Chapter Five of 'Casualties of Politics'- Elemental Forces

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Five—Elemental Forces

“Good. Concentrate on your b-breathing for a m-moment more, Mr. P-Potter.”

Harry did his best. He had spent the entire first lesson with Quirrell doing nothing but breathing, and he’d been worried the second one would go the same way. But it seemed that they were finally going to be moving onto something else. He stood there with his eyes closed, ignoring his headache from the garlic, and breathed.

“Very g-good. Open y-your eyes.”

Harry did. Quirrell was standing a short distance from him, bending down as though peering into Harry’s eyes would tell him something about King Canute’s Disease. Harry stood still and let him do it.

“You feel nothing from your wand?” Quirrell whispered.

Harry shook his ebony wand out of his sleeve holster. He held it up and tried to concentrate on the wood and the core the way that he had on his breathing. He buried his despair at the dull feeling and shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Try mine.” Quirrell held out a wand that looked a little like the holly that made up Felix’s wand, although it probably wasn’t the same wood. Harry knew he wasn’t an expert on wand woods or—anything, really.

He picked it up obediently and waved it around a little when Quirrell gestured for him to. Nothing happened, not the least ripple of warmth or spark. “No, sir.” He held it out, and Quirrell plucked it from his hand.

“C-curious, most c-curious.” The professor folded his hands behind his back and paced back and forth in front of Harry for a minute. “I know that you h-have read the book on King Canute’s D-Disease, Mr. Potter.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what did it say about students who take a while to bond with their wands?”

Harry swallowed. He’d been afraid of this ever since he had read that section of the book and begun to wonder if King Canute’s Disease was what he had after all. “It said that such students usually feel some kind of warmth or draw,” he whispered. “It said that usually their wand wood or their core is right for them, but not both, and even if one of them is swapped, the wand doesn’t work exactly right. They need to get used to forcing their magic through whatever doesn’t work, the wood or the core, and depend on the strength of the thing that does work for them.”

But neither his wand wood nor his core really worked for Harry. His magic was totally wandless. He was dreading what that meant, what Quirrell would say now about whether he had King Canute’s Disease. What if Harry didn’t, but some kind of untreatable sickness? What if he was a Squib?

“Why do you k-keep trying to b-bond with your wand, in that case?”

Quirrell only sounded curious. Harry told himself that the professor probably didn’t care that much about Harry’s progress in lessons or why he couldn’t be a normal wizard, and that helped. Harry didn’t want other people peering and muttering at him. “I don’t have any choice. My parents told me about wizards and witches with wandless magic.”

“What d-did they say, Mr. P-Potter?”

“That people who can’t use wands are childish and immature. I don’t want to be childish, sir. I want to catch up to my peers and be a normal wizard.” And that was true now as it had never been when Harry was with the Dursleys. He couldn’t fit in there.

Here, he could. And while part of him would have liked to stand out and be special and perceived as special, he knew it wouldn’t happen, especially compared to Felix. Harry didn’t have Felix’s fame, or instinctive command of wanded magic, or eidetic memory. That meant being normal was as much as he could hope for.

Quirrell said nothing for a long moment. Harry glanced up at him. For some reason, the professor was sitting there with his face like a mask.

“Sir?”

Quirrell blinked, and the mask disappeared. “J-just thinking, Mr. Potter,” he said with a small smile, which Harry doubted, but let go. “Sh-show me something you can do with w-wandless magic.”

Harry eyed Quirrell cautiously as he tucked his wand back into its holster. He didn’t especially want to show off with wandless magic, in case Quirrell carried a report back to Dumbledore or his parents.

On the other hand, he could do small things with wandless magic, too, like making Malfoy’s wand slip out of his hand. Or lighting someone’s robes on fire.

Yes, that should do. Lighting something on fire was something a first-year could do with a wand, at least if they concentrated hard enough. It wouldn’t look strange or like something Quirrell had to run away and report.

Harry focused on the corner of his robes where they lay on the floor. He’d sent out the pulse of magic before he could wonder if maybe it was the best idea to just glare at it. Maybe he should have gestured with his hand or something, maybe that would seem more normal, but he had no idea what Quirrell would think of as normal—

The corner of his robes lit with a whoosh of flame bigger than Harry had meant it to be. But even as he thought that, the flames sank a little, and the heat became more comfortable. Harry tilted his head. He thought he could keep this burning without burning through the robes at all.

Quirrell caught his breath. Harry glanced up. “Sir?”

“I d-do not think it is the whole r-reason why you cannot use a w-and, Mr. Potter,” Quirrell said, his eyes fixed on the flames. “Unless this is the only thing you c-can do?” He glanced up at Harry.

Harry shook his head, perplexed. Quirrell looked as though he didn’t know what to say. Harry wondered, wearily, what bad news an adult would have for him this time.

But Quirrell settled back in his chair, a small smile playing around his lips, as if he thought that Harry was an important audience or something. “I believe you may be an elementalist, Mr. Potter.”

“A what, sir?”

“It means that you can wield the forces of the four elements. Air, fire, earth, and water.” Quirrell glanced pointedly at the small fire still burning on the corner of Harry’s robes. “You’re controlling it right now so that it doesn’t burn all the way through the cloth, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” Harry noted absently that apparently Quirrell’s stammer disappeared when he was excited about something.

“Yes,” Quirrell repeated, and his fingers tapped together. “We have spells that mimic the effects, of course. Any wizard or witch with a decent level of power can use Aguamenti to conjure water, can use Incendio to begin a fire, can summon a wind with Ventus, and so on.”

And I don’t have a decent level of power.

“But that still requires a wand incantation and a wand movement. And it is fairly standardized. For example, the spray of water conjured by Aguamenti is always the same size. A different spell is needed to summon more. A fire lit by Incendio is as hot as an ordinary hearth or campfire, not hot enough to consume bone.” Quirrell gave him a sly smile. “Whereas you, Mr. Potter, can make your fire burn as hot as you desire, unless I am mistaken?”

Harry’s heart was pounding so hard he was dizzy. If this was true, it was the first good news he’d heard about the magical world since he’d realized he would have a bed. He extended his hand and concentrated for a moment.

The flames leaped up, roaring, and floated off his robe. The robe looked singed, but nothing more than that. The fire swayed back and forth, burning on air, not touching anything else, not needing any fuel. When Harry gestured, a gust of wind blew out of nowhere and spun it back and forth like an ornament on a string.

Harry stared at it, and shivered.

Then he looked at Quirrell. “If that’s true, sir, does it mean that using elemental power is all I’ll ever be able to do?” He suspected it wasn’t, since he’d managed to tug the wand out of Malfoy’s hand and press Nott against the seat on the train, but even those could have been wind or something.

Quirrell chuckled. “Indeed not, Mr. Potter. That is the reason I do not believe that your elemental powers are the sole reason you are not able to use a wand, although they are part of it—your affinity for the elements is so strong that it is partially blocking your ability to use normal spells. So, for example…you have been working on elementary Transfigurations in Minerva’s class, I imagine?”

“The others have, sir.”

Quirrell waved a hand. “You will surpass them soon enough, Mr. Potter.”

This time, Harry’s dizziness came from joy.

“But it does mean that—well, if you think of each person’s magic as a series of segmented boxes, rather like the boxes in which Ollivander keeps his wand woods, ha, you can envision each person having a certain amount of each kind of talent. So one person’s box of Charms is overflowing, Minerva’s Transfiguration talent box is oversized, some people have a huge segment of their Defense spell box devoted to shield spells and almost nothing at all to countercurses. Can you picture this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have four large boxes in your soul, then. One for each of the four elements. But I believe that you likely have boxes corresponding to talents in ‘ordinary’ categories of magic like Charms and Transfiguration as well. It is simply that they do not have, ah, shall we say, compartments in the same size as ordinary spells. I believe that you will eventually be able to conjure a Lumos, but there is no saying that it will be exactly the same intensity or size as the Lumos Charms that others are creating. Likewise, you might Transfigure a matchstick to a needle, but take longer than others, or have a needle with a unique pattern on it or a unique eye size. It is hard to say without actually seeing your powers in action.”

Harry hesitated.

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“I—I don’t know if my parents will be very happy with this, sir. They already tell me a lot that my wandless magic is childish and immature. It might reassure them a little to know that some of that is because of my elemental powers, but…”

“You are not childish or immature, Mr. Potter.” Quirrell leaned forwards, and his face had subtly altered. He looked like a hunting cat, Harry thought, a little alarmed. “You have gifts. And the ability to do most, if not all, things that a practitioner of wanded magic can do, simply in different ways. Would you feel contempt for someone who could fly without a broom, simply because they are not using a broom to do it?” For some reason, he chuckled after that last sentence.

Harry looked up at him with wide eyes. That was exactly the sort of thing that he had been hoping to hear from someone. Well, maybe he had heard it a little from Nott.

And right after hearing Quirrell say it, suspicion rolled through Harry like oil.

Why was Quirrell complimenting him? Did he think it would win him some kind of political advantage with the Potters? Maybe it would if he was just saying Harry was good at wanded magic or he was complimenting Felix. But like this, Harry couldn’t see what Quirrell was getting out of it.

“Why, Mr. Potter. It appears that you are suddenly guarded again. Why is that?”

Quirrell’s voice definitely had a mocking edge to it. Harry fixed his eyes on the man and said flatly, “Compliments aren’t free, sir. I know that Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick are helping me because they pity me and think it’s their duty. But why are you telling me this and helping me?”

Quirrell stared at him in silence for some time. Harry stared back, not moving. His headache was worse, but so what? It wasn’t like the smell of garlic fumes in the classroom had dissipated, either.

Quirrell finally began to laugh, quietly. “You are beyond interesting, Mr. Potter,” he murmured. “You know, I thought I saw something strange the night of the Sorting.”

“Oh?”

Harry’s shoulders hurt with how stiff they were, but Quirrell just nodded with an amiable smile that was almost like the smile he gave to students in class. “Yes. The Sorting Hat took a long time to place you in a House, of course. But it didn’t react the way it usually does when sitting on the head of someone who takes some minutes to Sort. Miss Granger, for example. It appeared to be struggling. Trying to say something and being prevented. I wonder who could have done that?”

“I have no idea, sir.”

“I wonder what the Sorting Hat would have said if it hadn’t been prevented?”

“I have no idea, sir.”

Harry’s hands were clenched together behind his back, and his palms were slippery with sweat. His fingers hurt with how hard they were folded, but he didn’t care. Of course, he was in Gryffindor now, but if Quirrell told Felix or his parents about Harry almost being Sorted somewhere else…

Harry didn’t think they would hate him. He wasn’t that dramatic. And they weren’t the Dursleys. But they would look at him with disappointed eyes, and he had enough disappointment in his life.

“I think you do,” Quirrell said, very quietly, with a little smile on the edge of mean. “But I can be reasonable, Mr. Potter. I will keep your secrets for you if you agree to do something for me.”

“What, sir?” Sharp thoughts flashed through. Harry’s mind, and he waited to see what Quirrell would say. But he was also thinking about how fast he could probably make human skin burn if he had to.

“You will continue to work with Minerva and Filius on the lessons that are most likely going to be useless to you,” Quirrell said. He leaned back and examined his nails for a second. Harry’s fury boiled inside him, but he didn’t move. “You will pretend to be having trouble in their classes, even though I believe that you could grasp the spells with a little more concentration and your acceptance that your wand is simply useless. And you will keep coming to our lessons.”

“You want me to be weak, then. I can do that, sir.”

“In public, of course.” Quirrell gave him another smile, meaner and bigger than the last one. “In private, I want to see you demonstrating your elemental powers, and working towards recreating the spell effects of first year with wandless magic.”

“And…what will you get out of that, sir?”

“Is training a powerful young protégé not enough, in your opinion?”

“For you? I don’t think so, sir.”

Quirrell threw his head back and laughed. Harry watched him. There was—an odd edge to the laughter. It was almost as if someone was laughing along with him, mixing his amusement with Quirrell’s until they both came out strangling each other.

“You are right,” Quirrell said, shaking his head as he looked back at Harry. “But for now, I think you must allow me to keep this to myself. I certainly do enjoy knowing that people like your parents and Albus and my dear colleagues do not recognize the prodigy that they have in their midst. That they are focusing all their energy on the wrong twin.”

Harry’s breath caught. Something ached under his breastbone.

And then he told himself, violently, that this was wrong. Quirrell was manipulating him. Using Harry’s longing to be out of Felix’s shadow against him.

Even if Harry was able to tell everyone about his elemental powers and wandless magic someday, he would never be out of Felix’s shadow. Harry didn’t have Felix’s fame or his memory. His parents would probably still see wandless magic as childish no matter what Harry was able to do with it. And he couldn’t be famous if he wanted to, because that much scrutiny would uncover his Parseltongue.

“You are such an unusual child, Mr. Potter.” Quirrell sounded beyond amused now. “I can only think of one other I would have met who would not have lapped up such praise immediately.”

“Theo Nott, right?”

Quirrell’s eyebrows rose. “He is interesting, yes. Have you had dealings with him?”

“He told me wandless magic was a gift and I should stop hiding it.” Harry was still struggling between his desire to believe what Quirrell said and his conviction that Quirrell had said it to get some sort of political in with the Potters.

“I am afraid that I must require you to hide it for now, but I am curious why you immediately disbelieved Mr. Nott?”

Harry shot him an incredulous glance. “With King Canute’s Disease and all the people around me using wands? Did you know that Felix has never had a burst of accidental magic in his life? He could immediately use our parents’ wands from the time he was really little.” Harry was sure that information was public, so he didn’t mind saying it. “I didn’t want to be—I don’t know, an accidental, confused little kid! I want to be normal.”

“When your twin is powerful, and I must imagine you envy him for growing up in the magical world?”

“I know I can never be as powerful as he is. I know that if I start growing out of his shadow, most people are going to see it as me trying to compete with him or being jealous. So I have to stay in the shadows, but I want to be normal for it if I have to. At least normal levels of power.”

“Believe me, Mr. Potter, you will be far beyond normal.”

“A freak, is that what you’re saying?”

Quirrell’s hands came together in a sharp clap. Harry leaped, and gestured for his fire, still burning on air, to charge Quirrell before he thought about it. He barely managed to pull it to a stop a few inches away from the professor’s face.

“You will have to get over that reaction,” Quirrell said softly. “It is a weakness. An interesting one, like everything about you, but a weakness.”

Harry clenched his fist, and his fire vanished. “You still haven’t made it clear why you’re interested in helping me.”

“And I have said—”

“If you don’t give me at least a reason, I’m going to walk out this door, go straight to Dumbledore, and tell him everything you said.”

The slight widening of Quirrell’s eyes was his only reaction. “And you believe that you could get through me?”

“I believe,” Harry said, “that I could distract you.” And he glanced at the books on the shelves around Quirrell, and flicked his fingers. Small flames appeared behind each spine, turning in place.

There was a long pause that felt as if Harry was standing on the edge of a field of shattered glass, and then Quirrell gave his strangled laugh again. Harry watched him, trembling from the power of the magic pouring through him, but still willing to use it.

“Mr. Potter, you are remarkable,” Quirrell said, and wiped something that might have been tears away from his eyes. “Let me say that you remind me of—myself. Someone forced to conceal his strengths from everyone around him. Someone f-forced to play the p-poor, st-stuttering M-Muggle Studies and then D-Defense Professor. It will be interesting to train you, and believe me, I am beyond bored at this job.”

Harry weighed that. Of course he knew it wasn’t the whole truth, but it did sound like Quirrell wasn’t prepared to hurt him in the ways that he’d been worried about.

“If you try to hurt me,” Harry said quietly, and made the flames vanish, “I’ll try as hard as I can to kill you. I don’t know if I could, but I think I could cripple you.”

Quirrell’s smile twisted. “That I know, Mr. Potter. I have no intention of being either killed or crippled, and no intention of hurting you at all. These lessons surely could be enjoyable for both of us, no? Interesting and intriguing for me, and a chance to show your real self, for you.”

Harry studied him some more. He supposed that Quirrell was right, to an extent, and it would be no worse than other things he had endured since he had been here. Maybe better.

He nodded, and they both worked out the schedule that would allow them to continue working together on Harry’s wandless magic in private. Quirrell also told Harry about a few places he could go in the school to practice that should be private.

“And one thing, Mr. Potter,” Quirrell added as Harry opened the door. “I will make an exception to the secrecy I demanded. You might consider taking Mr. Nott into your confidence. It sounds like he already suspects something might be off about your magic, and it is better to choose how your secrets reveal themselves than to be forced into it.”

Harry left without answering. He didn’t trust Nott enough for that.

*

Theo paused when he came around a corner of the Transfiguration shelves and saw the interesting Potter sitting by himself at a table.

Theo hadn’t tried as hard as he could have with Potter after their first Potions class, although they had remained partners. If someone could go so far as to deny the bloody obvious, the way Potter had with his wandless magic, Theo had to wonder how smart they were in other areas of life, and whether they would be a good associate for him.

But Potter had remained interesting. He trailed after the other Gryffindors and laughed when they laughed and listened to them, but it was clear he didn’t fit in with them. He spent a lot of time by himself. He avoided animals at all costs, something that Theo wanted to know the truth about even if he thought it likely that would frustrate him.

And now, he was by himself without trailing after another Gryffindor like a duckling for the first time that Theo could remember.

He took a chance, and sat down at Potter’s table.

Potter glanced up at him, and Theo didn’t miss the stir of flame around the corners of his glasses for a moment. Real, actual flame. Theo forgot what he’d been about to say, and stared.

“What do you want, Nott?” Potter sounded wary, but contained. Not the way he had spat at Draco during their few interactions that Theo had witnessed.

“I wanted to talk to you about studying, but it seems you’ve been doing some on your own,” Theo whispered. He wondered if Potter had found books about wandless magic in the library, and if Theo might convince Potter to lend them to him.

Potter nodded slowly. “I have. You were—you were partially right about my wandless magic.”

Theo smiled, delighted down to the core of his bones. It was partially happiness that he was right, partially just the thrill of going to school with someone who could have a skill as legendary as this. “What part wasn’t I right about?”

Potter extended his hand, and the fire moving around his glasses shot down and glided into his palm, forming a dancing flame there that touched nothing.

“You’re an elementalist.”

“Yes.” Potter glanced sideways at him as he waved his fingers and made the flames vanish. “Why do you sound like I just hit you?”

“I—it’s rare. Rarer than wizards and witches with King Canute’s Disease or who establish some measure of control over their wandless magic. What kinds of elements can you command?”

Potter stared at him unblinkingly. Theo stared back in the same way. Yes, he knew he was asking for a trust that Potter might not have extended to anyone else yet. He still wanted to know.

And hell, he had trusted Potter with the truth about the Figgs. That secret was a lot more damaging.

Either Potter had remembered that, or he decided for reasons of his own that he could tell Theo, because he said quietly, “All four.”

Theo felt winded again. Elementalists most often connected with fire or water, then wind or earth, then either fire or water and one of the other elements. To be in the presence of someone who could wield all four…

Potter, he realized abruptly, was blushing, the red crawling all over his face and making it as red as Weasley’s got on a regular basis from Draco’s taunting. Potter looked away and muttered, “Stop looking at me like that.”

Theo grinned a little. He’d never had anyone he could tease before, but he decided to try it out. “Like what? Like you’re powerful?”

“Like you—you’re gaping.”

“Because you’re powerful.”

Potter flushed harder still and scowled.

Theo leaned his elbow on the table. “At least now you know that you aren’t abnormal or whatever it was that you were worried about. You can tell your brother and your parents that you can use the elements, and—”

“They were the ones who said that I was childish because my magic was wandless. Do you think they’ll accept this?”

Theo paused. His mind had gone back to Father and what he would say if he’d found out that Theo had command of all four elements. But, of course, Theo was being an idiot if he thought everyone would react that way.

Still…

“I know that your parents and the Potter-Who-Lived have political ambitions,” Theo said carefully. “I can’t say I know the nuances. But they need powerful allies. They’d be thrilled that you’re powerful, wouldn’t they? It wouldn’t matter so much what form it took, would it?”

“I don’t know.” Potter yanked viciously at his books. “And I don’t want to ask them and find out, in case they…”

“In case they what?”

Potter stared at Theo, and the fire swirled up higher and harder. Theo remained as calm as he could. He really didn’t think Potter would hurt him. Not really. It would be out of character. Theo sat there and tried to look open.

“In case they send me back to the Muggles.”

Theo opened his mouth to laugh, and then closed it again. That would be the worst thing he could do, he was certain, and would ruin any chance he had of making friends with Potter.

But he could say things. “Are you insane? Why would they do that?”

Potter paused. Theo waited. He had no idea what Potter would say next, and he had no idea why he wanted to hear it so much, but he waited.

*

He won’t tell. He doesn’t have any reason to tell. He’s not friendly with my parents or Felix or Dumbledore, and if he tells Malfoy’s dad or something about it, they’d probably have figured it out anyway.

And, well, one thing Quirrell had said was true. Harry did want to tell someone. And Nott at least seemed like he knew how to keep secrets.

“They wanted me to do something important and political by tying the Muggle world to the magical one,” Harry muttered, leaning a little forwards. Nott copied him. Harry wished he knew any privacy charms, but he didn’t. Low voices in a lonely corner of the library would have to do. “But I didn’t turn out the way they wanted. No wand magic, and not as friendly as they wanted, and jumping at loud noises. I know that they’re already worried about the fact that I’m not as powerful as they wanted, because it seems like people here don’t listen to anyone who’s not magically powerful, and that means people won’t listen to me about the Muggle world being all right. If it comes out that I’m an elementalist or that I might never be able to use a wand, what will happen? Maybe they’d be so disappointed that they’d just send me straight back to the Muggle world.”

“Every sane magical parent—”

“Do you know a lot of those?”

“My father.”

Part of Harry burned with envy. Even if Mr. Nott was a Death Eater, if he loved Nott for what he was and not what he wanted him to be, he would count as a pretty good parent, in Harry’s book.

“I don’t think they would send you back.”

“You didn’t see how disappointed they were when I failed to bond with a wand,” Harry said flatly. “I can’t take the chance.”

“But what are you going to do?” Nott settled back in his seat and looked more intrigued with the question than Harry thought it really deserved. “Sooner or later, they’ll expect you to catch up with the rest of us in Charms and Transfiguration and Defense, and when our third year comes, you’ll have other classes you might need to use a wand in, too.”

Harry wanted to say that the person who had told him he was an elementalist had thought he might be able to access other kinds of magic eventually, but that would mean he was admitting he hadn’t discovered the truth on his own. Harry didn’t need yet another person staring at him with pity.

And besides, a simply brilliant solution came to him just then. One that would give him more of a choice about what to do in the future and not just leave him blindly dependent on Quirrell’s advice or his parents’ good will.

Harry smiled, and Nott raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“I think I might know a way around the problem of looking like I have to use a wand,” Harry said, and didn’t answer when Nott pestered him with more questions. But Nott didn’t seem irritated when he got up to walk away from the table. In fact, he gave Harry a smile like the kind that Dudley used to share with Piers. Harry supposed Nott probably liked that he knew about the elementalist secret.

And, Harry had to admit, it was the longest and nicest conversation he’d had with anyone except Felix since school started. That had to count for something.

*

Okay. I’m ready.

Harry took a slow step back from the wall of the abandoned classroom Quirell had told him about and stared down at his useless ebony wand. He wondered if it would always be useless, but he’d pretty much accepted Quirrell’s words that it would be. He’d kept working at the exercises with McGonagall and Flitwick, but there was never a twitch or a spark. Flitwick seemed as cheerful as ever, but Harry knew from the way Professor McGonagall’s lips pursed that she was getting worried.

So. There was really only one choice if he wanted to make sure that his parents wouldn’t give him back to the Dursleys, and if he wanted to keep his elementalist powers secret, and if he wanted to look like he was catching up normally, not just whenever he mastered the other kind of wandless magic Quirrell thought he had.

Harry lifted his wand. After the drills with Flitwick, he had incantations and wand movements down pat, even though he’d never managed a charm. “Lumos!”

As he spoke, Harry conjured a bit of fire and floated it carefully into the air, aiming it more towards the tip of his wand.

The fire lingered on the tip of his wand, and didn’t burn it, because Harry was willing it not to. It also looked almost like a Lumos light would, almost the same intensity and brightness. Harry carefully altered a few things about it so that it looked even more like that, and then slowly, slowly, nodded.

He would have to be careful. He would have to get used to conjuring the effects he wanted instantly, and making them look more like the spells they were supposed to mimic. He would have to come up with some solution for Transfiguration, where his elementalist powers would help less. And he would have to make sure that he always performed the right wand movement and spell first, which, after his private sessions with Quirrell, would probably be the hardest thing of all.

But Harry could disguise his elementalist powers and make himself look like a normal wizard. He could ease the worried tone that was always in Lily and James’s letters whenever they wrote to him. He could make Felix smile at him and play chess or go flying with him instead of offering only to practice spells with Harry all the time.

He could keep his secret.

Harry moved his useless wand and let go of his will, and the fake Lumos faded. Harry took a deep breath. Sometimes he thought he would collapse beneath the weight of the secrets he was carrying. His Parseltongue, his abusive childhood, his weird magic, his private lessons with Quirrell, that the hat had wanted to put him in Slytherin. Maybe a friendship with a Slytherin, too, if that worked out.

But at least he knew that as long as he could keep them, he had choices.