Harry's practice with his Accidental Magic didn't make much progress before he went off to the day camp again. Over the course of the two weeks Harry learned more of the skills he'd enjoyed last year. Pottery was fun but took a while to get right. Needlework was neat as they were learning how to knit and would be finishing up a scarf or a knitted cap, camper's choice, before the end of the camp. Carving was more challenging as you couldn't simply erase a mistake, you either had to work with it, around it, or start over. But learning how to etch their names into small planks of wood was fun. Blacksmithing was something they could only watch. Harry didn't mind as he was fascinated by the way the blacksmith heated and shaped metal. Watching the creation of even simple items like hinges or hooks was impressive to the young boy. Soon enough the camp was over for the summer and Harry was back to trying to practice Magic for the remainder of the summer break.
'Why won't the stupid book move?!' Harry pouted mentally as he still couldn't get the book to come to his hand like he'd done before. 'I just want it in my hand, why is that so hard?' The boy questioned only to feel the book smack into his hand that was hanging by his side. "Ow!" Harry groaned. "Why did it do it this time?" he questioned as he rubbed his hand. Quickly picking up the book and tossing it back onto the bed Harry tried to figure out how he'd made the book move. After mulling it over Harry felt like he might have an answer. "If this works I've been overlooking the obvious." The nine year old muttered as he raised his hand and thought of the action he wanted to happen. 'I want the book in my hand.' With barely suppressed glee Harry caught the book as it flew towards his hand. With a quiet cheer, so as not to disturb Aunt Petunia downstairs, Harry celebrated his discovery. 'I have to think of the action I want to happen! Not about the book itself!' He mentally crowed in delight as he tossed the book back onto the bed and pulled it back to his hand again. With muted laughter Harry spent the next hour pulling objects around his room towards him with his magic.
Over the next month Harry practiced with his newly learned Magical Skill. After the first three days of bringing stuff towards himself he'd tried doing the opposite. The initial result had been Harry's pillow smacking into the wall on the opposite side of the room. But with a month of practice now under his belt Harry could even move things from one place to another around his room. Levitation was the word Harry had found in the dictionary that matched closely with what he was doing. So he'd dubbed his first bit of Magic as Levitation. He'd been slightly embarrassed to find mention of a Levitation Charm among the Charms textbook and realize that such simple Magic had, of course, been discovered long ago. But at least he could do his without a wand! He wasn't pouting!
Harry continued to practice with his magic throughout the rest of the school year. He'd even started checking out fantasy books from the school library for ideas. Any idea he wanted to try and replicate he'd first browse through his mother's Charms textbook for, to see if an equivalent spell existed. That was how Harry learned to summon fire. Of course he only practiced this outside in the woods behind Privet Drive. But with practice Harry could not only summon floating orbs of fire but even hold a fireball in his hand. That discovery had brought about a level of excitement that had Harry recreating scenes from the fantasy books he read. Tossing a fireball around was truly quintessential for a wizard! Harry was absolutely sure of this fact!
It wasn't until the summer that Harry had felt like he had made progress on his original goal of Occlumency. Now when he dived into the dull void, which he had finally realized was a magical representation of his mind, he noticed that the branches coming from the silvery-grey orb had actually encircled the area he always appeared in. Trying to see from the other side had been difficult but after almost nine months of practice Harry had been able to get a glimpse of the outside. What he guessed to be his mind was now encircled by hundreds of branches and their offshoots. His mind was apparently enclosed in what amounted to large thorny brambles. If brambles were as unrelenting as steel and made of pure magic. During this brief glimpse he also noted that almost a dozen large branches still reached out into the void. His only guess was that these branches connected his magic directly to his body. It could explain his sudden control over Magic when he didn't have a wand and no instruction in Wandless Magic.
One summer evening Harry had been looking through his mother's Charms text book again when he noted the mention of the most basic Charm that Hogwarts, the school of Magic his mother attended, taught to First Year students. The Lumos Charm was something so simple and easy that most students learned it in their very first Charms class. Harry liked the idea of being able to produce light on demand without the risk of burning anything like when he summoned fire. So he'd set about trying to figure it out. It had taken him less than an hour to figure out how to replicate the spell. All the Lumos Charm really was at its core was Magic being shifted into the visible light spectrum. That was a term Harry had learned in Science class the past school year and to find out that it could be applied to Magic opened up a whole new set of questions and curiosities for the boy. So Harry spent the better part of the evening playing with the Lumos Charm, making it brighter or dimmer and even changing the color of the light emitted. Incidentally the changing of the color was actually the hardest part. The white light of the Lumos Charm was apparently the easiest color for Magic to take when it entered the visible spectrum. Adding in the intent of specific colors had been difficult at first but it wasn't as hard when Harry imagined the colors as a sliding scale. Slide the Magic down the scale and the light turned darker colors, slide Magic up the scale and you got brighter colors. Harry had made his own light show by the time he'd turned in for bed.