Wandless, Wordless Magic
Chapter 2
'You know? I don't think most 11-year old's typically spend their birthdays like this.'
Harry thought as he pulled up weeds in his Aunt's garden.
The day was July 31st, the year 1991, and the birthday boy was indeed correct in his suspicions.
Harry's 11th birthday had begun like any other, with a sharp rap at the cupboard door,
a harsh word from his Aunt, and heartless taunting from his cousin.
Harry wasn't quite sure whether he should be surprised that his cousin remembered his birthday
or resigned to the idea that he'd remembered it solely to mock the boy over it.
For that had indeed been what Dudley Dursley had taunted Harry about whilst he made his
relatives' breakfast. "I had thirty-eight gifts this last birthday freak, didn't you know? Where're your
presents eh?" Dudley had whispered snidely in his ear as Harry delivered the bangers and bacon to the table.
A swiftly dodged kick at his shins and a subtle gesture of the fingers ensured Harry didn't
trip on his way back to the stove, and that Dudley's fat greasy fingers lost their grip on the slice of Bacon
he'd sniped from the plate, falling to the floor much to the obese young man's dismay.
"Mum! The freak hasn't made the bacon right! It's too slippery!" Dudley shouted at his mother.
"Make breakfast properly boy! Else you'll receive none at all!" The woman scolded the innocent young man at the stove.
And innocent he was indeed, at least of having not made breakfast properly.
Harry was an excellent chef, and though they'd never voice it, his Aunt and Uncle would certainly agree.
"Yes Aunt Petunia." Harry replied in a monotone. His rolling eyes unnoticed since he was faced away from the nasty woman.
His Uncle had come down shortly there-after, the family ate their fill, Harry secreted away a small portion for himself,
and once done with cleaning up after the others, the newly minted 11-year-old soon began slaving away at his list of chores for the day.
A few hours later found Harry in the garden, weeds in hand, and a pair of large round eyes watching on,
unseen. Unseen that is, until the green-eyed boy felt the gaze upon him and swiftly pin-pointed
the source.
An owl, it turned out, in the tree of number 6's yard that hung slightly over onto number 4.
'Odd that' Harry thought, thinking that owls were nocturnal creatures and shouldn't be up and about at this time of day.
But then, they must sleep somewhere, and perhaps Harry's loud grumbling and vicious weeding had woken the creature from its slumber in the tree near-by,
the messy-haired youth reasoned.
He continued to stare into the birds eyes however, because though he'd rationalized the occurrence in his head,
he couldn't help but feel that there was something more to the bird.
He crooked his head to the left and the owl mirrored, eliciting an amused smirk from the black-haired boy.
Harry crooked his head in the other direction to see if the bird would mimic him again and was amused to find that it did.
"Hello friend." Harry called out to the owl.
"Hoot." The bird said back.
Definitely amused now, harry gestured to his side and beckoned the avian to come to him.
"Would you like to help me weed the garden?" Harry asked.
The birds response was to hoot again, though in a clearly dismissive manner, and then spin it's head round near 360 degrees and back.
"Oh alright then, I suppose it is my job after all anyways." Harry said, and returned to his weeding.
A few moments later, the boy was deeply startled when the owl swooped down to land on his shoulder, it's clawed feet gently gripping his skin.
Nearly falling over in surprise, he jostled the bird who remained just as gentle in the tussle as it steadfastly maintained its position.
"Blimey you scared me near to death!"
Harry reprimanded the owl. But the owl of course was unfazed.
'knew what it was doing I reckon' Harry thought spitefully as he squinted at the bird in silent accusation.
The owl of course hooted back in the affirmative, even though Harry hadn't spoken aloud, which started the boy to thinking that
perhaps this bird was smarter than your average avian.
"Hoot" the owl said to the boy again, gazing intently into his deep green eyes.
At this, Harry glanced down at the owls leg, where upon Harry noticed a letter, encased in an egg-white vellum envelope with vivid green and sprawling cursive upon it.
Harry didn't know how he knew the owl meant to tell him that he had something for the boy, and at this point he was too distracted by the letter with his full name, address, and ..bedroom.. written upon it to have noticed the strange ease of communication.
On the owls side, he was just glad to be in the company of a human that wasn't insufferably difficult to communicate with.
"For me?" Harry asked, wanting to be sure. The bird lowered its head and arched it forward a bit, as if to say "obviously idiot".
Honestly, and he had just decided that the boy wasn't as stupid as the rest..
"Mind if I take it off you then?" The boy asked the bird, not able to peel his eyes away from the letter. There was magic there.
There was power in that parchment. Harry was sure of it. He had no idea why of course,
and honestly was still torn on whether his abilities were magic to begin with or some other fantastical thing,
but whatever he had,
this letter had it too.
The bird promptly lifted its leg to the boy, having tired of the conversation and ready to move on with its day, and Harry promptly relived the bird of its burden in turn.
"thanks.." Harry said as the bird winged its way off into the sky, not even looking up to see it go.
Fascinated, Harry turned the letter over in his hands, observing a wax stamped crest, exhibiting what looked to be a lion, a snake, a badger, and an eagle.
Unsealing the envelope, Harry withdrew a letter. An acceptance letter as it soon turned out.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 14 August, 1991.
Yours sincerely,
Deputy Headmistress, Minerva M. McGonagall
The letter read, and on the next page was indeed a list of books and equipment for this "Hogwarts".
'Witchcraft and Wizardry' Harry thought absently. "Magic" he whispered.
He was a Wizard. All told, the boy supposed that explained things nicely.
After having stared at the parchment in his hands for a bit, and finally having wrapped his mind around this new development, Harry grew concerned.
"we await your owl?" Harry said worriedly. 'I don't have an owl!' he thought sharply. He quickly glanced around, desperate to find the bird that had delivered his letter, but of course it had left several minutes ago and was no longer in sight.
"damn" harry said to himself quietly. With this problem unresolved, the next dawned on him without warning.
'I've not got any money! And Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon will never let this stand!' The nervous boy fretted in his mind.
'What to do.. What to do.. What do I DO about this!' Harry thought frantically.
And then, the answer of course presented itself quite nicely in Harry's mind.
Magic.
WWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWWMxXxWWM
It was dark in Harry's cupboard, though that's only natural given that it was about two in the morning.
Harry had painstakingly worked his way through his chores list for the rest of the day, desperate for the relief of being sent to bed where he could do what he needed to do.
Harry had never tried to send a letter by magic before, not that he'd ever tried to send a letter to begin with.
But honestly, it couldn't be that hard. He'd done more difficult things.
Like that one time he had teleported to the roof of the auditorium at school when Dudley and his gang had nearly cornered him last year.
Or when he had healed his sharply aching chest when his vastly over-weight cousin had decided to try out his new favorite wrestling move he'd spied on the telly that week.
Posting a letter should be child's play. And so once he'd finished his chores, spirited away some dinner, and been banished to his "room" for the evening, the raven-haired youth had hastily scribbled out a note in his school journal.
"Mrs. McGonagall,
I'd love to learn Magic and go to school in Hogwarts, but I don't think my Aunt or Uncle will let me cause I don't have any money and they don't like me much. And I'm sorry but I don't have an owl either. Could you please help me? I need to go to Hogwarts. Please!
Harry Potter
Wizard
"
Carefully tearing out the page, Harry then folded it as neatly as possible. Of course, he was 11 years old, and as such his dexterity was somewhat lacking.
The top didn't quite meet the bottom, and then Harry had an idea.
He didn't have any wax of course, BUT, he did have that old piece of gum he'd found a few months ago and then stuck to his ceiling to save for later.
If ever there was a good use of gum, it was to officiate his letter as the wizards had done.
So, Harry promptly peeled the gum off the ceiling and chewed it into malleability again. Once he was sure it would work as intended,
he stuck the gum to the uneven joint of top and bottom, then smoothed it out as much as he could with his thumb.
Once he was sure it looked official enough, he remembered the crest. The black-haired boy knew he couldn't possibly recreate the crest,
but then weren't crests meant to be for family anyway? He probably wasn't allowed to use the one he'd seen earlier.
And he figured he probably didn't have one either, since he'd never seen or heard of one for his family. Not even the Dursleys had one.
So instead of trying to recreate the Hogwarts crest, he decided to make his own.
Having grabbed a paperclip from his school things, Harry got to work. At first the boy tried to draw an owl,
because he thought that was appropriately magical since the wizards apparently sent their post by owl and Harry was of course sending post now.
Unfortunately, the artistic demands of drawing an owl in gum with a paperclip were beyond the boy, and thus he settled on a crooked smiley face. Just two pokes and a jagged upturned mouth. 'That'll do' Harry thought in satisfaction.
Now for the fun part. The green-eyed boy held the letter in his upturned palms and focused on what he wanted to achieve.
Namely, to send the letter to the Deputy Headmistress.
Once he had the idea firmly planted in his mind, he began unspooling the magic in his center to envelop the letter. A few years ago, this would have proved a very difficult task for the gifted young man. Now however, Harry had had a lot of practice at performing magic.
The magic swiftly saturated the paper, and for a second the boy was worried he would overwhelm and incinerate it, but then he added a thought to his "spell" that the paper wouldn't burst into flames, and the magic quelled itself.
Finally, with intent firmly in mind, surety in his actions that this would work, and the power from his core saturating his hands and letter, the paper in his palms immediately flashed and disappeared.
Harry was nearly certain that it had worked. He felt that it had worked, and he knew that if it hadn't worked, he would have felt that too.
And so with his mission complete, and hope in his heart, Harry laid down to rest for the evening, and soon fell into happy dreams of schools of magic, owls, and a reprieve from his relatives.
At the same time, in a large castle in Scotland, an elderly lady awoke to a bright flash and the feeling of gum of all things in her hair.