Edward had been keeping an eye on Ahlgren since the middle of the fourth year, ever since his impressive showing at the Quidditch pitch. Though he hadn't been there personally for the event he had heard of it after the fact, and it a piqued his interest as unassisted flight had long since been considered an impossibility. He had since then had the opportunity to observe Ahlgren in action on several occasions as he flew around the school.
He had to admit, it was an impressive feat indeed. Even though he knew that it wasn't what the general population at school thought it to be.
It hadn't been hard to deduce what was going on, at least not for him. The unique-looking costume he wore occasionally, possibly every time he was seen flying, though it was likely transfigured to appear as regular robes on those occasions, was a dead giveaway. He had managed to enchant it in some manner to allow for flight. Though he was not well versed enough in charms to divine the exact charms he might have used. This presented him with a bit of a mystery.
See, he made a point of keeping some sense of where the people in his class stood in terms of grades. His competitive spirit demanded it. And as far as he had seen previously, Ahlgren scored somewhere in the upper middle of the field. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing spectacular as far as performance goes. Not the sort of person to be able to produce something like that flying suit.
Naturally, he had decided to study his classmate more closely to see what he was about. What he had found was someone that paid only the bare minimum of attention to class and whatever they happened to be working on that day. He did what was required and little more. When given a new spell to master he would make a show, and he was damn sure it was a show, of failing the first few times, before then getting it right. He knew it was a show for several reasons; the first would be that it always took three tries before he managed, always. The second was that he didn't even try to get the wand movements right the first two times. He'd even caught him rolling his eyes a few times when he was supposed to be casting, obviously paying no attention to what he was doing. Not that wand movement seemed to matter to Ahlgren, half the time he cast correctly he didn't even bother with that much. He'd even caught him casting none-verbally once. Apparently entirely by accident since he didn't seem to notice he'd done it.
Then there was the wandless magic he did. Something he did almost every class unless they had a group project that day. It wasn't anything spectacular or really noticeable, but after he was done with whatever they were supposed to do he'd stick one hand under the desk and cause little bolts of lightning to jump between his fingers or crawl up and down his hand. He seemed to do it just to pass the time. He'd, of course, know that he could use magic wandlessly before seeing that, as he had used it in a public manner in the pitch, and later in his confrontation with that boy from Gryffindor who had foolishly tried to pick a fight with him, much to his determent.
All of this had crystallized in Edwards' mind and led him to conclude that much of the rest of the school had already come to, if only by dint of his showboating, that Ahlgren was something out of the ordinary. But Edward knew it likely ran far deeper than simply that. He was obviously bored by ordinary schoolwork as if it was something trite and easy, something that he had likely mastered long since. He obviously possessed magical aptitude far in excess to any normal student, and he thought that even older students in their seventh year were likely to find themselves lacking if they compared themselves to Ahlgren. To Edward, it was obvious that he could, and at least sometimes did, perform at a level far exceeding what he showed in public at most times. He seemed to care little about getting good grades or impressing his teachers, which told Edward that he likely didn't feel he needed to. Depending on what he got up to in the privacy of his own room that was either an indication that he didn't need to, which Edward deemed very likely, or he was an idiot, which was by all evidence was far less likely.
Edward thought that Ahlgren had the chance to become someone notable in the future, something he was not alone in. He had noticed that there were already stirrings in his own house from several different parties about trying to get closer to Ahlgren in an effort to further their own studies and even strike up more lasting friendships that could be useful once they were out of Hogwarts. This was entirely unsurprising, as Edward had thought those thoughts himself, and had even tried to think of ways to ingratiate himself into Drew's company. He imagined that similar things were happening in the other houses as well, to varying degrees. Not the Hufflepuff, despite the two members of Ahlgren's little circle, but certainly in the ever-ambitious Slytherin's and maybe even in the brash house of Gryffindor.
Drew was on the crusp of become someone very popular indeed, and he was likely to be inundated with people that would like to take advantage of that popularity. He was determined to get there first.
He had, however, been stymied by Ahlgren's antisocial behavior which resulted in an infuriating lack of access for anyone that wanted to ingratiate themselves to him. Ahlgren was always quick to disappear after classes, vanishing into his rooms, or sometimes into thin air between classes. He never frequented the Great Hall or any of the other gathering places in the school. And in class, he generally sat with Penelope Vablatsky from Hufflepuff, which was a damn waste of an opportunity. Beyond her the only other people he seemed to have any contact with was the groundskeeper and the strange half-dwarf Lys, the latter who was a year below himself and Ahlgren, and seemed to possess a similar level of antisocial behavior as the person Edward was trying to ingratiate himself to. Though she was far more openly hostile to people whereas Drew tended to just evaporate into thin air whenever he was not requred to be present by a teacher.
And that had been the thoroughly unsatisfactory situation for over a year and a half at this point. At least, that is, until very recently when Lys started to show up in his Alchemy extracurricular class. This presented him with an opportunity. She obviously wanted to learn Alchemy and the Norton family had a long proud lineage of prominent Alchemists and inventors ever since the days of their illustrious ancestor Thomas Newton. Edward's parents had started to teach him how to read when he was five and by the time he was seven he had progressed far enough for his mother to start to teach him potions, which was one of the required fields you needed to have some skill in if you wanted to engage in Alchemy, the other being transfiguration. He was thus quite skilled in the craft, the best at Hogwarts in his humble opinion.
There was also a need to learn chemistry, which while similar to potions making generally dealt with none-magical substances, such as acids and room temperature liquid metals, that could be dangerous and sometimes lethal if you didn't know what you were doing and didn't take the proper precautions, precautions that had been drilled into him since he could remember. It wasn't uncommon for alchemists to die of poisoning after inhaling vapors from some caustic mixture they worked on because they forgot to apply the bubblehead charm beforehand, or because they put their hands on things they shouldn't without a sturdy pair of gloves.
Seeing as she was new to the class it wasn't unsurprising to see her struggling with the curriculum, particularly the chemistry portion. Not as much as he would have expected her to, but she had been sent to the hospital wing twice in the last week after handling things improperly, much to the dwarf's obvious frustration. Had it been anybody but her he would have paid it no attention and would likely just have considered it a learning experience. However, Lys was a potential avenue for him to use to get closer to Ahlgren if he could get on her good side, something that was likely to require a great deal of patience on his part considering her general gruff nature. Thankfully patience was a virtue for any Alchemist worth his saltpeter.
Seeing that she was about to make another mistake he made his move. "You shouldn't do that."
Lys froze for a moment, holding a small vial filled with a few drops of a silvery liquid inside over a large beaker filled with a brownish liquid. "Excuse me?"
"If you add that now you'll ruin the mixture." He explained as he moved over. "May I?" he asked a gestured to the empty seat beside her.
Lys regarded him neutrally for a moment before setting the small vial down and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm following the instructions; it says to add the mercury at this stage."
Edward nodded but put up a finger and started to lecture. "Of course, but you need to apply a cooling charm before adding the mercury as it will cause an exothermic reaction with the Bromine contained in the mixture. I see that you are using Acids and Alkalis by Golpalott, it's notorious for the things that the author forgot to put in because she felt it was self-evident." He explained kindly before reaching over and pulling out a book he recognized from the stack that rested beside Lys. He flipped open and searched through the pages. "Here. You should memorize this reaction table; it covers most of the things you should avoid, as well as notations for charms that can be used to alter the properties in certain mixtures. I found it invaluable when I was starting out."
Lys gave the list a curious look before nodding. "Alright… Thanks."
There was a certain tone of dismissal in her voice but Edward didn't let it deter him. "It's no problem. Once you have memorized the reaction table I'd recommend reading Argo Pyrite's Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science.. It has a similar listing but for more advanced applications. But its good to have it memorized as well since some of the things also apply to situations you might encounter, even early on. It should speed up your progress."
She looked a bit more interested in that. "Okay, that's good. Is there anything else?"
Edward snorted, though not unkindly. "Of course. If you don't mind me saying, and take this the wrong way, but your grasp of the necessary safety procedures are lacking, which is why you have had to visit the hospital wing twice this week. I'd you'd like we could go over some of the things that will keep you from suffering Madam Pomfrey's tender mercies for another day." He gave her an earnest look. "Believe me; it will make your life a lot easier if you plan to practice Alchemy in an serious capacity."
Lys blushed furiously in humiliation but visibly steeled herself from lashing out at the boy who was obviously trying to be helpful. And by her Ancestors, she needed that help. "Fine…"
Edward smiled at her. "Alright. Now, this will be a lot easier if I knew what you wanted out of Alchemy, your goal that is."
Lys frowned thoughtfully before huffing. "It was recommended that I should take it by one of my teachers because of its ability to transfer properties of one thing onto another."
Edward nodded thoughtfully. Transference Alchemy wasn't practiced much these days since most were more intrested in the transmutational aspects of the discipline. But back before charms rose to the prominence it held today it was the main avenue used to enchant objects. But due to its many limitations it had since then fallen out of use in favor of the more varied enchanting options available. Still, there were still certain effects that could only be achieved by using Transference Alchemy; the most famous theory was that it was used in the creation of a Philosophers Stone. Though no one had ever figured out what those ancient Alchemists had discovered that held the ability to bestow eternal life and turn lead into gold. Edward and his father both thought it was a load of hogwash.
"Hmm. That's a fairly advanced but obscured field. Books on it are hard to come by. Fortunately, Hogwarts is well stocked and I can loan you some from my family's private collection, so long as you don't damage them," He told her while thanking his lucky star. His family didn't practice that particular part of Alchemy at the moment, so it shouldn't be too much problem getting his hands on those books.
"And why would you do that for me," Lys asked suspiciously. "What do you want?"
"Nothing as of right now." He told her, having expected the question. "But it's often helpful to have another competent Alchemist on hand for more difficult projects. I've heard about your efforts in Blacksmithing. If you apply the same level of effort on Alchemy as you do on that I expect I will benefit greatly from helping you."
Lys studied him intently for a few moments before grunting, apparently accepting his explanation at face value, before turning her attention back to the beaker in front of her and pulling out her wand and casting a quick cooling charm.
"There. What's next?
Edward smiled, she was still suspisious, but that was fine. He was patient.