Strength of Will, Power of Knowledge

At the end of Harry's second year, he was exposed to something… amazing, and a boy's natural curiosity evolves into a thirst to understand magic. A more determined Harry Potter starts his third year ready to take on the wizarding world.

Chapter One:

Intrigue Shall Spawn Brilliance

Harry's eyes fluttered and attempted to stay open as he desperately fought unconsciousness. His arm felt like it had been injected with liquid fire, and he could barely feel the sword he was grasping on to with all his strength.

"You may have killed my Basilisk, boy, but it doesn't matter anymore; soon I shall drain the last of this child's life and I will be reborn." Tom jeered. The adolescent phantom from the diary was actually Lord Voldemort, the real Heir of Slytherin. "It won't be long now." He reached down with a pale grainy hand and stroked Ginny's face. "And my first act will be killing you!"

Tom's eyes were an unholy red, lodged into a black and white body, and as they bore holes into Harry, he began to chant. It was a hideous language, Harry couldn't even begin to understand it, but he knew each word contained an inconceivable evil.

Harry began to rage inside his own mind. 'Get up. Get up, Harry!' His small hands pushed against the stone floor, but his body refused to rise. 'Get up! Get up now or Ginny is going to die!' As Tom's chanting began to increase pace, Harry slowly, painfully pushed himself to his knees.

His eyes roamed the floor in search of the diary. He didn't know how to explain it, but he somehow knew that he had to destroy it. He spied the book next to Tom's feet, but as Harry approached him in long, painful lurches, the chanting suddenly changed tone and pitch, and a grey dome of energy exploded outwards from Tom. Harry tentatively reached out with his free hand, and jerked it back while howling in pain. The shield had burned his hand intensely.

'I've got to do something!' He was getting more and more desperate. All of his focus was on the dome now, every ounce of himself wanted that barrier to break apart and let him through. Then… he felt something, it was responding to him. The fire in his right arm was replaced by a sense of restlessness, like his arm was filled with boundless energy. He looked down at his hand and watched in amazement as the Sword of Gryffindor came to life. Strange markings that were previously invisible flared into existence. Eerie green light pulsed up the markings on the blade in a wave motion.

Thump-thump.

Harry jumped slightly as he heard the sword's 'heart beat.' It was perfectly timed with the light coming from the markings as they shot up the blade.

Thump-thump

This time Harry heard the sound from insidehimself, and he belatedly realised it had never been the sword; it was his own heart. With every passing millisecond Harry felt his own body pumping raw power into the sword, and his whole being felt saturated in unburdened life; body, mind and soul. It was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced.

Harry viciously swung the sword forward, and he was rewarded as he felt the barrier tear apart like so much wet tissue paper, and the room echoed with the sound of cannon fire.

Tom flew back as if he was struck by a real cannon shot, and his almost corporeal body smashed into the wall behind him with a sickening thud. His eyes fluttered open as he looked up at Harry, who was staggering to the diary. "This isn't possible! I will not be defeated by a mere child!" But even as he shouted, Harry was already towering over the book with a look of determination.

"Goodbye, Tom." Harry plunged the sword downward and pinned the diary to the floor. It started to release a putrid black blood, and then it violently exploded, with Tom suffering the same fate.

The last fleeting images Harry saw before darkness claimed him was Fawkes lowering his tear filled eyes to him. 'Tears for the dead, Fawkes?'

Then he saw nothing.

XXX

"… umbledore, I found him! He looks…"

"… Poppy, fetch Severus. We need the anti…"

"He seems to be stabilizing. I thought we'd lost him…"

"Mr. Potter, are you awake?" Harry slowly opened his eyes, and he was assaulted by glaring white ceiling. He promptly closed them again.

"Good, he's up." Harry couldn't pick the voice out, but it sounded familiar.

"Ah, fantastic! Would you give us a moment of privacy, Poppy?" Harry heard the first voice stutter out an argument, but he soon heard the door open and close, signifying their departure. As he tentatively opened his eyes again, Harry found himself looking up into the warm, comforting eyes of the Headmaster.

"Good to see you among the living, Harry. I must say, you've had a great deal of people very worried about you." Dumbledore seemed almost… amused. "But, I must ask you to tell me what happened down in the chamber."

After shaking the cobwebs from his head, Harry began to slowly recount everything that had happened. Then finally, he tried, and failed, to explain what had happened with the sword. By the end of it, Dumbledore had leaned back into his plush arm chair, and wore a very serious expression on his face.

"Harry, what you did last night was something very few people have done. The feeling of 'life' as you describe it was your body responding to pure magic." As Dumbledore spoke, he slowly began to lean forward. "Do you know what the purpose of a wand is, Harry?"

Harry's mind jumped slightly at the question. "No, sir."

"You see, Harry, a wand is not responsible for any of the magic a wizard can produce; every ounce of magic you create comes directly from your magical core. The entire purpose of a wand is to do two things: To give the caster a magical 'focus' so they can shape the spell, and to create a bridge of sorts to the magical core."

Dumbledore didn't speak in the usual clinical business voice that most teachers did; he spoke as if he was learning the subject with you, and was incredibly interested. Harry found himself enthralled to each word, and drank them in immediately.

"At the very center of the wand is the 'core.' This acts as a direct bridge to your magic and the wand. There are several types of cores, but all of them are magical in nature. When choosing a wand, the core most often determines whether it will work, because it has to be in sync with the magical core in your body.

"The type of wood your wand is made of acts as the focus, but each type responds differently to a person's magic. So, even though the focus is less important, it still affects the spells."

"But, Professor," Harry started, "I didn't have my wand when I destroyed the barrier, and it definitely didn't feel like any magic I've used before."

"Exactly, Harry!" Dumbledore made it seem like Harry had just told him the secret of life. "What you did in the chamber was completely different. The sword you drew from the hat is very special, and was created by Godric Gryffindor himself."

"But, sir, what's special about it?" Harry knew there certainly was something special about the sword, but he didn't even know how to describe it.

"It is not that the sword itself is special, Harry, but the process it went through is. You told me there was 'strange markings' on the sword, did you not?" Harry nodded yes, so Dumbledore continued, "Those markings are called Runes; they are the ancient language of magic, and each symbol has a meaning. The Runes on the sword allow you to do several things, but, most importantly, it lets you use it as a magical focus."

Realization flashed through Harry's eyes. "So that's why I could cast magic without my wand?"

"Yes, Harry, it allowed you to channel the spell." Dumbledore said this in a way that told Harry something was missing.

"There's more to it though, isn't there?" Dumbledore nodded yes. "The sword provided a focus…" Harry's eyes filled with understanding. "It provided a focus but not a core!"

Dumbledore gave a wide smile. "Exactly, Harry. That's why it felt so different from regular magic, because when you cast the spell the magic could not go directly from core to core, it first had to travel through your body. That's the feeling you experienced; your own power."

The implications this idea provided were huge. Until a moment ago, Harry was positive the sword had granted him some kind of great power. But he was wrong; the power had been him all along. But, the thing Harry didn't get is that he hadn't cast a spell; he had just wanted something to happen. He had wanted it to happen so much that it just did.

"But, Professor, I didn't say an incantation, I didn't actually cast a spell. I just wanted to get through his barrier."

"Ah, and that is the last piece of the puzzle, isn't it, Harry? Tell me, how do you cast a spell?"

Harry said the first thing that came to mind, "Well, Professor Flitwick told us that the Word wills the magic to a purpose, and that the wand movements mould the spell to a certain effect." Even as Harry said this out loud, he knew it felt wrong.

"But, didn't you just say that you cast a spell with no wand, and without an incantation?" Dumbledore inquired, "Why should magic be limited to a specific sound that could have randomly been created in nature at any point?" His eyes had that twinkle in them, and that meant Harry was missing something.

"I don't know, I guess I just wanted it to happen…" Was that the answer, simply wanting it to happen? It sounded absurd, but then Harry was reminded of all the times something 'strange' had happened when he was young. They called it accidental, but was it really? Harry had wanted Dudley to be trapped in the Snake exhibit. He had wanted him to know what it felt like to always be trapped, to be ridiculed and taunted, just like him. So, how was that an accident?

Were those occasions any different than the Chamber?

"I think… I think magic just does what we want it to do." Even to Harry that sounded ridiculous.

Dumbledore gave him a look like he had just won the lottery. "Right you are, Harry."

So he was right! It wasn't accidental magic, it was just wandless! "Then why do we use wands at all? If we can do magic with just our thoughts, then what's the point of a wand?" It didn't make sense to limit magic to a device that wasn't essential.

"While wands are not required, they do provide a lot of advantages to the common wizard, Harry. Think back to the Chamber. How much did you have to want to break through that shield? How much focus did it take? At that moment, I imagine the entire world fell away, and there was only you and the magic. Tell me, Harry, do you think you could want a room to be cleaned that much? Most likely not."

Harry did remember, and Dumbledore was right. At that moment, he didn't want anything but for that shield to break. More than air, more than food.

"On top of that," Dumbledore continued, "When you cast wandless, you can use too much magic without a proper focus, because as the spell is being moulded you overflow the needed amount, like pouring too much water into a cup. This can be incredibly exhausting if the wizard is not disciplined."

"But, Professor, when I used the sword I didn't feel like I was wasting magic; all of it went into the sword, and then into the spell."

"That is because one of the other Runes in the sword, Harry. It acts like an incantation. If you had used simply any object as a focus, all the excess magic would have bled off, and would have been wasted. Instead, the sword circulates the magic back into you and enhances the final effect of the spell dramatically. If we were to use the cup example again, it would be like being able to hold more water in the cup than usual. That's why at first the magic was just traveling down your arm and into the sword, but as you used more magic, the feeling enveloped you."

So the sword did have power; it increased the effectiveness of wandless magic. How much more could Runes do? How much more could the sword do? Harry was more interested in magic right now than he had ever before.

Madam Pomfrey chose that moment to burst into the room. "Headmaster, if you are quite done, my patient should be resting right now!"

Dumbledore reluctantly stood up from his comfy arm chair. "Right you are, Poppy. Harry, if you have any more questions, feel free to see me in my office before the school year ends. The password is Lemon Tart. I bid you all good night." The chair Dumbledore had been sitting on silently vanished and he quietly left the room.

Harry had questions. He had a lot of questions, and he was going to answer them all someday.

XXX

Author's Note:

I've recently edited this chapter, improving it ever so slightly. Anyway, still fairly short, but it's just an introduction; the other chapters are longer.