He knew very well that he didn't have much money with him and Dumbledore would insist that Molly Weasley would complete his school shopping for him for the next school year, so he would have no chance of getting any large quantities of gold from his vault. He also knew that he may find himself in need of gold at some point in the future and knew that yet again he would not have his key, but perhaps he could sell the valuable stuff in the room, nobody would be missing it after all and the cause was certainly worthy.
"Dobby, can you take things and sell them", he inquired nervously, hoping that the elf could give him another lifeline.
"Dobby can be doing that", the elf answered excitedly, knowing where this was going. "Dobby used to be selling for his former master", he added.
"Ok, I want you to take anything valuable and sell it please", Harry requested. "Is there somewhere you can keep gold?", he questioned, realising that he needed somewhere to store it.
"Dobby can be using a trunk sir, he can make it as big inside as he like", he replied happily.
"Could you do it for me please?", Harry asked hopefully. "Dobby will Harry Potter sir", the elf exclaimed, clearly elated at the prospect of doing something important for Harry. "Dobby even be getting Winky to help", he added thoughtfully.
Harry smiled and nodded at the creature, pleased that something was finally going right.
"Ok, so where are the books?", he asked, not being able to see any around them.
"They is being this way", Dobby answered seriously, taking Harry by the arm and leading him through the aisles of items.
They eventually came upon what Harry could describe as a treasure trove of tomes and he immediately began sorting through them, putting aside anything that looked useful. He flicked through a few of them feeling very happy that they contained what he was looking for, even coming across a book on dueling written by Salazar Slytherin himself. Dobby, seeing that Harry was busy, immediately began attending to the task he had been set and called Winky to help him who was happy to be out of the kitchen and completing a job for a wizard.
It was a couple of hours later that Harry let out a sigh of relief after he finally finished sorting through the books. Out of the 300 or so there he had put aside around 50 that would be useful to him, some of which contained spells that were a little more than questionable.
Harry had reluctantly accepted the fact that these types of curses and such were the types of things he needed to learn to even stand a chance in a fight with the Death Eaters let alone Voldemort himself. He knew that he could no longer rely on the luck he had experienced so far and needed to become a much better wizard and fighter, something he would achieve by any means necessary. With Dobby's help he placed the books into a trunk he had found in the room and had the elf shrink it and place a feather light charm so he could keep it with him at all times.
He found that he was hungry once again and Dobby brought him lunch before he headed back to the tower to start reading through some of his newly acquired books and to get some sleep, before going back to the room tomorrow to start on learning the spells he knew he needed to.
(BREAK)
He awoke early the next morning and left the dormitory as quietly as possible to avoid waking any of the others in the room. He made a quick trip to the kitchens to get some breakfast and made his way to the room of requirement, asking for somewhere that he could practice his spell casting. The room that he was provided with was similar to the one that the DA had used throughout the year before they of course had been discovered by Umbridge.
He removed his robes and took out the first book he had decided to attempt a few of the spells from and faced the stationary dummy that stood around fifteen feet away from him.
He opened the dueling book that Slytherin had written and reviewed the theory behind the firsts spell he wanted to try; a severing curse.
The text did not go into specific details of what the effects of the spell would be so Harry had just decided to see for himself. He was confident that he had the ability to perform but the one drawback he had encountered was that Slytherin himself had highlighted the advantages of non-verbal casting, something that Harry had never tried though he had seen both Dumbledore and Voldemort use the technique in their duel and knew that it was the first thing he needed to work on if he was to become proficient enough to face the Dark Lord himself.
He drew his wand and readied himself to fire the curse for the very first time and was not surprised that nothing happened, though it did frustrate him a little.
He spent the next ten minutes trying to curse the dummy becoming more and more irritated that nothing was happening. He could feel his magic literally itching to escape at his will but the build up of magic he could feel would just dissipate as it reached his hand, leaving behind nothing but a gentle tingling within the extremity.
After another five minutes of the same result he felt a burst of anger well within him and he flicked his wand towards the dummy causing a jagged, purple bolt to erupt from his wand and strike it in the centre of the chest. He did not have time to admire his work however. As soon as the spell left his wand, under much protest, the wood within his hand grew deathly hot and he dropped it as it began to sear his skin causing the teen to yelp in both pain and surprise.
"shit, what the hell?", he cursed as he began blowing on his hand in an attempt to cool it.
After a few moments he managed to put his discomfort to the back of his mind and moved closer to the dummy to inspect the damage his curse had done only to find that the head, neck and one of the shoulders had been cleaved away from the rest leaving behind an uneven line where the spell had separated it from the torso.
Shaking his head in surprise he turned away from the dummy and tentatively picked his wand up from the floor, pleased that it had cooled once more. He very much doubted that the spell was supposed to make his wand get so hot that it could no longer be held, but he knew he had performed it correctly even though he had been more than a little miffed as he casted it.
He decided to not attempt that particular curse for the time being and moved on to a few others but the result had been the same. Each time he managed to cast the spell his wand became unbearably hot, causing him to drop it once again.
After it had happened for the fifth time he decided to just work on casting the most basic spells non-verbally which he found he could do without scorching himself, though the wand still became uncharacteristically hot, something he would certainly have to look into when he could.