Chapter 7: Telepathy

Within a few minutes of Harry pulling himself from his stupor, the police arrived, quickly pulling aside the adults watching over them one at a time including the matron, her assistant, and the tour guide as they were questioned over what exactly had happened. Luckily for Harry though, the children were spared from any such questioning as the police did their best to spare forcing them to relive the experience. He simply had to wait within the crowd of children sitting on the museum lawn, doing his best not to let on that he knew exactly what had occurred. Within the hour, the police had judged the driver of the car to be entirely at fault for the incident, letting all the witnesses leave after getting their information and placing the driver under arrest.

Once they were cleared to leave, Miss Brenda walked back over to the children assembled on the grass, tears still present in the corner of her eyes.

"Given the… events that have occurred today, I've talked with the museum staff and told them we're no longer interested in the rest of the tour and they assured them that they understood everything, so let's go ahead and load up onto the bus," She told them quietly, bringing an end to their trip to London. The dead silence of the bus on the way back was a sharp contrast to the energy and excitement the children had possessed just a few hours prior.

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Harry walked in silence, contemplating the events of the past couple of weeks since the trip to London had ended. The funeral for the two boys became a huge affair that the entire town attended with even the media getting involved for a few days, going so far as interviewing the matron of the orphanage. After around fifteen minutes of walking, he finally reached his destination, a small clearing near the edge of York where a stream cut through a lightly wooded section of the land. He smiled slightly as he saw a large oak tree with a name carved into it about halfway up reading "Bo". Harry approached the tree slowly, pausing for a moment before he spoke.

"Hello there my friend, I'm back again. I just wanted you to know I did it, I avenged you, Derek and Michael are both dead," He told him quietly as he sank down to the ground in front of the tree.

"I know it was selfish of me, but I didn't do it just for you if I'm being honest. I hoped killing them would make me feel better about your death. I've just felt so empty inside, so alone. I thought killing them might help, that it might make me feel better, but it didn't. I feel just the same as I did before," He whispered hoarsely as he stared at his friend's grave.

"Anyway, I hope you can rest now buddy. I know we didn't have much time together but you were a good friend, hopefully wherever you are, you're happy," He finished, rising to his feet as he did so. As he walked away from Bo's grave he steeled his resolve. No matter what it took he wouldn't stop, not until he was strong enough that no-one could ever hurt him or anything he cared about ever again.

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Harry did his best to use the following months for what he considered useful progress. He continued practicing with his mana, even getting to the point where he could control up to five objects at once when he really pushed himself. He'd even learned how to replicate the times it had healed his injuries from back when he was being bullied by concentrating magic around the wounds.

"But it's still not enough, I can control five objects and I'm getting better at lifting heavier and heavier things, but I can't seem to control more than five things at once. I can't go any further without getting a huge headache. These can't be my limits. I know my power can do more than just this. Even if this is the limit of my telekinesis, I can heal myself too so it's not as if my power is only telekinesis, what else can I do with my powers?" He wondered to himself idly, levitating the five stones he'd been practicing with above his hand in a circle as he worked on fine tuning his control. He thought back over what he knew of his power so far, and what it could accomplish, flipping through the notebook he had in his lap as he did so.

Shortly after his revenge, he'd taken to writing down any thoughts and facts about his powers he had into them in order to help him think and make sure he didn't forget anything. While someone else could certainly stumble upon them, he was confident that they'd brush it off as him being delusional before they took the notebooks seriously, so he felt it was worth the risk. The notebook in his lap was already the third one he'd managed to fill with his notes, and it had only been two months since he'd started using them!

"I can talk to snakes, heal from injuries faster than normal, control objects, but what else?" He thought to himself, flipping through the pages as he recalled each of his various experiences with his mana as he found each of their respective pages in his notes. Reaching the page where he depicted the incident in the basement, he winced slightly but read through the page once more anyway in search of ideas. It left him feeling an odd mix of angry and sad, as it always did when he thought back on that day, but it also helped him answer his question.

"I'm pretty sure I read their minds that day. If I want to be successful after I leave this awful orphanage, that will definitely come in handy," Harry paused for a moment, considering the implications. He hadn't really considered the potential his powers brought him for success at life outside the orphanage, mostly focusing on surviving the day to day troubles he faced, but once he really thought about it…

"Who can stop someone who can move things with their mind and read everyone's thoughts?" Harry murmured to himself as he thought it over, a grin slowly appearing on his face. With telekinesis he could protect himself and with mind reading he could learn almost anything. He smiled as he thought of the possibilities. He knew what his next step needed to be. He was going to master reading minds.

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The next day, Harry made his way from the orphanage to the clearing where he'd buried Bo once more, though it wasn't to visit his friend's grave, it was for the clearing itself. The clearing was isolated which helped ensure no-one would come near it, the nearest road was even far enough away that the only sound was that of the stream flowing around the rocks. More importantly for Harry's plans though, it had a reasonable amount of traffic from animals of various sorts who relied on the stream for water. He'd stayed up trying to think of a way to safely practice and experiment with his mind reading capabilities, but he kept running into the same issue. If something went wrong and somebody actually realized he was reading their mind, he was pretty much screwed.

"Animals, however, solve that problem quite nicely. It's not as if they can tell anyone if I try reading their minds or mind controlling them and they catch on," He thought happily as he noticed a small squirrel he saw running towards the stream. He sank to the ground, settling into the meditative pose that he'd become more than used to throughout his time using his mana so far.

"Normally I wouldn't bother with this, especially on the ground in the middle of nowhere, but I need to be at my best if I'm experimenting and trying something new like this," Harry thought to himself. Unlike his standard meditation though as he sat on the ground, he didn't try focusing on his own body as he normally did when he started to call on his mana, instead, he tried extending his senses outward, past his body. He grimaced slightly as he felt the mana in the air around him as he did so.

While it normally didn't cause him too many problems, simply ignoring him, but without a tendril of magic to focus his consciousness on the mana in the air seemed to actively resist him, pushing against his senses. Harry could only liken it to the time the matron had taken the entire orphanage to a beach and when he'd tried to go swimming the water had weighed him down, making it harder to move. Strengthening his resolve, he pushed on, doing his best to power through the resistance the mana in the air caused.

Finally, he reached the squirrel, sensing a vague disturbance in the mana in the air, a small, barely noticeable spot where the mana wasn't quite the same as it was everywhere else. That was interesting. He hadn't noticed that animals caused disturbances in the mana in the air before. Still it wasn't what he was trying to learn. He tried pushing deeper, trying to push into the squirrel itself. Unfortunately, it did nothing, his consciousness simply going through the absence of mana that was the squirrel. Frustrated, Harry retracted his senses, panting heavily from the exertion it had caused him.

"Well that was useless, I didn't accomplish anything but sensing where the animal was. And for that matter why is it so much harder to extend my senses out without a mana tendril, am I not doing this right? I know just reaching out with a mana tendril won't let me read a person's mind, I've done it before, it just lets me move them, but reaching out with my senses didn't do anything either," He pondered to himself, trying to think of something he could have been doing wrong. He sat for a few minutes, quietly contemplating how to proceed before he noticed another slight issue. The squirrel he'd been trying to read the mind of had left.

"I suppose another will come along, I need to figure this out before one does," He resolved.

"Could it be a matter of distance?," Harry considered before dismissing it. He'd been about the same distance from the squirrel that he'd been from Michael. The only difference from when he'd managed it the last time was…

"Eye contact, I was looking into his eyes," Harry realized. Could it really be that simple? Well it wouldn't hurt for him to test it at least. He just had to wait for an animal to show up

"In the meantime though, I should experiment with sensing in general some more, I might be able to use this to tell when people are near me if I get good enough at it. Hell for all I know this might be the key to finally figuring out how to do something with the mana that's in the air," He decided, closing his eyes this time as he tried extending his senses outward. It wasn't long before he was forced to stop again, the strain proving to be too much for him once more. Harry didn't let the challenge deter him though, quickly repeating the process as he waited. Luckily for him, he didn't have to wait long. After what felt like around half an hour to Harry, another animal came bounding into the clearing, a rabbit this time.

"You're not getting away as easily as the squirrel did," Harry thought to himself, quickly extending his mana outward and picking the rabbit up. Bringing the creature toward him, he locked eyes with it, doing his best to ignore its squirming. Splitting his focus as best he could, he tried sensing for the rabbit while still holding it near him. Peering into its eyes, he extended his senses into them, feeling something that felt entirely different from the rest of the rabbit.

Suddenly, he wasn't in his own body anymore, instead he was seeing from the rabbits perspective, floating in the air as he was staring at himself. It was strange on a level that was almost as disturbing as it was fascinating to Harry. He could feel a strange sense of panic filling him that was rapidly becoming worse the longer he was in the rabbits mind. The rabbit began writhing around in a frenzy, struggling fiercely against the mana holding it still as it panicked. Harry was thrown out of the rabbit's mind just in time to see it fall eerily still. Unable to stop the sudden nausea he was feeling, he emptied his guts into the grass next to him as he panted for breath, dropping the rabbit onto the ground as he did so.

"Damn it!" Harry cursed to himself with a grimace as he recalled the experience. He was fairly certain he'd given the creature a heart attack and it wasn't an experience he cared to repeat. Feeling the rabbit's mind in its final moments, full of panic and fear at what was happening, hadn't been pleasant in the least, it had left him feeling disoriented and confused. Despite that though, and the nausea the event had caused him, Harry struggled to keep the smile off his face. He might've needed more practice but he'd done it! Eye contact was the missing piece he'd been looking for! He'd read somethings mind!

"Still, I think that's quite enough for today," Harry decided, pushing himself to his feet. He glanced down at the rabbit he'd sacrificed during his attempted experiment.

" carefully dug a hole in the ground using his power, lifting the

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It wasn't until a week later, with extensive practice extending his senses from his body as well as heavily reviewing the notes he'd taken about his prior attempt that Harry judged he was ready to attempt another mind reading, the previous attempt making Harry feel the need for more caution on any follow up sat in the grass by the stream once more, staring into the eyes of what was this time a squirrel, slowly extending his senses and doing his best to just barely graze against what he recognized as the squirrels mind just behind its eyes now that he knew what to look for. Resting on the very edge of its mind, he could faintly feel the squirrel's panic as it struggled against his magic, but it wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the rabbits had been. He pressed on slowly, feeling the squirrel's growing panic as Harry slowly went further and further into his mind. Crossing a threshold of sorts, he suddenly wasn't seeing things from his own body anymore, once more seeing from the animal's perspective, causing the squirrel to grow irrationally panicked, writhing in his magical grip just as the rabbit had.

"Nope, not this again," Harry thought to himself, quickly retracting his mental presence. To his relief, the squirrel calmed down quickly afterward. Preferring to avoid pushing his luck with the creature, he released it from his magical grip as well, allowing the tendrils of magic to head back into his body. Seeing its chance, the squirrel ran away, utterly terrified. Meanwhile, Harry was smiling to himself, pleased at the creature's continued existence even after he'd entered its mind fully. While he was sure it wouldn't be easy going from there, at least he had a foundation to work with.

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For the next few weeks, Harry continued practicing his mind reading on animals, progressively learning more and more about the skill. It had taken him a while but eventually he'd learned how to keep his present so light the animals couldn't even notice he was present, and that had opened new doors for him. Once the animals stopped nearly dying within a few moments of him entering their mind, he'd managed to make significant progress. While present in the animals mind if he thought of various things it prompted visions of memories from throughout the animals life. He'd made even larger improvements on not just feeling the animals emotions, but even changing what animals were feeling by imposing whatever feeling he wanted on them through the mental link he forged. By the end of the month he felt confident he was ready for the next step, human testing.

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"So, as you can see, multiplication is simply adding a number to itself by however many groups of that number you have!" Harry's teacher, a middle aged man named Mr. Wilkes, explained enthusiastically at the front of the classroom as Harry looked around the room.

"Who here would be a good target for testing?" He wondered to himself, looking around the classroom for a target he could actually look into the eyes of. His eyes came to a stop on Nigel who happened to be looking vaguely in Harry's direction as he zoned out, ignoring Mr. Wilkes who was still lecturing the other children on how multiplication worked.

"Nigel, I retract any previous thoughts of you being useless. In this one circumstance, your life does have purpose," Harry thought to himself, seizing the chance. He concentrated, locking eyes with the boy as he sent out a mental probe. He ignored the apathy he felt from Nigel as he approached the borders of his mind, instead diving straight into its depths. The experience was… different, than an animal to say the least.

"When will this torture end! I barely understood yesterday's class and this is even worse," Harry heard as he reached the depths of Nigel's mind. Harry came closer to jumping than he wanted to admit as hearing the thought caught him slightly off guard. He'd never heard animal's thoughts before when he was in their minds, most likely because of the simplicity of their minds. Still, trying to read the boy's thoughts, it was difficult, his mind was a mess of ideas, memories, thoughts and more that made trying to navigate its depths hard for Harry.

"I wonder, can he hear me if I try communicating?" Harry thought curiously

"Hello," Harry said mentally, doing his best to project the thought towards Nigel.

"D-did someone say something?" Harry heard mentally, causing him to retreat rapidly from the boy's mind just in time to see the boy looking around wildly in confusion.

"Is there something wrong Mr. Andrews?" Mr. Wilkes asked from the front of the classroom, noticing Nigel was acting oddly. The boy froze, glancing towards the front of the classroom.

"No sir, I'm, thought I heard something,"Nigel replied, looking chagrined.

"Perhaps you might be better off paying attention than day dreaming then?" The teacher asked, causing the class to laugh for a moment before the lesson resumed.

"I guess that answers that question," Harry thought to himself with a smile. He was rather pleased with his progress, each day he'd been getting just a little bit better at controlling his power.

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A few weeks after his human trials of mind reading, Harry was meditating by the small stream once more, practicing at sensing magic in the environment around him, when he had an idea.

"What would happen if I tried reading my own mind? Could I even do it? Would I need a mirror so I could have eye contact with myself?" He thought to himself curiously. Eager to test out the idea, he closed his eyes and, much as when he was first trying to sense his magic, turned his senses inward. To his surprise, as he focused deeper and deeper, he slowly felt the familiar feeling of a mind on his senses. Going slowly, so as not to accidentally end up like a certain rabbit he'd murdered, he gently extended his senses into his mind, finding it relatively easy. He'd half expected a feedback loop of some sort but even when he heard his thoughts in his mind, it didn't feel unnatural like it had with Nigel's thoughts.

"Still, this place is a mess," Harry thought with a grimace, looking around his mind which seemed to be just as disorganized as Nigel's was.

"I wonder… Can I do anything about this?" He pondered. He focused on trying to make something happen in his mind, trying to make one of the memories appear less chaotic somehow. To his surprise, the memory froze at his command, shaking slightly before transforming, a book reappearing in its place.

"Huh, well I guess that answers that. It'll take a while but, I suppose it's time to get to work then," Harry thought to himself, looking around his mind at the countless memories floating around in the chaos with a mental grimace. Harry lost track of all sense of time as he worked, slowly creating shelves within his mind and adding the memories-turned-books to said shelves, but before he knew it the sun was starting to set and he was forced to put his attempt to organize his mind on hold. Exiting his mind, Harry rose to his feet and began his walk back towards the orphanage reluctantly.

"There's always tomorrow I suppose," Harry thought with a sigh. While he could definitely focus deeply enough to organize his mind at the orphanage, the level of peace and quiet he received at the stream was incomparable, especially when it wasn't time for the children to be in bed yet.

AN: Some people have been wondering about the pacing of the story and when Harry will enter Hogwarts. Harry here is still only about seven and a half but by the time chapter… 12ish comes around, I plan to have him entering Hogwarts, hopefully that helps to answer your question. That said, what did you guys think of this chapter? The mind arts are a tricky thing to get right. Canon never really gave us much detail at how they worked, but they're such a fascinating concept with nearly limitless possibilities. Hopefully you guys at least don't hate my take on the subject. Be sure to leave a review and tell me your thoughts, I'm curious to hear them.

Also, I still need a Beta, my grammar sucks, PM me if you're interested.