Hello, AMagicWord. I'm happy to publish another Chapter of Blood of the Veil
If you want to Read 6 More Chapters Right Now. Search 'patreon.com/AMagicWord' on Websearch
The following 6 chapters are already available to Patrons.
Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and Chapter 8 are already available for Patrons.
Sleep came like drowning, pulling Harry down into depths where memory and nightmare blurred into something far worse than either alone.
The taste of smoke and blood filled his mouth as Harry ran through a forest that reeked of fear and burning thatch. But he wasn't Harry—he was someone else, someone whose lungs burned with the desperate need to escape the baying of hounds and the thunder of horses' hooves.
The woman stumbled ahead of him, her rough-spun dress torn and muddy, her dark hair wild with terror. "I am no wicce!" she screamed in words that should have been foreign but somehow made perfect sense to Harry's dreaming mind. "Mine children be innocent! We have done naught but heal the sick!"
Behind them, torches bobbed like malevolent eyes through the trees. "Burn the devil's spawn!" came the roar of the people, so many of them, rushing towards the woman like a thousand rats, ready to devour her. "Let God's fire cleanse this land!"
The woman's foot caught on a root, sending her sprawling into the mud. The hunting party burst from the undergrowth—peasants with pitchforks, a priest with wild eyes clutching a wooden cross, men with faces twisted by superstition and rage.
"Please," she sobbed, crawling backward until her spine met the rough bark of an oak. "Mine babes—they be but five summers old—"
A blade flashed. Her scream tore through the night as steel bit deep into her shoulder, and something inside her snapped like a bowstring pulled too tight.
The magic erupted from her in a wave of pure anguish and fury. Trees cracked like thunder, their ancient trunks splitting down the middle. Three of her attackers simply... collapsed, their hearts stopped by the raw force of her despair. Another man's pitchfork turned molten in his hands, the metal flowing like water as he shrieked and dropped the burning mass.
But there were too many. Always too many.
They fell on her with clubs and blades, their fear making them savage. Her blood soaked into the earth as her magic let out a burst, soon, she was alone in a sea of blood and bodies, but she was in pain, she was hurting, she could no longer walk and she saw it, beyond the woods, there was a strange light.
Harry jerked in his sleep, grief for Sirius mixing with this stranger's agony until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Why was he seeing this? Why did it feel so real, so familiar, as if he had stood in that forest and felt that woman's terror as his own?
The darkness was absolute, pressing against Harry's face like a living thing. But again, he wasn't Harry—he was small, so terribly small, with tiny hands that scraped against cold stone and knees that bled from crawling across the rough cave floor.
The child—for that's what he was in this dream—had been running from something. The memory was fragmented, confused: angry voices above, the crash of breaking pottery, the sharp crack of a hand across his face. He had tumbled down, down, down through a crack in the earth that his pursuers were too large to follow.
Now he crawled through tunnels that felt older than human memory, following a faint shimmer of light that seemed to promise warmth and safety.
"Moder?" he whispered his voice echoing strangely in the narrow passage. "Fæder? Where be ye?"
The light grew stronger, taking shape—an archway draped with something that moved without wind, something that whispered promises in voices too soft to understand. To the child's eyes, it looked like sunlight filtered through water, like the way morning light fell across his mother's face when she woke him with gentle hands.
His small fingers reached toward the shimmering veil, and Harry felt the exact moment when the child realized this wasn't salvation—it was something else entirely. But by then, tiny hands were already brushing against the ancient fabric, and the whispers had become a roar that swallowed his scream.
The taste of dust and terror filled Harry's mouth as he tossed restlessly, one hand unconsciously reaching toward something that wasn't there. He had felt that exact sensation—the moment when hope curdled into horror. But that had been him falling through the Veil, hadn't it? Not this unknown lost child.
The torchlight cast writhing shadows on worked stone walls as Harry found himself dragged through underground corridors by hands that gripped his arms like iron shackles. But these weren't his arms—they belonged to someone else, someone whose wrists were raw and bleeding from heavy manacles.
"Sethis of Blackmoor," intoned a voice that carried the weight of absolute authority, "thou art brought before this court for crimes most foul."
The chamber they entered was newer than the ancient tunnels Harry had seen in the previous dream—worked stone instead of natural cave, the place seemed familiar to Harry. Torches burned in iron sconces, their light falling on faces hard with disgust and righteous fury.
The man who spoke wore robes of deep blue trimmed with silver, his beard carefully groomed despite the late hour.
"The murder of seven souls," the man continued, his voice echoing off the stone. "The desecration of holy ground. The corruption of innocents." His voice cracked slightly on the last charge. "And the... violation... of mine own daughter."
Sethis—for Harry could feel the man's name like a brand burned into his consciousness—threw back his head and laughed. "Thy precious flower did sing so sweetly, Minister," he said, savouring the words that tasted sweeter than honey. "Methinks she enjoyed the lesson I taught her in the art of—"
The Minister's spell struck him before he could finish, a wordless curse that sent him stumbling backward. Behind Sethis, between two ancient pillars, hung the Veil, even here, even so long ago.
"May God have mercy on thy soul," the Minister whispered, "for I shall have none."
Another curse, stronger this time, and Sethis felt his feet leave the ground. The Veil rushed toward him from behind, its whispers growing to a howl as it swallowed his scream of rage and terror.
Harry's hands clenched into fists as he slept, fury and revulsion warring in his chest. He could feel Sethis's evil like oil on his skin, but underneath it was something else—the familiar sensation of falling through that terrible archway, the moment when the world simply... ended.
The final dream came gentler than the others, though no less strange. Harry stood in a chamber he didn't recognize but somehow knew—vast and circular, with walls of living stone.
Before him coiled a serpent the size of a small building, her scales the deep green of forest shadows, her eyes closed in what might have been sleep or meditation. She was beautiful.
A man approached this snake. Harry couldn't see his face clearly—the dream showed him only shadows and suggestions—but when the man spoke, the words came in a language that resonated in Harry's very bones.
"Cassilda," he hissed, and the serpent's great head turned toward him. "My time grows short. The others... they do not understand. They see only darkness where I see necessity."
The serpent's response came in sibilant whispers.
"Yes," the man continued, and Harry could hear the weight of ages in his voice. "The chamber will protect you. And perhaps... perhaps one day, another will come who understands that some prices must be paid to preserve what matters most."
Harry jerked awake with a gasp that tore from his throat like a sob. Sweat soaked his pajamas and plastered his hair to his forehead, though the dormitory air was cool with the approach of dawn. His scar prickled faintly—not with the sharp, familiar pain of Voldemort's presence, but with something else. His eyes remained closed.
"Harry?" Hermione's voice cut through the fog of half-sleep, soft and careful in the way people spoke around broken things. "How are you feeling?"
Harry's eyes fluttered open to the harsh, sterile brightness of the Hospital Wing. Everything was too white, too clean, too aggressively normal after the darkness of his dreams. The smell of healing potions and carbolic soap made his stomach turn—it was the smell of trying to fix things that couldn't be fixed, of pretending that some wounds actually healed.
"Fine," he mumbled, though the word tasted like ash in his mouth. Fine. What a pathetic lie. He'd never be fine again, not after watching Sirius disappear like smoke through that accursed archway.
He turned his head to take in his surroundings, wincing as the movement sent a spike of pain through his skull. Hermione sat in her bed, her bushy hair more disheveled than usual, dark circles under her eyes. Ron occupied another chair, his freckled face creased with worry. Beyond them, Luna, Neville, and Ginny lay in their own beds, breathing deeply in the peaceful sleep of the innocent.
The innocent. Harry almost laughed at the irony. None of them were innocent anymore, not after what he'd dragged them into. Not after what he'd cost them all.
"How long?" Harry asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His throat felt raw, as if he'd been screaming, though he couldn't remember doing so.
"Two days," Hermione said quietly. "You've been... you were unconscious for two days, Harry. Madam Pomfrey said it was some kind of magical exhaustion, but she'd never seen anything quite like—"
"Two days." Harry stared down at his hands, pale against the white hospital sheets. Two days since he'd stood in Dumbledore's office and felt his world crumble into ash and accusations. Two days since he'd looked into those twinkling blue eyes and promised never to forgive the man who'd let Sirius die.
"It is my fault that Sirius died." The old man's words echoed in Harry's memory, but they brought no comfort—only a fresh wave of bitter fury. An admission of guilt from the great Albus Dumbledore, as if that could somehow resurrect the dead or undo fifteen years of manipulation and lies.
Too little, too late, you bastard. The thought came sharp and vicious, and Harry found he didn't care. Let the whole world think Dumbledore was some benevolent grandfather figure. Harry knew better now.
"What's happened?" he asked, forcing himself to focus on the present. "While I was... out."
Ron and Hermione exchanged a look—one of those silent conversations that excluded him, as if he were too fragile to handle whatever news they carried. The gesture made something twist unpleasantly in Harry's chest.
"The Ministry," Ron said finally, his voice neutral. "It's chaos, mate. Complete chaos. Yesterday, Fudge finally..." He swallowed hard. "He admitted it. You-Know-Who's back."
Ron reached into his robes and pulled out a crumpled copy of the Daily Prophet, handling it like it might bite him. The headline screamed across the front page in letters large enough to be seen from space: MINISTER CONFIRMS RETURN OF YOU-KNOW-WHO. Below it, a photograph of Cornelius Fudge looked back at Harry with an expression of abject terror. The man's face was so pale it was practically translucent, his bowler hat askew, his mustache trembling with each word of his stammered confession.
Harry read through the article with growing disbelief, taking in the Ministry's frantic attempts to explain away a year of denial and persecution. They'd thrown Umbridge under the proverbial Knight Bus, of course—suddenly her "overzealous methods" were being "thoroughly investigated" by officials who'd happily looked the other way for months.
A sound escaped him—low and harsh and utterly without mirth. It might have been a chuckle once, in some other life where he still found things funny instead of bitterly ironic.
"Something amusing?" Ron asked, looking concerned.
"Our dear Minister spent an entire year waging war against a fifteen-year-old boy, and now he stands before the wizarding world admitting he was wrong." Harry's lips curved in a smile that would have looked more at home on a skull. "History will remember Cornelius Fudge for exactly what he was—the Minister who chose politics over truth and handed our world to Voldemort on a silver platter."
He paused, studying Fudge's terrified face in the photograph. "Cornelius the Craven," he said finally, tasting the words like wine. "Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Much more honest than 'Minister for Magic.'"
Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair, clearly unsettled by the venom in Harry's voice. Hermione looked like she wanted to say something comforting, something about forgiveness and moving forward and all the other platitudes people offered when they couldn't face the ugly truth.
The silence stretched between them like a held breath until Hermione finally spoke again, her voice gentle. "Harry, how are you really feeling? About... about everything that happened?"
Harry's mind immediately conjured the image of Sirius—laughing, taunting Bellatrix, then stumbling backward through that terrible archway with a look of shocked surprise on his face. The memory made something twist viciously in Harry's chest.
"Sirius is gone," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. The words felt like broken glass in his throat. "My godfather is dead. And it's all because of Dumbledore."
Ron and Hermione exchanged one of those looks again—wide-eyed confusion mixed with growing alarm. Their faces seemed so young suddenly, so innocent and trusting. Naive, Harry thought with bitter clarity. They still believe in fairy tales.
"What?" Ron stammered. "Harry, mate, what does Dumbledore have to do with—"
"Everything," Harry cut him off, his voice gaining strength. "He has everything to do with it." The Hospital Wing suddenly felt too small, too bright, the white walls pressing in on him like a cage. "Do you want to know what our beloved headmaster told me after Sirius died? After I watched my godfather fall through the Veil?"
"It is my fault that Sirius died... I cared about you too much." The memory of Dumbledore's voice sent fresh rage coursing through Harry's veins.
"He admitted it," Harry continued, his hands clenching into fists beneath the hospital sheets. "Sat there in his office, surrounded by all his little trinkets and gadgets, and told me that Sirius died because he—Dumbledore—cared too much about my feelings to tell me the truth."
Hermione's face had gone pale. "Harry, surely he didn't mean—"
"Didn't mean what?" Harry's voice rose sharply, causing Luna to stir in her sleep across the room. "That he's been playing chess with our lives for five years? That we're all just pieces on his board in some grand game he's losing?"
Pawn to king's four. Sacrifice the knight to save the queen. Except knights don't get to come back to life when the game is over.
"He told me he's been watching me, Hermione. Watching and planning and manipulating every aspect of my life since I was a baby. And when I asked him why he never told me about the prophecy, why he never prepared me for what was coming, do you know what he said?"
Ron shook his head mutely, his freckles standing out starkly against his pale skin.
"He said he cared more about my happiness than the truth. More about my peace of mind than the lives that might be lost if his precious plan failed." Harry's voice cracked with fury. "Well, congratulations to him—his plan did fail. Sirius is dead because Dumbledore couldn't be bothered to trust a fifteen-year-old boy with information that might have saved his life."
"Harry," Hermione said desperately, "Professor Dumbledore has always tried to protect you—"
Harry laughed, and the sound was sharp enough to cut. "Protect me? Is that what you call it?" He threw back the hospital blanket and extended his left hand, showing them the neat, white scars carved into his skin. "I must not tell lies," he read aloud. "Dolores Umbridge did this to me, Hermione. In every bloody detention. And where was Dumbledore?"
Hermione's eyes filled with tears. "He didn't know—"
"That makes it worse!" Harry exploded, his voice echoing off the hospital walls. "If the great Albus Dumbledore didn't know that one of his teachers was torturing students right under his nose, then what kind of protector is he? What kind of leader?"
Blood quill scratching across parchment. Pain like fire shooting up his hand. Umbridge's toad-like smile as she watched him bleed.
"You want to know about protection?" Harry continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Let me tell you about Dumbledore's protection. First year—Professor Quirrell, possessed by Voldemort, teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts for an entire term. We were eleven years old, and Dumbledore let a servant of the Dark Lord have unlimited access to students. We could have died a dozen different ways that year."
Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Harry steamrolled over him.
"Second year—he hired Gilderoy Lockhart, a fraud who couldn't cast a proper Stunning Spell if his life depended on it. Then when students started getting petrified, what did our protector do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You were turned to stone, Hermione. You could have died, and Dumbledore just... waited."
Hermione's rigid form on the hospital bed, gray as stone, cold as marble. The terror of thinking he might never see her smile again.
"Third year, I'll grant you, wasn't his fault," Harry said with bitter fairness. "Fudge brought the Dementors to school despite Dumbledore's protests."
"Harry—" Ron tried again.
"Fourth year," Harry continued relentlessly, "my name comes out of the Goblet of Fire. Did Dumbledore try to get me out of it? Did he investigate who put my name in? Did he seem concerned that someone was trying to manipulate a dangerous tournament to kill me?" Harry's green eyes blazed with fury. "No. He told me to do my best and left me to figure it out on my own."
The ceiling above seemed to press down on him, white and sterile and suffocating. How many times had he nearly died while Dumbledore watched from the sidelines?
"And this year," Harry's voice had gone quiet again, deadly calm. "This year, he ignored me completely. Wouldn't look at me, wouldn't speak to me, left me to handle Umbridge's torture and Voldemort's visions all by myself, and told me to learn occlumency from Snape, the same SNAPE who hates my guts from the day I stepped foot on this school. If he had told me the truth—just once, just this once—Sirius would still be alive."
The silence that followed was deafening. Ron and Hermione sat frozen in their beds, staring at him with expressions of shock and growing horror. They looked like children who'd just been told that Father Christmas wasn't real, that the tooth fairy was a lie, that the world was darker and crueler than they'd ever imagined.
Good, Harry thought with savage satisfaction. Let them see.
"From now on," he said, his voice carrying the finality of a closing door, "I do things my way. You can follow Dumbledore if you want. You can trust him with your lives, your families, your futures. But I won't. Not anymore."
He lay back against his pillows and turned his face toward the window. "If I were you, I'd stop relying on him so much. Before he decides your lives are acceptable losses in his greater game."
Ron and Hermione said nothing. What could they say? Harry had just systematically dismantled every assumption they'd held about the man they'd trusted implicitly for five years.
The rest of the day passed in uncomfortable silence. Nurses came and went, checking on the sleeping students, bringing meals that Harry barely touched. Ron and Hermione tried to make conversation once or twice, but their words felt hollow and forced, and eventually they gave up.
When evening fell and visiting hours ended, Harry found himself alone with his thoughts and the steady rhythm of his roommates' breathing. He stared up at the white ceiling, watching shadows shift across its surface as clouds passed over the moon.
Sirius, he thought, and the name was like a prayer and a curse combined. I should have saved you. Should have been smarter, faster, better.
But dwelling on should-haves wouldn't bring his godfather back. Nothing would. All Harry could do now was make sure it never happened again—that he never again trusted someone else to keep the people he loved safe.
"I'll do it my way," he whispered to the darkness, and the words felt like a vow.
Outside, an owl called in the distance, its cry echoing across the grounds like a lament for the dead.
The next morning brought the soft sounds of his friends stirring to consciousness—gentle yawns, the rustle of hospital bedsheets, Luna's dreamy voice asking Madam Pomfrey if the Wrackspurts had been properly cleared from the room. Harry watched through his lashes as Ginny sat up slowly, wincing as she moved her injured ankle, while Neville rubbed his eyes and blinked owlishly at the bright Hospital Wing windows.
The knowledge of what he'd dragged them into—what he'd cost them—sat in Harry's chest like a stone.
Tell them, his conscience whispered. Tell them how sorry you are.
"I need to apologize," Harry said quietly, his voice cutting through their sleepy murmurs. All three turned toward him with varying degrees of surprise. "What happened at the Ministry... it's my fault. All of it."
Sirius falling backward through the Veil, his face shocked and almost amused, as if death were just another prank gone wrong.
"I should have listened to Hermione," he continued, each word feeling like swallowing glass. "You could have died because of my stupidity."
Ginny's brown eyes softened with something that looked dangerously like sympathy. "Harry, don't—" she began, then stopped herself. Her gaze flickered briefly to his face, searching for something Harry couldn't name. When she spoke again, her voice was even gentler. "Don't worry about it. We chose to come with you."
But Harry could see the question she wasn't asking, the concern lurking behind her measured words. Are you okay? How are you handling Sirius's death? Do you need to talk? The unspoken questions felt like accusations. She was being kind—they all were—and Harry couldn't stand it.
They shouldn't be kind to me. They should be angry. Should blame me.
"We all knew the risks," Neville added right away. "It's not your fault that... that things went wrong."
Things went wrong. Such a gentle way to describe watching his godfather die.
Luna, propped up against her pillows with her arms in slings, regarded him with that strange, penetrating stare of hers. "The voices from the Veil were very loud that night," she said dreamily. "Louder than usual. They seemed... excited."
"Luna," Ginny said sharply, shooting her a warning look.
"It's nothing to worry about," Luna continued serenely, ignoring Ginny's obvious discomfort. "Voices beyond the Veil often get excited when someone passes through. It doesn't happen very often."
"I'm fine," Harry lied, because he couldn't bear to see the worry in their eyes anymore. "We're all fine. That's what matters."
The next two days passed in a blur of awkward visits from well-meaning friends and teachers, healing potions that tasted like liquid chalk, and dreams filled with ancient voices and falling figures. When Madam Pomfrey finally declared him fit to return to his dormitory, Harry felt nothing but relief.
The Gryffindor common room buzzed with whispered conversations that died the moment he appeared. Students stared at him with awe, the boy who'd fought Death Eaters, who'd seen You-Know-Who with his own eyes, who'd somehow survived the Department of Mysteries.
Harry ignored them all and climbed the stairs to his dormitory, desperate for solitude.
His trunk sat at the foot of his bed exactly as he'd left it before that disastrous trip to save a godfather who hadn't needed saving. Harry opened it mechanically, pulling out wrinkled robes and spell books, trying to restore some semblance of order to his belongings.
His fingers closed around something wrapped in dark cloth, and memory struck him.
"This is a two-way mirror," Sirius had said last Christmas, pressing the wrapped package into Harry's hands with an almost shy smile. "If you need to talk to me, just say my name into it and I'll appear. Better than letters—harder for someone to intercept."
Harry unwrapped the mirror with trembling hands, staring down at its innocuous silver surface. It looked so ordinary, so harmless. Just a mirror, no different from any other except for the magic woven into its glass.
If he had just remembered. If he had just thought to use it.
The realization hit him like a Bludger to the chest, driving all the air from his lungs. He could have spoken to Sirius directly. Could have seen his face, heard his voice, confirmed that he was safe at Grimmauld Place. Could have learned that the vision was false, that Kreacher was lying, that Voldemort was playing him like a puppet on strings.
"Always trust your heart, Harry," Sirius had told him once. "But maybe check with your head first."
Harry sank onto his bed, clutching the mirror so tightly his knuckles went white. One conversation. One simple use of the gift Sirius had given him out of love and concern. That's all it would have taken.
Hermione had tried to warn him. "Harry, what if this is a trick?" But he'd been so certain, so desperate to play the hero.
The mirror's surface remained stubbornly blank, offering no comfort, no absolution. Sirius was gone, fallen through an archway that led nowhere because Harry Potter was too stupid, too arrogant, too convinced of his own righteousness to think clearly.
"You have a saving-people thing," Hermione had said. And she'd been right. His need to save everyone had gotten the one person he most wanted to protect killed.
Harry drew a shuddering breath, his vision blurring as he stared down at his own reflection in the glass. The boy looking back at him had hollow green eyes and a face too thin from grief and guilt.
The mirror offered no argument, no contradiction. It simply reflected the truth: Harry Potter, the boy who'd survived everything except his own stupidity, holding the one thing that could have saved the person he loved most.
Outside, he could hear the distant sounds of students preparing for dinner, their voices bright with the thoughtless cheer of those who hadn't watched their family die. The normal world continued spinning, oblivious to the fact that Harry's had stopped the moment Sirius fell through the Veil.
He closed his fingers around the mirror and held it against his chest, feeling its cool weight like a stone over his heart. This was his burden to carry now—the knowledge of what could have been, what should have been, what never would be again.
Sirius.
The name echoed in the empty dormitory, but no beloved face appeared in the mirror's depths. There was only silence, and the taste of regret, and the terrible certainty that some mistakes could never be undone.
Later
The Great Hall buzzed with nervous energy as Harry pushed food around his plate without eating. Students clustered in tight groups, whispering about Death Eaters and Ministry denials and the return of You-Know-Who. Their faces were pale.
At the staff table, Dumbledore rose slowly to his feet. The hall fell silent instantly, every eye turning toward the headmaster with the desperate hope that he would somehow make everything better, somehow promise them that the monster in the shadows wouldn't come for them.
"Students," Dumbledore began, his voice carrying easily across the vast hall, "by now you have all heard the news. Lord Voldemort has indeed returned."
A collective shiver ran through the hall at the name. Some students flinched visibly; others whispered prayers under their breath.
"I want you to know that Hogwarts remains the safest place in magical Britain," Dumbledore continued, his blue eyes twinkling with forced reassurance. "However, I must ask you all to exercise extreme caution. Travel in groups when possible. Be wary of strangers. Trust your instincts."
Trust your instincts. Harry's hands clenched into fists beneath the table. His instincts had told him Sirius was in danger, and look how that had ended.
"The Ministry is taking every precaution," Dumbledore said, and Harry had to bite back a snort of derision. "But we must all remain vigilant. Dark times lie ahead, but together—"
Harry stood abruptly, the scrape of his chair against stone echoing through the suddenly silent hall. A thousand eyes turned toward him, but he didn't care. He couldn't sit there and listen to another word of Dumbledore's empty platitudes, couldn't stomach another speech about unity and hope when the old man had proven exactly how much his protection was worth.
Without a backward glance, Harry strode from the hall, ignoring the whispers that erupted in his wake. Let them talk. Let them wonder. He had more important things to do than pretend everything would be fine if they just believed hard enough.
The Room of Requirement materialized around him as he paced past the familiar stretch of wall, transforming into a simple, sparse chamber with stone walls and a single chair. It felt like a sanctuary—quiet, private, free from the suffocating weight of other people's expectations.
Harry sank into the chair and let his mind drift back to the Department of Mysteries, to the moment when Bellatrix had tried to escape through the Floo Network. He could still feel the spell flowing through him—Sectumsempra—the word rising from some deep well of knowledge he shouldn't have possessed.
Where had that come from? The question had been gnawing at him for days. He'd used magic he'd never learned, spoken words in languages he didn't know. Something had changed when he'd passed through the Veil.
But that was a mystery for another time. Right now, he had more practical concerns.
Ten days. That's all he had left before the term ended and Dumbledore inevitably sent him back to Privet Drive, back to the Dursleys who hated him and the suburban prison that masqueraded as protection. Ten days to figure out how to prepare himself for whatever was coming.
Magic, he thought grimly. That's the only thing that matters now. Power. Knowledge. The ability to protect myself and the people I care about.
But how could he practice when the Ministry's Trace would detect any spell he cast outside school grounds? One unauthorized charm and they'd expel him, snap his wand like a twig, leave him defenseless in a world where Voldemort's followers were hunting for him.
Then he remembered something—a house-elf in his bedroom at Privet Drive, magic crackling around small hands as furniture levitated and puddings exploded. The Ministry had blamed Harry for that magic, but they'd never detected Dobby himself.
"Dobby," Harry called out, his voice echoing in the empty chamber.
The air shimmered, and with a soft pop, the house-elf appeared, his tennis ball-sized green eyes bright with joy. "Master Harry Potter, sir! Dobby is so happy to see you!" The elf's ears flapped excitedly as he bounced on his toes. "How can Dobby help the great Harry Potter?"
Despite everything, Harry felt a small smile tug at his lips. Dobby's enthusiasm was infectious, even in his current dark mood.
"Dobby, I need to ask you something," Harry said, leaning forward in his chair. "How are you able to use magic without the Ministry detecting it? When you used your magic in Privet Drive, they blamed me for your spells, but they never seemed to know it was you."
Dobby's eyes grew even wider, if that was possible. "Oh, the Ministry does not bother to trace house-elf magic, Master Harry Potter, sir. They think it is beneath them, not worth their notice."
Of course they do, Harry thought with disgust. The Ministry's arrogance might actually be useful for once.
"Is there any way for me to use magic outside school without getting caught?" he asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
Dobby's ears drooped slightly as he considered the question. "Dobby is thinking very hard, but Dobby cannot think of a definitive way, Harry Potter, sir. The Trace, it watches for human magic very carefully."
Harry's heart sank, but he pressed on. "What about your magic? Could I learn to use house-elf magic instead?"
"Oh no, Master Harry Potter!" Dobby exclaimed, shaking his head vigorously. "Humans cannot use elf magic. It is different, sir. Comes from a different place, a different source."
Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands. There had to be something, some loophole he could exploit. He couldn't spend another summer trapped and helpless while Voldemort gathered strength.
Then a memory surfaced—Dudley and his gang chasing him through Little Whinging, the terror and desperation that had sent him somehow materializing on the school roof. Accidental magic. No Ministry officals had come to question him about it.
"Dobby," he said slowly, an idea beginning to form. "What about wandless magic? Magic without a wand. Can the Ministry track that?"
Dobby's face brightened considerably. "Oh yes, Harry Potter, sir! Wandless magic is much harder to track. The Trace, it looks for wand magic mostly. But," his expression grew serious, "Harry Potter must be very careful. Too much wandless magic, and they might still detect it. They might send someone to... to sniff around."
Harry felt a spark of hope ignite in his chest. Wandless magic. It was dangerous, difficult, and far from ideal, but it was something. A way to prepare himself, to practice, to grow stronger while everyone else assumed he was helpless.
The Dursleys won't know the difference, he thought grimly. And if Dumbledore thinks I'm safely locked away and defenseless, all the better.
"Thank you, Dobby," Harry said quietly. "You've been more helpful than you know."
The house-elf beamed with pride, his ears flapping happily. "Dobby is always happy to help Harry Potter, sir! Is there anything else Dobby can do?"
"Not right now," Harry replied. "But... stay safe, Dobby. Dark times are coming."
With another soft pop, the elf disappeared, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts and his growing determination. Ten days to plan. Ten days to prepare. Then a summer of secret practice, of pushing the boundaries of what he could do without a wand, of making himself strong enough that he'd never again have to watch someone he loved die because he was too weak to save them.
Let Dumbledore play his chess games, Harry thought, his green eyes hard as emeralds in the dim light. Let him move his pieces around the board while I prepare for war.
This time, when Death Eaters came calling, Harry Potter would be ready for them. And if that meant breaking a few rules, bending a few laws, exploring magic that others might consider dangerous... well, desperate times called for desperate measures.
He was done being anyone's pawn. It was time to become a player in his own right.
If you want to Read 6 More Chapters Right Now. Search 'patreon.com/AMagicWord' on Websearch