A sirius matter

Chapter 4 - Feelings and Trust

After they'd spent a few hours with Hermione's parents (eating dinner, watching a movie), Harry and Hermione walked upstairs to Harry's room, where he'd carried the new trunk when they got back. Together, they started putting Harry's clothes in the dresser and closet as appropriate.

Hermione commented, "You really impressed dad tonight."

Harry looked confused. "Impressed him? How? I got you home late."

"And you took responsibility," explained Hermione, "He'll never admit it, but that impressed him. He expected you to make up an excuse like I took too long shopping or something. Instead, you just said that it was your fault and not to punish me."

"Well," said Harry, "It was my fault. Anyway, what did you think about Grimmauld Place?"

"It could really use a new decorator," she answered grinning, "but I think it wouldn't take more than a few hours to turn one of the rooms into a dueling room so we can practice defensive magic. I think we at least made it safe for muggles, as long as they don't mess with any objects that might be cursed, so we can tell them about it tomorrow. I don't think they'll have time to visit the house then, but they will want to visit, if only for a proper demonstration of magic. They don't ever actually get the chance to see what I'm learning."

"I was wondering why you didn't tell them about it today," replied Harry.

"I was afraid they'd insist on joining us, or else forbid us to go to a potentially dangerous house. Well, I think you'll want to put these away yourself," suggested Hermione with a smirk, indicating his new underwear, the only clothes now left in his trunk. He quickly grabbed them and threw them in a drawer, anxious to get them out of sight. While he was doing that, she started pulling out the new books and laying them on his bed in several small piles.

"What are you doing?" asked Harry.

"I'm organizing the books based off of the topics. Here are advanced charms books. Over there are defensive magic books, including one on defending your mind. The magical branch is called occlumency. It sounds fascinating. There are wizards who use what's called legilimency to read people's thoughts, and occlumency is the defense against it. We need to make sure no one can read the prophecy or anything about our training out of our minds. Over there are books on the dark arts, which reminds me, we may want to visit Knockturn Alley at some point later on if we need to learn more about the dark arts. Hopefully we won't." She pointed out several other types of books, until she reached the last four. "…and this book, 'Unlocking Your Magical Potential' is about specific magical exercises that are supposed to help you learn to use every bit of magic inside you."

"What does that mean? Don't we already know how to use our magic?"

"Not entirely. Most wizards and witches don't ever use their full potential. It's kind of like the way we don't use most of our brain. We slowly learn to use more as our magical education continues, but then we stop learning. Most Hogwarts graduates don't use half of their potential. Your spells are supposed to have greater potency if you put more power into them, and you'll be able to perform spells you wouldn't have been able to before. This book shows ways to focus your mind more so that you channel more of your magic. This next book is on wordless and wandless magic."

"What?" exclaimed Harry, "We need a wand to do magic."

"No we don't," countered Hermione. "Everybody does wandless, wordless magic as children, and it's called accidental magic. Last year, you did an impressive, albeit illegal, demonstration of wandless, wordless magic on your aunt. Wands help us to focus our magic, but aren't necessary. I honestly wonder why we bother with wands. It may be harder to learn magic without them, but it would make us better wizards. I remember my first accidental magic. I was seven years old. I was in a library with my mum reading, and she took a book from me, claiming it was too advanced for me to understand. I was really upset. She put it back on the shelf and started walking back toward me. The book came off the shelf by itself and floated back to my table." Hermione smiled. "I did my first summoning charm, and it was without words or a wand. Now, this year, Professor Flitwick is going to teach us the proper wand movement and incantation, which by the way is, 'Accio book.' Anyway, I don't understand why they get us so dependant on wands."