Harry Potter and the Elvish Magic

Harry Potter and the Elvish Magic

Chapter Nine: Unwanted and Wanted Thoughts of Desire

When Harry climbed out of bed the next morning, he was immediately assailed by a very vivid image of two people lying in a bed together, doing something of which Hermione would have violently disapproved. Harry really didn´t like it either, considering that one of the people in the bed was Seamus, and the other was Fleur Delacour.

Is that all teenage boys think about? Harry thought in exasperation as he rapidly got dressed. As he passed Dean´s bed, he was yet again struck by a similar image, only with Dean instead of Seamus. It was really amazing, how similar Seamus and Dean were. Even the fantasies they dreamed up were nearly the same. Harry passed Neville´s bed, and was grateful for a temporary respite. Harry didn´t sense anything from Ron either, and made his way down to the common room.

There he was greeted with Hermione, and a stream of images he agreed with. He never would have thought that Hermione thought about those sorts of things when she saw him. He did have to admit, however, that it looked rather fun. Hermione glared.

Why, you little... the telepathic message she was sending him trailed off. Harry mentally grinned. At first he was surprised about doing it, but then he realized that it made some sense. If he could speak mentally, couldn´t he do facial expressions mentally? After all, weren´t facial expressions manifestations of mental ideas?

...amazing handsome, sexy Elvish Adonis? he finished. Hermione grinned back, and they began to walk down to breakfast. To avoid arousing suspicion, they also had a verbal conversation while they were conversing mentally.

"So," said Hermione, "what did you dream about last night?" You´re really not that little, you know, neither mentally nor physical. You´re two meters tall, and each of your arms is at least as thick as my neck. And your neck, for that matter. And you have a really, really powerful brain.

"I was too tired," said Harry, "so I didn´t dream about anything." Why, thank you, Miss Granger. You´re not so little yourself.

"What?" said Hermione, before catching herself. "How can you be sure that you didn´t have any dreams. Maybe you had one and just didn´t remember it," she continued in a more normal tone of voice. What? Are you saying that I´m fat? Harry grinned again. It was very difficult to have two conversations at the same time, and it was easy to get the two mediums confused.

"That´s true," said Harry. "Sometimes I remember having had a dream, but then I can´t remember anything about it. Other times, I don´t remember having had a dream at all. Last night was one of those times." Of course you´re not fat, and I´m not saying that you are. I wouldn´t lie about something like that. And, if you´re worried, I´d love you if you were morbidly obese. You´re not; you have what´s probably the most perfect figure I´ve ever seen. Hermione smiled beautifully.

"Normally I´m not into that sort of thing," she said, "but coming from you it is pretty sincere." You´re emoting sincerity when you say that, so it´s probably true.

When we get to Great Hall, Harry continued, you pay attention to what the boys are thinking, and I´ll pay attention to what the girls are thinking. Then we´ll each prove the other right.

As it turned out, when they got to Great Hall and Ron soon joined them, they weren´t able to concentrate on either boys or girls. All three were deluged with thoughts of everyone in the area.

Harry was appalled to discover that the vast majority of the girls, while they weren´t gazing wistfully at him, were having far more serious daydreams about him, as well as about Ron, if not the two together, along with the dreamer. Crabbe and Goyle were having the same sorts of things, and Harry was revolted. Although he wasn´t bothered in the slightest by different sexual orientations, the very idea of doing that sort of thing with Crabbe or Goyle was absolutely gross. In fact, the only people in the hall who weren´t contributing to the deluge of thoughts which were nearly drowning Harry, Ron and Hermione were themselves, Draco Malfoy, Ginny, Eledh, and the staff.

Harry glanced up at the staff table, and saw a tall, somewhat attractive man with short black hair he didn´t recognize sit down at the table. Harry nearly died when he recognized the man as Snape. His formerly greasy locks were gone, and he looked unaccountably cheerful. The happiness which shown from his face was only echoed in the face of Professor McGonagall, who had just come in along with the rest of the staff, all of whom were smiling, along with a priest, who was also smiling. It looked almost as if there had been a wedding. A horrible thought occurred to Harry, until suddenly an image struck him. In the anteroom to Great Hall, where Harry had gone immediately following being selected for the Triwizard Tournament last year (was it that long ago? It seemed like only yesterday,) there had been a simple wedding ceremony between McGonagall, whom Harry just realized was only in her mid to late thirties, and Snape! Harry came even closer to dying.

"Good morning!" Dumbledore said. "We´re very sorry to keep you waiting, but a very important event has just taken place. I am pleased to announce that two members of our staff, Minerva Mathilda McGonagall and Severus Silius Snape, have just been joined in holy matrimony!" Harry looked at them both in shock, and then was bowled over by the love he sensed flowing between them. Harry shook his head and looked at Ron and Hermione.

"I didn´t see that one coming," he said, before quietly beginning to eat his food.

***

"Today," began Fleur, "we will be beginning our study of wandless magic. For background reading tonight, please read the first chapter of Wandless Magic. For class today, however, we will be focusing on one of the first charms you learned: Wingardium Leviosa. In many ways, what we learn here for the next few months will be a sped-up version of all the spells, charms, curses, jinxes and hexes you have learned so far at Hogwarts. I will expect you all to continue, however, with your studies of dueling curses, and I expect you to have read Caster of Curses: A Lifetime of Fighting Evil by the end of next week, and to be prepared for the magical dueling section which will be added as of tomorrow to your sessions with Professor Grubbly-Plank. You´ve all had surprise attacks by hooded assailants in your sessions, but now you will actually be taught and expected to demonstrate new abilities. You should read about what will be covered in the sessions beforehand, which you can find out from the schedules which I am giving you now." She waved her wand, and thick sheaves of parchment appeared in front of each of them. "A Guide of Curses and Their Defense is a good resource for this, and the ones not listed there should have information somewhere in the library.

"Getting back to today´s lesson, I will now have you each attempt to levitate a feather without a wand. This is very difficult and initially tiring magic, and most witches and wizards aren´t able to use it incredibly often because it´s simply so draining.

"You see, our magical strength is like our physical or mental strength: we increase it by exertion, and we can use it for a certain period of time and for certain things before we need to rest. Most adult witches and wizards perform magic so often that they aren´t able to recuperate from the strain of wandless, or to put it better, aidless magic fast enough to do all the magic they want to, so they use wands. Some witches and wizards can recuperate fast enough to do wandless magic most or all of the time, but virtually every wizard who performs magic carries a wand so that they can still perform magic even when they´re magically tired. For a deeper understanding of this, please read the first chapter of Theory of Magic by next week." Fleur conjured a feather for each of them with a wave of her wand, and then, with a wave of her hand, sent the feathers flying to each of their desks.

"At first," she said, "you may wish to say the incantation to do the charm. Once you´ve reached a certain level, you won´t need to. More advanced spells are very, very difficult to perform without a wand and without speaking an incantation, because you need to get mental focus without using your language centers, which most of us are completely unaccustomed to doing. The Unforgivable Curses are thought to be impossible to enact without an incantation, because no one that we know of, not even Voldemort, has managed to do them without a wand. Go ahead. Do the charm as if you were using your wand, only don´t use your wand. Go on!" She sat down behind her desk, and people began attempting to levitate their feathers as she watched.

Harry angled his hand so that it was pointed at his feather. "Wingardium Leviosa," he said firmly. Nothing happened. He drew his hand back, and regarded his feather as other people kept trying. Finally, he concentrated on having magic gather into his hand, and he sent it out again as it became warm (he didn´t know what he was really doing, but this was how he was visualizing it.) He concentrated on having his feather move, and it did. It shot up into the air, and was suddenly joined by Neville´s as well. They were quickly followed by Ron and Hermione, and shortly by Parvarti. Soon, as everyone saw that it could be done, everyone managed to do it, and they began directing their feathers around the room. Harry sent his shooting past Hermione´s nose, and she glared before sending hers into one of his ears. Everyone else played a joke with their feather as well, and Fleur burst out laughing before instructing them to retrieve their feather and change its color.

This was much harder. Harry managed to turn his red and gold, and Hermione turned hers plain red, but no one else managed to do anything. Fleur finally dismissed them, and they went off to Ancient Runes, where their final class in Giantish was conducted. Tomorrow, they would start Gobbledygook (the language of goblins) and Sanskrit. Harry suddenly remembered that they would be doing their first presentation about Voldemort that evening, and that they would be doing it for the Hufflepuffs. Although he did his best to pay attention, for much of the rest of the day he was anticipating the presentation with foreboding. He was afraid that he would mess up and ruin everything, and then all their hard work would come to nothing.

It turned out that he needn´t have been worried; the presentations went fine. It was easier for all of them, because Professor Dumbledore did the opening remarks. After that, all they did was simply continuing and following up what he said.

"I have come face-to-face with Voldemort four times over the course of my life," Harry said, when it was his turn to speak. "Each time, I´ve lived through it, and been relatively unharmed." This was somewhat true. He´d only gotten a scar on his forehead which occasionally twinged from the first time, he´d been knocked out and burned slightly in the second meeting, he´d been cured of the poison he´d suffered from the third meeting, and he´d only been knocked about and gotten a cut from the fourth meeting. Of course, he was traumatized from the most recent encounter, but he´d since recovered.

"Voldemort is often viewed as an all-powerful figure," Harry continued, "and thus some people join him because they believe that he will inevitably conquer the world. However, he´s a wizard, and he was once a good student hear at Hogwarts. He can be defeated.

His greatest strength is instilling fear in us. He is a master of developing, maintaining, and exploiting that fear. To defeat him, we have to regard him as a normal wizard, and to regard him as a normal wizard, we have to disregard the fear he instills."

The presentation continued for quite some time, and after they left, the Hufflepuffs were sitting reflectively, contemplating what had been said. For the next few days, they continued the presentations, and improved them as necessary.

***

"After dinner tonight," Professor Grubbly-Plank told them the next day, "please meet Professor Dumbledore and me by Hagrid´s hut. You will be spending the night in the Forbidden Forest again, although it will be different from last time. Far into the Forbidden Forest, there is a mountain range, which you can see from here. You will each be spending the night in the foothills of these mountains, again separated from each other, and in caves. These caves are uninhabited, so you should be perfectly safe, but you will be allowed your wands in case you get into trouble, as well as for lumification purposes, maneuvering and conjuring food, because you won´t find any in the caves you´ll be in. You are expected, as usual, to be at your regimens before dinner. Needless to say, you are in for a long day.

Now, about caves..." She spent the rest of the lesson lecturing them about what to do, and what not to do. Harry was startled to learn that, to avoid the risk of biological contamination, they would all be required to cast a Barrier Charm around themselves before entering water. It was either that or not wearing any clothes at all, so Harry hurriedly chose the first option. They spent the rest of the class period perfecting their knowledge of the charm.

In Languages that day, they were introduced to Troll and Russian. Harry wasn´t sure what the connection was between these two languages, but he quite enjoyed learning to roar like a troll. It was surprisingly easy. Although humans tended to use their vocal chords in a more specialized manner than trolls did, allowing them a much wider variety of sounds in their languages, it was fairly easy with a bit of practice to relax the proper muscles and sound almost exactly like a troll.

Harry´s second new magical language of the day was Gobbledygook, to which they were introduced in Ancient Runes.

***

"Harry," asked Dumbledore at the end of the session for Physical Studies, "how far along are you in Magic?" Harry had made considerable progress on it in the last few days.

"I´m to the point where I can visualize another human being and transform my body into theirs," he said. The transformation didn´t require that you knew every single detail of the other person´s body (fortunately), as long as you were transforming into someone who existed. Otherwise, you would have to visualize the entire body, which took longer.

"Good," said Dumbledore. "Transform into Ron, please. Oh, and before I forget, I will be supervising you during your time tonight in the cave, so you may use magic which other people don´t know that you can do." Harry was concentrating more on the moment, so he heard Dumbledore´s final remark, but didn´t think about it, because he needed to concentrate fully on the transformation. Grateful that he could transform into someone who was taller than he was (the spine tended to explode with pain when shrunk), Harry thought about how Ron looked for a second, and then focused himself entirely. He gained half an inch in height, his bodily proportions changed slightly, and his hair went from dark black to vibrant red. Freckles sprouted up all over his arms and legs. He had become Ron. Even though Ron was taller than he was, his body still ached, and he rapidly changed back.

"Well done!" said Dumbledore. "Can you change into someone else?"

"Probably," said Harry, "but it would depend on the person."

"Try transforming into Godric Gryffindor," Dumbledore said, and a picture of the Hogwarts founder floated in front of Harry. Harry looked at it intently, and then noticed something very, very odd. Godric Gryffindor resembled him (actually, Harry resembled Godric, because Godric was older) very strongly. Nevertheless, Harry concentrated, focusing mainly on Godric´s hands and face. That should do it, he thought, and focused.

The transformation worked instantly. His spine protested indignantly as he shrank in height a little, but fortunately Godric Gryffindor was very, very tall for a human, and Harry was only a small amount taller. His body changed from that of a teenager to that of a grown man, and suddenly, he looked exactly like Godric Gryffindor.

"That was awfully easy," Harry said. His voice was now deeper, and it seemed very natural to him to speak with a different accent.

"It was easier than normal," Dumbledore said, "and you may change back now. You see, Harry, it is easier to change into someone you are related to. Harry, you are Godric Gryffindor´s heir." Harry, who had changed back, fainted dead away.

***

After dinner, he reported to the area in front of Hagrid´s hut, along with Ron and Hermione. Harry was still getting over the news that he was Gryffindor´s heir, and wondered if it really mattered at all. Gryffindor had been dead for nearly a millennium, after all. Still, Harry was shaken by how they resembled each other. Soon, however, he had no time to wonder about Godric Gryffindor, because he was casting the Barrier Charm on himself, as Professor Grubbly-Plank just ordered them to do so.

"Claustrum," Harry said, pointing his wand at his torso. A golden mist shot out of it and covered him, before disappearing. Nothing could pass in or out of him except for things which were friendly with the environment around them.

"Are you ready?" Dumbledore called out merrily. There was a resounding answering roar of "YES!" It was rather fun to spend a night or two out of school, and everyone was looking forward to the caves.

"Very well, then," Dumbledore said, raising his wand. "Geht ihr jetzt im Verbotenwaldberghöhlern." Harry realized that the spell, unlike most spells, was not in Latin, but in German. Although the majority of witches and wizards, when developing spells, chose to research them by using Latin names and thought systems, a handful of the greatest witches and wizards chose to use other languages, because that allowed a greater diversity of spells, because all magic was merely a manifestation of thought combined with energy generated by the body, and different languages used different thought systems. Most modern spells, when developed, weren´t in Latin, which had been exhausted through millennia of research in the spells capable of being performed in it.

Harry was swept away, and soon landed in a dark area. The air was very humid, but it was cool enough, slightly below room temperature, for it not to be uncomfortable. There was a bit of air movement, and the air smelled surprisingly fresh. Harry could see a few rocks outlined from the infrared light generated by geothermal heat, but he could see virtually nothing. He stood there for a moment, and used his heightened senses to determine what was around him. He listened to the cool, steady drip of water from what he was sure were stalactites, and listened to the drops landing on the stalagmites. He could smell the water which he was sure was flowing past him, and could almost taste a cave sort of feeling in the air. Finally, Harry raised his wand.

"Lumos," he said. A feeble beam of light emerged. Most humans couldn´t have seen the ceiling of the cavern he was in from that light, and Harry couldn´t see enough to satisfy himself. He concentrated on making the beam brighter, which worked somewhat, but the Lumos charm by itself wasn´t incredibly powerful.

"Lumos maximus," Harry said, and the tip of his wand blazed like a lighthouse, and the entire cavern was bathed in a harsh light like that from car headlights magnified a million times. Harry´s eyes stung, and he quickly uttered "Nox," which cancelled the spell. Harry wondered what else he could do, which wouldn´t be as harsh, and wouldn´t be as uncontrollable. Suddenly, he had an idea. Magic was merely a manifestation of thought. Magical words were merely a concrete anchor for those thoughts, a way for the caster of the spell to focus exactly on what he or she wanted. When witches and wizards learned incantations, they formed mental associations between the incantation and the effect, and the brain linked the two by tapping into the magical energy present in the body of the caster and the caster´s wand, if they were using one, and acted upon them.

Harry thought about what Fleur had been teaching them about wandless magic without incantations. What if he still used his wand, but instead of speaking an incantation, instead visualized the type of light he wanted. Would it work?

Harry tried focusing, and nothing happened. He realized that he didn´t have the belief that he could do it, and he was therefore regarding the desired light as fantasy rather than reality. He needed to regard it as reality for it to become reality.

Then, Harry wondered if all magic didn´t really exist, but it was just the way his brain was regarding his thoughts, because the way he was regarding his wish for light was what was controlling the light from his wand (or the absence of light.) However, he quickly dismissed this, because it couldn´t explain how other people could see what it was he was doing. If magic was just the way he regarded things, then other people wouldn´t be able to see when he was doing magic, and he knew that they could. Otherwise, how could anyone have seen him Summon his Firebolt, for instance, during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament?

Harry abandoned these thoughts, because he needed to see his surroundings. Finally, the desired light burst forth from his wand; not too bright, and not too dim. He was on a small, rocky island in a large underground lake in the middle of a huge cavern. Harry looked around, and realized that he would need to either swim or fly off the island he was on if he wanted to go anywhere. He decided to explore the ceiling area of the cavern he was in first, to see if there was an outlet. Despite the fact that he was now a fairly good swimmer, he still had a small fear of water which surfaced at unusual times. This fear wasn´t really a fear anymore, just a healthy respect, but Harry hoped that he would be able to get out of the cavern without going into the water. Although it looked quite clean, it was very dark.

"Wingardium Leviosa," he said, pointing his wand at himself. He rose into the air slowly, and sped up slightly as he neared the ceiling. He pointed his wand at the ceiling to cast more light upon it, and promptly began falling. He landed in the water with a splash, and instinctively began treading it. He angled his wand down at himself, and he rose out of the water again, and moved onto the island. Angry at himself for making such a simple mistake, and glad that the water was as deep as it was, Harry said "Dessicato" to dry himself, and wondered what he would do.

Then he remembered what Dumbledore had said about who was supervising him. He wondered if he could do it. He´d been able to transform into another person´s body, and he´d had plenty of experience with having wings sprouting from his back. He decided that it couldn´t hurt him much to try, and it would allow him to fly up around the ceiling without having to keep his wand pointed at himself all the time. Harry concentrated, and suddenly two huge, white, feathered wings came out of his back.

Amazed, Harry spread them experimentally, reflecting that all he needed were white robes, a harp and a halo, and he´d look like a stereotypical angel. Harry took off, and rapidly went up into the air. However, his wings nearly got entangled on the stalactites, and he hurriedly retreated to the ground, realizing that this too wasn´t going to work. Briefly Harry considered his Animagus form, but his tiger form would be no help and his dragon form was too big to fly in the cavern very much.

Resignedly, he got rid of his wings, and resorted to clambering up a stalagmite (it was horribly slippery), and had gotten up the even slipperier corresponding stalactite before realizing the obvious solution. He conjured a cave lamp which strapped around his forehead, and used his wand to fly himself around the cavern.

Although he enjoyed flying around seventy or eighty feet above the water below him, he couldn´t find the slightest hint of an outlet in the ceiling, and he resigned himself to the fact that he would have to go in the water if he wanted to get out of the cavern. What purpose getting out of the cavern would serve he wasn´t sure, but he simply wanted to explore. He sat on the island and transfigured his robes into a wetsuit so that he wouldn´t get cold, he removed the cave lamp and transfigured it again so that it would work underwater, he put a water-proofing spell on his wand so that it wouldn´t get warped by the water, he conjured flippers for himself so that he could swim faster, and he tied a guideline to the island in case he got lost. He finally put the Bubble-head Charm on himself, and slowly went into the water.

He swam along the bottom, and finally reached the deepest point. He couldn´t find a way out, and so he swam back up to the island, before setting out in a new direction. He found a broad fissure underwater in the rock, and he swam through it carefully, finally surfacing on the other side, and finding himself on the edge of a rocky beach.

"Accio!" he whispered, and the other end of his guideline came flying back towards him. He switched off his light and deactivated the Bubble-head Charm, taking off his flippers and making them pop into non-existence before heading up onto the beach, being careful to avoid the sharper rocks but noticing that the soles of his feet were unaccountably tough. He walked through the new section of cave, noticing that it was much colder than the cavern he had started in. He was about to go back, not having noticed any other outlets in this cavern, when he heard footsteps which he knew well. He turned around.

"Hello, Hermione," he said, glad to see her, despite being slightly embarrassed that she was seeing him in a wetsuit.

"Harry!" she said, and ran towards him and hugged him hard before drawing back, shivering. He was still quite wet.

"It´s freezing in here," she said. "Where did you come from?"

"The next cavern over," he said. "It´s just an island in a lake, but it´s much warmer. I was about to go back. Want to come with me?"

"Yes, definitely," Hermione said. "Where´s the entrance?" Harry pointed at the water, and she understood.

"Oh," she said. "That´s why you´re wearing a wetsuit. Not just to impress me." Harry shook his head.

"That´s right," he said, "although I would have come sooner if I´d known you were here. Did you try a Warming Charm?" He already knew what she was going to say, or at least, he thought he did.

"Yes, of course," she said, "but you know, they wear off quickly if you put them on yourself, because they´re designed to be something you do for others." Harry did recall reading something along those lines at some point. It was still a new sensation for him to listen to Hermione talk about obscure charms and know what she was talking about most of the time. He had found that he liked her even better when he was more of an equal. Ron had also found the same sort of thing.

"So," said Harry, "to get out of here, you´ll probably want to transfigure your robes as well, and get yourself some flippers and an underwater light."

"That´s true," Hermione said, and promptly did so. Upon seeing her in her wetsuit, which ended up being even more clinging than his, Harry tried very hard not to ogle her, but he ended up doing it anyway.

"Harry, Harry, Harry," Hermione said. "When will you ever learn? Looking at girls is nothing." She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his lips.

"Ahhhhh...." he moaned, and Hermione started roaring with laughter, which was soon cut short as Harry plunged his tongue into her open mouth and sealed his lips over hers. She trembled, and Harry tried to stop before they got carried away, until suddenly...

"Now, now, now, children," Dumbledore´s voice said. "Don´t get carried away, and keep your clothes on." Harry and Hermione broke apart, blushing furiously. Harry realized that neither was remotely cold anymore.

"Let´s go," said Hermione. "I´m glad that they can only know what we´re doing, rather than actually seeing us." Harry nodded, still embarrassed. She put on her flippers and cave light, and Harry conjured his again and did the same. He tied the end of his guideline down (Professor Grubbly-Plank had stressed the importance of using one while swimming in caves), and got into the water, quickly followed by Hermione.

"Just follow me," he said. "We´ll both have to use the Bubble-head Charm, so we won´t be able to talk with each other. Be careful." She nodded, and did the charm, also charming her wand to be water-proof. Harry did the same, and they swam through the fissure carefully. Harry soon surfaced on the other side, and Hermione surfaced right next to him. They swam over the island. Harry summoned the other end of his guideline, and they went onto dry land again.

"It´s much nicer in here," Hermione said appreciatively, after they had both gotten rid of their bubbles. Harry transfigured his robes back to normal, and Hermione did the same. Robes were warmer than wetsuits, and although Harry´s cave was warmer than Hermione´s, it was still cool.

"What should we do about food?" Harry asked Hermione.

"I´ve already fed myself," she said, pointing her wand at him. "Cibus." Harry immediately felt very well fed.

"Wow," he said, envious that he hadn´t known the charm.

"It´s quite simple, really," she said. "I´ll show you the book tomorrow."

"I´m already really tired," Harry said. "Are you?"

"Yes," she said, "and I can tell you right now, we will be the most comfortable in our Animagus forms. That is, unless you want to conjure up two entire beds, which I doubt they want us to do, considering the risk of contamination."

"That´s true," said Harry, "but my Animagus form won´t fit in here."

"Both of them?" Hermione inquired innocently.

"Oh," said Harry. "Okay, but you have to show me yours."

"Done," said Hermione. "On the count of three, then." Harry prepared to transform.

"One, two..." Hermione began.

"Hey," said a familiar voice.

"Ron!" Harry and Hermione turned around happily. He swam out of the water.

"Sorry to barge in," he said, "but I went swimming and got lost. Could I join you?"

"Yes," said Hermione, "but you have to show us your Animagus form. Your second Animagus form. We´re sleeping in them so we´ll be more comfortable."

"Right then," said Ron. He dried off his robes, which he´d unwisely been swimming in.

"On the count of three," said Hermione again. "One, two, three." They transformed. Harry became the huge white tiger again, Hermione became a large white polar bear, and Ron became a bald eagle. The tiger, the polar bear, and the eagle curled up to sleep.

***

The next few days passed rather quickly for Harry. He practiced wandless magic, as well as dueling. The highlight for Friday was when, for the first time, he managed to defeat his virtual assailant in the magical dueling section of the sessions in the Time Orbs. Mr. Yang decided that Harry was having problems with strength, which was impeding his progress in the martial arts, so he prescribed weight training. All in all, Harry´s sessions were now about ten hours long. He seemed to be adjusting to the longer days, and he slept very, very deeply each night.

After dinner on Friday, Harry was sitting in the library. He´d finally finished the second volume of Magic, and was preparing to start the third. Dumbledore had told him that they would be practicing the transformation which had no name during the time orb session, so he wouldn´t need to practice it in school. Harry was glad, because it was difficult to turn into an animal without anyone noticing. He´d pretended to be Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus and even Hermione, and had walked through the halls a bit, greeting people. He was becoming quite good at it. He was especially learning to remember and recall images of how people were (there wasn´t really a better word for it.) Harry was also noticing more and more things. He suspected that it might be the onset of his Elvish senses, but he also thought that it might just have to do with the increased observation necessary for the transformation which had no name. Either way, his world was becoming a lot more interesting.

Harry finally got around to reading the next volume of Magic. Based on what he had read in the first two volumes, it looked as if the third would be even more interesting. Harry wasn´t disappointed.

"The Disruption of Atoms and Unleashing of Atomic Forces," he read.

"Muggles have managed to grasp part of the secret of the uses of atomic forces. Although wizard and witch scientists have managed to find out much more than Muggles have, most witches and wizards do not know of even the existence of atoms. This is to their folly, for atoms are probably the most easily available power source known. The use of atomic forces allows a very small amount of magic to accomplish things beyond the abilities of most witches and wizards. Most witches and wizards, when conjuring a fire, will use a charm to convert a small part of their magic to heat, which then ignites the fuel. It would take a much smaller amount of magic to arrange atoms in such a way as to initiate spontaneous combustion, even without fuel. This using one´s own magic to make the power of atoms do most of the work in combustion is analogous to using one´s own magic to direct the power of a wand. Therefore, a witch or wizard who uses his or her own powers to direct other powers, such as atomic power, elemental energy or heat, gravity and visible light, is as more powerful than an ordinary witch or wizard using on a wand than that witch or wizard is to a witch or wizard without a wand.

Of course, just as some witches and wizards can do magic without a wand, some witches or wizards can surpass the abilities of others using atomic power while not using atomic power. It depends on the individual.

Perhaps the easiest type of atomic magic is that of destruction, much like a Muggle atomic bomb. This curse can be more easily directed than a Muggle atomic bomb, and does not produce any radioactivity." Harry read on, realizing how much this curse would be capable of.

***

In bed that night, Harry lay awake for quite some time, wondering how powerful he really was. He felt a sudden surge of elation at the power he had realized.

Harry, a voice said inside his head.

Yes? he asked. He sensed, somehow, that it was coming from inside his trunk. It was the Vampire Ruby.

I realize this much come to a shock to you, because you didn´t realize I was conscious, it continued.

How did you know I was thinking that? Harry asked curiously.

Much like you, Harry, I can read minds. You didn´t try to block me, so it was quite easy. I hope you don´t mind, I just wanted to gauge your initial reaction to the realization of my presence as a conscious entity.

That´s all right, Harry thought back. Is there anything I can do for you? Are you suffocating in my trunk? Do you want me to let you out? It seemed to him that the Ruby chuckled.

Thank you for asking, but I´m not bothered much by my environment. I am as comfortable in your trunk as I would be on your nightstand or in the maw of an erupting volcano.

Have you ever been in a volcano? Harry asked curiously.

No, the worst place I´ve ever been is inside an Elf´s stomach. Elves have horribly strong stomach acid, you know. It can dissolve practically any metal within about five seconds. Even more fascinating is that their skin is immune to the stuff.

I´ll keep that in mind whenever I´m in handcuffs, Harry said.

Right, said the Ruby. Anyway, I didn´t start talking to you just so that we could discuss my nearly total immunity to my environment and your stomach acid. I need to tell you a few things, so listen carefully.

Go on, said Harry, wondering what he was going to learn.

I think that you are aware that the vampires were released from the curse they were under, and are now simply normal people, who don´t need to suck blood to live, and can use their own power, rather than leeching off that of others?

Yes, said Harry.

The curse that the vampires were put under was a result of the actions of a certain person named Salazar Slytherin, one of the Hogwarts Founders. Salazar Slytherin was an immensely moral man, except for that he eventually developed a propensity for alcoholic beverages. In his fits of drunkenness, he created a huge basilisk, and put it in the Chamber of Secrets. His drunkenness also eroded his brain to the point where he, in a delusion, tried to prevent Muggle-born witches and wizards from coming to Hogwarts. When the other Founders refused, he stormed off into the wilderness, and got into a fight with a manticore. Temporarily, he was released from his drunkenness by the poison of the manticore, and as he lay dying, he called out to me, asking me to prolong his life so that he could atone for his wrongs. In a fit of anger which still haunts me today, I thought, "He needs blood to live, so let him live by taking of the life-giving substances of others." I took appropriate actions, and he became the first vampire. He soon went off and began turning others into vampires. I went straight to Godric Gryffindor and asked him to take my power and use it against the vampires, for I was so ashamed of what I had done, and had found that somehow, I could not do it. I wanted to sleep for another thirty thousand years, so that I would have time, in my dreams, to collect my thoughts, and decide what it was I should do.

But you had to drain your power, first, Harry said. Dumbledore told me you wanted to do that, but he didn´t tell me why.

Now you know, the Ruby continued. I ... really haven´t had much experience with sentient beings. I came into being around the time of the dinosaurs, and they weren´t very intelligent. A few of them managed to communicate with me, but they were the pinnacle of dinosaur evolution, and they were killed when a meteorite struck the Earth and blocked off much of the sunlight temporarily. I went to sleep finally, in the crater of the meteorite, while the bodies of my friends burned around me. I was incredibly depressed at their lost, and during the next five hundred thousand years, while I was awake, I attempted suicide many times.

Finally, the angst left me, and I, of course, survived the suicide attempts because I am immortal. Because of the suicides, I lost the ability to sleep while I had any power left. This wasn´t good, because the world from a ruby´s perspective can get a little boring after thirty thousand uninterrupted years. I needed my sleep. So, every thirty thousand years, I gave my power to a certain species of animal, and they then became magical. That´s why the first known members of many magical species lived about thirty thousand years apart. The last time I did this, I mistakenly drained my power into a human hunting a horse, and the centaurs arose, with brains equal to the power of a human brain and a horse brain combined.

However, magical species interbreed with nonmagical species, so now nearly all animals in the world are at least somewhat magical. Even Muggle pets have a bit of magic, and Muggles can sense that, although they don´t know what it is. That´s part of why Muggles in general love their pets so much.

The effect on me was that I could no longer find a species which didn´t have at least some magical members. I can only give my power to species which have no magical members, and I haven´t been able to find any of those on this planet. I can only travel to other planets by the devices of others, so I will have to wait until others are able to travel to planets with non-magical life-forms.

However, I´m rambling. Two thousand years ago, which you should understand isn´t an incredibly long time for me, I asked Godric Gryffindor to allow me to give him my power. When I drain my power into just one being, instead of an entire species, there is a problem. The being needs to know about it, and willingly allow me to do that. Also, the being needs to be able to hold my power. I have quite a lot of power, having accumulated it through my period of sleep prior to this period of wakefulness. Godric Gryffindor wasn´t capable of holding all my power, although he came close, so I wasn´t able to drain it into him. However, he did think of draining part of my power into the rubies which he then put on his sword, which eased my suffering somewhat. You see, I gradually generate more and more power, and after a while, the pressure starts to build up, and I need to let off the steam, if you will.

In return for Gryffindor´s help, I pledged to protect him and his descendants from harm. This wasn´t only out of gratitude, but also in the hope that he would have a descendant who could accept my power, because I sensed that he was genetically predisposed to power. You are his descendant, and you are one of my last hopes. When the vampires realized that they just needed to ask for me to release them and I would, I did so, but I had to work hard, and each time I exercise my power, I gain even more than I had before. There´s a limit to how much power I can hold. If I don´t drain my power soon, I will die.

How soon? Harry asked, alarmed.

Soon relative to me, the Ruby said quickly. I´m sorry. I forgot for a moment that we think of time differently. I have at least another century, and maybe two or three more. I believe that you are one who will be able to accept my power. Harry immediately realized that this would be a chance for more power, which night mean that he would not only be able to defeat Voldemort, but also be able to do many things which he otherwise wouldn´t be able to. Harry felt an immediate desire for the Ruby´s power.

I´ll let you drain it into me, Harry said eagerly. Right now, if you want to.

That´s the problem, Harry, the Ruby said sadly. You want my power, not to help me, but to use it for your own pleasure. While what you would do would be moral, I can´t allow you to take my power with the intent to use it. My power is only to protect and build, and Elves, being mortal, are capable of being fallible. You may be corrupted by my power if you take if now. In fact, I don´t think I will be able to drain my power into you. I will talk to you again later. Good night.

The contact was abruptly dropped.

Hey! Harry cast outward in a fierce burst of mental strength. All that happened was that Seamus, Dean, Neville, and especially Ron started in their sleep, but soon settled down again. Angry at the Ruby, Harry soon fell asleep.