Now that Harry has a place to hide his sticks, he needs to figure out a way to smuggle his tools in. Aunt Petunia says that he was going to have to do a lot of chores as punishment today so maybe he can smuggle it then. Although it will be harder to make sure that he isn't caught when he can't anticipate the order of events. No matter what Harry decided, he knew that this was going to be one of the more risky moves that he had made.

Despite it being morning, Harry still had to wait another two hours before Aunt Petunia let him out. Based on the smells in the house, Harry missed breakfast.

"You will clean out the attic." Aunt Petunia thrust a broom into his hands and dragged him to the foot of the attic steps. After he entered the attic, the stairs slammed shut firmly behind him and Harry couldn't help but sigh.

The attic was only something that Aunt Petunia had him clean when she wanted him to fail. It was not a task that he could finish in one day. The boxes were piled high and all of them were covered in layers of dust. The only one who had cleaned it out in the past five years was Harry himself. The boxes were full of junk: toys from Dudley, paperwork from Uncle Vernon's work, and house care magazines from Aunt Petunia. He grabbed a rag from the corner and began wiping away the major spider webs. After that he would dust the boxes and then try to sort them into categories. As Harry was walking through the boxes one of them caught his eye. It was a box labeled woodwork. Harry didn't think that he had ever seen it before but it was currently calling to him. Perhaps this would explain why the whittling tools were in the shed. He still wasn't sure if they belonged to Dudley or Uncle Vernon.

Harry wiped the box as good as he could and looked around for something to cut the box open. He found a pair of scissors atop a box that lay forgotten from the last time that he cleaned up here. He cut the box open and saw a handful of books all about whittling, carving, or relief carving. All of the books were in pristine shape and looked untouched. He opened the cover of the top book and saw a note scribbled on it:

"To Dudley,

You showed such a strong interest in whittling so I hope you continue. See you next year, I hope to see how much your whittling has improved.

Counselor Ronald"

The note actually made perfect sense to Harry. A couple of years ago, Dudley went to an outdoorsy camp. The camp taught so many things like setting up tents, starting fires, and most importantly whittling. The camp actually only gave kids soap to carve, but the idea was similar enough. Dudley had shoved the soap in Harry's face and made fun of him for not being able to go. Dudley's soap was in the shape of a turtle and looked pretty good; however, by next year he had already lost interest in it. Harry didn't know why he didn't think of this sooner.

Harry flipped through the books to see which ones he should read. Aunt Petunia just wanted Harry to work in the attic, but she never checked to see his progress. Honestly, cleaning the attic was one of his preferred methods of punishment. Harry ended up picking the book that was more focused on whittling than the others. The carving book kept talking about using a chisel, which he didn't have. The other book that was talking about relief carving was talking about carving into a flat piece of wood. Neither of these were really applicable now but they could be interesting to look at in the future. The whittling book was really similar to the one from the library but it was meant for kids so it was easier to understand. The first chapter focused on safety, it even included the information about how a sharper knife was a safer knife. Harry definitely wished that he had learned that before he started.

Although all of the books were interesting, Harry was sick of learning about how to whittle and wanted to just do it. He had started on his bird but stopped when he realized that he really didn't understand how to cut the wings.

Harry read the books and kicked around boxes every couple of minutes to make sure that it sounded like he was still doing work. Around an hour before dinner, Aunt Petunia opened the attic door and yelled for him to come down. Harry rushed to hide the evidence of what he was doing and ran downstairs.

Aunt Petunia eyed Harry, looking at the dust in his hair and the grime on his body. She seemed vaguely satisfied.

"You have wasted enough time in the attic. Go to the shed and grab the shears. I want you to cut enough roses for a bouquet for the guest room and for the dining room. Aunt Marge is coming this weekend."

Harry was super conflicted. He hated Aunt Marge but he had the opportunity to smuggle his tools! He quickly ran out before she could change her mind. Harry was going to grab the shears and cut some roses. He would put away the shears and grab his tools. He would hide them under his shirt and drop them off in his cupboard on his way to the guest bedroom. It was perfect!

Of course, cutting the roses had the drawback of cutting up his fingers again. At this rate, gardening and whittling would guarantee that Harry never had uncut hands.

Acting out his plan, Harry only relaxed after he closed the door to his cupboard. Mission accomplished! Now Harry had the time and freedom to whittle during the week. He still hadn't figured out what to do with the shaving but Harry didn't really care.

His mind was focused on the different shapes that he could whittle. For the wands, Harry was going to start with a wand with a spiral, nothing more. The wand with the leaves would probably be more tricky and Harry just wanted to practice before he tried anything too fancy.

Harry grabbed the first stick. He would start the one that smelled of winter. Harry wanted to see what it would become. Since it was winter themed, the swirls would suit it nicely. Maybe someday in the future, he could paint it like a candy cane. Harry nearly snickered to himself over the thought. Maybe he was taking the winter theme too far, but since it was just for practice, it probably didn't matter. Now Harry had to come to another decision. Would he have the candy cane strips stick out or be the ones that are caved in?

One of the books that Harry had read spoke of using sandpaper to smooth it out afterwards, but Harry didn't know where he could get his hands on some. It even had an entire chapter about sandpaper grit and type (he skipped over it because he didn't have any sandpaper to begin with). That left Harry with another conundrum: how to smooth the wood out afterwards?

Those extra steps were the finalizations of a wood carving so maybe Harry would just focus on what he could do before he focuses on what he can't. Looking at the stick in his hand, Harry smelled it. The first step would be to get some of the bark off the stick. Harry braced the stick on the ground so it stood vertically and then using the smallest of knives, he cut downwards. After doing the initial cut, Harry saw that he would be able to just peel the bark back like a banana. The layers under the bark were much softer. Using his knives it smoothed out gradually.

Whittling reminded Harry of a class project. They were given a square and continually cut the corners off and soon the shape looked more like a circle than a square.

Harry smoothed the stick out and then decided to try to cut the swirls into the wood. Harry chose to first make light cuts to mark the location of the spiral. Harry struggled to make the diagonal cuts evenly spaced. Once he lightly marked his spiral cuts, he grabbed the larger knife. He used the knife to make one cut downwards in the grain direction. The cut vaguely resembles leaf petals coming from the wood. He switched direction and cut upwards. After this process it looked like a V-shaped notch. At first it looked really rough until Harry did this a couple of times. As he continued down in a spiral shape, Harry started to get a feel for how it would be at the end of this process. It looked more like a ribbon than a candy cane but Harry was sure that if he painted it then it would look better.

Harry took many minutes completing each section of the spiral. Before he reached the halfway mark, Harry put the tools down. His eyes were stinging with how intent he was focusing on his task. Blinking rapidly, Harry tried to add more moisture to his eyes. Since Harry carved into the wood to make spirals, it would likely be slightly more fragile at the points of the spiral. If the stick was thicker than it would be more sturdy but unfortunately the sticks from the trees in front of the library weren't very thick.

Harry hid his tools under the right side of his small mattress so he wouldn't get stabbed. He looked at the shavings and sighed. He scooped them up and hid them in his pillow cover. Harry had stolen the pillow cover many years ago and it was paying him back now. He made sure to hide the shavings on the bottom of his pillow so he wouldn't breath them in or fell them when he lied down.

The following day, Harry itched to finally go back to carving. Every thought that passed through his mind while doing chores was about how he could improve his carving or ideas on what to carve next. The only major limitation Harry had was that he only had two sticks. For some of the bigger crafts Harry would need more blocks of wood like the ones he found in the shed. Harry had left the wooden blocks, the strop, and the polish in the shed. He would eventually need to find a way to smuggle those inside as well.

That night, Harry repeated his actions from yesterday. Since Harry knew what he was doing this time, the whittling took far less time and Harry finished it. Looking at the finished product, Harry felt pleased. The wood was still rather rough in some places and the notches were completely even but for the most part it looked good. Harry hadn't been sure if he was going to continue the spirals all the way down, but in the end he did. He wasn't sure how to stop the spirals and have a handle. Most of the wands he had seen, had handles for the magicians to hold onto. Holding the wand, Harry felt the grooves from the spirals and decided he was pleased. It was long enough that Harry could hold it with two hands and still have a bit of the wand sticking out.

While whittling, Harry couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to have magic. Harry thought about how one book had wizards that could summon water with his magic. Harry thought that it would be nice to have access to water whenever he wanted. Smiling at how his wand looked, Harry wished his wand could also give him water.

Harry was immersed in his thoughts when he felt water on his lap. Startled, he dropped the wand and touched the spot. It was truly wet!

Where did the water come from!? Harry reached to touch the roof to see if there was a leek, feeling none he reached down. There was no water coming from either the ceiling nor the floor!

Harry looked at the wand and paused. Could it be? Could the wand be the source of the water?

Grabbing the wand, Harry thought about water. Once again, Harry could feel water falling onto his lap. Harry brought the tip of the wand to his face and sure enough there was water. The wand was giving him water!

Harry held the tip above his face and let the water trickle into his mouth. The water was room temperature but was incredibly refreshing. After his drink of water, Harry put the wand down and tried to figure out how the wand was magic. It probably wasn't the tree because it didn't do anything until he whittled it. Wait! Harry had an idea. Maybe the whittling tools were magic! THe tools made the stick magical! Harry once again thought about how excited he felt when he found the tools. Maybe the tools had called on him so he could use their magic!

Harry wondered what other magic the wand could do and what other items the whittling tools could make magic.