In the weeks that followed Harry fell into a routine. Had a parent been watching over him they would have called it destructive and taken away his library privileges or given him a serious talking to. He spent all hours besides dinner in the company of the new breed of book. He swore that they could implant knowledge into his mind with just one read through. He even slept in the wingback chair the hour or two a day he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. The thrill of easy learning was all he needed to push on through the tiredness.

For the first week Harry only read. He chose his books by which tickled at his fingers when he grazed their spines in his daily walk around the big echoing room. There was a stack of books next to him as high as the chair with markers for spells he could possibly practice. For the first week, Harry only marked these spells for the mental exercise of imagining using spells of such power.

It was just research he'd told himself, but soon reading became a desire to see the spells and feel it. Some of the passages that described a caster's physical reaction to death spells were pure poetry. Yes, the spells were dangerous. Most were to do harm, but the books that struck his fancy were the ones on death magic and not all of them were without use.

Harry could study the rest of his time in Hogwarts and still not know all that was already written. But what drew Harry in more was what wasn't already known about death magic. Most of the books on the subject were just full of spells. One had to dissect the spells language, trace causes to effects, and study their relation. It was advanced arithmancy. While he'd taken the first year of courses already, the basics that Hogwarts taught were useless for such complicated interactions.

When Harry was a small boy he'd seen a science fiction film from around the Dursley's living room door once. It was one of the few films he'd caught glimpses of. He felt just like the mad scientist. Harry was on the hunt for an answer to a question he didn't know yet. It helped that for every arithmancy problem he solved the book rewarded him with a flush of something like excitement and power twined around his belly.

He tried his first spell a week before his court date. This had been three weeks without a proper night's rest. Neither of the adult Malfoy's said anything about Harry's odd behavior. If Harry had been paying the littlest bit of attention he would have seen Lucius nod to his wife with a small smile. If he wasn't mumbling the incantation he would have heard Draco call him a nutter. But soon the Malfoy's retired to their halls and Harry started exploring his new home for a test subject.

It was late at night. The house elves were busy with their nightly cleaning from ceiling to floor.

Harry had lost track of where in the week it was. He knew he had a court date coming. He knew he would have to choose between his new books and a safe foster home.

But when he tried to consider his options all Harry could see was the muggle children dangling in the sky at the World Cup. They had been quiet. Harry had been quiet too. And Lucius' wand had been one of the many to spin, dangle, scare the muggles and light wizards. There was no way Harry could call a man like that Father, even by adoption. But that meant leaving his books. So Harry didn't think about it.

He was on a mission to find something in the Manor, preferably freshly dead, to practice on. He'd spent the day ignoring the rows of books in favor of pacing with a hand pulling at his hair while the other held a small book Harry had read three times over now. The spell said that it could retrieve a soul, if the being was newly dead, and hold it in the body hopefully long enough for a healer to save the being.

It was a hard one to start out with, but it was the only one he thought he understood fully. Also, it could save people. Had the little children floating in the air at the World Cup been dropped, this spell could have saved them. He would not have sat around in the forest watching like a useless child.

If the spell failed, too much time had passed or the holder of the soul made a mistake, the "soul would fall out of the loop of life and fade forever".

Harry knew the writers of these books were prone to the mysticism of the wizarding religion. Even Malfoy Manor had some of the knots and swirls of the old religion carved into the marble walls. Harry decided the phrase was a metaphor for the body of the spells subject dissipating into nothingness. The same phrase had shown up in three other books of death magic.

Given that Harry did not believe in either muggle or magical religious hoopla, there were really no repercussions for anyone involved if Harry failed in his first try. It was a win win spell. Either it work and Harry had just saved a mouse's life or it failed and Harry had cleaned the manor of one more pest.

There were no dead mice in the dungeons that day. While Hogwarts had plenty roaming the lower levels of the castle, Malfoy Manor seemed to be clean of them. 'Meticulous bastards.' Harry thought and took a sharp breath in. He was becoming as grouchy as Snape.

But of course he was grouchy. There was nothing to practice on!

"Young Master!" Shouted Dobby. He was bouncing from foot to foot with a soapy brush in his hand. "What is Young Master doing out so late? This is a dangerous place for children Young Master."

"Shut it Dobby," Harry snapped. He put a hand to his aching head, regretting his tone as Dobby twisted his dirty pillow case. The perkiness gone from Dobby was another stab of guilt in Harry's head.

"I'm sorry Dobby," Harry tried to not grit his teeth in annoyance at the creature's weak emotional control. It wasn't fitting for a pureblood household. Harry mentally flinched away from the thought, but it came so easily it must have been how Harry really felt. The summer was already changing Harry.

"Is there something I can do for Young Master? I can light a fire in your room," Dobby tried. The other elves, who would normally smile when Harry hung around them as they worked in the kitchen, we're currently keeping their heads down and their wrinkled faces blank.

"I need something freshly dead," Harry said. Even the most noble elves glanced up from their work in surprise.

"Oh," said Dobby. His hands twisting his pillow case tighter.

"For a spell," Harry tried to recover "I can bring it back, from the dead, I mean. I'm not crazy."

"Of course Young Master," Dobby had gleaming eyes and a crumbled face he couldn't bring back to neutral. But he snapped his fingers and before Harry could snap at the others to get back to work, Dobby was back with a dead chicken in his arms.

"Ditzbee is using this chicken for the dinner broth tonight, but he says Young Master can borrow."

Dobby laid the chicken on the floor. The elves stayed bent in their work, but there attention was on how the young boy called Harry crouched and stalked towards the dead chicken as if the boy was a wild beast.

Harry laid his palm on the chickens chest and with the other hand he opened the small spell book to right page.

Harry had never tried to feel the soul of another being, but the book had said living creatures would feel as if there was a ocean pushing and pulling at the casters magic. A fresh dead would feel like a still lake, as if there was a barrier but no pull. The last possibility was that the soul had already left and the creature would feel as empty as furniture. The chicken was empty as furniture. All that excitement, for nothing.

"Are you always this useless Dobby?" Harry shouted in the quiet hall. Harry lifted his palm from the chicken to smack Dobby across the check as Lucius always did with misbehaving servants.

But something was wrong. Instead of being a simple sting on the check, Dobby was thrown against the white marble wall by a black shadow from Harry's hand. Harry hissed at how his hand burned as if coming to life after being numb for hours. Dobby lay in pile, unmoving, with his head tipped at an awkward angle between the wall and stone floor. The elves who had been cleaning were in commotion. The yelled, they popped away, some came back with healing supplies, most of the elves were useless and crying. Just like Harry.

"Dobby?" Harry asked too quiet in the elves commotion for anyone to hear.

Harry kneeled next to the still body, his burning hand close to his chest, but he pressed two fingers to the elves exposed neck. There was no pulse. "Dobby, I.."

Harry stopped. He was a wizard, not a stupid elve. He put his burning hand on the elves chest and felt tiny waves of power and they were getting smaller and smaller as Harry tried to grab hold of the elves soul. He book said holding on was the hardest part, but Harry couldn't seem to get a grip. The elves soul was slippery as if it really was water Harry was trying to grab.

"Call Lucius!" Harry shouted. Some elves tried to complain that Lucius would not like to be disturbed "Now!"

An elf popped away and the others got quiet. In the minute of silence Harry desperately tried to hold on to Dobby, but the water was so still now and it seemed to grow smaller. In desperation Harry imagined he was holding a cup in his hand. The book had said that the caster must have hold of all the subjects soul with only their own magic, no wands. But was imagining a cup considered more than Harry's own magic?

The draining seemed to stop, or at least the pulling that Harry had felt as Dobby slipped down into death. But the water didn't start pushing against Harry as the spell book said the successfully caught soul would.

Instead the water was getting hot to Harry's touch. If Lucius would just hurry up he could take over! Harry could hear the clicking of expensive boots making their way down the steps at the elder Malfoy's casual pace. The man came into view and Harry noticed the man had taken the time to dress.

Harry's angry thoughts distracted his magic and Dobby's soul flared against Harry. Smoke was rising from under Harry's nails. It hurt worse than the time Petunia had stuck his hand in boiling oil, but Harry held on tight to the little bit of Dobby he had left.

"Please help me sir," Harry tried to make his words clear, but his jaw was shaking (in fear for Dobby or because of the pain was unclear to Harry).

"Dry your cheeks Potter," Lucius' tone was harsh and his voice was still gravelly from sleep. "Wizards don't cry over the loss of servants. Especially a creature. It is practically pathetic."

Harry ignored Lucius and went back to focusing on the tiny handful that was left of Dobby's inner ocean. It wanted to slip down so badly that it pulled Harry's own soul into Dobby's cup. It glowed purple in Dobby's chest. Harry could see the strains of his soul even as his vision started to close in and become dark. And when Harry still wouldn't let go, even with the burn and emptiness in his being, Lucius pulled out his wand and blasted Harry away from Dobby.

His hand was blistering from the inside out and Lucius' curse had not been kind, but the physical pain was nothing compared to horror of watching the remains of Dobby's soul burn so hot and bright that even a muggle would have felt sick standing in that hall. As it was, all the Manors house elves had gathered in the halls shadows. Harry could hear a few mumbling prayers for magic to save Dobby's soul. But there would be no recovering from the botched dark spell.

For a moment magic opened herself to Harry's eyes, like when he could see his soul. But now Harry could see the place Dobby's soul had been trying to reach. It was pure and white as a unicorn and felt like the warmest blanket wrapped around weary shoulders. As the gate magic opened in Harry closed, he could feel most of what was Dobby flow into the expanse and timelessness that lay beyond and it reminded Harry of the loop the book spoke of.

But, magic couldn't guide the part of Dobby that Harry had locked away with his magic and that bit fizzled out of existance. To those paying attention, the world they knew became just a little bit smaller. To those watching in the hall, the brightness and heat of every torch dimmed. For Harry, there was something off within himself, like his bones didn't fit inside his body. Someday he may notice that his true smile will never be as wide and easy as before.

"There are easier ways to communicate you are ready for practical lessons," Lucius checked his pocket watch, appearing unaffected by the powerful magic. "Draco has lessons with tutors everyday at one in the afternoon. Have Draco show you to the dueling chamber after lunch today. Do take care not to lose track of the hour while you are in the library today, wouldn't want to be late for your first lesson in real magic."

Lucius turned from the dead elf in his hall and calmly walked towards an early breakfast. Kitchen elves scrambled behind Harry to get back to the kitchen in time to serve the elder Malfoy. From the windows high above Harry's head he could see that the outside was turning gray with dawn.

Harry got up and went to close Dobby's eyes, but the other elves pushed Harry away from the body. The corpse of his only friend in the Malfoy house was gone before he could say goodbye and the rest of the elves popped away before Harry could apologize.

In the vast hall that was empty except for the book of death magic, Harry wished for the first time that he had been born a muggle. He left the book where it lay in the middle of the hall. As Harry walked back towards his room in the Malfoy Manor he wondered how Malfoy could think he would ever go back to the library. But when he passed the closed doors of the library towards the stairs and his bed, Harry found his hand on the library door handle.

Even this far away from his books, Harry could feel the calm and fluttery feeling they brought him bubble up. Harry felt awful that he could feel so good after this morning, but he opened the door and lost himself for the afternoon in the library.