chapter 13

Hogwarts, 1974

In less than a month the winter holidays had ended, and the students were back in Hogwarts to continue their magical studies, bothered by the shortness of their vacation.

Gilderoy on the other hand was pressed about how to proceed with training the new method he found in Greece.

"How do I even get all these ingredients?" asked to himself the boy.

He had finished learning all that was written on the writings left by Zeus, but he still couldn't proceed with the training.

To train in this method you require to take medicinal baths, but apart for some ingredients he managed to buy after convincing his mother, he still lacked some others and the amount it took to make a medicinal bath was bigger than what you need to make potion.

"You didn't expect that your body would have turned in the one of a god simply by training and moving around, did you?" replied Allanon.

"Then what should I do now?" asked Gilderoy.

"First you'll need to find someone to help you, as there is the need of a helper to take care of some matters while you are inside the medicinal bath" replied Allanon.

"The obvious choice is Lily, since as of now she is my closest friend, but can I trust her with this?" asked Gilderoy.

Making a friend was one thing, but now he had to trust something very important to this friend.

"I'll have to tell her about how I found an ancient method to train my body and leave to her the task of helping me brew my medicinal bath and if something went wrong, I would be the one to pay the consequences for it" commented Gilderoy.

"In my life I had friends that remained near me and helped me till my last moments and there have also been some people, who tried to betray me or backstab me, but you know what? They never succeeded, because I could know they had evil intention against me the moment they realized it themselves. So you don't have to worry about that. I believe that Lily belongs to the first category and even if you find out later she is going to betray you, you will be able to react in time thanks to your mind arts" reassured him the druid.

"Rather than that the problem is her willingness to help you. This would take a lot of time and hard work. Moreover, she wouldn't gain anything from helping you. Even if you are friends this isn't a simple request" added Allanon, but Gilderoy didn't have many worries about this.

"Obviously she is going to do it, I'm worth more than any treasures and this will be just small price to pay for my friendship" stated the boy, who had already forgotten of all the difficulties he went trough to find a friend.

He then went to the library, knowing he would find Lily there and as expected she was there alone reading a book.

On Wednesday she always spent her free time reading various muggle books and except for me none of her friends truly cared about those.

"Hy Lily" greeted the boy.

"I Didn't see you coming Gil, are you here to read something too?" asked Lily, who had started to call him Gil like Pandora did, but luckily, differently from the latter, Lily didn't add the "little" at the beginning.

"Not really, I'm here to speak with you. I need your help with something" hearing my words Lily put a bookmark on the page she was reading and closed the book.

"Certainly, what is it about?" said Lily without any sign of unwillingness.

"Do you know about body strengthening methods?" asked the boy deciding to approach the topic with calm.

"Yeah, I've heard of them, but they aren't used a lot in our society. I heard they were famous in the past and they are still largely used in Asian countries, but in the occidental world wizards prefer to approach magic in a more scholar way" she explained and Gilderoy didn't find it strange that she knew a lot even about this subject after all she was a studious girl.

"Well, I found an ancient method in Greece, and I plan to train in it, but I need someone to help me." He said at last bringing up the main topic of the discussion.

Lily's expression that was stunned at the beginning soon turned into an exited smile.

"Obviously I'll help you, my favourite subject is ancient rune. If there is something I love, it is to study old magic tomes. Where did this method come from?" replied Lily.

"It was a method that Zeus used" said Gilderoy.

He wasn't the kind of guy, who would go back on his decision. He had decided to trust Lily, so he won't bother himself with trying to hide some things from her.

"Are you serious? While I heard that many legends of the muggle words were real, I didn't except gods to exists" she questioned.

"They weren't gods, they were just some strong wizards, which were revered as divinities because of their strength by muggles" explained Gilderoy.

A long session of question followed and Gilderoy replied saying what he knew.

Although she had accepted to helps, like he wanted, he was still a little bothered by the fact that the major reason she accepted was because she wanted to study the ancient writing he got and not because of him.

Days passes and soon Sunday came, the day they decided to start, after all it took a lot of time to prepare the whole thing and because of that they could only do this on days without any lesson.

The most difficult thing was explaining to their friend why they couldn't hang out with them, since Gilderoy made Lily promise to never tell this to the others.

While he didn't think that their other friends were untrustworthy, he knew that the more people knew the more difficult it became to hide this secret.

Gilderoy had woken up early that morning and he had been training his body through various exercise the for hours, since before entering the medical bath, it was imperative to train till your whole body screams at you for the pain.

When you train hard enough you put a strong mechanical traction on the muscle causing some minor damage (microtrauma) to the sarcomeres. Sarcomeres are the individual protein structures contractile within the muscle fibres. During post-workout recovery, the body replaces these damaged protein structures and adds some new sarcomeres alongside the old ones, thickening the muscle fibres.

This would be how normal workout works but thanks to the medicinal bath these new proteins that are inserted in the muscles are enchanted by magic, which makes them better under every point. They also allow me to increase my magical power and give me the famous lighting attribute that comes with this body tempering method.

Moreover, this bath also increases the recovery of the muscles so to use it to its maximum effect and not waste the ingredients Gilderoy needs to train to the point where he can hardly move anymore.

When finally, the time came for the appointment, it was just ten in the morning and the tired Ravenclaw slowly dragged his sore body to the class Lily had told him.

When he entered, he could see the girl was stirring the contents of the tub one last time.

The liquids inside looked exactly like the writing said, but Gilderoy never doubted Lily's abilities, after all when it comes to potion even if she isn't the best she certainly is in the top.

Moreover, she is without a doubt Slughorn favourite student, since he was the one to provide all the ingredients they lacked and he also let her use this empty classroom, when he was asked by Lily.

She told him she was working on a peculiar potion she found on a book, and she needed some ingredients to practice. Just with this she was assured that the older wizard would sponsor her.

Slughorn was the co-owner of slug and giggers and because of that he could practically take out an infinite quantity of ingredients.

Thanks to this he had been able to be the sponsor many promising potioneers, which later paid him back when they became famous and successful.

In the eyes of the professor Lily belonged to this category of people, so he had no problem with helping her.

"How much di you train?" asked Lily in a worried tone after seeing the stumbling Gilderoy.

His hair was messy, his face was red and his whole body was covered in sweat.

He really was far from his well-maintained usual appearance, but luckily for him no one wake up this early on Sunday, so he could come here without being seen.

"I did what was written… is the bath ready?" he asked while panting.

"Yeah, it's ready. You need to be naked inside, so I'll go over there while you enter. You don't have to worry about being seen, the liquid is quite consistent, its colour is strong, and it create a lot of foam, so I won't be able to see anything" she said while going to the corner and looking at the wall.

Gilderoy wasn't really bothered with being seen naked by an attractive girl like Lily. The only problem is that his body is still that of a kid, so he would prefer her to not see it, until he grows up.

After hearing the sound of Gilderoy entering the liquid, Lily turned around and approach the bath.

"I'm going to start and it will be painful. Are you sure about doing this?" she asked with a worried tone as she took out her wand.

"Start. I'm not going to give up now" he said and Lily, after hearing his answer, pointed her wand toward the bath and used the incantation "baubilious".

It was a spell that Gilderoy had not studied yet, but its effect was easy to understand after seeing the white sparks of lightning that came out of her wand and hit the liquid in the tub.

"Don't lose your concentration and enter immediately inside your mind if you don't want to become brain dead" said Allanon, after seeing his students, who had some difficulties to concentrate because of the pain he was feeling.

It was like that time at the temple, but now the lightning was covering his whole body and not just his eyes.

Hearing his teacher words Gilderoy gave his best to concentrate hard enough and enter his mind.

When he finally succeeded, he saw many lightings flying around and if it wasn't for Allanon, who was using his mental power to stop them, Gilderoy's mind palace could have suffered a lot of damage.

"Do like I taught you and think of a storm" shouted the druid and his student immediately imagined a storm being formed above him, so that all the electricity would come from that point alone rather than coming from every direction.

Dark clouds formed and a strong wind could be felt.

The sky kept being illuminated by flashes and the sound of thunder reverberated everywhere.

"Now use your mental power to control the lightning bolts and make them fall on the spots we prepared" added Allanon.

The spots he was speaking about were some places voids of grass or nature where you could only see the terrain.

They were placed in a regular way and covered the whole mind palace that Gilderoy built, and there was a distance of nearly one hundred meters between each one.

"Remember you are the one who decides the proprieties of the things you build in your mind. So, concentrate on the earth's ability to absorb lightning" reminded him Allanon and Gilderoy then started to redirect every lightning that came down on the patches without grasses and after an hour of intense activity the lightning bolts stopped coming and Gilderoy got out of his mind.

This whole time he kept feeling pain, after all even in his mind he was still connected to his body, but now he felt refreshed and his muscles weren't aching anymore.

"Congratulation you did it" said Lily with a smile.

"Did you ever doubt me?" asked Gildeory.

Lily in reality didn't even know what he had to do inside his mind during the process, after all Allanon method wasn't written on the writing he gave her, but even then, she still was worried because of the pain he went through.

"No, I didn't" she replied and stared at Gilderoy for some time.

"Do you want to wait for the foam to fade or are you going to let me change?" asked Gilderoy, since the liquid had turned more transparent after its properties got absorbed by Gilderoy and the only thing that covered him was the foam that was slowly fading.

"Yeah certainly" said an embarrassed Lily as she turned around and went toward the corner.

"Only I can turn girls in such a blushing mess" thought Gilderoy, as he walked outside of the tub.

(Sorry for the absence, i just got back from a trip with my friends and i couldn't bring my pc with me)