It had become commonplace to find Harry and Hermione together in the library, if one could see through disillusionment charms they would have also noticed Severus Snape often lurking nearby as well, he had taken to listening to the Potter boy, occasionally the child would say something that was wrong and Severus took pleasure in knowing that his nemesis' son wasn't all knowing, today was one such day for Severus.

"Does intent have anything to do with how a potion turns out Harry? Because you always say without intent spells do not work so do you have to know what you want your potion to do?"

"I would say no, from what I can tell potions are like charms in that they are 'reliable and predictable' if you mess up the incantation or wand movement in charms the charm comes out unpredictable and it looks to be the same with potions, just instead of an incantation and wand movement its ingredients and instructions, for instance if I make a health potion but intend for the potion to cause harm it would still heal the drinker so long as it was brewed correctly."

So when Harry sat down in potions the next day and saw on the board 'The intent of the brewer and affect upon the potion' he assumed Hermione must have asked Snape in her lesson which was the day before, he gave Professor Snape the same answer he gave Hermione and was shocked when Snape said "Incorrect Potter, the intent of the brewer has everything to do with the potion, you will find any potion we brew in these first few years do not rely on intent as you and your peers do not possess enough control to not let your insufferable emotions take over during brewing. Say you were to brew a calming solution but were feeling angry, rather than calm the drinker it may very well enrage them, you will find this true in charms, herbology and eventually transfiguration if you ever get to transfiguration of objects into animals.

"The intent of the brewer if one of the reasons potions are always in such a strong demand despite the large number of potioneers, St Mungos have to ensure each and every potion they receive have been brewed to a professional standard and that the intent of the brewer was inline with the potion effect, there was a particularly nasty case a few years past were they failed to properly check the intent and rather than sooth a patient they had an irrational fear and died of shock, the reason was the brewer was fearful since she had fallen behind in potion deliveries."

Professor Snape had spent the lesson discussing the intent of potions and then had them prepare the ingredients so that they could start their potions immediately in the next lesson.

By now the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had gotten used to Harry and Snape's verbal disputes during lessons and realised that so long as Snape focused on Harry he gave out extremely helpful tips, when Hufflepuff Ernie Macmillan overheard Ron Weasley loudly complain about Professor Snape not teaching them anything he snapped at the boy and said "If you paid attention in class you would learn, Professor Snape is a very good teacher, I wouldn't have a clue on how to brew a potion if it weren't for Professor Snape… and Harry too I guess"

Unfortunately for Ron his brother Percy had overheard this and upon hearing how Ron was failing in potions had marched him into the library and politely asked Harry if he could help is brother, despite Ron's reluctance to learn he found he enjoyed it when Harry was his teacher as he was too fearful of his power to be rude yet Harry was only ever polite to him and helped him understand what he was doing wrong in transfiguration, Ron felt he even understood some of how to prepare a potion now rather than just through everything into the cauldron and hope for the best, Snape had even commented on his work "Better than your usual rubbish Weasley, I'm impressed I didn't think that possible, I suspect if you were to hand this into an exam you may achieve a high T."

Ron was sat at Harry's table as he worked on his history of magic homework that was due for later that day, history was one of the few subjects Harry was terrible at as the boy invariably ended up making his book fly around his desk from boredom, once when Ron asked if he could learn to do that in one of his study sessions Harry had cast a hovering charm on Ron's book and then directed Ron on laying his magic on top of the book and applying slight forces upon it to move it, after a few lessons practise Ron could move his book fairly confidently, it annoyed him he couldn't make the book float without Harry's charm but he was happy enough racing Harry's book around a race track they had drawn, he couldn't get his book to go as fast as Harry so Ron found he could go round the corners better than Harry could so normally tried to get in front of Harry in a tight corner and then stop Harry from getting around him, due to the informal rules Harry couldn't raise or lower his book so had to try and out maneuver Ron or get a large enough lead early on to stop Ron blocking him.

Ron shook his head and looked back down at his homework, he could have owled Bill but wanted to do this by himself without relying on his brothers, Ron knew that he could have asked Hermione for help too but was too jealous of the girl to ask, he could forgive Harry for being better than him as he had grown up hearing the legends of the Boy-who-lived and Harry hadn't kept it a secret that he had been using magic since he was five, Hermione however was just an ordinary muggleborn and hadn't even known about magic a few months ago yet performed just under Harry in almost every class, sometimes even out performing him in subjects like history of magic or astronomy, aside from her magical brilliance there was another reason Ron was jealous, she was Harry's best friend and Harry went to her with his theories before Ron, of course Ron barely understood Harry's theories but the point still stood, Ron thought he should be Harry's best friend, Hermione was a girl after all and Ron's experience with girls so far in his life was to avoid them as much as possible.

He suspected that once they finished Hogwarts Harry would take on Hermione as his official apprentice as even at the age of eleven Ron felt Harry was challenging the professors in magical knowledge, he had even heard in the Gryffindor common room that Harry had sometimes been seen talking to Dumbledore as if he was an equal, if Ron was honest with himself, he wanted to be treated like an equal by Dumbledore but realised he would probably never be magically strong enough to warrant that attention from the great Albus Dumbledore.

Finally finishing his homework Ron leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh of relief, he withdrew his wand and poked it at the parchment, with a little push of magic it rolled itself up, that was one of the first things Harry had taught him, it was basically useless but it had proved to Ron that he could do magic once he practiced it enough, he spent the rest of the time moving his book around the table, after a while Harry's book joined in and they started to race, Hermione looked on disapprovingly as she continued her homework, Harry managed to get in front of him and Ron knew that he would need something new to beat Harry, as he entered a corner he forced his book up and over Harry's, Ron raced his book away and Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise before making his own book faster to catch up with Ron.

The next morning when Ron came down from his dorm room he was thrilled to see a poster displaying the upcoming date for broom practice, upon arriving in the great hall he made a beeline for the Ravenclaw table where Harry and his friend Justin were discussing magical philosophy "You guys are such nerds" Ron complained as he sat down opposite them "Did you guys see the broom practice notice? Brilliant isn't it?"

"Oh yes, never been all that fond of heights myself, still imagine flying on a broom, jolly good fun I would imagine!" Justin replied excitedly, Ron glanced at him slightly annoyed as Ron was aiming his comment to Harry but quickly reminded himself that it was an unspoken rule with Harry's friends that if they insult each other Harry would leave them without a second thought, that rule had started when Ron had first started joining the group and Harry had left without a word when Ron was sarcastic to Hermione, since then he had been on his best behaviour as while he was friendly with his roommates they rarely spent much time together outside the common room.

Ron treasured being friends with Harry more than he would like to admit as the other students laughed at his jokes and comments but neither accepted and interacted with him like Harry had done, as such Ron kept reminding himself to accept Harry's friends, so rather than insult Justin, Ron nodded eagerly and turned to Harry saying "I've done some flying myself at home, nothing like it!"

"I haven't thought of flying much to be honest… I guess it would be cool" Harry offered, truthfully he had spared a thought to flying when he had seen the broomstick in Diagon Alley but not so much the actual feeling of flying but the charms or enchantments that powered the broom.

The day Ron had been waiting for all week had finally arrived, he and Harry had been practicing their book racing and Ron could now beat Harry most of the time as both could now move their books in all six directions, Ron only lost when Harry poured his magic into his book as it could get up to speed that Ron couldn't even hope to match, once during a particularly enthusiastic race Harry had gone too fast into a corner and his book had gone flying over the classroom and through Professor Binns, the ghost had not even noticed and Harry had sheepishly snuck behind the professor to reclaim his book, upon returning to his desk he saw a smug Ron move his book across the finishing line.

Ron was interrupted from his musings by Malfoy coming over to his table and stealing a glass orb from one of his roommates, Neville Longbottom. Ron had barely seen Malfoy since the train as Draco seemed scared of Harry and rarely came near Harry or his friends, Ron recognised the glass orb as a Remembrall which made sense as Neville always seemed to be forgetting something, he had once forgotten his wand and Snape had taken great delight in taking 10 points from Gryffindor for it despite Ron's complaint that in the beginning of the year, Snape had clearly told the class "there shall be no wand waving in this class"

Seeing that Neville wasn't going to defend himself Ron stood up and said "Shove off Malfoy, you are not welcome in Gryffindor!"

"And you are not welcome in Hogwarts, you and your family are nothing but filthy blood traitors, no better than the mudbloods!"

Malfoy seemed to notice that everyone had gone silent but they weren't looking at him but the person behind him

"Do you want to say that again Malfoy?"

Ron had never seen Harry angry before, he always had a tight control over his emotions, now however everyone could see that Harry was enraged, Malfoy turned and as soon as he saw Harry he back away, or tried to as he was next to the table and when he stepped backwards he tripped and fell over scattering food and plates as he went. He stood quickly and smoothed his robes and said "This is between me, Longbottom and Weasley, Potter, there is no need for you to get involved"

"Ron is my friend and even if he wasn't you are a bully, if there is one thing I cannot stand it is bullies."

Malfoy raised his wand at Harry only for it to fly out of his hand into Harry's, what shocked Ron was that Harry had not uttered a spell and his wand was visibly still inside his pocket, Harry held Malfoy's wand by each end and gave it a slight bend, Malfoy paled but said nothing
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't?" Harry said, glaring at Malfoy as he slowly bent his wand

"My father will make you pay!" Malfoy yelled in panic

"I don't even know who your father is, why should I care about him?"

"I'll leave Longbottom and Weasley alone! Just give me back my wand" Malfoy begged as his wand looked to be on the verge of snapping

"Say please" Harry had stopped bending the wand but had kept it stressed

"What?" Malfoy asked confused

"Say please or you lose your wand"

"Please!" Malfoy said desperately

"Pathetic, you think you are so strong, but like most bullies you give in at the slightest resistance." Harry said as he threw Malfoy's wand over his shoulder towards the Slytherin table, as Malfoy ran to pick up his wand Harry left the great hall, followed by Hermione, Ron and surprisingly Neville.

Albus watched all this from the staff table, he was about to intervene when Harry gave back the Malfoy heir's wand, Albus used the incident to see how Harry would act, he wished the best for the boy but his background was too similar to poor Tom's to trust in fate, however Tom would never have acted to stop a bully, Albus just needed to teach Harry to not go to such extremes as that was something he knew Tom had done to inspire fear within his followers when he was at school.

Many accomplished wizards learned to not rely upon their wands but for the average person they would go to great lengths to protect their wands, Albus suspected Tom had started his pursuit of wandless magic shortly after he started using peoples wands against them, during the last war one of his order members had managed to hit Tom with a disarming jinx, Tom had replied by jabbing his hand at the man and the killing curse had cut down another of Albus' order. Albus thought about that battle often, the killing curse was meant to be impossible to cast without a wand and it had come out too fast, the killing curse was regarded as one of the slowest spells, the more power fed into a spell the slower it became, Tom regularly ignored this fact as his killing curses came fast and unstoppable, this often made Albus wonder just what Tom had done to ensure he could cast such powerful spells so quickly.

Harry stepped up to his broomstick, his anger at Malfoy simmering just under the surface, his friends had wisely not spoken to him on the walk over, it had taken all his self control to not break Malfoy's wand, glancing down at the broom on the ground beside him he tried to work out what made it work, he turned on his magic sight… 'I really need to name this magical sight I have, it feels awkward calling it magic sight even in my own head, maybe Mage Sight.' Harry thought, since arriving at Hogwarts Harry had been testing his mage sight so that he could control how quickly it took affect and recently how much of his mage sight took over his regular sight. By now he had enough control to focus on the broom and the ground around it but blocking out the giant sun of magic that was Hogwarts, the broom started glowing with an orange coppery colour, looking at some of the other brooms they all looked a similar colour, some of the more recent brooms were more yellow but looked similar, Harry wondered if that was the colour of broom magic or the brooms were made by people with similar magic.

Eventually everybody had turned up and Madam Hooch began her lecture on flying, when everyone started shouting "UP" Harry watched a tendril of magic leave the student and latch onto the broom, from that Harry concluded the word wasn't some activation trigger on the broom but an easy way from the students to call forth their intent, for the students whose magic didn't react where the ones most vocal about their reluctance to fly, Harry simply imagined his broom moving from the ground into his open hand, forcing some magic into the intent and his broom jumped from the ground into his hand, only Neville seemed to notice that Harry had called his broom wordlessly and without holding his hand above the broom.

When they were told to mount their brooms Harry started getting nervous, he wasn't too fond of heights, once when they were younger he and Dudley had a school trip to visit some cliffs, when the teachers hadn't been looking Dudley had pushed Harry towards one of the cliffs and Harry had almost fallen off, since then Harry tried to avoid high places as much as possible 'and now I'm being told to fly into the air… on a small wooden stick… a wooden stick with decaying enchantments… maybe I should sit this one out… although I guess Madam Hooch will be watching'

When Neville shot up before Madam Hooch finished counting down she yelled at him to get down, Harry thought that was quite silly as she had just been about to tell them to fly up so what if Neville miss judged when to kick off from the ground, that was until Neville's broom started bucking underneath him, Harry instinctively reached out with his magic and pushed some of his magic into Neville's broom in an effort to try and stabilize it, the magic tried to resist him but Harry forced through, cutting out the old enchantments, the same enchantments that allowed the broom to rise.

Neville dropped towards the ground, his broom uselessly clutched in his fingers, Harry pushed his hand forward, imbuing his magic within the broom with the intent to rise, it was nothing like the broom enchantment but it should hopefully help Neville, there wasn't enough magic in the broom to cut out Neville's downward momentum but it did slow him so that when he hit the ground it left only a bruise compared to broken bones, Madam Hooch scolded the boy but as he was unhurt he got told to sit at the edge of the grounds.

The rest of the lesson was spent learning to fly, Harry did not particularly enjoy the experience and found he lacked the strength needed to properly control his broom and was fearful of controlling his broom with magic in case he broke the enchantments like he had done to Neville, if Harry had spent his childhood doing all the chores for the Dursleys Harry may have ended up with the required strength to control his broom, however Vernon and Petunia agreed that they preferred Petunia doing most of the house work and Harry stayed within his cupboard, not seeing the freak was far better than saving some work.

Unseen by anybody Draco saw something shiny near where Longbottom had fallen, he scooped down and picked up the Remembrall from that morning, he considered gloating about it but as Madam Hooch was nearby he didn't want to risk it, although he didn't like to admit it to himself he was also fearful of what Potter may do to him, he had seen the fury within his eyes and had never been as scared as when his wand was being tortured by Potter, as such he pocketed the ball and planned how to get revenge on both Potter and Weasley, he knew he could never take on Potter magically and Malfoy was not one to throw the first spell, luckily for him, his father had been teaching him about subtlety and cunning, he would teach Potter and Weasley why you don't mess with a Malfoy while remaining free from retaliation.

I wanted this chapter to show that Harry isn't perfect, he overreacts to his friends being threatened (reasoning next chapter) and messes up Neville's broomstick by accident, in my eyes, Harry knows magic extremely well, he lacks formal training but can do most magic instinctively, people skills however? Not so much.

Also PurelyMediocre suggested some different uses of offensive magic last week and I will be using them... mostly, one such suggestion is that Avada Kedavra is a slow spell which is why it should rarely be used. Voldemort is different though… and it will be revealed why… in a few years maybe.