"Harry?"
"Hmm?"
"How are you so good at magic? Because I have never seen you practise, yet you always seem to know more about magic everyday."
"Well I am in a school you know, learning is part of the process- Ow that hurts! Fine! Fine, put your hand down, Hermione. I normally practice my magic before breakfast every morning, basically just going over spells I haven't yet mastered or anything that looks interesting. Tell you what, meet me outside your common room an hour before breakfast starts and I'll show you."
That was how the following morning Hermione found herself waiting outside the Gryffindor portrait, waiting for Harry to show up. She had been meaning to talk to him about his seemingly prodigious skill for a while, but had never gotten around to actually asking about it until the night before.
As normal, Ron had left them early to who knows where, while Neville who had started staying with the group after the flying lesson earlier that morning, had a detention with Professor Snape. That left the library unusually quiet, from which Hermione had managed to pull forth the courage that had gotten her placed in Gryffindor and asked about his skill.
Now that morning had come she found herself impatiently waiting for Harry to turn up, when a voice spoke up from right beside her. "Ready to go?"
Screaming Hermione jumped away, turning to see a grinning Harry beside her.
"How did you do that?" She demanded, she was at a corner and could see down both corridors, there was no way Harry should have been able to sneak up on her unnoticed.
"I was practising a new spell I read about, it's called a notice-me-not and funnily enough it does what it says on the tin." He replied cheekily.
"Why would you want a spell like that though?" she asked, confused as to why Harry would be interested in such a spell.
"For when you don't want to be noticed I would imagine."
"Prat." she said, reaching up to smack his arm as Harry led her away.
Although unconfirmed, it was a generally accepted theory that children that grew up around magic grew up healthier than those that grew up away from magic.
This was one of the 'facts' that Purebloods used to show how superior they were, which was also why you rarely saw overweight witches or wizards. The magic within their bodies improved basic functions, such as metabolism and digestion, reducing the need for physical health.
For Harry, who had basically grown up channeling magic throughout his body on a daily basis, he had an above average height, tall enough that Hermione did have to reach up in order to get a good hit on his arm. Even then, he was considerably smaller than Ron who was one of the tallest in the year.
Harry led Hermione through the castle, through many secret passages she didn't even know were there. When she asked Harry how he knew about them, he said "Penelope showed me some of the passages and most of the time the magic covering the passages is different to the magic within Hogwarts walls, which makes it easy for me to see them."
"Wait, you can see magic?" She asked, amazed. In reply he only winked and led her deeper into the castle, down corridors Hermione had never even seen. Eventually she noticed there were layers of dust under foot, yet Harry left no footprints in the dust.
She pointed it out and looked behind her to see the footprints she had left, making it look like she had travelled alone. Grinning, Harry told her to stay still and waved his wand at the corridor, immediately causing the dust coating the corridor to rise off the ground only to immediately settle again.
Hermione was about to ask why he did that when she realised her footprints had disappeared under the new layer of dust, Harry then pointed his wand at her feet and twisted his wand, she felt nothing but when they moved on, she noted that she left no footprints either.
"How did you do that?"
"The first was what I've started calling imbuing my magic, basically I can push my magic into something like the air or the dust and make it respond to basic commands such as rise. If I push myself I can make them do more, but that normally leaves me exhausted. The second thing was a basic impervious charm focused specifically on the dust. As you may know, the reason you leave footprints is your shoes have a slight static charge, which the dust sticks to; I just removed the charge from your shoes. If you kick your feet too much you will still move the dust, but it is far less noticeable."
"Okay, what's with the secrecy though?"
"Fun for the most part, I just wanted to see if I could and it became a game of mine to avoid detection. Of course, the other reason is Dumbledore suggested it would be a good idea to keep some of my skills secret, but I trust you." He answered, winking at her.
When he stopped Hermione couldn't tell why, causing her to look around but couldn't see anything interesting. Looking back at Harry, she tried to see what he was standing against but her eyes couldn't focus behind him so she looked elsewhere… Realising what had happened, she then forced her eyes back. Concentrating, she focused on whatever was behind Harry and felt a force on what she had associated as magic telling her to look away.
She pushed through and suddenly she saw a small door behind Harry, subconsciously she realised it had been there the whole time, but she hadn't noticed it until the magic protecting it had been breached by her. Amazed, she tried to open the door to find it locked. Huffing, she tried casting every unlocking spell she had learned, but found none worked.
Glancing at Harry, Hermione saw he was grinning, causing her to narrow her eyes. Remembering his previous tricks, she looked at the entire door, or tried to. She found that she was unable to focus on the part of the door exactly across from the door knob, marking it as suspicious.
Once again, she forced her eyes to focus on the spot and felt the obtrusive magic telling her to look away, but fought it. This time it required much more effort on her part to break through, but once she broke through she saw a twin door knob and keyhole. It was identical to the one on the other side of the door down to the smallest detail.
Grinning, she tried to open it and was surprised to see it unlocked, but guessed he put enough faith in the other defences. She gladly opened the door inwards and was stumped when she saw a simple cleaning cupboard.
Turning to Harry and sighed and admitted defeat, "I give up, just show me how to get in, please."
Harry chuckled and reached forward and shut the door, he then opened the door outward into the corridor and revealed an empty classroom. She found herself baffled at the security to protect such an empty room and was in the process of turning away, when she stopped herself and once more forced through the magic.
This piece was the strongest one by far, which was aided by how subtle it had been. Even once she realised it must've been there, she found it hard to focus her magic on it. By the time she broke through, she was feeling exhausted and tiredly stepped into the room, triumphant.
Rather than appearing completely empty, she now saw that the room was filled with a variety of objects. Almost everything within the room was made out of an odd silver metal that she had never seen before. Her first instinct was to call it silver, but it had a faint inner glow that made her sense it was something different.
In the middle of the room was a large metal desk, like the one in her father's study, with a chair next to it made of the exact same metal. Even the cushion embedded into the chair seemed to be made from the metal, yet looked like it was made of fabric.
Curious, she walked over and felt the cushion, confirming it was made of a fabric. While it wasn't the softest cushion in the world, it was still incredibly soft and felt like it was made of silk, or more accurately like metal weaved into fabric she mused.
"I must admit I doubted you would be able to actually enter the room, good job. This is my workshop, I have made almost everything you see here."
"How? I mean, you can't have made something like this table!"
"That's what I wanted to show you actually, take a look at my hand." She walked over and was amazed when she saw a liquid that glowed with a vibrant green colour pool out of Harry's hand. It was unnerving to watch, yet she couldn't look away. She instinctively knew that what she was seeing was raw magic, which flowed and shifted, while strange patterns appeared and disappeared within.
As it left his hand, it bonded together, floating over his hand. Harry then waved his other hand over the ball of magic and it began to spin, quicker and quicker and distorting until it resembled a small tornado spinning over Harry's hand.
Hermione saw the top of the magic begin to change, the same shiny metal that made everything in the room began frosting over the vibrant green magic, which swiftly spread over the entire tornado until it had consumed all of the magic. The result was a model tornado made of metal, which Harry tossed over to Hermione who caught it and inspected it, amazed at what she held.
"This is your magic isn't it?" she asked, stunned.
"Yup. At first it was extremely tiring to make stuff out of it, but eventually I guess I got stronger and more resilient. I feel vaguely tired making that, but back in August when I made something far less complex I fell unconscious almost instantly. I think that making all these mithril objects is making magic easier for me, like exercising a muscle."
"Mithril?"
"It's what Dumbledore called it, supposed to be a rare metal." Harry said, shrugging.
"What can it do?"
"As far as I can tell, anything. It can conduct electricity and heat normally, but when I create it I can force it to act differently. For instance the chair is heat proof and resistant to electricity, while that tornado sculpture only has the standard conductivity levels. Something I did find is that Mithril can also conduct magic, but I suspect it is limited to only conduct the creator's magic.
"For example, I can pull something across the table using the table as a foci and it makes spells easier, the only issue is any spell I cast through the table can only affect objects touching the table."
"That's amazing, but doesn't it break the laws of transfiguration?"
"See that's what I thought too! I first made the mithril orb over there by accident, incidentally, I now use it as a wand holder when I'm not carrying it. I don't want my wand to get damaged in an experiment, so the orb has a small forcefield around it, the only issue is I need to replenish the magic every so often.
"Anyway, when I first made the orb I saw it hadn't deteriorated overnight, despite the book saying any transfiguration that doesn't have a sample will often not last longer than an hour. So I then used my mage sight to look and the mithril seems to make its own magic, like a reactor in the muggle world and the magic it generates is used to constantly feed itself meaning it can never deteriorate."
"Wait, they make their own magic? That goes against the conservation of magic law!"
"Ah, but it makes magic the same way witches and wizards make magic. The magic in the mithril is identical to my own magical signature, which is probably why my wand likes the mithril so much."
"So what you are saying is you can now make magic without using up your own supply?"
"Well… yes… however all of the magic made by the mithril is used to replenish the mithril, I can take my magic back out of the mithril, but it causes the mithril to decrease. I have a band of mithril on my ankles so that if I require a boost in magic I can call upon them but that is more storing magic for later like a battery rather than a reactor."
"If the mithril uses up the magic to restore itself… what if you did something to make the mithril last longer, so that less magic had to be used on itself, like a preservation spell or something?"
"That… is a great idea! I've heard of a preservation rune... if I used that on the mithril it should generate 'free' energy that I could use! You're amazing Hermione!"
This chapter takes place immediately after Ups and Downs and the next chapter picks up immediately after this chapter, I am mirroring the Hogwarts school schedule to my own and it has only been 3 weeks, in Hogwarts I would say they are in their fourth week and All Hallows eve is only a month away...