Magik 101

Minerva was kind enough to drop me home with my school supplies, I thanked her and invited her in for a cuppa but she declined, so saying my goodbyes I entered my home excited about my new toys. The scholarship sadly didn't cover a pet, I could have spent my own money and bought an owl or something but I thought that it would be a waste at this point, the only person that I would write to would be my mother and I could use a Hogwarts barn owl for that purpose. I decided to buy one after my first year depending on who I make friends with, previously I thought I would keep away from the golden trio, but now I didn't know what to do, I mean I knew a general idea about their personality which I couldn't say about Daphne, Seamus or others for example so if I were to have friends they would be optimal coz they are the main protagonists and they are loyal to an extent. I could just wiggle my way among them easily if I exploited their weaknesses, Harry had low self-esteem and no friends, Hermione didn't know how to make friends as she came across as bossy and know it all and Ron was well Ron, a few compliments and a bar of candy would do the trick. Thinking about it for some time I decided not to, if circumstances allowed me to be their friend then I would go for it, I wouldn't actively try to use their insecurities, that would be low even for me.

After I freshened up a bit I went to my room, opened the bundle of books and laid them out on my bed, the books alone would have cost me 15 galleons if bought first hand, I selected second-hand books that were in reasonable condition, we don't want the ones used by Ravenclaws now do we, yes there might be some useful titbits scribbled along the margins but I wanted to draw my own conclusions but that doesn't apply to Snivellus's Advanced potions making book, which I am totally going to steal, learn it by heart and place it back for Harry to find it in his 6th year, no sweat. Now I needed to be smart about this, I decided to form a timetable that would allow me optimal usage of the following 3 months to learn as much as possible from these books. During these three months the magic usage from my house will not elicit a ministry response, this I did know for sure by deducing from various sources as I know for a fact that Hermione practised magic before the sorting, I never encountered ministry obliviators when I attacked the paedophiles and Minerva didn't explicitly warn us not to use magic. I think that this is their way of giving the muggle-born a slight advantage which I guess most don't use.

Separating them by priority would do the trick I guess,

**top priorities in descending order(Allocating most of my time)

1.A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration (cause ebony wands are perfect for transfiguration, and that was what Dumbles was famous for, even though I didn't trust that guy I had to accept the fact that he was currently the top dog and so he is like my idol)

2.The standard book of spells, g1 (charms like locking and unlocking were pretty nifty and could save my ass someday)

3.Magical Drafts and Potions and One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi(I had to read them simultaneously to learn the intricate ways in which the ingredients interacted, the Herbology book didn't cover animal ingredients so it was clear that I would have to try my luck at Hogwarts library coz there is no way I could afford shit load of books with my meagre savings...for now)

4. The Magical theory, as it says was full of theory and I think reading it before bedtime would be good, might help me sleep better.....just kidding.

The history of magic can be read during Binn's class as I would have nothing better to do, Fantastic beasts was interesting but mostly informative so I can read it at Hogwarts. As for The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection I planned on reading about the curses, jinxes and hexes only, which were not many and could be counted in one hand, that book was just the basic with the only one worthwhile spell 'knock back jinx'. The part about the dark creatures could be read at Hogwarts I guess.

As I sorted out the time for each subject I made sure to allocate some time to practice my wandless magic and meditation too.

The reason for that was obvious, as soon as I bonded with my wand, wandless magic was starting to get difficult, it was just like electricity, always choosing the least resistant path. My wandless abilities were the most powerful of my arsenals till now and I didn't want to lose them any time soon so I was forced to allocate some time. It was not much of a chore as I liked setting things on fire (just kidding.....or am i)

As far as the meditation front, I hit a roadblock, I got the first part down, clearing my mind which came easy as breathing to me but the second part, building a shield around my memories...that was problematic as didn't know how, I tried imagining a wall but I was not sure if it was the right way. After a lot of thinking, I realized that in order to build strong occlumency walls I would definitely need a partner who would assault my occulumency shields to check for cracks but the problem was I couldn't think of anyone that I would be comfortable sharing my memories, so I would have to come up with a plan. Will a house elf work, I could always obliviate it afterwards, I don't know.... maybe, a problem for a different time I guess.

At dinner, when Mom arrived I excitedly talked about all the things that I saw, my wand, the books and some titbits about my fellow students, she just smiled kindly and listened. My mother too had some news for me it would seem, she sat me down after dinner and told me that she would be attending AA meeting from now on as she had quit drinking. It was wonderful news indeed and I hugged her and told her I was very proud of her and offered to help her any way possible.

True to her words she stayed sober for the whole 3 months and I could practice on my subjects peacefully.

August 31, 1991- 10 P.M

Most days I would have been asleep by this time, but I was too excited today coz tomorrow I am going to Hogwarts. Sleep eluded me, I had checked if I had packed all my essentials thrice and was running out of things to do, so I decided to think about my progress these 3 months.

The most progress I made was surprising not in magic but my relationship with my mother, god she was just like..... a totally different person these days, I kinda wished that I had known her before you know, well....me.

We would bond over breakfast and dinner, she would tell me about her day and I would tell her about what I had learned and I would even do a few transfiguration tricks, not the turning the table to pig kind but the much easier match stick to needle kind(transfiguration was tough). She too was very happy taking an active interest in my life, truth be told these were the best days of my second life. The stories about her childhood with her parents and siblings were very interesting and funny. I think I found my happy memory for my patronus, it was her smile.

I couldn't help but analyse this new found affections, you know in my previous life I was the middle child, while it might sound selfish I always felt that my parents loved my sibling more than me,so having all my mothers love now felt like I just won the lottery, was it due to my magic that these feeling began to become precious, does magic influence familial emotions, I couldn't fathom this mystery, no wonder love was studied by the unspeakables down at the dept of mysteries. Just wow.

Well with love comes hatred they say and truthfully my hatred for my mother's family to grew, they had just discarded her and hurt her with words and I know for a fact that words cut deeper than swords. I should probably pay them a visit you know when I turn 17, to get to know em, do a little torture, fun stuff like that.

On the magic front, I would say my progress is not too shabby, I could do the charms in the grade 1 spell book, I learnt the wand lightening charm(Lumos and Nox charms), the knockback was kind of like a water downed Expelliarmus if it hit you in the torso. I had a working knowledge on the properties of ingredients and memorized the steps for brewing various potions, I didn't try to brew any out of fear and I didn't want to unnecessarily waste my potion ingredients.

The magical theory was the hardest and still need more knowledge so I decided to wait until I reach Hogwarts because unlike charms and transfiguration where you just had to know the wand movement and pronounce the words correctly with the correct intent and imagination, the theory laid the foundation for spell crafting. This subject would be expanded during my third year as the arithmancy elective deriving many laws from this text. Since it was beyond my capability now, I might have to spend more time, I imagine this was how Snape crafted the Sectumsempra, mufflito and other spells I guess. I got to hand it to the old bat, crafting seems to be really tough and he has just earned some of my respect.

I was proud of my efforts regarding wandless magic, the effort I put into it was well rewarded, the three charms that I could do have become much easier than before and requires less magic now. One more step towards world domination mwahahahaha... Nah just kidding.

With these thoughts, I finally drifted into sleep.

{Author's note:

The reason for Mc's accelerated learning is due to his adult mindset, he could focus on things much easier, so he is not a prodigy.

I will try to change my storytelling to include many dialogue types, I just need to introduce mc to the other characters.}