"Wingardium Leviosa made the pillow hit the ceiling... hard," Harry reluctantly admitted.
Snape gave him an exasperated glance, no doubt at learning that Reparo wasn't the only spell he'd tried while alone.
"Hmm." Draco was still lost in thought. "What would Alohomora do, blow a door off its hinges? Or Enervate... hmm, would that make a person never able to sleep again, or something? Oh... I wonder what your Unforgivables would be like. The Killing Curse delivered with raw dark powers--"
"That's enough, Draco," Snape interrupted.
But it wasn't. "I bet Rictusempra would be an Unforgivable for you," he kept going. "You'd cause such bad tickles that they'd lead to a seizure or a heart attack! And Serpensortia... sweet Merlin, you'd probably cast a Basilisk." He shuddered.
"That will be quite enough," Snape said, raising his voice that time.
Harry wasn't finding any of this very amusing. "If I can't practice without adult supervision," he asked in desperation, "how am I going to get these powers under control?"
"You are going to have plenty of practice time. What do you think I've been doing while you were supposed to be sleeping, but endeavoring to formulate a plan to provide you with just that!" Snape's glare became intense. "And I am quite serious that you are to control your reckless impulse to try things on your own, Harry. Do not make the mistake of thinking that just because you are my son I will hesitate to discipline you!"
"I don't," Harry assured him, thinking ten thousand lines was probably nothing. Hell, he'll take ten thousand points... oh wait, no, he'd wouldn't take thousands off Slytherin... would he?
"Good, because I should hate to confiscate your wand," Snape remarked.
"My wand!"
"If you can't be trusted with it, yes!"
Harry frowned. "That's mean, threatening to take away my wand just when I've got it working again."
Draco suddenly laughed. "Oh, this is rich. Are you going to take his hands away as well, Severus?"
The question confused Harry, but Snape seemed to follow it well enough. "Perhaps I should Obliviate you," he sneered. "As you evidently can't keep your own counsel about anything!"
"Keep secrets from my brother, you mean," Draco shot back. "And that'd just be wrong, wouldn't it? Or did I misunderstand when you were telling Weasley that family had to come first?"
"Stop calling him Weasley!" Harry erupted. "Why have you started that up again?"
Draco shrugged.
"And what's this about my hands?"
Draco smiled, the expression sly. "You'd have realized it yourself if you'd grown up in a magical family, I bet. But as things stand... Severus, would you like to do the honors?"
"I'd rather he work with his wand a while longer," Snape growled.
"Fine, I'll tell him," Draco decided. "Don't you know what a wand does, Harry? Why wizards generally need one? It's an amplifier. Filtering our powers through surface magic mutes them, and a wand helps bring them back up to a level that can do some good. Now, certain very strong wizards have so much magic that even after it's been muted, it can still work spells without aid. Hence, wandless magic. You're another case entirely. You're bringing dark powers to the surface and not muting them at all, and then you're still channeling them into your wand? You don't need a magic-amplifier, Harry."
Harry stared at him doubtfully. "You're saying I could do normal spells if I tried them wandless?"
"Well you did pour wild magic through your hands that once. And I think your physical self must have liked it. Ever since, your hands have been aching with magic trying to get out."
"What do you think?" Harry asked his father. "Should I try?"
"Not unsupervised," Snape said, shaking his head.
Harry gestured at the livestock. "Well, you're here now, so can I?"
"Not here, certainly. We'll go to Devon where we can work out-of-doors. Draco makes things sound so simple, but wandless magic is generally more unpredictable than the wanded variety." Snape immobilized the animals again, then shrank them and popped them into a trouser pocket. "Shall we?"
"Now?" Harry looked down at his rumpled clothes.
"Well, you were eager as I recall," Snape reminded him. "Besides, it is better to be absent when the house-elves arrive to effect repairs."
"I'd rather have a shower, actually; I feel sort of sticky. And I bet Draco would appreciate a change of clothes, too--"
Draco, though, was shaking his head. "Such Mugglish thinking." Without further comment, he cast a cleaning charm across all three of them. Harry's clothes felt crisp and new after that. He suddenly wondered what result he'd get if he tried to cast that spell. Would his dark powers scrub the fabric so hard that clothing disintegrated? Of course cleaning charms worked on skin, too. That could get awfully messy. Harry frowned, realizing it had been terribly foolish to try magic without his father there to help him get it under control.
"Don your warmest robes for the journey," Snape was saying. "You as well, Draco."
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They traveled as before, Flooing to Grimmauld Place and from there Apparating to the meadow outside the cottage.
"Can we come here for the summer?" Harry asked, glancing at the ramshackle little building.
"Part of it, I should think," Snape agreed, but laid a hand on Harry's forearm when the boy made as though to go in. "I do believe we ought to practice out-of-doors, don't you?"
Harry shivered, his robes not doing much to ward off the bitter cold. "Cast a temperature charm then, would you?"
"I doubt you'll be cold for long." Snape suddenly jerked his head to the left. "Draco, where do you think you are going?"
The blond boy froze in mid-step. "Thought I'd take a seat on that rock, as I'm really just here for the fresh air."
"You're such a prat," Harry complained before Snape could reply. "You're here to help me."
Draco scoffed. "Oh yes, my vast store of experience in wandless magic will prove invaluable, not to mention that my own Lumos spells melt walls every day of the week."
"Harry needs someone to aim hexes at," Snape dryly inserted, raising an eyebrow when Draco paled. "For Merlin's sake. You can't believe you're no more use to him than that. You're here to pay attention. I want someone besides myself thoroughly cognizant of how Harry can best channel his dark powers."
Strangely, Draco paled yet more. "I appreciate the trust," he offered, walking closer, "but how wise is that, really? If the Dark Lord does get his hands on me, it's probably best I know as little as possible."
From close up, Harry could see that the Slytherin boy was sweating despite the biting cold.
Grass crackled underfoot as Snape leaned down to speak to Draco. "I stand by what I told Harry when he first came to live with us. You have a great intuitive grasp of magic. I want you to understand his powers and his limits so that you can help him should he ever need it."
Draco still looked doubtful, but he shrugged in agreement, then backed away slightly to observe.
Snape magically cleared a large area of grass and debris, then instructed Harry to recreate his Lumos.
That, Harry thought, was when it first struck home just how limited his dark powers were. "Uh... how about you summon a snake from the woods, first? Because I can't speak Parseltongue without one." He frowned. "You know, I thought I had done it once down in the cellar of Sirius' house... um, my house, but now I think I must not have managed it until I actually scooped Sals up." That, after all, had been when Lucius Malfoy had burst in. "Yeah, I have to see a snake, or at the very least feel myself holding one--"