Hagrid opened the door to find Ted standing just outside.
"Oh, Ted! Hello there! You on your own today?"
"Yeah," Ted nodded. "I need to head into the Forbidden Forest. Something important."
Hagrid's face shifted into a conflicted frown. As Hogwarts' gamekeeper, he was supposed to keep students out of the forest.
But as Ted's friend—and knowing Ted could take care of himself—it was hard to say no. "Alright... alright. What's it for this time?"
Ted had spent a good portion of the past year in the Forbidden Forest.
His knowledge of magical creatures and survival in the wild had grown immensely.
That had taken a lot of pressure off Hagrid, who had been overwhelmed lately.
The Forbidden Forest wasn't what it used to be.
Ten years ago, being a caretaker of the forest was a quiet life. The odd werewolf howl, the occasional injured centaur, but mostly peaceful. Now, things had changed.
Magical beasts from other realms had begun showing up—creatures from Azeroth, Aetherius, and even the Hidden Leaf Village. They had spilled over through unstable magical rifts caused by the surge in ambient mana around Hogwarts.
The forest had become a chaotic realm of its own.
It sprawled out across the northern and eastern reaches of the school, continuing for hundreds of miles into misty mountains and shadowed canyons.
The magic there was thick and wild.
Creatures that once kept to their territories now wandered into each other's domains.
The delicate balance of predator and prey had been upended.
Hagrid had to step in constantly to keep the peace—or at least keep them from getting too close to the school.
Then there were the poachers. Over the past two years, Hagrid had caught or driven out over twenty illegal hunting groups.
Some were just greedy.
Others were dark wizards experimenting on interdimensional beasts. It was exhausting.
Ted had helped a lot last year, taking care of rogue monsters and capturing a few shady trespassers.
He had become a quiet force within the forest.
As Hagrid poured two mugs of tea, he grinned. "That Ice Shield Badge you gave me? Saved my beard the other night. Ran into a band of poachers, and that little thing held off three curses while I got Fang to safety."
He stood and grabbed the bearskin coat Ted had enchanted last winter. "And this coat! Absolute marvel! Warm, durable, and makes me look like a proper mountain king!"
Wrapped in the oversized cloak, Hagrid looked like a towering black bear.
...
Ted patted Fang on the head and said his goodbyes, Anzu gliding above him as he stepped into the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
He needed a precise location—rich in magic and far enough from the trails that wandering beasts or students wouldn't interrupt.
After over an hour of walking through tangled brambles and twisted trees, he found the perfect spot: a secluded cave nestled into a moss-covered mound.
The magic here pulsed softly, natural and deep-rooted.
But it wasn't unoccupied.
A Redcap had claimed it.
Its dark, blood-stained hat spoke of many kills.
These creatures were vicious, feeding on violence. But this one barely had time to snarl.
With a flick of his wand and Parker's mental link enhancing his attack, Ted drove a searing mental spike into its mind. The Redcap shrieked and collapsed in agony. One quick frostbolt finished the job.
A card floated up from the remains.
[Elf Spirituality (White)]—a material card.
Ted had two already.
"Nice!"
Three ghostly card images appeared above his palm. He concentrated.
"Consume 100 experience points. Fuse cards."
The white-bordered cards shimmered and vanished, replaced by one with a vibrant green edge: [Elf Spirituality (Green)].
He hadn't used card fusion much.
Experience points were too precious, and his focus had always been magic first—cards, foreign knowledge, and system upgrades came second.
But today, he needed this one.
He knelt down and unpacked his materials: silver powder, dark creature parts, rare herbs, obsidian shards, and a few enchanted inks.
Ten minutes later, a two-meter-wide magical circle glowed in the center of the cave.
Ted looked up at Anzu.
"Ready?"
The raven glided down, landing gently in the middle of the circle. "I'm ready! Caw!~"
Ted raised his wand.
"Awaken, magic!"
A rush of arcane energy surged out from his core, lighting up the ritual with spirals of blue, violet, and gold.
The entire cave began to glow with a deep blue light.
As the vortex of Ted's magic swirled through the ritual circle, ambient magic from the Forbidden Forest began to draw inward, pulled toward the heart of the spell.
Ted exhaled slowly, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his robes.
Thanks to various enhancements and breakthroughs, Ted had reached magic level 8—comparable to that of a master-level archmage at the Department of Mysteries. But even with that, the energy demanded by the ritual left him drained and slightly dizzy.
Thankfully, the bulk of the power wasn't his alone. The ritual tapped into the surrounding environment—even the ley lines running through the ancient forest. There were few places in the world that could support a working of this magnitude.
He took a breath and evaluated the magic building in the circle, noting how the reagents were holding up.
With a flick of his hand, three glowing card phantoms shimmered into view.
[Fey Spirituality (Green)]—a manifestation of refined fae essence. The card wasn't high-tier by color rank, but the material itself was rare and potent.
If Ted could ever take down Peeves, a purple-tier version might drop. Somewhere in the castle, Peeves shivered and vanished into the wall.
[Magic Vision (Blue)]—a reward from one of his earlier fights against the troll that Quirrell mutated.
It granted the user magical sight, the ability to perceive magic flows and auras. A perfect match for Anzu.
[Dark Stone (Red)]—a gem imbued with dense, shadowed power. Perfect for evolution-based magic, but volatile. He considered using [Holy (Blue)], but it likely wouldn't harmonize. Best to skip it.
Around the cave, tree leaves rustled as if blown by invisible wind. Even magical creatures as far as a kilometer away stirred nervously.
The reaction lasted barely ten seconds, but it was enough. Ted halted the ritual before the circle was overwhelmed.
The blue glow at the center peaked and gradually faded.
Inside the circle, Anzu stood proud, wings extended. Every feather shimmered with arcane runes and glowing threads of power.
Ted stepped forward. "Anzu, you alright?"
"Feeling great! Caw I want to go again! Caw"
"You do that again, and I'll be broke!"
Anzu had evolved.
From a regular raven into a Dark Raven—smarter, faster, and now partially aligned with shadow and illusion magic.
...
Back in the Hogwarts library, Ted was surrounded by towering stacks of books. He was knee-deep in research, most of them related to charmwork and emotion-based spells.
Professor Flitwick had introduced the Happiness Charm just the day before. It wasn't a hard spell, but controlling it was another matter.
Ted had seen what happened in class: Harley hit Ron with it, and the poor bloke laughed so hard he couldn't breathe.
Jerry's charm nearly dislocated Neville's jaw. The entire room had left with bizarre, twisted grins that spooked the next class.
Most shrugged it off as a joke spell, but Ted saw potential.
Emotions were gateways to the mind, and the mind was the gateway to power—especially psionics.
Using knowledge he'd gathered from Muggle neurology and psychology, Ted had begun breaking the charm down.
Internally, he mapped out how magic affected neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins.
On a deeper level, he analyzed how the spell tapped into primal brain layers: the reptilian core for instinct, the limbic system for emotion, and the neocortex for reason.
He matched this to the subconscious, conscious, and meta-conscious frameworks used by both Muggle and magical thinkers.
Some people were overly emotional not by nature, but because their emotional centers overwhelmed their rational minds, or because their subconscious sabotaged them.
Ted felt his psychic core pulse.
A new ability was taking shape: Emotional Provocation.
A power that could nudge the target's emotions by stimulating the midbrain and subconscious directly. To amplify or suppress fear, joy, rage, sadness...
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Word count: 1472
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