X

XIX

XIXIX "Wandless Spellcasting" XIXIX

"Nicolas Flamel?" asked Harry. "But I thought you'd be..."

"Older?" asked the young-looking wizard.

Harry smiled nervously and nodded. He had actually thought that he would be dead.

"Don't get him started, Harry," said the young woman sitting across from Dumbledore, rolling her eyes. "Flattery is no good for him. He's an old cuck, and you should treat him as such." She gave Harry a devilish wink. Nicolas laughed.

Harry fought down his smile, drew himself up and then fell into a very low bow. In his most pompous voice, he intoned, "I am very pleased to meet you, sir and madam."

The Flamels burst out laughing. "I like him," said Nicolas. His wife agreed.

Harry grinned. He felt very comfortable with them already, like they were old friends.

Nicolas patted him on the shoulder and motioned to a chair, "Please, come sit down. As I said, I'm going to be your wandless spellcasting instructor, although both Perenelle and I can cast... oh, did I introduce you to my wife, Perenelle?"

"Um, no. Hi."

"Hi, Harry."

"Well, like I was saying, we can both cast without a wand, but Perenelle has focused her energies over the centuries on her potions abilities, so she is going to be working with Professor...

"Snape," Perenelle supplied happily.

Nicolas nodded, "...with Professor Snape on your very unique dilemma with You-Know-Who."

"Yes," said Perenelle, leaning forward. "I haven't been this excited about a new potion in well over a century. Not to make you feel like a lab rat," she grinned slyly, "But I'm going to have so much fun experimenting on you!"

Harry laughed, pretty sure (well, at least hoping) that she was joking. He looked at Dumbledore to see if perhaps he knew, but if he did, he didn't let on. He just sat there smiling, his eyes twinkling.

"Harry, you will begin to train with Nicolas tonight. I just wanted the three of you to meet before you headed to class this morning. I believe Professor Sprout will be waiting for you."

"Yes sir," said Harry. He nodded to Nicolas and Perenelle. "It was good to meet the two of you."

"Nice to meet you, Harry."

"See you tonight."

XIXIX

"He asked you to be his twin?!" asked Hermione incredulously.

"He didn't even know what it was until I explained it to him. And he thought it was a good idea, so he asked me almost immediately."

"You said no, didn't you?"

"Kind of..."

"What do you mean, 'kind of'?"

"I said I'd be his sister."

"Ginny!" Hermione groaned as she looked at her friend.

"Hermione, you should have heard him talking about how much he relies on me," said Ginny, defending herself. "He needs me. And I have to help him however I can. I mean, he did save my life. And it is kind of important that he doesn't burn out, which he seems to be in very serious danger of doing."

"But Ginny, you're in love with him. You know what happens when you start a bond like that. You two probably are going to wind up being twins, and that is a strictly non-romantic bond!"

Ginny pushed her dinner around on her plate with her fork. "Well, he feels strictly non-romantic toward me anyway," she grumbled. "I mean, Merlin! Did you see that hickie?!"

Hermione rolled her eyes in disgust. "If he is going out with Luna, he certainly doesn't have to flaunt it like that."

"It's not Luna," said Ginny.

Hermione cleared her throat slightly. Ginny glanced up to see Ron coming over to sit next to Hermione. "So anyway, 'Mione," she said casually, "What was it like when you started menstruating?"

Ron froze in his tracks a foot away. His face paled and he seemed to panic for a second. Finally, he said, "I'm gonna go sit over there." He pointed to nowhere in particular and walked away very quickly.

Ginny and Hermione giggled. "Works every time. So how do you know it's not Luna?"

"She told me in the library yesterday that he's not really her type, that they didn't seem to have much of a spark at the Three Broomsticks. And anyway," Ginny shook her head with a weird smile on her face, "You are not going to believe this. She said she has a thing for..." She started to chuckle.

"Who?" asked Hermione, intrigued.

"Vince Crabbe!"

"AUG!" she squealed, and they burst out laughing. "Are you serious?!"

"Deadly. She said she's been tutoring him in transfiguration, even though he's a year ahead of her, and that he's really not that bad a guy. But she's worried that, because of his father, he's going to join the Death Eaters too, so she's putting off any sort of relationship with him."

"I don't believe it," said Hermione.

"I told you that you wouldn't."

"Although, it does make sense now why Crabbe was being such a prick yesterday."

Ginny scowled. "I can't believe those guys. Just because the Slytherins shag everybody they go out with, they think that I have. Bloody prats, the lot of 'em."

Hermione looked over at Harry. "But who is it? It can't be Cho. She won't even come to the DA meetings this year."

Ginny shrugged and drank the rest of her pumpkin juice. "Hey, whatever happened with your meeting with Trelawney last night?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes in distaste. "Ginny, that woman is so infuriating, up in that tower with all her smelly incense! I don't know why anyone would choose to take her class instead of Firenze's."

"Well, her class is easy, and I for one don't care enough about Divination to want to put too much effort into it."

"Way to skim by," said Hermione.

"Thanks," said Ginny.

"Anyway, she said she was worried that my 'non-seeing' aura would cause problems with the 'vibrations' in her books, or some nonsense like that. And she would only agree to let me read them if I agreed to let her tutor me privately in the divinatory arts."

"No!"

"Yes."

"So what are you...?"

"I agreed. It's the only way to get to read the books she has, and she does have quite a collection."

"Way to sell out," said Ginny.

"Thanks," said Hermione.

XIXIX

When Harry came to dinner that night, he was heading to sit by Ginny, but Ron flagged him down. "Over here, mate! You do not want to be a part of that conversation, trust me."

Harry shrugged and sat by Ron. They talked about Nicolas and Perenelle, and about Snape. They talked about how stressed out they were with their classes, and how it was going to get worse next week when they had Quidditch practice every night to ready themselves for the Hufflepuff game. They talked about Quidditch, and whether the Chuddley Cannons really did have a chance at the World Cup this year.

Ron kept looking over at Hermione, but Harry could tell that Ron clearly did not want to talk about what was going on with her.

Harry kept looking over at Malfoy, but Ron had no idea that anything had gone on between them, so he was unaware of how upset Harry was about Malfoy's fresh round of insults he had fired at Harry's friends today.

Harry tried to act like he wasn't watching Pansy drape herself all over Malfoy, and he wondered if he hadn't made a really big mistake the night before. He hadn't meant for it to happen, it just kind of... did. And it had been really good.

But as Harry watched Malfoy talk to his friends with his arm slung around his girlfriend, he thought about the new lows Malfoy had sunk to in insulting Ron and Hermione today in the halls.

Harry was infuriated.

And hurt.

He had been distracted all day trying to figure out what to do. He and Malfoy hadn't planned on meeting each other again. They didn't have any sort of understanding with each other. He had no idea what Malfoy had thought about him after walking away the night before. Was this a game, after all? Was Malfoy using him?

Harry cleared his head. He was walking up to the third floor to meet with Nicolas for his first wandless spellcasting lesson. The day had gone by in a blur of distraction, but Harry certainly did not want to miss the next few hours.

He walked into a grand room that was absolutely bathed in light. Harry cocked his head as he looked around. The walls were lined with bookshelves that were full of random items. There were two chairs and a small table placed in the exact center of the room. Harry was fairly certain he had never been in this room, but it was oddly familiar.

"Ah, Harry," said Nicolas, rising from one of the chairs. "Right on time. I was wondering what type you were."

"Excuse me?" said Harry, as he dropped his book bag on the floor by the door.

"Oh, you know. Some people are always early, some are always late. You? Right on time. Almost to the second." He grinned widely, and Harry smiled. He really liked him, but Nicolas was definitely a geek.

"And you're always early?"

"Indubitably. When you got nothing but time, you learn how to use it. Shall we?" He motioned to the table, and the two sat down.

Harry felt his feet kick something under the table so he looked down. His toe was nudging a large iron handle to a trap door. Harry's eyes widened slightly and he looked around, recognizing the shape of the room. "This is where you hid the Sorcerer's Stone!" said Harry.

Nicolas nodded. "I've always liked this room. It was a common area for all four Houses when I was a student. Perenelle and I used to come here to study together."

"You went to Hogwarts?" asked Harry, amazed.

"Oh, yes. I graduated in 1343. Came back to teach two hundred years later. But Perenelle likes to travel, so we didn't stay very long."

"What House were you in?"

"I was in Hufflepuff. Perenelle was in Ravenclaw."

Harry just stared at him, wide-eyed. Then he blurted out, "How old were you when you created the Sorcerer's Stone?"

Nicolas chuckled. "I assume you are referring to our young appearance?" Harry nodded, too curious to be embarrassed. "I was 56, as a matter of fact—a very old wizard by standards of the day. The Elixir of Life that I brewed maintained us at that ripe old age for nearly a century. During that time, Perenelle developed a fascination with brewing potions, and eventually was able to develop an improved Elixir that restored our youth. Brilliant work, actually." Nicolas shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "I've tried for centuries to get the historians to make note of that accomplishment, but they only care about the Stone and the original Elixir. Improvements on it make no difference to them!"

"How long have you and Perenelle been able to spellcast without wands?"

"Hmm... I suppose it was about the time Perenelle developed the second Elixir of Life that we realized we could. Of course, our power has continued to grow throughout our lives, so we should have realized it would happen at some point.

"You see, witches and wizards have varying degrees of raw magical power. This magical power is dispersed, and is very difficult to focus. The shape of each wand and its magic core helps to focus this magic, drawing it from the witch or wizard in order to complete the spell." Harry nodded.

"But after living a century and a half, Perenelle and I had so much raw magical power that it is actually quite easy for us to focus it. However, if either of us were to cast a spell that would require most or all of our raw power, we would probably go ahead and use a wand so that we wouldn't have to worry about focusing our power so much; we could just focus on the spell."

"Sooo..." said Harry, "That means you two are way more powerful than Voldemort. Why don't you kill him?"

Nicolas paused. "We're not fighters, Harry. If the outcome of a duel were solely dependent on who was the stronger witch or wizard, Perenelle or I could easily defeat You-Know-Wwho. But that's just not the case. Our energies are based on healing, friendship, life and love. We wouldn't last a minute against him."

Harry thought about how he had immediately fallen into friendship with the two, and how they had started joking around after only sharing a few sentences of conversation. He didn't suppose that people who radiated so much kindness could very well tackle a powerful dark wizard like Voldemort.

"Can I ask another question?"

Nicolas nodded.

"You said it took you a hundred and fifty years to be able to do wandless spellcasting. But Dumbledore told me my mother was able to do it, and she was only 21 when she died."

Nicolas nodded sadly. "Your parents were great people, Harry, and very powerful. Your mother had only just revealed her abilities when they had to go into hiding. If I remember correctly, she was changing you when it happened. She turned away for a second and you decided to crawl off the table. She cast a Catch charm before she realized she didn't have her wand in hand."

Harry was staring at the table.

"Oh, I'm sorry to embarrass you with baby stories. I remember, just barely, how much teenagers hate that."

"No, it's okay," said Harry. "It's actually the first one I've ever heard."

Nicolas nodded and they sat in silence for a moment. Then he said suddenly, "Well, why don't we start simply." He looked around at the bookshelves. "Accio jewelry box," he said, and a jewelry box with a hinged lid flew from a shelf into his empty hands.

"Now, Dumbledore tells me you already used Alohomora without a wand, so why don't we start there."

Harry nodded. Nicolas made sure the lid was locked shut, and then Harry said, "Alohomora."

The lid was still locked.

"Alohomora," said Harry again.

He tried the lid again, but it was still locked.

"Harry, I want you to focus all of your thoughts, all of your energies, on opening this jewelry box."

Harry nodded and narrowed his eyes. I have to open this box, he thought. "Alohomora."

The lid remained locked.

"Alohomora."

"Alohomora."

"Alohomora."

"Okay, okay, okay! Harry, close your eyes. I want you to meditate for a moment. Imagine that your raw magical power is a light surrounding you, like your aura. I want you to focus on it, and feel your way around it. Go to the center of this power, and hold onto its core."

Harry took a deep breath and imagined his power, searching for its core. It seemed to flow through his veins. He could feel it pulsing within him, in time with his heart. His heart was a glowing light, pumping his magic as it pumped his blood.

He put his hand on the jewelry box lid. "Alohomora," he said softly. He opened his eyes, and looked at Nicolas for a second, before turning his attention back to the box. He carefully pulled at the lid with his thumb.

It was still locked. Harry could feel his frustration mounting.

"Damn it!" he said loudly. This was a simple spell. He had already done it.

"Harry," Nicolas said soothingly, "I want you to go back to your magical core."

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' thought Harry, 'Magical core.' His thoughts glanced to his lighted heart pumping magic, and he nearly yelled in frustration, "Alohomora!"

Immediately, he felt a shock wave run from his heart through his arm and to his hand, which was still touching the jewelry box. The lid exploded off its hinges and flew across the room, splintering into pieces as it struck the stone wall above a bookcase.

Harry and Nicolas both jumped. Harry looked at the pieces of jewelry box lid that lay on the floor, and then turned back to Nicolas apologetically.

"I, I—"

Nicolas narrowed his eyes and nodded firmly. "Good!" he declared. "Next time, try a little more control.

Harry breathed relief.

Nicolas looked around. "Accio... Actually, why don't you try it? Bring that vase over here."

"Accio vase," said Harry, focusing his magical core toward the pale blue vase on top of the corner bookcase.

The vase stirred, and fell off the bookcase. Harry focused, and it swooped back upward just before hitting the floor. It came a few more feet toward them, and then crashed.

"Hmm," said Nicolas. "Harry, take out your wand."

Harry complied. Nicolas got up and motioned Harry to follow him. They walked to the nearest window and turned to face the room. Nicolas looked around, as though sizing up the room.

"Here, let me see that," he said to Harry.

Harry handed Nicolas his wand. Nicolas promptly turned around, opened the window, and threw the wand through.

Harry experienced a second of horror as he watched his wand fly out into the darkness, quickly disappearing from view. He threw out his hand after it, as though he could catch it if he stretched far enough.

"Accio," he breathed.

His wand immediately flew into his outstretched hand. Harry turned on Nicolas.

"Why did you do that?!" he demanded.

"To see if it would work," said Nicolas simply. "And it did." He flashed a goofy grin.

Harry gaped at him. "You should have warned me."

"No, it wouldn't have worked if I had warned you. But did you get it? Did you feel it? Try it with that clock over there."

Harry's heart was pounding. "Accio clock," he said absently, holding out his empty hand. The clock flew into it.

Nicolas smirked. "Good. Now try it without the wand."

Harry blushed and shoved his wand into his pocket. "Accio statue," he said.

A small statue of a gargoyle flew across the room. Harry smiled. It was getting easier to focus.

They worked on simple spells for the next hour. They especially enjoyed the few minutes they spent breaking things for Harry to put back together. Before Harry left, Nicolas reminded him to always have his wand with him when he cast spells unless he was with people he could trust to keep the secret. It would be a simple mistake for Harry to spellcast without a wand in front of someone who might report it to Voldemort.

XIXIX

Harry grabbed his book bag on the way out the door and headed through the halls. He hadn't made up his mind all day about whether or not to go to the lake tonight. Part of him had wanted to, but part of him thought he would be an idiot if he did. But when Harry left the meeting with Nicolas, he felt powerful and confident. It wouldn't matter if he and Malfoy had a fight about Malfoy's behavior. Harry could handle that.

It wouldn't matter if he didn't even show up.

Harry paused before taking out his invisibility cloak. He could handle that, couldn't he? It wasn't as though he and Malfoy had any sort of understanding between them.

He started to close his bag around the cloak.

No. He was going. He pulled out his invisibility cloak, covered himself, and headed out into the night.

He walked silently through the grass to the beech tree, and sat down below it. He was alone by the lake. He pulled the cloak off of him and stowed it in his book bag. He ran his hands through his hair and looked out over the lake.

Just minutes ago, he had felt so good. He was ready for anything that Malfoy might fire at him tonight. But as the minutes wore on, his confidence waned.

Harry sighed. He had to admit to himself that while he had thought that he wanted a real problem with Malfoy, he would actually prefer to feel real without the problems. He glared at the lake. He was stupid to have let it go this far. Now he was sitting out by the lake in the cold and Malfoy was probably in the dungeons shagging his girlfriend.

Harry heard a shuffle in the grass behind him, coming toward him from the castle. He didn't look up. He pretended not to hear. He was utterly indifferent. Malfoy had not gotten to him at all. He didn't care if that was even him.

The shuffling feet stopped right next to him. Harry didn't look up, but in his periphery, he could tell who it was. He fixed his eyes on the lake. Malfoy sat down next to him.

Harry stared at the lake. Let Malfoy apologize for being a prick. Let him say 'sorry to keep you waiting'. Let him say he broke it off with Pansy, and bugger to his father and anyone else who wanted to keep him from being with Harry.

Let him say something.

But they sat in silence for a long time. Harry cursed himself for breaking first, and looked up at him. Malfoy was staring at the lake. He looked pretty upset. That caught Harry off guard. Once again, his focus on his own thoughts had kept him from realizing someone else was hurting.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Malfoy shook his head, his eyes still on the lake. "Bloody awful day, is all." He fell silent again.

Harry debated if he should try to use Legilimency to find out more. But it wouldn't be right.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Yeah, right," said Malfoy angrily.

"I mean it," said Harry.

"What do you care?" spat Malfoy. Harry was taken aback. "About me personally? Not a whole lot. Remember?" He turned to Harry. "I don't know why I came here. You put on a good show, talking with me like you really give a damn what I have to say. Even after the veritaserum you spoke with me like we were old friends. Right after telling me you didn't give a shit. It's all an act with you, isn't it, Potter?" He stood up to leave.

Harry stood up too and glared at the angry Slytherin. "It just so happens that I lied, Malfoy," he spat back. "I happen to think you're an okay guy when you're not parading around in front of your friends like the world is yours to step on. So don't feed me any bullshit about how my life is a show."

"You think I'm stupid, you bloody prat? You can't lie when you're on veritaserum," snapped Malfoy, his voice rising.

"I did. The effects weren't that strong."

"Bullshit. I couldn't stop from telling you things."

"Maybe you wanted to tell me things," Harry replied snidely.

"Bugger off!"

Harry could feel his temperature rising. He couldn't believe Malfoy's nerve. "What crawled up your arse, Malfoy?! You're having a bad day? So bloody what! Don't take it out on me. I'm not the one picking fights in the halls, insulting your friends!"

"You stupid arse! How many times do I have to tell you—I have to do that!"

They stood glaring at each other with their fists clenched, breathing hard. Malfoy sneered at Harry, and Harry sneered back. Then Malfoy stepped forward and pulled Harry into a violent kiss.

Harry pushed him. "Sod off."

He stalked to the trunk of the tree to grab his book bag. Malfoy grabbed him from behind, turned him around and kissed him again, clawing at Harry's back, pulling him in. Harry pushed him back, but Malfoy held tighter. He pushed Harry backward into the tree trunk. He slid his hand down Harry's back, grabbed his behind and pushed his hips into the trapped Gryffindor.

Malfoy pulled back a bit and leered seductively at him. He could feel that Harry was aroused. Harry ran his hand up Malfoy's side. Malfoy loosened his grip in reply, and Harry shoved him. Malfoy stumbled backward.

"I said sod off!"

"What the fuck is your problem?" asked Malfoy.

Harry glared at him for a second. Then he reached down to grab his bag and stormed off.

"Potter!" called Malfoy, running up behind him. "Potter, look, I was just blowing off steam. I shouldn't have done that."

Harry kept walking. Malfoy was jogging backwards next to him.

"Potter, come on. Let's go talk. I'll be nice, I promise."

Harry shook his head. He refused to make eye contact with him.

"Potter, please. Come on." They were getting near the castle. Malfoy stopped and looked after him. "I'm sorry," he said, dejectedly.

Harry turned around and caught his eye. He opened his mind. Malfoy's thoughts were a mix of cursing himself for being so rough on Harry, and cursing himself for breaking down and apologizing, when a Malfoy never apologizes. Harry stared at him for a few moments, and then closed his mind.

"Okay," he said.

Malfoy cocked his head toward the lake, but Harry shook his head.

"I'll meet you tomorrow night and we can talk then, if you lay off on my friends tomorrow. You can still insult me in order to fulfill your obligatory arsehole quota. Deal?"

Malfoy nodded. "Deal."

Harry turned and walked inside. He told his friends all about his evening with Nicolas. When Ron asked him why he was in such a cruddy mood when he had done so well, Harry replied simply, "I saw Malfoy on the way back."

His friends nodded. They understood.

The next day, as promised, Malfoy laid off of Harry's friends, and only picked on him. He was arrogant and snide and insulting, and true to his word.

Harry met him at the lake the next night. They talked for two hours, and then shagged for another.

Harry found it rather easy to keep from mentioning the things he could not trust a Malfoy to know, since Malfoy spent most of the time talking. He told Harry everything about his life. Harry began to wonder if he had ever had someone listen to him before who was truly interested in what he had to say. Himself, Harry was fascinated. They had led remarkably similar and remarkably opposite lives.

He only wondered that they had never discovered this before.

XIXIX

XIX

X

A/N: Thank you everyone for reading. Please review.

Usually Immaculate Aristocrat: But Harry is of such high moral standing. It wouldn't be right for him to sacrifice who he is just to play with a new toy! So long as he can control his gift, he should definitely not abuse it. But yeah, he's gonna be way-powerful.

Wintermoon2: Thanks for the prophecy. Very useful indeed. I decided to throw the Crabbe/Luna thing in there, because, um, remember high school? There were always crushes in the most unlikely places. And it always seems that the Slytherins are segregated, but surely they're bound to go for Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs too. Although, probably not many do Gryffindors. Openly, at any rate ;) When ya gonna update?!!

Vasquaz: Ginny's trying to be strong and selfless even though she's in love and wants to get her way. She's just pulled in different directions, doing the best she can.

Spidermonkey-Demon: Thanks! And sorry that we don't actually know each other. I haven't finished your story, by the way. I'll get to that as soon as I can! Hopefully I can keep the wandless magic interesting. Others have done so well with it (see Blast From the Past by Wintermoon2), and I'm afraid I'll get trite. Thanks for reading/reviewing!

Pamela: GAH! Here it is! Again! Have fun! By the way, do you have an account here? And if so, which Pamela are you?

GotRyceB: Harry's not blind, he's just a 16 year old boy with lots of things to think about. And he thinks of Ginny as his sister... okay, maybe he's a little thick. Oh, and sorry, but this is an angsty story. I can make no promises on the ending. :(

Gemini72: Oh really? Do you mean it? Hey, EVERYBODY!!! Gemini72 thinks I should be getting way more reviews! Did you hear that, hundreds of people who are reading without reviewing? Personally, I think that Gemini72 is right! Rock on. Thanks.

Chang Wumei: I'm glad you like it! More to come! And Ron probably has a chance with Hermione. We'll just have to hope that he does better than Harry did with Cho, no?

Flounder2: Thank you so much! Your review made me happy and giggly. I hope you continue to read and enjoy!