Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling. This version of Aleister Crowley, along with 1,083,092,867 others, was created by Kamachi Kazuma.

Yes, I'm still alive.

Chapter 02: Hidden Away by Magic – 魔法隠し。

Part 1

Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

(Let justice be done though the heavens may fall.)

–Lord Mansfield (18th century British barrister and judge)

~~[a]~~

"Hey, Elly. How did it all turn out like this?"

~~[a]~~

True to Harry's predictions, or whether it was due to Sally herself losing steam, the atmosphere in St. Ursula's didn't return to what it was after the release of the both of them. Thankfully, even as the kids no longer jumped at the sound of Sally's sharp, commanding voice, they didn't do a complete turnabout to start ganging up on her either, instead preferring to treat the girl as one would a dangerous animal.

Harry himself had appeared to earn a degree of respect. Sure, some kids still whispered behind his back, but at least no one blatantly tore what he was holding out of his hands, or swiped the dessert from his plate during dinnertime.

"Dessert is overrated, in any case. A healthy mind and strong spirit is one that is able to tolerate bland foods."

"You can't stop me from eating ice-cream, Elly."

So Harry's days became peaceful, somewhat.

~~[a]~~

Obviously, that was not the only change that occurred.

"Teach me magic."

In hindsight, perhaps Harry should have expected this to happen sooner rather than later. He looked around the library anxiously for any eavesdroppers, before motioning for Sally to come closer.

When she did eagerly, he hissed in her ear. "Are you nuts? Why are you talking about that so openly?"

"Hmm, you're right." Sally said in a normal tone of voice. "The adults really don't like that kind of stuff." She dragged out the vacant chair that was next to Harry's, then leaned in and whispered. "Teach me magic."

Harry shut his book; it was clear that he wouldn't get much reading done with Sally around. "Fine. Do you have some secret place?" He looked into her eyes. "You do, don't you?"

"Meet me tonight after curfew at the east staircase." Sally said quietly. "And if you rat me out to the adults, or tell anyone at all–"

"I won't, you idiot." Harry frowned. "So where are we going?" Staircase? If it's not outside and downstairs, that means it's… "It's the roof, isn't it?"

"Too smart for your own good." Sally said, a touch of irritation in her voice. "See you later."

~~[a]~~

"It might be time I taught you more magics." Elly said to Harry, the night right after the fateful conversation in the cell. "Especially if you're to interact with that girl and explore it by yourselves."

"You're…okay with that, right?" Harry asked hesitantly. "I know you've said that magic is supposed to be secret and all."

"Then hopefully you can impress upon her the same prudence as I did you." Elly spoke with a roll of her eyes. "Today, I will teach you about the kabbalistic tree of life, which describes the ten emanations through which God manifests."

Harry's eyes immediately glazed over at the sentence which contained many unfamiliar and complex words. "Uh…"

"Let me use simpler words." Elly took off her pointed witch's hat and placed it on her lap, then shook out her silver hair to fall over her blue school uniform. "It's something like the different aspects of God, and how they're related to each other."

She waved a hand, and the ten spheres and the twenty-two paths appeared on the whiteboard between them, where they were sitting opposite each other.

"Um, what is this? And why are there ten circles? Isn't there only one God? The adults talk about that all the time."

"This is a Christian orphanage, so the adults will only tell you about the Christian point of view, for religion." Elly said succinctly. "This is another way of viewing the world. By having another way of seeing the world, you will gain new ways of thinking, and new ways of acting on it, which is important for a magician like yourself."

And the Tree is a very powerful framework, much like the Tarot cards that go from the Fool to the World. There is a reason why I based much of Thelema off the Kabbalah.

Harry nodded, not fully understanding, but enthused.

"To start with, the tenth sphere is Malkuth." Elly stood up, and pointed to the bottommost circle. "It represents the physical world, and also the concept of 'kingdom' or kingship…"

One short explanation later, when Elly noticed that Harry's focus was at its limit, she snapped her fingers and muttered "Incendio", which caused the boy to jump. "I think that concludes our lesson for today," she said, fire trailing from her fingertips. "For theory, at least. For the practical...it might be time for you to learn fire."

"Fire." Harry continued to stare wide-eyed at Elly's fingers, still flickering with flame.

"Yes." Elly closed her hand into a fist, extinguishing the elemental conjuration. "Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn't accidentally burn down the orphanage. Or deliberately, even, no matter your mood. Now stand up."

Harry stood.

"The wand motions trace out the shape of a flame." Elly spoke, drawing an angle in the air with her staff. "But since we don't want you to be dependent on wands-"

"Just fingers, then imagination, right?" Harry completed. "Okay." His face became the picture of concentration as he began to focus, while Elly looked on with an appraising eye.

~~[a]~~

"You are nuts."

It was the middle of the night, and Harry and Sally were facing a locked door and an open window.

"Come on!" she hissed. "The door's always locked. You have to climb through here if I want to reach the roof–"

"I would rather not fall to my death, thanks." Harry sarcastically replied, and moved to the locked door – a padlock on a sliding bolt, instead of a mechanism in the door itself. Sliding his hand beneath the padlock, he tilted it up, where the dull metal caught a glimpse of the faint moonlight.

You can do this. You've done this before.

Visualize the motion in your mind. Bring forth the concept of "unlocking"-

"Oi, what are you doing?"

Harry dropped the padlock, where it swung back against the metal bolt with a thunk. "Trying to unlock the door." He turned towards her, irritation clear in his voice. "So shut up."

"So make me." Sally said.

I sure would like some magic that does that. Harry thought. Outwardly, he picked up the lock and tried to concentrate once more.

"I told you, the window is faster." Sally said in a singsong voice while she sat on the windowsill.

Harry took another deep breath. "Shut up, Sally."

"Maybe I should find another magic teacher. One that actually knows how to magic."

"You want to see magic? Shut up."

"So make me, Harry."

In a flash of anger he turned around and-

In the future, when he looked back on this moment, he could never quite tell exactly how he did it. A wandless Banishing Charm, maybe.

-took all of his irritation, shoving it at the ungrateful girl.

Her legs tilted up as she began to topple backwards, out of a window that opened into the empty air on the fifth floor, and Harry himself started in surprise, his eyes widening.

His hands darted out, snagging on to Sally's instep and ankle. A good thing, too, seeing as the only hold Sally had away from a grievous fall was a pair of knees held rigid at a perfect right angle, the rest of her body dangling precariously backwards out into the night sky.

With a grunt of exertion, Harry pulled, reeling the girl back in. But Sally herself was already making her own efforts, and the end result was that like a door on a windy day, she swung back, bodily knocking Harry to the ground by way of landing right on top of him.

Whereupon her first reaction was to punch him in the face.

Harry shoved her off and scrambled to his feet, hissing. "You really want to go? Right now?" He concentrated, vocalised quietly but clearly the first spell that came to his mind. "Incendio."

Fire appeared in his hand, and Sally flinched in shock.

Don't burn down the orphanage, Harry. Elly's voice of warning chimed in the back of his head.

I know. Harry grit his teeth. Outwardly, he spoke quietly. "Enough, Sally. Look, I said before, I don't want to hurt you."

"You said you didn't like hurting people." Sally retorted immediately. "Not me specially."

"Maybe." Harry closed his fist, causing the fire to go out. "But if you're going to be mean, or demanding, or ungrateful about this, I'm going to walk away, and you can't bully me into teaching you."

"You don't know that." Sally's hackles were still raised, and she took a step closer.

"Don't be stupid." Harry said immediately. "What if I pretend to teach you something and then instead taught you something dangerous that could kill you? Or take away your magic?"

"You wouldn't dare."

"I would if you keep doing this to me, Sally." Harry said shortly. "I may not have your memory, but I thought you agreed to be nice?"

Then maybe you should be nice as well. Especially to me.

Sally cringed, showing that the reminder did in fact land. "I do not remember making any explicit promises," she said defensively, but she was already backing down. "But yeah, okay. I'll stop. For now."

"For now," Harry sighed, and began to fiddle with the lock again. Inwardly, he hoped that he was making the right decision.

~~[a]~~

"It's Win-gar-dium Leviosa," Harry said. "Make the gar longer."

"I will set you on fire, Scarface." Sally said, before swishing and flicking her finger once more. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The leaf on the ground between them didn't move, and Sally Perks glared at Harry once more. "This is stupid. Are you sure these are the words I need to say?"

"Wingardium Leviosa," Harry muttered, performing the appropriate action. The leaf floated in the air, shutting up Sally. "I think it's dumb too, but it works." He repeated the action, this time without speaking, and the leaf that had just barely touched the floor rose again.

"And you can do it without speaking?" Sally said. "This is unfair."

"It wouldn't be unfair if you knew how much I had to practice." Harry retorted.

"Hah? You mean you sat down by yourself and waved your fingers in the air saying these stupid words over and over again?"

Internally, Elly looked on, sipping a cup of coffee. Perhaps Harry learning this much is such a relatively short timeframe is the exception instead of the norm. She again thumbed through the book on her desk, the representation of Tom Riddle's knowledge. Non-verbal magic...no, pure magic on the conceptual level, deliberately executed, requires the faculty of abstract reasoning. Childhood development isn't as discrete as Piaget's Stages make it out to be, but perhaps nine going to ten years of age is still a bit young.

She closed the copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One. The book's text was blurred in some pages, and certain sections were either blank or outright missing. Imperfect recall...our memories are not like books or information on computers, metaphors aside.

She turned her thoughts back to the children. The girl's recall might be perfect, but storing and using information are two separate matters. Still, there is no doubt that she's smarter than the average child. Perhaps we might actually be able to pull something off without the use of Academy City's drugs.

She looked back at the screen connecting her to the outside world.

Harry was speaking. "So what if I did? Huh?" The end of the sentence rose in a challenge.

"So...what...urgh, fine!" Sally threw up her hands. "I'll say the stupid words and make the stupid actions!" From their hidden spot in the yard she grabbed a twig and brandished it with the aggression of a tantrum. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The leaf shot into the air and was instantly blown away by the autumn wind. For a few moments, the two children simply sat in silence, staring up into the blue sky where it had vanished into.

Then Sally looked back down at the stick in her hand, before glaring at Harry. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

~~[a]~~

Somehow, Sally had talked to a teacher, and her seat had been moved to the one right beside Harry's, which gave him a sense of unspeakable dread. He was already beside the window, in the column furthest away from the door, but now Sally had placed herself solidly in his escape route. Were things what they had been previously, Harry would have been panicking a lot more, but as of now he was just mildly annoyed.

"Stop kicking me," he hissed under his breath.

"But I'm booooored." The whispered reply came. "She's explaining the same thing over and over again."

Truth be told, Harry was also bored. It was a science class on electricity, and Elly had already explained everything and more with better words in half the time. Of course the circuit needed to be closed for the bulb to light up. How else would the electricity flow? Though, she did also say...

As with everything, there are exceptions. Elly had shown him a picture of lightning, and said that if the charge difference was great enough, the electrons would just flow through the air. There had been discussion about energy and magic, and then Elly had proposed that little project with the glove.

"Perks!" The teacher had an irritated expression. "If you can fidget this much, then perhaps you'd be able to answer this question! Which of these three circuits will produce the brightest bulb?"

"I uh," Sally stood to answer, but stumbled verbally.

"The one on the left," Harry hissed. That's the one with the most batteries in series, right?

"The one on the left," Sally repeated quickly.

"Correct...is unfortunately not the answer." The teacher pointed to a gap in the drawing, which Harry had somehow missed. "Since the circuit is incomplete, the current does not flow. However, you would have been right if this had been complete, so at least you're paying some attention."

Sally sat down, her cheeks slightly reddened, while Harry removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Naturally, when lessons ended for lunch, he received a much harder punch in the arm. "Ouch!"

"What was that earlier?" she angrily demanded. "I thought you were smart!"

"I didn't see the gap," Harry admitted, rubbing his eyes again. "If I had-"

"Then those stupid glasses of yours aren't working." In a flash Sally had snatched them out of his hands and ground them underfoot, where they broke with a substantial crack.

"Hey!"

"I'll nicely ask the adults to get you a new pair later," she said dismissively. "Now let's go and eat."

The other children, as mentioned, had been keeping a wide berth from the two of them, and there was a distinct gap in the bench from the pair to the next person as they sat down at the end of one of the long tables in the canteen.

As Harry batted away his companion's fork, rebuffing her attempt to steal half his serving of chicken, a slightly-blurred face appeared, with long hair that matched Sally's but in color more resembled Harry's.

"Francesca Branwen." Sally said. "What do you want?" Even with the neutral tone, Sally still somehow radiated an air of hostility.

"Sally…" Franny began hesitantly. "Can I sit?" She motioned to the space beside her and opposite Harry's. Harry, on his part, simply watched the exchange, like a chess player trying to discern the lines of power on a board.

After a moment of consideration, Sally nodded.

Harry stared at the quiet girl as she got settled in. Multiple times before he had seen her, just another face that always orbited around Sally. But much as he tried to remember, he couldn't recall her provoking anyone, or even participating in any fights at all. Was she older? Younger? Harry couldn't really tell.

And she just talks to Sally as if it's nothing ever happened. Huh.

There were several long moments of silence, increasing in painful awkwardness. Finally Harry decided to open his mouth, damn the consequences.

"Hey-"

"Franny-"

Sally gave him a glare as she spoke up at the exact same moment, to which Harry quailed slightly.

"Franny, what are the other kids saying about me?" Sally demanded. Straight to the point as always, Harry thought.

"Nothing." The girl's reply was laconic. "They're just scared of you. I think they're wondering what you might do next."

"Hmph, serves all of them right." Sally puffed out her cheeks. "They're all idiots who don't know how to do anything by themselves. Anyway, it's all stupid. I found something better to play with."

Harry winced internally. Such as wringing me out of all the magic I know. At least I'm learning things from her too. Wait, is she really going to just tell this girl about magic?

He kicked her under the table immediately, and she shot another withering glare over at him. "I'm not stupid, you idiot!"

"What?" Franny's voice tilted in confusion.

"Never mind this idiot." Sally turned back to Franny, and spoke in a more subdued voice. "What do you want?"

"What?" Franny's voice was again tinged in confusion.

"Usually, when people approach other people, it's because they want something from them." It appeared that Sally was trying to be nice, but Harry thought it just came off as being both condescending and cynical.

"Well, if you're offering...I want my magazine back," she said hesitantly.

"The one that the adults confiscated? With fashion and horoscopes and whatever nonsense?" Sally said, a tad derisively. "Why that garbage?"

Harry kicked her under the table again, but more lightly. "Be nice," he said aloud. "And if you won't help her, I will."

"Shut up, Scarhead." Sally brushed him off, but she heeded his admonishment all the same. "Okay, I'll help. Not as if I don't already know where the stuff is kept."

"Really?" Franny's expression brightened somewhat. "Thanks, Sally." Cheerful words aside, Harry didn't miss the quick look that she gave him. "You've really...become nicer, huh?"

"No, I haven't." Sally said immediately. "Shut up." She turned to Harry. "You're coming with me, of course."

"Why?"

"Because I can't pull off that stupid Unlocking Charm yet, idiot." Sally said the statement as if it was obvious.

Disregarding the fact, of course, that Franny was still siting right there.

In his head, Harry heard a certain white-haired magician give a long sigh, and he delivered a third kick under the table, the hardest yet in the conversation, in line with some hidden universal rule of three.

"What, Pot-oh." She said immediately, before wilting.

Franny looked as if she wanted to say something, but remained mute, perhaps remembering that Sally was still, well, Sally.

A moment of awkward silence ensued, as Sally, her expression becoming more panicky by the moment, looked to Harry for help.

Harry, at the entire situation, could only look towards the heavens for guidance.

The Firemaking Charm, Incendio, is apparently taught in First Year, or so I assume, because it's in the canon Standard Book of Spells, Grade One. For some reason, it doesn't appear until the sixth book. You would think that a spell to light stuff on fire would be more prominent.

Please tell me if I've mixed up Elly and Sally. It shouldn't be the case, but my own proofreading isn't perfect.

Review please!