Harry Potter and the Gift of Memories [Harry Potter Fan Fiction]

Chapter III: Small Time Crises

He then practiced his magic for the next hour, levitating a football around his head. To add some more difficulty to the task, he took to changing it into something else. A flower. A book. A cup. His abilities at transformation were much more limited than his levitating abilities. It required far more concentration to change an object into something else then it did to lift said object into the air. Still, with enough effort, application of power and proper visualization, he was quite capable of making the transformations in time. When a sufficient amount of time had past, Harry decided to go down and make breakfast.

Breakfast itself was a silent affair. No one would speak. Aunt Petunia because of the conversation yesterday; Uncle Vernon because of the fact that he would be driving his 'freak' of a nephew to get supplies for his 'freakish school' today; and Dudley because he was stuffing his face to the brim with pancakes.

Harry ate his breakfast silently: scrambled eggs with a side of toast and a glass of orange juice. When everyone was done, he grabbed the plates and made to wash them. It was during this time that conversation finally started.

Uncle Vernon looked up from his morning newspaper. His face was puce colored, agitated, but he managed to reign himself in and refrained from saying anything stupid. It was an admirable show of restraint—for him at least.

"So this place I need to take you..." Vernon began, trailing off as his face somehow managed to both grimace and glare at the same time.

"The Leaky Cauldron," Harry supplied. Vernon grunted.

"Right, will I need to pick you up?"

"No," Harry supplied. "I can take a cab," he lied, as always. Harry only took a cab when he did not know where he needed to go. Once he saw the place he was to be visiting today, he would no longer require any kind of transportation other than his own magic.

"Good," Vernon grunted again, than went back to reading his morning news. Harry rolled his eyes and finished his task. Time past and before long Harry was being driven through the streets of London by his disgruntled uncle. The man held onto the steering wheel tightly, his face still colored, the leather of the steering wheel creaking under his harsh grip. Harry paid little attention to his uncle as he looked out the window, his mind occupied with other, more important thoughts.

Hogwarts. He wondered what he would learn when he finally arrived. Would they be the same as his own brand of magic? Harry knew that witches and wizards used wands in their magic. His mother had one, his father had one, the few people he had seen before they went into hiding had one. He had watched them use their wands many times, waving them in the air in intricate patterns, chanting incantations in Latin. He wondered if his magic was even the same as their magic. Or did the fact that he didn't need a wand make his magic different? Time would tell, he supposed.

Enhancement, healing, levitation, transformation, teleportation. Those were the five branches of magic Harry was capable of. He would have included disintegration in there, but that was more of a sub branch to transformation than it was it's own branch of magic. Harry had experimented with these powers quite a bit, and came to the conclusion that they were useful, but limited. He had seen his mother and father do quite a bit more with their wands than he could do without one.

A part of it, he was sure, simply had to do with time and training. He had only started consciously using his magic when he was six—five years ago. His parents had to have been at least in their thirties when they had been killed. They had at least two decades over him in experience. Harry was sure that with enough practice and training, he could accomplish everything they did with a wand without one. All it would take was time.

The car slowed to a stop and Uncle Vernon grunted. "We're here."

Harry nodded absentmindedly, unstrapped his seat belt, opened the car door and stepped out. "Thank you, Uncle Vernon," he said politely. His uncle merely grunted and, the moment Harry closed the door, he sped off. Harry didn't bother watching his uncle's car disappear around a corner, merely turned about to look at the place that supposedly lead to Diagon Alley.