Ch. 17 Career choices?

15th December,1989. Another year has almost passed. I have spent most of my time throwing myself at the books. Christmas is around the corner. I still have the same small circle of friends. 3 to be exact, others can be said to be acquaintances at best. I haven't even thought about what I was going to gift them. I started wondering how I had become this way. I was never so anti-social or had problems blending in with people. I was sitting near the lake. It was cold but I enjoyed it. The cold air hitting my face maybe would be a wake-up call. Did I really want to keep progressing in magic without thinking about anything else? What would I even gain from that? I was not the chosen one or the one who lived just having ability to take on the goons of voldy would be suffice for me to make it out alive.

What did I want? I liked meeting new magical animals and plants but taking care of them would be so much work, unless they were in trouble. I wouldn't go around collecting them just help them out if in need. That is something that I'm not interested in, it might just be more of a hobby then a career choice. Right now, as well, I was trying to spot interesting creatures near the lake. I have read there are many interesting and dangerous creatures inside the lake. I'm not ready for that but trying to spot them from the shore is an ideal way to pass time. I did want to have a different world inside a suitcase that would definitely be something I will try and do. I was interested in duelling, the thrill of it, Outsmarting the opponents, of course getting hurt was downside but that was a risk present in everything.

I enjoyed travelling. Exploring new places discovering the unknown. I would need decent amount of money for it but shouldn't be a problem. Even in the last life despite the technology advancing so far, Humans hadn't managed to explore the whole of earth. With magic that would be so much harder so many new beautiful things to see and explore. I could also be able to see and meet new creatures and plants through that. In this life I had spent almost all my life in the orphanage. Entering this school looking at the huge forest. Sitting here at the lake seemed so calm but there was undoubtedly so much going on beneath its surface. I realized how much I liked this. How much I wanted to see new places, meet different types of people, learn their culture. After exploring enough of this world maybe I'll look beyond it.

Lying in the cold grass thinking about my lofty goals when I couldn't even master the Protego charm. Chuckling to myself I heard a shout. "what are you doing here? I have been looking for you all over the castle. Do you want to get sick? It's so bloody cold out here." Said Lavender. "The lake looks so beautiful. Just feeding the huge squid." I say. She couldn't even tell whether I was joking. We had grown quite close after 4 months. She is undoubtedly the one I have spent the most time with. I help her out with lessons, she is above average. Free of worry, enjoying her life. I can tell that she cares for me. Why would someone do that. I had nothing to offer, just an orphan with nothing to benefit from, to care for someone without requiring anything from them in return is very hard, at least it was for me and even if I don't show much, I'll make sure to treasure that. She has been added to my very short list of people who I care about. Which prior to this had only one entry. ME. *cough cough* Alice and Roger also were people who I'll try and protect. Friends are hard to come by after all.

Me and Lavender made our way towards to common hall for dinner. I do every now and then eat with everyone, they got pretty used to it after the first month. Our classes were progressing nicely. With unimitated books available to me on any subject I wanted. My progress was also going on nicely. I just wish they had some sort of media device in the wizarding world. Now I realized why the crazy and the harm causing sport was so popular because there was nothing else to bloody do. Personally I did enjoy it, they just had to remove the seeker and add in time limit to the sport. Most of my weekends were spent exploring the castle. They didn't let the first years fly unsupervised. I realized how that could go wrong but I enjoyed flying not enough to join the deadly sport but enough to look forwards to flying class every week.

Transfiguration was going stunning slow during the classes. I was basically done with the foundation of magics and occlumency theory part as well as almost all theoretical part of the first-year syllabus with almost 6 months left. I was quite proud of that. I had settled into the magical world completely now without even realizing for everything miniscule I would use magic just like fetching my clothes or checking time. Now I realized even if the prospects of the mundane world might be so much more why no wizard or witch would leave this world behind for that.

I had been looking into the international wizarding world as well. The two main events that would occur in the international wizard scene were the quidditch world cup and the international duelling event. In the international duelling event apparently, the country had barely produced any participants let alone champions in the past decade. The ministry was opposed to duelling and didn't promote or actively encourage people to participate in such events. Fools, the lot of them. There were 3 categories under 13, 17 and open. The International duel tournament would be held every two years. The next one was in 1991 two years from now. I would be perfectly eligible for the under 13 category. I had started looking into the rules and such things for the tourney.

The ministry was totally rotten to the core. I would probably soon move out of here if possible and I felt like a large part of it was the fault of the light lord himself. I don't even know what people were thinking, providing so much power in the hands of a single person. He maybe good or evil but that was irrelevant having power situated in one place would mean the whole system would collapse without him and also the fact that no one could keep him in check. I understand that it was a power-driven world but there had to be a limit. Forget it, it's not one of my many problems. All these things aside I was looking forward to my first magical Christmas.