章節 12: Chapter 012

The very next morning, Harry Potter, still sitting cross-legged on the floor, opened his eyes with a sigh. He had been meditating all night, unable to clear his mind and unable to sleep. He was too excited.

Today was the day he took his first steps on the path that his parents had walked. He would be going to get his school supplies at a place called Diagon Alley. He had spoke at length with Aunt Petunia last night about how to get there. His Aunt, though hesitant and obviously miffed about discussing a topic she had no desire to remember, answered all of his questions to the best of her ability. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

In one fluid motion Harry brought himself from a sitting position to a standing one. He moved over to the window. It was early, the sun was just now rising, casting rays of light upon the land before him. It was too early to go to Diagon Alley. Uncle Vernon was unlikely to even be awake. A pity.

Seeing how it was Saturday, Harry had nothing to do but take a shower and get prepared. He didn't exercise on Saturdays, instead letting his body rest and recover from the arduous tasks he put it through during the week. With that thought in mind, he went into the bathroom, washed himself off, then got dressed in a pair of dark green pants, a black sleeveless shirt, a collared button up shirt the same color as his pants and his converse shoes.

He then practiced his magic for the next hour, levitating a football around his head. To add some more difficulty to the task, he took to changing it into something else. A flower. A book. A cup. His abilities at transformation were much more limited than his levitating abilities. It required far more concentration to change an object into something else then it did to lift said object into the air. Still, with enough effort, application of power and proper visualization, he was quite capable of making the transformations in time. When a sufficient amount of time had past, Harry decided to go down and make breakfast.

Breakfast itself was a silent affair. No one would speak. Aunt Petunia because of the conversation yesterday; Uncle Vernon because of the fact that he would be driving his 'freak' of a nephew to get supplies for his 'freakish school' today; and Dudley because he was stuffing his face to the brim with pancakes.

Harry ate his breakfast silently: scrambled eggs with a side of toast and a glass of orange juice. When everyone was done, he grabbed the plates and made to wash them. It was during this time that conversation finally started.

Uncle Vernon looked up from his morning newspaper. His face was puce colored, agitated, but he managed to reign himself in and refrained from saying anything stupid. It was an admirable show of restraint—for him at least.

"So this place I need to take you..." Vernon began, trailing off as his face somehow managed to both grimace and glare at the same time.

"The Leaky Cauldron," Harry supplied. Vernon grunted.

"Right, will I need to pick you up?"

"No," Harry supplied. "I can take a cab," he lied, as always. Harry only took a cab when he did not know where he needed to go. Once he saw the place he was to be visiting today, he would no longer require any kind of transportation other than his own magic.

"Good," Vernon grunted again, than went back to reading his morning news. Harry rolled his eyes and finished his task. Time past and before long Harry was being driven through the streets of London by his disgruntled uncle. The man held onto the steering wheel tightly, his face still colored, the leather of the steering wheel creaking under his harsh grip. Harry paid little attention to his uncle as he looked out the window, his mind occupied with other, more important thoughts.

Hogwarts. He wondered what he would learn when he finally arrived. Would they be the same as his own brand of magic? Harry knew that witches and wizards used wands in their magic. His mother had one, his father had one, the few people he had seen before they went into hiding had one. He had watched them use their wands many times, waving them in the air in intricate patterns, chanting incantations in Latin. He wondered if his magic was even the same as their magic. Or did the fact that he didn't need a wand make his magic different? Time would tell, he supposed.

Enhancement, healing, levitation, transformation, teleportation. Those were the five branches of magic Harry was capable of. He would have included disintegration in there, but that was more of a sub branch to transformation than it was it's own branch of magic. Harry had experimented with these powers quite a bit, and came to the conclusion that they were useful, but limited. He had seen his mother and father do quite a bit more with their wands than he could do without one.

A part of it, he was sure, simply had to do with time and training. He had only started consciously using his magic when he was six—five years ago. His parents had to have been at least in their thirties when they had been killed. They had at least two decades over him in experience. Harry was sure that with enough practice and training, he could accomplish everything they did with a wand without one. All it would take was time.