14 - Rest of the Summer

Phew, 'I've only been here for less than an hour, yet it feels like I've been here all day, I suppose I should get back to the orphanage now.'

Making my way to The Leaky Cauldron and entering back into Muggle London, I found a taxi and took the 45 minute ride back home.

Getting out and paying my fare, I walked the 5 minute walk back to the orphanage and found myself at its entrance.

Sigh, 'Good to be back'.

Walking in, I was spotted by the matron, who's eyebrows lifted when she saw me, "Leo? Is that you? So, how was it in your new school?" she said while walking up to me and giving me a hug.

I don't really understand why she's always so nice to me, she's warm to the all the kids in the orphanage but I swear i'm her favourite.

"It was good, Miss Laura"

Her smile didn't falter because i've always been like this, responding in short sentences and not speaking more than I have to.

'Well come in, dinner is almost ready."

"Ok."

I've always been quite thankful to be in this orphanage, I used to read all sorts of fan fiction before and I read about some really nightmarish orphanages where they're treated horribly, it seems I got very lucky in that regard.

..

After having dinner and going back to my room, I started sorting through some of the books that were in my mind, but I hadn't sorted yet, there will still quite a few.

They included old books, new books, rare and common. when I went to the ROR, I thought about a room with useful books, and it definitely delivered.

This was pretty much my whole summer, I had previously went to Diagon Alley and bought a huge trunk with 7 compartments the size of rooms on the inside, one of them being a library, I also spent a lot of my money buying lots of books on runes and arithmancy, I also decided to buy a few books on the dark arts.

I always wondered what was so bad about the dark arts, I mean, who are the people who determine they're dark in the first place? The ministry? The only problem I can find with them are many, but not all, are powered using negative emotions, so you must be careful to not be consumed by them.

I don't plan on using the dark arts in most situations because i'd rather not be branded as a dark wizard by the public, but its good to read about them considering the people who I plan on fighting against in the future will us these very spells.

This was pretty much my entire summer, apart from one new thing I decided to try which was martial arts. I don't plan on using something like karate against someone with a weapon of mass-destruction like a wand in their hands, but in close quarters proximity, I could snatch their wand out of their hand and have them on the floor before they react.

Training martial arts can also help with my reflexes and stamina.. and, also my legillimency. Now, I don't like reading peoples minds, just like how I hate the thought of someone reading my own mind, but I can't deny its usefulness when it counts.

The books I bought in Knockturn Alley consisted of some questionable rituals, dark spells, legillimency and things the ministry doesn't want the general public to know.

It turns out.. that i'm a natural in legillimency.. which I don't if I should feel proud about or not, but, while occlumency developed very very fast, i'd say my talent in legillimency is even better. It took me 3 tries to be able to read a muggles mind without causing them a headache or weird feeling.

Apparently it usually takes months or at least weeks to reach that stage.

Unfortunately, that is where my abilities stagnated because I had no trained minds with barriers to try it on.

The reason I started using legillimency in the first place, is to take all of the knowledge of multiple martial arts masters, and use it for myself, I still took lessons twice a week because my body needs to adjust and get the muscle memory of all of my martial arts knowledge, but i'd say my progress is coming along quite well.

..

By the end of summer, I had absorbed and understood all of the books I got from flourish and blotts that aren't needed for school along with all of the books I got in Knockturn Alley, having a system is pretty great, because not only did I buy the books on runes and arithmancy, but also on all of the languages I could find, this was Italian, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic.

That's right, I can speak 9 different languages fluently, you might ask what the 9th is? Well, I got that book in Knockturn Alley and I was very surprised when I found it, it was a book on gobbledegook which I find is a bit insulting considering gobbledygook means gibberish. To be honest, the book only contained the basic grammar and words, but I could still speak in most everyday conversations fairly well, I was hoping to find some more magical language books but, I couldn't find any, for now.

I won't lie, the whole summer at the orphanage was pretty boring, I constantly increased my control in magic by transfiguring random objects like my Hogwarts Equipment into detailed humanoid figures and having them all fight against each other using different attacks while floating in mid-air. I only managed to do this for more than 5 minutes without a wand in the last few weeks, it was very exhausting but definitely helped in my magic control and power.

This year, I intended to get a broom and a cat, more specifically, a kneazle.

I can always get an owl at another time, but I think having a magical cat that can detect untrustworthiness would be more helpful.

Finally, it was time to get my supplies for Hogwarts, most people would be getting their stuff within a few days but I'd rather not be surrounded by other people buying their school supplies, so I decided to leave right away with my supply list.

Using my usual procedure with using a taxi, I arrived at The Leaky Cauldron and did the pattern with my wand to enter the Alley, once the wall opened, I looked around and noticed there were a few families buying their supplies with their children but it was nowhere near packed which was good.

First, I decided, I'd be getting my books which I already knew 'The Standard Book of Spells Grade 2' by heart, I could name every word in the book easily.

I thought about what to get next, and decided i'll get my kneazle. Finding the only pet shop I knew in the Alley, I walked in to store and was immediately blasted with the smell of animal urine along with sounds of a ton of various animals.

Making my way through, I looked around, weirdly I heard a voice between them, making my way to where the voice was coming from, I found myself in front of a cage with a blue and silver bird, a little smaller than a normal parrot.

"Hello?"

The bird seemed to gasp, "You can speak the language of the birds?" a musical sounding voice said that supposedly sounded surprised, it was kinda hard to tell.

"I.. guess so? Does this make me.. an aerimouth?"

"But what about the owl that gave me my Hogwarts letter, or even when students got their mail?"

"Sir Speaker, magical owls don't like to speak in front of humans, they usually communicate with their body language."

"Oh.."

'The only reason I know of Aerimouths is because of one of the books I found in the ROR, they're supposedly even rarer than Parselmouths,'

'System, do you know if there are any aerimouths in the world?'

[I am unable to tell if someone is an Aerimouth or Parselmouth or any other magical animal speaker]

'I guess I should've expected that'

hmm..I don't see any huge uses for being able to speak to birds.. I suppose, speaking to Fawkes would be fun, but I doubt i'll really get summoned to the Headmasters office, after all, unlike Harry Potter, I don't think i'll be going there multiple times a year.

I wonder if I would be able to use aeritongue for spells? I mean, Parseltongue has it's own set of magic, why wouldn't birds? Parselmagic is common knowledge in the wizarding world, on the other hand, being able to speak to birds, even I didn't know you could do it until finding that obscure book in the ROR that looked incredibly old.

I came in here to get a kneazle but.. would getting a bird be better? I already planned on getting an owl at some point, but apparently they don't like to speak much to humans, even though they'd probably talk to an Aerimouth, I wonder if having a bird to talk to and ask questions would help me? I could easily have a spy who can give me information and inform me where other people are and what they're doing by telling it to me.. hmm..