Evening settled over Hogwarts like a heavy, damp blanket. The sun had disappeared behind the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, staining the sky in anxious crimson-violet hues. On the shore of the Black Lake, far from the well-trodden student paths, wind whistled through the reeds and two wizards’ heavy breathing could be heard.
Ron had run back to the castle twenty minutes earlier — they had sent him to the elves for supper, since no one fancied going to the Great Hall. Hermione sat on a fallen tree trunk, wrapped in her robes. She was silent, nervously biting her lips, her gaze darting between Harry and Kieran.
Harry stood with legs wide apart, gripping his wand so tightly the wood had warmed in his palm. Ten metres away stood Kieran. Between them lay a huge, moss-covered boulder they had found by the water’s edge.
‘Ready?’ Morgan asked hoarsely. He looked exhausted: hair escaped its tie and clung to his sweat-damp forehead, chest heaving.
‘Go,’ Harry breathed.
‘Accio!’ they barked in unison.
The air between them thrummed with tension. The boulder — probably weighing as much as a troll — groaned against the shingle and jerked.
Harry felt it instantly. And the sensation struck him to his core.
Before, magic had been a flash, a beam of light, a result. But over the last two days of endless, gruelling training something had changed. Now, when he spoke the spell, he *felt* the object. He sensed the stone’s weight as though holding it in his hands, felt its rough surface, its inertia, its stubborn resistance. An invisible thread stretched taut from his wand tip to the boulder, vibrating with strain.
The stone crept slowly, reluctantly towards Harry.
Kieran growled through clenched teeth. He dug his heels into the ground, boots carving deep furrows in the sand. He pulled the stone towards himself, pouring every ounce of will into the spell, but the boulder moved inexorably towards Potter.
‘Depulso!’ Morgan suddenly commanded, abruptly changing tactics.
Harry reacted instinctively, reversing the spell’s polarity.
The boulder convulsed in mid-air as though alive and hung there with a low rumble. Now they were pushing it towards each other.
Kieran paled with effort. Veins stood out on his neck, arms trembled. An invisible magical wind whipped his clothes, blowing hair back. He looked like a man trying to hold up a collapsing wall.
Harry, though… Harry felt the hard resistance but also knew he could overpower it. It was like pushing a heavy cart — easier once you got it moving. He felt his magic — dense and hot — flow through his arm, filling the space, pressing against the stone with relentless force.
‘Incredible brute strength…’ Kieran rasped, taking a step back under Harry’s pressure. ‘Just… a natural anomaly.’
The boulder crashed into the sand closer to Morgan. The spell broke.
Kieran bent double, hands on knees, gulping air. Harry lowered his wand, feeling pleasant tingling in his fingers give way to light fatigue.
Hermione leapt from the log and hurried to him.
‘Harry! Are you all right?’ She peered anxiously into his eyes, searching for signs of magical exhaustion.
‘You know…’ Harry looked at his palms, then at the stone. ‘It’s strange. I think I can feel its dimensions now even with my eyes closed. I sense its centre of gravity, how it sits in space. I feel its weight through the wand.’
He lifted shining eyes to her.
‘It’s fantastic, Hermione. I’ve never felt spells so… deeply. Like I’ve grown a third hand — long and invisible.’
Hermione frowned slightly, arms folded.
‘If you and Ron had listened to me more often and actually studied properly all these years instead of cribbing essays at the last minute, you’d have understood this long ago. Magic isn’t just waving a wand, Harry. It’s interaction with matter. Deep understanding of an object’s essence.’
Harry smiled. Even Hermione’s grumbling couldn’t dampen his exhilaration now. He felt strong. Ready.
He turned to Morgan, who was wiping sweat from his brow with his jacket sleeve.
‘Another round?’ Harry suggested, feeling adrenaline demand release.
Kieran lifted his head and looked at him with weary disbelief.
‘Potter, you’re a monster. My arms are falling off.’
‘Come on, Kieran!’ Harry goaded. ‘I need to lock it in.’
Morgan sighed and nodded, straightening. But Harry wasn’t satisfied.
‘Hermione,’ he turned to her. ‘Get up with him.’
‘What?’ she blinked.
‘Both of you. Pull together. I need more resistance. The dragon will be heavier than this stone.’
‘This is getting humiliating,’ Morgan muttered, resuming his stance but beckoning Hermione. ‘Come here, Granger. Let’s see if we can budge this troll.’
Hermione hesitated a moment, then stood beside Morgan. She drew her vine wand, face taking on the concentrated expression she wore before difficult exams.
‘On three!’ Harry commanded, stepping further back and digging his heels into soft earth.
‘One… two… three! Accio!’
This time the pull was tangible.
Harry felt the invisible rope yank him forward so hard he nearly pitched face-first. Dual magic — Hermione’s precise, measured force and Kieran’s stubborn, hard pull — merged into one stream. The wand in his hand not only grew hot but began jerking like a caught bird. Harry clenched his teeth, trying to hold and steady it.
The boulder trembled but stayed put, torn between opposing commands. The air around the stone crackled, the smell of ozone growing stronger by the second.
‘Pull!’ Hermione shouted, and Harry saw her grit her teeth.
Harry growled, tensing every muscle. His feet began slipping on the grass. He felt himself being dragged forward, centimetre by centimetre, following the stone. Sweat stung his eyes. Magic hummed in his ears like a high-voltage wire.
‘Now *that’s* a conversation!’ he gasped, digging in harder and feeling his knees tremble with effort.
For the first time that evening he was truly fighting, and despite the pain in his muscles it was the best feeling in the world. He had stopped being a victim of circumstance, the boy who had been set up.
Tension peaked. The air between them sang like a taut string about to snap. The boulder, caught in the epicentre of the magical tug-of-war, gave a low, agonised groan that drowned the wind.
‘Pull!’ Harry roared, feeling magic burn his palm.
A dry, deafening crack rang out like a gunshot. The stone couldn’t withstand it. It simply split clean in two, unable to resist two opposing vectors of monstrous force.
Resistance vanished instantly.
Harry flew back a couple of steps from inertia, windmilling his arms to keep balance.
On the other side Hermione — who had poured everything into the spell — lurched forward with a cry, losing footing on slippery grass. She would have fallen face-first into the mud, but Morgan — who had already damped his own momentum with feline grace — caught her by elbow and waist, holding her upright.
‘Careful,’ he breathed.
Harry stared at the smoking halves of the boulder and suddenly laughed. It was laughter of relief mixed with pure, intoxicating joy at his own power.
‘Did you see that?!’ he shouted, wiping sweat from his brow. ‘We tore it apart!’
Hermione hastily pulled away from Kieran and began brushing her robes with excessive vigour, hiding an embarrassed smile. But even she couldn’t conceal her awe — her eyes shone.
‘That was… impressive,’ she admitted, glancing at the split stone. ‘But that’s enough for today. Full stop.’
She fixed Harry with a stern look that nevertheless lacked its usual severity.
‘Now we need food and proper sleep. We’ve done all we can. If we carry on you’ll burn out before tomorrow. Overtraining is no better than under-preparation, Harry. Muscles and magic need rest.’
Harry nodded, agreeing. The thrill slowly receded, giving way to pleasant, heavy fatigue. He relaxed his fingers, still tight around the wand. The wood — scorching moments ago — now cooled slowly in his hand, becoming merely warm and alive. The sensation of pulsing power responding to the slightest wish was incredible.
‘It was brilliant,’ he said sincerely, looking at his friends. ‘Thank you. Both of you. Really. I feel now… I can do it.’
Kieran nodded silently, straightening his jacket, and Hermione gave a warm smile.
‘Come on,’ she ordered, shivering in the evening chill. ‘Let’s find Ron. I hope he hasn’t eaten all the supper on the way to the tower, or I’ll have to use something worse than Tickling Charms on him.’