4 The River Otter

3 Years have now passed and Oz is 8 years old. Its a cool summer night and he's on the brink of magical maturity, 3 years before the normal time.

Oz stared at the core within himself, the size had grown from the size of a marble to a tennis ball . The core itself which was filled with a blue gas was becoming denser and denser at each passing moment and Oz's face began to sweat as it was reaching the critical moment.

'If I can rely on cultivation in eastern novels this should be the part where it becomes a liquid instead of gas, allowing the magic to be purer and more dense'

All of a sudden a boom shook Oz's body and he was knocked out.

.

Oz wakes up due to the sun shining through his window, and instantly checks his core to see if he succeeded in his magical maturity.

'It seems all went well, thankfully'

The core within Oz stayed the same size, however this time it wasn't a light blue gas inside the core, it was a deep ocean blue looking liquid that represented his 3 years of hard work. With this he was finally ready to learn basic magic and if he spams that basic magic eventually he'll be able to learn even higher level spells.

'Now I've reached magical maturity, I'll see if I can improve my Occlumency defences'

In the past 3 years Oz has worked on many things besides just his magical core. Whenever he's had the chance he's constantly improved and taught himself how Occlumency works, surprisingly it actually came very naturally to him. All he needed to do was cloak his memories with magic and thicken the magic to form a barrier. The thicker the barrier the better. You can then augment the mind barrier with many traps/illusions to trick anyone trying to snoop on your thoughts and feelings. Legilimency has come harder however, Oz knows the process yet cant really practice on random orphans in the orphanage at the risk of damaging their brains, So he's refrained from such a practice for now.

A by-product of Occlumecy is that the already calm and cool Oz has becoming even calmer making the people of the orphanage almost afraid at how he acts in certain areas, nothing seems to phase him at all as long as its not a true threat to him.

As for the exercise side of things, Oz has been jogging and doing a simple exercise circuit at least once a day for the past 3 years, yielding him a lean physique. For training his reflexes he'd ask the kids in the orphanage to try and catch him. Since they were all interested in the boy who usually stayed in his room constantly they'd agree instantly whenever Oz wanted to play the game "Catch Oz" and chase him around the orphanage in full force. Oz learnt pretty quickly to never underestimate 20 or so kids trying to tackle you down and this almost torturous routine worked very well for his reflexes, as compared to when he'd get caught very quickly he now cant even be touched by any of the kids when playing "Catch Oz".

Finally the money side of things, Whenever the Orphanage has gone out on a trip Oz has sneakily pickpocketed people he's passed by, mainly aiming for people who he deems annoying or assholes to keep his moral compass somewhat neutral. At first he was terrible at it, nearly getting caught several times. Him being a kid allowed the situation to be played off as an accident. Eventually though just like many things he got better, improving his skill until eventually he was able to pickpocket up to 900 pound. If he was a master pickpocket that sum would probably be in the thousands but he was happy with what he had managed to achieve over the years.

Everything was going perfect, albeit somewhat slow for Oz's taste, until one day in the late summer of 1987.

.

The Orphanage had a trip planned to go to the River Otter, a river near the southwest town 'Ottery St Mary'. Oz didn't think much of the trip until the night before when he remembered something.

'Hold on a second.... River Otter? thats where the Weasleys live! along with the Lovegoods, the Diggorys and the Fawcetts! If I play this right, could I 'Accidently' stumble into one of their wards and explain my situation as a young orphan wizard? it may be a bit scummy but they may hand me books about the magical community or even better books about magic in general. That'd help me advance leaps and bounds in the remaining 3 years I have till I join Hogwarts'

A devious plan started to form within Oz's mind. He already decided long before that the original timeline of the story he'd try not to get too involved in. Maybe offering some aid here and there as help from the shadows. This opportunity seemed to prime to pass up though, he could gain connections with some of the families and even maybe get something out of it. Best case scenario a family could adopt him and he'd have access to magical supplies whenever for 3 years!

'The only problem with trying to be adopted by those families is they older parents may realise ive already gone through magical maturity eventually. That could spell trouble. I need to keep as lowkey as possible until Hogwarts when I gather protection. The plan to create connections though is set in stone'

Oz fell asleep that night, looking forward to the day to come hoping he could actually get lucky enough to find one of the magical families wards and get through to their houses.

.

The day then progressed as planned. The Orphanage all got onto a coach and travelled towards Ottery St Mary. After arriving they then travelled towards the River Otter where the Orphanage set up camp and allowed the children to start playing.

Oz disconnected himself from the group he was with and slowly made his way out of sight of the adults from the orphanage walking up the river hoping to find wards.

'Now I'm here I'm really just going for broke. Maybe if I pour magical energy into my eyes ill be able to recognise wards easier?'

Proceeding thus, Oz poured magic into his eyes which surprisingly did improve his sight immensely, he felt extreme strain on his eyes though as if they were about to burst. Such pain showed his magic control was still incredibly sloppy. Luckily in the few seconds he was able to keep the magic poured into his eyes, he spotted a blur in the distance. Oz surmised that the blur must be a ward, and the hill it was on look extremely familiar to the hill the Lovegood's lived on.

'Xenophilius Lovegood, a quirky character and Luna Lovegood, a quirky daughter. There shouldn't be much hostility if I 'wonder' into their ward and they may been more than keen to give me some books to read about magic'

Commence mission 'Loot the Lovegoods'