At Professor Sprout's strong insistence, Owen stopped eating breakfast in Professor Flitwick's office and returned to the Great Hall.
Then, right in front of all the professors, he demonstrated his "ground-skating" flight technique and explained exactly why he had developed it.
The professors' expressions turned... weird.
Using raw, unshaped magical output to generate lift and propulsion?
In the wizarding world, that was basically considered insane. No wizard ever complained about having too much magic. Usually, you hoard every drop you have.
But for Owen, it suddenly made perfect sense. They could all see his magical core expanding day by day. If this kept up, their biggest worry wouldn't be his education; it would be his second accidental outburst.
If he exploded next time, Hogwarts might just get leveled.
Burning off excess magic to maintain equilibrium? He was probably the only wizard in history doing that.
"What on earth have you people been teaching this child?!"
Professor McGonagall suddenly exploded, startling everyone. She reached out and pulled Owen into a protective hug. "He is just a child!"
Professor Sprout tilted her head innocently. "I'm only teaching him how to handle various magical plants."
Snape replied calmly, "He is learning ingredient preparation techniques from me."
Only Professor Flitwick looked guilty, rubbing his nose sheepishly. "I'm teaching him wandless magic techniques."
...
Silence fell over the Great Hall. You could hear a pin drop.
Even Dumbledore, usually squinting with amusement, opened his eyes wide in shock. He couldn't believe what he had just heard.
Owen felt embarrassed. He hadn't fully mastered wandless magic yet. So far, he could only cast two spells using the technique.
It was like being in preschool and learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—but only figuring out the first two. He hadn't shown anyone because he was ashamed.
It felt like being a student with bad grades who didn't want to show his report card to his parents.
"Lumos."
Under the professors' bizarre stares, Owen flicked his wrist. A ball of light the size of a soccer ball appeared above his fingertips. But he wasn't done. He then pushed his hand upward.
"Wingardium Leviosa."
The ball of light floated up and, following his mental command, zipped around the air. The Great Hall, which had been dim due to the overcast weather outside, suddenly brightened significantly.
A Lighting Charm and a Levitation Charm.
What shocked the professors wasn't just the wandless casting. It was that he used the Levitation Charm to control the Lighting Charm. That wasn't just wandless magic; that was simultaneous casting.
After her initial shock, McGonagall turned a stern gaze toward Flitwick. In her opinion, teaching such advanced and dangerous techniques to a child without a wand was reckless.
Flitwick, however, was beaming. The boy's genius far exceeded his imagination!
---
Because of this demonstration, Owen had to adjust his schedule again. Starting today, he had one more place to be.
His ground-skimming flight finally proved its worth. His morning run shifted from 5:00 AM to 4:00 AM. After that, aside from eating, sleeping, and studying, Owen's feet never touched the ground. He flew everywhere at full speed, saving a massive amount of time.
This intense study regimen continued right up until the start of the term. When the students returned, Owen's schedule suddenly opened up because he was now required to attend classes with the first-years.
Since he was underage, Owen wasn't a normal student. He had no wand and hadn't been Sorted. The older students found him odd, but for the first-years, he was a curiosity. They noticed he knew the castle like the back of his hand, yet nobody knew which House he belonged to.
Owen didn't participate in the Sorting Ceremony. He wore robes, but they were distinct from the standard House uniforms. His were black, embroidered with gold runic patterns—a gift McGonagall had taken him to Diagon Alley to buy before term started.
The thoughtful McGonagall didn't want the boy to feel too different, but she hadn't realized that dressing him like that actually made him stand out even more.
Fortunately, Owen didn't care. The more he studied magic, the more he realized how little he knew. There was always more to learn.
He ignored the gossip, focusing solely on his magical studies.
But trouble has a way of finding people even if they don't look for it. The Slytherin students carried a certain arrogance, mostly stemming from their pure-blood backgrounds.
At first, they didn't know who Owen was, assuming he might be a professor's relative. But once a rumor spread that Owen was just a "Mudblood" from a Muggle family, the way they looked at him changed.
Owen never interacted with them and always seemed busy. This led some to speculate that he wasn't a student at all, but rather someone working at Hogwarts like the house-elves. Someone even claimed to have seen Owen helping Filch, the Squib caretaker, clean up.
In their eyes, that put him on the same level as a house-elf.
As this idea spread through Slytherin, more of the young snakes started to find Owen incredibly annoying. The first-years, in particular, felt that having him in their classes was an insult.
It turns out that people are most focused and determined when they're planning something nasty.
They spent a week trying to figure him out. They couldn't find where he slept, but they did map out his schedule. This breakthrough happened when a first-year, suffering from a stomach ache, went to the bathroom early one morning and spotted Owen on his run.
That's how his 4:00 AM routine became public knowledge.
4:00 AM...
Just the time alone was enough to make half the Slytherins give up. Who gets up in the middle of the night to run? Is he a psychopath?
But there was one persistent snake among them. He actually woke up at 4:00 AM and secretly followed Owen. What he discovered, however, made his legs go weak.
Owen's run time was getting shorter and shorter, but he didn't use the extra time to sleep. He split his morning routine: half for running, half for combat training.
He would finish his run by 4:30 AM, then go to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, pick a thick tree, and practice boxing.