Wit of the Raven
Chapter 3
Harry stretched out on his bed, grinning widely. He'd had the most wonderful day today, and although Professor Snape had seemed a bit brusque at first, he wasn't that bad if you understood him. Professor Snape was a kindred spirit, although not one to be protected by, simply kindred. Perhaps a second cousin in spirit's terms, good for a place to stay a night, although moderately uncomfortable for any longer. Harry grimaced as he thought of his second cousin, and then of Harry Hunting. He curled up, before stretching out again. He was with Professor Snape, and there would be no more Harry Hunting, ever again. Professor Snape had hinted at it several times, and had seemed as close as a person like Professor Snape ever seemed to laughing in Harry's face when he asked if he would have to go back to the Dursleys. "Not on my life, Mr. Potter," he remembered. Harry turned over, planted his face in the pillow, and gripped it, breathing into the pillow.
Harry was in the Leaky Cauldron just temporarily, as Professor Snape had said something about picking something up for the Headmaster. The Professor had set up some kind of blue perimeter, that he said 'discouraged' people from attempting to get in. Harry hadn't touched it, for fear of disrupting it, but was having fun exploring his room, since even this small space was several times as large as the cupboard. There were two rooms, a main room and a bathroom. In the main room was a bed, a table a fireplace, a bookcase, a mirror, a bedside table, and a witch-light. By the fireplace there was a large bag, filled completely with powder, and on the table, there was a polished, antique radio, and a book. After exploring the bathroom, and amusing himself with the different types of bubbles, Harry had briefly explored the room, crawling under the bed, looking in the drawers of the bedside table, and briefly examining the closet and its magic hanger. He hadn't tried to speak to the mirror, as it rather disturbed him, a pale face staring out of the mirror, always staring at him.
Harry closed his eyes, before opening them again, triumphant. An aspect of the room he hadn't explored! The book on the table. He rolled out of the bed, and ran the few meters distance to the table, before plopping down in the chair, far too large for him. He ignored it, and began to read the book. He flipped to the first page, and started reading, before deciding to go back to his wondrous bed. He picked up the book, ran back to the bed, jumped on, and began to read.
On The Leaky Cauldron
- The Leaky Cauldron prides itself on its fine food, fine rooms, and fine employees. If you ever have any complaints, please speak to me, Tom. I can be found from 6 in the morning, to 12 at night in the main entrance.
- Amenities include a continental breakfast, and free use of our rather extensive library.
- If you ever would like something, floo-call 'management' (pronounced ma-nuhge-meant) and direct your request to the head elf, Greco. They will, of course, not do laundry. The incantation for the charm is Clean (item). Place the item of clothing on a flat surface, and draw an upside down cheering charm somewhere on it-
(a picture was shown, a smiley face)
Don't forget- you must want it to be clean, or it never will work.
Harry cocked his head to the side, and began to flip through the pages.
On the excellent instant room serv...
On the superb lunch menu...
On the superb din...
On the...
On the...
On the...
On the...
Presently, Harry came to realize that he was flipping through the pages without actually seeing the words, and slammed the book shut again, before standing on his bed, and throwing it at the table. It opened as it flew threw the air, and landed open, the pages folded. Harry sniggered, before running to the table, and carefully returning it to its previous position.
Harry twiddled his thumbs for maybe twenty seconds, before remembering his purchases, and emptying his bag from Flourish and Blott's. He opened The Standard Book of Spells (Grade One) by Miranda Goshawk, and flipped to page one.
In order to cast a spell, only one thing is neccesary for the casting of the spell: the desire to cast the spell. However, in order to cast a stronger spell, or one that requires less energy, one must know the set incantation, have a wand, and know the set motions. As your magical education progresses, more requirements will come to light, such as magical reagents, runes, specific times and specific emotions, but they will not be necessary for the use of the books in the Standard Book of Spells series.
This series is designed to teach students of magic by learning simple spells early on, ones that will prepare them for the more difficult spells in subsequent books in the series, so that the student will be proficient when he/she goes out into the world.
Spells will be explained thusly-
An explanation of the spell on the first page, along with a brief history of the spell, including creator, time period, and uses throughout history.
The second page will be comprised of diagrams illustrating the proper motions for the spell, and helpful hints for practicing the spell.
On the last page will be a copy of the ministry's notes on the spell.
Intrigued, Harry turned the page, and was rather surprised to see a page that said nothing other than, "Lumos. Tap with wand." Harry pulled his miniaturized staff out of his pocket, and tapped it lightly. The page expanded extremely quickly, to a page roughly the size of a poster. Harry cursed softly, before he began to read.
Lumos: The spell creates light from the magical focus used to cast it, typically a wand, although when cast wandlessly, the light typically comes from the hand.
The page went on to explain the origins of the spell, (perhaps the first spell, ever), and uses, (such as in the great vampire slaying expeditions of 1273, and the last one in 1843.) Harry, eyes wide, read it all as quickly as he could, before tapping it again, causing the poster to shrink back to page size. He tapped the next page, labeled, "Lumos Two. Tap with wand," and this one enlarged to a poster of similar size, with a series of moving photos. Harry blinked for a few seconds, before deciding that it was just more magic. At the very top of the poster, it was written "Double tap to enlarge," so he tapped the photo twice. Immediately, a large grey gas spat out of the photo, and quickly formed as a wizard, in long black robes. The apparition casually flicked his wand hand's wrist forward, and exclaimed, "Lumos!" His robes became lighter, as did his wand, and he seemed elated. The man sublimated again, and returned to his photo.
Harry eagerly tapped the next photo, eager for more information. The next photo had simply a hand, showing the flicking motion closer up, and then a slower version. The final photo just had the face of the wizard, and the sound of lumos, clearly enunciated, "Loo-mohss"
At the bottom of the poster, it essentially described what Harry had seen already in the pictures, although it mentioned that he needed to desire for the light to exist, and Harry quickly closed the poster, and turned the page to the third page, which wasn't another of the tap-pages. It was a long list of symbols, letters, and numbers, which Harry couldn't make head or tail of, so he gave up, and closed the book, eager to try to do the spell.
Harry stood at the foot of his bed, gripped his wand, and awkwardly flicked his wrist forward, almost forgetting to mumble out, "Lumos" as he did so. When he did, he put far too much emphasis on the first syllable, and made the soft 's' sound like a hard 'z'. Nothing happened. He nervously laughed at himself, before bracing himself, and going at it again. "Lumos," he cast with conviction. Again nothing happened, so he went back to his book on the floor, and checked the instructions for casting the spell. He skimmed through the instructions, realized that he had forgotten to want, no to need the light, and made a face. He tapped the poster, closed the book, and stood up again.
Harry concentrated as hard as he possibly could on light, the way that it cast shadows, and the way it lit up a room. The way it was more pleasant that darkness, and less intimidating than darkness. How often he wished he had light in the dark cupboard under the stairs, and as he thought of these things, he flicked his wrist, he softly murmuring, "Lumos." The room was flooded with light, and Harry had to blink his eyes a few times to acclimatize them to the new amount of light, which was almost blinding in its intensity. He wished that it would go down a little bit, so that he could think, and it seemed almost like it did, but later Harry dismissed it as a figment of his imagination.
Harry closed his eyes, and threw his wand to the ground, trying to concentrate on ending the light. He wracked his brain, trying to remember what he had read in the book, something to end the curse, maybe an anti-light, spell, or a counter charm. Suddenly, it struck him. He grinned widely, and yelled, "Nox!" at the top of his lungs.Abruptly, the light ceased, and Harry opened his eyes again, amazed. He breathed, "Wicked," picked his wand, and continued to experiment with the spell.
Harry decisively flicked his wand, and cried, "Lumos!" Nothing happened. Harry waited several more seconds, but still nothing happened. Irritated, he again cried, flicking his wand, "Lumos!" Nothing happened. He mentally went over the steps in head, Incantation, Focus Movement, Reagents N/A, Desire, and . . . ah. Right. Desire.
Once again, Harry called to mind everything that he associated with light, flicked his wand, and shouted, "Lumos!" joyfully, again being nearly blinded by the spell. "Nox," he said gleefully, the room again plunged into relative darkness.
"Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox. Lumos! Nox." Gradually, Harry felt that it was easier to cast Lumos, as it mattered less and less whether he thought of allof the things he associated with light, properly pronounced the words, or even waved his wand. He also learned that he could alter the amount of light he received by wishing for a different kind of light, the light that gave enough illumination to do homework, late at night, as opposed to the light that rivaled the sun in intensity.
After he had finished practicing, he got a piece of lined paper, to make his own notes on the spell. He wrote Lumos at the top of the paper in large, jagged print, and then made a bullet point on the third line. Harry scribbled 'Desire', and underlined it several times, before making another bullet point, and writing 'Wand Movement', which was quickly followed by 'Incantation'.
Harry cocked his head to the side, trying to think of whether he had missed something or not, and ran through the steps in his head. He shrugged his shoulders, and wrote 'Wand' below 'Wand Movement'. He went back to his book to see if he had forgotten anything, and eventually decided he hadn't.
While closing the book, Harry suddenly remembered what it had said on the first page. The only requisite for doing the spell was desire, the book had informed him. He put down his wand, and lacing his fingers together, as if in prayer, thought, lumos, lumos, lumos. Nothing happened, and he sighed, deciding to try it slowly, gradually removing his supports, the wand, the incantation, and the movement. He tried removing the incantation first, internally chanting lumos as he flicked his wrist and thought of light. Immediately, the desired light appeared, although Harry could easily feel the difference, this spell briefly making him catch his breath. Afterwards, he quickly cast nox using the same technique.
Next, he simply clutched his wand fiercely, without moving it, and concentrated as hard as he possibly could on all of the different aspects of the light he wanted to create, and the incantation for the spell. He thought lumos as hard as he possibly could, over and over again, as before, and gradually he began to see a light growing on the stick. He kept at it, concentrating on the light, and on making the light of the wand grow, and it slowly did, until finally it was at its limit. Sweating heavily, and gasping for breath from the exertion, he cast nox normally, causing him to gasp, and fell back onto his bed, exhausted.
He ached in places he hadn't known existed, and still felt weak from exhaustion. It was as if his entire body was on fire, but simultaneously freezing. He moved his arm, finding that it didn't in fact cause the pain to change at all, and stood up. He began to beat at his body in a sad attempt to make the pain go away. It didn't. He began to quietly cry, too tired to scream, and lay down on the floor, rolling and twitching, trying to make the pain go away. Eventually, he lay still, his eyes drifting shut as he began to fall asleep through the pain.
When the professor returned to the room where he had placed his charge, he was unpleasantly surprised by an unconscious Harry next to the bed. His arms were slumped to his right, and his legs splayed out to either side, in what looked like an exceedingly painful position. Snape cast petrificus totalus on the fallen figure, and was rather surprised when Harry's eyes immediately jerked open as his arms were wrenched to his sides and his legs straight. Snape was rather surprised to see them filled with pain, twitching frenetically. Snape waited a few moments for the pain to pass, but it didn't, and Harry's eyes twitched from side to side with greater and greater urgency.
Upon seeing this, Snape quickly cast finite incantatem and was pleased to see Harry's eyes stop running around. Harry's body relaxed, and he moaned in pain as he let his head flop to the side. "I'm sorry, Professor Snape," he whispered.
"I see no reason why you should be sorry Harry. In fact, it is I who should be sorry. I didn't foresee the full body binding spell having that kind of effect on you. I'm sorry." Snape's eyebrows drew together in a sort of confused grimace as he apologized. "It was only supposed to make your body totally still so that I could levitate you onto the bed without any harm coming to you. I didn't mean to wake you."
Snape's cloak whipped about as he stalked forwards. "I wonder why the spell caused you such pain," he pondered. "It's rather unlikely that you're allergic to spells, it's a squib illness, not a wizard's. And you have your wand, so you're clearly not a squib." He abruptly turned towards Harry, and upon noticing the book on the floor, squatted down, pulling it over to him. "Hm... this may be the source of our problems, Mr. Potter. Have you been practicing spells?"
"Just the one, Professor. I'll show you," Harry groped around for his wand, before flipping over and propping himself up on his elbows. "Lu-"
Snape cut him off, "No demonstration will be necessary, Mr. Potter. I believe you. Although it seems peculiar that you are suffering from E.M.E. after a lumos."
"E.M.E., Professor?" Harry inquired.
"Extreme Magical Exhaustion. The common," he sneered the word, as if disgusted by the very concept of it, "term is Burnout. Do you remember an excruciating pain accompanied by an inability to move or even really think, after a certain number of spells?"
Harry nodded vehemently and he answered, "Yes sir. I was attempting to er... cast? Is that the word?" At Snape's nod, he continued, "I was trying to cast Lumos silently and without a wand movement, sir."
His professor quickly drew in a breath, before slowly exhaling. "And whatever might have prompted this unusually unintelligent behavior, Mr. Potter? I'm quite sure that Mrs. Goshawk doesn't encourage the idea of silent or wandless charms until at least Sixth Year. Where would you have even gotten the idea for one?"
"Well, she mentioned that all that was necessary for a spell was the need, the desire to cast it, so I started off small and built up," he started. "First I used all of the stuff that was mentioned in the book, intention, wand, wa-"
"Yes, yes, I'm familiar with the casting of a spell," Snape interrupted. "Go on."
Harry nodded, before beginning to speak as quickly as possible. "So then I tried without the incantation and that was easy, so then I tried to do it without moving my wand, but that was really hard so I got Extremely Magical Exhausted." Harry paused for a breath, before correcting himself. "Uh, I mean, Extremely Magically Exhausted."
"Close. It's Extreme Magical Exhaustion, Mr. Potter. I'd like to see you do the spell without the incantation some other time, but-" at the sight of Harry's hand inching towards his wand, he spat, "Accio!" Harry's wand jumped into his hand, and he continued, "But not until after you have fully recovered. E.M.E. is a serious ailment, and can't be cured by any magical means. In fact, any magic performed on the person affected by E.M.E., or by the affected person, will cause it to awaken again, and you will be again afflicted by the pain and exhaustion."
Harry's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "So that's why I can't see!"
Snape's eyes narrowed in on Harry. "You don't seem blind to me."
Harry bit his lip, as he tried to think of the words to describe what he meant. "Well, not blind, sir. I mean... everything is blurry, and a little out of focus, and..."
"It sounds like you're myopic, Harry. That is to say, near sighted. Most likely your magic has been compensating for your sight since you began to show the signs. After a couple of weeks your magic will let you see again... in the interim, you can still read if you bring the book close to your face, and I'll obtain some self correcting glasses for you. But don't try to let yourself see, it could have disastrous concequences. "
Harry groaned as he realized what this meant, and asked, "So I won't be able to do any magic until I'm better again?"
Snape arched an eyebrow. "Your powers of observation astound me, Mr. Potter," he sneered in derision. "None whatsoever. Unless you have a great urgency to feel the pain of depletion again." Snape paused for a second. "Do you?"
"Um, no Professor."
"Good." Snape frowned, stood up, and then sat down again on the bed. "In a typical situation, I would take you back to your family and let them care for you, but obviously that wouldn't work with you."
"Yes Professor," Harry said quietly.
"So I suppose you'll have to stay here," Snape carried on blithely. "I'll arrange for you to buy the room, we'll set up some basic wards, and if all goes well you'll live here until you come of age."
Harry started at this, and stood up on his knees. "What?"
"While you were exhausting your magical source, I was arranging for you to be emancipated. There is a law that allows for the last surviving member of a family to be emancipated if he so wishes." Snape paused again, looking Harry in the eye. "You do want to be emancipated, don't you?"
"Um, Professor, I don't know what emancipated means," Harry replied softly.
"Ah." Snape bit his lip, before starting, "When one's parents aren't treating a child well, the child will become emancipated to free it from the parents. You aren't legally allowed to do magic," Snape gave Harry a hard look, "But you wouldn't be able to normally."
"Well, they wouldn't know if I was practicing magic, would they?" Harry grinned a little at Snape.
Snape frowned, and replied, "On the contrary, there are enchantments set up all around England to detect magic." Seeing Harry's terrified face, he added, "Don't worry, the worst you'll get for performing under aged magic is expelled from school and your wand broken in two- Really, no big deal."
"No big deal? No big deal!" Harry started, his voice rising, "If I get expelled then I'll have to go back to the Dursleys, and everyone will hate me, and I'll have to go to . . . "
"You will not go back those despicable muggles," Snape spat, interrupting Harry, "Ever. You have my word." He narrowed his eyes at Harry, before nodding and pulling a beautiful dagger from out of his sleeve. "As I see you do not believe me, Harry, I'll swear a wizard's oath on it." He began to awkwardly roll up his right arm's sleeve, while explaining the concept to Harry. "A wizard's oath is a promise to uphold something. Like a regular oath. As in, 'I swear to do in my mother'. Except that these are binding. Quite literally, they're bound in blood. So while I don't have to do in my mother," he pulled his dagger up to his arm and made a small horizontal slash on the side of his arm. Snape grunted, and then quickly moved to the bedside table, placing the dagger on the table and raising his arm directly above it. Holding his arm in place, letting blood slowly drip onto the knife, he resumed his brief lecture. "I will have to do what I swear to do with my blood. There is no alternative. The oath will drive me insane if I deny its siren call."
At this, Harry's eyes widened, and he quickly began to protest, "Professor, there's no reason to do that, I mean, I certainly wouldn't wish insanity on anyone, and if there are circumstances that mean that I have to go back to my relatives, then. . . ."
Snape glared at Harry, and was about to say something, when he saw that about a tenth of a milliliter of blood had accumulated on the knife. He drew his wand with his left hand and sloppily waved it over the cut a few times, muttering under his breath. Harry watched with amazement as it slowly but surely healed, right before his eyes.
"Potter, there is no doubt that I would do this already, no child deserves that kind of treatment. This will merely function as a warning signal for me. I will even include loop holes. You'll see." He gestured for Harry to sit on the bed, and he did so. The professor knelt down, and quite firmly told Harry to raise his wand hand. Harry did so, with much trepidation, and Snape carefully pressed his right thumb into the blood, before pressing his thumb into Harry's, and intoning, "I call upon the Covenant of Lustitia, my party's sacrifice being to do all that is within my power to prevent the other party from ever returning to his Aunt and Uncle Dursley's abode. The other party's sacrifice is naught." Tendrils of flame appeared before Harry's eyes, spelling out 'Concur?' Harry didn't move, eyes wide, until Snape nodded frantically.
Harry breathed, "I- um. Yes. I-I concur." A red vine climbed from each of their thumbs, up their arms, and up through their noses. Harry started at the odd feeling of seeing something moving, but not feeling it, and looked at Snape, checking to see if this was normal. It apparently was, as the professor's eyes were relatively calm.
"Everything seems to be fine, do you feel at all different?" The professor inquired.
"Um, no, not at all." Harry truthfully answered. "Is that bad?"
Snape's lips curled up into a smirk, replying, "No, not at all. Anyways, back to our original conversation, before I sidetracked us. The ministry will send you a letter when they realize that you've been doing under-aged magic. You haven't received an owl yet, so you're obviously fine."
Harry nodded, visibly relieved, before his eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "But if they have all of those enchantments set up, shouldn't they know that I'm doing magic?"
Snape smirked, before easily replying, "I'll give you a book so that you understand it and all of its loopholes."
Harry nodded, solemnly, and Snape broke out into a grin that would have been true if not for the slightly malicious look in his eye. "However, it would definitely not be a good idea to cast until you understand when you can, and when you can't cast magic. Good thing that after E.M.E., you can't do any magic until your stores of magic are completely regenerated, unless you want to relapse."
Harry softly groaned, and stretched out on the bed. "Isn't there anything you can do to make me get my magic back faster? Like, use a potion?"
"Potions pull the magic of your body out of it to use in a very specific way, conserving energy. They are pulling magic. Using magic. You will regenerate your magic over the course of two weeks. During that period of time, you may not touch anything with active magic. That includes the door, which leeches magic to lock and unlock. You will not use your wand. You will not leave this room."
Harry sighed, and turned over on the bed, so that he was lying on his stomach. "Still better than at the Dursleys. But what will I do?"
"Read. Go through your textbooks, if you retain any of the knowledge, then you may end up impressing your professors. Do not under any circumstances, practice any of the spells, especially not the transfiguration ones. While recovering from E.M.E., any magic will use all of the magic conserved in your body, until you're completely out, so that a simple turkey quill to quail quill may make the quill large enough so that you end up impaling yourself on it. Charms are less unpredictable than transfigurations. Again, do not practice any of the spells, even if it's only miming the motions, and you're sure that you're not thinking about the end process. I will take your wand, as well." Snape pulled a small bag with a drawstring out of his pants' pocket, and opened the opening in a circle two or three inches in diameter, dropping Harry's wand in, pulling the bag shut, and stashing the bag in his pocket again. "Believe me, Mr. Potter, your wand will be safer with me than with you, and you will not be tempted to perform any spells with it."
"What if I run out of books to read, Professor? What shall I do then?" Harry asked, resigned to his fate.
The professor thought for several seconds, before nodding, looking equally resigned. "I will not deprive you of human contact for two weeks, Potter. I will . . . fetch more books for you if you run out of them." Snape grimaced, before smirking. "In fact, I'll get a book right now. I believe the title is something along the lines of, The Outstanding Dangers of the Unintelligent Practice of Magic. I'll expect a thousand word essay on it."
Harry's eyes widened, and he gaped. "A thousand words? Do you want me to count them out?"
Snape cursed, and stalked over to where Harry had deposited his school supplies. "I had forgotten that you couldn't use your magic in your current state. Here, I'll enchant your paper with a word counter. . . ." His voice drifted off as he continued to look for the paper. He found it, stood up, and moved it from his right hand to his left. He quickly muttered a spell, and a deep blue light encompassed the paper. It concentrated in the upper right hand corner of the paper, and suddenly extended down through the pages. The light ceased to exist after a few seconds, leaving only a small box with a small zero in it. Snape cast another spell, this time with a pale blue effect, immediately striping the blank page, before extending. Again the light disappeared, leaving nothing but blue lines.
"Er, ah, well that solves that issue. About the other book . . . um . . . on the loopholes of the statutes?" Harry asked tentatively.
Snape nodded decisively, and his lips twitched upwards. "Good point, Potter. That one will be due two days after this one, same length. Honesty shouldn't go unrewarded."
Harry grinned, pleased at Snape's compliment, before yawning. He jerked his head back, and nervously bit lip, mumbling out apology after apology, but Snape waved them off. "It would in fact be best if you were to sleep now. It has been clinically proven that magic regenerates faster while the recipient of E.M.E. is asleep. If using it wouldn't prolong the illness, I would've used a Draught of Living Death on you." Seeing Harry's stricken look, Snape clarified, "It induces sleep so deep that it appears to be like Death. The Draught accelerates most natural healing, and can be used to fake a death very easily."
Harry nodded, barely managing to hold off the grip of sleep. He yawned again, and found a more comfortable position, before closing his eyes.
Snape nodded, before heading towards the bathroom. There were an extraordinary number of items to be leech-proofed, and he wanted to be done with them as soon as possible. Snape sighed, and thought of a time at which he would've laughed in the face of anyone who had suggested that he, heir of the Snape fortune would end up doing the tedious job of making another's child's room leech proof. At least it isn't for a weakling, he thought, there's hope for this one yet.
A/N Gah, spazzing. I'm way behind schedule on this, (I had hoped to have 3 new chapters done by now, and I have half a page) mostly because next week is midterms. Yes. Those dreaded things in which you have to remember stuff you learned three months ago. So I've been really busy in the last two weeks, as teachers crammed all of the random assignments they could think of into two weeks ago, and review into last week. However, midterms have finally come, and this week, I think I'll be able to get a lot of writing down. You reserve the right to throw various vegetables at me if I don't have a new chapter by next week.
On another note, here's the first really different stuff. The term EME is completely mine, and you get to see a little more magic. My magic is way flashier and awesome looking, which I'm rather proud of, and if anyone recognizes who Severus mentioned in his spell, then they'll have a clue as to where this story is going. Oh, right, and my Snape is pureblood.