Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

Harry’s owl watched me put the brush-wand away with the apparent suspicion that I might try to feed it to her. I had no intention of sharing either my purchase or my ice cream, so we established a reasonable distance across the table. Harry noticed the look I was getting and smiled.

‘Have you named her?’ I asked. ‘She looks as though she’ll want something respectable.’

‘Hedwig,’ he said. ‘I found it in one of the books we bought.’ He tried the name aloud towards the cage, and the owl turned her head to inspect him instead. I decided that meant she had accepted it.

The ease of sitting there surprised me. Harry didn’t seem to mind my complaints about the wand, and I had enjoyed having someone to share the day with who found it strange for the same reasons I did. We had been introduced as the sons of old friends. Somewhere between the pub and the ice cream, becoming friends ourselves had begun to feel rather less like an obligation.

‘You mentioned Dudley at the bookshop too,’ I said. ‘Your cousin. Is he the reason you were so interested in the curses?’

Harry’s expression changed. ‘He’s horrible,’ he said. ‘Him and his friends. They think chasing me is a game.’

He told me more as we finished eating. Dudley hit him, and his friends helped; his aunt and uncle seemed much more interested in whether Harry had done the chores than in stopping it. Some details came out as jokes. Others arrived so casually that it took me a moment to understand what he was saying. The clothes were Dudley’s old ones, and until recently Harry had slept in a cupboard under the stairs.

I put my spoon down. ‘A cupboard?’ I asked. There had been several things worth objecting to before that, but it was the one I couldn’t get past.

‘There’s a bed in it,’ Harry said. He studied his bowl instead of looking at me. ‘I’ve got a room now.’

‘You shouldn’t have had to sleep there in the first place.’ I wanted to say considerably more about the people who had thought that arrangement acceptable. Harry already knew them, though, and making him listen to my anger wouldn’t alter what had happened. ‘I’m glad you’ve got a room. It doesn’t make the cupboard all right.’

‘Hagrid said something like that,’ he replied. ‘Only louder.’

I could imagine it. ‘Hagrid has an advantage where volume’s concerned,’ I said, and Harry laughed a little. I was relieved to hear it without feeling that we had somehow settled the matter. Knowing him for an afternoon gave me no right to tell him how to feel about the family he had lived with all his life.

‘At least I’ll be at Hogwarts soon,’ Harry said. ‘I won’t have to see them much.’ He sounded more certain about that than he had about anything the Dursleys might do. I hoped the school would be as good a place to go as we were both imagining.

For a while we talked about what Hagrid had told him. When Harry lowered his voice and asked whether I thought Voldemort was still alive, I understood why the question hadn’t gone away after finding the right wand. He had learnt a great deal about his family recently, and very little of it had been reassuring.

‘I can’t tell you for certain,’ I said. ‘What did Hagrid say?’

‘He thinks he didn’t really die.’ Harry kept his voice low. ‘Even he doesn’t like saying the name.’

‘Then I’d take what he says seriously.’ My own scraps of memory suggested that losing a body hadn’t finished Voldemort, but they weren’t evidence I could offer Harry. I didn’t know where he might be or what surviving in that condition meant. Giving a confident answer would only add another claim to the ones Harry was trying to make sense of.

The name still interested me. I began to mention it, then remembered Ollivander’s expression and chose my words more carefully. ‘It feels strange, hearing people avoid it,’ I said. ‘But I think he was right about us not understanding those years.’

Harry touched his scar. ‘I don’t remember him,’ he said. ‘I wish I remembered my parents, though.’

I looked down at the table. For all the memories crowded into my head, there was nothing there I could lend him. ‘Hagrid knew them,’ I said at last. ‘I was trying to think what to ask him about mine earlier. Then the conversation moved on.’

‘I know. There’s a lot I want to ask him.’ Harry moved his hand to the edge of Hedwig’s cage and let the subject rest. I left it there with him, instead of trying to turn something neither of us could repair into advice.

I hadn’t proved that the name possessed no magic. I had simply been reminded that fear could explain the behaviour we had seen, and I ought to understand more before treating it as foolishness. For now, the only wizard who had offered me a detailed explanation was also the man who had persevered until I found my wand. He had earned a better hearing than I had given him at first.

Hagrid returned carrying several parcels. ‘All done?’ he asked, looking at our bowls and then at me. ‘Found yer wand, did yeh?’

I showed it to him. ‘Eventually. Harry approves, and I’m trying to reserve judgement until I’ve used it.’

‘He likes it really,’ Harry said. ‘He just wanted something that looked different.’

I couldn’t dispute that without reopening an argument I was already losing. Instead I gathered my bags and rediscovered the practical problem which had been growing all day. Harry had books, robes, two cauldrons and the rest of his supplies as well as Hedwig; my extra books and ingredients weren’t making my own load any easier. The coins I still carried did nothing to improve matters.

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‘Is there a magical way to carry all this?’ I asked Hagrid. ‘Something bigger inside than it looks. Preferably something I can keep with me.’

‘Extension charms,’ he said. ‘Plenty o’ travel goods use ’em. Come on, I’ll show yeh a shop.’

About twenty minutes later, I was trying not to buy a trunk which opened into a wardrobe. It was impressive, but I wanted something that would remain convenient after I had got my belongings home. The shopkeeper listened and produced a dark leather pouch, small enough to sit against my hip. Both of its compartments had been expanded.

He explained the limits before letting me try it. The space was finite, as was the weight the enchantment could manage; unstable living creatures and another expanded container were particularly bad ideas. I had to repeat the restrictions back to him. After the excitement of the vault, it was oddly reassuring to buy something whose seller insisted there were things money didn’t permit me to do.

The gold cauldron went in. When I reached back through the opening, my hand disappeared farther than the outside dimensions should have allowed, and I brought the cauldron out again without difficulty. I tried it once more because the experience deserved repetition. Then I bought the pouch and asked for a second one.

‘No,’ Harry said immediately. ‘You’re getting that for me.’

‘A birthday present,’ I told him. He had recognised the plan more quickly than I had expected, leaving no opportunity to pretend I simply collected luggage. ‘You can’t put all those books in Hedwig’s cage.’

‘I’ve got money now. You already offered to lend me some earlier.’ He held on to one of his bags, apparently determined that I shouldn’t solve the same problem twice.

‘And you didn’t need the loan. This is something I want to give you.’ I kept the second pouch on the counter rather than push it into his hands. ‘You’re allowed to have a present as well as your own money.’

Hagrid watched us with evident enjoyment. Harry looked at the pouch, then at the things he was carrying, and finally accepted. He tested it with three books, reaching in after each one to check that they hadn’t gone somewhere inaccessible. When he had all three back again, he smiled at me.

‘This will make the train easier,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. Let me know if it takes a particular dislike to any of your textbooks.’ I packed my own purchases into the two compartments, following the shopkeeper’s instructions. Being able to stand up without gathering a small market stall’s worth of bags made the whole day feel more manageable.

By mid-afternoon we were back at the Leaky Cauldron, where Emma met me outside. Harry and I exchanged addresses before Hagrid took him away. With Hedwig available, writing to each other ought to be simpler than explaining wizarding post to an ordinary postman. We agreed to meet again before school, and this time it felt like a plan we would actually keep.

I had the wand out again before Emma started the car. She inspected it while I settled the pouch against my side, taking in the bristled tip with a look of recognition. ‘You bought a brush,’ she said.

‘A wand. It has complicated feelings about being a brush.’ I turned the wood in my fingers, feeling the comfortable response I hadn’t found in any of the ordinary ones. ‘I think it’s the right one, though.’

At home I was too eager to test that thought to sit down for dinner. Emma supplied a sandwich instead, making it clear that excitement was not a substitute for food. I took it upstairs with my purchases and cleared the desk, setting out a single Runebark strip, the cinnabar preparation and Ken’s notes.

I chose the Fire-Making Spell. Incendio was familiar from the early experiments, although my previous efforts had produced sparks and brief, unstable bursts rather than much useful fire. This time I dipped the fibres of my new wand into the same preparation and began the inscription.

Yellow light spread from the point where the tip touched the paper. I paused, remembering the first cold drain, but there was no sudden pain or collapse. Warmth moved through my fingers into the wood, and the stroke followed my intention with an ease the ordinary brush had never offered. It wasn’t writing on its own. I still had to shape the spell, but I could feel what I was doing instead of struggling to hold every part together at once.

I finished the incantation and waited as the writing sank into the fibres. The prepared slip stayed warm. Carrying it downstairs, I selected a stone slab in the garden as a target, leaving my notes and unused materials safely in the bedroom. Emma appeared at the back door with the sandwich I had managed to neglect.

‘Should I be worried?’ she asked. She stayed clear of the line between me and the stone. ‘I’d rather not spend tonight cleaning another wall.’

‘I’m hoping for a better result than the banana.’ I checked the space around the target and threw the prepared paper. It struck the slab, and a compact burst of flame opened across the stone.

The fire lasted only a moment. When it vanished, soot marked where the slip had hit, and I was still holding my hand out after the throw. This was recognisable magic doing what I had intended. I crossed the lawn to inspect the result, careful of the hot stone, and found the spent paper ruined as expected.

‘That was better,’ Emma said when I turned back. She offered me the sandwich before I could announce the next experiment. ‘Now eat. You can be excited and fed at the same time.’

I ate, looking from the wand to the blackened patch. The improvement had been obvious, but one attempt couldn’t tell me whether I could repeat it. When I returned to the desk, I prepared a second strip using the same ink and spell, paying attention to the process instead of rushing to see the result.

With the old brush, shaping the inscription had taken most of my concentration. The new tool made the movement easier to feel and mistakes easier to notice before the writing settled. It didn’t remove the need to understand the spell or prepare the paper. It gave me a better chance of doing the work I already knew how to attempt.

The second talisman made another compact flame against the stone, slightly larger and cleaner at the edges. For the third I used the black liquid and Impello, returning to a wooden target I could compare with earlier trials. The pulse knocked it backwards across the grass with more force than I had previously managed from that structure. Three pieces had been prepared and spent, and I stopped before enthusiasm persuaded me that another would answer a different question.

I recorded the changes while they were fresh. The inscription had offered less resistance, the preparations had felt steadier and the releases had been stronger, without the extra immediate drain of my first disastrous attempt. Those were observations from three tests, not a promise that every spell would suddenly work. I still had a dwindling supply of paper and a stack of books I needed to read.

Only then did I put down the pen I was using for my notes and examine the brush-wand again. Its shape no longer looked like a joke at my expense. I had needed something to help me write magic into Runebark, and this strange piece of withered wood had just helped me do it better. Tomorrow there would be more to learn; tonight I was beginning to understand what Ollivander had seen when I picked it up.