6 Power is nothing without control

After Oz's stint at the River Otter, the orphanage put strict punishments on him due to his sudden disappearance. When the group returned to the Orphanage in Cornwall these punishments were put in place.

'Less food and more time in my room, guess I'll have plenty of time to read then'.

Oz caresses the leather pouch on his waist after finishing that thought, his greatest boon he acquired from the Lovegood's on his trip to the River Otter.

'There's no time like the present, I'll spend a few weeks reading all the material in these books that I've been so graciously given, hopefully my 'Perfect Memory' can hold up'.

And so began Oz's bookworm journey into the unknown.

.

Several weeks pass and Oz is finishing reading a year 7 book of spells, committing each word that lines the pages to memory. As the sun slowly sets in his windows, he turns over the last page to see he's finally reached the end of his reading adventure he'd planned out weeks ago.

'I'm so glad I picked 'Perfect Memory' as a special ability, there's no way I would have remembered even 1/50th of the content I've read in the past few weeks from all these books without it'.

Oz then slowly put the book he had finished into his leather pouch.

'A lot was learned in these past few weeks, the main new roadblock is control. I've been so dead set on growing my magical core and with it, my power however I neglected to think about how to control my own magic more finely'.

Between studying sessions in the past weeks, Oz would frequently try out spells in the books he had read and each spell yielded interesting results. Oz found he could only do most of the spells from year 1 and some from year 2 wandlessly. The main roadblock disabling him from doing more spells from higher years was his control of his own magic. The magic Oz conjured up to this point (The simple sparkle spell to exhaust and expand his core) had always been done as a quick full burst of all his magic, using up his core's supply as quickly as possible in order to allow the core to grow, he never actually thought to fine tune this spell to last longer or use less magic as it, to him at least, was only a spell to improve his magic reserves quickly.

Oz managed to pick up magical control with basic spells rather quickly though, mainly due to his practices with Occlumency. Directing magic around his body was something he did to enhance his vision, of course he nearly damaged his eyes in doing so but he was able to do it. Controlling the output and learning control in general would allow that technique to be realised.

Controlling the amount of magic also didn't take Oz as long as he was predicting, actually, it all came eerily natural to him as he practiced throughout the weeks during breaks from studying the Hogwarts/Wizarding World material handed to him by the Lovegood's.

.

On a cool winters evening, a year and a bit later, Oz had only a few months until he was 11 years old. It felt like his journey to make something of himself was drawing nearer and nearer and even under his usually calm countenance you could sense a slight excitement at the prospect of the future.

Currently on this evening, Oz was in the washroom at the Orphanage, having just hopped out the shower Oz spotted the closest mirror and took a long look at himself.

'I've been so enamoured with magic and training, I completely neglected to look at myself properly in the past years... I'm still pretty average looking but my physique has been coming along nicely'.

Oz now stood around 4"9, a bit taller than other boys his age. His hair was pitch black and his eyes a bright blue, Oz could almost swear that he could see his own magic sparkle within his eyes during the moments he looked at the mirror, but maybe he was just seeing things. His physique had also become nice and lean after all the exercising he would do when possible.

'It's been 5 years now since I've arrived here and so much has happened'.

Oz felt weirdly nostalgic for a moment, looking back at the past 5 years. He started off as a boy who knew nothing of how magic worked, only knowing the important people and places that this world had to offer.

Now Oz had grown, his core within him was about slowly approaching a tennis ball size again (this time with blue liquid being housed rather than the weak blue gas that was present before his first maturation), indicating to him that he might soon be approaching his next core breakthrough. His knowledge of magic and spells had expanded to a point where he could control most spells up to year 3 now wandlessly. His Occlumency defences had also improved greatly due to his strides in learning how to control magic more efficiently and finally, his physique and reflexes that he'd been training had reached a point where he'd be able to react well enough in a duel.

'Basically all the tasks I set out for myself Pre-Hogwarts are virtually done. My magical core probably wont advance anytime soon, however, it will be advancing... I can sense it. From what I've read as well from the books I received from the Lovegood's; it takes a special wizard to go through magical maturity 2 times, in terms of sheer magical power, I imagine ill be on the same level as Snape or Mcgonagall'.

Oz finally put some clothes on and walked out of the Orphanage to a bench in the park nearby. He sat down looking up at the sky, going over what he would need to do in Hogwarts in his head when he'd arrive.

'This same bench scene happened before my death, I guess its rather poetic that in this world it will instead spell the opposite, the start of a new life'.

As Oz finished this thought, he looked down from the sky and locked eyes with a women who had approached him.

'Professor Mcgonagall...'.