Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.

Boredom is a Wonderful Thing

Ryua woke up the next morning in the worst mood she could ever remember feeling. Her shoulder was pounding in time with her pulse, she was getting a steady wave of cramps, and to top it all off, Father was sending the owl to the Zabini house that day. Feeling rather rebellious as a result of all this, Ryua set out to have a tension-relieving day.

First off, she found a pair of black pants she had 'borrowed' from her brother(it's fun to be an identical twin), pairing it off with a top that would probably make Father quite unhappy. Dressed in this parent-infuriating outfit, she left her hair loose and stalked off to find Toppy. "Toppy!" Ryua called as she strode into the kitchen.

"Yes miss?" the elf squeaked, a little apprehensively.

"Where is my wand, Toppy?" Ryua felt rather like going out to curse some garden gnomes right out of existence.

"Toppy is sorry, miss, Toppy doesn't have it..."

"What?"

"Toppy isn't allowed to get miss' wand... Master said so..."

With a sound somewhere between a snort and a growl, Ryua turned on her heel, leaving the distressed elf behind before she started ironing her ears or something. How dare he take my wand? Lucius must have kept it after the 'talk'. Bet he's scared I'll curse him again... what a surprise. That's exactly what I want to do... Well, she mused, not all magic is done with a wand... That had been confirmed yesterday and the day before. Father could pick her up with a mere gesture, and she had actually made quite a mess of her room when she got angry at mother. So, all I have to do is discover how to work it...

Which was easier said than done. Ryua had locked herself in her room, with a few books on the subject from their library on the side table. It was supposed to be easier to work with some energy which already existed, so she had lit a candle from her fireplace and was in the process of trying to snuff it out then bring it back. I think I'm missing something here. The candle flame, although it wavered in the breeze her hand generated, refused to go out. She had seen people do it loads of times, and there didn't seem to be anything else to it.

The problem is, my wand was magical. That meant that spells automatically had something to work with. This candle, on the other hand, is just about as muggle as anything you could find in this house. So that meant the magic had to come from somewhere else. Without using a magical-core wand as a focus, she was left with figuring out how to do it on her own...

On my own... Of course. As a pureblood witch, Ryua herself contained a decent sized wellspring of magic. Now she just had to tap it. She settled back on her bed, trying to relax. Wizards used meditation often; in fact, muggles who used it were copying wizards in the guise of mystics and yogis. Breathing deeply, Ryua tried to let her emotions release. This was not as easy as it sounded. Just being at home normally had her edgy and sullen, and being injured, cursed, and engaged put her emotions up onto a whole new level. Fine, be that way. She followed her anger down, as it was the emotion that unlocked her magic before. Sure enough, it merged into a pool of energy, and she smiled at the strength of the raw magic inside her. Okay, here goes... She pulled a thin tendril up out of the pool, and reached her hand out to the candle.

Ryua gestured, and half the candle dissolved. Well, I put out the flame at least. Oh well, a little overkill can be remedied. Using just a tiny spark this time, she lit up the much shorter wick. It caught, burning merrily. She waved her hand down, and it snuffed out easily. Up, light, down, snuff... She grinned. Now I've got it.

An hour later, she was levitating things across the room. Control was a lot looser, she noticed. The wand acted as a focusing device, not the actual source of magic. Wand magic was tighter, and more powerful in the precise area it affected. It also took a lot less energy, because the wand automatically controlled the amount of magic used. She let the chair drop back down beside her desk, pulled Parsyl to her from the desk (she liked being levitated, said it was fun), and went downstairs to find some food. She'd have to be very careful about letting anyone see what she was doing. Father might find some way to block her magic entirely if he knew she could tap it directly, and Draco, mother, and the elves could all be persuaded to tell him. After lunch, offensive magic.

She skipped happily down the hall, catching herself and moving into a dispirited shuffle before someone noticed her good spirits. Father wasn't exactly thrilled with her outfit, and mother would obviously have preferred her hair to be up, but Ryua bolted her food and went quickly back upstairs before they could do anything about it. She had Toppy bring up some old pillows and things no one would miss, and set about seeing how to blow them up. This came a lot faster than levitating or candle lighting. Her first target toppled off her table, the second flew across the room, and the third exploded into a satisfying cloud of feathers. Ryua enjoyed blowing things up for some reason. Unfortunately, she'd soon disintegrated everything she could safely blow up. Scooping it all into a pile, she turned resignedly to her homework. Just in case Father wanted to see what she'd been doing all day, she had better have something to show him.

Author's Note: Thanks to JeannieBeanie33 for coming up with both a spell and a name. This doesn't mean the rest of you are off the hook.

And Athena Diagon Cat, you did it again! I had been toying with the idea of non-wand spells, so now I really had to do it, eh?