Chapter 3: Lessons on Magic

Harry Potter frowned as he watched Professor Flitwick and the rest of the Charms class. Something wasn't adding up. Harry watched as several students made objects shrink and enlarge with apparent ease, some getting the objects smaller than other students could, and some easily returning the object to its normal proprotions. Yet a number of students were having difficulty. Professor Flitwick moved among them, observing each student's performance with his keen eyes. Harry's emerald green eyes were watching just as carefully, if not more so.

The problem was that not every successful student was getting the wand movements right or even the pronunciation exactly correct, while some of the unsuccessful ones were doing everything almost spot on and yet still failing. Neville was one of those who was clearly doing everything right but without success. He had a look of hopelessness on his face as he made his wand movements and carefully uttered the incantation. Harry watched Flitwick walk over to Ron and correct his wand movements. Ron was moving his wand in a circular motion instead of a sharp angle as Flitwick had instructed. As soon as the red-head made the adjustment, his spell worked. Yet, Harry had seen several other pureblood students use rounded movements and still get the spell to work.

Harry had mastered the spell early, shortly after Hermione had gotten it to work, which she had done on her first try. Rather than continuing to practice the charm correctly over and over, he decided to experiment. Could he cast the charm wrongly and still get it to work? He tried to do it with a rounded movement of his wand as he had seen others do. The wooden block in front of him shrank. Harry repeated the charm, altering the wand movements even further. He got the same results. Frowning, Harry tried the incantation but mispronouncing it slightly as he had heard another student do. The spell still worked just fine.

Frowning even harder, he made up a completely different incantation, pointed his wand, and…the block of wood exploded. That put a smile on his face. He attracted the attention of Professor Flitwick and several stares, but he didn't mind. At least it seemed there were some rules to casting charms. After giving the short instructor a plausible excuse and demonstrating the charm flawlessly, Flitwick allowed Harry to continue.

Watching Neville continue to struggle, Harry decided to take a chance. He walked over to Neville and watched him perform the charm again and again, each time with the correct motion and pronunciation but almost no success. He had a look of failure on his face.

"Hey, Neville," Harry greeted his fellow Gryffindor classmate. "Hold on a minute."

The boy stopped his attempts and greeted Harry. "Hi ya, Harry. I just can't seem to get the spell to work for me."

"Yeah, I know why," Harry replied calmly. "Someone cursed your block of wood when you weren't looking," Harry lied. "I just overheard them snickering about it. I already hexed them for you."

"Really?" Neville asked, his eyes wide.

"Yeah. They were real gits to do that to you." Harry pointed his wand at Neville's block of wood and simply said, "finite incantatem!" He turned back to Neville and gave him a smile. "There you go, Neville. Give it another go. I'm sure it will work now."

Neville looked at Harry, then at the block of wood. The look of failure that had been on his face was gone. When he looked at Harry, his expression was one of trust and respect. When Neville looked at the block of wood, his look was one of determination. The block of wood shrunk down so tiny it was almost hard to see.

"Oh, well done, Neville!" Flitwick's voice called out. "And excellent cooperation, Mr. Potter, giving a classmate pointers! Five points to Gryffindor," the Ravenclaw Head of House announced.

Harry took the opportunity to ask the Charms professor about his observations. Not about his own experiments, that would have earned him some docked house points and possibly a detention, but he explained what he had seen other students doing wrong and still getting positive results. Filius Flitwick gave Harry an appraising glance. "You have made some excellent observations, Harry. You would have done well in Ravenclaw, it seems." Then he pulled out some advanced Charms textbooks on Charms theory. For every observation Harry had made, there was an answer in some book or other that plausibly explained what was going on.

Harry didn't buy any of it. The theory did not fit the results of his experimentation. Regardless, Harry thanked his Charms professor. From the sound of it, Flitwick believed what he was saying and he was a genuinely caring instructor.

Harry went back to his own desk thoughtfully. With a grin, he picked up his wand and cast the charm again perfectly. He watched as the fifth target for the lesson, a metal statue, shrank to a little more than half its original size. The grin left Harry's face as he had been doing much better than that before he had gone to talk to Neville. Had someone overheard him and gotten the idea to actually curse his items?

That was when Harry looked and realized that the "wand" he had picked up wasn't actually his wand at all. He was holding a feather duster.

Belief.

Everything was down to belief, Harry had realized. It wasn't just prophecies. Spells worked according to belief as well. Sure, there were limits, but Harry had to wonder how much of that was based on deeply rooted beliefs he just couldn't shake.

Earlier in the year Remus Lupin had taught him the patronus charm after learning how strongly dementors at the school searching for Sirius Black had affected him. Initially, Harry had trouble performing the charm. On his second try against a boggart transformed into a dementor, Harry had managed to create shield of positive energy. Professor Lupin had greatly praised Harry, explaining that doing so was an incredible feat for a third year student.

After witnessing the charm create a full-bodied patronus, and after his epiphany in Charms class, Harry was able to cast the charm flawlessly himself. Professor Lupin had told him that this was NEWT level spell, very "advanced" magic. Yet, after believing he could do it, it seemed easy. And if he could do this charm, then why not other spells?

It hadn't been hard to get a hold of fourth year, fifth year, sixth year, and seventh year textbooks. He was in a shared dormitory with upper level students and such books were left lying around all the time. He went through them trying out spells that were supposed to be particularly difficult. Observing them being used helped tremendously, he found. Once he saw someone else do a spell, Harry knew he could do the same thing. And so he could.

Remembering them all, however, was another matter. Harry found that if he wasn't sure if he had remembered a spell correctly nor not, it wouldn't work. And he certainly had not memorized all the magical theory behind the spells.

But then, if what he knew to be true was true, which obviously was so, more than half of what was theorized was obviously wrong. Most of if tried to explain the limitations of a spell, or why sometimes things happened that were not expected. Harry had learned that quite a few of the restrictions on such spells simply didn't really exist for someone who didn't believe they existed.

Harry even began experimenting with trying to create his own spells. To his delight, he found it not too difficult at all. He had the best success when altering an existing spell or combining incantations, such as scourgify and lumos maxima to create a cleaning charm that could easily clean an entire hallway: scourgify maxima.

There were, however, two classes where he found the rules to be much less fluid: Transfiguration and Potions. There were, apparently, certain natural laws and just believing they didn't exist didn't erase them. Of course, Harry wasn't sure that it wasn't just a matter of him being unable to disbelieve the natural laws, but he had tried.

Harry quickly learned that the laws and rules of Transfiguration were more about the consequences of natural law than about the "right" way to wave your wand. Sure, you could still turn an owl into opera glasses if you said the spell with the wrong enunciation or wand movement, but you couldn't make the change permanent or break any of the fundamental laws of transfiguration. Harry was far more conservative in his experimentations in McGonagall's class, asking what the consequences of breaking a particular stricture ("getting it wrong" he always said when asking), before attempting something different in private.

Potions, sadly, had similar restrictions, but for entirely different reasons which Harry could not entirely understand. Harry found that he could get away with stirring everything the wrong way or preparing the ingredients somewhat differently than prescribed and still produce a proper potion, but altering the ingredients or even the amounts in the slightest had bad results. Nor did his belief in what the potion should be have much of an effect on what the actual result was.

Despite this, Harry's newfound understanding of the role of belief in magic definitely improved his results in class, much to Professor Snape's annoyance. Whereas previously many of Harry's potions had barely been acceptable, now they all turned out at least as good as the best in the class (cough, Hermione, cough) once he saw the final product brewed. As long as he used the right ingredients in the right proportions, he knew it would turn out properly and have the correct properties. Harry viewed Snape's scowls as attacks on his confidence and responded with steely determination. Harry took to complimenting his lab partner and found that doing so increased their chance of success as well.

Yet Harry was confused about the meaning of needing the right ingredients and correct proportions. It didn't quite fit with his new understanding of magic. That was why he had decided to tell Hermione about his discovery. He needed her analytical mind to help him puzzle this out.

Harry was just on his way to see her and Ron when Ron turned around in fright and pointed behind him.

"Harry, run! It's the Grim!"

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