Once he was back inside number four Petunia barely acknowledged him other than to tell him to get on with his chores, as he didn't want to upset his aunt in case she decided to stop him going to Hogwarts he put his wand in his new bedroom before getting to work. It had been a surprise when Petunia had told Harry that the spare bedroom was now his.
He suspected it was because the Dursley's were frightened by the letter as it had known that he slept under the stairs, he had gladly moved his few belongings into his new room before she could change her mind.
When he wasn't working Harry had read his school books with new found hunger, doing his best to memorise everything in his books and sometimes even trying to do what the books taught.
After reading that it was possible for those with great control over their magic to bring forth a visible aura Harry wanted to try it, however Vernon had strict rules over what could and couldn't be done in the house.
He had taken Harry aside and sternly told him "You are to be the best at this freak school, you hear me? I don't want to see you again for at least 9 months and I promise you if you get sent home for misbehaving or failing your lessons I will lock in that cupboard for the rest of your life!"
Later he had told Harry "There is to be no magic within the house, I don't want to hear it, see it or feel it!"
"But what about the magic I need to do for homework?" Harry had asked "I will need to use magic for my school work"
"Hmm, you do raise a good point, for once. As I said you are to stay ahead in your lessons… and I suppose that would include homework they set you over the summer… Very well there is to be no magic within sight of me, Petunia and especially Dudley! It is to be kept within your room with the curtains and door shut, anytime we have guests over you are to hide it all understand?"
Turning back to his book Harry thought 'I can't make an aura as I'm sure people will see it, but I might be able to make my magic visible somewhere smaller like my hand'
He concentrated on his magic and moved as much magic as he could into his hand and held it there, he had never thought to do anything like this before and was excited to see if it would work.
Sure enough his hand began glowing brighter and brighter till it hurt to look at it directly, when he glanced at the mirror he saw the light reflected in the glass. Normally mirrors didn't reflect his magical sight making him assume he wasn't actually seeing magic like one sees light.
His magic simply was able to identify magical sources and then showed them to him in a way he could understand, which explained why it had only developed after he had started channeling magic through his body.
Turning back to his glowing hand he imagined the magic leaving his hand to solidify above it in a perfect sphere, just the right size for him to close his hand around it. The magic followed his command and began leaking out of the pores on his hand and condensed above his hand, more and more kept coming out of his hand and he started feeling magically drained.
He was used to the feeling however from his previous magical experiments and pushed past it, his efforts soon paid off when it condensed into a ball made of pure magic about the size of a tennis ball.
It felt weightless but otherwise acted like a regular ball, Harry was able to pass it from hand to hand without issue. He then tried to bounce it off his wardrobe and while it did bounce back into his hand it left a large dark green scorch mark on the wood.
Harry decided against playing around with his magic after that and let himself fall asleep from the magical exhaustion. As he was sleeping he didn't see the shiny metal that started frosting over the ball of magic as it cooled from its lack of external energy.
The next morning Harry awoke with a massive headache which stayed with him as he prepared breakfast, he didn't notice the metal ball lying at the foot of his bed until after he returned to his room and stubbed his toe on it.
Harry briefly wondered where it had come from before remembering the ball of magic he had made the night before, he had assumed it would have dissipated overnight like the small flames he liked making.
Since the metal ball was almost the exact same size as the ball of magic it wasn't a hard guess to make, although when he picked up the metal ball he judged the magical version one to be a tad bigger and considerably lighter.
Deciding to experiment Harry followed exactly what he did the night before but this time rather than a ball he imagined a small cube on his palm, once it had formed Harry stopped feeding it magic and gradually the metal sheen started spreading from the top of the cube furthest from his palm downwards.
As it spread the cube lost its blinding light, it reminded Harry of ice forming on water in the winter. He then fed the cube his magic again which made the metal retreat and the cube began to glow again.
Harry looked at the sphere and decided he wanted to change it. Going on instinct he looked at the cube and imagined it becoming taller and rounder, forming a cylinder, his magic rushed over the cube and obscured its appearance.
When the magic pulled back he held exactly what he had imagined, he had also given the top of the cube a slight dip which perfectly matched the curve of the sphere.
Turning back to the sphere he picked it up with his other hand and gently put the sphere onto the stand he had just made. He then fed both pieces some magic concentrated on what he wanted carefully. Slowly the metal where the cylinder met the sphere started glowing as the two pieces of metal merged into one seamless piece.
When Harry stopped feeding it his magic the metal once again spread from the top down until it covered the entire object. After carefully looking it over Harry was amazed at what he had accomplished, despite the fact he knew they had started as two different objects nobody else would've been able to tell.
Harry wanted to experiment some more, but his magic was screaming at him as this new power he had learnt drained his magic like nothing he had ever done before.
He had come a long way during his private magical studies and had built up his endurance to magical exhaustion considerably, he knew that if he had tried to form the sphere when he had started learning he would've lost consciousness long before the sphere had finished forming.
Knowing he had reached his limit he put the object on his cabinet and tried to keep it out of mind as he read over his books again, eventually falling asleep while his magic tried to recover from the workout it had been put through.
During the night Harry's wand started twitching, it had missed his master's magic as it hadn't been once for a whole three days. It sent out invisible feelers that would be invisible to anyone without the ability to see magic, the feelers soon found its master's energy and tried to pull the magic towards itself.
But as the magic was so much denser than itself it was the wand that moved instead, it eagerly rolled across the cabinet where Harry had carefully left it and stuck to the source of the magic.
When Harry awoke the next morning he was amazed to find his wand stuck to the metal ball as if it was magnetic, he remembered how Ollivander had told him that his wand might be attracted to his magic but he hadn't thought he was being literal.
Like all his metal it glowed with his own green colour which explained why the wand had been attracted to it in the first place. Deciding to have some fun Harry picked up his wand and thought about his magic going into the orb, almost immediately the orb lit up.
He then made a groove appear at the top of the orb that was big enough for his wand to sit in it with room either side so he could easily take it out again. He laughed when his wand seemed to sing to him after he placed it in its new home and went on with his day happily.
Despite having so much more to learn, he barely spent any time on his school work as he was constantly tired from experimenting with his new metal making powers. He spent all of his free time creating and changing various metal objects, eventually he started seeing what it would take to destroy them although he left his wand holder alone.
He quickly learned that while creating the metal left him incredibly tired, he was slowly increasing his capacity, where a tennis ball had drained him after just a week he could now comfortably double the mass.
When he tried reversing his power he discovered something wonderful. Where summoning the metal drained him, turning the metal into magic and absorbing it he felt rejuvenated. Like some sort of magical battery.
Far away in the northern mountains of Scotland a wizened old man sat behind his desk deep in thought, he had just received a letter from his old friend Garrick Ollivander. He had been having a very pleasant day and he had always enjoyed talking with Garrick, however as he read the letter his good mood quickly dissipated.
Albus was unsettled at learning that the wand best suited for Harry was the very wand Tom Riddle, Garrick had also expressed a concern over how Harry's visit to the wand store was remarkably similar to Tom's first visit.
After Tom's descent into the dark arts, Garrick had agreed to inform Albus whenever he had a customer he considered troubled. In Albus' mind it was this early warning that had allowed him to save many students such as Severus, so he set about ensuring that Harry would likewise be monitored.
What surprised Albus was that the holly wand had denied Harry, one only had to read between the lines of history books to realise every 'prophesied' hero had a holly wand. This could be an indication that Harry wasn't the subject of the prophecy… He made a mental note to ask Garrick if Mr. Longbottom had purchased the holly wand in case he was the subject after all…
So far in my quest to clean up the chapters this was the one that needed improving the most, funnily enough when I first wrote this chapter I was basically making stuff up on the spot.
Now in case anyone gets confused with the end of this chapter Dumbledore is not a 'manipulative!Dumbledore', in my personal experience it isn't that unusual for a head teacher at a small school to worry about a students mental health.
Then if you take into account that Dumbledore knows Voldemort believes in the prophecy it shouldn't be too hard to understand why Dumbledore is looking out for students that match the prophecy.