An Expected Meeting
‘Let us now talk about the different classifications of magic.
There are many different magical systems, each system defined as a ‘school’ of magic. It is very rare that a school of magic is universally agreed upon, for instance, Greek elementalism states that fire, water, earth and air are the base elements. Eastern elementalism states that fire, metal, water, wood and earth are the base elements.
So how is it possible that both schools are correct?
This stems from the very nature of magic. By trying to define magic, rules are introduced that start to shape it in unexpected ways. Magic is affected by how we ourselves think of it. Whether this is simply due to mortal minds trying to comprehend the incomprehensible or a quirk of magic itself is unknown.
This leads us to the commonly held belief of light and dark magic. During 100 AD, with the Roman Empire’s increasing influence over western wixen and the spread of wands new magic was constantly being developed.
This led to the light and dark magical system, discovered by Marcus Gaunt, in which light magic consisted of emotionless magic, dark magic consisted of magic that requires strong emotions to be cast or have an effect, and grey magic to describe spells that are affected by emotions but do not require them to be cast.
Despite common belief, the Patronus charm is one of the darkest charms that exist, while the blood boiling curse is technically a light curse.
Dark magic is no more evil then light magic. The perpetuation of the idea that dark magic is wrong comes from the misinformation that dark magic is the same as black magic.
This is false.
Black magic and white magic are part of the few isolated magic systems that all wizards agree upon.
White magic is the invocation of a god’s power. For good or for evil white magic is not inherently wrong.
Black magic is the invocation of an Olde One’s power. Any who call upon the Olde One’s deserve a fate worse than death.’
-Exerpt from ‘Magical Theory’ by Adalbert Waffling
‘Calling out to hallowed tomb,
Come forth to receive my boon,
Anchored to stolen bone,
Come forth to serve mine throne.’
At the word throne I breathed out on to the skull in my hand. Following this the skull crumbled, forming a cloud of dust that floated to the space in front of me. Slowly the dust cloud collapse into itself, and in its place, a pigeon. A ghostly black pigeon.
Now as I’m sure your wondering, yes, I have just cast magic. My first ever successful spell in fact. Let’s rewind a little to see how I got here.
---o-o-o------------
The day after finding the Temple I made good on my list. Charles wasn’t the most frugal of 10-year-old's, but he was a damned sight better at saving then I was at that age. From what I remembered he was saving up for an Atari 5200, however between the meagre allowance and the fact that my boy used to regularly dip into the funds he never managed to raise more than roughly £30. What that means however, is that I had £26.77 to convert into galleons.
The issue with galleons is, even though it’s roughly a 1 to 5, galleon to pound ratio, the magical world is essentially its own country, and the cost of things reflects that. Magic makes lots of muggle expenses unnecessary, but at the same time, personalised or hand-crafted items become much more prevalent.
This leads to an economy that I don’t understand, nor do I want to try understanding. The important area for me, different items can cost wildly different prices in the magical world compared to the muggle world, such as lunch being much cheaper in the magical world. With my money exchanged I had roughly 5 and a bit galleons and no clue how much that is worth.
---o-o-o------------
After some exploring, I eventually found a store in Knockturn that sold magical training devices. These help people to train their magical control, magic permanence, shaping magic, and more. You name it and there’s a way to train it.
Originally, I had thought these things toys, but the store owner was quite happy to help, shall we say, dispel that theory. By calling me dangerously stupid. And a few other flattering remarks.
These tools weren’t just for children, they can be tailored for whatever level of expertise someone needs. Controlling your magic helps for everything from potions to duelling or casting obscure magics. The one that I ended up buying, for 5 galleons, is a model that’s specifically made to help with wandless magic.
It’s essentially a transparent glass cube, roughly the size of my fist. Once you pour magic into it, one of the sides will turn opaque. Upon that side turning opaque you need to be able to hold that magical flow for 10 seconds, upon which it will stay opaque. From there you move to the next side that requires a different flow rate. Once you can turn the square opaque, you do a similar exercise where you have to turn the cube transparent again.
There's 5 different levels to this cube, and upon completing all five you should have what the store owner called ‘passable’ control over your magic. When prodded he explained that you should be of similar control to a pureblood child at the end of their first year.
Id like to say I breezed through the entire block in the following week, but the truth is at the end of the week I had barely gotten one side to become opaque for even 2 or 3 seconds. It’s difficult. For some reason my magic seems to fight me. It doesn’t want to stay in one place, instead wanting to dance around within me and evade my commands.
Feeling magic for the first time was strange. I can only feel my magic, no other magic. I can’t feel where it comes from either, just a vague hint that its somewhere inside of me. Magic is… impossible. Trying to put it into words is like trying to describe colours to the blind.
My magic doesn’t like to listen to me. It’s playful and light, it likes to flow. Trying to get it to work with me is incredibly difficult. This led to me stubbornly bashing my head against a wall until the weekend where I managed to do some research.
The Temple has a lot of sources on trying to control magic, and that’s where I found some good news. Not on controlling my magic but on the actual cube itself. Once I can light up one side of the cube, I should be able to start learning wandless spells. They’ll be a bit on the weaker end, but the chants and gestures are a method of channelling your magic as well, which helps ease the mental burden.
I also managed to find a spell. It’s a form of necromancy actually, which dropped me down the rabbit hole of what is and isn’t illegal. Long story short, dark magic isn’t bad it just has a bad reputation among the uneducated. But black magic is very illegal, and I shouldn’t touch that ever.
Also, any magic ending in ‘-mancy’ is a form of divination. Mancy comes from the Greek word manteia which literally means divination. So necromancy isn’t illegal, it’s actually used in law enforcement some times. Infect the Bones are famous necromancers, but more on that later.
The spell is called the spirit bone. Its cast by chanting a spell, gesturing, and channelling your magic into the skull of a dead animal with the intent for a servant. It summons an apparition of the creature whose skull you use to do your bidding.
The apparition isn’t the soul or spirit of the creature, but magic forming a tangible shell of what the creature looks like using the magic within the bone to ‘remember’ its original form. The spell is fairly versatile. The summon can be used as a messenger by tying a message to it like an owl, or in a pinch, can be used as a form of attack or defence. The problem is unless you’re using a magical creature’s bone, even strong non magical creatures will only be able to do the equivalent of a punch before being used up, and magical creature remains are so useful nobody in their right mind would use them as a reagent for a spell this weak. The spell also has a time limit depending on the amount of magic used, usually five or less minutes.
With that, I went back to the orphanage and decided that until I can light up one side of the cube I wouldn’t bother going back to the magical district.
---o-o-o------------
Fast forward three weeks and I’ve finally managed to consistently activate one side of the cube. From here I needed to find the spells reagents.
It was difficult getting access to an animal skull. I lucked out one day on the walk home from school and managed to find a dead pigeon on the sidewalk.
From what I’ve read, magic is very reactive, so I didn’t want to risk any blood or flesh contaminating the spell. This led to me creepily twisting the pigeons head off in the street and trying to subtly clean it at the orphanage. needless to say I need to work on my stealth, the matron who caught me stewing the pigeon skull wasn’t… thrilled.
This all leads up to now, with me staring at a shockingly normal pigeon, if a bit see through.
As if to show me magic wasn’t that simple, the pigeon warped from any regular bird to a gruesome mimicry of the one I found lying on the street with its guts hanging out and its neck snapped. As its broken wings trailed behind it, it’s cold lifeless eyes still stared at me, asking for its task.
The spell warned of this. The apparition’s appearance is influenced by the caster’s thoughts. As soon as I thought of its mangled body rather than a normal bird it shifted into its current state, and now I can’t get that state out of my head, and with no use for the bird I dismissed it. That was disgusting.
That did give me a way of defending myself though. Even just the shock factor of a spell being cast and that awful thing appearing should shock someone enough to let me run, especially if I have it fly at them. Most people would be at least a little shocked at a disembowelled pigeon flying for their heads. Onte of the problems with this type of spell is that it consumes the reagents used when casting it, so I need a supply of skulls for it to be reliable.
In the end however, none of that really mattered. I ended up breaking my promise and exploring Unkan while I’ve been learning the spell. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The biggest problem is well meaning adults trying to send me back to Diagon or find my parents. While Unkan isn’t very dangerous, it isn’t the type of place for children. I kept up with learning the spell mainly out of boredom then anything else. Luckily my birthdays soon.
I appeared in this body on June the 24th, currently its august the 3rd. the orphanage doesn’t know my exact birthday, but they do know its sometime in early august, and eventually they decided to just call it august 7th and left it at that. I should get my Hogwarts letter soon. Dear god, do I hide my magical knowledge? If its Dumbledore that comes it could become a massive problem if he realises what I know? What if he I lied about it and he realises? That’s going to be complicated.
---o-o-o------------
It’s august 10th and Dumbledore's here. He walks in dressed in an old but still classy velvet suit. Long beard down to just below his waist and hair slicked back. He knows how to dress. The matron knocks on my door, introduces him as a professor and leaves us.
I’ve decided it isn’t best idea to try and play with him. Dumbledore is a political powerhouse. He holds positions of power in both the local and international governments, he’s the headmaster of the most prestigious wizarding academy in the UK and he’s the man who fought two dark lords and defeated one of them.
I won’t be able to manipulate him, I just don’t have a chance. Instead I’ve decided that my best bet is to simply be honest, be myself and try not to make eye contact. The most I can hope for is him not forcing me to talk about topics I’m clearly uncomfortable with.
He takes a quick look around the room before zeroing his focus in on me as he steps into my room and gestures toward my chair.
“May I?” he asks. I nod and he sits before looking at me, content to let me start the conversation.
“Your Albus Dumbledore.” I speak.
He leans in with a kind smile, “Indeed I am Charles. May I ask how you know of me?” Instead of answering I grab my journal and pull out his chocolate frog card. Wizard chocolate is better than muggle chocolate by far.
“Yes, that would do it I suppose.” He chuckles and gestures for me to continue.
“I found Diagon by accident. I wanted a lunch and saw a couple of people with strange clothes enter a pub. It was the Leaky Cauldron”’ He nods.
“Ah yes, that is one way to discover magic. I feel that I must warn you. Following strangers is not very safe Charles. Do you know why I’m here then?” At my nod he continues, “Well then, it is my joy that I am able to give you this letter.” I reach out and hesitantly take it.
I try to figure out a good way of asking a question. He must see me struggling and gestures for me to ask.
“Dumbledore sir, could you show me some magic? Real magic. I’ve wondered Diagon but I was trying to fit in and-“
“No need to say more my boy. What is your favourite animal?”
It may seem strange to ask, after all I can cast a spell and I’ve seen tons of casual magic. This is different though. A chance to see wand magic from someone like Albus Dumbledore is huge. I’d also feel cheated if I didn’t get the standard experience. I’m pretty sure every muggleborn gets to see a spell from whoever is introducing them to magic.
“Pigs sir, teacup pigs. the ones that stay small forever.” He nods and waves his wand at my journal. Before my eyes my journal shifts and changes, morphing into a baby pig. Its adorable. I grin and start scratching its head as it nuzzles me.
“That’s fucking awesome. How long until it turns back?”
Dumbledore gives me a stern look, “Language.” He says, before easing his expression, “You’ll find that Hogwarts has a low tolerance for curse words. Your journal will be back in due time, no longer than an hour. I suggest you enjoy your pet until then. Now, do you have any questions? Maybe something you haven’t been able to discover in your little adventures.”
“I don’t really have money sir…“ I trail off a bit at that. I’m starting to get comfortable around him, he really does seem like a kind person. He’s trying.
“You need not worry about that. The ministry has a fund to help young wizards in your position Charles.’”
“And will someone take me shopping? I know where Diagon is but-“
“Again, my boy, don’t worry on this. A professor will come by to collect you for your trip. There you will receive a bit more information and some advice on Hogwarts.”
“Huh, that’s pretty cool. I guess that’s all for Hogwarts sir.” Dumbledore nods at me and we stand up to say our farewells. Before I can reach to shake his hand he says one last thing.
“if you’ll excuse my curiosity, why wont you meet my eyes Charles. You’ve been staring at my beard this entire time.”
My words come more forced then intended, “I’ve heard about legilimency. I didn’t want to risk it, I think someone’s mind should be private sir.”
He gives me a sorrowful look, “You’ll find that I believe the same Charles. I assure you that I, nor anyone at Hogwarts, will attempt to enter your mind without consent. This I promise you.” I can’t really think of anything to say to that. And truthfully, he’s been nothing but kind to me so far, so after a mental struggle I decide to give him an olive branch. Call me stupid but I don’t think this is dark lord Dumbledore, I could be wildly wrong of course, but I have this gut feeling that he means me well. I lift my gaze and look him in the eyes. His eyes twinkle and he grins.
“It has been most wonderful meeting you young man. I do look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts.’ And with that greeting he turns on heel and leaves my room.
I stare at the door he left through and I can’t help but think that went well. Better then I thought it would go. Let’s hope I’m not wrong.
---o-o-o------------
POV Dumbledore:
The day’s events weighed heavily on my mind as I returned to Hogwarts. The boy’s suspicion is worrying, never mind the information he already holds. No normal boy should be worried about legilimency. Luckily, he hasn’t started learning occlumency. My mind drifts to two other children that had learned of occlumency far to soon. Once started the damage is nigh impossible to remove. I’ll have to ensure he is warned of his fate should he attempt the discipline. Given his knowledge of legilimency, it bodes well that he hasn’t already started occlumency, but it is unnecessary to risk that he just hasn’t discovered it yet.
The fact that he already knows about the magical world is incredible, but not worrying. The way he found out is. Charles had lied to me about how he found magic. Whatever he’s hiding, the fact that he feels the need to hide it, doesn’t bode well.
I look up as Fawkes trills out before letting loose a heavy sigh. Whatever ever the reason, whatever the future may hold, I will not fail this boy as I have failed so many others. Britain has already paid for my mistakes, I fear that this cost will be far to high.