Tom started. "I want you to bring it to the surface of your skin. No gaps Harry. Let it spread thinly over yourself, every millimeter of it. Imagine it as a protective shield. It shields and hides you from attention."
Harry pulled the thin layer of his magic around himself like Tom had instructed. It felt like a fuzzy blanket, a little itchy, a hug and the air from an electric fan all at once. Harry thought that it was quite wonderful.
The next time he and Tom 'trained', as the latter named it, it was a Wednesday evening. Harry again pulled upon his magic and enfolded it around.
He could taste Tom's pleasure at his success in the honey sweetness that arrived sharply on his tongue. "Now this time, go downstairs and see if it worked."
Harry opened his bedroom door and walked downstairs to the living room. He had the silly urge to tiptoe or perhaps stamp loudly on each step, making the dust fall into the cupboard under the stairs like Dudley used to do to him. When he had lived in that darkness. It was exciting.
They won't see you Harry told himself. He could still feel the thin layer of magic coating his skin. He felt safe.
Harry reached the back of the couch, where Dudley was sitting, playing some sort of video game; loud gunshots emanated from the television, and on the screen, Harry could see blood splatters and large tanks shooting at civilians. He walked around the couch and sat next to his cousin. But the boy didn't bat an eyelash.
Harry was quite sure that this lack of reaction was due to more than just the gory video game. He could feel Tom's answering happiness too well.
"Now," murmured Tom, "go to the cupboard where your possessions are locked. Let us practice alohamora."
Harry nodded, grinning.
That night Harry rose to a silent house. Straining his ears, he barely could make out the rackety snores of his uncle, but otherwise, there was stillness. Opening the door to his bedroom, he froze at the creak it made. Fighting off the rising sense of paranoia, he stepped forward into the corridor.
Harry had had a few midnight wanderings in the Dursleys' home over the years, but they never ceased to make his heart rate quicken. Old Filch and detention in the dungeons with Snape was nothing compared to the fury of Aunt Petunia if she thought Harry had stolen food.
So far Tom had been silent, but at Harry's growing fear, he felt a warm zap of something flowing up his spine. It was cold and tingly and filled him up with courage. Harry made his way down to the cupboard under the stairs, smiling.
He completely ignored the darkness, and the feeling of trapped, the memories of time passing in years a second, the dizzying dance of shadows in a small space of his very real nightmares (and only that thin crack of light from under the door had saved him, only that and nothing else). Using a wandless alohamora, he cast a Disillusionment Charm on both the trunk and the cupboard door. It was different, casting the charm on objects. He needed to create something like an invisibility cloak of his own magic, feel like separate from him and solidify into something he could leave. He did this then, crafted it carefully and lovingly, placed on his trunk with all the power he owned. Then, with Tom's own strength to sustain the spell, the trunk was made feather light, to float up the stairs to his room.
Harry collapsed on the bed, utterly exhausted. But he was not done yet.
He rose from the bed, made his way over to his trunk, which was now sitting solidly under the window near Hedwig's empty cage. The owl itself was soaring out yonder now, probably hunting for mice. Opening his trunk, Harry searched for his wand, beaming at the comfort he felt in clutching the smooth wood to his chest. Although he couldn't use it just yet, the wand was precious to him. It meant something to have it back.