Chapter 03

Seeing the sky after such a long time was an exhilarating experience. It was not the sky blue I was expecting but was a dull grey colour.

It was the sixties now and the effects of pollution were showing. People didn't take it as seriously yet and while pollution was still a problem in the future, people were at least trying to reduce it.

Here though, they just made haphazard attempts and called it a day.

I took a good look at my house and saw its dilapidated condition. It was your usual run of mill one storey house made of bricks. It had several cracks running through the walls and had a chimney on top of the roof.

I walked through the town as I went through the memories of it. It was becoming easier to sort through the more I used it and my thoughts were also clearer.

The town I lived in was called Cokeworth and it was somewhere in the middle of England. I wasn't too sure about this as I was not good at geography and Severus had dropped out of school.

As I walk through I observe the houses on the street. They were all similar to mine with each being brick, terraced houses with chimneys and in a state of disrepair, some even worse than mine.

It was a surreal experience walking through the town in a different era. It felt weirdly refreshing. There was no internet yet, phones were not available, cars were moving pollution factories and had none of the safety features and the world seemed bigger.

I read and memorised the signs at the end of the streets as it seemed one could easily get lost here with all houses looking similar. I learnt the name of my street and it was called Spinner's End.

I tried recalling if this street was mentioned in the books. I knew that Lily lived in the same town but I couldn't recall where.

Putting it off, I observed the people. Not many were out during this time of the day and the town was not too populous either. The few that were out didn't look like they wanted to be out.

Nearly every person I laid my eyes on had a resigned look on their face. I suppose it made some sense as the world was approaching the end of the sixties.

The seventies were not a pleasant time to live in. Britain had enjoyed an economic boom like many other countries in the sixties. It had just about recovered from the war and things were looking good.

But the seventies changed that. I didn't have any memory of things that happened during this decade but Severus used to be a paperboy and I could draw some memories from the papers he glanced at.

The manufacturing had increased, unemployment was everywhere and Tobias himself was a victim of it or not….he would have been fired regardless.

If unemployment was not a bad sign already, then another issue was the inflation of prices. So this meant that people were poor with no way to earn money and things were getting pricier.

Naturally, the people weren't happy with their status quo. They were angry and hungry to the courtesy of being poor so they succumbed to their base desires and showed violence.

Riots were common and any person with a loud voice and a bit of charisma could start one. Kindness was an expensive commodity and the economy kept plummeting.

Speaking of riots, the most recent ones to start one were the garbage collectors. The ones from Cokeworth had joined in too so the streets were littered and the already bleak, gloomy town looked worse.

There were some interesting developments as well like feminism. Women didn't want to stay confined and started protesting. Feminism was now fighting for equal rights and was quite tame compared to the one I knew.

I dreaded the day it would change to the feminism I was accustomed to….

I tried racking my brain for more facts and tidbits about the seventies but couldn't recall much. The most substantial info I could force out were some bands and musicians that were from the 70s.

I guess that explained the long hair most people kept. This might have influenced Severus as well as he kept it too.

I could maintain my hair better than him so I had no problem letting it grow but if it proved too troublesome I would cut it short.

…

I soon reached the park. It was one of the few places with greenery in this dreary town.

I pushed the rusted gates open and walked up the mound to get a better view. I could see the horizon of the town and it looked depressing.

It painted a dull picture with monotonous buildings in bad conditions and some factories on the other side-emitting smoke. All in all, it looked like a stock air pollution image.

I made myself comfortable and sat down on the green grass. I decided to try magic.

Shifting through the memories, I tried to emulate the feeling Severus felt when he used magic.

Sure enough, it didn't take long before I felt something. A warm feeling washed over me and I tried channelling it like Eileen had taught Severus.

I picked a small rock, the size of a fist, as my test subject and willed my mind to lift it. At first, nothing happened but then the rock started shaking.

….And that was it. It would be an understatement to say I was upset. I knew I wouldn't immediately be as good as Severus but it turned out I had overestimated myself as I couldn't even lift a damn rock.

I couldn't understand what I had done wrong. I had clearly followed the steps as seen in the memories but it didn't work.I felt sour and disappointed as I was looking forward to using magic and while I technically did use it….it was pitiful, to say the least.

Feeling frustrated, I tried doing it for the umpteenth time but this time I felt something different. Instead of the warm feeling, I was getting accustomed to I felt like I was falling freely, kind of like a hypnic jerk.

I didn't have time to get used to this feeling as I ducked. The stone I tried pulling zoomed past me and crashed against a tree with a thud.

And just like that, I had an epiphany. I understood why my magic didn't function properly. The answer to this was something I hadn't included while performing magic.

In fact, I felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. The answer was, of course, the thing that drove magic...emotions.

I had tried doing the magic by looking through my memories, I had subconsciously treated it as a how-to video.

Thus with a new mindset, I attempted it again and this time it worked. I felt the familiar tug and focused on the rock.Albeit a bit wobbly, it slowly levitated. I made a gesture of pulling with my palm and it came towards me and landed in my hand.

I felt happy, so happy in fact that I broke out into giggles which soon descended into full-blown laughter.

It was hard to describe the feeling I got when I succeeded in casting my first bout of magic. If I had to describe it though, I would say it was…..magical.

….

[A few hours later]

It didn't take too long for me to get the hang of magic once I figured it out. I still had spells I couldn't perform as well as Severus could but that was understandable.

It had not even been a day since I woke up in this body and I reckoned it would take some more time getting used to.

"Lumos" I gently uttered the incantation and watched as a small light appeared on my fingertip.

The intensity of the light was not too much and it was much brighter when used with a wand but I was satisfied...for now.

Besides wands were in the end just a tool to channel magic. Sure wand-making has been evolving over time and good wandmakers like Ollivander can make wands that give out benefits to the user.

For example, some wands are suited for light magic, some at the transfiguration and so on. Wands are a great tool to use to up your chances of success while performing magic but the wizarding community didn't know how to utilise them well.

Instead of learning magic wandlessly first and then starting with wands, these fools began using it at age 11 with wands.

Since most wizards and witches start magic with a wand they are unable to perform it wandlessly.

So in an ironic twist of fate, the wand, a tool to assist in magic became a crutch limiting the potential and weakening the wizards.

Of course, not everyone was ignorant and talented wizards and witches could perform magic well before arriving at Hogwarts like Riddle for example.

He could move objects around with his mind and could do many other things. Well, even I could do that.I was not at his level yet but that was because I had just gotten a new body and Severus never tried exploring this much.

Honestly, it was not that hard...or maybe it was for someone with a lower talent. I had no idea how magic talent worked but I was sure that it existed.

Amongst all the characters in the series, Severus was near the top and in my opinion only lower than the top brass like Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald and to some extent Harry.

While it looked like Harry only won through plot armour, it was not true. True plot armour played a big role but Harry was not a weakling either.He only had a few spells and he stuck to them. He was kinda like Naruto in that regard. Both had few moves so naturally, they were very good at using them.

Anyway, I kept experimenting with magic to see the things I could do with it. I could move objects around with my mind like Riddle but I was not as accurate as him yet.

All I had to do was just fine-tune my magic to find something I dubbed the rhythm. I didn't understand much about it but I knew how to achieve it.

Once I did so, my control became more accurate. I wanted to understand it but I was still a novice in magic so I put it off and focused on other spells.

"Wingardium Leviosa" I uttered and a leaf rose in the air.

The levitating charm was not that useful to me as I could do the same without the spell and it didn't work on humans.But it did have some use. It let me make up for my control as the object I lifted using it was much easier to control.

I kept trying magic out and didn't even notice as time flew by. There were other first-year spells that I knew but couldn't perform as they required a medium.

The locking and unlocking charms needed a medium which I didn't have.I had success with other spells but didn't get good targets to truly test them.

I kept practising magic and didn't notice the time fly by. It was only when my stomach growled that I stopped.The sun was now visible and was shining down on me. I was feeling hungry as well so I decided to head back home.

I looked forward to eating lunch but I had to stop when I saw a vehicle parked outside the park. It was an ice-cream van.

I checked my pockets for any money I had and fortunately, I did have some. It was not much but it was enough to get me an ice lolly…..hopefully.