Chapter 36
"So, all this bedlam is finally over," I exhaled a breath of the slightly musty air of our school library heavily, but at the same time with satisfaction and relaxation... In which, this time, I managed to be almost completely alone.
Somewhere in the background, rare groups of senior students quietly whispered and scratched their quills, some of them, it seemed, were shamelessly making out and flirting in the remote corners of the temple of knowledge, and someone... clearly alternatively gifted, was even learning some not-so-simple spells in a completely unsuitable place for it.
But that didn't really worry or bother me much. Over the past year and a half, I had already become quite accustomed to the eccentricity and periodic flashes of madness of the local wizards. As long as no one tried to summon Fiendfyre while hiding between the bookshelves, everything was fine, or at least within normal limits.
That very norm under which I could, with a clear conscience, ignore everything around me, systematically immersing myself in reading and simply... resting my soul? Honestly, I never thought that studying and thoughtfully comprehending a not-so-simple magical treatise on Transfiguration would at some point become something relaxing and pleasant for me.
Intensive study in any of its manifestations is generally rarely a pleasant and relaxing activity, but... after running around with the horcrux, catching Peter Pettigrew, and the legal proceedings in the case of Sirius Black's past crimes, I was truly happy to return to my study plan and such understandable study of magic.
It seems that after everything I experienced, I even absorbed the material somehow better and faster. Either it was the effect of a certain rest-break in the active cramming of everything that somehow relates to my spheres of interest in magic. Or the whole bunch of extensive and most diverse magical practice of the last months in general had improved my idea of magic and my real understanding of it.
Or maybe it was the mental practices gradually making themselves known. Still, I did not forget about them, as well as physical training, even on the busiest days of my little war against the events known to me from the movies. Because of which my progress in mental magic was even better than expected, which I could rightfully be proud of...
But I was in no hurry to do so, perfectly realizing that over the past months, even if I managed to solve problems that in the history known to me stretched for as much as two years of study at Hogwarts, along with successes I also had my own defeats this year. In particular, I started to slip a little in my studies. And I'm not just talking about slightly sagging grades, some of which worsened simply because I couldn't always prepare a decent-level essay in some subjects that weren't particularly interesting to me personally.
No, turning from a straight-A student to a solid B-student hardly bothered me, especially since in practice during this time I had managed to master quite a few truly complex and almost impossible spells for my age, but... I began to fall behind my own study program. My magic study plan, outlined back during the summer holidays, was currently completed by maybe forty percent at best.
And this is despite the fact that there was not so much time left until the end of the year, and I would still have to return my grades to the previous level in any case and spend some time preparing for the exams in those same Potions... Which was completely unacceptable to me.
Even the fact that my initial plan and... let's call it the "reading list" in its final version was expanded quite significantly simply during the course of study. After all, some magical treatises very often refer to completely new books, refusing to read which simply didn't work out, and... as a result, I sometimes had to literally spend weeks figuring out one specific, very narrow and specific sphere of Transfiguration, but I knew from the very beginning that everything would be exactly like that.
When drawing up the study plan for this year, I perfectly understood and realized that studying the subjects of interest to me could become a much more voluminous task than it seemed to me. And I was not going to completely exclude the possibility that something new would interest me either, giving myself a good margin of time.
Except I somehow didn't take into account that Hogwarts is not at all the kind of school where one humble hero can be allowed to calmly go about his business and study magic... Or rather, no, I took that into account too. I just didn't realize how poorly my study plans would combine with the plans to get rid of the horcrux and catch an unregistered rat Animagus.
And this mistake, halved with other minor factors and rare joys of my life, as a result left me not so much time to study all the information that I wanted to master before the next training camp during these holidays.
"Which, by the way, is also still in question. If Sirius Black is released from Azkaban... This summer I might not be able to lead the life of such a hermit monk obsessed with magic," I interrupted the flow of my own thoughts with some effort, shifting my glasses to my forehead with some fatigue and massaging the bridge of my nose.
All this was so complicated and unpleasant... The inability to normally build plans even for the relatively near future was quite annoying. And even if I couldn't do anything about it, due to my banal age, but... it didn't prevent me from throwing all my strength into studying magic.
Besides, now absolutely nothing distracted me from the most intensive study and training. Even the company of my young wizard friends, having felt the change in my attitude to studying, were in no hurry to distract me unnecessarily without a good reason.
And no, this absolutely did not mean that I had somewhat distanced myself from Ginny, Luna Lovegood, Daphne, or any of our other snakes. My friends had long ago become accustomed to my workaholism and its periodic exacerbations. And even if the same Draco, not to mention his squires, hardly shared this very workaholism, but... we had all long ago become accustomed to hanging out in the same company one way or another.
So, nothing prevented the guys from quietly discussing Quidditch, and the girls from quietly whispering about some new fashion magazine or the release of a special catalog with cosmetic potions for young and not-so-young witches... Sometimes these two groups intersected—mainly because of Draco with his authoritative opinion on what exactly compositions should be used for hair care, or because of Ginny, always ready to enter into a discussion about the sport she loved so much...
And all this against the background of one humble hero of Magical Britain, who was trying either to bury himself under books, or to learn the entire Hogwarts library by heart... Well, that is if you believe the words of Pansy Parkinson, to whom I very far-sightedly did not pay a drop of extra attention.
Because mental magic, of course, allowed me to track, realize, and remember almost everything that happened around me in the background, but I still preferred to concentrate precisely on books or my practical exercises. During which, by the way, I much more often remained in proud solitude, or in the company of Luna and Ginny, who followed me everywhere like a tail.
And the matter here is not in any real distrust of the same Slytherins. When I take up the study and mastery of some magic that is not intended for the eyes of even my closest comrades, there is usually no one in my "training room" anyway. In this regard, I had long since learned to easily and very adroitly guess a good time for my training.
During my regular classes, Draco, Daphne, and the rest are usually absent simply because these little shits react too sharply to my training... Or purely out of spite they begin to sabotage them in minor ways, asking me to help them master some not-so-complex magic or simply... playing the fool and distracting me from mastering new spells.
Which was genuinely annoying. Seriously, I was often all for helping my friends with learning new spells myself. Still, practice back in the first year had shown that teaching someone else an already mastered spell often helped me myself to look at the already familiar spell in a new way. Optimize it a bit, understand the principle of its work a little better, and much more...
Teaching others, I myself almost always learned something new, but... after Draco, along with Pansy and his squires, began to literally play cards hard at my training sessions, simultaneously coaxing Daphne to take on the role of a croupier, I kicked all the snakes the hell out of my abandoned classroom. And I still ignore their rare attempts to squeeze back into my schedule.
For some reason, I absolutely did not want to so easily forgive the careless attitude towards my training and towards magic itself in general. Luna and Ginny in this regard were, of course, not that much better, but... more respectful and calmer, which is why I did not refuse their company, at least for now.
I even ostentatiously helped them with magic, letting the snakes know how much and exactly where they were wrong... Which, of course, didn't always work out the way I would have liked. The young wizards, accustomed to perceiving magic as something completely natural, simply did not possess my hunger and passion for this amazing art.
And therefore, none of them possessed a special craving to seriously study with me on equal terms. Only Daphne, and even then mainly because of her ambition, treated learning with almost surprising seriousness for her age, but otherwise... the Slytherins weren't exactly terribly upset about the impossibility of attending my practical training sessions in Charms and Transfiguration.
They had enough to do without me, for the most part... Kids, what can you take from them? Even an upbringing in very specific and "old-fashioned" families is not capable of turning my current peers into truly purposeful, strong-willed, and disciplined individuals.
I myself, if not for the mental practices multiplied by an almost maniacal obsession with magic, would hardly have been able to gnaw the granite of magical science with such frenzy. To endlessly study and train, only occasionally distracted by measured communication and extreme broom flights, would have been impossible even for me.
In my past life, I definitely could not boast of my current level... of almost obsession with my favorite thing. But now I can, catching up at a confident pace and even slightly outstripping my own study plan... To the existence of which I eventually initiated my friends, somewhat shocking some of them with the very fact of its presence.
Seriously, these kids all this time thought that I was just indiscriminately studying everything that was somehow related to Transfiguration and Charms... At the same time probably thinking that I was quite the oddball and simply a slightly abnormal boy. Daphne even confessed that until recently she thought that my obsession with magic was a very temporary character trait.
Which was to some extent even a logical conclusion, considering that many Muggle-born wizards are initially also very fascinated by magic, but gradually—usually in a couple of months to half a year—they still calm down and start considering magic something ordinary.
Because of which the girl, although she respected my zeal, while practically admiring my talent, still didn't treat it too seriously... She thought that by the third year I would finally calm down and enter the general rhythm, albeit adjusted for previously revealed talents, but...
My plan, as well as some of its main points, which I also told this smug blonde about, forced Daphne to change her mind somewhat. After which she even seriously asked for the opportunity to attend my training sessions again and simply wanted to study with me... Albeit without going to extremes.
This young lady knew her own limits perfectly well and considered overexerting beyond what was necessary to be stupidity, barbarism, and the lot of idiots who thought too much of themselves. With which I was even partly in agreement, ultimately finding no reasons for refusal, but...
Even if the company of three girls from three different Hogwarts houses was quite pleasant for me, I still wasn't going to become their personal trainer in the end. I had my own goals in life, tied primarily to the desire to keep this very life safe and sound.
And therefore, no matter how much Daphne pouted at me, I was not going to help her with her studies to the detriment of my own training... At least until she offered me something in return for the time spent on her. Which is exactly what I told the girl, earning first an offended, and then a thoughtfully-calculating look...
Which ultimately led me somewhere clearly wrong! Like, completely, completely wrong!
Read Advanced Chapters on: p@treon/Amiii_
~Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]