Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Elementary Calculations
I do not own Harry Potter.
Thank you once again for the reviews. I’m glad that you all seem to like this story.
Please remember that in the first chapter I had indicated that the time line was pushed forward. It won’t matter much for the WW side of things, but it does account for the non wizarding side.
For this chapter, Harry will be practicing in his newly found hide away. He gets a nasty shock in this chapter. We also see him at his most selfish.
Chapter 3: √π
Three weeks.
It had taken him three weeks of searching on the weekends to find the right place.
Two hours away from the Dursley’s house, the place he chose was a good hour into the woodland that bordered Little Whining. He had spent three evenings after school in the third week pouring over maps of the woods before he even set a foot in there. Two more alternate evenings of exploring had brought pure gold.
There was a circle of trees that hid a small clearing a few minutes away from an infrequently used path. There was evidence that someone had been there before, but not for a very long time. Subsequent weeks were spent getting his body use to the walk that it would take just to reach his new hideaway. Cutting down on his reading, he had instead chosen to leave earlier and take the long way around to get to the house. It wasn’t much, but he now had a little more endurance. The days after he had gone to the woods had been marked with exhaustion and cramps. A book on stretching and yoga had joined his list.
He had also taken to nicking a pound every day or two from Dudley’s private stash. While he felt bad for the children that Dudley beat up to get that money, it was no reason for him not to benefit. It’s not like Dudley missed it anyway. That money would be going toward getting him snacks to tide him over between breakfast and dinner.
I can’t believe how perfect this place is. Smiling, he looked around. A cluster of beech trees blocked out most of the sunlight so that the clearing was largely in shadows. Winds shifting the branches would cause the sunlight to reach the ground in moving patterns. Sitting at the base of one of the trees, he dropped his book bag to the ground. Birds could be heard in other parts of the woods where more sunlight allowed bluebells and primroses to flourish. He took a moment to gather his breath. No one would be able to see him and if anyone approached, the snapping of twigs would give them away very quickly.
So let’s get started shall we? Visualizing a small flame in his mind, he folded his legs comfortably and started on the first method recommended.
~~~~~~~~~~
Twenty days later, Harry drifted along in a warm current. He was moving forward with the slow, smooth pulses when a disturbance made itself known. Frowning, both inside and outside his mind, he directed his attention to the outer boundary of his power.
It had taken two weeks to actually reach and hold a meditative state for more than a few minutes at a time. He had started using the ocean scene then, and had found himself almost immediately surrounded by a rush of pure power. During the intervening days, he had been exploring and expanding his awareness of his power and the outside world whilst still staying in meditation. It was not the first time he had sensed the disturbance, but each time he made to find it, it just seemed to slip right though his fingers.
Reaching out carefully, Harry very gingerly touched the edge of what looked to be a tendril of foreign energy. A woven net of red abruptly stood out vividly against the solid dark gold and greenish silver of his own core.
How the devil could I have missed that!
Examining the piece in his grasp, he felt faint emanations from it. Taking a firmer grip, he started to examine the feelings he could identify.
There is a definite undertone of worry and desperation. Some . . . determination? Hmm, affection and protectiveness. Lots of protectiveness. Is that . . . ? It feels like what I get when I just finished a big project and I know it’s ‘A’ worthy. Triumph and satisfaction. Someone put a lot of time and energy into this. He ‘tasted’ the flavour of the net again. Two someones. My parents perhaps? It does seem to be a protective barrier, or a shield of some sort. What happened though, it’s breaking down.
Indeed, from where he was it looked like huge chunks of it were degraded. Other parts had holes in it and seemed to be unraveling. For some reason it made him sad to see what must have been a masterpiece in such a sorry state. Drifting about, he came to a tear that had a very familiar shape, one he saw in the mirror every day. And within that tear was a small well of power, the colour of which showed up ever so often in his nightmares. Nightmares that had plagued for as long as he could remember. A woman screaming, someone laughing, and a flash of green light.
Something tells me that my parents didn’t die in a car crash. A shield like this doesn’t strike me as a split second thing. I’m not terribly surprised that Petunia and Vernon would lie about that, they lie about everything else.
The two were worried and desperate when they made this shield. The fact that they are dead and I am not validated that fear. Why wouldn’t they do the same for themselves though? Perhaps they had enough time to do me first but were interrupted before they could complete their own? I have to speculate on that later. The more immediate issue is here before me.
Venturing closer, but not enough to touch, he observed the green, lightening shaped well. The edges of the tear close to it were much darker than anywhere else. Where it touched his own power, the vibrant gold turned a dark orange and the silver obtained a greener tinge. As his power swirled away, the orange and green became lighter and harder to notice.
Now that I think about it, the farther I get from the core, the darker the colours get. It’s mixing with my power.
Unsure wether this was a good thing or a bad thing, he followed a swirl of his own power as it mixed with the green energy and headed back toward his inner core.
Immediately following contact with the foreign matter, his own carried a faint feeling of hate, ill will, and, oddly enough, determination. As the eddy moved farther though, the feelings dissipated and the sense of ‘me’ that he identified from his core asserted itself.
Huh. So, the shield must have blocked most of the. . . whatever that green light was, and my core must have been strong enough to stop the rest. The left over energy gathered here and has been mixing with my own power ever since. Seven almost eight years.
Harry examined the gap between where the shield ended and where the green energy began. There was a buffer of orange and silver green between the two.
Most of it’s gone now. Judging from the size of that gap, there is, at most, four years worth of the green stuff left before it’s all assimilated with my power. At this speed anyway.
Almost as soon as gold and silver came into contact with green, the darkened eddies would whirl away. Some would go back immediately to his core, others would gather around the edges and must have mixed in more slowly.
It’s only really assimilating a little at a time. With the amount of hate and ill will in that thing, that’s probably a good thing. Too fast and I would probably have died not long after my parents. I think I’ll just leave it alone. The way it’s going now, it will take care of itself. The shield however. . .
Harry spent a while exploring the shield. Then he came to an area that was more degenerated than the rest. It appeared to be connected to something that was not him.
I thought that it might just be the amount of time that passed since it was put up, but something is actually draining energy from the lattice. My parents put this shield in place to help me. Anything that lessens my protection is obviously a threat. I need to find where it stops being my parent’s work and starts being some one or some thing else.
As he followed the line of red, that was rapidly thinning out, he came across a fault that was connected to a different red line. One with a new ‘taste’ from his parents’ own. There was a definite feeling of power draining from his side of the connection to this one, slowly but surely. Going farther, he came to the unpleasant realization that his core was straining to help him, if he strayed farther he might slip into unconsciousness. Just as he reached the conclusion that stopping would be prudent, he came across a new lattice. A dome.
Is this another person?
As the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. If it were someone else then he would be able to feel their power.
It must be an object or a building. An unpleasant thought crossed his mind. The Dursley’s.
It makes a frightening amount of sense. Someone attacked my parents. They knew that the attack was coming and had time to prepare my own protection and were perhaps disrupted before they could secure their own protection. They die and. . . , this part was a bit fuzzy to him, maybe the attacker thought he had died when he was hit with the green light and left. So after that, someone finds me and places me with Petunia and Vernon. They see that the shield protected me and decide that it would be best to extend it to protect the Dursley’s too. Maybe they figured that whoever it was might go after the last of the family. But whoever it was didn’t attack. Perhaps they got caught or something. Only the mystery person doesn’t remove the link to the new lattice, and it’s been draining power from my own shields ever since.
That’s rather counterproductive though. If the attacker is gone then these shield are the only thing that I have from my parents. I want to keep them. The Dursley’s won’t need the protection either. If the attacker is still out there then when my personal shield collapses from the stress of supporting the one around the house, that one won’t be getting any new energy and will eventually collapse on it’s own. Then none of us will be protected.
Going back to the fault, he was relieved when the strain on his core eased as he returned to an acceptable distance. He slowly gathered some of his power. It traveled up the gather around his awareness.
The lattice around the house has been drawing power from my own lattice to support itself for seven and some oddth years . It should be able to last a while before it falls. If we do get attacked, I’d rather my shield be in one piece around me than have it drained to uselessness and a collapsing shield around the house.
With that thought, he severed the link between the two lattices.
The Dursley’s will just have to fend for themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~
Once again on the outer edge of his core, Harry was examining the shield. It did not escape his notice that the area around the tear was the most robust of the lattice. It seemed that the buffer zone of his own energy was feeding the shield.
As he examined each tear and degenerated area he became aware of a ghost echo. Pushing a small amount of energy into the empty zone he was pleasantly surprised to feel a fragile net. There was no energy in it, but there was an imprint of what use to be there. Acting on impulse, he touched one of the withered ends of red with a tendril of his power. The red mixed with his gold and the end extended a fraction along the echo.
It would take time, but with the drain gone and if he consciously fed power into the lattice then it could be brought back to it’s former glory. It would not be exactly the way it was with the addition of his energy, but it would be a proper shield again.
Harry slowly rose out of the meditative state and checked his watch. He had been under for almost seven hours and only had time for a quick stretch before he left.
It seemed that he would always find something new to the list of things that he had to do. A few hours a day would bring the shield along nicely and he would have time to practice some of the more tangible uses of his power.
Perhaps I should find a way to unconsciously feed the lattice power in addition to the automatic feed it seems to have set up around the scar.
It would appear that next year will have to be carefully scheduled.
I’m almost sorry that I tested out of the fifth grade. I’ll skip a grade next term and begin my final year and then there will be the common entrance exams and the entrance exams for my ticket out of this prison a year early.
Almost sorry, he smirked as he stretched, but not quite. I’ll just have to budget my time.
AN: In this chapter we see some of Harry’s more ruthless impulses. I’ve also introduced the blood wards. As far as this story is concerned, when Dumbledoor set up the wards, he thought they would replenish Harry’s protection by the family bond that Petunia was supposed to feel. I set it up so that Lily and James did a blood ritual protection ward, I don’t believe in that ‘mother’s loving sacrifice’ bull that he sprouts in canon. But the basic premise that a family bond with his mother’s blood sister would keep the protection strong hold true. So there should have been a feed back. The house shield would get some energy from harry’s shield and the family bond of caring would generate more energy and put it back in Harry’s shield so that everyone is protected. However, since there is no familial feelings between the two, there is no feed back, energy goes to the house shield and nothing is coming back to even out the flow, so the house is just an energy sink.
Also of note. Harry doesn’t connect his power to magic yet. He just knows that he has a power and that there are others like him. He’ll get there eventually though.
Thank you once again for the reviews. I’m glad that you all seem to like this story.
Please remember that in the first chapter I had indicated that the time line was pushed forward. It won’t matter much for the WW side of things, but it does account for the non wizarding side.
For this chapter, Harry will be practicing in his newly found hide away. He gets a nasty shock in this chapter. We also see him at his most selfish.
Chapter 3: √π
Three weeks.
It had taken him three weeks of searching on the weekends to find the right place.
Two hours away from the Dursley’s house, the place he chose was a good hour into the woodland that bordered Little Whining. He had spent three evenings after school in the third week pouring over maps of the woods before he even set a foot in there. Two more alternate evenings of exploring had brought pure gold.
There was a circle of trees that hid a small clearing a few minutes away from an infrequently used path. There was evidence that someone had been there before, but not for a very long time. Subsequent weeks were spent getting his body use to the walk that it would take just to reach his new hideaway. Cutting down on his reading, he had instead chosen to leave earlier and take the long way around to get to the house. It wasn’t much, but he now had a little more endurance. The days after he had gone to the woods had been marked with exhaustion and cramps. A book on stretching and yoga had joined his list.
He had also taken to nicking a pound every day or two from Dudley’s private stash. While he felt bad for the children that Dudley beat up to get that money, it was no reason for him not to benefit. It’s not like Dudley missed it anyway. That money would be going toward getting him snacks to tide him over between breakfast and dinner.
I can’t believe how perfect this place is. Smiling, he looked around. A cluster of beech trees blocked out most of the sunlight so that the clearing was largely in shadows. Winds shifting the branches would cause the sunlight to reach the ground in moving patterns. Sitting at the base of one of the trees, he dropped his book bag to the ground. Birds could be heard in other parts of the woods where more sunlight allowed bluebells and primroses to flourish. He took a moment to gather his breath. No one would be able to see him and if anyone approached, the snapping of twigs would give them away very quickly.
So let’s get started shall we? Visualizing a small flame in his mind, he folded his legs comfortably and started on the first method recommended.
~~~~~~~~~~
Twenty days later, Harry drifted along in a warm current. He was moving forward with the slow, smooth pulses when a disturbance made itself known. Frowning, both inside and outside his mind, he directed his attention to the outer boundary of his power.
It had taken two weeks to actually reach and hold a meditative state for more than a few minutes at a time. He had started using the ocean scene then, and had found himself almost immediately surrounded by a rush of pure power. During the intervening days, he had been exploring and expanding his awareness of his power and the outside world whilst still staying in meditation. It was not the first time he had sensed the disturbance, but each time he made to find it, it just seemed to slip right though his fingers.
Reaching out carefully, Harry very gingerly touched the edge of what looked to be a tendril of foreign energy. A woven net of red abruptly stood out vividly against the solid dark gold and greenish silver of his own core.
How the devil could I have missed that!
Examining the piece in his grasp, he felt faint emanations from it. Taking a firmer grip, he started to examine the feelings he could identify.
There is a definite undertone of worry and desperation. Some . . . determination? Hmm, affection and protectiveness. Lots of protectiveness. Is that . . . ? It feels like what I get when I just finished a big project and I know it’s ‘A’ worthy. Triumph and satisfaction. Someone put a lot of time and energy into this. He ‘tasted’ the flavour of the net again. Two someones. My parents perhaps? It does seem to be a protective barrier, or a shield of some sort. What happened though, it’s breaking down.
Indeed, from where he was it looked like huge chunks of it were degraded. Other parts had holes in it and seemed to be unraveling. For some reason it made him sad to see what must have been a masterpiece in such a sorry state. Drifting about, he came to a tear that had a very familiar shape, one he saw in the mirror every day. And within that tear was a small well of power, the colour of which showed up ever so often in his nightmares. Nightmares that had plagued for as long as he could remember. A woman screaming, someone laughing, and a flash of green light.
Something tells me that my parents didn’t die in a car crash. A shield like this doesn’t strike me as a split second thing. I’m not terribly surprised that Petunia and Vernon would lie about that, they lie about everything else.
The two were worried and desperate when they made this shield. The fact that they are dead and I am not validated that fear. Why wouldn’t they do the same for themselves though? Perhaps they had enough time to do me first but were interrupted before they could complete their own? I have to speculate on that later. The more immediate issue is here before me.
Venturing closer, but not enough to touch, he observed the green, lightening shaped well. The edges of the tear close to it were much darker than anywhere else. Where it touched his own power, the vibrant gold turned a dark orange and the silver obtained a greener tinge. As his power swirled away, the orange and green became lighter and harder to notice.
Now that I think about it, the farther I get from the core, the darker the colours get. It’s mixing with my power.
Unsure wether this was a good thing or a bad thing, he followed a swirl of his own power as it mixed with the green energy and headed back toward his inner core.
Immediately following contact with the foreign matter, his own carried a faint feeling of hate, ill will, and, oddly enough, determination. As the eddy moved farther though, the feelings dissipated and the sense of ‘me’ that he identified from his core asserted itself.
Huh. So, the shield must have blocked most of the. . . whatever that green light was, and my core must have been strong enough to stop the rest. The left over energy gathered here and has been mixing with my own power ever since. Seven almost eight years.
Harry examined the gap between where the shield ended and where the green energy began. There was a buffer of orange and silver green between the two.
Most of it’s gone now. Judging from the size of that gap, there is, at most, four years worth of the green stuff left before it’s all assimilated with my power. At this speed anyway.
Almost as soon as gold and silver came into contact with green, the darkened eddies would whirl away. Some would go back immediately to his core, others would gather around the edges and must have mixed in more slowly.
It’s only really assimilating a little at a time. With the amount of hate and ill will in that thing, that’s probably a good thing. Too fast and I would probably have died not long after my parents. I think I’ll just leave it alone. The way it’s going now, it will take care of itself. The shield however. . .
Harry spent a while exploring the shield. Then he came to an area that was more degenerated than the rest. It appeared to be connected to something that was not him.
I thought that it might just be the amount of time that passed since it was put up, but something is actually draining energy from the lattice. My parents put this shield in place to help me. Anything that lessens my protection is obviously a threat. I need to find where it stops being my parent’s work and starts being some one or some thing else.
As he followed the line of red, that was rapidly thinning out, he came across a fault that was connected to a different red line. One with a new ‘taste’ from his parents’ own. There was a definite feeling of power draining from his side of the connection to this one, slowly but surely. Going farther, he came to the unpleasant realization that his core was straining to help him, if he strayed farther he might slip into unconsciousness. Just as he reached the conclusion that stopping would be prudent, he came across a new lattice. A dome.
Is this another person?
As the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. If it were someone else then he would be able to feel their power.
It must be an object or a building. An unpleasant thought crossed his mind. The Dursley’s.
It makes a frightening amount of sense. Someone attacked my parents. They knew that the attack was coming and had time to prepare my own protection and were perhaps disrupted before they could secure their own protection. They die and. . . , this part was a bit fuzzy to him, maybe the attacker thought he had died when he was hit with the green light and left. So after that, someone finds me and places me with Petunia and Vernon. They see that the shield protected me and decide that it would be best to extend it to protect the Dursley’s too. Maybe they figured that whoever it was might go after the last of the family. But whoever it was didn’t attack. Perhaps they got caught or something. Only the mystery person doesn’t remove the link to the new lattice, and it’s been draining power from my own shields ever since.
That’s rather counterproductive though. If the attacker is gone then these shield are the only thing that I have from my parents. I want to keep them. The Dursley’s won’t need the protection either. If the attacker is still out there then when my personal shield collapses from the stress of supporting the one around the house, that one won’t be getting any new energy and will eventually collapse on it’s own. Then none of us will be protected.
Going back to the fault, he was relieved when the strain on his core eased as he returned to an acceptable distance. He slowly gathered some of his power. It traveled up the gather around his awareness.
The lattice around the house has been drawing power from my own lattice to support itself for seven and some oddth years . It should be able to last a while before it falls. If we do get attacked, I’d rather my shield be in one piece around me than have it drained to uselessness and a collapsing shield around the house.
With that thought, he severed the link between the two lattices.
The Dursley’s will just have to fend for themselves.
~~~~~~~~~~
Once again on the outer edge of his core, Harry was examining the shield. It did not escape his notice that the area around the tear was the most robust of the lattice. It seemed that the buffer zone of his own energy was feeding the shield.
As he examined each tear and degenerated area he became aware of a ghost echo. Pushing a small amount of energy into the empty zone he was pleasantly surprised to feel a fragile net. There was no energy in it, but there was an imprint of what use to be there. Acting on impulse, he touched one of the withered ends of red with a tendril of his power. The red mixed with his gold and the end extended a fraction along the echo.
It would take time, but with the drain gone and if he consciously fed power into the lattice then it could be brought back to it’s former glory. It would not be exactly the way it was with the addition of his energy, but it would be a proper shield again.
Harry slowly rose out of the meditative state and checked his watch. He had been under for almost seven hours and only had time for a quick stretch before he left.
It seemed that he would always find something new to the list of things that he had to do. A few hours a day would bring the shield along nicely and he would have time to practice some of the more tangible uses of his power.
Perhaps I should find a way to unconsciously feed the lattice power in addition to the automatic feed it seems to have set up around the scar.
It would appear that next year will have to be carefully scheduled.
I’m almost sorry that I tested out of the fifth grade. I’ll skip a grade next term and begin my final year and then there will be the common entrance exams and the entrance exams for my ticket out of this prison a year early.
Almost sorry, he smirked as he stretched, but not quite. I’ll just have to budget my time.
AN: In this chapter we see some of Harry’s more ruthless impulses. I’ve also introduced the blood wards. As far as this story is concerned, when Dumbledoor set up the wards, he thought they would replenish Harry’s protection by the family bond that Petunia was supposed to feel. I set it up so that Lily and James did a blood ritual protection ward, I don’t believe in that ‘mother’s loving sacrifice’ bull that he sprouts in canon. But the basic premise that a family bond with his mother’s blood sister would keep the protection strong hold true. So there should have been a feed back. The house shield would get some energy from harry’s shield and the family bond of caring would generate more energy and put it back in Harry’s shield so that everyone is protected. However, since there is no familial feelings between the two, there is no feed back, energy goes to the house shield and nothing is coming back to even out the flow, so the house is just an energy sink.
Also of note. Harry doesn’t connect his power to magic yet. He just knows that he has a power and that there are others like him. He’ll get there eventually though.
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