The first week of September passed faster than I'd expected.
Hogwarts settled back into its usual rhythm. Lessons, homework, meals in the Great Hall, and crowds of students moving between floors. First-years were still getting lost in the corridors, Peeves still considered staircases ideal places for ambushes, and Professor Snape seemed determined to remind everyone that the holidays were over.
I couldn't complain. Most of the lessons were interesting, particularly Charms and Transfiguration. After a summer of practising with Frederick, I'd also noticed that some things came more easily than they had last year.
That didn't mean I was running out of things to learn. The more I understood about magic, the more obvious the gaps in my knowledge became.
And one of them was beginning to bother me.
"I can't believe we actually have to write this."
I looked up from my parchment. Draco sat opposite me, staring at his open Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook.
"What is it this time?"
"Twelve inches of parchment on defending yourself against werewolves."
"That sounds like a perfectly reasonable assignment."
Draco gave me an outraged look.
"Based on Lockhart's book."
"Ah."
"Exactly."
Beside him, Blaise turned a page in his Potions textbook.
"You could describe how the professor defeated a werewolf with his smile."
"That alone could fill twelve inches."
"As long as you leave out the introduction about how delighted everyone was when he arrived," I added.
Blaise snorted, and Draco shut the book with a thud.
"Remind me why we have to learn any of this."
"Someone apparently decided the man was qualified to teach."
"You're not making me feel better."
"I wasn't trying to."
I went back to my work. For a while, the only sounds were the scratching of quills and the quiet crackle of the fire.
The Slytherin common room was fairly peaceful at this hour. Most of the older students were busy with their own work, while a few first-years sat near the windows overlooking the lake. Some of them still looked delighted whenever a fish swam past the glass.
A year ago, I could easily have spent fifteen minutes watching the world beneath the surface. I still stopped by the windows sometimes, but today I had other plans.
I finished the last sentence, put down my quill, and read through the parchment. The Transfiguration essay could have waited until tomorrow, but I preferred having it out of the way.
"Are you going anywhere else today?" Blaise asked.
"The library."
Draco sighed.
"Of course."
"Something bothering you?"
"I'm just wondering whether there's a book you haven't read."
"Quite a few."
"I'm sure you've already made a list."
"I'm not that organised."
Blaise raised an eyebrow.
"You have a separate notebook for books you want to read."
I looked at him.
"That's completely different."
"Naturally."
I slipped the parchment into my bag and stood.
"Don't wait for me. I'll be back before dinner."
Draco waved a hand without looking up from his assignment.
"If you find anything about werewolves, bring it back."
"You've got a textbook."
"Something useful, Peverell."
I smiled and left.
I'd been thinking about my ability to handle myself in a fight for a while. I knew a few useful spells, could manipulate objects fairly well, and had a decent grasp of basic Transfiguration. The summer's practice had also done a great deal for my control over magic.
But if I had to face someone who actually knew how to duel?
I'd probably discover just how much I still had to learn.
Bringing down a troll or holding Voldemort off for a few seconds didn't mean I could stop an ordinary spell cast at the right moment. I wasn't going to resort to my eyes every time I found a gap in my repertoire.
Over the summer, Frederick had focused mainly on precision. He'd made me repeat the simplest exercises until I could perform them without wasting effort. It had been irritating at first, but I was noticing the results more and more. With familiar spells, I no longer had to watch every slight movement of my wand.
Now I needed to learn something I could use in a fight.
Lockhart was unlikely to help with that, so I'd decided to make a start myself. Protego seemed like a good place to begin.
I remembered the Shield Charm perfectly well from my previous life. I knew what it did and had seen it used plenty of times.
None of that had taught me how to cast it.
A film effect was no substitute for instructions. I needed a textbook, which made the library the obvious first stop.
Madam Pince gave me a suspicious look as I passed through the shelves devoted to protective magic for the third time. I paid her little attention. After fifteen minutes or so, I'd found two promising books: one on basic magical defence and another on duelling for beginners.
I took both to an empty table by the window.
The contents of the first listed magical barriers, deflecting spells, and the limitations of basic shields. I turned to the chapter on Protego.
Beneath the heading was an illustration of a wizard holding up his wand, a translucent barrier in front of him. I read the first paragraph. The charm's effectiveness depended not only on the caster's power, but also on how well the shield was formed and how stable it remained at the moment of impact.
The author then devoted several pages to the wand movement alone.
A short arc across the body, ending with the tip directed outwards. The illustrations showed the precise position of the wrist at each stage. I traced the movement with a finger above the open book.
It looked simple, which unfortunately meant very little.
The description placed particular emphasis on the intention to protect. The magic had to form a barrier rather than simply be pushed away from the caster. Attempts to compensate for poor form with greater force usually caused the shield to collapse.
That sounded familiar. During our summer exercises, I'd often tried to keep a dropping object in the air by feeding more magic into the spell instead of correcting whatever I was doing wrong. Frederick had caught it every time.
I marked the passage with a scrap of parchment and reached for the second book.
Its description was shorter, but the diagrams showed what happened to shields when a spell struck them. In one, magic gathered at the centre, leaving the edges weak. In another, the barrier buckled and broke almost as soon as the spell made contact.
According to the author, beginners were often so intent on producing a shield at all that they counted its appearance as a success and stopped paying attention to its structure.
I took out my notebook and jotted down a few points. I wasn't going to copy the entire textbook, but I wanted the most common mistakes close at hand: incorrect wrist movement, releasing the magic too abruptly, and distributing it unevenly across the barrier.
The more I read, the more I wanted to try it.
I closed the book, then opened it again for one last look at the diagram of the wand movement.
Right. Now I could start.
On the seventh floor, I stopped in front of the familiar blank wall. I walked past it three times, concentrating on what I needed: somewhere to practise combat spells safely, with enough room to work and a way to test the results.
On the third pass, a door appeared.
I opened it and looked inside. The room was much larger than I'd expected, with a stone floor, a high vaulted ceiling, and a broad open space in the middle. Wooden targets and several practice dummies stood along one wall. Opposite them were a bench and a small table.
The dummy standing alone at the far end caught my attention. It had wooden limbs, metal joints, and something resembling a wand in its right hand.
I went closer.
"Can you move?"
It didn't react.
"Excellent. A very talkative opponent."
I examined its construction, but left it alone for the moment. First, I needed something to defend myself with.
I put the books on the table, opened my notebook, and read through the instructions for Protego again. Then I took my place in the middle of the room, wand in hand.
I started with the movement alone. A short arc, a turn of the wrist, the tip pointing ahead. I repeated it a few times. On the third attempt, I noticed I was finishing slightly too high, so I slowed down and adjusted my hand.
Only when the movements began to look consistent did I try the spell.
I pictured a barrier in front of me.
"Protego!"
A faint flash appeared at the tip of my wand. Nothing else.
I frowned. I hadn't expected to get it right immediately, though I certainly wouldn't have objected.
I tried again.
"Protego!"
This time, the air rippled. A thin silver wisp appeared, then vanished before I could get a proper look at it.
That was something.
Unfortunately, the next three attempts were no better. I lowered my wand and went back to the table.
As I reread the instructions, I tried to recall exactly what I'd been doing. I remembered the movement. I also knew what result I wanted. Yet the moment I spoke the incantation, I focused mainly on directing the magic away from me.
Exactly what the author had warned against.
I was treating Protego like a repelling spell. It was supposed to form a barrier and stay there, ready to take a hit.
I set the book down and returned to the middle of the room. This time, I tried to concentrate on the surface of the shield itself rather than on pushing magic towards it.
"Protego!"
A silver glow spread out in front of my hand. For a fraction of a second, it actually resembled a shield. Then its centre caved in, and the whole thing broke apart into fading streaks.
I watched them with a smile.
"There we go."
Progress at last.
I spent the next half-hour repeating the spell. Sometimes I managed a small barrier that vanished almost immediately. At other times, it fell apart before it had finished forming.
Once, I put too much magic into it. A broad, uneven flare burst apart in front of me, and I instinctively jerked my head away from a wisp that passed close to my face.
I looked at my wand.
"Right. We're not doing that again."
After several trips back to the textbook, I began to recognise the point where things went wrong. I was releasing the magic too abruptly at the end of the wrist movement. The shield was still taking shape, and I was already disrupting it.
Knowing what I was doing wrong helped. It didn't mean I immediately stopped doing it. All it took was a little too much attention on the incantation, or on watching for the barrier, and my hand reverted to the old movement.
Eventually, I took a break. I drank some water, flexed my fingers, and sat down with my notes.
In films, someone raised a wand, said the spell, and that was it. Nobody showed how many times they'd had to wave their arm around beforehand without achieving anything.
I was beginning to understand why. It wouldn't have made much of a scene.
After a few minutes, I returned to the middle of the room. Twice, I performed the movement without the incantation. On the third attempt, I drew on my magic.
"Protego!"
A translucent shield appeared in front of me.
One second passed, then another. Its surface trembled slightly, but it held. I kept my hand in position and maintained the spell until the barrier finally flickered and dissolved into silver sparks.
I lowered my wand, then gave a quiet laugh.
"Finally."
An hour ago, all I'd managed was a flash. Now I'd actually produced a shield.
I wanted to do it again.
The next one collapsed almost immediately. The one after that lasted several seconds, and on the fourth attempt I was back to a wisp.
I sighed, but I was still smiling. At least I knew I could do it now. I just had to convince my hand.
After another fifteen minutes or so, I'd had enough successful attempts to start glancing towards the dummy.
It hadn't moved.
I approached it.
"I'd like to test my shield. I need a very weak spell. Something that'll give me a slight push at most."
For a moment, nothing happened. I was about to try a different instruction when its wooden hand twitched. The metal joints creaked softly as the figure straightened and raised its wand.
"Oh. Good. But wait for my signal."
The dummy froze.
I backed away a few metres. It was roughly my height, though much broader across the shoulders. Its smooth wooden face did little to make it look threatening.
Still, I preferred not to judge an opponent by its lack of a nose.
I raised my wand. First, I'd form the shield without rushing. Then I'd give the signal. I could work on my reflexes later.
"Protego!"
The barrier spread out in front of me. Its right edge looked thinner, but the centre held steady.
"All right. Now."
The dummy moved its wand. A pale flash crossed the gap between us and struck the shield.
For a fraction of a second, I felt resistance. Then the barrier buckled sharply and broke, and what remained of the spell hit me in the chest.
I stumbled back two steps.
It didn't hurt much. It felt more like a shove than a real attack. Even so, I wasn't pleased.
The dummy calmly lowered its wand.
"I see."
I rubbed my chest. The shield had absorbed part of the impact, but I'd asked for something very weak. Against a serious spell, that defence wouldn't do me much good.
I went back to the table and found the illustrations of shields at the moment of impact. One of them now looked particularly familiar.
I wanted to try again straight away, but first I checked the clock above the door. Dinner was closer than I'd thought, and my wrist had been aching for a while.
Another dozen attempts would probably mean increasingly sloppy movements. Frederick had pointed out often enough that practising like that only reinforced my mistakes.
I looked at the dummy.
"That's enough for today."
It returned to its place.
At least one of us had no trouble stopping.
Before putting the books away, I decided to take one more look at the shield. No more incoming spells. I wanted to see whether my right eye could show me something I'd missed during the ordinary attempts.
I chose a spot a few steps away from where I'd been practising and raised my wand.
"Protego."
A smaller barrier formed, but it lasted long enough for me to focus.
Lines of magic began to show through its silver surface.
Behind them, I could still see the Traces of my earlier attempts. They overlapped where I'd been standing, forming a tangle of slowly fading wisps. Moving had been a good idea. From there, it would have been much harder to get a clear look at the spell itself.
I concentrated on the lines running through the shield in front of me.
They weren't evenly arranged. Near the right edge, several trembled and shifted, while the centre looked steadier. I tried to commit the difference to memory.
Was that why the shield had broken?
Possibly. But seeing an irregularity didn't tell me what caused it or how to fix it. I might be finishing the movement badly, sustaining the spell unevenly, or doing something else I hadn't noticed at all.
The barrier began to weaken. I let it fade, watching as the active lines gave way to the dwindling Trace.
That could be useful.
If I compared a few successful shields with the ones that fell apart straight away, I might notice a pattern. The textbook gave me a description and a diagram. My eye let me examine what I was actually doing.
I sat on the bench.
The ring I'd practised on over the summer came to mind. Its magic had been more complex, but it was anchored to an object. I could take my time examining it, return to a particular section, and only then try to influence it with my Will.
My Protego was harder to study. Before I could get a proper look at anything, it was already beginning to fade.
Even so, an idea kept nagging at me.
Could I use my Will to alter its structure? Improve its stability, or change how it responded to an impact? Perhaps instead of stopping a spell head-on, I could divert it to one side.
I looked at my wand.
First, I should see what had already been written about it. The answer might be a few chapters further on, while here I was considering using an inherited ability to solve a textbook problem.
Besides, I wanted to learn Protego. A shield I could cast with an ordinary wand movement, without having to use my eyes to correct it every time.
There would be time to experiment with my Will. It would be much easier to judge the results once I stopped getting the spell itself wrong.
I reached for my notebook.
Protego — can produce a shield, but still unstable. Only absorbs part of a weak impact.
Below that, I noted the problems with my wrist movement and the right edge of the barrier. I also wrote down a reminder to compare the lines of magic in successful and unsuccessful attempts during my next session. I'd need to cast each one in a slightly different place so the lingering Traces wouldn't obscure what I was trying to see.
Further down came the plans for later: casting the shield more quickly, then moving from Protego to Expelliarmus.
At the bottom, I wrote:
Investigate whether the shield can be modified using Will.
I paused, then added two words.
Not yet.
Frederick would probably have considered that the most promising result of the entire session.
When I returned to the common room, Draco and Blaise were still at the same table. Draco now had three written sheets of parchment in front of him, and looked as though he wanted to throw all of them into the fire.
"You survived," Blaise observed.
"Barely."
Draco looked up.
"What have you been doing all this time?"
"Learning a spell."
"Which one?"
"Protego."
Blaise set down his quill.
"The Shield Charm?"
I nodded.
"Isn't that for older students?" Draco asked.
"I haven't seen a rule against second-years learning things."
"That's not what I meant."
I sat opposite him and took the textbook out of my bag.
"Anyway, there's not much to boast about yet. I can make a shield, but it isn't very good at stopping spells."
Draco gave me a closer look.
"Were you testing it on someone?"
"I was practising with a dummy."
"A dummy?"
"A training dummy."
"That casts spells?"
"Apparently."
Blaise smiled faintly.
"And?"
"I got hit."
Draco laughed.
"Brilliant."
"Nice to see you're concerned for my health."
"If you're sitting here complaining, it can't have been that dangerous."
"Fair point."
Blaise glanced at the book.
"Can I borrow that?"
"Sure."
I slid it towards him, and Draco leaned over the table.
"Are you going to keep practising?"
"Of course."
"What do you need a Shield Charm for already?"
I looked at him.
"Draco, we have Lockhart."
Blaise snorted. Draco looked taken aback for a moment, then nodded.
"That's a fair point."
He glanced down at his essay.
"Especially since we've got Defence again tomorrow."
For a while, we sat in silence. I took out my Transfiguration homework and began checking it for mistakes. Blaise read through the book on shields, while Draco wrote two sentences, crossed one out, and put down his quill.
"Peverell?"
"Hmm?"
"Once you've learnt that Protego, will you show me?"
I looked up. He was trying to sound indifferent, but I knew him well enough by now.
"You want to learn?"
"Maybe."
"Then say you want to."
Draco gave me an irritated look.
"I want to see how it works."
Blaise didn't even lift his head from the book.
"So he wants to learn."
"Zabini."
"Malfoy."
I smiled.
"I need to get the hang of it first. Then we can practise together."
Draco nodded as though that had been the answer he'd expected all along.
"Good."
He returned to his essay. We worked quietly for a few more minutes, until Blaise closed my textbook and set it beside my bag. Then he picked up the abandoned Lockhart book.
"See if you can find anything I haven't already covered," Draco muttered.
Blaise leafed through the chapter on werewolves. About halfway through, he stopped and read in silence for a moment.
"Since we're discussing defence, can someone explain why Lockhart claims the best way to avoid a werewolf attack is to remain confident?"
He slid the open book to the middle of the table and pointed at a passage.
I read two sentences. Then the next few, in case I was missing some context.
I wasn't.
"No idea."
Draco pulled the book towards him. He scanned the paragraph, then very slowly closed the cover.
"I really hate that class."
Blaise laughed first. I joined him.
That evening, as I was getting ready for bed, I read through my training notes once more.
First, I had to get Protego to the point where I could rely on it. Only then would it make sense to work on speed and combining it with other spells. The dummy had waited patiently while I prepared my shield. A real opponent was unlikely to be so accommodating.
Expelliarmus itself didn't give me much trouble, but casting two spells in succession wasn't the same as using them at the right moment in a duel.
I had plenty to work on.
And once I'd mastered the basics, I could start expanding my repertoire. The family library was full of books on far more advanced magic, including the sort Hogwarts was unlikely to teach us.
I wanted to read them. Badly.
But even the most interesting curse wouldn't do me much good if I couldn't defend myself against an opponent's first spell.
I closed the notebook and put it on the bedside table.
There was still plenty of time. I had the whole school year ahead of me, and, if everything went well, many more years of learning after that.
I lay down and turned out the lamp.
Tomorrow, I'd visit the Room of Requirement again. This time, perhaps I could stop the dummy's spell without getting hit in the chest.
That would be a decent enough start.