Everybody Loves a Good Training Montage

My eyes slowly creaked open, cringing at the sudden influx of light. I was confused for only a moment before the memories came back to me.

'Wow, I'm actually in another world, huh?'

Looking around my room, I discovered it wasn't exactly what you'd call luxury. The bedframe I was sitting on was squeaky and looked like it was about to fall apart. The ash grey wallpaper was peeling in areas and the windows were cracked. It was a small room, barely big enough to house even a child. Besides the bed, there was only a worn down desk and dresser which looked like they'd fall apart at any moment. Overall, it's not a very good start.

There was a mirror in the corner, and what I saw shocked me to no ends. What looked back at me from the mirror was… me. Not a new me but the old me. From before I died. Of course not adult me but a younger me from when I was a kid. It was all the same, the messy black hair, blue eyes, the whole package. I guess god did me a little favor with that one. Well, whatever, this isn't even the craziest thing that's happened.

Anyways, back to the issues on hand. Money shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure there's a way for muggle-borns to pay for Hogwarts tuition. Some sort of loan or something. I mean, Tom Riddle got in and he had no money whatsoever. Either way, I'll have to start with gathering information. It should be about 1985 right now, and I should be in England. That's easy enough to check, so I'll save it for later. The most important thing to figure out is, of course, magic.

I sat back down onto my bed, legs crossed in a meditative pose. I turned my focus inside myself, looking for anything different from my old body. Well, besides being half my original height.

I must've sat there for hours, just meditating. A tiny part of me said it wouldn't work, said I dreamed it all. But after hours of looking within myself, I found it. A small spark at the core of my being. Fragile and frail looking, I barely noticed it, yet it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I tried to grasp it, to feel the power coursing through me! To-

"Jason, get out here right this instant! It's breakfast!"

I was so startled by the sudden noise that I fell over, hitting my face flat on the ground. My monologue was ruined. That must've been the matron of the orphanage I was in. Quite shrill, that one. Rubbing my nose, I sat up off of the ground, wincing at my sore muscles.

"Coming!" I called out. I guess I'll pick up where I left off later. I was so close, too. Now that I know how to get there though, it should be easier. Putting those thoughts behind me, I got up, grabbed some clothes from the dresser and changed.

Breakfast was a weird experience for me. I was still getting used to the fact that I'd just reincarnated, and my body felt weird as well. It was fine if I didn't think about it much, muscle memory and all that, but when I started thinking about what I was doing it got weird. I pretty much just shrunk by a whole meter. Not fun. After breakfast, I cleaned the dishes like the matron asked and headed back upstairs.

Back in my room, I closed my eyes and got into my meditative pose again. It took less concentration and effort this time, but was still ludicrously difficult. Even with my magical power boost wish, I still had this much trouble.

'It's no wonder kids only learn to harness magic at eleven, this is insane!'

Eventually, though, I had it. That spark. It gave off a warmth that was indescribable. Just focusing on it was enough to Invigorate me and convince me this was all real. I tried grasping it, but it was like trying to grab water with open hands. Every time I pulled on it with my mind, I got a little reaction before it went back to inactivity. Resigning myself to hours, if not days of failure, I tried again. Thus began my daily routine.

Every morning I would wake up, practice controlling my Spark, eat breakfast, do chores, practice some more, eat lunch, practice more, eat dinner, do chores, and finally, practice more until I fell asleep. My days were consumed by magic. I hadn't even started attempting to project my will onto the world, yet I was already in love. The Spark was me and I was the Spark. I didn't own it, I was it. And in turn, it was me. I practiced like this for weeks on end until I had an adequate grasp on my Spark. It took less control and more convincing. I had to convince not only the Spark, but myself that it would work without a doubt.

By the third month here, I was able to successfully draw out power, put it back into my Spark, and flood my body with it. Flooding my body was a weird experience, to say the least. When I first did it, I passed out for a day and a half from magical exhaustion, and boy was that a hard thing to explain to the matron and other children. In the little time between seeing results and passing out though, I observed its ability to invigorate me and extinguish any traces of exhaustion. It didn't heal me or strengthen me or even put on a lightshow, but what it did do was completely invaluable to me. If I used it smartly, I was able to push back sleep for up to three days with no repercussions. After the three day mark, my heart started aching and my head pounded, making me realize that as my limit. All I needed after that was a single night of sleep to reset the three day counter.

By the six month mark, I was adept at manipulating the energy inside of me to such a degree that I felt comfortable attempting to do real magic. Ever so slowly, I coaxed my magic out from my Spark, down my arm and into my open palm where a feather rested. I slowly pushed the energy out of my hand and onto the feather, willing it to float. I pushed all I had into that single spell, emptying my reserves. I tried harder on this than anything since escaping the Void. I wanted this, no, I needed this to work. I needed proof my labor was not for nothing.

Slowly, almost so slow I couldn't see it, the feather floated away from my hand. Up it went, five centimeters, ten centimeters, fifty centimeters into the air. Feeling my reserves were about to bottom out, I cut off the spell.

I must've stood there for at least ten minutes, just reveling in the fact of what I had just done.

I, Jason, age five, had just done Magic.

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From that point on I trained harder than ever. I trained at least fifteen hours a day, every day. My lack of a need for sleep helped push me along exponentially. I still spent at least five hours a day meditating, but the rest was done practicing. Every time I practiced a spell it got easier. What took me thirty minutes before now took me five. I had to meditate after every couple spells as I just didn't have the reserves to continue, but it only took about half an hour to fully refill. Apparently by focusing your whole being into regenerating magic, you could recover at least three times quicker. That was nearly as useful as the Enhancement technique I made to chase away sleep, speeding my learning curve up exponentially.

By year one, I was able to levitate a feather for nearly an hour. I could light small objects on fire and have started training to levitate marbles. As they were heavier, they were far harder to move around, taking double the effort feathers now took. No matter how hard I trained though, I never burned out. Magic was just too much fun. Every time I tried a spell, successful or not, my entire being shook from happiness. I didn't think I would ever get over this. My training was slowed considerably by the caretakers homeschooling the rest of the kids and I. Even if I knew the entire curriculum, it took time to answer schoolwork and attend classes. Again, the Enhancement technique was a lifeline here, allowing me to practice a full ten hours a day at least.

By year two, I was able to spin three marbles around my right hand at once, while simultaneously conjuring fire in my left. My birthday passed with little fanfare. The rest of the kids sang to me and we had cake. None of them cared much for the party itself as I was such a recluse. By now I could levitate a single feather indefinitely, as my passive recovery of energy matched the output of such a low power spell. A problem did arise though. I seemed to be slowing down. Hopefully I could fix it.

By year three, I moved onto medium sized objects like shoes and books. I seem to be hitting a bottleneck with my wandless magic. It was incredibly difficult to levitate even one of these objects. Halfway to year two in this world I confirmed it. There wasn't much more I could do with wandless magic, at least power wise. Levitating didn't require much finesse, so that's where I put my focus.

It has now been four years since I was reincarnated into this world. Today was my ninth birthday, which I spent alone. By now I've pushed the kids and caretakers away. I only come down for meals. I am getting quite lonely, but it's too late to fix anything. I'll have to wait until I go to Hogwarts to make friends, it seems. By focusing on the finesse side of magic I managed to indefinitely levitate multiple marbles at once. It seems finesse was the answer to my bottleneck as opposed to sheer power. While my power has grown over the years, no doubt because of me getting closer to my magical majority, finesse was what broke me through. It seems I was wasting far more magic than I thought in each spell. Now, however, I am able to use half the power for each spell.

I've tried to experiment with other spells, such as hexes and jinxes, transfiguration, and enchantments, but it looks like I'll need a wand for that. I can only practice and refine my technique, waiting for that day to come.

By year five I hit another bottleneck. I was only able to levitate two books and a couple marbles at once. I was able to conjure fireballs and shards of ice like wizards out of stories, along with lightning. While they were pretty cool, they were incredibly weak. The fire had the same results as lighting a piece of paper on fire. While it looked big and scary, it was pretty weak. Nothing more than a party trick. The ice wasn't able to get launched at all without implementing a wave of pure magic as a form of propulsion. This was wildly inefficient though, so I would pretty much never use it outside of an absolutely desperate situation. The lightning had such a weak shock I won't even mention it.

I wasn't able to get much further than that though, slowing my progress down to a crawl. What used to take a couple days of practice now took months. I've recently turned to the information side of things, stuff like dates, possible locations of horcruxes and how secure the wizarding world is from the muggle one.

Apparently, like god said all those years ago, this world is run more on logic than whatever Rowling was smoking. I can't find a trace of it anywhere besides the odd owl or weird looking man. I can't even definitively prove if these were related to wizards either. If it weren't for my own magic I could have thought this as my normal world. It was truly impressive.

I passed the final year in this accursed orphanage with little fanfare, simply polishing my skills to perfection. In the blink of an eye, my 11th birthday came, and with it a strange looking lady in a robe.