8

*Pant*

*Pant*

*Pant*

Sweating and breathing heavily I ended my training. Around me lay all kinds of dummy's and furniture, either cut into small pieces or burned to a crisp.

'Oh right I wanted to try that domain' I recalled all of a sudden. 'I'm a little low on magic, but it should be enough for a test run.'

Commanding the Room of Requirements to vanish everything and create a single new dummy instead, I positioned myself one last time.

Taking deep breaths to calm down and refocus. I let my magic freely rush out, filling the whole room.

The moment I formed the intent for incendio the room was engulfed by a sea of fire.

*bumm*

Darkness

I collapsed, drifting off to dreamland. My domain vanishing.

The dummy kept burning for a few hours giving me some warmth.

----

I woke up confused, seeing a pile of ash in the middle of the room.

I massaged my temples, because I had the nastiest headache of my live. The pain pulsating with every heartbeat.

Slowly I remembered what happened before I fell asleep.

As I was getting up, my body hurt like I had done a full body work-out the day before and now felt sore all over.

Slowly and carefully I got to my feet.

'What's the time?' I thought as I couldn't discern wheter it was still night or already morning inside the Room of Requirement and as I thought that a clock appeared on the wall I was looking at.

It was morning about one and a half hours before breakfast, enough time to get some extra sleep in my dorm.

Seeing my wand laying on the ground I stretched my hand out and willed my magic, only to feel an intense burning pain in my chest.

"Argh" I grunted.

Walking over to my wand I picked it up by hand, which I had not done in a long time. Afterwards I made my way down to the hospital wing, instead of my dorm.

Arriving there I knocked on the door and was greeted by Madam Pomfrey, the school's matron.

"What brings you here this early?" she asked concerned.

"I think I overused my magic last night." I said honestly.

A diagnostic spell later she said "Another one." It seems like I this was more common than I thought. "Come in and take a seat, I will be with you shortly."

As she walked away I could hear her mumble "Every year the same thing, why can't Albus warn the first year's?"

Now sitting comfortable on a bed I could see a few other students sleeping, mostly first year wizards, probably here because of the same reason.

After a few minutes Madam Pomfrey walked up to me with a potion in hand and said "This should help with your pain and your magic should replenish in a few hours. What's your first lesson.?"

"Flying in the afternoon." I replied

"Good you should be fine until then. No magic before that, understood." she emphasized the last part.

"Yes" I trusted her professional opinion.

"I will keep you here for an hour and if everything is alright I will let you go on time for breakfast." she told me before walking away.

I decided to sleep some more, I can't do anything else either way.

----

"Wake up!" I was suddenly awoken by a shake "Wake up! You should be all better now."

Coming to my senses she continued "...you should not feel any soreness and your magic should have regenerated to an acceptable level, but nonetheless don't use any magic until afternoon. Otherwise you will spend the rest of the day here and in the worst case even have permanently damaged your magic reserves. In the future you should stop when you feel exhausted. Other than that you are free to go."

I streched a little and flexed my muscles. I could indeed feel no form of discomfort, but something still felt off.

"Thank you." I said before standing up and walking out of the infirmary, towards the Great Hall.

Arriving there I sat in an empty seat and began eating, it was the earliest breakfast was served that's why no one else was present.

I ate my food in silence.

It was strange.

Almost uncomfortable.

Subconsciously I started to eat faster, my current situation rubbed me the wrong way and I wanted to leave as fast as possible.

I couldn't put my finger on what exactly it was, I just felt uncomfortable. Maybe it was my magic, maybe it had something to do with me being exhausted, I don't know.

Once I finished my food I hastily made my way to the Hufflepuff dormitory.

When I entered it I was welcomed by the soothing and calming feelings of my sleeping house mates.

I automatically and unconscously relaxed my body, the uncomfortable feeling gone now, but my thoughts were still preoccupied with the earlier situation.

Not paying any attention to my change in posture I walked straight to my room and laid in my bed. To distract myself I started to read the book "A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration".

----

Eventually afternoon came.

The flying lesson with Madam Rolanda Hooch was mandatory the first time and voluntary afterwards, if you managed to get your assigned broom under control. It was meant to be a sort of an introduction that should tell you, whether you wanted to pursue broom-flying or not.

Although I was average at flying I wouldn't attend this class another time, because frankly I didn't care enough and I got more joy from practicing magic.

Astrology was fascinating, not the class or the things the professor said, but the magnificent view that was space. I could loose hours staring at the stars and the planets. In all my life I had not seen the sky as clearly as now.

On the weekend I read the last few books that had been on the shopping list, namely A History of Magic, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Magical Theory. Magic Theory was more a second history book than a theory book. Fantastic beasts on the other hand was a terrific read.

With those books finished I basically only needed to familiarize myself with the practical side of the spells and I would be set for the first year's final exam, which opened up my schedule to experiment with some more advanced magic and showed how much the standard had fallen. I mean if you knew occlumency to an acceptable degree you would be able to learn a whole year worth of information in a week.

Why it was that way I had no idea. It just showed me that self study should be my priority and that I should never let myself be complacent with only the school curriculum.

On Sunday something else happened as well. As I was leaving the Great Hall after lunch Hermoine approached me with a book in her arms. Together we made our way to the library, where she explained to me what she had been researching.

Turns out being unable to cast specific spells is not that uncommon. The book she had with her was a record of all known spells that wizards and witches frequently have difficulties with. Luckily for me that wasn't the case and I can make a fire now, which I showed her. To elude any more questions I smothered her worry and instead brought back the same joy she had felt in herbology.

The effects were almost visible. She jumped up with a bright smile from her chair, thanked me for my time and left, almost skipping away.

'I might have overdone it a bit this time' was all I could think after seeing her leave like that.

Hermoine proceeded to greet every Gryffindor she would meet on her way back to her dorm overly friendly. This day would be remembered as an oddity by those students, except for one. For that one particular student this was the day a beautiful friendship started. A friendship that would last a lifetime. Her name was Holly Potter.