C23 Time Skip & Magic Practice

(A/N: Want to read ahead of what I've posted so far? Go to my patreòn and get early access chapters.

As of this chapter, the patreòn is 6 chapters ahead at chapter 29. Chapter 30 is almost done. I'll probably post 2 chapters on patreòn tonight.

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[Give me my stones or I'll send you a cute pet. You'll take care of this pet, name it, and love it beyond any friend, lover, or family member you'll ever have. He or she will be the most important thing in the world to you. Then it will explode. The end.]

The night Bruce returned from Diagon Alley and named his new pets, he opened one of the beginner school books and found the easiest spell he could practice with first.

The only problem Bruce could run into is the trace.

The Trace, as Bruce understands from the movies, is a charm that allows the Ministry to know of magic cast by wizards and witches who are under seventeen years of age. When any magical activity is performed by an underage individual, the Ministry of Magic would be alerted to the spell that was used, and to the location of the caster, and the time it was cast.

The charm basically allows the Ministry to track underage magic, which is illegal.

This happened to Harry twice in the movies and on the second time, he was summoned to court for use of illegal underage magic.

In the movies, Hermione Granger admitted to successfully practicing a few spells just before her first year at Hogwarts, but she never received any notification that this was banned. This is probably because the Ministry doesn't monitor pre-Hogwarts students. After all, their magic was normally uncontrollable. This may also indicate that the Trace was actually put in place after students begin formal learning.

Though Headmistress McGonagall didn't warn him about the trace, so Bruce would just do it and play dumb if he's caught somehow.

After finding the easiest mentioned spell in his books, Bruce pulls out his wand and gives it his best shot.

The book says a flick of the wand or slight jab in any direction is all that is needed for the movement.

"Lumos!" Bruce exclaims while following the easy movements explained in the book.

Instantly, the tip of Bruce's wand lights up with a dim light that gradually grows brighter and brighter by the second.

"Wow..." Bruce mutters as he moves his wand around and stares in awe into the light.

Because he was practicing in the living room, Alfred came casually walking in while performing his butler's duties. As soon as he saw Bruce with a bright light at the end of his new wand, he froze and watched in awe as well.

Soon, Bruce started to feel a bit tired from casting magic, and as that tiredness grew, he began to worry as he didn't know how to stop it.

"Are you alright Master Bruce?" Alfred picks up on Bruce's predicament fairly quickly.

Ignoring his trusty butler's words, Bruce tosses his wand onto the couch beside him, which luckily cuts the flow of magic and saves him from any possible magical exhaustion.

"Sigh, that was a little scary..." mutters as he relaxes into the couch cushions.

"Did you practice magic without reading how to control it or stop it?" Alfred asks and Bruce can feel a lecture about to happen.

After explaining what happened and promising not to practice spells without reading everything about them, Bruce started his journey down the path of magic.

Luckily, no letter or officials from the Ministry arrived because of his use of magic.

-Months Later-

In the time up until Hogwarts started, Bruce continued his normal training with Alfred and his other trainers, but magic practice was added on top of that.

Thankfully, physical exhaustion doesn't overlap with magical exhaustion, so Bruce could practice his martial art like normal and that wouldn't affect his magical practice later in the day.

Though it was very mentally exhausting, Bruce found a way around that.

Occlumency.

Occlumency is the act of magically closing one's mind against Legilimency. It can prevent a Legilimens from accessing one's thoughts and feelings, or influencing them. A person who practices this art is known as an Occlumens.

Bruce found an Occlumency book while shopping with Professor McGonagall and Alfred, so he added it to the stack he would be buying.

He wanted to get a book on legilimency as well, but he couldn't find a single one and was unsure if it was illegal or not. Mind reading seems like something that the Ministry of magic would ban, but there's a lot of ineptitude in Wizarding politics so who knows?

Although Occlumency is basically just closing the mind against outside influences and attacks, the practice of it is a fairly simple meditation that also seemed to strengthen his mind over time, making it harder to get mentally exhausted with each passing day of practice.

Other than that, Bruce was a lot more careful with his magical practice than he originally was. He read every bit of information about a spell before even practicing the movements, for fear of possibly casting it wordlessly.

Before even reading about any other spells, Bruce read two books that he probably should have read before practicing magic in the first place.

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

Although the history of magic isn't as important as Magical Theory, history can tell a lot and show mistakes that he could learn from in his practice of magic.

Boy was he right.

Magic theory was very helpful and a great book for learning about magic and how it works, but the history book is where he found a gem of information that was probably only in advanced magic books.

A chapter in the book about dark wizards explained in a small portion about a Dark Lord from the 1500s that trained his magic through constant exhaustion. He would practice magic over and over again each day until his body couldn't handle it anymore.

Of course, the dark wizard was very careful of stopping just before any serious damage would occur that could damage his magic, possibly turning himself into a squib.

When Bruce read this, he understood how old Wizarding families still held control against so many muggle-borns that would enter their world each year. They would teach their children magic early, possibly even this technique, and they would easily outperform any muggle-born.

Which would then get them higher grades in Hogwarts, putting them closer in line for jobs in places like the Ministry compared to muggle-borns, who could only start practicing magic after their 11th birthday.

This creates a gap in wealth and equality in the Wizarding World, and Bruce was curious if this has been going on even before Grindelwald and Voldemort's time.

'It probably was and I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of those in power don't even notice this.' Bruce thought with a shake of his head.