The next day, Harry moved the camp beds into separate bedrooms and tried transfiguring them into something a bit more solid. It took him many attempts, but eventually he had two solid beds with thick, soft mattresses. He left the brightly coloured blankets how Tonks had made them, but transfigured some more cushions out of another of Dudley's old shirts.

Thinking about all the items needed to make his temporary house comfortable, he decided to go searching for suitable items to transfigure. The cupboards and drawers in his old room revealed a few more sets of worn out Dudley cast-offs.

Considering how often Dudley was given new clothes, and how the unappreciative, spoilt brat cast them aside barely worn and usually outgrown, Harry wondered why Petunia only gave Harry the very worst of them, and donated the rest to charity.

He figured it had to be out of spite.

Donning his invisibility cloak he snuck quietly out of his room. A quick investigation revealed that none of the Dursleys were home, so he could relax for a while. He took a moment to place locking charms on all the doors, since he didn't want to be surprised by one of them returning early.

There had to be some place Petunia stashed all of the things she didn't want to see until it was time for the charity collection. The garage, normally unused since Vernon insisted on leaving his expensive company car on the driveway where the neighbours could marvel at it, was always as spotless as the house - the neighbours might see into it if the door was open after all - and the shed only contained the gardening tools Harry used to maintain the yard.

So he spent a while searching every corner of the house, revelling in his unrestricted access. Previously locked cupboards and drawers (the keys were on a ring Vernon carried with him everywhere) were a simple 'Alohomora' spell away from exposing their secrets to his curiosity. He found many things in those locked places, including some suspicious packages and a quantity of cash Dudley had in a locked box hidden under a blanket in the top of the enormous wardrobe in his bedroom, but there was nothing that really interested Harry.

Finally, he remembered the attic.

Never before had Harry had the opportunity to go up there. As a child living in a cupboard, he had often dreamt of the wonders that might be contained in that far away place. Dudley had teased him about his fascination, once trying to convince him a hobo lived up there and came out at night to steal things, but Harry knew Dudley had been too fat to fit through the narrow opening even back then, so had been making it up.

Petunia was the only Dursley who could fit; Vernon's girth also having exceeded the width of the hole long ago.

Harry pointed his wand at the trap door and mumbled a spell. The door obediently opened and a thin ladder slid down to his waiting hand.

Once inside, Harry used his wand to light up the room until he found the cord of a light switch. The musty space was not huge, but was crammed with boxes. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust; Petunia obviously did not have the same standard of cleanliness here that she reserved for the rest of the house.

The closest boxes contained Dudley's cast off clothes, just as Harry had suspected, but now he was curious to see what else was hidden away.

Harry carefully wound his way through the alleyway created by the boxes, occasionally stopping to open a random box here and there to see what was in it. Many contained papers, usually tax related (if Harry was reading them right), but more held what must have been every single scrap of work Dudley had ever produced in school. The total was considerably more than Harry had thought his lazy cousin capable of doing.

There were also boxes of photos that, Harry guessed, Petunia must have figured did not show her family in the best possible light. Considering the enormous number of photo albums she kept downstairs (ready to show any visitor), Harry wondered just how much money she must have spent at processing shops over Dudley's lifetime. There was no doubt it had cost her more a lot more just for these discarded photos than she ever spent on Harry.

Deciding the boxes were unlikely to hold anything he would be interested in, Harry moved to a pile of broken toys.

Most of them used to live in Harry's bedroom when it had been Dudley's extra cupboard, but some of the older ones made Harry wonder why Petunia was keeping this junk. Maybe it was too embarrassing to put out for the kerb side collection, or maybe she was keeping them for the same reason she kept all of Dudley's school work, Harry didn't know, and didn't really care. He picked up a bent and broken robot to stare at it for a moment.

Even after Dudley no longer wanted them, they had been denied to him. He believed Dudley had enjoyed the feeling of power it gave him to be able to keep them from Harry, but maybe it had been something more sinister inside of Petunia.

Once, a broken toy, like the robot in his hand, would have made Harry happy for months, possibly years. Even if it had been given to him in broken condition as a Christmas present or birthday gift, Harry knew he would have cherished it.

"Reparo," he said, waving his wand briefly over the cracked plaything. It instantly righted itself, its limbs straightened, cracked plastic flowed back into perfect shapes and clarity, worn buttons and knobs filled out to their original sizes, and the toy returned to practically new, if dusty condition.

Harry smiled and dropped it back onto the pile. The best gift he had been given had not come from his Aunty or Uncle, or their spoilt son. The best gift came directly from his parents, and nobody could deny it to him.

He raised his wand up to the low ceiling in order to see further with its light, the electric globe not reaching far into the roof cavity.

In a corner, as far from the trapdoor as you could get, Harry found several piles of things that obviously did not belong to Dudley. His excitement rose for a few minutes as he started to investigate the older boxes, but quickly he realised it was just things that had belonged to Vernon, from before he had married Petunia.

One small box contained several dozen black and white photos of Vernon in his Smeltings' uniform, complete with silly hat and whacking stick. Harry was surprised to notice that, back then, Vernon had been quite a well-built, handsome young man with only a slight weight problem.

Under the photos, Harry found a few cricketing trophies. Apparently Vernon had been the wicket keeper when Smeltings had taken out second place in some inter-school championships.

There were also a couple of boxes of things that looked like they might have belonged to Petunia, but while Harry wasn't interested in looking through yet more school records, he wondered why there were no photos of her family.

With a sinking feeling, Harry recognised that he had been looking for something, anything, which might have connected him to his mum. Though there was absolutely no chance Petunia had kept anything that may have belonged to her, he had hoped to find something like old, pre-Hogwarts family photos.

Petunia detested magic, and her sister. Harry knew she would have burned everything belonging to his mum rather than have any of it under her roof, but he was astounded that her hatred had spread to include destroying anything to do with his grand parents.

Harry left, taking a large box of the newer clothes. There were so many there that he doubted Petunia would miss one, and he needed more things to transfigure as well as some better clothes to wear.

Just as he was closing the door to the attic, he heard somebody trying unsuccessfully to open the magically sealed front door.

The time had once again gotten away from him and he hadn't noticed it was now approaching lunchtime.

Quickly checking to make sure he had not left any signs of his excursion, he leaned over the stair railing and cast the unlocking charms on all the doors, hoping the kitchen one would work, even though he couldn't see it directly. If it didn't, he figured Vernon would just think the door had gotten stuck.

Safely locked back in his room, Harry crawled back into his tent and began sorting out the prize from his venture.

Before long, he had separated the booty into several piles and began the mildly amusing task of magically modifying the better clothes to fit. Shrinking charms were only the start, as Harry decided to remove any logos or other identifying things. He even changed the colour of any items that Dudley might recognise, not because he was afraid of Dudley discovering Harry was wearing his old things, but because he didn't want Petunia to have proof that he had been snooping in their attic.

He had also tried to cast all the spells soundlessly.

"Blocked again and again and again until you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!"

Snape's words still burned in Harry's memory. He had easily defeated Harry, not even bothering to strike back until Harry goaded him into attacking by calling him a coward. While learning Occlumency might require a teacher, silently casting spells just required practice, lots of it.

Concentration was the key. Hermione had completely mastered casting nonverbal spells. Her concentration was one of the things that made her the top student in almost every class she took. In Harry's own experience, he had found his less than stellar concentration ability had always hampered him.

For most of his life before attending Hogwarts, Harry had learned to always keep one eye open for Dudley and his gang. No matter what Harry was doing, he had to be prepared to drop everything and run or duck at a moment's notice. In retrospect, he wondered why he had not become as paranoid as Mad-eye Moody.

Looking at the jacket he had been working on, Harry realised he had just made one sleeve turn purple while the rest of the jacket was dark green; a perfect example of his inability to concentrate interfering with his spell casting.

"Damn it!" he yelled, angry with himself for getting distracted.

"Clear your mind, Potter. Let go of all emotion…"

Snape's cold voice pierced his mind like a knife. The words had been Snape's instructions during their Occlumency lesson two years ago. It helped even less now that it had then.

Frustrated at his own inability, Harry threw down the jacket and left his tent to look out of the window.

Outside, it was shaping up to be yet another hot day. The once immaculate lawns and gardens of Privet drive had not recovered from two successive years of drought, and it looked like they were in for a third.

Harry noted a few people had opted to replace the huge expanses of lawn with elegant flowerbeds and rockeries, but Vernon and Petunia had not succumbed, probably gossiping about their progressive neighbours and looking down their noses at them for 'giving in to a fad'. Even the trees looked fairly dead, the normally lush foliage hanging sparse and limp.

If Harry had come out to take a rejuvenating break, he was sorely let down by the sorry sight of Privet Drive.

Why couldn't he concentrate unless he was in a 'do or die' situation? Under pressure, he had cast a Patronus powerful enough to drive off a hundred Dementors, he had summoned his broom from almost a mile away, and had Apparated himself and another person, but sit him down in a quiet room and ask him to nonverbally transfigure something, and you were courting disaster.

Sighing loudly, Harry returned to this tent, determined to keep at it.

Several hours and the remains of the roast chicken later, Harry had himself a new set of clothes. His old rags were now in a pile waiting to be transfigured into something useful.

The day of practice had made him much better at nonverbal spells, but he was still a far cry from what he considered competent. His transfiguration skills had improved a bit too, not surprising since he had probably done more transfiguration in the last few hours than in his entire time at Hogwarts.

Exhausted from the continuous spell casting, Harry decided to grab a book and read, for a change of pace. He had piled all of his books into a corner of the main room while sorting his clothes out. 'Protect your Privacy – Control your mind' was sitting on top, so he took it and went to lay down in one of the rooms to read for a while.

The table of contents had some interesting chapter titles like 'Be committed', or 'Building your Memory Mansion', and even 'Your Psychological state and You', but the introduction left Harry unsure what the book was really about.

He flicked through a few pages and began reading at random, but before long he fell into a light doze.

The growling of his stomach finally woke him up. Looking at his watch he guessed he had been asleep for a couple of hours before his hunger had aroused him.

Entering the main room, Harry was surprised to find Tonks lying on a couch that had not been there earlier, reading one of his books.

"Wotcher, Harry," she answered, sitting up. "I see you've been busy," she said pointing at the pile of his new clothes."

"Yeah. It's great being able to use magic! Have you eaten yet?"

"Na, just swung over to check on you. Was a bit surprised to find you sleeping though. What happened to CONSTANT VIGILANCE?" she screamed, waving her wand in the air vigorously, causing them both to laugh.

"What you going to try tonight, Southern Fried Acromantula legs?"

Harry fished around in the cupboard and came out with a tin.

"How about Smoked deep sea Salmon in a Vinegarette sauce?"

"Ah, thank goodness for Mr. Magical Meals in a Tin. What would Harry do without you?"

"Hey, I can cook, thank you very much!" said Harry indignantly. "It's just that these are all that I have to work with at the moment."

As they ate the magnificent fish, Harry explained his concentration problem to Tonks, who was very sympathetic, having had similar problems herself.

"Don't feel bad, Harry," she said. "Most people have exactly the same problem, that's why you usually hear people casting spells. That and the fact nobody can do a spell as well silently as they can when speaking."

"Any suggestions?" he asked hopefully.

"Only that what you have already been doing is a great idea. Practice, practice, practice - there is no substitute for hard work, as my old instructor at the Auror academy always used to say. Mind you, he was usually talking about me walking without knocking something over."

"That's what I figured," he answered, collecting their plates off the stone table Tonks had transfigured from a rock. "But I was kind of hoping there was a magical short cut."

"Actually, you might find some magical bits and pieces that would help, like a Tiger's Eye gem, or a lump of Marcasite, but what happens if you don't have your aid on you when push comes to shove? You might even become dependant on it, like a crutch, and without it you are worse off."

Harry waved his wand over the dishes, banishing the food and cleaning them in one hit, before wordlessly levitating them back into a cupboard. He hadn't gotten around to charming one of the cupboards with preserving charms to take the place of a fridge, so the left over fish, which was a considerable amount, was banished away before it went off.

"What about a spell or something to change me though? Aren't there some spells that can alter your mind or something? I remember Hermione telling me that there were spells to give yourself extra powers."

Tonks shook her head as she rose from the chair and moved to the couch where she had been sitting on when Harry woke up.

"Most of them are fairly harmless, and only temporary, but you have to be very careful when you start down that path because before you know it, you are in Dark Magic territory."

Harry shuddered involuntarily as he took a seat next to the young Auror, thinking about how Voldemort had cast so many spells on himself that he couldn't really be considered Human any more.

"Hey, Tonks," he said suddenly, wanting to change the subject. "Can you teach me some spells?"

"What did you have in mind, luv? Nothing too dangerous I hope; these walls are not made to take a hit from anything as hard as a stunner you know."

Harry grinned and told her what he wanted to know.

A few hours later she called a halt to the lesson.

"That's enough for tonight," Tonks told him, after letting out a huge yawn. "You are casting the spells right, so you know what you have to do now, don't you?"

"Yeah," answered Harry unenthusiastically. "Practice, practice, practice."

Tonks left soon after that, and Harry went to bed to dream all night of forever practising the same spell repeatedly, but never getting it right.

Once again left to his own devices, he spent his days silently transfiguring more clothes and furniture and using magic for every conceivable task.

'the locket ... the cup ... the snake ... something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's ...'

The mantra kept playing through his mind. Whenever he stopped working and started thinking, his thoughts returned to the impossible task in front of him. There was no way he was ready, not yet; the fight with Snape proved that.

'the locket ... the cup ... the snake ... something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's ...'

Again and again he found himself locked into a circle of thought. The need to get out and start looking warred with the knowledge of his limitations.

Occasionally he would open Dumbledore's trunk and play with the bottles of memories. They had to be important. There was a reason Dumbledore had made them and left them in his will for Harry.

'the locket ... the cup ... the snake ... something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's ...'

He flipped through some of his books, trying to force himself to study, but he was definitely not in the mood and had never been particularly prone to self study anyway, so he spent a while practicing the charms Tonks had shown him.

After a few dozen tries, he felt pretty confident that he had mastered some, but the Disillusionment charm still cause him a few problems, sometimes only working on part of the object he was hiding, or, in one disastrous episode, turning the exact opposite of the colours behind it.

He finished exploring the Dursley's house, briefly wondering where Petunia and Dudley were disappearing to, but then he realised he didn't really care and was just pleased they were out of sight.

The house only revealed one new secret; the garage had been converted into a gymnasium for Dudley.

There were weights, and benches, and machines with mysterious purposes, although to Harry's inexpert eyes they looked like they would be more at home in a medieval torture chamber. A worn punching bag hung from a special frame in the middle of the room, and, going by the thin layer of dust on everything else, was the only item that saw regular use.

"I know exactly how you feel," he told the bag sympathetically.

Feeling rather mischievous, he considered pranking Dudley by casting a spell on the bag to make it swear abusively whenever it was hit, or maybe he could make it so hard that it broke Dudley's hand next time he used it. The temptation passed when he thought about how he was much happier with the Dursleys completely avoiding him, and any such prank would surely end up in another confrontation.

As if summoned by the thought, the side door to the garage opened and Dudley wandered in.

Both of them were caught by surprise at the unexpected meeting, but Dudley recovered first.

"What are you doing in here freak?" he asked, after looking around to make sure they were alone. Dudley was much braver when it was just the two of them. "You are not allowed in here, this is my place!"

Harry sighed loudly. The day had not been going well.

"Fine," he said, walking towards the door. "I'll just be on my way then."

Dudley must have had a lot of aggression to work off because, as Harry walked passed, he felt brave enough to bash his shoulder into the smaller boy, knocking Harry painfully into a rowing machine.

Harry saw the gleam of enjoyment in Dudley's eyes that for some reason reminded him of Draco Malfoy, and something inside of him snapped. He pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed at Dudley, who paled but didn't back down.

"You can't do anything with that!" said the quivering Dudley. "You got into heaps of trouble last time, so I know you can't do nothing to me." His terrified eyes never left the wand as he spoke.

"Guess what Dudders? The rules have changed."

Dudley only had a second to squeal as Harry flicked his wand, then he found himself flying through the air to stick to the roof.

"Put me down! HELP. MUM HELP!" he screamed before another flick of Harry's wand silenced him. The panic as his shouting efforts produced no sound almost pushed the enormous boy into hysteria.

"If you think you are big and tough and can get through life by throwing your weight around," Harry warned him, "think again."

"The smallest eleven year old from my world could float you up and stick you to the roof like I have done, with barely any effort."

"It's time you re-evaluated your self Duds; time you GREW UP and started trying to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing."

With those words, Harry turned and walked to the door. Just before opening it, he flicked his wand cancelling the spells holding Dudley silently to the groaning roof, and was rewarded with a shrill cry that was cut off by a loud thump as his cousin forcefully reacquainted himself with the ground.

It was in an unusual state of mind that Harry opened the door and found himself face to face with his Aunty; Petunia Dursley.