Chapter 24— Interim Period

~Fun Fact: Hogwarts is said to be the safest location of the Wizarding World (except maybe Gringotts), yet every year there was at least one danger to your life

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Bleary-eyed and drooling on my pillow, I woke up at what appeared to be the early hours of the morning as I stared out into the bleak morning on display in front of me. Stretching silently, I sat up peering around the room.

'Well, well. Guess the boys are still asleep.'

Hopping off of my bed, I rummaged around in search of my sweat towel; eventually finding it hung over the bottom stair of the bunk bed.

'Alrighty!' I thought, trying to banish the seductive voice in my head telling me to go back to sleep. 'Let's go get a run in before breakfast!'

*****

The day dawned crisp and clear and a biting wind cut through the air, nipping at anyone who was unfortunate enough to be outside. A dewy fog spread out across the Hogwarts courtyards. In the distance a boy looking no older than 13 with black, tied-back hair; chocolate brown skin, and midnight blue eyes was jogging around the establishment. His toil and labour was evident on his body. A light sheen on his forehead and damp spots on his grey hoodie as it clung to his body. That boy was of course myself.

For the past 45 minutes, I had been running around the grounds in an attempt to increase my athleticism. After all, this was the period in which my body would see the most growth and I would be a fool to not capitalise on the opportunity. Eventually, my sprint slowed down to a jog as I neared a field a little ways before the greenhouses.

"Phew, that was a good run!" I exclaimed, to no-one in particular as I sat down in the grass, catching my breath.

After waiting for a minute or so, I began a few basic Muay Thai shadow boxing drills consisting of jabs, crosses, elbow strikes, and every so often, a kick or two. Eventually, my arms tired as they gave way to a burning soreness and my legs felt like dead weight. Then, and only then did I decide to call it a day.

Slowly but surely, I made my way back to the castle, accompanied by the chill of winter and the occasional drip of my sweat on the concrete floor.

*****

A few hours later I was in the Great Hall sitting at the Hufflepuff table and I had to say, first year Puffs are just not it. They're so much more subdued than their counterparts in other houses. Sure, Hufflepuff was where 'the rest' went and all but it also was a place for outgoing and sociable people who valued friendship and loyalty above all else. Hell, even Ravenclaw was doing far better than us. It didn't help that the number of first year boys was far greater than the number of girls. Susan and Hannah quite literally had only themselves to talk with in their dorm room. I shook my head as I tried to bring conversation to the graveyard that was the first year corner of the table.

"Hey people!" I said somewhat loudly in an attempt to break the ice, causing Neville to accidentally spill some of his porridge down his robe. A quick wave of Professor Sprout's wand from the teacher's table soon fixed that mess. Neville looked up gratefully at the homely professor who winked back before resuming an animated conversation with Professor Flitwick. "How have you guys been finding Hogwarts so far?"

There was a collective silence at my question before a nervous voice spoke up.

"E-Erm, I'm really enjoying it so far…" Said a timid voice, trailing off towards the end of the sentence.

My eyes moved towards the direction of the voice and there I saw none other than Hannah Abbot with her blonde pigtails and rosy face —that seemed to get even rosier once all the attention was on her— as she sank lower and lower down her chair. She shrank back into her chair, effectively ending the conversation before it could even start.

'For fuck's sake!' I groaned mentally. 'If there's one thing that I absolutely hate about being reborn, it's the conversations with fucking kid's that end up going awry.'

I obviously didn't let any of my displeasure show on my face as I smiled what could only be a charming smile at Hannah.

'Thank Merlin for Occlumency.' I thought as I tried to salvage what little remained of our conversation.

"Don't worry Hannah!" I said, smiling brightly. "I'm enjoying school so far too. Personally, I like Transfiguration and Charms. How 'bout you?"

"I-I like Potions and Charms. Though, Professor Snape is very scary…" Said the girl, as her confidence surged up. Though once again, it disappeared towards the end of the sentence.

"Yeah Snape's pretty intimidating, isn't he." I said, as there was a collective hum of agreement around our area. Neville nodded furiously at my comment, to which I held back a chortle.

'Neville still ended up fearing Snape?' I thought, somewhat amused. 'I mean considering his first impression of him, it's not that surprising.'

"I do like Professor McGonagall, though." Spoke another voice. I looked around before my gaze settled on a strawberry blonde haired girl with chocolate brown eyes. "She's pretty harsh, but still manages to be fair."

'So that's Susan, huh. That's quite the cool shade of hair.'

"Yeah, Transfiguration's fun!" Exclaimed Wayne with a manic grin across his freckled face.

"Yeah, but that's only because you're good at it!." Retorted Justin looking downhearted. "I'm rubbish at Transfiguration…"

'Fucking hell!' I grumbled mentally. 'He's begun to mope.'

Using Occlumency to hide my thoughts, I smiled encouragingly at Justin.

"Hey, don't worry man." I said. "You're still amazing at Charms right?"

"Yeah but—"

"But nothing." I said, cutting him off. "Most Wizards are usually only good at one or two branches of magic. Well, unless you're like Merlin, Dumbledore, or You-Know-Who but most people aren't. And that's the sad fact. It won't stop you from being extraordinary at something if you have enough talent and put your mind to it."

"You know what? You're right!" Exclaimed Justin with a newfound vigour. "It doesn't matter if I suck at Transfiguration. I'll get really good at Charms or Potions!"

"That's the spirit." I said, clapping him on the back.

*****

Eventually people began trailing out of the hall as breakfast had ended and the first period began.

'I wonder what I've got right now' I mused, as I looked at my timetable.

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MONDAY

Class 1: 9:00 am till 9:45 am: Free Period

Class 2: 9:55 am till 10:40 am: Free Period

Class 3: 10:50 am till 11:35 am: Charms with Ravenclaw

Class 4: 12:55 pm till 1:40 pm: Free Period

Class 5: 1:50 pm till 2:35 pm: History of Magic

Free Time: 2:45 pm till 7:25 pm

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'Huh, that's nice then!' I thought as I hummed happily.

Soon enough, my attention was dragged back to the table.

"So, what are you guys going to do considering we're free?" I asked.

"I was going to get started on Professor Flitwick's essay on the Wand Lighting charm." Said Wayne, smiling guiltily at me.

"Really man, on the day it's due?" I chuckled, as Wayne looked sheepish.

"I was going to the library to review last week's potions." Said Neville looking downhearted.

"Hey, none of that!" I said, giving him a pointed look. "You're a Herbology whiz and you still don't believe you're good at Potions. Come off it! The only thing stopping you from doing as well as you should is Snape breathing down your neck every five seconds."

'That, and your confidence issues…' I thought, choosing wisely not to say it out loud lest I bury his self esteem lower than it already was.

"Alright then." I said, getting up from the table. "I'm going to wander around some more. See you guys in Charms. And Neville, don't wear yourself out. It hasn't even been a week mate."

'Alright, time to read some more on magic.' I thought as I grinned in anticipation.

Making my way down the corridor and over to the barrel that was the entrance to the Hufflepuff common room, I wondered what I would have the pleasure of reading in my wondrous book today.

*****

I opened my most recent bookmark, sat on my favourite armchair, and began reading.

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'Chapter 2: How Magic works'

As elaborated upon in the previous chapter we don't know exactly what magic is, for the purpose of explaining how it works and how to use magic it will referred to as energy here as beings like elementals are more of academical interest than important for the practical application of the magic that will be described in this chapter.

If you wanted to cast magic you would need three things, Intent, believe and power, now, that is not completely correct, but finding the correct terms is difficult or even impossible in many languages as the concepts behind the word are not encompassing enough, for that reason all three will be further elaborated upon.

First, Intent, without the intent to cast it is impossible to cast what you want, for the want is already intent, that does not mean that every magic that is cast will always be fuelled by intent as magic may cause wanton chaos, be that through destruction or by other means, if fuelled by emotions or simply by the amount of it that is present in one place, that is no casting of magic though and therefore of no interest for the topic on how to cast it though still of minor importance on ranking what is the most important for magic to happen.

Intent is what makes your magic react, some may call this factor will, how much do you want something to happen, intent is therefore the second most important thing for any magic to happen, the first being power.

The more you want something to happen the more magic you will be able to mobilize, the amount may still vary from person to person depending on experience, control and total amount of available power but a higher amount of Intent always makes it easier to cast.

Believe, believe can be substituted by Visualisation, both rely heavily on each other, if you can visualize something than you can believe it happening, and will guide your magic in the way you believe it should work and get its intended effect, believe works very similar, while visualizing may support the believe of something happening believing something to happen in a specific way will make it happen in that way, or if not in that way it will make it seem like it worked that way.

As an example in ancient Egypt they thought magic to come from the gods and designed there runes as such, since their magic didn't come from them it couldn't work that way, they still got their results though and that in the way they expected, that was because the magic accommodated their believe, their runes needed an extreme amount of power compared to what one would expect, normally that is. In Egyptian Tombs there are so many of these runes and there was so much of the magic and belief of a truth there that in those tombs it literally became truth, it makes it nearly impossible to cast magic there that doesn't follow the rules the creators of the tombs believed in.

This shows another point as well, if the magic is closer to the truth of how it would work the less power is needed.

The last part is Power, this one won't be expanded much upon as it is trivial. Power means the amount of magic invested in an act of magic, be that a spell, a ritual or any other act of magic you may think of.

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I closed the book, not forgetting to bookmark where I had finished reading. Setting the book down on a table next to me, I leaned back in my armchair and yawned.

'That was genuinely informative.' I thought. 'Though I was already exhausting my magical reserves as a child, I kind of stopped. But that just gives me an excuse to use magic for everything.'

Suddenly, an unbidden thought came to my mind. 'I need to find a spell to tell the time.'

Putting the book back inside my pouch of galleons, I leapt off of my seat and bolted out of the common room. I sprinted down Hallways and turned down corridors before eventually finding myself in front of the library.

*****

Bored, hungry, and somewhat asleep; I was currently sitting inside our Charm's classroom as Professor Flitwick went over the theory of the Wand Lighting charm.

'Merlin!' I groaned mentally. 'What I would give to be able to skip theory lessons…'

I moved my gaze from the dusty shelf to look around the rest of the class. On my row sat all the Hufflepuffs; we weren't a big house after all. Whilst across from us and to my immediate left row sat the Ravenclaws. Since the seats were arranged in a horseshoe, us Hufflepuffs only took up around 8 chairs. Professor Flitwick's squeaky voice quickly put an end to my musing.

"...and since that is all for our theory lesson today, I'd like to ask Mr Barak to demonstrate the wand lighting charm for us if he is able to."

'Wait what?!' I exclaimed mentally as I looked at the eager Professor's face. 'Lord, he thinks I'm some kind of charm prodigy! He's not wrong though…'

"Yes, I am able to sir." I said genially, getting up from my seat and walking to the front of the class. Flicking my wrist, my ash-coloured wand shot into my hand as I felt a pleasant pulse of magic in my hand. "Lumos!"

I was careful enough to limit the amount of power I sent to my wand, lest I blind myself and possibly Professor Flitwick.

"Bravo my boy!" Clapped Flitwick, excitement visible on his face. "Fifteen points for Hufflepuff!"

I smiled back at him, making sure to avoid Granger's heated stare. 'I really can't deal with that mess right now…" I thought tiredly.

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A few minutes later, Flitwick dismissed us but not before telling us to practice the Wand Lighting charm before our next lesson. In his own words, "The sooner we move on from the less interesting aspect of charms, the better!".

*****

After an uneventful lesson with Cuthbert Binns himself, I walked out of the History of Magic class, stretching in front of the doorway.

"Phew!" I exclaimed. "That was a lovely nap."

"Well you did sleep for half the lesson Yan…" Said Neville, smiling at me.

"True, but I have it on good authority that all we'll be learning about are the Goblin Wars and not anything remotely close to the 'History of Magic'. Waste of time if you ask me."

Neville gave me a helpless smile.

"Nah mate, you're absolutely right!" Exclaimed Wayne as Justin and Ernie nodded alongside him.

"See Nev, they agree too." I said to the boy. "Though if you want to stay up during the lessons, feel free to!"

I patted his shoulder as we made our way back to the common room, another school day completed.

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Aayan Barak, MC— Hoarding knowledge. Hanging out with friends.

Neville Longbottom, First Year Hufflepuff— To focus or not to focus, that is the question...

Filius Flitwick, Charms Master— Wants to skip the boring charms...

AshestoDust, Author— I'm back baby!

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

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*A/N: With exam week coming up, the stress is really starting to show. I'll be sitting exams from the '7th February' and I have until then to revise. I'll try to write everyday and bank chapters to release on the weekends but you all know how procrastination works, right? So no promises...