Harry was in trouble. He knew it. His uncle Vernon was verbosely explaining this to the animal control officer.

Driving away from the house on Privet Drive two days earlier, Aunt Marge had rear ended another car as it slowed for a red light. As she attempted to explain away her alcohol laden breath and impaired driving, Ripper woke up and proceeded to vent his frustration on the responding police officer.

Uncle Vernon continued his rant. His arguments and explanations repeating at a greater frequency and his voice growing louder. The animal control officer quickly turned from uninterested to annoyed. He tried to interrupt Vernon; however, Harry's uncle forcefully continued on. A large, bushy cat in a nearby cage hissed irritatedly.

"Smart cat," smiled Sophia.

Harry glanced at his two companions, but was careful not to respond to their presence. Uncle Vernon had been unusually irritable since his sister had been arrested. Which was unfortunate given how irritable he usually was.

The officer again tried to answer Uncle Vernon. This only seemed to give him renewed energy however. As Vernon become fully engrossed in explaining how Harry was responsible for Ripper's attack on the police officer and several witnesses, Harry took the opportunity to examine the various animals and cages visible. among the expected cats and dogs, there was, unexpectedly, a monkey and a large snake. Tom apparently had grown tired complaining of his uncle's actions and lounged on an overstuffed chair that had appeared.

Harry suppressed a sigh.

----

Tom sat brooding. The surrounding cages took on a dark, twisted look to better accommodate his mood. He looked at Sophia who stood near Harry. It was only a simple trick. He thought to himself. It was not Harry that had defeated him, but his mudblood mother. So much for prophecies.

But what had happened? He was not dead, yet why was he trapped?

He looked again at the woman, Sophia. She knows. She had too. It was hers, the power to interact with Harry. He could appear when she did, but he was powerless when she cut off that channel.

"So," he whispered to the nearby, caged snake, "do you yearn to be set free?" Tom received no response. Harry was now being shuffled from the office by his uncle. Tom watched as the snake disappeared from the boy's awareness. I know you do. A snake is patient. It can wait for an opportunity to ripen before striking.

----

Harry was confined to his closet. He was being punished. True he resented being kept from the world and the small miracles his companions were charting; however, for the moment he was occupied. He held the stone he had found in the stream bed examining the colored veins that ran through it.

"How does it work?"

Sophia answered, "It is not really about making it work but shaping it into a tool. This stone has acquired a certain amount of magical strength. Just as a log can be made into various objects, we can use this stone."

"Tom?" asked Harry.

"Don't worry Harry, I really don't have much expertise here. It sounds like Sophia is on the right track, I'll just listen for a while." responded the man.

"Okay, so how do we shape it?" He asked, turning again to Sophia.

Sophia answered, "We should use runes," Harry audibly groaned, "They will be the best method to shape and guide the magic within."

Sophia continued, "We are acting a little backwards from normal. Normally a wizard would decide upon the effect he wants to produce and create a plan to achieve that effect. We are, given the circumstances, taking stock of your meager possessions and determining what can be made from them. It is a very different process." Harry frowned slightly and Sophia added, "a different process, but you don't have a goal other than to see and wield some sort of magic, we can achieve that."

Harry waved his arms gesturing towards the small confines of his closet and asked. "Okay, this is what we have, what can we make?"

Tom chuckled.

"Magic has affinities," spoke Sophia at which Harry furrowed his brow, "The magic of your stone is unique based off its history and composition. It may be powerful if put to one use, but powerless if put to another. We need to uncover the nature of the magic of your stone."

"How do we do that?"

Tom spoke, "It may be difficult, such properties are usually uncovered through certain spells or portions."

"I have something we can try" contested Sophia. "Try to gather some dust from the corners of the room and from under your bed. Take a sheet from your notebook and cover it with the dust."

Harry dutifully tried to follow her instructions, but it was difficult. Dust has the reputation for getting everywhere, but he found it was rather insubstantial and difficult to herd. Yet after nearly 10 minute's work, the white of the notebook page was darkened slightly by thin layer of pale brown dust.

Sophia traced a figure on the page with her finger leaving behind glowing green lines. "This is the Vej rune. It represents age. I want you to trace this rune in the dust." Harry did so leaving behind a figure like a forking arrow.

"Wands act as a focus for your magic. So can runes. However, runes are very specific."

Tom nodded a little in agreement, "I see. So even if Harry manages to channel using the rune, it will destroy itself before the ministry is able to detect it."

Sophia nodded.

Tom continued, "Harry, I see how this will work. Channeling through a single rune without further preparation is both practically useless and dangerous; however, given that we have constructed this rune of dust, the rune itself will be destroyed by the tiniest spark of magic."

"That means I can do magic?" asked Harry.

"A little," answered Sophia, "It would be both dangerous and illegal to try anything to spectacular."

"What do I do?"

"This rune is by itself. It has not been crafted into a spell effect. With it you will be powering Vej or 'Age'. The dust should help with this as it is composed of castoff skin, flaked paint, and so forth. Fix firmly in your mind and image or feeling that you can associate with age."

Harry closed his eyes and thought for a bit, he remembered an elderly man he had once seen while shopping with his Aunt. His deeply winkled face had be fascinating, and Harry remembered his aunt mortification as he stared too long.

"Okay, I think I have it. What do I do?"

Sophia answered, "It is difficult to explain. I want you consider the rune you have traced as if it was a gateway. On the other side of the gateway, imagine a great ocean of 'Age'". Tom chuckled a bit and Sophia continued, "Focus on the rune, you want pull this agedness from this ocean through the rune. You might find it helpful if you hold your hand above the paper."

Harry extended his hand of the rune, and tried to pull through the run as Sophia instructed. He fixed the old man in his mind and concentrated.

A couple of minutes latter he gave up. "I don't think anything is happening."

"What was your concept of 'Age'" Sophia asked.

"I was using the image an old man I once saw."

"'Vej' is not quite the same as old. It is more a concept related to the passage of time and its effects. One way to describe it is that it is the idea that as things are now, they were different in the past, and will be different still in the future."

"I don't know if I can do this." Harry said.

"Do your best. We are stuck in the closet. It really doesn't matter either way if you are able to channel 'Vej' or not.

Harry nodded and closed his eyes and held his hand above the ruin.

Vej is not just becoming old ... It is a transformation ... We are using the dust because it is linked to Vej ... It is made up of skin, and paint, and other things that have been cast away ... Everything turns to dust ... Wouldn't everything eventually be dust? ... No I guess plants grow and rocks are formed ...

Harry felt very small in his closet as he considered how old everything around him was. There were different objects and different things, but it was all there, it had always been here. Wildly different, but here, just with different faces ...

Tom watched as the boy changed expression obviously trying to force his 8-year old mind to understand such an abstract concept. Tom was considering a particularly blank expression when he saw a small orange spark jump up from the paper beneath the boy's hand.

"Harry what were you doing just then?" asked Sophia.

"I was thinking of the world and I saw it changing. I saw that nothing could remain the same. I tried calling to this force through the rune."

"Open your eyes."

Harry opened his eyes and looked at the dust covered page. The rune was still there but broken, the lines blurred out.

Sophia was smiling. "Good job. I will show you how to anchor the rune to your stone, we can then test the stone to see if we can identify any runes with affinities to it."

-----

Harry lay on his bed trying to quiet his mind any allow himself to go to sleep. It had been rather frustrating. He, Sophia, and Tom had tested various runes with the stone. It had been explained that he would have trouble channeling through the runes if the rune did not have an affinity for the dust he was using or the stone, but even then, it was never clear if the channeling failed due to the lack of affinity, or because, he just wasn't doing it right. They had identified a couple of runes that seemed to have an affinity to the stone, among them the 'Vej' rune.

When he had tested 'Vej' with the stone, it had been the only time he had actually felt anything during the entire exercise. It hadn't been much, but he had felt a slight pop as the rune was destroyed. Sophia had been concerned, and she had asked that he examine the hand he held close to the rune carefully, but there hadn't been anything wrong as far as he could see.

As sleep took him, Harry continued to review the events of the day. Why did Tom speak about being trapped at the the animal shelter?..