Here we are. Another chapter. Hope you enjoy.
I must say, I didn't think I would, but I do like getting reviews, so if you have any comments, criticism or if you hate this story do let me know ;)
As always, I don't own Harry Potter.
"I absolutely hate flu travel. Seriously, not only do you end up covered in soot and look like an idiot, the fireplace then decides to throw you out unceremoniously," Harry huffed as he dusted himself off.
They were woken up early in the morning by his mum, before dawn. Professor Dumbledore open up his flu to them so that they could appear in the school without any issues and pretend that they haven't been out of school overnight, together.
As they arrived in Dumbledore's office, Lily spoke with the professor in hushed tones - no doubt inviting him to the meeting in January. Harry in the meantime checked on Hermione who looked disoriented after the travel, and was just getting her cough under control.
"Is all magic form of travel this ridiculous?" She asked as she finished cleaning her robes of any soot leftover from the fireplace.
"Unfortunately Ms Granger, the only other form of travel legal in this country is apparition and that's not any more pleasant." Dumbledore turned to them now as he addressed Hermione, "with regards to our current situation. I have spoken with Ms Li, Ms Turpin, and Mr Longbottom. They have all assured me that they haven't told anyone where the two of you went and promised to keep it that way. Since the aurors got to the scene first, they got it cleared before any reports got a whiff of it. Unlikely that it will appear in papers and raise some uncomfortable questions should you choose not to tell your friends what happened." He paused for a moment as the teenagers nodded, before continuing. "As for the rest of the school, I have kindly asked a couple of our resident house elves to take you directly to your bed in your dormitory. If anyone asks Ms Granger you are free to say you have been on a patrol, I have been led to believe you often do those alone?"
"Yes, sir, Ronald… he- he's not taking his duties very seriously sir."
Professor Dumbledore sighed, "Yes I can see that. I will speak to Mr Weasley." Turning to Harry now, "as for you Mr Potter, I believe it would be enough for you to say that you were up to something. Though in order to make any of that stick I believe you will need to serve a detention - I will speak with Minerva and work something out, as your head of house she is aware of what happened so I'm sure that she won't have you doing anything ghastly."
"Professor, could I not just say that I was with Hermione on her patrol?" Harry asked, making the headmaster look at him curiously. "The detention could still stick, and honestly if I knew Hermione was doing these on her own I would have offered to join her."
Lily and Dumbledore shared a look, "Well Mr Potter, that's what happened. Though I must urge you not to get caught in the corridors at night again Mr Potter," he finished with a bright twinkle in his eyes. Harry just gave him a grin.
"I promise not to get caught again sir."
Both Lily and Hermione just rolled their eyes.
"Well with that out of the way," Dumbledore called a couple house elves asking to take both Harry and Hermione to their beds. Harry stayed behind to ask professor Dumbledore something and Hermione was whisked away.
No one noticed Hermione didn't come back to her dormitory. A testimony to how little people in her Hogwart's house cared about her much at all. She had a quick shower and made her way out of the tower to find Sue and Lisa. She wanted to get the ball rolling on organising a club with Harry. She couldn't wait, eager to learn what Harry had known so intuitively, but also to open the eyes of others.
Hermione has always been like this. It was the main reason why people wouldn't want to stay friends with her. No one liked being told how to do things, or that the way they did things was wrong. Over the years she dialled it down, but the damage was done. This, she hoped, would be different since it was Harry teaching them, not her.
When she met up with her friends, and redirected all the questions from the, with regards to where she was last night, she told them of Harry's gift and how it opened her eyes to how little she knew about magic.
Both girls were interested, being the knowledge hungry Ravenclaws they are, and agreed to spread it around and invite everyone else. The plan was to host it in the Great Hall on a Saturday at 10:30am. That way it wouldn't interfere with breakfast or lunch. Nor will it conflict with duelling club.
With that out of the way, a satisfied Hermione went to find Harry and let him know the good news.
Harry looked at Hermione incredulously. "Hermione, I can't teach all of these people, there must be half of the school here, this is insane," he quietly told her as everyone settled around.
Harry was currently sitting at the front of the Great Hall just under the staff table on the steps leading up to it. Hermione sat next to him, while the two watched everyone settle down and talk amongst themselves.
"Harry, they all want to learn from you, and it's criminal that this isn't taught taught to us as soon as we step into Hogwarts."
Harry sighed, "It's the school board and the ministry, they don't want kids learning anything like this since wandless magic isn't traceable the same way. They want to keep school kids from using magic outside, so this has never gone through the curriculum. Dumbledore apparently tries every few years to add it, but is rebuffed every single time.
"He told me about it after we got back, I mentioned your idea to him before being popped back in bed," he added it her questioning look. "Right, we better start this don't you think?"
He stood and when no one noticed, he cast a mild sonorous charm on his voice to make sure everyone can hear him.
"Hi everyone! Unfortunately you all know who I am, and I must say I'm surprised to see so many of you here. So, urm, we're here because it came to my attention that no one at this school teaches you how you use magic. You get taught how to use spells, and when you reach 6th year, you're even taught to use them non-verbally. But no one actually goes into explaining how it works."
"And how come you can explain it?" A voice shouted from the crowd.
"Because I have been homeschooled by my mum who spent her adult life investigating the origins of magic and how wizards use it, and I have been learning from her from as far back as I can remember.
"Also, you don't have to be here if you don't think I can teach you anything." Harry responded, rather calmly though the comment irked him.
"So we'll be learning it second-hand from your mudblood mother…"
It was a testament to how bad that word really was, when almost everyone turned to the boy who shouted it at Harry. Harry's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched.
Hermione reacted very much the same, diggin her nails into the palm of her hand.
"You, won't be learning anything from me, and until you leave. Neither will anyone else," Harry seethed. He stood waiting. Everyone turned on the boy, a young man, a seventh year, from Slytherin. Everyone staring daggers at him including his friends. Most probably thinking how he couldn't just keep his thoughts to himself.
"You can't make me leave Potter." He said, as he crossed his arms.
"I can't, no, but maybe the fact your friends are glaring at you since you're stopping them from learning something that they clearly want to know more about."
"And I can, and will, Mr Higgs. 10 points from Slytherin, and I would ask you to leave this meeting." Dumbledore appeared as if out of thin air. Though anyone paying attention would have noticed him hovering by the side entrance to the Hall.
Higgs didn't put up too much of a fight once the headmaster appeared and took his leave with a huff. "All yours Mr Potter, after you brought this idea to me I figured having a professor around would dissuade some troublemakers from disrupting. I also look forward to your interpretation of magic and how we use it." Dumbledore walked to the steps and sat down next to Hermione. Much to her surprise.
Harry smiled at the professor, "Thank you for coming, sir," turning back to the crowd he began,
"I'm just going to get started, I'll mostly just talk and maybe ask professor Dumbledore for some demonstration in a few cases. If anything I say doesn't make sense just, shout I guess.
"Magic is in us from the moment we are born. In the British Isles, it is customary to start learning how to use magic, how to control it rather, at the age of 11. Age of 11 is an important age. It is what people theorise as the age when your magical core is stable enough for you to focus it.
"My mother disagreed with that hypothesis, at least to some extent. Your core, it's always stable. Only magical diseases or power surges can throw it off balance. When we turn 11, it is the ability to focus the magic from our core through a focusing device, a wand with a core that is, essentially an exceptionally good semiconductor."
"Isn't that the same thing then? Focusing your magic, and focusing your magic through a wand? How is this different from what we already know, apart from the thing about the core always being stable?" A question coming from someone in the crowd. Harry barely noticed who it was, but responded nonetheless.
"Not quite, because of how you need to focus your magic.
"Let's start with what we all here know. Saying a spell, performing a wand movement and voila, we have used magic. The actual incantation of the spell is a focus for our magic, it helps with our intent, and you will be hearing that word a lot from me. Arithmancy is used to figure out the incantation for things we want our spells to do. By working out the magical numbers from words to build up a spell. It does help that the Latin language has been constructed from broken down spells. That's why most of the spells are either latin, or at least sound like it." He paused to focus on what he wanted to say, on how to get it across. Everyone in the Hall was eating it up. No one dared to disrupt the flow after that first question, so Harry continued.
"You get taught incantations and wand movements. For so many years that's the only way you do magic. Then in sixth year you are told to forego the incantation and cast the spells non-verbally.
"As I understand that's a difficult task, with many students not being able to do it. Many more adults never bother to learn it either.
"What I don't understand is why is it so difficult? When everyone here, though that may be me extrapolating, everyone here, has used both wordless, and wandless magic. Have we not all had similar cases of accidental magical outbursts when we were kids. If we could do so at such a young age then why can't we when we're older?
"I don't actually know the answer, you can think about it, maybe some of you can do some research on it. I don't know because that's never been how I've been taught about magic."
He took a deep breath now that he got to the point where he had everyone's attention. He glanced back and couldn't help but smile to notice that Hermione was eagerly taking notes, probably already thinking on doing that research.
"Magic lets us manipulate the world around us, the possibilities of what magic can do seem endless, though I think we can all agree that's probably not the case. There are limits in nature that we can't go around.
"Our bodies have a magical core. A level of potential to perform magic. Just as muscles use fuel from glucose, we use magic from a similar fuel. In this analogy the magical core is like glycogen, energy stored within us for later use. When that runs out, our body turns to generate the magic by converting other resources into it. For muscles, this happens by either consuming stored fat, or through a process called gluconeogenesis. Magical equivalents don't have these terms defined, but it works on the same general principle. We take another resource in our body, and convert it into magical energy that our magical core can utilise." Looking around and noticing the blank, or bewildered looks people were giving him he sighed, "I think I'll tone down the science analogies, they went over my head at first too.
"There are different ways of accessing our magical core and using the energy to perform magic. You all know at least one, your wand, an incantation and wand movement.
"Step further would be non-verbal spells, the incantation disappears and all you do is direct your intent with the wand movement.
"Then you're left with just your wand, pointing it and willing the spell to happen.
"And finally, we have wandless magic. Where you don't require a wand to focus your energy. You act as a conductor.
"Magic flows through you, it's not centred anywhere, but it flows through your body. Using a wand helps, I will not deny it. But as well as our wands conduct magic, they will never be as good as our body, and if we can focus the magic through a wand to direct it, why not through our hands?"
"You used a term earlier, a semicondu-whatsit, what does that mean?" A question this time from Neville in the front row.
"Well Neville, it's another science term. How can I explain it…
"Right, so when you use a spell through your wand, what happens is energy is directed through the wood. The wand's wood conducts this energy, it allows it to flow through it. By doing so it changes temperature, this change causes the wand's core to also conduct energy and that's how you are able to cast the spell. The wood on its own would produce really weak spells, so much of the magic would have been lost. By having a core, the magic is able to be used with power much closer to your level.
"I think a small demonstration is in order and I'll ask Professor Dumbledore to join us. I think we can all agree that he will have the best control of his magic for this experiment." He turned to the professor who was already standing and taking his first step toward him.
"Well Mr Potter, I must say that that was a very good explanation. If I may though, using terms that others might not know to explain something is probably not the best of ideas." Dumbledore said to him, making Harry's face heat up slightly at the criticism.
"Yes sir, trying to explain something in terms others can understand is tough, I really don't envy teachers." Harry replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
Dumbledore gave a small laugh, "and you shouldn't. Difficult job, being a teacher. Right Mr Potter, I expect you would like me to cast the same spell with each way you described?"
Harry nodded, "That's right sir, a simple Flipendo to knock me back, I'll put a shield and we can see how well it holds under each method."
Dumbledore gave a small nod as he took his wand out.
The first spell hit Harry's shield which flickered but held steady. Harry recast it before Dumbledore attempted the non-verbal version of the spell. Followed by a non-verbal and without wand movement. Each of the spells cast with the wand made the shield flicker but didn't take it down. In the end Dumbledore put his wand away, and threw his hand out to cast the spell. The spell impacted the shield and shattered it, also sending Harry back a few steps.
Everyone started talking then. No one quite sure what to make of this. With the help of professor Dumbledore, Harry quietened everyone and went on to finish this session.
"As you saw, even if not an ideal experiment since the power used by professor Dumbledore couldn't be accurately measured, the wandless magic was much more powerful. There was very little power difference in the wand cases, but if you paid enough attention you would have seen that the speed at which the spell left the headmaster's wand, was much faster for wordless casting."
"Why do we even use wands then? If wandless magic is better, and we can all learn it, why not just do that?" Another question fired from the group.
"Because it is much more tiring. Each way of casting has its benefits and drawbacks. It's about knowing them all, being able to use them, and knowing when to use each. That's the point.
"I think that's all from me. Thanks for coming, and I do hope you have all learned something. I think we can meet again in a couple weeks if you want to find out how to focus your magic, or at least how I do it. It will help you with non-verbal spells." Harry finished.
"We haven't learned anything! This was a waste of our time" Someone shouted from the crowd. Then another person joined, and another. The crowd split into groups arguing that they learned so much, and those that said they learned nothing.
Harry twirled his wand, an idea came to him. He took his wand and cast a spell. Suddenly Harry, Dumbledore and Hermione could only hear a quiet buzz from the crowd, even though they could see the argument still raging.
"A reverse Muffliato spell? Very inventive Mr Potter, and an apt demonstration for those convinced they haven't learned anything." Dumbledore said.
Harry gave him a small nod in thanks and cast another Sonorus on his voice.
"You probably haven't noticed. But you are all currently under a spell. Neither of us on this side of the hall can hear your arguments." Everyone turned to him, he could see some of them trying to talk and couldn't help but grin to himself. "A Muffliato spell, I don't think it's part of the curriculum but it shows up in a lot of charms books. It's a privacy spell you see. Used to make sure others can't hear what you're saying.
"Those that say you haven't learned anything. There isn't a silencing spell that can work on large crowds. But inverting the Muffliato spell has the desired effect.
"If the incantation and wand movements aren't necessary for a spell, then we can safely assume it's all about the intent. The stronger your intent the better your spell.
"Here my intent was to reverse the Muffliato spell so that we didn't have to hear you arguing. All we could hear was a faint buzz." Harry waved his wand and cancelled the spell. "Thanks again everyone, for those of you who still think they haven't learned anything. Well, tough. I tried."
And with that Harry turned and walked towards Hermione who was just finishing gathering her notes and he helped her up. Then they both walked out of the Great Hall that has once again devolved into a cacophony of noise.
Neville left the Hall shortly after Harry and Hermione. Regardless of what everyone else said he learned a lot. He decided that a walk around the grounds is what he needs now. Assimilate everything. An idea was forming in his head but he couldn't quite grasp it yet. It was at the tip of his tongue but still a little out of reach.
Neville was almost excluded from Harry's generalisation. It wasn't until he was nine that he had his first accidental magic outburst. Until then everyone thought he was a squib. Including him.
And he was happy about it.
After having what happened to his parents explained to him by his Nan. Well, he was terrified of magic. Of what it could do. Of how much pain and misery it could cause. He wanted to have nothing to do with something that made him, for the lack of a better word, an orphan.
It's not something he knew when he was a child, back then he could just tell he was content about not having magic. He would happily work in the greenhouses. Plants didn't require magic, they had a magical power of their own, and he was happy about it.
Over the years he slowly came to the realisation that he was scared of it. Because of that he never wanted to use magic, which ended up with him not displaying any signs of it. Until his uncle almost killed him by dropping him from the window.
When he came to Hogwarts, it took a while. A long, long while, for him to gain confidence in using magic. But after the second year, he realised that he wasn't scared of it anymore. He found magic fascinating. But his problem of not being very good at it persisted. Even now, in his fifth year, casting spells takes so much out of him.
Then Harry Potter came into his life. A weird friendship between them developed, even though on the surface they had little in common. Though Neville could tell that their fascination with magic was definitely the glue holding them together.
Harry's club today, his explanation of how magic works and how we use it with a wand, sparked something inside of Neville that he didn't want to address until now.
He took his wand out of his pocket and held it in his hand.
What if the wand he held, was not able to conduct his magic. What if he felt so worn out every time he cast a spell because he had to put so much more power through the wand in order to get it to do what he wanted.
The wand belonged to his father, he wanted to honour him and use it. He's always been told what a great wizard his dad was, and if he couldn't use his wand it meant to him that he wasn't a great wizard. His Nan agreed that he can use it, even urged him on,
His mind made up, he headed back into the castle to owl his Nan.
They were going to Ollivander's over Christmas to get him a new wand.
"That was brilliant Harry! You were incredible. I wish you would have gone over your plan with me, I would have helped you with the analogies. I'm pretty sure no one understood them. Thank you for doing this!" Hermione started as soon as they were alone. Heading for the library to catch up on homework they haven't yet finished due to Halloween.
"Trust me Hermione, if I had a plan I would have told you. I just regurgitated things taught to me and how I organised it in my head. Though, thank you too I guess, it did feel good having everyone listen to what I was saying. A lot of it is my mum's work and I like that she gets some sort of recognition. Being forced to move around so much meant she couldn't share her findings, her research, with the public."
They reached the library now and found a quiet spot between the shelves of books on magical creatures. As they sat down Hermione then replied.
"You mustn't blame yourself Harry. She's your mum and she would have made the same choice again and again."
"I know Hermione, thanks."
She gave him a small smile, "now come on, let's get the essay for Hobbs out of the way!"
"Sir, yes sir!" Harry responded and laughed at himself as he took out his parchment.
They sat and worked in silence, occasionally having a little discussion about a particular point. Their work went on for a few hours and it looked like they missed lunch when they had finally finished.
Hermione was just packing her things away, whilst Harry sat and fidgeted with his quill.
Hermione turned to him and cocked her head, "Are you coming? There might still be something left in the Hall?"
"Hmm?" He asked as he looked up at her, "oh yes, urm before we go… you can err, sit down for a sec."
"Alright, what is it Harry?" She asked as she unshouldered her bag and sat back down.
"Well, I wanted to ask, and I know you already asked, but I wanted to see whether, you know," Harry said fast, not really saying anything.
Which Hermione noticed, "No Harry, I don't know, I don't think you said anything in that sentence" she finished laughing lightly at him.
Harry decided to try again, "Ok, let's try that one more time. So I know you already asked me to go to Hogsmead, and we didn't go on Halloween but agreed to go to the one before Christmas?" Harry asked, waiting for her to respond. If only so that he had more time to gather his thoughts into a coherent sentence.
"Yeah?" Hermione responded warily, not sure where this was going.
"Well, I was wondering… no I wanted to… I was thinking… Oh for god's sake!" He took a breath, "I was wondering if you'd like to maybe, turn it into a, erm, a date?"
He could feel the heat in his face as he finished that. Why was this so difficult? Before he opened his mouth he knew exactly what he wanted to say. Now he was rambling. "I know you already asked me to go with you, and I couldn't just ask you to do the same. And I don't really know anything about the village apart from what Sirius told me, but I'd rather jump into the lake and have a swim with the giant squid than risk taking his 'advice'. So I thought I'd ask, if maybe we could turn it into a date, and once I see what's there we could decide on what to do, and it's okay if you don't want to and would rather just go as friends…"
"Harry, I'd love to turn it into a date." Hermione replied, also blushing furiously, though with a beaming smile on her face. "But please stop talking!" She added with a laugh.
The tension and awkwardness in Harry melted away as he heard her answer. "Yeah, that was more difficult than I thought, I had this whole plan on how to do it, and it was gonna charm you and sweep you off your feet and all."
Hermione laughed again, "well Harry, there's always the date for that. Now come on, if I'm hungry, then you must be starving."
They both stood up and Hermione went to grab her bag, but Harry got to it first and snatched it up and shouldered it. Hermione quirked an eyebrow at his action.
"What? I just asked whether you wanted to go on a date, and you agreed. So I'm now going to do the chivalrous thing and carry your bag." He finished with a grin.
"Harry, you don't have to, that bag is really heavy, I have a tonne of books in there-" Hermione started but was cut off by Harry as he started walking away.
"Exactly, more reason to do this."
They walked a few steps out of the library when Hermione glanced at Harry who was carrying both his and her bag.
"Harry, I know you're a man, and strong, but that can't be comfortable…"
He nudged her and just said "it's fine, honestly", again with that grin of his. Hermione walked a few more steps before she lunged at Harry to grab her bag.
"Hey! This weighs nothing," she looked to Harry, "that's cheating Mr!"
Harry laughed, "Is it though?",
Hermione stood for a second before she laughed too, "A featherweight charm?" Harry nodded. "Then it is cheating, that's not chivalrous.. it's… lazy!"
"We're wizards and witches, we're inherently lazy."
They carried on walking to the Great Hall, laughing and discussing how lazy, wizards really are, hoping that there would be some food left before the duelling club started tonight.
Both smiling and happy about their upcoming date.
And that's all he wrote.
Hope this was enjoyable, sorry about all the science'y stuff. It's generally accurate, though I bastardised the explanation of conductors/semi-conductors. Though the gist is correct.
Next chapter - More neville, and the date :)