I am Happy to Publish Another Chapter of The Apprentice of The Red Witch
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Harry dreamed of spiders.
Not the enormous, clicking kind from the stories Dudley watched on television with the volume too loud, but the small ones, the ones that lived in the corners of his cupboard. The ones he had named. Shelob lived near the hinge. Aragog had built her web across the top shelf where Aunt Petunia stored the spare lightbulbs. And there was Gandalf, who was either very old or very lazy, because he never seemed to move at all.
Harry was back in the cupboard. He knew he was in a dream, everything that happened yesterday was a dream, his third unknown aunt, the big house in the field, and his new big bedroom. The ceiling was six inches above his nose. The mattress beneath him was thin enough that he could feel every slat of the camp bed pressing into his spine, and somewhere above him, through the floorboards, he could hear the dull rhythm of the Dursleys' morning: Vernon's heavy footsteps.
His chest tightened. He was back. Of course, he was back. The house, the meadow, the aunt with red hair and green eyes, all of it had been a dream, a cruel and elaborate one, and now he was awake, and the cupboard was real, and he was forgetting the dream, leaving behind nothing except the ache of wanting something that had never existed.
Harry opened his eyes.
The ceiling was not six inches above his nose.
It was high, crossed with dark wooden beams, painted the colour of warm cream. Sunlight streamed through a tall window and fell in a long golden stripe across the quilted bed he was lying in.
He sat up slowly.
The bookshelf. The desk. The wardrobe with iron handles. The brass telescope in the wooden chest, the moving chess pieces, the spines of a hundred magical books.
It hadn't been a dream.
Something swelled in Harry's chest like a big fire, and for a few seconds, he just sat there, gripping the edge of the quilt with both hands.
He was not in the cupboard. He was not at the Dursleys'. He was in a house called Willowmere Hollow, and it was real, and so was the woman downstairs who had driven to Privet Drive with shepherd's pie in the oven and hope in her chest.
"Harry!" Natasha's voice carried up the stairs; her voice sounded happier than Petunia's ever did. "Are you awake?"
Harry scrambled out of bed so fast he tangled himself in the quilt and nearly face-planted onto the floorboards.
"Yes!" he called back, kicking free of the fabric. "I'm awake! I'm — yes!"
He pulled on the dark trousers and soft jumper Natasha had given him the night before, fumbling with the buttons because his fingers were clumsy with excitement and his brain was already three steps ahead of his body, already wondering what the kitchen smelled like, already wondering if the paintings in the hallway would wave at him again, already thinking about broomsticks and dragons and the biggest magical library in Britain.
He took the stairs two at a time.
The kitchen was warm and golden, the fire in the main room had been stoked, and the smell that hit Harry when he rounded the corner was so good it nearly stopped him in his tracks: eggs, bacon, toast, something with butter and herbs that he couldn't recognize but wanted to eat.
Natasha stood at the counter with her back to him, her red hair pulled into a loose twist, wearing a dark jumper with the sleeves pushed to her elbows. She glanced over her shoulder as Harry appeared in the archway.
"Morning." Her eyes swept over him with that quick look like she was reading his mind. "Did you sleep?"
"Yeah." Harry hovered in the doorway, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. "Really well, actually. The bed is, it's really comfortable."
"Good." She turned back to the counter. "Go have a bath first. Towels are on the rack. Breakfast will be ready when you're done."
"Can I help with anything?" Harry asked, already moving toward the table. He knew from experience that he should help in the house with something. Aunt Petunia always told him to cook something for them, and only then was he allowed to eat.
Natasha looked at him, her eyes appeared sad for a moment, then angry, then her eyes seemed kind.
"No," she said firmly. "You're not helping with anything. You're nine. Go have a bath."
"But I can... I usually do the cooking, I know how to —"
"Harry." Natasha set down the spatula and turned to face him fully. "You don't cook in this house. You don't clean up after me. You don't earn your breakfast by working for it. You sit down, you eat, and the only thing I expect from you afterward is that you put your plate in the sink. Are we clear?"
Harry opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. The certainty in her voice left no room for negotiation, and something about the way she was looking at him made him feel, he wasn't sure what, but appreciated came to mind.
"Okay," he said quietly.
"Good." Natasha picked up the spatula again and gestured toward the hallway with it. "Bath. Now. Before the eggs get cold."
Harry turned to go, and that was when he saw the pans.
Three of them, hovering in the air beside the sink. One was scrubbing itself with a sponge that moved in brisk, circular motions across its surface. Another was rinsing under the tap, which had turned itself on. The third was drying itself with a tea towel that folded and unfolded.
Harry stood frozen, mouth slightly open, watching a frying pan wash its own handle.
"You're staring," Natasha said without turning around.
"There's a pan cleaning itself."
"Yes."
"With a sponge."
"Astute observation."
"It's, it doesn't have hands."
"Magic doesn't need hands." Natasha flipped something in the skillet, Harry caught a glimpse of golden eggs, perfectly cooked, and added, "It's a basic household charm. Self-cleaning kitchenware. If you think that's impressive, wait until you see the broom cupboard."
Harry tore his eyes away from the self-sufficient pans and went upstairs to take a bath.
The water was hot. It stayed hot. Nobody knocked on the door. Again.
Harry soaked until his fingers pruned, staring at the ceiling and thinking about a world where pans washed themselves, and houses appeared out of thin air, and broomsticks were real, and he was allowed to take a bath for as long as he wanted without anyone screaming at him to hurry up.
When he came back downstairs, the table was set. A plate of scrambled eggs, four strips of bacon, two slices of thick toast with butter, and a glass of orange juice sat waiting for him. A second plate, half-finished, sat across the table where Natasha had already eaten.
Harry sat down and ate. The eggs were perfect, soft, buttery, seasoned with something. The bacon was crisp. The toast was warm. He ate all of it, in a big hurry; he was sure he made a mess, but his aunt found it more amusing than anything, and then sat back with his hands on his stomach and thought that if this was what mornings felt like in the magical world, he never wanted to go back to the other one.
Natasha watched him over the rim of her coffee, a faint curve at the corner of her mouth.
"Better than toast crusts?" she asked.
Harry looked at her. He wanted to say something witty, something clever, something that would match the sharpness she always seemed to carry, but the honest answer was so enormous and so simple that it pushed everything else aside.
"Yeah," he said. "A lot better."
Natasha set her mug down and studied him for a moment. Then she leaned back in her chair and said, "I believe I promised you something yesterday."
Harry blinked. "What?"
"Something involving broomsticks." She tilted her head. "Ring any bells?"
Harry's eyes went wide, his back straightened, and his mouth split into a grin so broad it made his cheeks hurt. He looked like a boy who had just been told Christmas was happening again, right now, immediately.
"You said...today? Right now? We're going flying?"
"If you'd like."
Harry was already on his feet, his chair scraping back against the stone floor. "Yes. Yes, I'd like. I'd very much like. Can we go now? Where are the broomsticks? How does it work? Do I just —"
"Sit down."
Harry sat, vibrating.
"Finish your juice."
He drained it in one gulp and set the glass down with a thunk. "Done."
Natasha's mouth twitched. She stood, collected both plates, Harry's hand twitched toward his own, but he caught himself, and set them in the sink, where the sponge immediately leapt to attention.
"Follow me," she said, and walked out the back door.
The morning air was cool against Harry's skin, still carrying the dampness of dew. The meadow stretched wide around them, glittering green, and the willows near the stream bent in a light breeze, and the field smelled of flowers.
Natasha led him around the side of the house to a small stone shed he hadn't noticed the night before. She tapped the lock with her wand, and it clicked open. Inside, leaning against the wall, were two broomsticks.
They were nothing like the ones Harry had seen in picture books, no bundles of twigs tied with string, no crooked handles. These were sleek, polished, with smooth dark wood and bristles trimmed to an aerodynamic shape. One was longer than the other, its handle worn smooth with use.
Natasha pulled out the longer one and carried it to the flat clearing behind the house, the one she'd mentioned the night before, open ground with nothing to crash into.
Harry followed, his heart hammering in his throat.
"First rule," Natasha said, laying the broomstick flat on the grass. "You don't fly alone. Not today, not this week, not until I'm satisfied you won't kill yourself."
"I won't —"
"Second rule." She held up a hand. "You listen to every instruction I give you. If I say lean left, you lean left. If I say slow down, you slow down. If I say land, we land. No arguing, no showing off, no testing limits. Understood?"
"Understood," Harry said, though the showing off part stung slightly, because he hadn't even been on a broomstick yet and already she was assuming he'd be reckless.
"Third rule." Natasha swung one leg over the broomstick and settled onto it with ease. The broom hovered a few inches off the ground, perfectly steady, as though it were resting on an invisible shelf. "You ride with me."
Harry looked at the broomstick, then at Natasha, then back at the broomstick.
"With you," he repeated. "On the same broom."
"Yes."
"But...don't I get my own?"
"Eventually." Natasha patted the space on the handle in front of her. "Today, you get the training wheels. Sit."
Harry hesitated for only a moment before climbing on. The broom was wider than he'd expected, the wood solid and warm beneath him, and the hovering sensation was strange, a gentle upward pull.
Natasha's arms came around him on either side, her hands gripping the handle in front of his, and Harry was suddenly aware of how close she was; he felt her warmth, and he was sure his face had turned red.
"Comfortable?" she asked.
"I think so."
"Grip the handle. Firmly, but not too tight."
Harry adjusted his grip, loosening fingers that had gone white-knuckled without him noticing.
"Good." Natasha's voice was calm, close to his ear. "Now. When I push off, we go up. Your stomach will drop, your instincts will tell you to grab tighter and lean forward. Don't. Stay centred. Trust the broom."
"Trust the broom," Harry echoed, not entirely sure how to trust a piece of wood.
"Ready?"
Harry looked out across the meadow, golden in the morning light, the willows swaying, the stream glittering, the sky enormous and pale blue above it all.
"Ready," he said.
Natasha kicked off.
The ground fell away.
Harry's stomach lurched, and then they were rising, smoothly, the meadow shrinking beneath them, the house growing smaller, the oak trees dropping to the height of shrubs. The wind caught Harry's hair and pulled it in every direction, and the air was cooler up here. He took a deep breath, and he felt his heart in his neck.
They levelled out at about forty feet, and Harry looked down.
The world had opened up. He could see the full shape of Willowmere Hollow now, the honey-coloured stone, the wraparound porch, the twin chimneys, the cobblestone path curving through the wildflowers. Beyond the property, the countryside unrolled in every direction like a giant painting: patchwork fields, hedgerows, distant church spires, a road that wound through the hills like a dropped ribbon. The stream was a silver thread beneath the willows.
It was, without question, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"Oh...Wow," Harry breathed.
Natasha didn't say anything. She let him look.
The wind pressed against his face, and Harry felt something crack open inside his chest, he felt...free.
Up here, the world was enormous. And it was beautiful. And he was in it.
"Can we go faster?" Harry asked, and his voice was shaking, but not from fear.
"Not today." Natasha's tone was amused. "Today we fly straight, slow, and boring."
"This is not boring." Harry leaned slightly, and the broom tilted, the meadow swinging beneath them, and Natasha corrected immediately, her hand covering his on the handle and nudging them level again.
"What did I say about leaning?"
"I didn't lean. The wind pushed me."
"The wind pushed you."
"There's a lot of wind up here."
"There is exactly enough wind for you to use as an excuse." Natasha's voice was dry. "Keep your weight centred. I'll handle the steering."
They flew a wide, lazy circle over the property, low enough that Harry started counting the wildflowers for a moment. Natasha pointed out the boundaries of the wards and explained how the broom responded to pressure and intent.
"Lean into turns, towards the direction you want to go."
Harry listened, remembering every word, filing it alongside everything else he was learning about this world. But mostly, he looked. At the meadow. In the sky. At the stream and the willows and the tiny house below.
"I could do this forever," Harry said quietly.
Natasha was silent for a moment. Then: "You've got good instincts. You sit the broom well."
Harry turned his head, surprised.
"Your father was the same," she added, and her voice sounded slightly emotional. "First time on a broom, natural as breathing."
Harry faced forward again, and his throat was tight, but this time it had nothing to do with sadness.
He was flying.
He was actually flying.
Harry smiled into the wind and didn't look down.
They landed in the clearing behind the house, and before the broomstick had even touched the grass, Natasha spoke.
"That was good. You have instinct." She dismounted and carried the broom toward the shed. "But instinct alone won't be enough."
His legs were unsteady, his hair wild, and the grin on his face hadn't faded since they'd left the ground. "When can we go again?"
"Soon. But we have other things to focus on first."
Harry's grin slipped. "Other things?"
"Training." Natasha set the broom inside and shut the door. She turned to face him, and there was no amusement left in her expression. "You've had your fun. Now the real work starts."
Harry perked up. Training. That meant spells. Wands. The actual magic part of being a wizard. His mind was already racing through everything she'd told him the night before: dragons, broomsticks, a school. If there was a dark wizard out there who might come back for him, then he needed to learn how to fight. And fighting meant learning spells.
"Brilliant," he said, practically bouncing on his heels. "What are we starting with? A jinx? A shield charm? Something with fire?"
Natasha looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned and walked toward the house.
"Follow me."
Harry followed, already imagining himself holding a wand, casting his first spell, light erupting from his fingertips. He followed Natasha into the main room and stopped.
The furniture had been pushed against the walls. The floor was bare. No wand on the table. No spell books laid open. No target dummies or practice equipment. Just empty space.
"Sit down," Natasha said. "Cross-legged. Back straight. Hands on your knees."
Harry looked at the empty floor, then at her. "Where's the wand?"
"You don't get a wand."
"What?"
"Sit down, Harry."
He sat, confused, arranging himself on the hard floor. His legs crossed awkwardly. His back protested the lack of support.
"You're going to sit here for two hours," Natasha said, settling into the armchair across from him. "During that time, you're going to breathe. In for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Repeat. That's it."
Harry waited for the rest. The part where she explained what spell they were building toward, or what exercise would come after, or when the actual magic would start.
She said nothing.
"That's it?" he asked. "Just... breathing?"
"Just breathing."
"For two hours."
"For two hours."
Harry stared at her. "I breathe all the time. I thought you said we were training."
"We are."
"This isn't training. This is sitting."
"This is the foundation of every spell you will ever cast." Natasha's voice left no room for argument. "Close your eyes. Begin."
Harry closed his eyes, utterly bewildered, and started to breathe.
The first three days were awful.
His foot fell asleep within ten minutes. His back screamed. His mind refused to cooperate, slipping away from the breathing pattern every few seconds, chasing thoughts about broomsticks and dragons and when, exactly, any of this was going to involve actual magic.
Natasha corrected him constantly. His posture, his breathing, his fidgeting. "Still." "Again." "You lost the count." "Start over."
On the second morning, she introduced visualization.
"Close your eyes," she said. "I want you to picture a sphere in your mind. Perfectly round. Perfectly smooth. Hold it there."
"A sphere," Harry repeated. "Why?"
"Because I told you to."
Harry closed his eyes and tried to imagine a sphere. He got something vaguely round. Lumpy. It shifted and wobbled when he tried to examine it, and dissolved entirely when Natasha asked him to describe its surface.
He tried again. And again. And again.
Each attempt failed. The sphere refused to hold its shape. It morphed, collapsed, vanished. His head began to ache from the effort.
"I don't understand what this has to do with magic," Harry said, frustration creeping into his voice.
"You don't need to understand. You need to do it."
"But why? What's a sphere got to do with casting spells?"
"Everything." Natasha's tone was flat. "The ability to hold a stable mental image is the foundation of magical intent. If you can't visualize a simple shape, you can't direct a spell. Again."
Harry gritted his teeth and tried again.
By the afternoon of the second day, after his visualization had collapsed for the fifteenth time in a row, after he'd opened his eyes in frustration and found Natasha watching him with that steady, unreadable gaze, she said something he hadn't expected.
"You held it for twelve seconds longer than yesterday."
Harry blinked. "What?"
"Your sphere. Yesterday, your longest hold was forty-three seconds. Today, it was fifty-five." She took a sip of her coffee. "That's progress."
It was the smallest possible encouragement. But Harry felt it land in his chest and glow there, warm and unexpected.
"It doesn't feel like progress," he said.
"It won't. Not for a while." Natasha set her mug down. "But I'm keeping count, even if you're not. Again."
On the fourth day, Harry broke.
The morning had started with the combined exercise: breathing in the four-count pattern while holding the sphere in his mind. Both at once. Harry couldn't do it. Every time he focused on the sphere, his breathing went ragged. Every time he steadied his breathing, the sphere dissolved. He'd been trying for over an hour, failing every single time, and when Natasha said "Again" for what felt like the hundredth time, something snapped.
"This is pointless!" He was on his feet before he realized he'd stood up. "All of it! The breathing, the sphere, the sitting still for hours. It's completely pointless!"
Natasha looked at him from the armchair. "Sit down."
"No!" Harry's voice was louder than he'd intended, but he couldn't stop it. The frustration was like a raging fire in his chest. "You told me you were going to teach me magic! You told me there was a dark wizard who killed my parents, who might come back, and that you were going to make sure I was ready! And instead of teaching me how to defend myself, you've got me sitting on a floor breathing and thinking about shapes!"
"Harry."
"It's been four days! Four days of nothing! I haven't touched a wand, I haven't learned a single spell, I can't do any of the things you said I'd be able to do! What's the point of any of this? How is sitting here going to help me if Voldemort comes back?"
Harry was breathing hard, his fists clenched at his sides, and he didn't care that he was shouting, because at least shouting felt like doing something.
Natasha was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood and walked to the window. The afternoon sun caught her hair and turned it the colour of copper.
"Harry," she said, and her voice was different. Not softer. "I understand that this is frustrating. I do. You're nine years old, you've just discovered that magic is real, and you want to use it. That's not unreasonable."
Harry hadn't expected that. He'd expected the sharp tone like a soldier. Not understanding.
"But I need you to trust me," she continued. "Every exercise I'm giving you has a purpose. The breathing teaches your body to regulate itself under stress. The visualization trains your mind to hold and shape magical intent. The stillness teaches you to exist inside discomfort without being controlled by it." She turned to face him. "These are not punishments. They are the tools you will need to cast every spell you ever learn."
"You keep saying that," Harry said, and his voice cracked. "But I don't feel anything. I don't feel any closer to magic than I did when I got here. I just feel stupid, and tired, and like maybe I'm not actually good enough to do any of this."
The last part came out before he could stop it. The real fear, buried under all the frustration. Not that the training was pointless, but that he was.
Natasha studied him for a long moment. Then she crossed the room and crouched in front of him, bringing her eyes level with his.
"Has anything strange ever happened to you?" she asked. "Something you couldn't explain. Something that shouldn't have been possible."
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Accidental magic," Natasha said. "It's what happens when a young witch or wizard's core discharges on its own, usually in response to strong emotion. Fear, anger, desperation. The child doesn't choose to do it. They don't even know they're doing it. But the magic responds to what they need in that moment, and something happens that breaks the rules of the ordinary world." She held his gaze. "Has anything like that ever happened to you?"
Harry opened his mouth to say no. Then he stopped.
The memory surfaced slowly, dragged up from a place he'd buried it years ago. He'd been eight. Aunt Petunia had taken him to the barber, a cheap one on the high street who charged five pounds and didn't ask questions. She'd told the man to cut Harry's hair short, practically to the scalp, because she was sick of it looking like a bird's nest. The barber had done it. Harry had sat in the chair and watched his hair fall in dark clumps onto the tiled floor, and he had felt miserable. He knew his hair was a mess, but he felt that it belonged to him, and now Aunt Petunia was taking it from his hands. He'd gone to bed that night with his scalp cold and bare and his eyes burning.
And when he woke up the next morning, every strand of hair had grown back. All of it. Exactly the way it had been before. Aunt Petunia had gone white. She hadn't taken him to the barber again.
"My hair," Harry said quietly. "Aunt Petunia cut it all off, and it grew back overnight."
Natasha nodded. "What else?"
There was something else. Harry reached for it, and it came easier this time.
He'd been at school. Dudley and his gang had cornered him during lunch, five of them, blocking every direction, and Dudley had been cracking his knuckles and grinning that wide, mean grin that meant Harry was about to get hit. Harry had backed up against the wall, heart hammering, nowhere to go, and he'd wanted to be somewhere else so badly that his whole body had ached with it. He'd squeezed his eyes shut and braced for the punch.
And then he was on the roof.
One second, he was pressed against the brick wall behind the kitchens, and the next, he was standing on the flat roof of the school building, three storeys up, with the wind in his face and Dudley's gang staring up at him from the playground with their mouths hanging open. He had no idea how he'd gotten there. The teachers hadn't believed him when he said he didn't know either. He'd gotten detention for a week.
"I ended up on the roof of my school once," Harry said. "I was being chased, and then I was just... there. On the roof. I don't know how."
"Apparition," Natasha said. "Short-range, instinctive, triggered by fear. That's advanced magic, Harry. Most adult wizards need years of formal training to Apparate. You did it at, what, eight? Seven?"
"Eight," Harry said.
"What else?"
Harry hesitated. The third memory was smaller.
Dudley's old clothes had never fit him. The shirts hung off his shoulders. The trousers pooled around his ankles. The jumpers swallowed him whole. He'd looked ridiculous every single day, and Dudley had made sure he knew it. But one morning, the morning of a school photograph, Harry had stood in front of the bathroom mirror staring at himself in a shirt three sizes too large, and he'd thought, fiercely and without hope, that just once he wanted to look normal. Just once he wanted to stand in the photograph and not be the boy drowning in someone else's clothes.
And the shirt had tightened. Not all at once. Slowly, the fabric had drawn in around his shoulders and chest, the sleeves had shortened to his wrists, and the hem had tucked itself neatly at his waist. It had only lasted a few hours before the shirt went slack again, but for that one photograph, he had looked like a boy wearing his own clothes.
"I made my clothes fit once," Harry said. "Just for a day. Dudley's old shirt. It sort of... shrank to my size."
Natasha was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Transfiguration. Sustained material alteration on a non-magical object, held for hours. At what age?"
"Seven, I think. Maybe eight."
"Harry." Natasha's voice was soft. "You apparated across a building. You performed sustained transfiguration at seven or eight. You regenerated organic matter overnight. Those are not the signs of a weak core. Those are not the signs of someone who isn't good enough." She paused. "Accidental magic of that strength and variety is rare. Most magical children produce one or two minor incidents before they receive formal training. You produced three, and none of them were minor."
Harry stared at her. The frustration was still there, but something else was growing underneath it. Hope.
"It's real for you," Natasha said quietly. "I felt your core the first moment I saw you. You are a wizard. A powerful one. And every hour you spend on these exercises is bringing you closer to proving that to yourself. But you have to be patient. Can you do that?"
Harry swallowed. His eyes stung. "Yeah," he said. "I can do that."
"Good." She stood. "Now sit back down. We're doing the sphere again. And this time, I want you to add colour."
"Colour?"
"Pick one. Hold it."
Harry lowered himself back to the floor. He closed his eyes. He built the sphere, round and smooth, and then, carefully, he added green. The green of the meadow outside, the green of the grass under his shoes when he'd stepped out of the car for the first time, the green of his eyes. He held it, breathing steadily, and the sphere stayed.
"How long?" he asked after what felt like a very long time.
"Two minutes and fourteen seconds," Natasha said. "Your best yet."
Harry opened his eyes. Natasha was looking at him, and her expression was one of pride.
"Good," she said. "We're done for today."
The days continued.
Harry stopped counting them after the first week. The breathing became automatic. The sphere became stable. He could hold it for five minutes, then seven, then ten.
But the anger didn't go away entirely. It flared up in bursts, usually on the days when Natasha pushed harder. On day nine, she introduced active distractions: clapping next to his ear, dropping books behind him, scraping chairs across the floor while he tried to maintain his focus. The sphere shattered every time.
"This is ridiculous!" Harry shouted after the tenth interruption. "Nobody can concentrate through this! How is this supposed to help me learn magic when you won't even let me try?"
"You are trying magic," Natasha said calmly. "You just don't recognize it yet."
"That doesn't mean anything!"
"It will. Keep going."
Harry wanted to walk out. Wanted to slam the door and go back to his room to rest or to go outside and fly with a broomstick. But instead, he sat down, closed his eyes, and started again. Because somewhere beneath the anger, there was a stubborn, grinding refusal to let this beat him.
By the end of that session, he could hold the sphere through one distraction before it collapsed.
On day twelve, Natasha taught him to sense his magical core. She told him to stop visualizing anything external and to turn his attention inward.
"There's a source of energy inside you," she said. "Your core. It's not in your chest or your head. It's deeper. Behind your awareness."
Harry tried. He felt nothing. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty.
"I don't feel anything," he said flatly. "Maybe I'm not actually magical and this whole thing has been a waste of time."
"You are magical. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen."
Harry gritted his teeth and tried again.
Then, faintly, something. A warmth. A presence. It pulsed like a small heart, and it was buried so deep inside him that he almost missed it.
"I think I feel something," he whispered.
"Good." Natasha's expression remained neutral. "Now find it again. Faster."
By the end of the second week, he could find his core in under a minute. He could sit still for an hour without discomfort. He could hold the coloured sphere for ten minutes straight with Natasha dropping things and clapping and generally trying to break his concentration.
He still didn't understand how any of it connected to actual spellcasting. He had asked three more times, and each time Natasha had given him the same answer: "You'll see."
He was beginning to hate those two words.
On the morning of day fifteen, Harry woke to Natasha's voice from the hallway.
"Get up. Get dressed. Come downstairs."
There was something different in her tone. Something that made him move faster than usual. He pulled on his clothes and took the stairs two at a time.
Natasha stood in the main room beside the cleared floor space. In her hand was something thin and wooden.
Harry stopped in the archway. His breath caught. He was sure his mouth was open.
"Is that a wand?"
"Practice wand," Natasha said, holding it out. "Pale birch. No core. Low conductivity. Designed for beginners."
Harry crossed the room and took it from her hand. It was light. Smooth. Plain, with no carvings or decoration. Just a straight piece of pale wood, about ten inches long.
His hand was shaking.
"The spell is Lumos," Natasha said. "A light charm. First-year curriculum at Hogwarts. The simplest directed spell in existence."
Harry nodded. He couldn't speak.
"Here's where everything we've practiced comes together." Natasha watched his face closely. "Find your core. That's the breathing and the sensing work. Establish your intent. That's the visualization. You want light. Not heat, not force, not sound. Light. A specific point of it, at the tip of the wand. Channel the energy from your core through your arm, through the wand, and release it. Speak the incantation clearly and move your wand to make the spell. It's an upside down V."
Harry stared at her. For two weeks, he had sat on this floor and breathed and visualized and sensed and wondered, endlessly, what any of it had to do with casting a spell. And now, standing here with a wand in his hand, he understood. The breathing was for calm. The visualization was for intent. The core sensing was for power. Every exercise had been building toward this exact moment.
"Lumos," he said, testing the word.
"Not yet." Natasha held up a hand. "Breathe first. Centre yourself."
Harry closed his eyes. Found his breathing pattern. Four in. Four hold. Four out. Four hold. He let it cycle three times, feeling his shoulders drop, feeling the calm settle over him. The calm that hadn't existed two weeks ago. The calm he had built, hour by hour, on this floor, in this room, through every miserable, boring, frustrating exercise Natasha had forced on him.
Then he reached inward. The core was there.
He opened his eyes and raised the wand.
"Intent first," Natasha reminded him. "Know what you want before you ask for it."
Light. He wanted light. Not a vague idea of it. A point of it, bright and clean, at the tip of the wand. He shaped the intent the way the visualization had taught him, holding the image steady, willing it into existence.
He felt the core respond. A pulse of warmth that traveled up through his chest, down his arm, into his fingers, into the wood.
"Lumos," Harry said, and moved the wand in an upside-down V.
The wand tip ignited.
Not a flicker. A steady, clear point of white light that shone from the end of the practice wand and held there, burning bright and unwavering in the dim morning room.
Harry stared at it.
Two weeks of sitting on the floor. Two weeks of breathing exercises that felt pointless, of visualization that felt absurd, of sensing for a core he wasn't sure existed. Two weeks of anger and frustration and the grinding, miserable certainty that none of it was leading anywhere.
And now there was light in his hand.
"I did it," he whispered. "Aunty, I did it."
"Hold it," she said quickly, but her eyes were fixed on the wand tip. "Don't let go of the intent. Keep breathing."
Harry breathed. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four. The light stayed. Steady. Consistent. A small bright star at the end of a plain stick of birch wood.
Then something shifted.
He didn't decide to do it. It happened the way accidental magic happened. The warmth in his core surged, a sudden flush of heat that rushed through his arm, and the light at the wand tip flared. It doubled in brightness, then tripled, filling the room with stark white radiance, casting sharp shadows against the walls, turning the cream-coloured ceiling into a blaze of noon.
Natasha took a step back.
"Harry." There was an edge in her voice. "Pull it back. Gently. Don't cut the connection, just reduce the flow."
Harry's instinct was to panic. The light was too bright, too much, and he could feel the energy pouring out of him faster than he could control. But instead of panicking, he did what two weeks of training had taught him to do. He breathed. He held his focus. He found the current of magic running from his core to the wand and he narrowed it.
The light dimmed. From blinding to bright. From bright to moderate. From moderate to the small clean point it had been before.
Harry held it there, breathing, shaking, but in control.
"Nox," Natasha said quietly.
Harry lowered the wand. The light went out.
The room was dim again.
He looked at Natasha.
She was watching him with an expression he had never seen on her face. Her lips were parted slightly. Her green eyes were wide. For the first time since he'd met her, she looked genuinely surprised.
"That," she said slowly, "was not supposed to happen."
"What do you mean?"
"A practice wand has no core. It conducts magic poorly by design. First-time casters produce a flicker, maybe a dim glow. You produced a sustained Lumos and then amplified it." She paused. "On a coreless wand."
Harry looked down at the wand. It was still warm against his palm.
"Is that bad?"
"No." The surprise faded from Natasha's face, and her face was full of pride, and Harry felt warmer than he had ever felt before; this feeling was like receiving a big warm hug. "It means the foundation work did exactly what it was supposed to do. Your core is strong, Harry. Stronger than I expected."
Harry felt his face flush.
"It also means," Natasha continued, and a thin smile appeared at the corner of her mouth, "that I was right to make you sit on that floor for two weeks."
Harry let out a breath, then laughed. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"
"Not a chance." She took the wand from his hand and set it on the table. "Sit down. Drink some water. You just used more energy than you realize."
Harry sat. His legs were wobbly. His hands were still trembling. But inside his chest, in the place where his core lived, there was a glow.
He had done it. He had cast a spell. Light had come from the wand because he had willed it there, and when it had surged beyond his control, he had pulled it back. Every hour of frustration, every moment of doubt, every time he had wanted to quit and hadn't, had been building toward the instant he said "Lumos" and the world answered.
"Aunty?"
"Hm?"
"Thank you. For the training. For not letting me quit."
Natasha poured him a glass of water and set it on the table. She looked at him for a long moment.
"You didn't quit," she said. "That was all you."
She turned back toward the kitchen, and Harry saw the biggest smile on her face.
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