Cassius' body felt different now—denser, taut with currents of power that pressed at the edges of his veins like an impatient storm.
Six months of riot-drills had refined his pathways; he could feel them branching and widening, learning to endure torrents of magic that once would have shattered him.
He was nearing five years of age, but in spirit he felt decades older, his thoughts sharpened by Grindelwald's endless crucible of theory and combat strategy.
And yet, for all that growth, one thing gnawed at him day after day: he still had no wand.
His training wand—a length of metal bound with faint charms—could mimic form but not channel true power.
Cassius had learned every twist of its grip, every flourish of motion, but it was like trying to drink water through a cloth.
The real current was always just out of reach.
One evening, while Grindelwald lectured on the politics of magical oaths, Cassius could bear it no longer.
"Teacher," he interrupted, his voice sharper than he intended.
Grindelwald's pale eyes lifted from the parchment he was inscribing.
His brow arched, amused.
"Yes, Cassius?"
"I want a real wand. Not this stick. Not a child's toy. I'm ready."
The staff across Grindelwald's knees tapped once, gently.
"Ready, are you?"
Cassius leaned forward, urgency raw in his tone. "I can feel it inside me—pressure. Like a dam straining against its wall. I'm wasting time. If I had a proper wand, I could—"
"Die."
The single word cut through his eagerness like a blade.
Cassius blinked, startled.
Grindelwald's voice was calm, measured, but iron lay beneath.
"Do you know why wands are withheld from the young? Why even the most arrogant pure-blood families wait until their heirs are eleven before placing oak or yew into their hands?"
Cassius frowned, silent.
"Because," Grindelwald continued, "a child's pathways are not yet stable. They widen, yes. They strengthen, yes. But they are not rooted. Give such a vessel a focus like a true wand, and their magic will not trickle forth—it will pour, uncontrolled. One spell, Cassius. A single spell, and the whole dam would break. Your core would rupture. Your pathways would shred themselves raw. Becoming a squib would be mercy. More likely you would burn out in agony, nothing left but ash where promise once stood."
Cassius' lips parted, but no sound came.
Grindelwald's gaze softened, just slightly.
"Do not mistake me, little flame. Your hunger is not weakness. But hunger must be tempered with discipline, or it devours the one who bears it."
Silence stretched between them.
Cassius clenched his fists, the heat in his chest simmering into something smaller, tighter.
"Then what? Am I supposed to just… wait? Years, doing nothing?"
A smile ghosted Grindelwald's lips.
"Not nothing. Never nothing. If your hands itch for casting, then let us give them strings instead of blades."
Cassius tilted his head.
"Strings?"
The old sorcerer raised his wand, holding it loosely between two fingers.
"Puppetry. A crude name, but apt. You will not wield a wand yet—but you will guide mine."
Cassius' eyes widened.
"Watch," Grindelwald murmured. His free hand turned palm up. "Extend your will. Imagine threads—silver, thin, invisible—stretching from your fingers into mine. Pull gently. Not too hard."
Cassius reached out with thought, hesitant.
At first there was nothing, only empty space.
Then, slowly, he felt it—a tautness, like plucking the string of a harp.
Grindelwald's wand-hand shifted, not by his own command, but by Cassius' will.
Cassius gasped.
"Good," Grindelwald said softly. "Now, shape it. Guide my hand as if it were your own. My wand will move where you command. But remember: this is not a toy. My power flows through it. If your guidance falters, if you push recklessly, the backlash will not be forgiving."
Cassius nodded, breath quick, and drew the first curve of a spell.
Grindelwald's hand followed flawlessly, wand tracing the arc.
The movement ended, suspended mid-air.
"Words," Grindelwald prompted. "What phrase do you choose?"
Cassius' mind flashed back to pages of elven script, the Sindarin tongue he had studied in his sleepless hours.
He whispered, "Gwaef," a word he had woven from fragments of his memory meaning 'binding'.
The wand pulsed.
A strand of light erupted, snapping out like a whip quickly wrapping around the wooden target before them, until it looked like a mummy standing there instead.
Cassius laughed aloud, exhilarated.
Grindelwald's lips curved faintly.
"You see? A blade too sharp for you to hold—but guided, you may still cut."
From that day forward, their lessons shifted.
Cassius spent hours stringing Grindelwald's hand through elaborate patterns, replacing traditional incantations with Sindarin words.
Sometimes his experiments sparked dazzling results—a spray of golden sparks that clung like embers, a shield that shimmered with colors no spellbook had ever recorded.
Other times, the results ended in catastrophic bursts, wild energy cracking against the chamber's wards.
One failure melted the stone floor into bubbling magma before Grindelwald flicked it back into form with a lazy gesture.
Some light attempts at using conflicting words, caused a curse that appeared far worse than the cruciatus curse, as it tortured the victim while also restoring it, like repeating
Each disaster left Cassius more enthralled, he had only ever heard of magic in his past life before being denied to it in this life, but now being able to experiment and freely choose his own words and actions making real magic spells come to life.
But the more he experimented the more he realized something about himself.
His routine outbursts were not like himself, or rather he was losing control over his emotions when the topic of magic came up.
To his mentor he was simply acting like a child.
But the feeling of his 'old age' not catching up with him was shocking, enough so that Cassius even started to think that if it werent for ligilimency he very well might forget one day that he had even lived a whole other life before and accepting the fact that he really was just a child now.
But at least even if he was restricted not by choice from possessing a real wand, he had an avenue through which he could experiment with magic, and while his mentor did warn that not all his spells could be used even once he received his first real wand, due to their requirement for greater power.
Even with the years of magic riot training, Grindelwald did not hold up hope that at the tender age of 11 more than half Cassius's advanced spells would be capable of being casted.
At the rate of his growth, along with the natural growth Cassius could theorize that his magic level would probably reach around a thousand at best, but in comparison, according to grindelwald, he could cast thousands of lumos's to cast even match the level of power that some of his later creations required.