Nothing is mine.

Katie learns some magic...

Wonder

Katie skipped across the white pebbles, her hands behind her back and her pale blue dress fluttering about her knees, peering up through the willow branches with a bright glimmer of excitement in her green eyes. 'Papa?' she whispered.

Harry hopped off his branch and drifted down, shifting back from the raven and stepping onto the pale stones. 'Hello, baby bird.'

She sprang forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. 'You smell, papa. And your spiky beard hairs are getting longer!'

'There aren't an abundance of convenient bathrooms out here and the river is very cold,' Harry replied. 'Beards do tend to grow if you've not got anything to shave them with, too.'

'You need a bird bath.' His daughter giggled, clinging to his waist. 'A big, raven-sized bird bath.'

A snort of laughter escaped him. 'It'll be summer again in a few months, then I can go in the river and not freeze to death afterward.'

Katie squirmed. 'You said…'

'I said?'

'You'd teach me magic,' she whispered. 'Maman said I should focus on controlling my allure because that's most important.'

Harry smiled. 'Your maman is probably right. She never really explained it to me, so you probably understand bird-girl magic better than me already.'

A huge pout crept onto her face. 'But papa…'

'I'll still teach you, silly little chick. But your maman is right. Don't stop focusing on that to learn other things. Promise?'

'Fine,' his daughter mumbled. 'Je te le promets.'

'Merci, mon petit ange.' Harry scratched the back of his head, ignoring a stab of hunger. 'Well, what should I teach you first that you can learn without a wand?'

'I have a wand,' Katie chirped, beaming. 'See?' She brought her hands out from behind her back.

The slim piece of ebony stuck from her small fist like a blade.

'My wand,' he murmured. 'Does your maman know you have that, baby bird?'

A little flicker of guilt flashed through Katie's green eyes and the tips of her ears turned pink. 'No,' she mumbled. 'Maman hid it under her bed. I found it and… kept it.'

'You stole it, you mean,' Harry chided. 'Like a sneaky little magpie.'

'If maman would take me to get one, I wouldn't have had to.' His daughter turned her nose up at him.

His heart lurched. Je t'aime, mon petit ange.

'Well, I suppose you can use mine. It might not be a perfect match, but it'll probably work well enough.' Harry sat down on the white stones and patted the spot next to him. 'Come here, baby bird.'

Katie skipped across and plopped down on the pebbles, crossing her legs and smoothing down the front of her light blue dress between her knees. 'Do you want it back?' She held out his wand. 'Maman won't notice.'

Fleur probably knows you've taken it. Harry stared at the piece of ebony with a touch of longing. And she could have wards all over here. I can't risk using it.

'I can't use it,' he said. 'The blood wards protecting the willow let me through because we have the same blood, little chick, but if there are any others, I might set them off when I cast any spells with a wand. A little bit of tiny wandless magic is fine, you have wandless magic too, but your maman is a lot better with that sort of magic than I am and I can't risk her having made some sneaky clever ward to keep you safe.'

She staked me out to die with one. A soft pang knifed through Harry's heart. You deserved it. You ruined everything.

Katie gave the wand a swish and a few silver sparks sputtered from its end; her green eyes widened. 'Magic,' she whispered.

'Magic, little chick.' He wrapped his arm around her and drew her close into his side. 'Magic is the ability to wish. When you cast a spell, you wish for something to happen.'

'Like when Aimée wishes for a pet raven and one appears?' His daughter's voice shrank to a whisper. 'Or when I wished you would come back?'

Harry kissed the top of her head. 'In a way, yes.' He held out his other hand and conjured a small tongue of orange flame above it. 'I wish for fire. But wishes aren't just granted because we want them; you have to mean it; you have to make them come true. You have to really intend them to happen; that's the difference between managing to cast a spell and not.'

Katie scrunched up her face and gave the air a tentative poke with the tip of Harry's wand. 'Oh.' Her face fell. 'Nothing happened.'

'Probably a good thing, I'm sure you're going to cause enough trouble with fire when you're older anyway.' Harry mussed her silver hair until she turned her pout on him and shook his hand off with a small disconsolate squeak. 'Let's start with levitating a pebble.' He picked up a small smooth white stone and put it down in front of her. 'The stronger and clearer your intent to make the wish come true, the more likely the spell is to work. When you're using a wand, there are a few things that help with the intent: the incantation, you verbally say what you want to happen; the wand motion, the gesture you make helps contribute to what you want to happen; and you usually visualise it or think about it happening.'

'What's the — the—?'

'Incantation?'

'Yes. Incantion — incantation.'

'Wingardium leviosa.' Harry encunciated the words syllable by syllable. 'The way we say it helps too, it kind of sounds like something going up, right?'

Katie nodded, a determined little frown on her face as she clutched the wand tight in her fist.

'The wand motion is a smooth swish and then just a little flick—' he wrapped his hand around hers, and brought the tip of the wand along in a gentle sweep, snapping his wrist up at the end '—like that. But don't do the flick too hard or you might send that stone somewhere into the sky; it's just a little flick to lift it off the ground, we're not trying to hit the clouds.'

'Wingardium leviosa,' his daughter muttered. 'Wingardium leviosa. Wingardium leviosa.' She raised the wand and mimicked the motion a few times. 'Okay, wingardium leviosa.' Katie swished the wand and flicked her wrist.

The stone wobbled and hissed into the sky.

Katie flushed. 'Oops?'

He drew her close, resting an arm over her head as he squinted into the sky. 'You really wanted that to work, didn't you?'

'Maybe,' she whispered, peering up from under his forearm. 'Did I do something wrong?'

The stone splashed into the river.

'No, you did it first time, little chick.' Harry laughed and lifted his arm off her. 'Sort of. Be a little gentler this time. We don't want one of those stones coming back down on your maman's glasshouse.'

Katie gulped. 'Non.'

'There would be feathers—' a small sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth '—and fire.'

'Scary cross maman,' his daughter whispered.

'Very scary.' Harry gave her a little nudge. 'Go on, baby bird. Try again.'

'I'm not a baby,' Katie mumbled, raising the ebony wand. 'Wingardium leviosa.'

The stone flashed up to hover near the top branches of the willow.

'Getting the hang of it already.' He pressed a soft kiss to her silver hair. 'Well done, my little veela hatchling.'

His daughter pouted at him and the stone thwacked down onto the pebbles, bouncing across into the grass. She levitated another one, and another, let them drop, and lifted several, murmuring the incantation under the breath.

'Are all spells that easy?' Katie asked.

'Do you feel tired?'

She shook her head. 'Non.'

A fond little smile crept across Harry's face. 'Your maman and I are fairly powerful, so you probably won't find this basic stuff too tricky once you have an idea of what it is you're trying to do with a spell.'

'Can I learn another one?'

'Of course.' Harry slipped his arm back around her. 'Let's teach you how to make light with a wand, so you can sneakily read Aimée's Adventures past your bedtime.'

Katie giggled.

'This is a simpler charm,' he said. 'We don't really need much help to imagine light, because we know what it looks like. There isn't even a wand motion or any particular way to say the incantation. Just say lumos and picture a beam of light coming from your wand, like… like a ray of sun coming through your bedroom window, and point your wand at whatever you want to see.'

Katie pointed the wand at him.

Harry's heart melted. 'That's very sweet, little chick, but just in case you set me on fire somehow—' he redirected her hand toward the river '—let's aim at that. I've been set on fire by bird-girls too many times already.'

'Lumos,' his daughter whispered.

A faint ray of white light shone from the tip of the ebony wand, wavering and flashing on the river's ripples.

'Nearly got it.'

'Am I doing well, papa?'

'Very well, baby bird.'

'Better than the other girls? Maman said I would be better than them and they wouldn't like it.'

'Your maman is probably right.' Harry gave Katie a little squeeze. 'But don't worry about them. They'll just be worried they're not doing well because you're doing very well. You'll all figure it out your own way and be good at the things you're naturally good at. All that matters is that you're happy and safe, little chick.'

'What are you good at, papa?'

'Not the sort of magic I can teach you just yet.' Harry swallowed a little stab of anxiety. 'Not until you're a lot older. It's very dangerous and comes with a high price.'

I hope you won't ever need to use it.

'Actually,' he said with a little grin, 'there is one piece of magic you and I can do that your maman cannot do at all.'

Katie's green eyes widened. 'What is it?'

'First you have to learn a new spell.' Harry wrapped her hand up in his and drew a gentle s-shape in the air. 'That's the wand motion. The incantation is serpensortia, and you might want to put a little emphasis on the s-sounds in it to help you think of hissing, because you're going to summon a snake.'

'A snake?' His daughter wrinkled her small nose. 'Why?'

'You'll see.' He caught her hand as she raised her arm. 'Don't imagine a dangerous snake, baby bird; just a small one. Or I'll have to wrestle a python in the dirt to stop it from eating you and these are my only proper clothes.'

Katie giggled. 'Serpensortia.'

A black blur wriggled from the end of the wand and dissipated.

'Try and picture your snake a bit more clearly,' Harry murmured. 'A nice small grass snake or something. Remember, not a python. Or anything venomous.'

'Serpensortia,' his daughter whispered, drawing a careful s-shape with his wand.

A little green snake flopped onto the pebbles and coiled into a small ball.

'It's cute!' Katie reached out and patted it on the head, coaxing a small disgruntled hiss as it stuck its tongue out at her. 'Can I keep it?'

Harry chuckled. 'Say hello to it, Katie.'

'Salut, Monsieur Snake,' she chirped.

'Salut.' The little green snake replied, peering through its coils with sharp yellow eyes. 'Salut.'

Katie's jaw dropped and her green eyes grew wide as galleons. 'It can talk!'

'Sort of,' Harry said. 'An ancestor of mine enchanted himself and his bloodline to be able to speak to snakes; it's not actually quite speaking to them, more conveying your meaning to them and theirs back to you by magic as if you were speaking. It's called parseltongue. But don't do it where anyone other than your maman and I can see or hear you. There are some very infamous wizards that could do this and we don't want people thinking you've got anything to do with them.'

'Maman can't do it?'

'Your maman can't, no. To her it just sounds like we're hissing.'

She giggled. 'So anything I say in it is a secret from maman?'

'Yes.' Harry gave her a gentle poke in the tummy. 'But don't keep secrets from your maman. There's nothing you can't tell her; she loves you very very much.'

'Except secrets about you.' Katie huffed her cheeks out. 'And maman keeps lots of secrets from me!'

'Yes, apart from me,' Harry said. 'Your maman will tell you all those secrets as you get older. She's just waiting to make sure you understand and they don't make you sad, little chick.'

'But aren't you sad?' Little wrinkles creased Katie's forehead. 'She's maman and you're papa. You love each other, but…'

I do, but I don't think Fleur loves me anymore. Or she won't think I'm who she loves. Harry's heart wrenched. But this is the price; it's meant to hurt.

'This is just how it has to be, I'm afraid, baby bird.' He leant across and kissed the top of her head. 'I would pay a much much higher price than this to make sure you and your maman are happy.'

And maybe I will. It's going to hurt even more to be so close to you both, but still so far away.

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