Chapter 30

"So you were the one who sent me that letter?"

"Yes, Madam Bones."

"Was it necessary for you to take such extreme...measures to send that letter?"

"At the time, yes."

"How did you find out Pettigrew was alive and at Hogwarts as an Animagus?"

"I used a version of the Marauder's Map. Your companion will be able to answer what that is."

At my declaration of the name of the famous map, Black's eyes had widened, and he could only dumbly gape at me. His mouth opening and closing without a sound made for an excellent replica of a fish.

After providing those answers, I walked away and let Harry spend some time with his dogf--godfather. I ignored Bones' attempt to question me and instead walked away to a place I intended to hide away for a while, till all the families that had arrived at Hogwarts left. This impromptu "Visiting Day" was actually thanks to the Slytherins, one little ferret in particular, who were extremely indignant about the fact that the Boy-Who-Lived was blatantly getting privileges they weren't. So like good little daddy's little angels they reported this to their dadd--fathers, who by virtue of being on the highly "competent" and "impartial" School Board or in possession of enough capital to sway the "highly qualified professionals" who were, they managed to....persuade Dumbledore to allow all willing parents to visit the school to meet their kids.

I let my body deflate once I sat (more like sank into) on the incredibly comfy and comfortable couch the RoR had conjured. I was feeling a little drained from keeping the mild compulsion spell around Black and Bones, probably because I was just throwing a lot of magic around while hoping and wishing and willing for the best. My control or skill or knowledge hadn't managed to catch up to my magic reserves, an issue I was planning on rectifying in the next two to three years.

My 'spell' seems to have worked because there's no way those two would leave me just like that. Well, I suppose by the time they came to their senses my acting skills will level up enough to fool them. Worst comes to worst, I'll run away from Hogwarts and use my Integrator indiscriminately, maybe I could find a way to get the 'skills' of other people, even the muggles by targeting only the mind and body part of them and copying it instead of outright taking it...

Well, my future plans aside, I was planning on taking a vacation for a few days. Ever since I woke up in this world, I have barely rested and considering just how absurdly lazy I was, this was surprising. Well, not that surprising since I could feel myself getting better everyday plus the presence of magic was a very good motivator. And also, the possibility of my soul-tampering to have a hand in my workaholic behaviour was very real and the most likely option.

Anyways, apart from waiting for my second Mind to finish doing it's work, that is interpreting and understanding the stuff in the books I had memorized, I was going to laze about and if I felt like it, experiment a bit with my abilities or try to puzzle out the effects of the black boxes in my soul that were still unknown.

One little fact that I definitely had to investigate as soon as possible was something that I had found fairly recently. My magic seemed to be a lot different than the rest of the wizards. Sure, I could use their system of magic far better than they could ever hope to, but it always seemed as if I could do so much more. And a few days earlier, I found out that my magic seemed to be unique and a lot more powerful than the rest of these guys, when I finally learnt the obscure and wonderful art known as Mage Sight, by the wise action of pouring magic straight into my eyes.

Mage Sight was simply put, the ability to 'see' magic present in the world. Everyone interpreted the magic differently, some saw it as threads, others saw it in various colours, others saw it as a bunch of minuscule particles, the list goes on.

When I turned on Mage Sight, all I saw was a white canvas on which paint of various colours were being haphazardly thrown about. It took me a while to puzzle out what it all meant. The white was simply enough, Pure Magic, the most basic form of the energy wizards manipulated whose sole purpose was to exist. The brighter the white, the higher the amount of magic. The 'colours' were the different forms of manipulation of the white couloured pure magic, like spells or wards or enchantments etc. For some reason, I could easily figure out what those colours were. In fact, it took me barely a few minutes to puzzle out what the various wards did. By the time an hour had gone, I had managed to improve my new found skill enough to use it on a permanent basis, on a lesser level, of course, only enough to 'sense' magic. Sure, I was basically exploiting one magical sense to acquire another one, but who cared? Magic Sense was a very useful skill and my current magic sensitivity, while helpful, still wasn't at the level of a true Magic Sense.

Watching a wizard through Mage Sight was an interesting experience. For starters, wizards had no core. Their magic seemed to just...exist and I could find no difference in the amount or potency of the magic among different wizards except a select few like the prophecied child or Dumbledore himself, and even then the difference wasn't as great as I thought it would be. And something even stranger was that all I could see was the silhouettes of the wizards and interestingly enough, the 'stronger' the wizard, the more pronounced their silhouettes were. In fact, I was sure Dumbledore's silhouette winked at me when I had accidentally managed to gaze upon him with my Mage Sight activated.

Anyways, that is when I realised how different I was. After a few days of hardwork I had managed to acquire a rudimentary form of Magic Sense, which was something usable in all occassions through any sense organ. Though it was generally agreed that Mage Sights were more effective when it came to some specialized tasks like ward-breaking or spell crafting, Magic Sense was way too versatile to be underestimated.

Once I had gained Magic Sense, I promptly tried to scan myself and it only took me a few minutes to stop myself from feeling dizzy. And that is when I realised that unlike the rest of the Wizarding World, I had a core, and a sort of mana pathway in my body, kind of like those cultivation novels. And I could also feel that the potency of my mana was a lot greater than the average wizards and even somewhat higher than Dumbledore himself.

Now I realised why I seemed to be so easily proficient in the spells of the Wizarding World. It was because my magic system itself was on a higher tier than theirs.

Well, I suppose trying to decipher how people with my magic system cast spells could count as a good enough excuse to cut my vacation in short...

Wait, did I just try to find a reason to cut my break time? Damn you random god for making me a workaholic!