Chapter 10— Magical Education and Suspension

~Fun Fact: Did you know that during the entire time they had possession of the 'Marauders Map', Fred and George Weasley would have been able to see Peter Pettigrew on the map.

**************************************

It had been a few days since I had achieved the desired five minute blanking time and I was currently in my room after explaining to Harry what the best way he could do this was— in simple terms, of course. Looking at the bed next to me, I saw Harry sleeping on his back and if I didn't know he was trying to meditate, I'd assume he was asleep.

'Well, I'd better .' I thought lazily while closing my eyes. I felt a familiar tingling sensation around my body. As it faded away, I opened my eyes in a black expanse that was only illuminated by neon-white wisps that bobbed around like lanterns in the water. I prodded on with a finger and realised that these wisps acted similarly to jelly balls. Eventually, the childish excitement wore off as I realised I still needed to find out how to access my memories and familiarise myself with the memories of certain points in my life.

'Or is it lives, I mean to me this feels like a continuation of my previous life. Now that's some food for thought...'

"Alright! Here we go!" I said, psyching myself up.

*****

Alright, first things first, being able to view one's memories did not mean perfect recall, unfortunately. It did, however, result in a better memory as viewing one's memories is a process of constant recall.

'Not a bad trade-off in my opinion. Plus I like some difficulties in my life. Where's the fun in remembering things instantly? It's the struggle that counts. At least with photographic memory, I can remember things for a month after seeing it only once.' I thought sagely, while ignoring the bitterness I felt inside— shedding a single, solitary tear. It was at this moment that Harry chose to wake up.

"Yan," He said, yawning. "I think I fell asleep..."

"You don't say." I snarked, earning me a pillow to the face. "Alright , alright. Try one more time except try sitting. If you calm down enough to sleep on command, meditation will be a piece of cake!"

"A-al-alright." He said, trying to stifle another yawn.

Leaning back on the wall, I closed my eyes and fell into a familiar pattern of breathing before I felt the world around me fade away.

'2 minutes this time. I'm getting there…'

*****

A few days later, I had managed to lower my blanking time to a little under 1 minutes and 40 seconds. Currently, I was in my room getting dressed for school.

"Yan, Where'd you put my socks?" Harry called from the other side of the room.

"Check on top of the heater." I replied. "And if they're not there, check inside the drawer."

"Oh," Harry trailed off. "They were in front of me the whole time."

"You idiot." I said, chortling. "This is why people tell you to wear your glasses all the time. You're as blind as a bat without them!"

Speaking of glasses, Harry's derelict spectacles had been replaced with circular black and gold glasses instead. (See paragraph comment)

"Yeah, yeah." He snorted, rolling his eyes.

"Shut it, you!" I said in mock anger, throwing a pillow at him.

What was once two children getting ready for school, had devolved into a hectic pillow fight. I smacked Harry atop the head with a pillow before he attempted to smother me. Rolling backwards, I readied myself to swing the pillow once more before a shadow was cast over me.

"Ahem." Said a voice scary enough to stop us in our tracks. "What are you two doing?" Mum asked in a scarily calm voice that betrayed her true facial expression.

'I swear I just saw her shadow move.....' I thought, swallowing nervously before breaking out in a cold sweat.

"U-uh now this isn't what it seems to be mummy" I stammered nervously.

"Oh~ Then do tell, what is this little Yan?" She questioned, folding her arms menacingly.

*****

Long story short, mum said we would have no dessert at dinner today for, and I quote, "foolishness."

Besides that, I was currently sitting next to Harry in Umbridge 2.0's maths class and after 3 months in primary school, I realised how truly boring it was. I was even tempted to skip a few years ahead but ultimately decided against it. The attention that it would result in was not worth what I would gain. Suppressing a bored yawn, I looked at Harry who seemed to be staring out of the window with a vacant expression on his face. He'd already, like me, finished the classwork.

'Could this class go any slower!' I thought exasperatedly, sighing aloud.

*****

It was lunchtime once more and Harry and I were sitting on the usual set of stairs eating my mother's delicious tuna-salad sandwiches. Looking up from our food, I watched as we were approached by Dudley and his sycophants.

"Hey, freaks!" He said boisterously.

"Oh, why am I a freak, Dudley?" I asked him innocently.

'Let's see what he says.....'

"Because, you look like you've taken a roll around in mud!" He said with horrid glee, his goons cackling in the background.

"Is that so, well—" I started, before I was interrupted by a furious Harry.

He rushed over to Dudley, punching his nose. "You take that back, Dudley!" He roared furiously.

'Oh wow, damn. Pretty sure he broke his nose.'

It was complete pandemonium. Of course you'd expect Harry and I to win, but reality is often disappointing. We got our arses kicked, but not without giving as good as we got. In the end, a teacher was called to separate us all from each other.

Now, here Harry and I were, sitting on the chairs outside of the headmaster's office. Harry had a black eye from Dudley and I wasn't really doing any better. My lip was split, my uniform scruffy and my face riddled with scratch marks.

'Oh lord, this morning's debacle coupled with this will make mum flip her lid. Although I was well within my rights to hit Dudley, it would only prove I was what they said I was, someone beneath them. But when Harry got angry and hit Dudley, I couldn't leave him there to get the shit stomped out of him for wanting to defend me...'

The headmaster's door opened, interrupting my conflicted thoughts.

"Aayan Barak and Harry Potter" A feminine voice called out.

'Damn, I was wrong. The headmaster isn't a he…it's a she...'

On that note, Harry and I got up and walked into the office that seemed to be quite the symmetrical room. In front of us were two chairs facing a Cherry Wood desk. Upon the desk were two stacks of paper under a pair of paperweights and a sign that read 'Headmistress C. Roemmele'. In the two corners of the room stood two shelves filled to the brim with books and on the chair behind the desk sat the Headmistress herself.

"Now, gentlemen." She said in a condescending voice. "Can you tell me why you are here?"

The headmistress was what I imagined to be a stereotypical librarian with greying hair in a dark purple suit and knee length pencil skirt (See Paragraph Comment). Almost immediately, I could tell that this would not be a fair trial for me. She had a condescending, almost gleeful look in her eyes as I walked into her office earlier.

"Fighting, ma'am." I said in a measured voice.

"Who instigated this fight Mr Barak?" She asked slowly, as if I were stupid.

"Dudley Dursley, ma'am." I said calmly. Nothing good would come out of me losing my cool.

"Do not presume that you can lie to me, Mr Barak." She said snidely, her voice switching from calm to harsh within seconds.

"I am not lying to you, ma'am." I said, trying my utmost to keep the snark out of my voice.

"You have one final chance, Mr Barak. Who instigated the fight?"

"He didn't do it ma'am it was m—" Harry tried to say.

"I can see that you will not believe me, no matter what I say ma'am." I said, interrupting him. "Now may I ask why you refuse to treat me fairly and impartially?"

"Who do you think you are talking to?!" She shouted, spittle flying out of her mouth and onto my face.

I wiped it off with my sleeve. Neither blinking, nor flinching in the face of her outburst.

"This conversation seems to be going nowhere. Therefore, I'd like it if you talked to my mother instead of wasting my time and accusing me based on things you've heard and not verified."

I then walked out of the room with Harry in tow, counting down the seconds till she blew her top. It was 7 seconds.

"Get back here, Barak!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, her face turning an unhealthy shade of purple.

'If this were a Xianxia novel, she would be vomiting blood due to anger' I thought amusedly. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to flip her off but didn't, as it would only make the current situation worse.

*****

"So let me get this straight." My mother said after being called in to pick us up from school. "You and Harry were having lunch when Dudley and his friends walked over and called you freaks. You asked why and he made a derogatory comment about your skin colour, Harry got angry and it devolved into a fight?"

"Exactly, Aunty Sophie!" Harry said, furiously nodding his head.

"Don't forget, the headmistress seemed hell-bent on punishing me without being sure I even started the fight all based on he-said, she-said and rumours." I chimed in.

"She what?!" My mum's head whirled around at the comment as pure rage was etched across her face. "Oh, we are most definitely going to talk to the Dursleys!"

*****

5 hours and a couple of threats later, the Dursleys formally apologised to my mother and I as Harry stifled his giggles behind us.

'I know they don't mean it in the slightest, but the Dursleys humbling themselves is too damn funny' I thought.

It was quite late by the time mum, Harry and I started walking home; the sun more or less completely setting as pink clouds floated about in the sky.

"Mum?" I asked.

"Yes, Yan?" She replied.

"Can you and dad give us a head start on Transfiguration, Potions and Charms?"

"I wouldn't mind but it would be mostly theory considering you don't have your wands. The only time I will let you use my wand is in the presence of either me or dad and that is only because you two are very gifted. If you can agree to this, I don't see any reason not to teach you."

"We promise!" Harry and I said together.

"Alright, we'll ask your dad when we get home. We're so late today that he got home before us."

'Damn we're that late?' I thought. 'The end result was worth it though.'

*****

Dad had agreed to teach us potions, however it would only be on the weekends and Harry had to agree to wear a disguise everytime we went into Diagon Alley to dad's Potions lab. I had a good laugh at Harry's expense as dad cycled through a bunch of ridiculous things for Harry to wear. Eventually, dad and Harry settled for a grey beanie as it didn't look ridiculous and hid Harry's scar perfectly well.

Harry and I were currently in our rooms getting ready to sleep before I remembered something.

"Harry, how far along are you with blanking your mind?" I asked curiously.

"It takes me around two and half minutes." He replied. "Why?"

"Because I think it's alright to move to the next step for now." I replied. "You can lower the blanking time on your own now."

"What's the next step then?" He asked, his voice filled with intrigue.

"Now, we play a game." I replied, grinning at the excitement on Harry's face.

.

.

.

I introduced Harry to a little game that I called mental tug of war. Though I was well aware that it wasn't really an accurate analogy, it would have to do. In reality, our mental tug of war was only the second step of Occlumency, noticing an intruder in your mind and repelling them. Though the noticing part of it took a while for Harry to get down. It didn't take him too long though since he was familiar with my presence in his mind. Once he got that part down, we spent around an hour trying to breach and repel each other's minds— keeping score as we did so. Currently, the score was 5-3 to me however after successfully breaching Harry's mind, the score went up to a crushing 6-3, causing him to howl in annoyance.

"Ha! I won." I said, cheerfully. "The title of most majestic 'Mind Arts User' out of the both of us goes to me."

"Wasn't it 'Most Accomplished' before?" Snorted Harry.

"Yes, but since I won, it is now the 'Most Majestic' " I said, turning my nose up at him.

He rolled his eyes at me and threw a pillow at my face. Instead of learning from our lack of dessert today, we, like the fools that we were, decided to engage in the same behaviour that cost us our desert.

And boy was it fun.

Not even three minutes after we started our war, we heard steps that could only be my mother's come up the stairs.

"Oh shit....." I muttered as Harry's head snapped towards me.

"What did you say?!" He exclaimed.

"Oh, shiny trinkets?" I smiled weakly.

Sadly, my slip-up was interrupted by my mother opening the door to see the mess that was our bedroom.

"Oh, shit..." We muttered simultaneously.

Unfortunately, mum heard us and her expression darkened further as the shadows behind he began to writhe. Our eyes widened in fear.

'Oh, I am so fucked.' I thought, chuckling in fear. 'I didn't know mothers could be so fear inducing'

**************************************

DISCORD SERVER: https://discord.gg/HT3VeC26fb (See paragraph comment)