11 11 - Improving Duelling and Spell Knowledge

It's now Thursday and after another normal day of classes and talking with Kevin, Ryan and Penelope along with a few idle conversations with Myra during Herbology and Transfiguration, I was once again making way to the ROR. With the same technique as always I thought about the room I was in previously and decided to employ some of the new duelling techniques I learned yesterday.

Going to the duelling area and activating Mode 2, I started dodging the spells while wandlessly and silently casting a 'Reducto', turning one of the puppets to ash, with this I was shot at by 3 spells and while I was able to dodge the first 2, the second one grazed me causing me to pause, giving the puppets enough time to hit me another 2 times, making me fail.

The reason I failed was because I was so used to using a wand that I didn't realise wandless casting is at least 30% slower than using a wand. No wonder Dumbledore and Voldemort are so revered, if I first learned magic with a wand, I would've found really difficult to use wandless magic effectively, but I know choosing the difficult route of wandless will help me in the long run.

I adjusted fairly well to once again using wandless spells and after numerous attempts over half an hour of duelling, I was able to win most times against the Mediocre difficulty, however I don't think I'll be improving this fast the whole way through, it'll get progressively more difficult the farther I go on, but i'm prepared to make the effort. Spending another half an hour skimming through all of the new books aligned in the bookshelf, I made my way back to the Ravenclaw common room once again, going to my room and reviewing and understanding some more of the books I skimmed through earlier, which included obscure but useful spells, useful everyday charms like the Mouth Cleaning Charm, more duelling techniques along with a few spells specifically useful in duelling like the Scrambling Hex which causes the body and mind to become scrambled so that your enemy can't coordinate his limbs properly. For example what would normally be like moving his left leg might instead move his right arm.

This was mostly what I did for my first year at Hogwarts, I have over a hundred ideas for pranks on Snape along with a few pranks that include the whole of Hogwarts but i'm waiting for the Weasley twins to get here next year before I do anything big, just to avoid some suspicion, and to see if the Twins have any ideas of their own to make the pranks better.

My Duelling strength and spell knowledge reached NEWT level in all subjects.. well a few such as Divination and Care of Magical Creatures don't really count without the ability of a Seer or hands-on experience with animals, and I'm honestly not sure how good I am at Herbology considering we haven't done anything practical yet but the core subjects such as Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic, DADA, Magic Theory and Astronomy are all at least NEWT level, although I've also reached the level of NEWT on Healing, Occlumency.. well Occlumency I could get a Masters no sweat if it was an actual NEWT subject you could choose but considering it's not taught in Hogwarts it's not really important for the moment, I've also reached NEWT level on Rituals, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.. well actually, my ability with Ancient Runes and Arithmancy is already above NEWT level considering they don't require power but just really good memory and thinking which is my strongest asset at the moment. I've also become adept at Apparition and know how to make a port key, well.. I am fairly certain I can make a portkey, I've never actually tried it yet but I am confident I can do it, I have all the knowledge in my head. Now you might be thinking, 'you can't apparate in Hogwarts due to the wards' well all I had to was think of a room that I can apparate in and the ROR delivered, just like that.

As for duelling, while I probably wouldn't win against many of the teachers, my progress is coming along nicely and I think I could probably beat most students in Hogwarts in a duel. I've also thought a bit on why muggle technology doesn't work in highly magical locations like Hogwarts and my theory is that magic is an energy, an incredibly powerful and half-sentient energy, but still an energy nonetheless and so when muggle technology, which uses other types of energies comes into contact with magic, the magic disrupts the devices power source of way of working. For example a Radio uses Radio waves but those waves wouldn't be able to travel properly when disturbed by magic. Honestly, magic is so versatile that I think if someone tried hard enough they'd be able to make muggle technology that is powered by magic but most of the magical community think themselves above using muggle inventions while the muggle-born either don't know the reason technology doesn't work and the people who do don't have the funds to make muggle technology a popular thing in the magical world considering the economy is run by the pure bloods who wouldn't be caught dead using something 'muggle'. Give me a few years and I'll probably have made a few pieces like cell phones and headphones usable in magical places like Hogwarts. They could be very useful for communicating with my friends to see where they are or maybe with the Weasley Twins to make sure a prank works.

If you haven't noticed I have a rather ambitious plan of helping the twins become legendary pranksters while being the genius behind the scenes, as for the reason? It'd make Hogwarts more fun, what other reason do I need? Everyone loves a good laugh, including me. I've also thought about creating potions, spells and charms then selling them to the public.. hmm if I sold magically oriented muggle technology anonymously, considering how useful they are and with most of the wizarding society, while not willing to use something muggle, probably won't recognise it as muggle in the first place, I think I could make a rather large sum. Granted, my family is incredibly rich and the Merrygolds aren't poor either so I don't really need to make money but using money that you made through your own hard work feels better than just using the money your ancestors have made and accumulated over the years.

Hogwarts has an incredibly high amount of magic in the atmosphere and it's allowed my core to increase in size far faster than at the orphanage, I also have access to a wealth of incredibly useful information at Hogwarts not to mention being able to work on my duelling everyday, so I have decided to stay for as long as I can including Christmas, though I still have to go home during summer of course.

Every one of my friends, Kevin, Ryan, Penelope and Myra decided to return home for Christmas so I'll pretty much be in the ROR for most of the day giving me a ton of time to read Hogwarts books and work on my duelling skills. Me and Myra haven't really talked much during our year so I don't even know if we can be considered friends but there's usually a comfortable silence between where we don't need to say anything but can just enjoy each others company.

As for my main 3 friends, Kevin doesn't really talk much but he's still alright to be around, he's a muggle-born and is generally very perceptive. Ryan is lazy and care-free but overall he's very talented with most areas of magic in general and Penelope is sort of like Hermione in a way only, she's more shy than bossy.

Overall, I've had quite a bit of fun in Hogwarts but I'm just getting started, next year is gonna be fun, if in canon the Weasley twins were infamous, then i'll be the one to make them legendary. I also have to get my wand checked up with Ollivander, he told me to go to him at least once a year so he can check up on the progress of me and the wand.