Conflict and Progress

The warmth of the Grangers' home lingered in Harry's mind long after he stepped back into the cold, rigid world of the Dursleys. The moment he closed the door behind him, he knew he had made a mistake.

Vernon was waiting.

"Where have you been, boy?" His uncle's voice was low, dangerous.

Harry set his bag down carefully, already bracing himself. "With a friend."

The room went silent. Dudley gawked at him while Petunia's lips thinned, her hands clenched tight at her sides.

"A friend?" Vernon repeated, his face slowly turning red. "Don't lie to me, boy! No one would want to be friends with you."

Harry kept his expression neutral, though his heart pounded. He had spent enough time in the cupboard to know that arguing never helped. But this time… this time, he wasn't going to let them tear it away from him.

"I was with a friend," he repeated, forcing his voice to stay steady. "And I'll see her again."

Vernon surged forward. "You listen to me, you ungrateful little—"

Harry ducked before the meaty hand could grab his shoulder, scrambling back. "I'm going to my room," he said quickly, stepping toward the cupboard.

"You're not leaving this house again without permission, do you hear me?" Vernon bellowed.

Harry didn't respond. He shut the door behind him, curling into himself as he heard the lock slide into place. But even as he lay staring at the ceiling, he didn't feel as trapped as he once had.

Because this time, he knew he wasn't alone.

The days blurred together in a quiet rhythm of stolen moments and secret meetings.

Hermione and Harry returned to the bookshop as often as they could, pooling their allowances to buy second-hand books on myths, legends, and anything remotely related to magic. Books like those written by Gilderoy Lockhart were disappointingly mundane, overexaggerated accounts of witches and wizards, full of spells and rituals that didn't quite make sense.

But others…

Arcane Symbols and Their Meanings listed runes neither of them recognized, but the shapes tugged at something deep in Harry's mind as if he'd seen them before. A battered copy of Theories of Natural Magic suggested that raw magical energy could be manipulated through will alone, without a wand.

That idea changed everything.

They spent hours poring over texts in the library, comparing notes and scribbling down theories in Hermione's notebooks. The first time they tried something practical, it was with a simple candle.

"Try this," Hermione whispered one afternoon, pushing it toward Harry.

They had read about early magical practices, and how intent shaped magic long before wands.

Harry focused, reaching for that same feeling he'd had when strange things happened around him.

The flame flickered.

Hermione gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth.

"Do it again," she whispered.

He tried. Nothing happened at first, but after a moment, the flame wavered once more, shifting as though caught by an invisible breath.

They exchanged wide-eyed glances.

They could do magic.

The weeks passed in a flurry of hushed experiments. They tried to nudge books across tables with sheer concentration, willing pages to turn, feeling the strange pull of energy when they focused hard enough.

One evening, as Hermione furrowed her brow in concentration, a faint glow flickered at the tips of her fingers—so faint Harry almost thought he imagined it.

"Did you see that?" she asked breathlessly.

"Do it again."

She tried, but it was gone.

Magic, they found, was unpredictable.

The successes kept them going, even when most of their attempts led nowhere

One evening, Hermione had been flipping through Arcane Symbols and Their Meanings, tracing a strange rune in the air with her finger. She wasn't even trying to make something happen, just copying the shape absentmindedly.

And yet, the air around her fingertips seemed to shimmer briefly before vanishing.

She gasped. "Harry! Did you see that?"

He had.

After that, they tried drawing the same symbol on paper, the floor, and even in the condensation on Hermione's bedroom window. Nothing happened.

It only worked when traced in the air.

That led to hours of speculation and Hermione, determined as ever, refused to let go of the idea.

"If runes hold power," she said one evening, "then we should test more of them."

Harry agreed, until, after copying a particularly complicated rune from their book, the lightbulb in Hermione's room popped with a loud crack, leaving them in stunned darkness.

"That wasn't me," Hermione said quickly.

Harry wasn't so sure.

Did they need a real spell to control their magic? Or were they simply playing with something neither of them fully understood?

Between the research and the experiments, they grew closer.

Hermione's parents, still thinking it was all a childhood phase, welcomed Harry into their home without question.

"He's a good influence on you," Mrs. Granger remarked one afternoon, watching the two of them scribble furiously in Hermione's journal. "You usually spend summer reading alone. It's nice to see you with a friend."

Hermione beamed while Harry tried to hide how much the words meant to him.

At the Dursleys, friend was never a word he expected to hear.

Even as the summer stretched on, Hermione's parents remained skeptical of magic.

But, they had magic.

They just had to prove it.

And then, one summer morning, everything changed.

A letter arrived.

A letter sealed with wax, addressed in emerald-green ink.

And suddenly, magic was no longer just knowledge written in the pages of their books.