A/N - Here's a new chapter! The plot is moving slowly right now, but will really pick up pace next chapter, when Harry makes contact with Hogwarts to confirm that he'll be attending.
Chapter 6 :: Homeless
DARKNESS greeted me as I opened my eyes. Temporarily disoriented, it took me a moment to remember where I was. I'd fallen asleep quite early the previous night, exhausted after the day of walking, shopping, and more walking.
Sitting up and crossing my legs, I spent a while meditating. If attention was like a muscle that one must flex to use, this form of meditation was like relaxing that muscle and keeping it completely passive while your mind tickled you with thoughts. My breathing slowed and deepened and I became aware of my heartbeat, a steady pulsing that circulated fresh blood from my lungs to my extremities. I could feel the oxygen filling my lungs to their capacity as my diaphragm dropped, revitalizing the deoxygenated blood fed to it by my heart.
Feeling energized, I stood up and pressed my hands together, fingers pointing upwards. I spent several minutes in tadasana, or Mountain Pose, feeling the ground pressing up on my feet, the pressure traveling up through my legs and up the column of my spine. My body relaxed as I focused on my balance and on relaxing my chest, shoulders, and neck while I kept my core and legs engaged but not clenched.
Once I really felt like a mountain, as if I had roots deep in the earth and I was merely a projection above the surface, I swept my arms above my head, keeping my palms together, so I was pointing at the sky, my head falling back so my eyes also looked upwards. I leaned back, deepening the Upright Salute into a slight back bend, then bent forward into uttanasana, or a standing forward bend.
I slowly went through the rest of the asanas, or poses, comprising the Sun Salutations, and then repeated the entire sequence twice more. The purpose of hatha yoga was to quiet the body so that the mind would not become distracted by it during meditation. I suspected that this discipline might yield some benefits when studying magic.
Taking out my wand, I held it loosely in my right hand, feeling the cold wooden surface slowly warm up from the contact with my flesh. I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation of the wand in my hand. It's center of mass was just where my index finger came in contact with it, so that I could let go and my wand would stay balanced there.
Perhaps it was simply my imagination, but after some time spent with my eyes closed I began to feel a very slight tingling in the fingers holding my wand. I began to focus on my breathing again, and the feeling of fresh blood suffusing out into my wand hand. As I began to feel the energy moving through my body again, I gradually noticed a countercurrent, a subtly different flow of energy traveling from my wand, up my arm, and into my heart. After more focused contemplation of this energy flow I decided I wasn't sure it was directional.
I put my wand down and the feeling of the energy flow vanished. I only felt the usual sense of vitality spreading out from my chest at the peak of each breath. Picking up my wand again caused the sensation of a connection to return immediately now that I was primed to it, but it was incredibly subtle, much harder to detect than the flow of oxygen through my veins. The precise feeling was impossible to pin down, at one moment feeling like a physical elastic tension, at others like a warm or cool draft inside my arm.
My eyes still closed in the pre-dawn darkness, I thought back to the reading I had done the previous morning. The introduction to Magical Theory had stated that the key to casting a spell was intent. The caster must have a clear intent fixed in mind when casting a spell, and only if that intent is at the forefront of his or her mind will the spell be successful. A perfect wand motion and incantation will not bring about the desired effect if the caster's intent is not clear and strong.
Deciding to try the Lumos spell first, since it was one the simplest spells and was cast without a wand motion, I focused on memories of flipping a light switch on when entering a dark room. The way the room was instantly revealed in a flood of light. I imagined turning the light on and off, on and off, until I was reminded of elementary school, of my teacher calling for silence in a rowdy classroom while flicking the room back and forth between darkness and light.
Opening my eyes, I imagined the lights turning and staying on as I intoned the word, 'Lumos.'
Light filled the room.
A surge of elation filled me, causing a spike of adrenaline. I had just cast my first spell. The tension of expectation had been so great that I'd forgotten to focus on the bond I'd felt earlier linking my wand to my heart, but I'd have plenty of time to explore that in the future. For now my heart was beating rapidly and the hand holding my lit wand was shaking, causing the shadows it cast inside my tent to jitter around violently.
I forced myself to relax and breath into my abdomen, and my wand steadied in my grip. Moving out of my bedroom and into the main chamber, I picked up a pot of ink, parchment, and a quill and sat down cross-legged next to my trunk, closing it and using the lid as a table. I tried putting my wand down but it went out, but I was able to recast it with no difficulty, and it stayed lit when I transferred it to my left hand.
Pulling the rubber stopper out of the ink-pot with my teeth, I dipped a quill in and practiced writing for a while. I'd written with a quill before but it had been many years ago and I hadn't been particularly proficient even then. However, I found that the magical quill behaved far better, and that ink didn't run nearly as readily if the tip was held stationary against the paper for a moment.
Looking around the room I jotted down an inventory of the items I'd purchased in Diagon Alley, along with any prices I could remember paying. The Wizarding economy was a mystery to me and I hadn't seen a single book in Flourish and Blotts on the subject. I wondered if the discipline had even made it over from the Muggle world yet; there was a good chance it hadn't, given the general ignorance of Muggles exhibited by Wizarding society.
Muggle-born children were pulled into the magical world too early to know anything about economics, and most purebloods had a knee-jerk sustain for Muggle ideas. Arthur Weasley was considered eccentric for his interest in Muggle advancements by even liberal pureblood standards; conservatives denounced him as a blood-traitor.
Harry Potter had never been interested in money in the books, the nest egg in his vault being more than enough to get him through his student years. However, stuck though I may be in his body, I wasn't the boy from the books, and I planned on doing far more than just getting through each school-year alive. Having plenty of money would of course make everything much easier.
I had withdrawn three hundred fifty seven Galleons from my vault, and though I hadn't thought to ask Griphook for a precise balance, I estimated it to be around twenty percent of my current net worth.
Most of the purchases I'd made were a one-time thing, many not even explicitly required for Hogwarts. I figured that over the next seven years I was unlikely to spend more than another hundred Galleons on school supplies, if that much. Hopefully I could make the two hundred fifty pounds I'd had Gringotts exchange for me yesterday stretch for the rest of July.
Still, I wanted to buy books and potions ingredients for personal experiments. I'd need more clothing as I grew, and a better broom as my flying improved. I might have to support myself over the summer holidays in future years. Everything would add up, and I knew that without replenishment the stack of Galleons in my vault would dwindle inexorably.
Understanding Wizarding economics was the key to establishing an income. Certain professions and certain goods have higher profit margins than others. This is determined by the availability of the inputs and how highly skilled the labor must be to create the good on one hand - which determine the supply of that good - and the demand for that good on the other hand. In general, high demand and low supply for a good creates plenty of room for a high profit margin.
The sun was peeking above the horizon, so I said 'Nox' while visualizing my intent and the light at the top of my wand winked out. I may have felt a slight easing of tension in my arm, but it could just as easily have been my imagination.
For the next several hours, I browsed The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1. The spells were mostly familiar and almost all of them seemed quite useful. Encouraged by my success with the Wand-Lighting Charm, I decided to learn the Softening Charm next. If I could charm the floor in my bedroom with it, it could make my nights significantly more comfortable until I acquired a proper bed. Retrieving an apple from my pile of groceries, I bit into it and held it in my mouth, then picked up my Charms text and wand and carried them into my bedroom.
Nearly an hour of failure later I had learned it was quite difficult to learn a spell with a wand movement without a teacher. There was a diagram in my textbook that looked like a lopsided letter S, and despite following it precisely and scaling it up and down in size with my motions, I'd had no success. I'd spent some time meditating on memories of soft beds and couches to refine my intent, and more time focusing on the faint connection with my wand.
Frustrated with my lack of progress, I decided to try something else and began lighting and extinguishing my wand, closing my eyes and again focusing on the barely perceptible connection with my wand. My vision flashed dull red rhythmically as the light from my spell passed through the blood vessels in the thin skin of my eyelids. Gradually I became aware of another faint sensation as I pronounced each incantation.
This one felt like a pulse of tension traveling rapidly from the base of my spine up my spinal column and into my heart. What was particularly interesting was that I felt this sensation right before the tip of my wand flickered on or off. As I continued my repetitions of the spell my awareness of this cycle increased, and soon I felt familiar enough with it to attempt Spongify instead of a Lumos, as I focused on the feeling of softness I'd refined in my earlier meditation.
As soon as the words left my lips, a sheet of faint purple mist shot from the tip of my wand, drifting gently to the carpeted floor and disappearing with a dim shimmer. Grinning, I pushed a fist into the floor and felt it yield under the pressure like a featherbed. Upon discovering my charm had only affected an area about a square foot in size, I repeated the spell until I had Softened the entire half of the room opposite the door. Makeshift bed complete, I went back to the living room, had another apple and sat down against a wall to read Magical Theory.
The next few days passed in relative routine. After subsisting on apples and noodle cups made with hot water from my faucet for several days, I found the Bluebell Flame charm in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 3. With most of the charms from the first year curriculum already under my belt, I mastered it without much difficulty and used it to cook a bag of rice in my cauldron. Mixing the rice in with the noodles with a splash of soy sauce for flavor made for a pretty tasty and filling meal.
I had been holed up in my tent in Hyde Park for eight days when my food ran out. After finishing off a few mouthfuls of rice, I washed out the empty cauldron while trying to ignore my nearly empty stomach.
I took a look around. Books lay scattered around my tent's living room, ripped up bits of parchment serving as bookmarks sticking out of all of them. I'd had written pages and pages of notes in my Variable Volume, my Index Page now listing sections for Charms, Potions, History, Transfiguration, Herbology, Occlumency, and Economics. My notes on Charms were particularly impressive; the subject seemed to have endless applications and nearly all the spells in my books on enchanting and defensive magic were classified as Charms.
While there seemed to be a huge number of Charms with all sorts of specific purposes, Transfiguration was governed by various sets of Laws and Principles, and the actual casting often involved little more than tapping an object with one's wand. Transfiguration required much less memorization than Charms but a much more developed ability to create detailed visualizations, as well as constant strict discipline in adhering to the applicable Laws and Principles.
I spent some time tidying up, and then took advantage of a moment with no passersby to exit my tent and tap the spots with my wand to set it packing. I was wearing my simple outfit of black Muggle clothing, with one hundred pounds folded in the back pocket of my chinos. I put my wand a deep inner pocket in my jacket, put on my tent-turned-backpack, and climbed out of the shrubbery onto the path.
The day was overcast and a bit chilly; I was glad I had worn my jacket. I pulled the hood up over my head and set off towards the McDonalds I'd been to before. The outside world felt unsafe after being secluded in my tent for so long, and I felt a prickling in the back of my neck as I walked, like I was being watched. Pausing to retie my shoe and look around, no one seemed to be paying any attention to me, so I continued on.
I had an extremely satisfying breakfast with orange juice and a large coffee. The bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, and hash browns tasted amazing after more than a week eating rice and noodle cups. I washed it all down with the OJ and took my coffee to go, sipping it as I backtracked to a large bookstore I had passed on the previous block.
It didn't take me long to find a detailed atlas of London, as well as thick atlases of Scotland and England. I spent some time perusing the former, since I felt like it was time to pick a new place to set up camp. The cultivated trees of Hyde Park provided little cover, and I was just lucky that an observant witch or wizard hadn't yet wandered by and seen my tent.
I decided to scope out Regent's Park - it was close enough that if it didn't work out, I'd be able to return to Hyde Park, and I'd still be within walking distance of Diagon Alley. Getting there was simple enough, and I walked up Baker Street after buying the three atlases, passing a variety of Sherlock Holmes-themed establishments.
Arriving at the park, I began to circumnavigate it following a road aptly named the Outer Circle. Joggers passed by occasionally but none paid me any attention. After passing some stately mansions and a large estate fenced off from the rest of the park, I found a patch of dense vegetation that looked like it'd make a suitable camping site.
I stopped by a large horse-chestnut tree. With distinctive bunches of drooping, spade-shaped leaves, it served as a good landmark. Looking around and waiting until there were no passing joggers or cars on the road, I hopped over the small fence separating road from nature and pushed my way through the undergrowth. After several yards of slow progress, with my clothing getting snagged on branches and thorny shrubs, I saw what looked like a small clearing in the foliage ahead. Making my way there, I found the area was clear because of a large, flat rock outcropping protruding from the earth, covered with patches of moss. I took another look around, and was satisfied that I was completely invisible from the road.
Just to be sure I'd remain undisturbed, I searched the area for evidence of human visitors. After a few minutes of turning up nothing - not a cigarette butt, bottle cap, or plastic wrapper - I was satisfied that no one frequented this small, rocky clearing in a miniature patch of forest in a park in the center of London. Amazing, really, that there was this untouched and unseen bit of nature, separated from the sprawling metropolis by a half-meter-tall cast-iron fence and a few more meters of untamed undergrowth.
After setting up my tent and shelving my new atlases, I picked up one of the knives I'd bought for Potions and went down into the hidden chamber in my trunk. Making a small slice in my forearm, I dropped some blood into the center of the floor, and the walls briefly seemed to sparkle, which I took as a sign the trunk was now bound to my ownership.
Over the next few weeks, I settled into a routine. Waking at sunrise, my day began with yoga and meditation, followed by spell practice. At that point I'd exit my tent, walk nearby and get take-out for lunch, and buy some fresh fruits and vegetables to go along with my cauldron-rice for dinner. After getting back I'd read my books until dusk, and then do some simple calisthenics followed up by an equally simple dinner. Another hour or two more of reading, the latter part by wand-light, and I generally found myself close to sleep. Refreshing the cushioning charms on my bedroom floor, I'd lie down and work on my Occlumency exercises until I passed into the realm of dreams.