Harry Potter sat in his new bedroom in Number 4, Privet Drive, waiting for the Dursleys to go to bed. Once he had returned to the Dursleys with his new school supplies and a beautiful snowy owl, his uncle had grunted out that "there better not be anything freaky happening" under his roof, and made to lock everything Harry had just purchased in the cupboard under the stairs, also known as Harry's former bedroom. Thankfully, Vernon had not left Hedwig in the cupboard for long, for as soon as he shut the door she started screeching non stop until he relented and let harry take her to his room just so she wouldn't "deafen the whole bloody neighborhood".

Harry was utterly in love with the feel of his wand, and was intent on keeping it close to him. He stuffed it in the waistband of his pants before making his way home, and thus it was also spared being locked away.

About eleven PM, everyone had gone to bed, Harry had crept downstairs to the cupboard and tried to pry the lock off. Unfortunately, it was locked up tight. Thinking back to what Mr. Ollivander said, that the wand helped channel the waves of magic within, Harry pointed his wand at the lock and concentrated extremely hard, trying to find that same sort of shift inside that he felt when he had vanished the glass of the zoo enclosure. As beads of sweat were starting to make themselves known on his temple, the lock gave a quiet snick and opened.

Harry froze, gobsmacked that his attempt had actually worked. After a few seconds of staring at his want, he broke out of his haze and quickly gathered up his trunk and proceeded to quietly drag it up a few of the stairs. He then hurriedly grabbed all of his things, if one could call a few crayons, a broken toy soldier, and a baby blanket "possessions", and put them in his trunk. He turned around and pointed his wand at the lock again, and with much less effort, re-locked the cupboard with another quiet click.

Smiling, he maneuvered his trunk into the spare bedroom and pulled out the first book on wandlore on Mr. Ollivander's list. Throwing a smile at Hedwig, his beautiful snowy owl, he opened his book, The Basics of the Wand and read late into the night.

Once his eyes had started to droop, Harry put his book back into the trunk and hid it in the closet underneath a broken television that used to belong to Dudley. Once he was back in bed, he turned out the book light he had found amidst the leftover junk of Dudley's, and gave a quiet little giggle. Here he was, hoarding his possessions like a dragon hoarded gold, and according to all the new evidence, dragons really did exist.

The next day, unfortunately, Harry was very tired. He had stayed up way too late, and Petunia had noticed. Even in his mind, Harry had refused to call his aunt and uncle anything besides their names. It was Mr. or Mrs. Dursley to their faces, and Vernon and Petunia in his mind. After the way they had treated him over the years, Harry had had enough and refused to consider them as family, even inside his head. He had read many novels, and family had always seemed warm and fuzzy, something the Dursleys were not, and Harry refused to think of them as anything besides his jailers.

When Petunia noticed Harry's constant yawning, she had screeched and ordered him to take care of the gardens. She was sure that hard work in the sun would cure his exhaustion, and stop the stupid boy from yawning every other minute. Harry diligently weeded all the flower beds (not like it was hard, he had weeded them 3 days ago), and trimmed all the dead flowers and leaves off the bushes.

While he was working, Harry began calculating exactly how he was going to study at night and not fall asleep in the bushes. If the Dursleys went to bed at 10 PM, and he was supposed to have breakfast ready at 7:15 AM, that meant that he was had approximately 8.5 hours to practice magic and sleep. This was of course factoring in waking up between 6:30-6:45 and having enough time to dress, and make a decent breakfast. While young children were supposed to get at least 8 hours of sleep, Harry figured that if he got between 6 and 6.5 hours of sleep he would not suffer too terribly, especially if he could find a potion that he was able to brew to either increase his mental energy or make his sleep more productive. 'Well, looks like I'm going to be studying potions tonight' Harry thought to himself.

Unfortunately, while Harry found several potions that would do exactly what he wanted, he had neither the talent or the ingredients to brew them safely inside a muggle home with no adequate ventilation, not to mention that his potion textbook stated that constant dosing of Pepper Up potion and Dreamless Sleep was addictive. On the bright side, he had read far into his potions text and found it fascinating. He was disappointed when the partially broken watch he had taken from Dudley's broken toy room beeped at him, telling him that it was midnight and he definitely needed to go sleep.

The next night, Harry started reading his charms textbook. He figured that he didn't want to neglect his actual studies in his excitement to learn about wands, so he should read at least three chapters ahead, just to be certain. As soon as he started reading, Harry realized that he really did enjoy charms, and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started writing down a few notes on the text. After getting to the unlocking charm, he frowned, and left the comfort of his bed to try it out on the cupboard lock.

Creeping downstairs again, he pointed his wand at the lock, made the wand movement, and whispered alohomora and waited, but nothing happened. He frowned, and thought back to last night, and tried simply pointing the wand and thinking "unlock the door". Like last night, the latch went snickand it was open. Frowning, Harry pointed his wand again and felt for that little tickle, and thought "lock", and the door was locked again. Harry furrowed his brows. He stood there locking and unlocking the door for another ten minutes, getting faster and faster at the spell, until he merely pointed his wand at the lock and gave the smallest thought as to what he wanted and the door would lock or unlock.

Harry's watch beeped at midnight again, and he smiled. 'Success. Good enough for one night' thought Harry, as he put his want in the waistband of his pajamas, and snuck back upstairs to sleep the rest of the night away.