Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sleep had long since given up on her.

Hermione lay on her back, staring at the canopy of her four-poster, listening to the castle settle around her in the silence of very early morning. No footsteps in the corridor. No distant murmur of portraits. Just stone and darkness and the sound of her own thoughts, which were, as they had been for the past several hours, entirely too loud.

She gave up.

She pushed back the covers, slipped her feet into her worn slippers, and padded to the window. One of the few genuine advantages of being a Ravenclaw, she had always thought, was the single rooms. She couldn't fathom how the Gryffindors managed it, five or six to a dormitory, nowhere to retreat, no silence that was truly yours. The thought alone was exhausting.

Outside, the grounds were dark and still, the lake a flat, lightless expanse beneath a clouded sky. She pressed her fingertips to the cold glass and let her eyes go unfocused. The evening replayed itself. Again. As it had been doing since she'd finally returned to her room, contract in hand and sat on the edge of her bed for a very long time without moving. Following Potter through the castle. Watching the ritual. The moment she'd believed, genuinely believed, that she had him. And then the ropes on the chair, undisturbed, and Potter standing in front of her as though she'd never bound him at all, as though the entire thing had been a mildly diverting way to spend an evening.

She'd tried to kill him.

The thought surfaced again, the way it had been surfacing all night, cold and sharp. It had been in panic, pure and graceless, because she'd been cornered and frightened and her hand had simply reached for the worst thing she knew. The sizzling stone where the curse had landed. The way his expression had shifted, just for a fraction of a second, before he'd swatted it aside like an irritating insect.

She pressed her forehead briefly against the glass. She had slipped up and it could have cost her everything.

Was she evil? The word sat uncomfortably in her chest, neither fully fitting nor fully wrong. Unhinged, people had called her. Unstable. She'd heard it often enough from enough directions that she'd stopped bothering to argue, it was drowned out by all the other insults hurled at her every day. She didn't feel evil. She felt like someone who had learned, through considerable and ongoing personal experience, that the world was not going to extend her any particular courtesies, and had adjusted her behaviour accordingly. That wasn't evil. She was trying to survive. And one could not fault another for trying to survive could they? A cornered animal didn’t kill because it was evil, a tiger didn’t hunt because it hated it’s prey. They did, what the circumstances in which they existed forced them to do she reasoned.

It didn't entirely explain the organ-dissolving curse, admittedly.

She turned from the window and sat back down on the bed, her head dropping into her hands, her brown hair spilling on either side of her head.

On nights like this she sometimes thought about her parents. Not with any great warmth, that particular well had run dry some years ago, but with a dull, tired wish that things had been different. That there had been someone, anyone, she might have talked to about any of this. But even if her parents had possessed the faintest interest in her life beyond examination results, this was hardly the sort of thing that translated. I attempted to blackmail a boy and then tried to dissolve his organs, and now I've signed a contract with him and I don't know if I've made the best decision of my life or the worst one.Yeah, that would go down well.

Because underneath the panic, underneath the exhaustion and the self-recrimination, something else had been sitting quietly all evening, waiting for her to look at it properly.

That power.

She had felt powerful magic before, Dumbledore's, at a distance, a kind of ambient gentle pressure that made the air feel heavier. But this had been different. When Potter's magic had pressed down on her in that classroom it hadn't felt like just some weight or invisible presence. It had felt like a deep depth, like standing at the edge of a cliff with no visible bottom and suddenly becoming very aware of how small you were. And he hadn't even been trying. That was the part that kept snagging in her mind, that careless, almost apologetic quality to it, as though he'd reached for a fraction of what was available and considered it more than sufficient.

Terrifying, yes.

But also and she was honest enough with herself to admit this, alone in the dark at three in the morning, extraordinary. To have access to that. To learn from it. To stand beside it rather than in its path.

If it was real.

Her gaze moved to the nightstand, where the folded parchment lay in the small pool of moonlight that had found its way through the clouds. She had read it six times. Possibly seven. Looked for the clause that wasn't there, the loophole she hadn't spotted, the fine print designed to close around her the moment she stopped paying attention.

It wasn't there.

She could leave. The contract said so plainly. She gained access to the library, to training, to knowledge she couldn't have acquired in ten years of Hogwarts education. And Potter asked for help with a search she didn't yet fully understand, which was either the most suspicious thing about the arrangement or the least, depending on how she looked at it.

It was too good.

She picked up the contract, read it an eighth time, and set it back down.

It was still too good.

But it was also, she thought, unfolding her legs and lying back against her pillow to stare at the canopy once more, the only card she'd been dealt in a very long time that wasn't marked. A small hope, a possibility she would be a fool not to exploit.

When dawn finally came, it brought with it at least a few hours of sleep. Hermione lay still for a moment, cataloguing her own exhaustion with practised efficiency, then decided that the few hours of sleepwere sufficient to function and got up after grabbing a small emergency Pepper-Up potion from inside her nightstand.

It was Saturday. No classes. The realisation settled over her with something almost approaching warmth as she dressed and gathered herself. A proper weekend, for once. Perhaps she'd go down to Hagrid later, or walk along the lake with Luna. Feed the Giant Squid. Distract herself a bit today. Leave her homework until Sunday even.

She paused in the act of fastening her robes and pulled a face.

That last thought had sounded disturbingly like Ronald Weasley. She made a mental note not to let that happen again.

Still. This weekend was an exception, one she would not let happen again.

The Great Hall was pleasantly sparse when she arrived, the long tables occupied only by the early risers and the chronically studious, the golden morning light falling in long, warm columns across the stone floor. Hermione's gaze found the Ravenclaw table automatically and she felt the habitual tension in her shoulders ease slightly when she spotted Fleur already seated, her pale hair catching the light. She'd grown genuinely fond of the Beauxbatons champion over the past week. She resolved to try and get to know her better outside of shared meals.

She was making her way over to sit down beside her when she registered the figure on the opposite side of the table and stopped in her tracks.

Potter sat with the easy, proprietary comfort of someone who had decided the Ravenclaw table suited him this morning and saw no reason to justify this to anyone. He was in conversation with Fleur, gesturing at something with a relaxed body language that suggested he had slept quite well, which was, Hermione thought, deeply unfair. As though he felt her arrival and she was absolutely going to check for tracking charms later, that was not paranoia, that was due diligence, he turned his head.

He smiled. Wide and immediate, as though seeing her had confirmed something pleasing. Then he raised one hand and waved.

Hermione groaned.

Harry watched her cross the Hall as she approached. She moved carefully, he noticed, the way she always did in public spaces, taking up precisely as much room as necessary and no more.

He smiled when she was close enough to see it.

"Good morning, Hermione. I hope you slept well."

The look she gave him in response was its own complete sentence. She set it aside without comment, pulled out the chair across from Fleur, and sat down.

"Good morning, Fleur." She reached for the teapot and began buttering her toast before she'd fully settled. Then, as though remembering something minor, "Potter."

Harry's smile didn't waver.

"What brings you to this table today?" she asked, not looking at him.

"Widening my social horizons." He leaned back, considering. "And between us, there are only so many mornings a person can sit next to Weasley at breakfast and emerge with their appetite intact."

Hermione made a sound that was almost a snort. Fleur laughed, bright and unguarded.

"You 'aven't told me you knew 'Arry, 'Ermione," Fleur said, glancing between them with barely concealed interest.

Hermione looked up from her toast. "It's a new development," she said, and returned to her breakfast.

"Hermione is helping me with a few projects," Harry offered, filling the silence she'd left.

"Showing me around the castle. Assisting with some private research." He wiggled his eyebrows slightly at the last part.

Fleur laughed melodically at the inuendo.

Suddenly something connected firmly with his shin beneath the table. He winced. "Ouch." came from in front of him.

He looked across at Hermione, who had returned to her toast with focused innocence. A small glare accompanied the performance. She had used her bad leg, judging by the faint tightening around her eyes immediately after, which he suspected she would not thank him for noticing. It seemed she had quite the temper and last night was not an exception. It was also quite obvious that she did not sleep well or long. There was only so much Pepper-Up potions and others could do to hide tiredness.

He gave her his most sympathetic smile. She did not appear grateful for it.

"Oh, zen I 'ope you take good care of 'im, 'Ermione," Fleur said warmly, and reached across to ruffle Harry's hair with cheerful disregard for his dignity.

Before Hermione could respond and from her expression she had been preparing something pointed, the chair beside Harry was pulled out and occupied. The girl who sat down had pale, almost white-blonde hair and the unhurried manner, as if the concept of an awkward entrance did not exist for her. Harry had heard her name before. Luna Lovegood.

The descriptions he'd collected varied, airy came up often, odd, not quite all there, though he'd noticed that the people who used those words most freely tended to be the same ones who'd made her life considerably harder than it needed to be. From what he understood, she and Hermione occupied much the same territory in the castle's social landscape, tolerated at best, targeted at worst, which perhaps explained something about how they'd found each other.

"Good morning, Fleur. Good morning, Hermione." She settled her bag beneath her chair, then turned to consider Harry with calm, direct interest. "Hello, Harry Potter." Her gaze moved back to Fleur who had just finished her administration of Harry’s hair. "Is he your pet now? I only ever see people touch someone's hair like that with dogs."

Hermione made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a choke. Obviously embarrassed by Lunas antics Harry guessed. He grinned. He liked this girl already, she reminded him of Sirius a bit.

Fleur's eyes gleamed. "'E would be quite ze catch as a pet, non?"

Luna hummed thoughtfully, turning her attention to the toast rack. "Possibly. Though the important question is whether he's house-trained."

Harry spluttered.

Hermione, he noticed with some betrayal, was now slightly smiling into her cup.

"I would like it known," he said, recovering what remained of his composure, "that I would make an entirely acceptable pet. Quiet, low-maintenance, and I never chew the furniture."

"Debatable," Hermione said, without looking up.

Luna nodded seriously, as though filing this away for future reference.

Breakfast continued easy and warm in a way that Harry suspected Hermione was simultaneously enjoying and finding deeply annoying, considering her sleep deprived state.

Near the end of breakfast, Hermione was the first to move. She began packing her things, exchanging brief goodbyes with Luna and Fleur before pushing back her chair and making her way toward the doors at an unhurried pace that was nonetheless quite deliberate.

Harry watched her go for approximately three seconds, then began gathering his own things.

"Ladies," he said, with his most charming smile, "it has been a genuine pleasure. I'm afraid duty calls."

Fleur's expression suggested she found this transparently unconvincing. "Of course it does," she said pleasantly.

Luna looked up from whatever she had been reading. She glanced toward the doors where Hermione had just disappeared, then back at Harry, before giving him a bright smile.

He waved at them both and followed Hermione out.

Outside the doors, Harry paused. He scanned the corridor once, found nothing visible, and then reached out carefully with his magic, a quiet, practised thing, barely more than a breath of attention extended outward.

There. Just ahead. A shape in the air that wasn't quite right, a subtle displacement. He stepped toward it and tapped gently on what appeared to be empty corridor.

"I believe we have business to attend to," he said pleasantly, to no one.

A beat of silence. Then Hermione reappeared, her Disillusionment Charm dissolving in layers, irritation already fully assembled on her face before she'd finished materialising.

"How did you know?" she demanded. "Again."

Harry laughed. "That," he said, falling into step and gesturing for her to follow, "is something I'll teach you. Eventually. When you've earned it."

She made a noise that suggested she found this answer deeply unsatisfactory.

"For now," he continued, "we have our first proper session to get to. And I won't have my apprentice walking through this school invisible." He said the last part with conviction, not breaking stride.

Hermione caught up to him easily, he'd set a pace she could match without effort, without trying to make it too obvious. "Firstly," she said, in a tone that was eerily similar to Aunt Walburga when she was giving him a lecture, "you are not technically my master yet, given that you haven't completed your mastery."

"Semantics."

"Secondly," she continued, as though he hadn't spoken, "you don't get to decide what I do or don't do."

Harry was quiet for a moment, which she probably knew by now was not the same thing as conceding the point.

"You're right," he said at last. "I can't make you do anything. And I won't." He glanced sideways at her. "Though I'll admit it would look fairly strange, me walking the corridors apparently holding a conversation with myself."

The corner of his mouth pulled upward.

Hermione sighed. A long, deliberate, thoroughly put-upon sigh. But she stayed visible, and she kept walking beside him, and Harry counted that as a reasonable first victory.

They made their way through the castle in a silence that was almost companionable until

Harry stopped at the door of the unused classroom from yesterday and pushed it open.

"I've made a few adjustments," he said, as they stepped inside. "We'll find somewhere better eventually, but this will do for now."

The room was much as it had been the previous night, desks and chairs shoved against the walls, the centre left clear. The ritual rug was gone, packed away. In its place, two mats had been laid out on the stone floor, and against the far wall stood a pair of chairs and small worktables, ready for whatever came after the practical work.

Harry watched Hermione survey the room. Her eyes moved over everything with quick, calculating precision, though there was no disguising the curiosity beneath it.

“I'd prepared a lesson plan for us,” he began. “A few important topics I think you should learn first…”

“Wandless magic.”

Harry stopped.

“Wandless magic?” he repeated.

Hermione nodded once.

“That was something I'd planned for after Christmas,” Harry said. “I was thinking we'd start with some theory, a bit of reading, a few more advanced curses…”

“No.”

Harry blinked.

Hermione folded her arms.

“I give you my knowledge of this castle. You teach me what I want to learn. That was the arrangement.” Her gaze didn't waver. “I'm already highly proficient in silent and point casting for my age. Wandless magic is the logical next step.”

“Logical?”

“Yes.” She sounded as though she were explaining basic arithmetic to a particularly slow child. “If I learn wandless magic now, then every spell I learn afterwards benefits from it. Otherwise I'll have to learn everything twice.”

Harry stared at her for a moment.

Her mind was clearly made up.

To be fair, he had practically promised to teach her whatever she wanted to learn. Besides, the whole exchange felt uncomfortably familiar.

He had been much the same as a child. Every new piece of magic had immediately led to the question of what came next. Whenever Walburga tried to slow him down, insisting he master the foundations before moving on, he'd argued that he already understood them well enough. Surely it was more efficient to learn the next thing now and refine the rest later.

More often than not, she'd simply let him try.

Then, after he'd made a mess of things, discovered three entirely new ways to fail, and eventually concluded that perhaps his grandmother knew what she was talking about after all, she would teach him properly.

Hermione clearly suffered from the same affliction.

She thought she was ready for the next step because she was already good at the current one.

Harry hid a smile.

Well, if she wanted to jump straight into the deep end, he wasn't going to stop her. Shrugging, he raised a hand in mock surrender.

“Alright. You're the boss, apprentice.”

Hermione looked faintly suspicious, as though she didn't trust how easily he'd agreed.

With a casual gesture, Harry conjured a practice dummy at the far end of the room and cleared a little more space between them.

“Stand in the middle.”

Hermione did so, wand already in hand.

“If you want to learn wandless magic,” Harry said, “then I first need to see how you use ordinary magic.”

“Didn't I already demonstrate that?” Hermione asked dryly, her eyes flicking briefly towards the section of wall that still bore the scars of last night's duel.

A fleeting mixture of embarrassment and satisfaction crossed her face.

Harry snorted.

“Anyone can throw magic around wildly. What's important is what happens inside you while you're doing it.” He pointed towards the dummy. “Give me a Stunner. However feels most natural.”

Hermione nodded.

She held out her wand and, without a movement or a word, a red bolt shot from its tip and struck the dummy squarely in the chest. It flew backwards and slammed into the wall with considerably more force than was strictly necessary.

Harry inspected the unfortunate dummy for a moment before turning back to her. Doing his best imitation of his grandmother, he nodded once.

"Acceptable."

Hermione's smile widened slightly.

"Now tell me how it felt."

The smile vanished.

"How it felt?" she repeated.

"Yes." Harry gestured vaguely with one hand. "The spell. Casting it. What did you feel while you were doing it?"

Hermione stared at him.

"Well, according to Adalbert Waffling's Fundamental Laws of Magic, I transferred energy from…"

"No," Harry interrupted. "I don't care about Waffling right now."

Hermione blinked.

"I don't want theory. I want experience." He pointed at her wand. "When you cast the spell, what did it feel like? Not what happened. Not what the textbooks say should have happened. What did you feel?"

She frowned.

"I don't know what you mean."

Harry sighed.

"That's the problem. You're describing magic the way a blind person might describe colour. You know all the rules. You know all the theory. But you've never actually paid attention to it."

Hermione's brow furrowed.

"Cast a Lumos and hold it."

She did as he asked.

The tip of her wand lit immediately.

"Now close your eyes."

Hermione shot him a suspicious look.

"Trust me."

After a moment, she did.

"Good," Harry said. "Now forget the light. Forget the spell. Forget the theory. Just tell me what you feel."

Harry watched her.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, a small crease forming between her brows as she concentrated. He couldn't help but smile. He didn't need Legilimency to know what was happening inside her head. Hermione Granger's mind was probably running twenty laps around the Quidditch pitch, trying to analyse exactly what he meant instead of simply experiencing it.

"It's alright. Open your eyes."

She did, irritation immediately settling across her face. Hermione was many things, but accustomed to failure was not one of them.

Harry suppressed another smile.

"This is exactly why I wanted to start with a few other things first," he said. "But I know you won't let this go, so we'll do it your way."

With a flick of his wand, one of the mats floated back into the middle of the room.

"I still have work to do for my mastery examination. While I'm doing that over there", he pointed towards one of the tables against the wall, "you're going to sit here and meditate."

Hermione stared at him.

"Meditate?" she asked, sounding as though she suspected she'd misheard.

"Yes."

The disbelief on her face only deepened.

Harry folded his arms.

"Your mind is your greatest strength. It's also your greatest obstacle." He gestured towards her wand. "You approach magic as a problem to be solved. Every spell, every piece of theory, every new bit of information gets analysed, categorised and filed away."

"That's called learning."

Harry ignored her.

"To learn wandless magic, you first have to feel your magic. Not understand it. Not theorise about it. Feel it." He tapped a finger against his chest. "You need to find where it sits inside you. Feel how it moves. Feel the currents that run through your body and the magic that bleeds into the world around you."

Hermione's sceptical expression remained firmly in place.

"Only then," Harry continued, "can you start directing it without a focus."

"And then what?" Hermione asked challengingly. Harry sighed.

"That's exactly the wrong question." Hermione frowned.

"The point isn't to think about what comes after. It's to think about what's in front of you." He gestured towards the mat. "One step at a time. I assume you didn't learn every spell you know in a single day."

"No, but…"

"No buts or butts. Wandless magic isn't a spell, Hermione. It's a skill. And skills are built."

Before she could argue further, Harry walked over to one of the tables and sat down, pulling a stack of notes towards himself.

"You can start now."

Hermione stared at him.

"Now?"

"Yes, now, we aren’t getting younger." He picked up a quill. "Empty your mind. Slow it down. Focus on yourself and your magic."

She continued staring.

"You've read about Occlumency, haven't you?"

"Of course."

"Good. Then you know how to quiet your thoughts." He glanced over his shoulder. "Because if you couldn't, I'd probably hear them bleeding out of your ears from here."

Hermione looked deeply offended.

Harry smiled.

"Slow your mind to a crawl. Stop analysing everything for five minutes and just focus." He turned back to his work.

"I'll be here. And don't give up after ten minutes."

The silence behind him spoke volumes. Harry didn't need to look around to know the expression she was wearing. He could practically feel the glare drilling into the back of his head.

Good.

If nothing else, that would keep her trying for at least an hour.

Hermione sat cross-legged on the mat and glared at the back of Harry Potter's head.

Meditate.

Of all the ridiculous things.

She had hoped for interesting magic, perhaps a ritual to increase her power and help her achieve wandless magic, perhaps access to books from the Black library. Instead, she was apparently supposed to sit on the floor, empty her head, and meditate.

With an irritated huff, she closed her eyes.

Breathing deeply, she concentrated on her Occlumency shields. Her breathing slowed. Her mind gradually cleared. Thoughts of homework, bullies, her current predicament, and everything else slowly drifted away until all that remained was the steady rhythm of her breath.

She had done this many times while learning Occlumency. It had always been her least favourite part. Sitting still, doing nothing, thinking nothing.

She tried to focus on her body.

Almost immediately, her thoughts began surfacing again.

She felt the robes against her skin. She heard the scratching of Harry's quill. She felt a few stray hairs brushing against her face. She noticed her heartbeat slowing and her breathing evening out.

But she didn't feel any magic.

Her brow furrowed.

She had magic. Why was it so difficult to feel?

She was thinking again.

Hermione mentally chastised herself and started over.

Her robes, the quill, her hair, her heartbeat, her breathing.

This was absurd. If magic was something she could feel, surely someone would have written about it.

But if it was part of her, shouldn't she be able to feel it?

Then again, she also had blood, and under normal circumstances she certainly couldn't feel that coursing through her veins.

Morgana, she was doing it again.

On and on it went.

She would find a few moments of stillness before slipping back into another spiral of questions and theories.

She tried breathing exercises.

She tried counting.

She tried visualising her magic.

First as a river.

Then as light.

Then as heat.

All of which felt equally ridiculous.

Every now and then she was tempted to open one eye and check whether Harry was actually working or simply waiting for her to admit defeat.

The temptation only grew stronger with time.

An hour passed, then another.

Slowly, against all expectation, her thoughts began settling for longer stretches. Not disappearing entirely, that was impossible, but quieting enough that she could focus on something other than the constant chatter inside her own head.

And then, occasionally, she thought she felt something. It wasn’t a specific sensation exactly. More a feeling that something was there, just beyond her grasp. If she concentrated a little harder, reached a little further, perhaps she could finally touch it. But each time it slipped away before she could be certain it had ever been there at all, like sand running through a sieve.

Hermione's eyes snapped open.

She was done.

Two entire hours.

And she had absolutely nothing to show for it.

Across the room, Potter turned around almost immediately. The movement annoyed her far more than it should have. This perceptiveness or magic or whatever it was that gave him this unnerving awareness.

"Finished?" he asked.

Hermione glared at him.

"How long does this method take?"

That crooked smile appeared again. "It depends."

He stood, crossed the room, and held out a hand. Hermione eyed it suspiciously before finally taking it and allowing him to pull her to her feet.

"It depends?" she repeated.

He shrugged.

"Wandless magic isn't really something people learn anymore. At least not properly."

Hermione folded her arms. "Why not?"

"Because wands work."

She blinked. "That's it?"

"More or less." Potter smiled. "People like easy solutions. Wands are brilliant. They make magic easier, safer, more precise. Most magicals never see a reason to learn anything else."

He began pacing slowly around the room.

"When wands first became widespread, they weren't intended to replace magical education. They were meant to enhance it. Children would learn about their own magic first, understand it, become familiar with it. Then they'd be given a wand."

"And that's how you were taught?"

He nodded. "More or less."

"Great." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Another pure-blood advantage." But Potter immediately shook his head.

"Not really." he said. Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Most pure-blood families don't do this anymore either. They talk endlessly about preserving the old ways and honouring Lady Magic, but most of them haven't practised the old ways in generations." A faint note of contempt entered his voice. "They like the idea of tradition and using it to justify their position in the world but not more than that."

That surprised her.

"You don't sound very impressed by them."

"I'm not."

He stopped walking.

"Lady Magic gifted all of us with this power. Every witch and wizard. Most people have performed wandless magic at some point."

Hermione frowned. "No they haven't."

Potter looked amused. "Have you ever performed accidental magic?"

She paused. "Of course."

"When?"

Hermione thought for a moment.

"When I was six. My mother put away a storybook I was reading and told me to read a mathematics book instead."

He chuckled. Hermione ignored him.

"The book was on a shelf I couldn't reach. I wanted it back, so I reached for it and..." She hesitated. "It flew into my hand."

Potter pointed at her. "Exactly."

"That wasn't wandless magic."

"Of course it was."

"It was accidental magic." she retorted.

His grin widened.

"Hermione, accidental magic is wandless magic."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"You didn't know what you were doing," he continued. "You had no theory, no training, no wand. But you had a goal, intent, and enough magic to make it happen."

He stretched out one hand.

A small orb of light appeared above his palm.

"The wand isn't the source."

The orb drifted lazily between his fingers.

"It's a focus."

The light vanished and reappeared near his shoulder.

Then beside his knee.

Then above his head.

"It helps shape magic. Direct it. Strengthen it. A good wand is one of the finest magical tools ever created."

The light vanished.

"But it's also a crutch."

Hermione watched him carefully. "How?"

Potter considered the question.

"Imagine learning a language entirely through conversation."

She frowned.

"You can speak it. You can understand it. You can function perfectly well. But if nobody ever teaches you grammar, structure, composition, why the language works the way it does, then you'll always be missing part of the picture."

Understanding began to creep into her expression.

"The wand teaches you how to use magic," Harry said. "It doesn't necessarily teach you what magic is."

The room fell quiet.

"And that's what I'm supposed to be learning?"

Potter nodded. "Exactly."

He pointed at her chest. "Before you can direct your magic without a wand, you first need to know it's there."

She chewed on her lower lip and began pacing slowly across the room. The problem was that what Potter was saying made sense. That was precisely what made it so frustrating. If he had been talking obvious nonsense, she could simply dismiss it and move on. Instead, he had presented her with a problem she could not easily argue against. If wandless magic truly required understanding magic itself, then her goal might be only days away, or months, or years.

The thought was deeply unpleasant.

"How about this?" He interrupted her train of thought.

She looked up. A strip of dark cloth appeared in his hand.

"Here. Put this on."

Hermione eyed the blindfold suspiciously. "Why?"

Potter sighed dramatically. "Always with the questions. Just trust me."

The expression he attempted afterwards was so blatantly manipulative that it should not have worked. Unfortunately, the ridiculous puppy eyes combined with the fact that he had, so far, not actually harmed her made refusing really hard.

With a muttered complaint, she took the blindfold and tied it around her head.

Darkness swallowed the room.

"And now?" she asked.

"Now," He said, "cast Lumos and hold it."

Hermione nearly groaned.

"Again?"

"Again."

With a sigh she raised her wand.

"Lumos."

White light bloomed at the tip. Even through the blindfold she could perceive the faint glow.

"Good," He said. "Now tell me what you just did."

Hermione frowned. "I cast Lumos."

"No. You described the result. Tell me what you actually did."

She opened her mouth, then paused. "I concentrated on the spell."

"Go on."

"On the incantation. On the wand. On what I wanted it to do."

Potter was silent for a moment. "Good. Now give me your wand."

Hermione immediately stiffened. It was an irrational reaction she told herself. Still, surrendering her wand felt wrong. The memory of standing helpless in yesterday's classroom while Harry held her wand surfaced unbidden. It had been the first time since receiving her wand that she had been disarmed. She had felt naked and vulnerable.

Reluctantly, she held it out.

His fingers brushed hers as he took it making her involuntarily shiver. The feeling of being unarmed arrived almost immediately.

"Relax," He said in a low, surprisingly careful tone. "I'm not stealing it."

A moment later something else was placed into her hand.

"My wand."

Hermione wrapped her fingers around it.

It felt different immediately. Similar in weight, but rougher. Less comfortable. Less natural. She realized she never actually had seen his wand. Now that she felt its handle, she wondered how it looked.

"A wand is heavily attuned to its owner," Potter continued. "Most people know that intellectually, but they've never actually experienced what it means. When you use somebody else's wand, it doesn't stop working. It simply becomes harder. You have to force more of yourself through it."

Hermione considered that. "So this is supposed to help me feel my magic?"

"Exactly."

She nodded slowly.

"Try Lumos again."

Hermione raised the unfamiliar wand.

"Lumos."

Nothing happened.

She frowned.

Tried again.

Still nothing.

For the first time in years she found herself remembering her first Charms lesson. Back before everything had become easy. Back when her spells even occasionally failed.

She inhaled slowly.

Focused.

The spell.

The purpose.

The desire for light.

"Lumos."

A weak glow appeared.

"There we are," Potter said.

Hermione ignored him.

The difference was immediate. Her own wand had always felt effortless. The spell simply happened. This was different. The light was there, but keeping it there required concentration. It felt as though something inside her was being pushed through a space too narrow for it.

"Describe it."

Hermione concentrated on the sensation.

"It's difficult." She hesitated. "Like the wand is resisting me."

"Good."

"No, not good."

He laughed. "It's exactly what I wanted."

She frowned. "It feels like..." She searched for the right words. "Like trying to force air through a blocked straw. I can do it, but it takes effort."

For a moment there was silence. Then Potter sounded genuinely pleased. "That's it."

Hermione blinked beneath the blindfold. "That's what?"

"Your magic."

She froze.

"That pressure. That resistance. The thing you're forcing through the wand. That's the closest you've come all day to actually noticing it." His voice softened noticeably. "Don't focus on the light. Focus on that feeling. Memorise it. Follow it. Figure out where it begins and what you have to do to move it."

For the first time since the lesson had started, Hermione felt a flicker of genuine understanding. The sensation was faint, frustratingly so, but it was there. It felt oddly similar to the elusive feeling she'd been chasing during her meditation, the one that had always slipped away the moment she thought she'd found it.

"Now," He continued, "I want you to hold the light while I remove the blindfold. Keep focusing on that feeling. Don't let go of it."

Hermione nodded, her breath a little shaky.

Carefully, he reached around her head and loosened the knot. Hermione concentrated on the sensation he'd pointed out, trying to keep hold of it. She focused on the pressure, the strange feeling of pushing something through the object in her hand and deliberately ignored the fact that Harry's fingers occasionally brushed her hair while removing the blindfold. Light slowly returned as the cloth was pulled away.

Her eyes took a moment to adjust.

The first thing she saw was the glowing piece of wood in her hand.

Hermione frowned.

That was a remarkably ugly wand.

The handle looked unfinished, rough and uneven. The wood itself was entirely unremarkable. It looked less like a wand crafted by a master wandmaker and more like someone had broken a piece off an old broom and vaguely shaped one end into a grip. For a brief moment she wondered whether Potter had somehow been cheated.

Then her eyes widened.

The light vanished instantly as her concentration shattered.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Potter grinned. "Fantastic. You even kept it going after the blindfold came off, that’s more than I most achieve."

Hermione looked down at the stick still resting in her hand. "This wasn't your wand."

There was no accusation in her voice. It was simply a statement of fact.

"No," he agreed. "It wasn't."

She slowly raised her head. "You lied to me."

"Technically."

Hermione glanced back down at the piece of wood. "You gave me a stick."

"I did."

She stared at it for another few seconds. "I used a stick."

His grin widened.

"You did."

Hermione's mind raced.

Wands required specialised woods. Magical cores. Complex enchantments. Wandmaking was an entire magical discipline. Slowly, the implications began to assemble themselves in her mind.

"But wands work because of the core," she said. "And the wood. And the crafting process."

Potters eyes gleamed. "Yes."

Hermione looked at the stick.

Then at Potter.

Then back at the stick.

Realisation struck like a Bludger.

"Oh."

Potter looked entirely too pleased with himself.

"You actually performed wandless magic."

Hermione stared at him.

For perhaps the first time in her life, she found herself completely speechless.