2

[Harry's first Quidditch Match]

.

The boy's having stomach troubles, Ron and Hermione are supportive friends...

And our status?

We are…uh…I guess we were the darling of Gryffindor for a little while after it came out that we, y'know, tried to roast the TROLL.

And we're also (tentatively) Harry's friend now, because it was apparently a buy one get one free deal when Hermione joined up.

Not that I'm complaining, mind; getting close to Harry is a good way to find trouble, and trouble is the best excuse to roll out increasingly complicated weapons and armament.

Anyways.

As of a moment ago, Professor Snape just walked by (after taunting Harry a little and giving us a lengthened, appraising glare) and the three of them are discussing Snape and Fluffy.

As an aside, I technically missed the Fluffy train.

"Who's Fluffy?" I ask the trio.

"He's a huge Cerberus." Hermione replies. "We met him on the third floor."

She knows what a Cerberus is?

Act surprised. "In the forbidden corridor?"

Hermione, not one for breaking rules, nods glumly.

Let's gauge their reactions. "And you believe Professor Snape tried to break past him?"

Hermione is unconvinced, Harry nods firmly, and Ron…scowls.

"Whose side are you on, mate?" He demands.

"I'm on the side of justice." I grin…one, because it's true, and two, because it sounds so incredibly naïve and childish.

Ron rolls his eyes.

Let's steer the conversation back on track. "Point being, does that dog bite everyone?"

Harry frowns. "I don't know; it's a guard dog."

I nod. "Right…so Snape could've just been unlucky."

"Of course he was unlucky, Fluffy bit him." Ron mutters.

To be honest, that's actually an oddly impeccable leap of logic. "I mean, he could've been trying to stop something and was bitten as a result."

Harry doesn't compute. "Stop who?"

Nobody can get it; we're working with prior knowledge here.

Right? "Say, Quirrell."

Hermione looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Why him? Professor Quirrell is harmless."

"Well…you saw how the troll behaved. Do you really believe it can run from the Dungeons up to where you were in a matter of minutes?" To be honest I'm reaching: I don't know how it entered or when, but at the same time…Dungeons is a far distance from where it ended up.

"You think Quirrell did it?" Ron…if Ron's disbelief can be captured and distilled I'd be a millionaire.

"Eeh…" I make a noncommittal gesture. "My point is, Professor Snape is probably not the one who did it. I mean, look at it this way: as much as we don't like him, he is a teacher, and is pretty smart."

Harry and Ron aren't impressed, Hermione nods in agreement.

Here goes. "If you were trying to get past the dog, would you go into the same room, or just do something while outside the door?"

The three are silent.

Don't know if I convinced them, but the less tunnel-y their vision the better. "Enough of that. Harry, eat."

…

The match goes like it should: Slytherin going for full body contact, Gryffindors playing fair and paying for it, Harry being remarkably useless until the last moment.

…

Alright, full disclosure. I'm poor. The real me at this time would be like a year old, tops, so I don't have any money to my name.

Our stuff magically appeared in the backstory. Shhh.

Thus, I spent a lot of time buttering up the teachers through just being a friendly (if somewhat dorky) kid. I paid special attention to knowing things about Quirrell, especially his likes and dislikes.

The fact that I'm disturbingly prone to violence made our strange fascination with Quirrell make sense: I wanted to know about the Defense teacher because I liked fighting, and thus nobody really cared beyond "oh wow what a precocious and troublesome child".

Thus!

…

[3rd Person Camera]

…

An owl flew to Quirrell when he began trying to hex Harry's broom and dropped off a package of his favorite coffee.

"Oh! What a weirdly timed gift!" Professor Flitwick laughs. "It's from that Ash boy, isn't it?"

Quirrell, keeping to his image, shakily takes the coffee pack from the owl. His mind races about the curiously impeccable timing of the delivery. Most owls would just deliver gifts like these to his office, not to his person, so why was this one different? Was the child somehow aware that he would…

"Are you alright, Quirinus?" Flitwick asks, concerned.

Side note: did not know that was Quirrell's first name.

"Y-Yes, Filius." Quirrell flashed his incredibly shaky smile. "It s-s-simply caught me off g-g-g-guard, is all."

"A pack of coffee is enough to disarm our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." Snape sneers (but not turning around). "Whatever shall we do?"

Snape himself was interested to know why this specific timing–owls deliver letters, but they do so largely via the magic at a location, which assists in their flight and accuracy. That magic tends to have specific rules–Hogwarts concentrates deliveries in the mornings, for example.

So for someone (likely that Ash brat) to specifically pick a delivery during the Quidditch match meant that he had a very good reason for it, and for it to be delivered just as Potter's broom showed signs of hexing…

Snape's lip curls. Interesting.

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

We're observing from the Gryffindor stands.

Looks like the operation went smoothly; Harry's broom, instead of trying to buck him off for the majority of the endgame, only did so for a good twenty seconds or so.

"Why did Harry's broom do that?" Ron mutters. "A new broom shouldn't do that."

"Maybe that Nimbus is defective." Hagrid growls. "They coulda killed the great Harry Potter with sumthin like that."

So I may have replaced an act of attempted murder with a corporate investigation and maybe layoffs. Oopsies.

No remorse.

But then again Hogwarts is incredibly lax on security, so I can't imagine anybody writing a strongly worded letter to…except Quidditch is a sport, and sport fans are fanatical.

Sorry Nimbus!

...

…

[Potions class some days later]

…

…

I can feel Snape staring at me. I'm pretty damn sure everybody else is aware that he's staring at me. It is worrying.

"Did you do something again?" Hermione (partner) hisses at me.

I shake my head no. "Not to my knowledge."

It should be noted that I'm a serious tryhard during Potions. I suck at it–much more so than Transfigurations, which might as well be the class I live and breathe for–but man.

As a result, I get flak from Snape because, ey, house rivalry at its finest. But, at the end of the day he's an educator, and when your name isn't Harry he will begrudgingly let you slide for doing good work.

I'm not sure how I got paired with Hermione though. That seems weird. Helpful, since Hermione is terrifyingly exact with measurements, but still weird.

The faculty knows that Hermione is notoriously bad at lying. Snape knows that Hermione is bad at lying.

Huh.

…

At the end of the class, Professor Snape stands up and walks up to our desk. "Mister Ash, would you kindly stay behind class for today?"

For the record: Snape is totally Alan Rickman. It's glorious.

"Yes sir." I reply readily.

The rest of the Gryffindors go "oh shit" but meh.

…

Once all of the students have left…

"Do you know why I asked you to remain behind?" He asks.

Doesn't really take a genius. "I assume it has to do with the coffee I sent Professor Quirrell, sir."

"So it was you." Snape narrows his eyes. "Why did you do it?"

…He can read minds, right? So he should be able to tell.

What they have isn't really mind reading…it's more like detect intention?

Except he actually used a spell during book 6, so…more research topics for the future, I suppose. For now, focus on the interrogation.

"Because the coffee was better fresh." I shrug. "That's what the package said."

He glares at us for a good minute or so.

"Why, was he doing something?" I ask him innocently.

"Don't play coy with me, boy." Snape warns. "It was for a far greater reason than petty bribery."

Ha. Bribery. Right.

He's right though.

Considering the hoops I had to jump through my lie is awful. Still, act innocent. "Would you believe me if I said Quirrell has Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head?"

"What?" Snape is bewildered. Not by confusion, but by the sheer stupidity and awful foreshadowing of my statement.

"He has a head on the back of his head." I say matter of factly. "Like…I don't know how to make that point more clear."

It's a good thing that we're an established nutcase.

"You are utterly foolish." Snape sighs. "Just because he wears a turban…enough, go."

Pah. I hope he at least considers it though. I mean, if he mindreads he should know.

That you're racist?

…

Gryffindors wanted to know why Snape kept us behind, we said it was for coffee. They were confused.

Very glad GTA isn't a thing at this time. Back to research.

…

[One night, sometime later]

…

Prismatic Core online.

We figured it out.

We didn't really figure it out. I sought Flitwick's advice on how to improve the power of our Lumos spell. My reputation worked against me a bit, but I was able to convince Flitwick that it was for the sake of learning better spellwork.

He eventually relented, and taught me the art of spell holding.

…kinda, he gave us permission to borrow a book on the subject in the library.

What is spell holding? Well, if you've watched the second movie's representation of the Dueling Club, during the demonstration duel, where Snape duels Lockhart, Snape uses the disarming spell (Expelli-something, don't remember right now) and holds the first syllable of the spell for a full second or so. That's spell holding.

To be more precise, it is a form of spell holding.

There's a proper noun for it, but I don't care, so we're just going to call it spell holding. Anyways, assuming it's canon since there are some discrepancies between the movie and what the book is describing, what Professor Snape did was a variant of spell holding where he reduced the power so as to avoid giving his target (Lockhart) any unnecessary side effects.

Fun fact: a disarming spell that's too powerful compared to its target might cause actual disarming. As in, arm fly out of socket.

Snape did a real good job making sure that didn't happen then.

As much of a fop as Lockhart was, he wasn't magically flaccid, just untalented. His arm would've been fine.

Back on track: what we're looking for is the polar opposite, where we hold the magic of the spell and overlay it again and again to provide the power output we need…because, as it turns out, in terms of innate magical power, we probably have the least among all the living, breathing human entities within Hogwarts, except maybe Filch.

…though the fact that we have enough to qualify for the school at all is a blessing enough, so I'm not gonna complain about that.

Having a low cap is only really an issue when you actually hit the cap: go past it and you get tired. It's not as special as it sounds, though. Get too physically exhausted and your mental capabilities will suffer, this is just the opposite.

And, like mental muscle, use it and it gets better. Thus, I'm improving day by day, just not as fast as I'd like.

…

I am just getting distracted left and right.

Where was I, uh…?

Increasing power via spell holding: cheapest way to do it is through just using a longer chant. Caveat here is that the chant must directly attribute to the spell, whatever that means.

It means that we can't just filibuster our way to a laser nuke.

Bummer, really…it works well enough for Congress, why can't it work for us?

…hmm…at the end of the day, I guess it loops back to having a prismatic lens that can charge the spell on its own, or some way to store the power to use for later, because there is no way in hell I can remember a chant long enough to work.

Even better: we can't look at notes when casting or the power will dissipate due to our lack of concentration.

…maybe I can bastardize the portkey somehow? Hrm…but that's higher level magic that the librarian won't let me access.

Dammit.

Well, right now my ray of light has evolved from a pew pew gun into a low output drilling laser, which is certainly a step up.

"Uh…Ash?"

We're sitting in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, surrounded by two tables. One holds the books we borrowed and our looseleaf notes paper, the other holds our Cardboard Tube of Death.

It's a CTD, which I find funny for the dumbest of reasons.

Anyways, I've cordoned off a section of the Gryffindor room for personal use, and now there's an NPC trying to get our attention.

They're actual people, y'know.

"Yeah?" I look up…girl, probably 14 or so. "What do you need?"

"Well, uh…" The girl frowns. "We were wondering if you had any plans for Christmas?"

…What? "I plan to be here." I tap the books.

"Oh, well, uh."

She's taken by surprise because we are extremely hostile when pulled out of our research…it takes a little while before our 'Normal Conversation' gears engage, and how we emphasize our words shows it.

The gears are currently not engaged. "If you have something to say, say it." Does that mean I have some kind of ADHD?

She's not happy with how rude we are, because we're ten.

"Nevermind." She huffs and walks off.

I watch her walk off for a few seconds before going back to troubleshooting the CTD.

I feel like I'm so close, and having someone interrupt me is just a pain in the neck.

"She was just trying to be nice, you know." Hermione chides us.

Bookworm + safe corner + do not disturb = safe reading heaven.

"I know. I don't really care, though." Ok, this should do it.

We install more prismatic lenses (courtesy of the Room of Requirement) on the outside of the Cardboard tube.

"You've been working on that thing for months." Hermione sighs. "Is it important?"

I do my best Gabriel Tosh impersonation. "Maybe yes, maybe no." I put the CTD on my arm. "Ok, let's give this a shot."

Side character in Starcraft 2: easy going as far as the plot is concerned with a hint of what we believe is a Jamaican accent.

I open a window to the general dismay of everyone present.

Plus a "what do you think you're doing?" from Percy, who probably thinks we're going to jump or something.

Fix wand-arm, focus, and… "Lumos Maxima."

BOOM

AHAHAHAHAHA

YES! FUCK YES!

"What did you do?!" Percy demands as I bounce back from the window and close it with a shit-eating grin on my face.

My grin cannot be contained. "I have a void ray."

Percy does his best (probably accidental) imitation of Molly Weasley. "You are in a lot of trouble, young man."

"Yeah, but as a counterargument, Void Rays." I say as I go back to my table to disassemble the CTD.

Percy just shakes his head in resignation.

Hmm…ok, let's see.

The primary lens is burned out. Might be why the thing exploded. The sub-lens appears to be ok, though, so I just need to replace the main lens every time I want to furiously deny something it's right to exist.

…it can't be that easy, right?

We do a closer inspection of our CTD.

…yeah, I didn't think so.

The cardboard tube is slightly charred on the inside.

Huh. I don't actually know how it's possible to have too little power and too much at the same time. Maybe there's some balancing act I'm not aware of?

Uh…back to the drawing board, I guess.

"That boy's got a screw loose, I tell you." One of the seventh year mutters.

…

…

[Xmas]

…

…

Harry opens presents, finds Invisibility cloak, yay and happiness all around.

I also actually get presents, which is a major surprise.

A brand new quill from Quirrell, a book on anger management from McGonagall (a muggle one, no less), and a book on advanced charms from Flitwick…and a pair of warm, wooly socks from Dumbledore.

Quirrell aside, all these gifts are v

If I were ten I'd look down on all these gifts. But they're amazing.

Best gift from Dumbledore? Best gift from Dumbledore. Good gifts from everyone, honestly: they really do care.

No Weasley sweater though…the only Weasleys who would remotely approve of our shenanigans would be the twins, and I haven't talked with them much.

…

I'm getting pity glances from Harry and Ron.

"What?" I shrug. "These are all pretty cool."

"I don't know…socks?" Ron's eyebrow has merged with his hair. "Sounds like a pretty crummy gift to me."

I laugh. "Ron, my friend, you've never had a really good pair of socks." I hold up the anger management book. "I'm really impressed about this one, though."

"Anger Management?" Harry summarizes the book's cover. "You're ten, mate." He points out.

I think I would be eleven now. "I know; I'm more impressed by the fact that McGonagall went out and found a muggle book." I need a muggle calendar.

We're touched by the amount of effort she put into the book.

"What's it for?" Ron asks both of us.

"She thinks I'm too violent, basically." I reply, and take the last book. "Now THIS is what I'm talking about…except I'm pretty sure I won't be able to make use of it yet." Ad-vanced spell-work!

Clap clap clap-clap-clap.

"What about the last one?" Ron examines Quirrell's quill.

I don't care. "Oh, that." I brought a shitton of cheap ink pens (I wasn't sure if ballpoint pens were going to work). "Accidentally toss it into a fire or something."

"Wow, seriously?" Ron's incredulous. "A professor gave this to you."

I nod. "Given that it's from Quirrell, I'm worried it might be hexed with something."

Ron drops the quill like it was on fire.

"Well, that's that. Maybe I can find something useful in here." I pat the advanced charms book. "I'm going back to work. Have fun with your cloak."

"Why are you working on Christmas?" Ron demands. "Do you ever play?"

Uh… "I'm working because Void Rays."

I've used those two words as my justification for so long now that everybody has stopped caring.

"Right…right…c'mon Harry, let's go eat." Ron grumbles.

…

Advanced Charms is the second best thing since Transfiguration. Currently Charms is the best thing since my Transfig isn't too good yet. All my effort, too. Sigh.

I've worked out my plan of attack, especially since the CTD burned itself to the ground last week.

We ended up in the hospital wing with a burned arm.

That was a touch embarrassing. Anyways, I've…tentatively…figured it out. Initial tests have proven promising, especially considering the fact that I don't need to carry around a cardboard tube anymore.

First, I still need the prismatic lens from the RoR (Room of Requirement). They are somewhat sizable and hard to carry around.

In entirely unrelated news, we have acquired a utility belt.

Second, we create duplicate prisms (three of them; they die on use) via transfiguration…or make them beforehand and carry them around in a pouch. Either or.

Third, we levitate the entire mess with Leviosa.

Four, we fire off the Lumos Linea Maxima at the general airspace occupied by the duplicate prisms and then cross our fingers. Line-a? Lin-nea? One of the two.

And that is?

A variant of Lumos I found while "lost" in upper classmen areas of the library. It forces the light to fire in a cone instead of all around like normal.

You'd think with a name like that it would be a line.

Why is everything Latin derived anyway? You'd think Wizards back in Rome were just constantly setting shit on fire.

Anyways, the end result, depending on how long I can maintain two spells at once, is a beam of light strong enough to cut a hole in trees. Said tree will then burst into flames immediately after, so clearing the scene of the crime is greatly recommended.

Good thing it was snowing, huh?

Yeah…snow made getting away a bit hard, though.

…

In any case, Prismatic Beam achieved? Kinda?

…

I wish I had access to, say, a machine shop. It would solve so many of my problems right now.

Like?

Uh…like…not having access to a machine shop. I haven't thought it through yet ok

…

[Even more Time Skip]

…

Year one is honestly not that interesting. Let's see…

Hagrid hatched Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback. The Hero Trio found out. Malfoy found out.

We knew beforehand, though Harry was nice enough to inform us.

They hatched the plan to escort Norbert away from the castle. To this day I'm not sure why they decided to go to the tallest building in the school from what could possibly be the worst position possible (outside of the dungeons) instead of, say, have Charlie and his crew just fly on over while skimming the treetops.

This time around, I convinced the trio plus Hagrid to just hand the dragon over to Dumbledore, and have Charlie pick it up from him.

"We'd be in so much trouble though." Harry points out…while we were serving detention for being out after hours…after delivering the dragon up to the Astronomy tower. It was worth a shot.

I tried my best and therefore no one can judge me.

Bonus: because I got involved Gryffindor lost 200 points instead of 150.

Second Bonus: Malfoy tried to jumpscare us and nearly got his head shot off. That cost us an additional 20.

On the plus side, I'm getting really good at drawing my wand at the drop of a hat.

"I'm pretty sure Dumbledore would understand Hagrid's love of odd pets." I point out.

Like the books, we're accompanying Hagrid into the forbidden forest.

Unlike the books, I have a Void Ray in my pocket…and going with Harry/Malfoy/Fang, since they were short a wand.

Malfoy's taking the lead with the lantern, muttering about not being scared.

I have nothing against the guy but I have such an overwhelming urge to just snipe him in the back right now and call it an accident.

How's that Anger Management book so far?

I skimmed the first chapter and a half.

…

Malfoy stops cold.

Harry stops cold.

I stop cold.

…

We see a Unicorn corpse along with a disembodied robe bent over it.

I may have severely underestimated just how much presence that…thing…has.

It has murdered a Unicorn and growls/roars/whatever at the other two boys, who are rooted to the spot.

Malfoy! Run you little shit!

Fang has already bolted. Malfoy gets his senses just enough to stumble back and fall.

God dammit.

"YO!" Maybe it's a perk of being mentally older, but I can still move just fine.

With our yell, we snap the two boys out of their shock while charging at the 'ghost'…with a stick we picked up from the ground.

The two kids are too close to the ghost asshat for a beam of light. So instead we're going to whup GhostDemort's ass like a true American.

The ghost roars at us, silvery unicorn blood dripping from its mouth.

We whip it with the stick. "Who you roarin' at, boy?!"

It should be noted that we are a skinny Chinese kid who normally speaks American English, and we're now trying to use either a Southern American accent…or a Tough Black Guy accent. We're not entirely sure. Either way, it's probably not as terrifying as it could be.

The stick made contact, too, which was surprising.

The ghost roars again, but backs away from our stick.

You're not running from me. "The fuck you killin' horses for, huh?!" Whap. "The hell did they do to you?!" Whap. "What'chu snoopin' around the dark for?" Whap whap whap.

We ran out of taunts. Also, don't get complacent; it was able to kill a unicorn.

Yeah WAND

The ghost suddenly points a wand at us.

Step in and PUNCH GHOST IN FACE oh wow it worked

It reels in surprise as we grab its wand-arm and tear the wand from its ghost-hand…though I don't think we did any serious damage.

Flip wand around, pretend it's a knife, and SLASH INTO FACE

Wups I broke your wand in your face, sorry about that.

Also did not know you had a face to break things onto. Sorry about that.

We're not sorry.

…the two boys are far behind us now.

The ghost lashes out with its arms, obviously in pain from having wood on its face.

I don't think it actually got any chip damage, but either way, backing up for optimal range.

We toss the Prismatic lens into the air along with some of the smaller prism chips.

Eat shit and die, Not-Quirrell. "Lumos Linea Maxima!"

…

[3rd Person Camera]

…

Harry and Malfoy squint and cover their eyes from the massive blast of light that just suddenly erupted in front of them.

And then they heard maniacal laughing, which is usually considered to be a bad sign.

…

The blast of light lasted for thirty seconds, before finally petering out. Ash, the cause of said beam of light, exhaled in satisfaction before collapsing to his knees.

Harry rushes forward. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah." Ash says tiredly. "I think I dug too deep, though." Using a nearby tree as a support, he brings himself up to his feet again. "What do you think?" He asks Harry and gestures to the blast site.

Harry follows Ash's hand to see a massive black gash on the ground. "You did that?"

Ash still had his back to the tree for support. "Yeah…do you see a cloak anywhere over there? Also if you can pick up that large lens for me, I'd appreciate it."

"How did you do that?" Malfoy demands of Ash. "I've never seen that kind of magic before."

"Research and Development." Ash coughs. "Wow, I really dug too deep. Shit."

…

[1st Person Camera]

…

We hear hooves. Someone's rushing towards us at a gallop.

Probably Firenze…deep breaths, deep breaths. It's so weird to have physical exhaustion as a result of overusing a stick.

A Centaur gallops up to us and stops short when he sees the gash on the forest floor.

"Harry Potter." The Centaur who is definitely Firenze says in his measured tone. "It seems that your reputation is well deserved."

"Uh…thanks?" Harry…might not have understood what Firenze was implying. "Excuse me, but…who are you?"

…Malfoy chose this moment to run away screaming.

Must've been Firenze's horse penis.

…

Anyways, Firenze and Harry do their exposition thing: Killing unicorns is evil, curses, blah blah blah…

"Come, I shall bring you through the forest." Firenze says to Harry at last.

…my woodwork isn't that good, is it? He sees me, right?

Harry gestures to me. "Uh…can you carry him instead? I think he needs it more than I do."

Firenze turns to look at me for the first time. "I…do not believe it would be in my best interest to do so. My apologies."

Gee, thanks.

"Don't worry about it, Harry; I can walk." I reassure him…still not really getting my breath back and my legs feel like jelly, though.

We get under way.

"I take it you are not a local." Firenze addresses us. "You do not speak as Harry Potter does."

…are there American Centaurs? "Yeah, I'm from overseas."

"Interesting…are they all blessed with your…curious disposition?"

…what the hell does he mean?

"Not sure." I shrug. "Then again, America's a large place, so it's definitely possible."

"Curious." Firenze notes.

I wonder if he realizes about the whole 'older than he looks' thing.

"It seems that I had made my previous assumption incorrectly, Harry Potter." Firenze apologizes.

Harry's still confused. "It's not a problem at all."

…

Oh look, Bane.

Also female centaurs with human breasts.

I can probably make some money selling custom-fit bras for these centaurs.

…how do baby Centaurs nurse, anyways?

Is that really what we're worried about right now?

Right. Bane's nuts. No, not those nuts. Brain nuts…mind nuts.

Right now Bane's just dressing down Firenze for giving Harry a horseback ride.

Firenze is, at the very least, stubborn in his belief that keeping little children safe is a good idea.

…until Bane actually drew his bow. I don't remember this being in the books.

"For all we know, it could have been him attacking the Unicorns." Bane snarls.

…Oh. Ok. It's actually my fault this time.

Firenze did not actually engage the ghost and thus had no evidence of its involvement.

Time for us to jump in then. "I chased off a goddamn ghost with blood in its mouth, the hell did you think did it?"

Bane turns his bow (arrow notched but not drawn, thankfully) on us. "Watch your tongue, human."

"Fuck you too." I growl. "If you're gonna wax rhetoric on the sanctity of life, then at last do something about the Unicorns before showing up after the fact."

"He's an American." Firenze says as if it explains everything.

"That explains a lot." Bane notes…hey! "Child, you should learn to mind your manners when you speak to your superiors."

Fuck it. "Don't hide behind your history, dipshit."

Bane blinks in surprise.

Also, I really need to work on my diplomacy if my first course of action seems to be "pick a fight" for every instance.

"You're more than you seem." Bane notes…in a tone that implies he's referring to something entirely differently than our current conversation. "Very well, human…in light of your…victory…against that Ghost, we will let you two leave the forest alive."

"Thanks for that." I mutter…am I really still not catching my breath? It's been a good twenty minutes.

Overconsumption of magic leading to physical exhaustion does not cause the body to do the things it usually does in the event of standard physical exhaustion.

"Are you alright, Young Ash?" Firenze asks as he realizes I'm leaning against the tree harder.

"Just tired." I reply. "The spell I used cost more than I thought."

"After one spell? You're still just a brat after all." Bane sneers.

For the record: do not ever learn diplomacy from us. We learned it from Civilization.

"Yeah? Give it a shot." I take out my wand and prismatic lens. "I think I have enough in me for one more go."

Bane stares at us and just laughs.

…I think the only reason why he doesn't just kill us outright is because we're a scrawny little nerd trying to threaten him.

Eventually Bane had his fill laughing and left in a good mood. We collapsed and had to be carried by Hagrid to the hospital wing.

We were hospitalized for Exhaustion, which is probably the most fitting outcome.

Either way.

Void Rays.

.

.

.

{ === + === }