5 Chapter 5
My first class was on potioneering and boy was it a doozy. Snape came into the class with his blowing cape and serious look.
"Since, there is little wand waving and other frivolities in my class, I don't expect you to think of this as magic. However, for those who excel in my class, I can teach you to brew glory, bottle luck and stopper death. If only you aren't the usual dunder heads I have to teach. Now, page 12." He said and began to go down in the details of the potion called Pepper up.
Despite his attitude and lack of interest in students, Snape was passionate about potions and brewing. Although he didn't actually explain the beginners details, he had implied about them and straight up told us to read the books. For those who failed to brew properly, he gave them assignments to find out the correct methods to do it. People were losing points left and right, double for mishandling of equipment or causing explosions. Before the class ended there were only two potions that were of usable quality. Mine and another girl from hufflepuff. He told us exactly where we had messed up and asked us to write an assignment to improve the potions.
While, I could have made a perfect potion, doing so would have put me in the radar. The goal was to appear as a bright student and slowly fade into obscurity. The next class was with Professor Binns, and I mostly slept through that class. There was no way in hell could I have imagined that there was a way to make the rise of lycans and the goblins wars boring. I have read the books and every sentence of it offered knowledge and excitement, but coming from Binns mouth, it felt like all the joy was sucker out and replaced with sleeping potions. One refreshing nap later, we were headed to the mess hall for lunch. After lunch was the transfiguration class headed by Prof. McGonagall. She did the trick with the cat to human transformation effectively capturing our attention. One lengthy warning later we were taking notes for properties of matter and the effect magic has on them. While interesting and fascinating the subject's theory was, I had already memorised the entire book and was rather good with all the spells hogwarts had to offer.
We then had a free period and I headed straight to the library. There were thousands upon thousands of books that I needed to read. This was surely the single most time consuming goal I had for my stay and Hogwarts. I began with the Spell section which was the largest section available. It was closely followed by transfiguration, potions and runes. The smallest section was about the magical creatures and it had about 6000 books. I sighed and picked up the nearest book. It was about the wand movement and effects it has on first year magic both prior and post the casting of the spell. It was a dust covered book signifying that no one has touched it.
Over the course of the first month, I Had gone through about a thousand books and was nowhere near close enough to say that i had read all the books about the beginner spells. Although, I now had the knowledge of how the manipulate one spell in hundreds of different ways. For example, you can cast the spell to travel slowly enough for it to be effectively standing still. Many spell that were invisible could be left hanging in the air allowing the victim to walk into them. I immediately put this knowledge in use by putting the spell on each seat in transfiguration and history class. For the next few months I was common to see students burst into laughter or change their skin color randomly. There were even cases of students being attacked by hoards of sticky candy and armies of cooked chicken. Since, there was no harm done, no one investigated the perpetrator.
There was one thing I realized while shoving books into my brain, that the magic itself was an incomprehensible and all powerful force of nature that allows creatures to bend and shape reality. Why it does this is unknown and it should remain so until someone discovers the manifestation of magic itself. I made this little discovery when I cross-referenced thousands of spells that do the same thing. The latest iteration was called Wingardium Leviosa. The spell cause the object under magic to levitate and performs some basic motions. Thirty years back a Japanese magician discovered another spell that performed just the same. 32 years back a Romanian wizard did something similar. The pattern repeats throughout history. Why would a specific result have so many different ways to attain it. Logically, an outcome that could only be performed under certain circumstances would indicate that the laws of magic were rigid, but due to the overwhelming evidence to suggest otherwise, clearly indicates that magic itself isn't rigid and conforms to the user. This may be the reason why so many magically strong people fail to reach the top. While, some magically weaker people sit at the figurative throne of the magical world simply due to their understanding of magic.
I sighed and wrote down a particularly unique movie quote, "Fly, you fools" and began to imagine exactly how these words would react when spoken with magic and then directed towards an object. To make things easier for myself I imagined the object to levitate just about 7 centimeters off the ground and stay there for exactly 7 seconds. As the image began to firm and the intent was solidified, I spoke the words and directed magic towards the quill. The quill levitated exactly 7 centimeters in the air and did for exactly 7 seconds. Wow, this might change everything I know about magic. Although, magic didn't respond to English well but my intent amd magic was carried through. So, stronger intent translates to better and efficient magic while a magically powerful language helps the formation and transfer of the said intent. No wonder why merlin was so powerful, the fucker was a Draco mouth. Dragons by all means and accounts were the single most magically strong creatures on the planet. Magic resistant and ageless, dragons grow stronger and intelligent as they age. Only adolescent dragons were kept in captivity and they mature by around 600 to 1000 years after which they either fly away to their sacred sanctuary or chose to slumber eternally. Since , they grow stronger as they age, the words spoken by an ancient dragon take form and affect reality. Similar creatures are Tree elves, Old ones, pheonixs, dementors and many more, all with their limits unknown as a truly ancient creature was never encountered by humans. It is also believed that these creatures often grow beyond human capabilities and live in isolation away from humans or any other creature.
There is a dragon claw mark in a protected site in Russia and it is the size of a city. There is a cave in India the size of a football field and curiously a snake scale was found there. The size of the scale was about 15 feet in length. There have been many observations throughout history clearly stating creatures exceeding the imagination of man. These creatures, if they are in fact as massive and ancient as they are to be believed then, their words would have the same effects as many intricately designed spells.
While these discoveries led me down a rabbit hole of rituals that granted partial to complete animal speech. Mainly, focusing on either snakes or dragons but the ingredients required for such a ritual would not be available to me anytime soon. Where am I supposed to find a dragon egg along with a freshly harvested dragon heart. Well I do know where but the question is about when and how do I get them to sell to me. I sighed and set down the dates for Christmas break. A bit of aging potion should do the trick.
In the meanwhile, professors were wowed with my knowledge of the subject while they witnessed my average magical talents. Filtwick was trying to get me to pick up duelling and I was vehemently against it, mainly because dueling despite being immensely helpful to my endeavors would announce my superiority to everyone. Right now my presence was that of a problem muggle raised child and I would like it to remain that way for a long time.
It was just about 2 weeks into October when I faced my first problem. A group of slytherins sheep were trying to bully me and were getting on my nerves. I sighed and began to plan for them to be metaphorically destroyed. The plan was to prank them so hard that their image would be completely destroyed. Naturally, it took place during lunch hour when all 5 of them emptied their bowels in front of everyone. When they tried to leave they fell back on their asses making the situation worse. In their panic, they spilled their soup over Snape and McGonagall who were there trying to help. When the professors were just about to lose it, one of the boys took out a bag and feathers began to stick to all of them including the professors. Snape, being badass as he is, immediately used a spell to clean himself and McGonagall but was drenched and feathered again. McGonagall levitated everyone away from the hall while the entire student body was laughing at them all. Needless to say, Slytherin lost a hundred points that day.
Over the course of a week, the poor bastards were led from one horrible prank to another until Dumbledore himself cleaned the hallways of all the spells. He looked at the student body and shook his head during breakfast.
"Children, it has been brought to my notice that a few of your peers were being bullied with rather clever use of magic. While I believe that these acts were of light hearted nature and were frankly harmless, the damage done to the young minds would not be so. To remedy this, I will ask a few ghosts and portraits to keep an eye on the hallways for the perpetrator. Enjoy your meal." He said and exited the Hall.
I grinned at the announcement and so did many others. Grifindors were outright cheering and calling the group cowards for ratting their champion out. This further worsened the rivalry between the houses as they tried to prank each other constantly. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuf were left to their own devices.
Another month passed and I had prepared a healthy amount of rat collection, for a nightly stroll in the forbidden forest. Armed with spells such as bombarda, reducto and confringio, i headed out one night but not before making sure that Hagrid was fast asleep. Unlike, what the books had suggested that the place was nearly harmless. I was attacked by a bear almost 10 minutes into the forest. Luckily, the bear was barely considered magical with vines covering its skins and all it took was a healthy amount of fire to take out. Finding the Armantula nest took almost an hour but once I had found it it was like a festival with all the explosions and fire flying about. I kept up with them for about half an hour before hiding away and summoned all the dead ones. With many full trunks and pouches, i returned to my room with a splitting headache and a smile.
The next morning I discovered that killing magical creatures was the way to go for gaining magic and remaining anonymous. My magic had nearly doubled in amount and the life energy I gained was immense. I happily went about the next few weeks without doing much. Slimy had informed me that my magic had grown to that of the second years. Finally with a feast and a song, we were sent off to our homes.
