The part about a firestorm had not been an exaggeration at all. Everyone in the greenhouse had felt it, the sudden surge of Julian's magic as he drew his wand. The air had gone tight and heavy for a heartbeat, thick with power, before Professor Sprout swiftly confiscated his wand.
It was more for safety than punishment.
She had watched the entire exchange from start to finish, and while she was not about to excuse him losing his temper, she could not entirely blame him either. The whip vines had lashed him over and over, hard enough to leave reddened marks each time.
She made a quiet mental note: while he was generally calm and friendly, he clearly had a short fuse when it came to things that caused constant irritation.
Unfortunately, most magical plants came with similar defensive quirks. She knew, with some disappointment, that Herbology was never going to be a particularly pleasant class for him.
Neville, on the other hand, was a complete natural around plants. Even if her subject did not appeal to everyone like Julian, it was still worth teaching for students like him.
...
Once class ended, Julian regrouped with his friends, who immediately pounced on the chance to tease him.
"You should have seen your face," Tracy cackled. "It was all red and puffy."
"What spell were you about to cast, mate?" Ron asked, still wide eyed. "It made the hair on my arms stand up before Sprout stopped you."
The students nearby quieted down to listen; they had all felt the flare of his magic too.
Julian shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint, but it was just an overcharged fire summoning charm," he answered honestly.
"Must have been seriously overcharged if it made us all feel like that," Tracy said, astonished.
"In case it was not obvious, I was absolutely livid at that moment," Julian admitted, a bit embarrassed. "Holding back was nowhere in my mind."
"It is a good thing you are on our side then, isn't it?" Harry joked.
Everyone laughed.
...
Without the constant storm of fame and expectation weighing him down, Harry had begun to thrive at Hogwarts. A lot of that was thanks to Julian quietly dismantling the more ridiculous parts of his notoriety.
In the week since term had properly settled in, Harry had opened up more. He still had a habit of keeping to himself if left alone, but even that was fading as he grew more comfortable initiating conversations on his own.
"You lot go on ahead," Julian said after a while. "I have a bit of work I need to deal with."
He separated from the group and headed for his workshop.
On the way, he flicked his magical senses on and off, balancing between staying alert and not pushing himself to the point of another nosebleed.
It turned out to be unnecessary this time. He felt nothing out of place the entire walk and reached his door without incident.
He was paranoid and fully aware of it, but after the Dark Lord had tried to kill him via exploding furnace the previous day, he felt justified.
A quick sweep of the room once he stepped inside revealed no foreign magic. Satisfied, Julian locked the door behind him and finally let his shoulders relax.
...
The secrecy was necessary.
He did not want anyone to find out that he was using illusion spells on himself as a method to deepen his understanding of them.
Celebrimbor's approach put heavy focus on personal experience. Casting the spells told him how they were constructed in theory, but feeling them firsthand gave him a much sharper, deeper grasp.
He had no desire to torment other students just so he could experiment, so that left him as the most convenient target.
Having your senses scrambled was not pleasant in the slightest, but at least this way he could fully understand how the illusions worked from the inside.
He had already decided to avoid the darker, fear based illusions entirely. Those were off limits. Everything else, though, was fair game.
Julian took a steadying breath and pointed his wand at his own chest.
"Invorto," he said clearly.
The effect hit instantly. The entire room seemed to lurch, and suddenly he was standing on the "ceiling," along with the anvil, furnace, and every tool in the room.
The illusion did not actually move his body. Instead, it twisted his sense of gravity, convincing his brain that down was up and up was down.
This spell would give someone a lifelong complex if used outside, he thought wryly as he took a few cautious steps and tried to get used to the sensation.
He tried jumping experimentally. The moment his feet left the floor, a wave of vertigo slammed into him. His inner sense of direction vanished, leaving him utterly unable to tell which way was which.
For a split second, it genuinely felt like he was about to plummet into the actual ceiling.
Once his heart stopped racing, he filed that sensation away mentally.
"Finite Incantatem," he said, canceling the spell.
The room settled back into its proper orientation, and the world felt mercifully normal again.
Julian pulled out a notepad and jotted down the spell name, along with observations and a few notes on its tactical uses.
A disorienting spell that scrambles an opponent's sense of gravity, he wrote. Good for making them stumble, misjudge jumps, or lose balance completely.