Hogwarts (Year One) - Part 6

The Great Library, First Floor, Hogwarts. September 5, 1989.

Yawning, I glanced over Thalia’s shoulder—at her unfinished paper.

To think, despite living in the twentieth century, the girl was still using quill and ink.

Romantic, perhaps. But certainly not practical.

“What would be practical,” I mused wistfully, “is having one of those sentient, self-writing quills… like the kind Rita Skeeter uses.”

I couldn't help but to imagine how easy it would be to take notes with a quill like that...

Alas, I’d already looked into it. And according to this book I’d found, enchanting a so-called Quick-Quotes Quill clearly wasn’t something one could learn how to do over a weekend. The difficulty level allegedly hovered somewhere between late OWL and early NEWT-level Charmwork.

Needless to say, as someone still struggling to cast a long-range Vermilious charm, magic like that was well beyond my reach.

For the moment, anyhow.

Of course, being a magical artefact, the enchanted quill was also purchasable. But as a premium item, the price tag floated somewhere around twenty-five Galleons.

Twenty-five Galleons was more than all my school supplies combined.

And after purchasing my second-hand textbooks, wand, cauldron, and other first-year supplies, I'd already drained an entire year’s worth of stipends.

Financially, as it currently stood, I was firmly in the red.

A sentient quill? It might as well be a dragon egg. For me, both were equally out of reach.

I exhaled a long breath.

“W-What?” Thalia paused, frowning. “Why are you sighing? Did you find something wrong with my paper?”

She skimmed through her essay, eyes darting across the parchment in search of some glaring mistake.

“No, it’s nothing.” I replied wistfully. “Just me being silly.”

Thalia’s frown deepened.

“No, you’re not, and it’s not nothing.” She pushed, rather insistently. “Tell me what's wrong."

After a moment of hesitation, I decided to be honest with her.

“I’m just thinking about how hard it is to enchant a Quick-Quotes Quill. And according to this book, buying one costs at least twenty-five Galleons.”

“…What book was it?” Thalia asked, after a telling pause.

“Why’d you want to know?”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“Fine, whatever. Let me think.” I gave in, racking my memory. “I might be misremembering the author’s name, but I think it was Vablatsky’s Enchanted Objects and Their Everyday Uses. It was… very illuminating.”

“I see… Then it must’ve been outdated.”

“What? Why?” I asked, surprised. Inwardly, however, I dreaded the answer.

“Well, I’m no expert,” Thalia replied slowly, “but I’m pretty sure a high-grade artefact like the Quick-Quotes Quill goes for at least fifty Galleons these days. Sounds like the book you read didn’t account for inflation.”

A part of me wanted to groan, but what was the point? Twenty-five or fifty Galleons—what did it matter?

Either way, I still wouldn’t be able to afford it.

“Maybe in the future…” I mumbled inwardly. Again, it boiled down to money.

“S-So,” Thalia continued, drawing my attention back to her, “there really isn’t anything wrong with my paper?”

Since I’d already finished mine, I decided to proofread hers.

“Good structure. And your language is well adapted as well…” I muttered under my breath, unconsciously reverting to old habits.

Honestly, the quality of her writing made me wonder what they’d been feeding this girl. As a former teacher, I’d seen high-schoolers turn in worse texts than this.

“It’s very good,” I concluded after a careful readthrough. “The only real issue I could find is that you misinterpreted the danger of target contamination.”

“What?! Where?” Thalia furrowed her brows.

“Here.” I leaned over, pointing to one of her paragraphs. “Emeric wasn’t referring to environmental contamination, but to residual magic interfering with transformative transfiguration. A proper reading of ‘target contamination’ would imply a mutation of some sort.”

“…” Thalia remained very silent for a moment.

“T-Then again, environmental contamination is an interesting angle as—”

“Stop.” Thalia cut in, eyes locked on her paper. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I mean, I wasn’t exactly lying…” I smiled faintly. “But alright, I won’t.”

After studying with Thalia, I finally understood why people kept calling her the Fawley Genius. Her cognitive and intellectual abilities outpaced those of the average eleven-year-old by a positively staggering margin.

Often, it even felt like I was discussing magic with an actual peer.

To be perfectly candid, without the memories of my past life, I wouldn’t have stood a chance against her intellect.

If she kept progressing at this pace, I suspected Thalia would turn into a formidable witch in the future—one who could even give Hermione Granger a run for her money.

But at the end of the day, Thalia was still a child.

And children make mistakes.

As we all do.

Seeing as Thalia had once again busied herself with chapter one of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration, I decided to leave her to her own devices.

Instead, I turned my attention back to the hefty tome resting on the desk before me—Hogwarts: A History by Bathilda Bagshot. Compared to it, my history textbook read like a pamphlet.

So far, though, the book had been extremely fascinating. The compendium covered everything from the enchanting ceiling of the Great Hall to the powerful protective wards preventing Apparition on school grounds.

What the book conveniently left out, however, was the one thing I sought the most: clues to where the Room of Requirement might be hiding.

If Bathilda Bagshot had known about the elusive room’s existence when she wrote her historical compendium, she’d very deliberately chosen to keep it a secret.

Not that I could blame her. The Room was a treasure trove to the right person.

Still, after leafing through the book for the better part of an hour, I was no closer to finding the Room than when I’d started.

Frustrating? Absolutely. But if the Room had been that easy to find, it wouldn’t have stayed hidden for all these years—now, would it?

“Were you always this good at studying?” Thalia whispered abruptly, her voice barely audible.

“Well,” I offered an awkward smile, unsure how to proceed. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one who’s been dubbed a genius.”

“Really?” Thalia asked, perking up in curiosity.

“Yeah…” I nodded, scratching my nose awkwardly. The title had always felt a bit undeserved. “Back home, a journalist once wrote an article about me—called me the Orphan Genius of Bath.” I scoffed at the memory.

“It caused quite the stir at the orphanage.” I added. Back then, Sister White had gaped so wide I thought her jaw might unhinge.

“Believe it or not, this is actually the first time in over five years I’ve studied alongside anyone my age.”

Biologically speaking.

“I believe you.” Thalia’s reply was immediate, her eyes steady on mine. “It explains a lot.”

“It does?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Mhm,” she nodded. “You’re my age, but you sometimes act like you’re older.”

Thalia frowned thoughtfully.

“No, actually, you always act like you’re older than me.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly.

“It’s kind of patronizing, you know?”

I didn’t know what to say. Personally, I thought I’d done a decent job pretending to be my age—especially around Thalia and the others.

Though, in hindsight, I could probably have done a better job if I’d tried harder. It’s just—here at Hogwarts, I really wanted the freedom to be myself. It was something I never quite had at the orphanage.

“It wasn’t my intention…” I muttered, half-apologetically. “At the orphanage, I’m always surrounded by kids, so sometimes I just—”

“Don't worry, it's fine.” Thalia cut in, her cheeks slightly flushed as she looked away. “Be yourself—I don’t care.”

I smiled in appreciation.

“Thank you.”

…

Cedric and Eveline appeared at the end of our study session—robes creased, expressions strained.

“Professor Crowe might as well be running an Auror drill,” Eve murmured, adjusting her glasses with a tired sigh as she took a seat.

“An entire new spell by Friday—how is that even reasonable?”

Cedric plopped down in the seat next to me, looking equally as tired.

“I told you,” Thalia said, raising her eyes briefly from her book. “You should’ve practiced with me yesterday.”

“Is he having your class learn the Vermilious Charm too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Cedric replied. “And so far, the Red Spark Charm’s been kicking our arse. No one was able to conjure it during class. Professor Crowe looked like he was ready to bite someone’s head off.”

“At least you were close…” Eveline muttered.

I caught the glance Thalia snuck my way—but decided to let it pass. This was hardly the time for boasting.

“We still have three hours until supper,” Thalia offered. “We can go and practice now if you want?”

Eveline visibly hesitated, while Cedric let out a long sigh.

“Maybe just for a bit. I’m about one puff of magic away from collapsing.”

“Same,” Eveline sighed tiredly.

…

“No, it’s a small clockwise arc, not counter-clockwise—followed by a quick upward flick and a jab. You need to be faster.” Thalia corrected her friend’s wand movement.

“Like this?” Eveline asked, adjusting her form accordingly.

Cedric and I watched in comfortable silence—my disused classroom spacious enough to host all of us. When Eveline inevitably grew too tired to cast any more spells, Thalia took over, demonstrating how it should be done.

Truth be told, her Vermilious Charm was really impressive. A flickering red jet burst from her wand, crackling slightly as it left a trail of red sparks in its wake.

The charm dissipated approximately a dozen meters away.

It was a magnificent display of magic—one that, albeit slightly weaker than my own, was distinctly different.

Surprisingly, the reason was actually pretty simple.

The magic was Thalia’s.

“You’re not joining in?” I asked, turning toward Cedric.

The dark-haired Badger sighed in response.

“Let me guess, you’ve already mastered the spell?”

“Well, mastered might be pushing it a bit much…” I replied slowly. “But I did spend several hours practicing yesterday. At this point, I think it’s good enough to meet Professor Crowe’s expectations.”

“Truth be told, if my spell doesn’t meet his arbitrary standard, I don’t know what does.”

“Michael, you do realize false modesty’s still counts as bragging, right?” Cedric smirked knowingly. “Tell you what—show me your sparks, and I’ll show you mine?”

I arched a brow at him, then shrugged.

Fine.

With a practiced flick of my wrist, I drew my wand and pointed it at the distant wall—determined to hit my mark.

“Vermilious.”

Immediately, a bright red jet burst from the tip of my wand, whistling as it tore through the air.

Five meters. Ten. Fifteen…

Then, with a faint but distinct pop, it struck the wall twenty meters away.

The disused classroom went dead quiet.

“…” Even I was dumbfounded.

“I did it?” I stared at my wand. Perhaps it was merely my imagination playing tricks on me, but it felt as though the artefact was faintly humming in response to the magic we’d just conjured together.

“We did it.” I corrected with a smirk.

Which, of course, raised a very interesting question: How, precisely, had we managed to do it? What had I done differently this time compared to yesterday?

Yet before I could untangle this newfound mystery, the sound of footsteps snapped me out of my daze.

Turning around, I watched as Thalia briskly stomped her way out of the classroom, boots echoing against the stone floor.

A moment later, Eveline could be seen scurrying after her, a puzzled but concerned look on her face.

Cedric and I exchanged a glance, the air between us thick with uncertainty.

“Did you see what happened?” Cedric asked the question that was on both of our minds.

…

When it became clear to us that Thalia and Eveline weren’t returning any time soon, Cedric and I decided to call an end to our impromptu practice session.

Still, before we packed up, I stumbled upon something worth noting.

Continued practice with Cedric helped me identify the reason behind my newfound success with the Vermilious Charm.

Intriguingly, it wasn’t a matter of technique—it was a matter of context.

My current hypothesis was that casting Vermilious in front of my friends had unconsciously shaped my intent. I hadn’t just wanted to cast the spell—I’d wanted to showcase it.

In doing so, I’d unwittingly fulfilled an implicit condition of the charm itself.

After all, one had to remember that the Red Sparks Charm was fundamentally a distress signal spell. It’s a message—a cry to be seen. It isn’t just a pretty display of magic used to assault walls.

The charm was never meant to be used in isolation. The desire to communicate was intricately interwoven with the charm’s nature.

Needless to say, this discovery opened a whole new area of research.

Once I explained this criterion to Cedric, he made remarkable progress within just a few attempts.

“With friends like him,” I mused inwardly, “my ego is in no danger of inflating.”

Well, more than it already had, at least.

…

“Not here either…” I sighed, scanning the common room once more. Still no sign of Thalia.

“Maybe she went to the girls’ dormitory…?” I hesitated, recalling what had happened the last time I’d asked someone to pass along a message for me up there.

As for the senior in question—the platinum-haired girl—she’d taken to giggling whenever she saw me walking with Thalia in the corridors.

Immature? Yes. But I figured the novelty would wear off soon enough. We first-years might be the current fascination—but not for long.

Evidently, some students have too much time and far too little going on in their own personal lives.

But I digress.

Thus far, I’d checked the Great Hall, the library, and now the common room—all to no avail.

Clearly, Thalia didn’t want to be found.

I sighed and turned to head back to my dormitory—only to coincidentally catch something in the corner of my eye.

Dangling from the arched ceiling of the Ravenclaw common room was a grand, ornate chandelier.

The kind that screams opulence.

Only this time, it wasn’t the décor that drew my attention.

No, it was the pair of black shoes hanging from it.,

“Because naturally, that’s where shoes go.”

…

Retrieving the shoes had been laughably easy. So much so, that I hadn’t even considered asking any of my seniors for help.

One flick of my wand, and my shoes floated down to the ground.

I wasn’t stupid enough to lay hands on something that might’ve been jinxed.

For once, I didn’t care about the stares my spellwork attracted. If anything, I hoped the culprits were watching—maybe then they’d think twice before stealing from me again.

Back in the boys’ dormitory, I surveyed my belongings—most of which were still neatly packed in my trunk.

“Nothing else is missing,” I murmured. “Yet anyway.”

My trunk didn’t have a lock on it. And even if it did, I doubted a simple Muggle mechanism could stop a halfway competent wizard from helping themselves.

All things told, the theft had been rather uninspired. Whoever they were, they hadn’t even bothered to hex the shoes.

But the theft had set a precedent. I now knew better than to leave my belongings out in the open—unguarded.

Especially my notes and research journals. They were the culmination of hundreds—if not thousands—of hours of thought and experimentation. Losing them would be nothing short of catastrophic.

Admittedly, most of it was probably rubbish—but it was my rubbish, backed up by a rigidly documented methodology. It represented the foundation of what I hoped would eventually become a formal thesis.

Not just scribbles in a notebook, but a meaningful addition to magical academia. Something that might even outlive me one day.

The problem was, I currently had no way of guarding all my belongings.

Naturally, the most obvious—and intriguing—solution was to hex them.

Think of it as… a preventive measure—a distinctly magical one.

Unfortunately, I currently only knew two harmful effects I could conjure with any kind of consistency:

My Jedi push—and the sundering effect.

Needless to say, neither was exactly suitable for warding off petty thieves. In fact, I was fairly certain the sundering effect could be classified as a curse, not a simple hex.

But regrettably, there was an even more pressing issue that demanded my attention first.

I didn’t know how to hex objects.

My eyes drifted toward the grandfather clock nestled between Rufus and Will’s beds. I still had another hour until supper.

“Back to the library I guess…”

…

It didn’t take me long to decipher the library’s internal catalogue system. And of course, Madam Pince was entirely unhelpful.

The bookshelves were divided according to subject and magical discipline. Spread across multiple floors, there was Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Magical Creatures, Magical Theory, History of Magic, Divination, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy.

Each section was alphabetised by author surname—thankfully. At least some things in the magical world made sense.

With the Restricted Section off-limits, the rest of the general library was fair game for everyone, regardless of year. Not that they made it easy to find anything truly dangerous—titles deemed hazardous, ranging from cursecraft to advanced magical theory, were sequestered in the Restricted Section.

Luckily, I found what I was looking for in the Charms section of the library.

It was an old title bound in faded navy-blue leather named Foundational Charmwork: Learning the Art of Enchantment penned by Beatrix Candleroot, a former Professor of Charms at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

According to the late professor, the distinction between a magical artefact and a bewitched object lay chiefly in their method of creation. Functionally, however, there was little difference between the two.

A magical artefact is a magical tool created by an artificer—such as wandmaker or a broomsmith. They are intricately interwoven with magic and runes. Some are sentient and animate, though most aren’t.

By contrast, a bewitched or enchanted object is an otherwise mundane item that has been charmed, either permanently or temporarily, by a witch or wizard.

Leafing through the tome, I I quickly lost track of my surroundings, absorbed in the elegant logic lurking behind foundational enchantment theory.

Intriguingly, the difference between enchantments and regular charms was actually minute.

A charm, by design, is a structured constructed—fixed in form and purpose. It’s a repeatable magical framework built from precise wandwork, verbal invocation, and directed will.

That’s what made wand magic different from free form magic, which was a lot more volatile and temperamental in contrast.

I knew this from first-hand experience.

To bewitch or hex an item—whether to make it glow, chirp, or do something far less innocent—you begin with a standard charm structure.

Ordinarily, the charm is cast outward, manifesting near-instantly and drawing on spark energy that is rapidly burns out once the desired effect is achieved. But when enchanting an object with an effect, the charm isn’t meant to be be cast at all—it’s supposed to be bound.

Again, a subtle but crucial distinction.

Rather than unleashing the magic, the construct must be meticulously woven into the item’s “ambient magical field”—either permanently, or in a dormant state, set to trigger under specific conditions.

What fascinated me was that the wand movements and incantation remained virtually identical. The difference lay entirely in intent: not to cast, but to bind and imprint.

Hexing, meanwhile, was another type of enchantment—one distinctly and deliberately designed to cause harm.

Needless to say, hexes—like jinxes—were classified as dark magic. What set them apart was their tendency to linger, often inflicting more lasting and harmful effects than their lesser counterparts.

Curiously, Professor Candleroot’s book did not mention how to hex objects—only how to bewitch them.

Truth be told, I thought it was a rather silly omission. For all their sinister reputation, jinxes and hexes were still categorised as charms. Functionally distinct, yes—but technically, they belonged to the same branch of magic.

It was much like how a knife was equally as effective for cutting vegetables as drawing blood—the nature of a charm depended on how it was applied by the wizard who conjured it.

Looking at my ballpoint pen, I itched to try to enchant it.

Clearing my throat, I readied my wand.

“W—”

“No magic in the library!” Hissed a shrill voice, cutting me off abruptly. Madam Pince appeared seemingly from nowhere—her eyes narrowed at me in stern disapproval.

“I—”

“You,” she snapped, lips pursed as though she’d tasted something foul, “are a first-year, Mr. Morgan, and as it stands, you’re very late for supper. Unless, of course, you were intending to forgo it entirely?”

“What? I’m not—” My eyes widened as I caught the time.

7.42 p.m.

“Shit.” Somehow, my hour of research had turned into nearly two.

I scrambled to pack up my things, then bowed my head toward the Head Librarian, who had remained—watching me like a hawk.

“I apologize for my temporary lapse in judgement. It was wrong of me to try to cast a spell in the library. It won’t happen again.”

Madam Pinch’s lips thinned in visible displeasure.

“No, it won’t.” Madam Pinch snarked. “I expect every book back where it belongs before you exit the library. If even one book is misplaced, I will know.”

I nodded in response—it was a fair ask.

…

Breath uneven, I stepped through the gates into the Great Hall—which was blanketed by a beautiful starry night sky and thousands of floating candles.

Though still lively, the crowd had thinned noticeably. Most students had ostensibly finished their meals and were now making their way back to their respective common rooms.

I couldn’t fault them; it’d been a long day.

Still, at the far end of one of the tables, I spotted the people I’d been looking for.

Cedric, Eveline, and Thalia.

Despite there only being minutes left until supper ended, I slowly stopped in my tracks—taking a moment to just observe my new friends.

Cedric was taller than the two girls, even while seated. He leaned back into his chair, smiling while listening. Eveline sat opposite to him, gesturing intently with her fork as she spoke, her brown curls bouncing with every word. Finally, Thalia was perched next to her—head tilted, expression unreadable.

But as far as I could tell, she didn’t look angry or upset.

Evidently, none of them had spotted me yet.

Watching them interact, it was obvious to anyone—they were children. Not just physically, but emotionally and socially as well.

And yet, despite the age gap that should’ve felt wider, I considered them my friends. I could try to rationalize it—chalk it up to the part of me that belonged to Michael, the orphan—but that would only be a half-truth.

The more uncomfortable truth was this: contrary to popular belief, the mind does not always reign over the body. Over the past seven years, I’ve increasingly found myself thinking as a child, not merely pretending to be one.

In the beginning, it’d been far easier to keep the distinction intact—me and the role I was playing. But somewhere, as time passed, the line blurred. With each new day, each new experience, my identity as a child grew stronger.

Until it eventually began to overshadow my past life.

Obviously, logically, I knew that it wasn’t right. That I wasn’t actually a child—like Cedric, Eveline, and Thalia were. But lately, I was starting to realize that logic alone wasn’t enough.

And so, I took a step forward, toward my friends.

…

Dinner was surprisingly uneventful. I managed to procure food before the kitchens closed, and aside from a few pointed glances, no one mentioned Thalia’s earlier outburst. As such, I decided to let the matter lie as well. Instead, our conversation turned to more mundane topics: homework, classmates, and the professors.

Unsurprisingly, Cedric was a big fan of Madam Hooch’s lessons. He declared that he intended to join the Hufflepuff Quidditch team as soon as humanly possible.

My shoes also became a hot subject of discussion.

And though everyone was relieved I’d managed to recover them, Cedric and Eveline both echoed Thalia’s earlier suggestion—that I ought to report the incident to a professor.

Shoes didn’t wind up hanging from a chandelier on their own, after all.

And since I had Charms tomorrow, I promised I’d speak with Professor Flitwick.

Inwardly, though, I had other plans brewing.

…

After a late supper, Thalia and Eveline said they’d go for a walk before returning to the common room. Cedric had started yawning during dinner and consequently went back to his dormitory.

I headed back to the library.

During supper, I realized that before I could practice enchantments and applying bound effects to objects, I first had to learn a spell suitable for sustained magic.

All my spells—the Wand-Lighting Charm, the Wand-Extinguishing Charm, the Levitating Charm, and the Red Sparks Charm—were categorised as charms with immediate effects. Sure, they might maintain their effect as long as I keep my focus, but none of them were meant for enchanting objects.

Thus, I had to find a spell suitable for the task at hand.

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) was found disappointingly lacking in this regard. It seemed enchantment wouldn’t be on the curriculum until my senior years.

Then again, I’d always had a habit of studying ahead.

I found exactly what I was looking for in Miranda Goshawk’s fourth-year textbook.

Aptly named: the Alarm Charm. Incantation: Alarmare.

According to Goshawk’s textbook, the Alarm Charm was a protective spell classified as moderate difficult, used to alert the caster when a specific item, location, or boundary is disturbed.

Depending on the caster’s intent, the alarm may manifest as a chime, a shrill magical whistle, or a subtle magical tingle only perceptible to the caster.

Sure, Goshawk also warned it could be dispelled using Finite Incantatem or bypassed by sufficiently advanced concealment magic, but I reckoned it would do for now.

Since it was getting late, I decided to borrow the fourth-year textbook and head to my dormitory.

…

“A-lahr-mah-re.” I enunciated, executing a tight clockwise spiral with my wand.

Nothing happened.

I scribbled the outcome in my notebook.

“a-LAHR-mah-re.” I tried again, same motion, slightly different stress.

Still no result.

I frowned, but documented the attempt meticulously regardless.

Again and again, I attempted different iterations of the spell—tweaking the incantation, adjusting the wand movements, refining my intent. Yet no matter what I tried, the pale amber glow that allegedly signalled a successful cast refused to manifest.

A faint headache was beginning to form, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“What am I doing wrong?” I muttered, eyes going through my notes. By now, I’d tested dozens of variations, all of them failures. My spark energy dissipating and merging with ambient atmosphere of Hogwarts.

“Let’s see here…” I flipped open the fourth-year textbook, focusing on the section outlining the magical theory behind the charm.

“Operates by tethering a small portion of the caster’s magical awareness to the enchanted object, I read, furrowing my brows. “When the set condition is met, the tether ‘snaps’, thereby triggering the dormant alert effect.”

I pressed my lips together in frustration. This was the first time a charm had given me this much trouble, excluding my stupid attempt to cast the Patronus charm, of course.

Trying to learn the Alarm Charm reminded me of my time at the orphanage. Back then, I’d failed ten times for every successful manifestation. Here, I’d become complacent, or worse, arrogant, thinking I could pick up any easily charm just because it was structured.

Lesson duly learned. Free form magic was more difficult, yes, but that didn't necessarily translate into wand magic being easy.

I’d mentally established a condition—physical contact—and chosen an alert effect—the memory of a car alarm. Combined with the clear intent to bind the spell, that should’ve been enough. Even if my vocal incantation or wandwork was a little bit off, intent usually compensated for small flaws like that.

“Unless… my intent isn’t developed enough to make up for it anymore?” I murmured under my breath.

Considering this was my first attempt at a fourth-year charm, the theory held some water. My intent might be strong for someone my age—but perhaps it wasn’t strong enough to rival witches and wizards with four full years of magical education behind them.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

And lacking a better explanation, I resolved to keep tweaking the incantation and wand movements until I got it right.

Outside my bedroom window, the sky got increasingly darker.

…

“God, my eyes…” I winced, instinctively raising a hand to shield myself from the glare pouring in through the window.

Still squinting, I rubbed at them wearily before glancing around the dormitory.

Roger’s bed was neatly made and empty. While Rufus and William’s half of the room had been left in its usual chaotic state, neither of the occupants was present.

They were all missing.

With a slow, creeping dread, I turned toward the grandfather clock stationed near their beds.

9.12 a.m.

I froze.

…

With dishevelled hair and a crooked uniform, I finally stumbled into Professor Binns’ classroom.

In my haste, I’d accidentally taken the wrong staircase and wound up on an entirely different floor—costing me even more time.

Fortunately, Professor Binns didn’t even so much as flinch when I slipped into his classroom. His monologue was as rhythmic and dull as advertised.

“…during the reign of Ragnuk the First—indeed, that Ragnuk—the so-called High Chieftain of the Goblin Nation, that tensions began to escalate between…”

I slid into an empty seat beside Rufus. Behind him, Matilda Vance and Quentin Avery cast me a long, unimpressed side-eye for showing up late.

Thalia sat a few rows ahead with Selene, scribbling away with methodical intensity.

“Ragnuk’s declarations, preserved in the Iron Scrolls of Gringott’s Central Archives, would later be cited during the Second Uprising of 1671,” Binns droned, “though modern historians, such as Ulric the Unsteady, have occasionally disputed their legitimacy…”

“You were right to sleep in.” Rufus whispered, clearly exasperated. “This is beyond boring.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I muttered back. “You should’ve woken me.”

“It’s not like we didn’t try to.” Rufus replied with a smirk, evidently enjoying the memory. “You told Roger to ‘back off and leave you alone’.”

I sighed and began unpacking my stationary.

“Oh,” Rufus added, his grin widening even further. “And who’s Alex?”

I suppressed the urge to facepalm. Apparently, I’d been more out of it than I realized.

…

Professor Binns’ class was undeniably educational—but it wasn’t hard to see why most eleven-year-olds balked at his teaching style.

The ghostly professor could certainly stand to liven up his lessons. Puns intended.

When class finally ended, Binns suddenly stopped mid-sentence, before promptly vanishing through the blackboard—drifting off to Merlin knows where.

That’s right. I’d recently opted to pick up some of the local lingo I kept overhearing from my peers.

“At least he didn’t deduct any points…” I sighed. I was on thin ice with my peers as it was.

“You were late.” A voice stated while I was packing up my things.

I knew who it was even without turning around.

“Yeah, I overslept…” I said. “Stayed up late last night working on a new project.”

“A new project?” Thalia asked, frowning. Behind her Selene fiddled with her robe, evidently aware that many of our classmates were watching us.

“Yes, seeing as my things have a proclivity to disappear, I figured it would be a good idea to learn how to protect them.”

Thalia’s eyes widened as she realized what I meant.

“You’re trying to learn how to enchant items already?!” She exclaimed, loud enough for my peers to overhear her.

Quentin scoffed audibly but wisely didn’t say anything. Though I noticed plenty of my peers kept glancing at me funnily.

I nodded slowly.

“Michael, you do realize enchantments aren’t taught until our third year, right?”

“I know.” I replied, standing up to leave. “I borrowed the fourth year’s textbook from the library.”

My reply must've opened the proverbial floodgates since Thalia continued to ask questions even as we left the classroom.

“And?” She asked, almost warily as we entered the hallway. “Did you manage to do it?”

I sighed, recalling last night.

“No, not yet. But I feel like I’m close.”

“You’re crazy.”

…

Professor Flitwick’s lesson began fifteen minutes later on the third floor—again, the class was held along with the Hufflepuff first-years.

And to many students’ evident dismay, we resumed practising the foundational wand movements.

There was the swish and flick technique, which we would use when learning the Levitation Charm. Though, admittedly, I’d already mastered it well enough to perform the spell without having to rely on the wand movements.

Then came the straight jab, used in both the Wand-Lighting Charm and the Red Sparks Charm.

There were also the Clockwise and Counterclockwise Spiral, employed for spells requiring activation and deactivation. The former, for example, was an integral part of the Alarm Charm.

Next was the looping curve, resembling the figure eight, used for defensive spells.

The fifth was a diagonal slash.

The sixth: tapping.

And finally, the seventh was a large circular sweep.

Professor Flitwick advised us to practice the movements without holding our wands, given how easy it was to accidentally manifest magic if one’s mind wandered or one's focus faltered.

I followed his advice—at least at first. But toward the end of the class, I couldn’t help but to retrieve my wand.

I couldn't help myself. Practicing with a regular stick when I had a semi-sentient wand that basically yearned to be used felt like a sin.

And I wasn’t the only one.

Some of my housemates—a few students in Matilda’s and Quentin’s retinue especially—made quite the show of voicing their opinions on these basic and boring exercises. Even some Hufflepuffs were too impatient to practice with sticks.

Thomas, as the only other Muggle-born Ravenclaw present, remained conspicuously silent when his friends started complaining. From what I’d witnessed so far, he seemed to be struggling with the more implicit wand movements.

“Now, now!” Professor Flitwick’s voice was soft yet admonishing as he stepped toward the blackboard.

The small professor had to stand on a small stack of books to better address the class.

“Wandwork is often the the difference between an effective and failing spell. A misaligned flick or an imprecise spiral can completely alter the outcome of charm—or worse, cause it to backfire.”

His words grabbed the class’s attention.

“Even the most talented witches and wizards mustn’t just acquit themselves but master the fundamentals. Skill without form is like trying to paint a portrait with a broom!”

When no one said anything, Professor Flitwick smiled encouragingly at two groups of eleven-year-olds.

“Maybe a practical example is needed.”

My eyes widened when the short professor suddenly turned toward me, his eyes gleaming slightly.

“Mr. Morgan, would you mind lending me a hand?”

Whispers and chatter erupted from my housemates, and for a beat, I just stood there, like a deer caught in headlights.

But under Flitwick’s encouraging gaze, I nodded stiffly nonetheless.

“Good!” The edges of Professor Flitwick’s lips curled upward. “Given your practiced wand movements, Mr. Morgan, I suspect you already know a spell or two, am I right?”

“Yes, Professor.” I replied measuredly. “I know both the Red Sparks Charm and the Wand-Lighting Charm, sir.”

“Ah yes, Vermilious, the predecessor of the Periculum Charm. A fine choice if I may say so myself.” Flitwick nodded approvingly. “I heard Professor Crowe assigned it to you as homework?”

Many of us nodded—a few groaned.

Flitwick proceeded to gesture vaguely toward the windows.

“Then please show us your Vermilious Charm, Mr. Morgan. And class, remember to pay close attention to Mr. Morgan’s wand movements.”

I readied my wand—pointedly pretending the anxious knot in my stomach was a figment of my imagination.

…