A/N: Can't think of much to say…here ya go!
*****
Chapter 39
"Come on Potter, you aren't trying hard enough. Remember, think the spell, don't say it. Feel the magic, feel the energy, bend it to your will, words only focus what you want to happen, all you need to do is think about what you want to happen you don't have to say it. Now Potter-"
Harry gritted his teeth in frustration and determination. They were in the beginnings of December now, and Harry was attempting to cast spells silently, without incantation. After he mastered this, he would be attempting it without wand movements, then finally without use of a wand at all.
This was all on Dumbledore's orders, of course. The headmaster felt that Harry could become the greatest of all wizards, and that for him, nothing, was out of bounds.
So once again Harry squinted his eyes and concentrated on the clay pot in front of him. They were all in the Room of Requirement, it had been largely expanded so that the nine Victors as well as McGonogall, Dumbledore, Moody, and Kingsley were in there, training for the war.
Moody was currently helping Harry while Shacklebolt had the task of training Neville and Hermione with their wand blades, McGonogall was with Lavender, Parvati, Dean, and Seamus, working on their transformations. Although Harry couldn't tell, apparently Seamus' thestral transformations were a lot of fun to watch for those who had not seen death.
According to Lavender random body parts of his would start disappearing, it was sometimes an arm or a leg, even his head once. One time Lavender told Harry that Seamus' pelvic area had disappeared first, and when he asked her about why she was looking at that particular body part in the first place, she blushed and stuttered incoherently for a while until the first opportunity to take leave came to her.
Dumbledore was helping the more advanced animagi, Ginny, Luna, and Ron, who were all close to their full transformations, but not quite perfect yet. Ginny was able to transform to a kitten and hold the form for hours at a time, but when she reverted back, she would cough up fur balls for an equal amount of hours afterwards.
Ron was having trouble maintaining his massive fire drake form for long stretches of time, although other than that he was fine. Professor Dumbledore told him that he needed to do a lot more physical labor to crank up his endurance, and therefore told Ron that he had to run five miles every morning and do one hundred press ups and three hundred scrunches every night.
Luna was the closest to perfection out of all of them, easily attaining her raven form, but, in Ron' words, looking like a 'Drunk Percy on Cleansweep 5 Broomstick' while in the air. Dumbledore told her that she needed to go flying every night on her broomstick and practice her balance before she would be done.
While not registered, so as not to alert Voldemort to their powers, Harry, Hermione, and Neville were fully-fledged animagus, able to transform at will and hole their form for as long as need be.
"Come on Potter," Mood y growled at him after another failed attempt at blasting the clay pot. "You're wasting my time here, now-"
"Won't you just shut up!" Harry said, turning to Moody and magically flashing his eyes at him, wishing that he would shut up.
Moody opened his mouth to retort, but no words came out. He dropped his scarred jaw (or what was left of it anyways) in shock, as Harry did the same.
"Um…Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said loudly, trying to be heard over the loud hum of Neville and Hermione's wand blades.
The old man looked over his moon spectacles at Harry. "Yes Harry?"
He pointed at Moody, who was cursing hotly, but with no sound coming out of his chapped lips. Harry shrugged. "I was sick of him yelling at me so I turned on him and told him to shut up, flashing him with my eyes. He opened his mouth - probably to scream at me - and, well, as you see, no words came out."
Dumbledore smiled and waved a hand simply, restoring Moody's voice. "Ungrateful…doesn't appreciate his own power…stupid…" The ex-auror mumbled, eliciting a small smile from Dumbledore.
Harry stared at the old man, aghast at what he had done. "But, Professor, I…don't…how?…no idea…all I-"
"Harry, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said, motioning with his hands for Harry to be silent. "You have discovered, however inadvertent, your power of wandless magic Harry. Although all wizards may do a simple spell without a wand, or maybe slightly more complicated ones with a wand but no incantation, you, Harry, have the power to do nearly any spell with only a thought, making a wand almost insignificant to you. You will still use one of course, until you have become completely accustomed to your wandless magic.
"However, you must not use your wandless magic lightly, Harry. An attempt at too much power could destroy you, Harry. Be careful in your usage of it."
"B-But sir," Harry stuttered, in disbelief of what he had heard. "You said I have discovered how to do my wandless magic. Er, what exactly did I discover? How did I do it?"
There was an amused and knowing twinkle in the man's eyes. "Look to your mother for help Harry. The secret to your magic lies in the strong connection that you share with her, that part of you which resembles her the most. But not your heart Harry, although you are similar to your mother in that regard, but something else, something simpler. Do you know of what I speak, Harry?"
'What I have in common with my mum? I thought I looked like my dad! But what could it - wait! My eyes! I have my mother's eyes!'
"My eyes sir?"
Dumbledore gave him a proud smile, then nodded and walked back to where he had been training the others. Harry grinned and turned to Moody, who raised his wand.
Harry let his wand fall from his grip, and Moody struck. "Stupefy!"
'No, stop, protect yourself, protego, now!'
"Umph!"
Harry was brought back to reality by a loud gasp, and he looked to where Moody had been standing, but now laid sprawled out on the floor, stunned by his own spell.
"That was bloody brilliant Harry!" Ron said, mouth agape, from across the room. The other Victors nodded in agreement.
Harry smiled. "Thanks."
*****
Like most other things in magic, Harry picked up his 'eye magic' as Seamus called it, rather quickly. Within a few weeks, just before Christmas Holidays started, Harry could perform most simple spells without a wand, although he could still not produce a stunning spell or anything powerful without losing consciousness.
Harry was finding small uses for this everyday, both for his daily routine, but also in battle. While dueling with swords in Weapons class, Harry had mastered the ability to send a simple heating hex at hi opponents hands, causing them to sweat a lot, and then that coupled with a silent wingardium leviosa would usually be enough to cause his opponents a slip of the sword, giving him the time he needed to attack and win a duel.
There were also more practical uses for this, like giving Malfoy's elbow a slight push every time he went to take a sip of his pumpkin juice, and watching in glee when the ferret boy spilled juice all over himself.
Three days before the end of the term, Dean Thomas busted into the sixth year boys dormitories (it was the last Victor card night before the holiday's) with an excited grin on his face, and a large envelope in his left hand.
"Hey Dean, what's up?"
He gave them all a big smile and pulled eight slips of paper out of the envelope. "West Ham tickets! December the thirtieth, 3 o'clock, at Anfield! We're playing Liverpool! These are my Christmas presents for you!"
He excitedly handed out one ticket to each of them in turn. "I talked to coach a few weeks ago, and these just came to me by owl post this morning. These are field seats! You'll be able to sit the sidelines and watch the game, isn't that great!"
Everyone nodded in agreement, and it was Lavender who spoke up next. "Hey guys, since we're all going home for the holidays," She cast a smirk at Harry and Hermione. "Or at least going to our girlfriend's house, and we won't be seeing each other until we get back, we should all exchange gifts tonight. Whaddya say?"
There was a slight murmur of agreement, and thirty minutes later everyone was once again piled into the sixth year boys dormitory, this time with all presents accounted for. Rather than wrapped, most of the presents were just under an invisibility spell.
"Okay, so let's just go one at a time, make it last longer," Hermione suggested, and without waiting for conformation or approval, she looked at Harry and smiled. "Go on Harry, you can do the honors."
Harry returned her smile before opening his present - just by looking at it and forcing the paper off without a wand. A couple of the guys laughed while the others rolled their eyes, muttering things like 'showoff'.
The first present was from Parvati and Lavender, they had gotten him - a quidditch book on famous seekers. So the ceremony went on, and one by one everyone opened their presents. Neville got enough plants to create his own greenhouse, but he loved them all, especially Humphrey Bogart. Apparently he had been planning on buying a magical cactus for quite some time.
Parvati and Lavender pretty much got a flurry of make-up and other girly items, and though confused at first, they were elated when they were told exactly what the Cosmo magazine was.
Dean got pretty much everything there was to get as far as football goes, including tickets to the Champions League final that would be at the beginning of the summer.
Seamus received a lot of presents from Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze's, including a sample box sent by the brother's themselves, though he did enjoy the Irish Nation Team poster, joking with Dean that now he had a sports team poster as well, and his was better because it moved. Then Dean shut him up by mentioning that he (Dean) was actually in the team picture he had.
Ginny loved her kitten, and immediately gave Harry and Hermione bone crushing hugs. "I'll call her Harmony," Ginny announced, beaming at the cat.
"Why Harmony?" Harry asked.
"Because it's a combination of your names, Har - for Harry, mony - for Hermione, put them together, and you get Harmony!"
Ron received mostly quidditch books, coaching strategies, a stand alone chess set from Dean that would let him play against artificial intelligence at a multitude of different difficulty settings, but his favorite present, by far, was The Firedrake.
Ron had whooped for joy when Harry unveiled the fiery red broomstick, made specifically for goalkeeping so that while it did not have great long distance speed it had excellent acceleration and maneuverability, all it needed to be a goalkeeper's broomstick. It was also unbreakable like Harry's Marauder.
Hermione received a miniature library of her own in books, but was slightly disappointed in Harry's gift, an Ancient Runes book. Seeing her crestfallen face, Harry leaned in close and whispered, "You'll get your real present tonight." That seemed to brighten her up a bit, though she couldn't for the life of her think of what it could possibly be.
Harry got a new pair of quidditch gloves from Seamus, charmed to always stay warm, a history of Britain's most famous quidditch teams from Ron, Neville had given him a new breed of owl treats that he had created in the Herbology lab, these treats not only tasted better to the owl but they were nutritious for it as well (he had gotten Hermione the same thing for her own owl, Emerald - though Harry had still not been able to figure out why she had named her snow-white owl that, every time he asked she rolled her eyes at him and said that he must be as dense as Ron if he couldn't figure it out)
Ginny had given him a bagful of Fred and George's tricks, complete with the new Mothery Love tablets. Harry couldn't wait to use them on kids in the Astronomy Tower after hours.
Hermione had bought him a watch much like that that the Weasley's, with nine hands, one for each of the Victor's, and many different areas, ones for 'quidditch' 'football' 'class' 'sleep' 'mortal danger' and the one that he hoped to never see, but knew that he undoubtedly would before the war was over - 'Dead'.
*****
Two days later they were on the train home, well, for Harry he was leaving home and going to the Granger's for a time, but everyone else was going home.
Somehow they managed to fit all nine of themselves into a single compartment, and then ten when Katrina came along. After many a failed attempt at playing exploding snap (Dean had adamantly called the games to a stop after he singed off one of his eyebrows, a problem that Hermione easily fixed), they resorted to doing nothing but talking the rest of the way.
"So where are you going for the holiday Katrina?" Parvati asked in a polite tone. "Surely you aren't returning to that orphanage, are you?"
Katrina let out a breath and looked to the floor. "My father is going to meet me at the station. He contacted me and said that he wanted me to spend the holidays with him."
The silence in the compartment was astounding. There wasn't a word spoken until the sliding door opened to reveal…Draco Malfoy.
He sneered at them all. "What, get a group discount for staying in one room? Why, I knew the Weasels were poor, and of course, the mud bloods are useless, but-"
"Malfoy," Katrina interrupted, surprising everyone. "Why don't you go practice falling down, I'll be there in a minute."
The Victors exploded with laughter, and Malfoy's face turned a brilliant shade of red, and, unable to think up a reply, left in a huff.
A few hours later, they all arrived at the station, saying their good-byes until it was only Harry, Hermione, and Katrina left. Hermione's parents had arrived, but Harry and Hermione had decided to stay until Kris arrived.
Harry started to think the situation over his head, and as he did, he came up with a starling idea. Could it be…
"I'm sorry Katrina, but if your father doesn't show up, you could come with us?" Mr. Granger said, smiling at her, which made Katrina blush and look to the ground.
Hermione was looking at Katrina thoughtfully, until a shocked expression came across her face, followed by one of understanding.
"No…" Hermione said quietly. "Her father's already here."
*****
A/N: How'd you all like that cliffe? I know I loved writing it! Ha! The next chapter may be a while, I dunno how long though.
Cheers!