The first thing Harry did was get emancipated. He downloaded the papers of the internet from a guest account on the computer, printed them out, then familarised himself with the contents before he revealed the suggestion to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon that evening. Emancipation was something minors could do if they didn't want to live at home anymore because the environment was too bad. As Harry was sure Aunt Petunia would have a field day if child services came to their house and poked around, he didn't think she was entirely okay with how they treated him, and that was enough for Harry to also get the idea to get the hell out.

It took quite a bit of explaining but once Harry got through with them that he would receive some money from the government, rent a small place and look after himself whilst going to the local public school and eventually finding what he wanted to do in life, get a job and get on with life, they seemed to agree it was the best agreement, particularly as they had never wanted him nor looked after him well. A week later Harry had signed a contract with an elderly landlord of a small apartment where half the lots were empty, packed up all his belonging's in a large trunk (that the Dursleys let him keep) then took a bus to the other side of the city which was his new home.

He felt a little sad about leaving his childhood home all these years but even he understood the Dursleys didn't want to look after another child, it was through a series of unfortunate accidents that they ended up in their predicament, and it was a big ask to ask someone to house a person for 18 years that they didn't want. From what Harry guessed about Aunt Petunia and his mother they had a sour relationship, which he could understand for some of his peers at school told stories of family drama and trouble, it was just the way families ended up sometimes, and there was a degree of unfairness Aunt Petunia had to keep Harry there. There was already bitterness in the family - just let it go, but instead fate tossed them together.

Not anymore however.

Harry loved the new flat instantly. The building was at the edge of the town, but in a rather empty and abandoned place not many bothered to venture down. The more dangerous things happened elsewhere. Some of the lots in the apartment were empty. There were cracks in the plaster, holes in the walls, wires spilling out of ceilings, and the landlord had said no one wanted them for the rent he charged and he was waiting until absolutely no one wanted to rent the rest of the lots to try and get a deal for the entire apartment. After that him and the remaining landlords of the apartment might pack up and move away, look for a more cozier place to settle down in for retirement, and let the developers do whatever they wanted with the place.

Harry immediately got what he meant by cozy. The edge of the town bordered a lot of wilderness and woods. There was a cold draft that blasted through the trees even though it was currently spring so Harry supposed he would have to wait for the first bite of winter to truly feel what it was like (he had known about the cold draft because news reports always said it came from this direction, from these forests), and while he could imagine the apartment blocks to become lit up with heating, blankets, and mugs of hot tea in the winter, he got what the developers meant by a cozier place. Warmer, housed in between lots of other buildings, more people.

Not that there weren't. About half the building had people living in them, and Harry enjoyed his new neighbours. Mostly quiet folk like him who wanted some place to stay but did not live to live whilst inside these rented lots. There were even a few residents that seemed like him. Emancipated minors who found this apartment block the cheapest to rent and were simply satisfied with this bit of refuge.

Harry unpacked his items. His block was small, consisting of one bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen with the basic furniture already inside. As long as he didn't damage it it was all his to use, though he would only be leaving with the items in his trunk.

The only place the sun came in through however, was the bathroom, so Harry found he had to hang up his clothes in a laundry rack in the bathtub, just underneath where the sunlight fell in through the small window with white fluttery curtains, for it to dry throughout the day. He had to get up a little earlier than usual to do so, and wait a little later than sunset for the clothes to soak up the full light of the day, but otherwise he had no problems getting them dry. He purchased groceries from the store, it was the only chance he got to do a bit of exercise and be found himself enjoying the walks, and cooked basic food. One of the upsides of living at the Dursleys was that all the chores he had to do over the years meant basic cooking wasn't a complete stranger to him, and he could fry some meat, vegetables, carbs, and that was a good meal.

Once a year he would buy himself cake for his birthday. It was currently several weeks away.

However the hat did not let him rest.

Good job Harry. You got yourself out of the Dursleys. You were not well looked after there and it prevented you from being able to discover more knowledge about this world. But you cannot stay here forever.

The hat said once it was on Harry's head.

You're not real. You're just the voice inside my head I like to imagine is a hat talking to me. Strange things may have happened to me by accident all my life, like my hair growing back after surprise haircuts, myself appearing on the roof of a house when I was running away from Dudley, but that doesn't mean I'm crazy. I'd have to be loony to believe a hat can talk to me or put thoughts in my head. You're just my inside voice, but I got bored of talking to myself, or maybe I wanted more excitement, and so I tricked myself into imagining the hat's talking to me. Because it's more exciting than me sitting down and thinking I suppose. Maybe it's because I'm young. Ten is the age of imagination they say. Or maybe it's because I haven't had anything interesting happen to me all my time at the Dursleys I make up something like this. I guess I don't mind talking to you, I'd talk to my inner voice everyday anyway, just, I'm not believing I'm talking to a hat okay? I happen to have you in my possession for a long time and I've grown fond of you, that's why I like to imagine there's a voice talking back to me.

Harry thought. He was ten, which was young, childlike, but even most children would realistically not believe they were talking to a hat atop their head. It was the only logical explanation of things.

Believe what you want but you can't stay here Harry. You have lots more to discover about the world. You will be trapped if you decide to anchor yourself to this flat. You must use this postal address if you ever need anything, as your official address for any forms, your situation of being an emancipated minor a mask if anyone asks. But you will have to leave this place eventually if you are to seek the furthest knowledge Harry. And there is no reason why you can't start now. I want you to get used to camping in the woods, because you may have to do so a lot on the run.

That's how Harry found himself balancing going to school and going through the motions normally, and heading out into the woods upon the hat's request in his freetime in order to 'get used to camping out and sleeping rough'.

At first he didn't like it and he refused to wear the hat anywhere outside, but soon the hat described to him what wild mulberries looked like, gooseberries, strawberries, and once Harry tasted the sweet fruit of his foraging he was hooked. As long as he had knowledge of where to find things in these places, it was like a wonderland that didn't stop giving to him. He'd went out as far as he dared one day and picked all the fruit he could find, as well as several wild vegetables that drew in these areas upon both his own knowledge that he'd picked up just from simply living all these years and the hat's knowledge. He felt like a prince that afternoon, washing and serving up the freshest bowl of fruit and vegetable salad that he'd ever had in his life. Despite Dudley and Uncle Vernon's preference for literally all food groups above fruit, there was always a topped up fruit bowl at the Dursleys so Harry was no stranger to it but he'd never had this much variety, all at once, so even that felt like a little gift to him.

He explored the woods, usually hiking as far as he dared and found it to be mostly the same, with a few landmarks like a series of three large boulders, a mess of ponds that all seemed very close to each other, a small cave that seemed to lead to nowhere, a wooden tree stump that was the only tree sawed at all out of all the trees in the forest, a bit of cleared land with a few metal poles hammered into the ground whose purpose Harry couldn't decipher, an old sign dating back to 1933 that was faded and greenish-grey, a large tree that always seemed to have multiple streams of sap running down it in all directions whenever Harry passed it, and lots of priceless little landmarks that made the place seem endless and vast, like he could wonder around forever and still not know all of it or where everything was, but yet so distinct, and so utterly his woods that he grew to quite like the place in no time. He could recognise where he was because of the landmarks, he was rarely lost, and even when he was, he had a sense of roughly how far he'd traveled since the last point he knew where he was, roughly what direction he had come from, even if it was obscured by trees, shrubs, vines, or any other matter of plants, and he'd felt a sense of home about the place.

There were no animals this close to human civilisation but there was always birdsong and insects. Sometimes Harry met other travelers with their dogs or backpacks, or sometimes simply a house key and the appearance of having left for a jog, that he felt rarely alone in the woods, though it was thin enough he could get privacy and peace to himself for a lot of the time. He grew to like the woods.

Every time he returned from them he would put on the hat and retell the hat the details. Harry found that the hat couldn't scroll through his memories or read his thoughts, at least it usually preferred to talk to him, and would rather know any information Harry knew through Harry telling it to the hat himself, so Harry was forced to think through what happened in great depth to transmit that information to the hat. The hat had then guided him on things like building a fire, making a shelter, knowing how to really climb a tree, and so Harry found himself deeply immersed in all of that for the next few weeks.

Then, there was the magic.

The stick was a wand. Harry was a wizard. There was a hidden community of witches and wizards all around the world. His parents had been witches and wizards but died because they were hunted down by a bad wizard who wanted to kill Harry and was still alive somewhere. Harry had somehow managed to escape alive but his parents had died, leaving him at the doorstep of the Dursleys for the next ten years, and the other wizard was out to kill Harry with a fanatical determination that was targetted at Harry, and just Harry alone. He would have to find a way to defeat the other wizard before he could truly regrow to power and kill Harry once he got a bit older. It was a race against time that began now and Harry needed to prepare by learning as much knowledge of magic as possible - as deeply as possible.

I'm going crazy. There's no such thing as magic.

He told himself whilst holding his wand, with the hat atop his head.

You enjoyed the story about the hat and the wand when I told you. The hat said. The hat had mentioned it was an old hat to an old wizarding school that sorted students into houses for the duration of their time there through having a conversation with them. It had the ability to read student's thoughts but that was a skill at the height of the hat's capabilities, it was...just not all that enjoyable in a way (more of a chore), and the hat usually preferred to simply know information through conversing with whoever next put it on.

Because I was bored. I was so bored I would make up anything to amuse myself. All of those details sound close enough to things I'd know to make them up. Even if I did such a good job the hat almost feels real. I was just enjoying a story I made up to tell myself.

Harry thought into the hat.

Very well then. Make up more stories to amuse yourself. Perhaps you will make up the story of how you did your first spell. Now, I want you to look at the advertisement and think of a napkin folded up in the shape of a boat, then tap the brochure. Said the hat.

Harry didn't own many things so he made a small collection of the spam mail he received and there was no shortage of multi-coloured brochures littering the small kitchen table.

This isn't going to work.

He thought honestly into the hat as he followed the instructions.

But I like it. Imagining that I am a wizard and can do all these things. It's interesting, especially how it's not all hocus-pocus and I'm sort of imagining it like there's some sort of real structure to it. Thinking up the idea, tapping it with my wand, and so on.

Harry thought. I'm ten and I'll only be young and imaginative once. I suppose I can enjoy these daydreams. Even though I know it is false.

Very well Harry. You believe these are false for now, but you are still getting enjoyment and fulfillment from all of this. No Harry, you're doing it wrong.

Irritation and anger sparked from within Harry. I'm doing it right. This is my imagination. I'm making up these daydreams. There's no way I can possibly do it wrong.

Yes there is. You can have the sense the spell is supposed to be done better, just that you also imagine yourself as lazy as you are in real life in your daydreams, so you imagine yourself doing it wrong. But there lies a part of you that can also imagine the right way, just tucked away beneath the part of you that imagines yourself doing it incorrectly. So you are doing it wrong. You must think deeper and try to bring out the deepest idea you have about how to do it correctly to get anywhere. The hat argued with him.

Alright. That makes sense. So apparently I am also quite logical and bantering and witty in my internal dialogue that I imagine coming from a hat, in these daydreams. You have a point there. But I still don't see the point...why am I doing this? I already know magic is false and this is just a daydream. Harry thought. He was ten and a child but he was not crazy. Most children didn't like to believe they were talking to a hat or would be a witch or wizard without further evidence. It was only natural to keep arguing and resisting.

You have no knowledge of that. You can't decide whether there is truth to magic or not. All you know is that you're deeply curious, you have nothing better to do with your time, and you might as well try to prove that it doesn't exist to yourself. If you try hard and nothing happens then you have proved that magic doesn't exist. Seeing as you want to believe this is all in your daydreams that outcome would bring you some amount of comfort. Go on, you might as well go for it. Give it all your might, see nothing happening, and then feel comforted in the fact that this is really truly just a daydream. Or are you scared? Scared to really try because you're afraid you might reveal the truth to yourself - that magic is real?

Shut up. Just shut up. Alright. I'll try. I guess if something happens I'll have proved to myself that magic, no, something, happens when I think of a napkin boat and tap my wand. By the way, I was never afraid of magic existing, or of being a wizard. I'm...still curious enough I'll try to find out everything about the world and magic if I truly believed it was true. I just don't like to believe such things without more evidence or proof. I'm not that crazy. But I'll try. This will be my proof as to whether or not magic is real or not.

Harry closed his eyes, and put all his effort into imagining the most realistic napkin boat he possibly could. He'd never been to a restaurant though the voices of the Dursleys at the dinnertable sometimes told him of all the times they'd been. They didn't go out particularly much, but it was a normal common thing for them, and they thought nothing much of it. He'd also never went on holiday, he'd simply been sent to Ms Figs for the few vacations the Dursleys took in his lifetime, but he'd remembered one occasion when they bought back a napkin folded up in a boat. They'd meant to chuck it away but didn't get the chance to do so before they took it home. Dudley, once he got wind of the fact that Harry had asked his Aunt Petunia what it was and seemed delighted in it when he saw it, immediately went to work keeping it away from Harry. Harry, knowing that if he made it clear just how much more he wanted it, Dudley would've most likely went to the extreme of breaking it or destroying it, tried to keep his anger at bay, but he remembers being an eight year old (that year the Dursleys went to America and Aunt Petunia replied it had been a hotel free sample that snuck it's way into their luggage somehow) that was quietly comforted by it whenever he saw the form atop the cabinet in the bathroom for some weeks after that.

Then the gathering dust upon the napkin got too much for Aunt Petunia and it was gone after one day of cleaning the whole house. Harry tried to bring back the memory of the napkin boat, he'd studied it quite closely in many of the times he'd taken a bath then. Tried to imagine the brochure folded up in the napkin, but he found he couldn't. There was just too many tilts of the planes of the napkin boat that he could never quite get right inside his head, the angle was sure to be of, and he could never imagine all the letters and pictures on the brochure distorted as if it was really folded by human hands and in reality, into the napkin boat of his childhood memories, and so he tried a different route.

That's too hard. It all seems so simple until you really get down to it. I can't actually imagine that correctly. I'll have to try with something I really do know back to front.

Harry tore a bit of the margins of a newspaper of. It was now a tiny tattered sheet of paper he could imagine manipulating around more easily inside his head.

He closed his eyes and imagined a bit of wind picking up the paper. Sliding underneath it, caressing it. The wind would be asymmetrical and hit one side of the paper first - the right side, his scar was on his right side and he'd spent many years' touching it with his hand so he was more used to moving his right hand or sensing the right side of his body first - it was also the first side to come to mind. It would fly up a little, as if boosted by the draft, the left side following, then, the right side would fall as the beginning breeze had left it, for a few seconds, no, even less - milliseconds, the sheet of paper would be suspended in mid-air, as if in flight, supported by a breeze from both sides underneath, but all too soon, the right side of it would start sinking, the left side barely staying up in the air more, and then Harry imagined it falling, fluttering in a mess of frantic tumbles which he had never particularly noticed so it was like a part of him forgave himself for not being able to imagine it better - towards the ground where it hit the blue carpet of the living room and would fly no more.

Harry imagined it several times over in his mind, the faintest sound of the paper turning over a little as it tumbled and flew that would hit his ears, the fact that he might even feel a tiny bit of the breeze itself upon his hand (his right one, that was closest to the table's edge where the paper was situated), and all of that.

He imagined it so well. It was like a movie that he could replay over and over in his head, before encasing the image firmly in his mind, of the bit of paper on the table, about to begin it's journey, opening his eyes just a crack and tapping the sheet with the thin tip of his black wand.

Nothing happened.

You didn't imagine it moving. The hat corrected him almost immediately. Like it should've been so obvious Harry ought to have kicked himself for not knowing or anything. You imagined it moving in great detail to prove to yourself that there was something you were familiar with. But after you tapped the paper, you didn't imagine it moving. You merely thought you would be successful after you imagined the paper moving several times because you incorrectly thought all you had to do was know how to imagine something very well in order to make it come true by magic. You were so anxious for success and so relieved at just that series of imaginations, you basked in brief satisfaction and relief from that, and you hoped that by revisiting the successful imagination, but you didn't think to go through the effort of imagining it actually moving whilst you were tapping the napkin and after, it was enough. So you conjured up the image of the paper from the beginning of your imagination sequence of it moving, as well as kept the feelings of satisfaction and relief flooding through you, then simply hoped for the best when you tapped the paper. At the time you tapped the paper all that was in your head was a still image of the paper about to move, and some leftover feelings from your successful imagination sequences of it moving from moments ago.

The hat had a lot to say.

Alright. Harry felt angry. He had never been so frustrated or mad at himself before. And all of this was coming from entirely him.

He imagined the paper moving the entire time after he tapped it. Imagining it moving before didn't do much besides provide some basic comfort to him that he knew how to imagine something in depth. He still needed to imagine it moving after he tapped it.

Still, nothing happened. Harry was about to pick up the paper, put it in the trash and get to cooking dinner when a voice inside the hat didn't quite let him do that.

You imagined yourself imagining it moving. You imagined the sequence of images of it moving quite well inside your head after you tapped it. You knew how to imagine it well. But did you expect the paper to move? Were you prepared to move out of the way physically in case the paper fluttered towards you? Were you prepared to pick it up afterwards once it was on the ground? Did you feel tired and frustrated in advance because you spent all morning gathering daisies to have some decoration around the house and you would have to bend down all over again? Did it feel real to you? Imagining something is different to expecting it to happen at the moment though it's a start.

Alright. Thought Harry with a bit of strength behind it. He was more angry at himself than the hat. Angry because it was clear from what he was imagining the hat to say to him, he ought to have known better, otherwise he could not have corrected himself like that, but angry that he could not quite do it - become the best he could see himself to be. He could know himself to be. Somewhere in his mind was the idea of truly succeeding at this small task he set himself, and then there was his inability to do it. It was this frustration and anger at himself that was ultimately driving it. Harry didn't even know he could be frustrated in this manner before, but apparently he could and well, he was learning lots of new things about himself and how he related to the world once he'd began receiving knowledge from the hat on his head.

This time, Harry imagined it moving. Truly moving. He tensed his muscles, as if bracing himself to bend down and pick it up right after. He imagined the brief bit of annoyance he might've felt when he realised it was true and now he would indeed have to pick it up. (He had slipped whilst trying to get the daisies at the bottom of a bit of boulders and grass that dipped down for a section and had indeed felt a click in his hip that meant he didn't want to strain it too much through bending down in the recent few days. Indeed he would not have liked to pick it up but it was a sacrifice he would have to make...)

The sheet of paper flew into the air just the way Harry imagined it to, he held his breath, as if barely believing it would continue on it's journey, but once he saw it lift of the ground it was like some part of Harry knew it was true. The paper flipped of the table as if carried by a gust of wind, the same one Harry had imagined, it fell towards the ground, tumbling and fluttering in a way that didn't quite make sense as Harry had never particularly taken notice of how a paper tumbled, but it was something he could forgive himself for, so it didn't quite matter that it probably didn't look like how a real bit of paper tumbling probably would, and then just when it was about to hit the ground, it did a dive right up, floated several heads above Harry's own, and began bobbing past the kitchen table, into the bathroom, and towards the open window.

"No, don't-" Harry cried. It was just a bit of paper but he didn't particularly like items he 'owned' going out of his property line all the same. He tried to catch onto it but the paper hovered by the window, folding back on itself as if a person turning back to look at Harry, taunting him, and then it slipped out the window in a way Harry knew it could as he hadn't really the time to reach it and catch it, and then it quickly plummeted towards the ground where it seemed to lose all sense of aviation and that was the end of that.

Harry could already imagine it lying tattered upon the ground, it would be soaked in dew by next morning, then probably torn or eaten to death by the ants, if some cleaner or gardener hadn't found it first and scraped it of the ground, probably with a bit of disgust at whoever 'littered' it there.

I don't know what to think. Harry thought into the hat. The kitchen window was open however. Suppose a breeze blew in? Maybe I should close it next time before I use whether or not a paper blew of the table with a breeze to prove something to myself. It's like leaving the gas stove on and telling myself if I can successfully cast a heating spell I've got magic.

You need more evidence before you can accept the knowledge that magic exists. This is good Harry. Knowledge is never cheap. If it's not knowledge you have truly proved to yourself as true, you truly believe in, it is not any real knowledge at all. I like this tenacity and determination of getting to the bottom of things in you Harry. This is good. Even with your doubtful faith in that experiment, what did you think of it? I know some parts of it caught you by surprise.

Just like that, it was like the sorting hat unlocked a torrent of thoughts.

I didn't expect the paper to fly up in the air again after it hit the floor. But then again, that's what happens when a wind blows right? You never know which way it's going to blow or where it might pick up bits and pieces? It's not something I didn't know. I did know paper and wind could do that and I could believe it if I saw it happen. I guess I just didn't have it in mind. But that's my real knowledge of the paper and how it reacts to a breeze. It was more realistic that it would do that, and surprise me as well. Realistically I'm a bit surprised by the way the wind blows things, so it was more real when it happened. I suppose it flew away from me to torment me. I would've wanted to keep the paper, look at it closely, examine it, after I had done that, just to see if there was anything about the paper itself, but it was like it wouldn't give me that satisfaction somehow, so it kept fluttering away. I guess it exited out the bathroom window because that was one of the only ways it could leave the apartment, and it fell to the ground shortly after because it didn't need to go anywhere. I only needed to make it move to begin proving things to myself - I don't fully believe in magic yet - and it flew away from me as an expression of my own frustration I guess. I was in a frustrated mood before and during the casting of the spell, and after it served it's purpose and stopped mirroring my thoughts. It didn't have anything else left to do so it just stopped.

Harry paused for a few moments. I can't believe I thought of all of that. I didn't know I would think so much before I thought to get emancipated and...take control of my life I guess.

Those who still have the luxury to use their brains are often surprised by what they're capable of thinking up. You have always had this ability but not a lick of appreciation for it.

Harry paused. He got the feeling the hat, or rather himself, was still berating himself up for it, which meant he was still in a slightly frustrated mood that day. And he had school the next so he didn't want to wake up in an even grumpier mood.

I'm going to cook dinner now. He decided, thinking those thoughts to the hat. Maybe make a cup of tea, it's been an eventful day. I think that's enough for one day. I...I'm not sure I believe in magic or the hat.

Harry shivered. What if it really was all real and it wasn't just himself he was talking to inside the hat?

But you believe enough to keep searching for the truth don't you Harry? About whether or not you believe magic is real. Because you can't do anything with the magical world if you don't believe that it is real. The hat thought back.

I suppose.

He had mixed feelings about whether or not he wanted all of this to be real as opposed to just a daydream that he couldn't explain, and it was one of those things he thought no amount of thinking could tell him at the present moment.

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews :)