Harry Evans: Memoirs of a well-lived Death (SI)

It was a sullen Harry who sat his first Charms lesson. He hadn't managed to find anything about Occlumency in the library and neither had he been able to find literally anything else that he had been looking for. He slumped down on his desk as Professor Flitwick demonstrated the wand-lighting charm, lumos. Something Harry could at this point do in his sleep, considering that it was supposedly the easiest charm in existence and he'd already trained himself to achieve feats much more complex. Like manipulating water moisture, creating fire and utility charms such as reparo and scourgify.

Nonetheless, when the diminutive professor demanded it, Harry opened the book at the required chapter. The fact that it took him a few seconds was already enough to raise his level of annoyance again, although it had never really descended much after the library incident. If he had a computer he could have just pressed ctrl + f and found the chapter pertaining to the spell within a second. Would have definitely been a god-sent at the library. He sighed as Flitwick droned on.

"You see students, lumos is one of the simplest charms because it doesn't require a wand motion, a curious property that only appears again in the most difficult charms later on."

Harry turned mechanically to stare at Flitwick so as to pretend that he was listening, while his thoughts remained elsewhere. If there was a spell that could replicate the function of a computer's search query, then the spell would be a charm and if the spell was a charm then the resident charms master should have an idea about it, right?

"Why don't you give it a try now, remember the pronunciation is LU-MOS," Flitwick said happily, before scrabbling down from the stack of books he'd been using to overview the classroom and starting to make rounds around the circular desk arrangement facing the lecture podium, giving tips to students failing to light up their wand.

"Lumos!" Harry cast frustratedly, producing a blinding glare that gained the attention of the whole classroom and caused Cedric, who was sitting next to him, to fall from his seat. "Nox," Harry hurriedly added, calmed down from his anger and excitement and with a blushing face once again cast the spell. This time a warm light suffused from the tip of his wand.

"Good job," Flitwick exclaimed, from somewhere. Harry was still blinking stars out of his eyes, "two points for Hufflepuff."

Harry regained his sight as everyone around him went back to work and helped a rapidly blinking Cedric back on his feet and back on his seat. "Sorry about that," Harry said.

Cedric just shook his head confusedly, "No worries." Cedric said with a slight lilt to his speech, "How'd you do that?" he then asked more lucidly.

"I practised earlier," Harry replied to which Cedric shrugged and raised his own wand in an attempt to cast the spell. A dim light popped into place and the young Hufflepuff furrowed his brows, extinguished the light and tried again. Another dim light retook the place that the other had left behind a few seconds before.

"You have to WILL it, just saying the words won't do much if there is no intent behind them," Harry suggested.

"Indeed! Willpower and imagination are just as important as a spell's incantation. Why don't you imagine the wand lighting up at the brightness you desire before casting the spell a bit more intently, hmm." The voice of Professor Flitwick suddenly resounded from behind them, making Harry flinch and Cedric almost fall out of his chair again.

"I'll do my best, professor," Cedric nevertheless dutifully replied before closing his eyes, obviously imagining the desired result, before casting the spell. "Lumos!" he incanted with a fair bit of force to it, the wand lighting up a bit too brightly, but nowhere near the military-grade searchlight Harry had produced.

"Now I'd suggest you try to achieve this level of power without shouting," Flitwick suggested, causing Cedric to blush, before turning to Harry. "And you Mr. Evans, might benefit from simply casting the spell a few more times. If you're successful and get bored, you can try changing the spell's colour! If you manage, I'll exempt you from today's homework," the man said, his moustache twitching with a smile. Then he spun, stepped away and shouted to the whole room. "Anyone who manages to change the spell's colour from its standard white is exempt from homework!" he shouted. These words caused the shouts of Lumos going through the room to multiply by a factor of approximately eleven and the softcore techno-party going on before developing into a full-blown strobe-light rave hard-bass event.

Harry grimaced and closed his eyes while trying to remember where he'd seen anything to do with changing the colour of a spell. It was a bit hard to think with both Penny and Cedric trying to give him a fit of epilepsy by his sides.

"The book," he nonetheless muttered while opening his eyes, wincing and opening the Charms books to the last page. There had been a glossary with wand movements that had mentioned something about the colour red. He flipped through the two pages eyes searching for the word and quickly found it at the diagonal slash to the right wand movement, which along with being associated with magic used in combat, was also for some reason said to be associated with the colour red.

Furrowing his brows Harry looked at his wand, not sceptically, but perhaps a bit curiously. Would this really work? From what he understood incantations and wand movements were just the symbolic encryption of a spell. That's why one could drop layers of complexity by removing incantation and wand movements later on in one's education.

But if a wand movement only served a symbolic function then would it really change the result of the spell? "If I believe in it? Probably," Harry answered his own question and focused on producing a red light. He slashed his wand diagonally upwards to the right while willing a red light to appear, "Lumos."

Pink light glowed incredibly softly, so softly that no one seemed to notice that he had in fact completed the extracurricular exercise, even if it hadn't been in the way he'd planned to do so.

"Why is it pink?" Harry muttered, looking at his wand. He cast the spell again, this time exaggerating the wand motion. Supposedly this helped the caster focus, seeing as they had slightly more time to do so with the slow movement. It probably helped that the human psyche considered grander gestures more meaningful.

How paradoxical that one removed incantations and wand motions later on in one's education. With enough experience, one didn't have to trick one's own mind anymore. Nevertheless, musings aside, the light that Harry had produced was red, if still a mite pale. Harry looked around. Only Penny had noticed his feat. The professor was facing away from Harry, helping one Slytherin boy with their attempt at the spell.

"How did you do that?" Penny whispered to him amongst the shouts of Lumos and the flashing lights. Harry looked at the girl who was leaning towards him with curious eyes.

"I added a diagonal upwards wand-motion," He said, leaving out that he'd also shifted his intent to produce a red-light. He thought that part was obvious.

Harry flipped through the book while Penny attempted to replicate his feat. He wanted to find another way to alter the colour. The first class was actually turning out to be an interesting puzzle. How did spell-modification function? Considering that the class would most likely perpetually be moving through the material slower than he, Harry didn't see a reason not to diversify his research. There was a professor at hand to answer whatever question he might stumble upon, after all.

-/-

"Can I help you, Mr Evans?" Professor Flitwick asked once he'd cast a quick and silent reparo at the lecture hall that the first year had understandably left in less than perfect condition. The man was leaning on a desk, looking at Harry attentively. Instead of replying Harry simply raised his wand high in the air.

"Lumos," He enunciated clearly, producing a bright green light. Before the professor could say anything he slashed his wand in a diagonal motion to the upper right and produced a red light. A swirl produced purple, a jab brown.

"Remarkable," Flitwick breathed. "I tend not to give impossible challenges in my class, at least I hope I don't. Nevertheless, ten points for Hufflepuff and an exemption from the homework, Mr. Evans. You found the glossary at the end of the book?"

Harry nodded. "I assume it was put there with this intention in mind? To challenge students to figure things out on their own. Why else would a wand motion be associated with a colour?"

"Indeed, although I must say, I find the whole trick to be a bit too well hidden," Flitwick admitted. "Congratulations on your resourcefulness Mr. Evans." When Harry continued standing there, the professor tentatively added. "Is there something else?"

"Yes, professor," Harry began wondering how to phrase this, "I was in the library this morning. I had some issues finding the books I was looking for. I don't quite understand the sorting system, and Madam Pince wasn't able to help me. I was just wondering, is there perhaps a charm that can find a book's title or contents based on a key phrase? I thought I might ask you since I heard you were a Charms-master? Although I don't quite know what that title means." He finished by admitting.

The professor idly twirled his moustache as he thought about the question for a second, before quickly walking over to the book pile that he'd been standing on to lecture earlier and pulling out a green-leather bound book. "I'm afraid I can't help you, something that irks me considering you've put forth a very interesting question. There isn't a charm that fulfils that particular function, that I know of at least. Practically I would recommend simply doing assignments as they come along with some extracurricular reading, you will become familiar with the system quite fast, I imagine," he said as he began leafing through the book he'd pulled out.

"But Sir, spells can clearly be modified, be it with the change of a wand motion, incantation or even the intent behind them," Harry said. "Couldn't such a spell be created?"

Professor Flitwick smiled somewhat sadly. "You speak of advanced topics for someone who just completed their first lesson. I would say to turn around now and revisit the topic at a later date, perhaps in your fourth year. Spell-creation and even modification require a rigorous knowledge of arithmancy and magical theory along with a healthy dose of imagination."

Harry sighed. "I didn't imagine that it would be easy," he said with a shrug. "If I find myself with some free time I'll try to read up on the topics you mentioned, professor."

"Do try to find Arithmancy for the less-advanced by Arithma Advanca and Magical Theory for initiates by Hector Crumble if you do," Flitwick said, reading from his green book. Perhaps a place where the professor took notes of what advanced reading to suggest to students depending on what topic they were curious about.

Harry thanked the professor for his time and exited the charms classroom. When outside he quickly noted down the titles of the two books while they were still in the library. "The Mind Arts, spell-creation, the recent history of the wizarding world… So many topics but no way to find anything out," he grumbled as he made his way to the Hufflepuff common room, he had a short break before classes continued.

-/-

It was a dazed Harry that exited the Potions classroom in which they'd just had the last class of the day. He was accompanied by a baffled Cedric and an aghast Penny.

"Mate, what you did to that cauldron," Cedric said, before trailing off, refusing to meet Harry's gaze. Penny shuddered at the memory.

"We can pair up in the future, Harry. I'm good at Potions and have been practising since forever, I can hel-, prevent future disasters," Penny said.

Harry shook his head, feeling as if he was waking up from a coma.

"Thanks, Penny. That would be appreciated," he said, trying to erase from his memory what had just happened in that classroom. The frothing, the purple…

"Well, you aced Charms and Transfiguration. I guess you really can't be good at everything." Cedric said, trying to reassure Harry that even though he was apparently singularly incapable of brewing anything more complicated than a soup, life wasn't about being great at everything.

"I never thought I'd be good at it, or anything," Harry whispered, "I just didn't think…"

"It's all right, we'll manage this together," Penny said semi-cheerfully, only for her words to be jeered over by a pair of Slytherin boys passing by.

"Good job on that cauldron Evans, you sure showed it who's boss!" one of them shouted, making the students with green ties that were still close enough to hear it, laugh. The Hufflepuffs drew together around Harry, like some sort of honour guard.

"It's alright guys. I'm just gonna have to do my best and practice," Harry said, trying to calm down his worried house-mates. They instead seemed to actually get more agitated about what he'd said and Harry noticed his mistake. "As far away from the common room as I can feasibly manage," he amended, drawing sighs of relief. "In fact, I'll start looking for an abandoned room to practise in right now," he said and peeled away from the group, intending to find a place where he could be alone for a bit before he went to the great hall for dinner.

It was five minutes later, after going up a few flights of stairs and wandering past god knows how many suits of armour and portraits of mediaeval wizards and witches dancing the cha-cha that Harry finally found a seemingly abandoned classroom in a seemingly abandoned corridor in a seemingly abandoned wing of the castle. Where was he even, fourth floor? Harry wondered, before shaking his head and choosing to simply not care. What mattered was that he was in a room in which nobody was going to disturb him and that he could practise magic. Maybe even meditate for a minute or two. Plopping down on one of the rickety chairs he noted the still visible introduction to the etiquette of young damsels on the black-board. This seemed to be the lecture hall of a course that wasn't being taught anymore. He hummed as he shifted to the left and to the right on the chair, before deciding that he'd sat enough for the day and cast a scourgify on the floor, before promptly laying down on it.

Laying there, looking at the dust motes being illuminated by the rays of sunlight peeking through the stained windows, he wondered not of the meaning of life, or what dangers lurked in wizarding society. No, Harry wondered when he was going to have the library figured out, so that his quality of life could return to good instead of abysmal. "I miss computers," he said forlornly, idly condensing water in the shape of an on/off switch above himself. He stopped his water manipulation and just as the water was about to fall on him he banished it with a flick of his hand, onto the ceiling in a beautiful sparkling spray.

Now that he'd basically assured that water was going to start dripping on him from above if he stayed in his current position, Harry stood up, dusted himself off and walked over to the teacher's podium. He sat down, back against the podium, door to the room out of sight and closed his eyes. Starting to count his breaths he expunged thoughts from his mind and slipped into a numb meditation.

He didn't know how long he was in the void when a creaking door awakened him from himself. Harry grimaced and made to stand up and alert what was probably a couple of teenagers looking for a private place to suck face, that if they wanted to do so, they could, they should just give him time to leave them to it.

"Wait!" a much older than expected female voice hissed. Much older than any student. Harry narrowed his eyes and stayed in the awkward position of getting up on his toes and holding himself up with one single arm. "Someone was here," the voice continued.

"Seems like a student was practising aquamenti," another muttered, also old, but male "or having a tryst, they scourged the floor."

"Let's go elsewhere, if this classroom has been used then we shouldn't be here," The woman said.

The doors to the classroom closed again and the last thing Harry heard was the male of the pair saying, "Let's go brief somewhere else then." The footsteps slowly quieted, before disappearing completely.

A bead of sweat rolled down Harry's brow as his arms trembled, he waited stubbornly for another minute nonetheless, before letting himself drop onto the floor with a sigh.

"What the hell was that?"

-/-

"Looking forward to Defence Harry?" Cedric asked as he munched on a chicken leg. "It has spell-work, I checked You'll probably be good at it."

"Depends if the professor is any good!" an older year snorted from across the table. At those words Harry looked towards the table, to scope out the defence professor. He tilted his head as he saw that the thin woman wasn't there. Could it be? He wondered, before doing a quick head-count of the male professors, who appeared to all be present.

Harry furrowed his brows. "Defence should be fun, yeah," he eventually said.