Lesson in Magic
After they cuddled Harry for half an hour, they decided to join in on the fun the other kids were having with Darcy as they could hear them laugh all the way to the den. When Tony opened the door though he was surprised to see bubbles of different sizes and colors floating around a laughing Darcy who had Luna on her lap clapping her hands excitedly, while Bill, Charlie, and Percy seemed to be chasing after the bubbles, and the twins were chasing after their big brothers.
“What are you doing?” He asked and the bubble Bill was trying to get a hold of popped.
“I am teaching them magic control,” Darcy explained and waived a hand making the rest of the bubbles pop.
“With bubbles?” Severus asked sounding dubious.
“Yes,” Darcy said nodding her head. “It’s how we teach the younger years at Ilvermorny.”
“I think you need to explain,” an intrigued Remus required.
The adults sat on the cushions the wizards conjured for them and waited for Darcy to explain.
“Accidental magic happens when children’s emotions make them rely on their instincts,” she said and everyone nodded, “if they are hungry they summon food. Scared? They make things explode. It’s simple enough. Now, you want to keep this from happening too often, as it makes it harder to control your magic as you grow…” At their surprised look she told them. “Did you have a hard time casting the… What’s the first charm you learn at Hogwarts?”
“Wingardium Leviosa,” Weirdly it was Clint who supplied the answer, making everyone look at him. “What? I have a great memory.”
“That will help you when we’ll try to teach you magic,” Severus told him.
“Seriously? At eleven?” Darcy said but waived them off when they asked her what she meant. “Was it hard to do?”
“Well, not for everyone,” Sirius said and glared at Severus, “But Flitwick only let us try after a month of theory lessons about it, and that was after a month of lectures on the magic behind charms.”
“You lived in a magical house, you want me to believe you didn’t have a wand before getting to Hogwarts?” Severus retorted.
“My parents wanted me to use it to learn spells not taught at Hogwarts, I didn’t have much use of it,” Sirius told him and held Harry closer to himself.
“Anyhow,” Darcy said getting the attention back on herself before anyone could get depressed. “It was hard because you didn’t know how to focus your magic to follow the path from your core to the point of your wand, your magic only knew wildness and instinct. Try to go into the wilderness and domesticate the fauna, let’s see how well that works out for you,” she told them with a smirk.
“So, what do you do?” Remus asked.
“We teach children to focus their magic early on, we have the lowest rate of accidental magic in the world,” She said proudly, making Tony grin, she looked so much like a Stark when she did that.
“Okay, I am intrigued, how are you doing it?” Natasha asked, having seen and read about what accidental magic could do anything that could help mitigate the damages seven magical children could do was good in her books.
“The bubbles,” She said pointing at where Bill was holding to a big one while the twins were trying to pop it.
“They are a Teaching Specialize Charm, I conjure the bubbles, the children are meant to either pop them or hold them, Bill, for example, is learning to find the right amount of power needed to keep the bubble from popping under the twins’ attack, a little too much and he will pop it himself, too little of it and the twins can do it easily,” She explained pointing at the trio, then she moved on the Charlie, “As Charlie told me he never used a wand before his task is different and so are his bubbles, he just needs to keep them from popping, he started with small ones and we are getting bigger as he masters them, they don’t require as much focus as Bill’s, they will only pop if he releases too much power as in a spell that could hurt someone or something, underpowering might be ineffective but it’s less dangerous,” She kept going. “Percy is alternating between popping duties and collecting the bubbles for his brothers as he is at the age we would usually switch the tasks in class. Gred and Forge are to pop the bubbles because it’s instinct magic but with a control component, they are too young to focus and create pathways but they can learn to focus their natural powers and next time they get scared instead of making the windows explode they could hurt the person or thing that scared them…”
Seeing everyone’s face at that statement she started to laugh, “They won’t go popping people we encountered youngs who have stunned the dog who barked loudly behind them, or blasted their sibling across the room. Not something you would encourage, but at the same time, the first defense should always be to protect yourself, and this helps.”
“Shouldn’t the first defense be a shield?” Remus asked.
“But they don’t know how to conjure one yet,” Darcy pointed out, and Remus nodded.
“The bubbles act as shields too, at full force I can have them form around the children and keep them safe that way, but not everyone knows the spell, and it requires a great deal of control to know how to form the shielding one. I had to learn that kind of control to deal with my powers,” She explained.
“Okay, what about Luna and Harry?” Phil asked.
“Oh, Luna is making colors. Look,” She let her wand fall into her hand again and Luna put her hands on it too,” seeing Remus and Sirius panic, Darcy smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s my teaching wand, the worst she can do is make paper birds flew out of it, the spells on it are controlled, so the little kids can’t get hurt when I teach one of the class and end up with one of them touching my wand, or grabbing it. It happens all the time,” Darcy said still smiling.
“That’s not reassuring,” Severus mumbled.
“You never grabbed your parents’ wands just to try it out when you were young? Thinking you could make something fun?” Darcy asked and Arthur, Severus, Remus, and Sirius all blushed.
“Even I tried when at Durmstrang, it’s too tempting,” Natasha admitted.
Darcy waved her wand not saying any spell but you could see Luna getting excited as the bubbles came out the color she wanted them to be, making for some strange mix, from a neon rainbow to moonshine.
“What about Harry?” Sirius asked, but looked down at his little charge when Harry tried to hide from Darcy.
“Gred, Forge, Harry is back,” Darcy yelled and immediately, Fred and George arrived.
“I am sorry, but why are you calling them that?” Arthur asked her.
“They told me to,” Darcy said with a shrug when Arthur looked at the other adults instead of explaining why it was surprising him.
“Now, Boys, Mission Harry is back on,” She knelt down and told the twins, “Go and do not fail us.”
Harry was trying to hide deeper and deeper into Sirius’ hold, but the twins were two and they were bigger, and Sirius wanted to see what their mission was, so he wasn’t helping at all. But Harry made a mistake, he crawled behind Sirius thinking his body would protect him from the twins’ attack, but it failed as they just moved around the man and pounced on him, at first nothing happened, but soon Harry started to whine, Sirius was going to help but Darcy stopped him, and they realized Fred and George were trying to tickle Harry who was resting with all his might, then suddenly the room with filed with the first sound of Harry’s laughter and as it propagated itself through the room the bubbles started to pop, one after the other.
“That’s cheating!” Bill exclaimed when finally his bubble popped too.
“Yeah, we said, no making Harry laugh,” Charlie complained.
“Harry needs to learn he doesn’t need to always be so in control, he is a little boy, and little boys have to laugh and play and be little boys,” Darcy told them. “You don’t want him to be all sad, and never be happy do you?” Both boys shook their heads.
“What’s going on?” Sirius asked after he rescued Harry from the tickling.
“Harry is always in control. I don’t know why, and I don’t need to. But he needs to relax, he is one year old, and with the power he has if he doesn’t relax sometimes his accidental magic is going to blow the entire tower up,” She explained.
“But you just said he is in control,” Phil argued.
“Yeah, he has as much control as a pressure cooker, as long as the pressure is under control everything is fine, let it cook for too long and it will explode on you,” Darcy told him.
“Being in control 24/7 is taxing, and it requires a lot of concentration,” Severus agreed with her. “Occlumency is great, but even I have to let my shields down, once a day, or I’ll get a headache and start snapping at people.”
“So, what did the twins do?” Sirius asked still keeping an eye on the three years old boys.
“They got him to lose control, and his power once released blew up the bubbles,” Darcy explained. “After he laughed the first time, I charmed them to attract his outburst so the others would be safe,” She explained.
“You know a lot of spells we never even heard of,” Remus told her, but Tony could see the maniac scientist glee in his eyes.
“I’ll take you to visit Dad if you want, Ilvermorny has more subjects than Hogwarts, you don’t even have a Household Charm Classes. My friend Mary told me she had to learn them from a book after she got her first place and she blew up a few plates before she could master the dishwashing one.”
“I think the kids are going to be enrolled at Ilvermorny,” Arthur stated, obviously Hogwarts wasn’t up to standard anymore and he wanted the best for his children.
“So, can you conjure more of those bubbles?” Severus asked after a few minutes of contemplation, clearly, no one was willing to debate about schooling at the moment. “I want to see how it works.”
“No better way than first-hand experience,” Darcy told him and gestured for them all to stand up. “Hum, Agent I-Pod thief you can hold Luna,” She said and handed her to Phil, “ I need to use my normal wand for this and it’s better if she doesn’t get her little hands on that one.”
Darcy conjured more bubbles for the kids and Sirius settled Harry on the floor but only after the twins promised not to tickle him anymore. Though, they were conspiring something with him, talking in hush tones and eyeing the adults. Arthur must have noticed too as he quickly cast a locking charm on the door making sure the three of them couldn’t leave while they were busy, clearly the man was used to deal with his sons.
Darcy switched wands, her new one, Tony noticed was blue and silver with a pink stone he knew to be quartz fitting into the palm of her hand.
“It’s Honey Locust macerated in Hellebore,” Darcy told them.
“Dangerous combination,” Sirius said, “and the core?”
“Let’s see if you can guess after we get to know each other,” She said with a wink, though Sirius only smiled and nodded, Tony was amused to notice Agent didn’t like that at all.
Darcy conjured the required bubbles for the wizards, and then made smaller ones and pushed them toward Tony, Natasha, and Clint, “It’s never too late to learn,” she told them.
“This is frustrating,” Remus said after his third bubble popped, none of the other having better luck.
“I see what you meant,” Severus told Darcy, “I know I have to give it the exact amount of power necessary, but I can’t seem to find the right balance between too little and too much.”
“That’s because you are trying to do it as you do with your wand, but wands have their own powers they are made to channel your magic, the bubbles’ only use is to learn control,” Darcy explained. “Do any of you know wandless magic?”
“I do,” Sirius told her, “But only for a handful of spells. It was part of the Auror training.”
“So, Expeliarmus, Incarcerous, these types of spells?” Darcy asked and Sirius nodded.
“It should still help you, think of the bubble as a shield you have to erect without your wand,” She told him. After a few more try she changed tactic. “What if you don’t have your wand and Harry is in danger?” She said, and they all watched as the bubbles disappeared from Sirius’, Severus’, and Remus’ hands to form a big shield around Harry and the twins. “Not what I had in mind but this works,” Darcy said clearly impressed, though Tony wondered if it was by the action itself or by the thought behind it.
“I think I got it,” Severus said, “Can I have one more?” Darcy conjured a new bubble for him and watched as he grabbed it, concentrated for a few seconds and then when he had a handle on it forced it to change form, making it turn into a square without making it pop.
“Yes, you got it!” Darcy exclaimed making the kids look at them and Bill and Charlie started asking how they could do that. “That’s the next lesson boys,” She told them and send them back to their task.
“How did you do it?” Remus asked.
“I was doing it wrong,” Severus explained, “With a wand, you have to force a pathway from your core to the thing you want to spell, be it an object or a person, through the wand, it is an instrument of your magic. I was trying to do the same with the bubble and kept overpowering it, it isn’t meant to be the instrument of your magic but the recipient. Your power isn’t supposed to go through the bubble, if you do it it will pop. You have to release your magic so it will flow just on the surface, like a caress, it will protect the bubble from external threats.”
“Very good, Severus,” Darcy praised him.
“Oh!” Bill said from next to her and went back to his bubble, after a few seconds a cried out running toward the adults to show them his bubble now had a squarish shape.
“Bravo Bill!” Arthur and Darcy cried out.
“But remember what I said?” Darcy asked him.
“I should not do it too often or for too long because my core isn’t stable yet,” He said with a nod, and walked to the twins and Harry to let them pop his bubble, before sitting with them to talk.
“He is really responsible, they all are,” Darcy praised Arthur.
“Thank you,” He said happily.
Half an hour later every adult could keep their bubbles from popping for several minutes and Darcy put a stop to the lesson.
“That was harder than I thought it would be,” Sirius admitted.
“Because you are taught to use your wands first, when in reality most spells don’t require one, some do as you need the increased power and accuracy a wand will give you. Such as for conjuring the bubbles as I need to be able to choose the strength at which I create them, or for offensive spells, or healing. But for most spells, it isn’t useful,” Darcy explained. “Take Reparo, unless you are powerful enough to repair the whole building in one go when you cast it, it will only repair the closest broken thing, no need for a wand to be pointed at it,” as they were all nodding she kept going, “creatures don’t use wands, they still practice magic, but you’ll notice Goblins use either generalize magic or swords in battle no spells.”
“So, we are straining our magic by using our wands?” Remus asked.
“Not straining, but you are limiting yourself, only using the powers you can channel through your wands when you have much more,” Darcy told them. “Look at accidental magic, children do that, it isn’t normal or natural for them or their core to know how to summon something when they are one and want a bottle but then not be able to do it when they learn to use Accio. I was taught to rely on instinctual magic,” When they looked confused she told them, “When I arrived, I was cold, I didn’t cast an Accio on the blanket I simply asked my magic to find something for me to cover myself with. If I had been summoning stuff, I probably would have asked for the sweater I keep in my room, but I didn’t need it specifically.”
“Magic is alive,” Phil said.
“Of course, she is,” Darcy told them with a frown.
“I know we saw Lady Magic at work already but it never occurred to me that She is the origin of our powers, they should work in the same ways,” Severus admitted.
“We are only limited by our own power level,” Darcy agreed.
“Harry and Severus need more training,” Sirius announced after a long silence.
“They sure do, Severus because he is only using about 27% of his core from what I saw, and Harry because he is too in control, he is both perfectly aware of what he can do and afraid of letting go, you need to teach him not to fear his magic or it won’t end well, as he grows up so will his core and being always in control like he is trying to not outshine anyone or not be noticeable is going to make him rupture his core, if not turn him into an Obscurus,” Darcy announced. “I don’t know what happened, but I know he is terrified of using the power he has, and that never ends well.”
With this Darcy walked to the boys and kissed each of them on their forehead. “I need to go feed my scientists,” She told them and kissed Tony in the same way she did the kids. “Call me if you need another babysitter, the kids are cool,” She said and kissed Agent’s cheek whispering something in his ear which made him smirk. “I’ll call Dad to see when you can visit the school. Bye.”
And with that she disapparated.
“Why did you ask her about Gred and Forge?” Clint asked Arthur immediately, and Tony thought the man must have been dying to ask.
“Because I never heard them use it before we read the books,” Arthur told him, and as one the adults all turned to the children who in turn looked up at them all innocent eyes and wide grins.