Chapter 7
The troll incident was like a stone thrown into a lake: it caused big waves at first, but as time passed, things settled back to normal.
Gabin's name was well-known for a short while. Everyone in Gryffindor knew he had taken down a troll single-handedly and saved a girl trapped in the bathroom.
In one Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall even pointed him out publicly, calling him a true Gryffindor.
Neville saw him as a real hero and hoped he could be that brave one day.
Most people praised his courage—definitely Gryffindor material.
But the attention didn't change Gabin's routine. As weeks went by, the talk faded away until only the people directly involved still remembered it clearly.
Gabin returned to his usual quiet life, spending his days between studying and practicing spells.
Professor Flitwick's Charms class had reached the Unlocking Charm (Alohomora) and the Locking Charm (Colloportus)—two spells that directly countered each other. Their patterns in his magical vision looked like interlocking spirals, which gave him a headache and made him practice longer than usual lately.
Herbology with Professor Sprout was still theoretical—no practical work yet. She demonstrated with real plants at the front while the class took notes.
First-year material wasn't too much, so Gabin could usually memorize everything in half the lesson and spend the rest of the time enjoying the warm sunlight inside the greenhouse.
As winter arrived and the weather grew colder, he actually started looking forward to those warm greenhouse sessions.
Wednesday-night Astronomy was the opposite extreme. The content was light—easy to memorize in half a lesson—but the second half meant sitting outside in the freezing dark, counting down the minutes until it ended.
At least it was only once a week.
Potions in the dungeons actually felt more comfortable than Astronomy once the surface got cold. The underground rooms stayed warmer.
The only downside was the shelves of glass jars filled with pickled animal specimens—enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Combined with Snape's permanently sour, sallow face and those dark, hollow eyes, the whole class sometimes felt oddly unsettling.
Still, Gabin liked Potions quite a bit.
Snape targeted Gryffindors in general, but his real focus was always Harry Potter. Toward Gabin he stayed neutral.
Brewing potions might seem fiddly and complicated to most students, but Gabin found it interesting and straightforward.
In his magical perspective he could clearly see how the magical properties of ingredients broke apart and recombined into new patterns during brewing. That gave him a huge edge over everyone else.
Several times Snape even held up Gabin's potion beside Harry's for comparison and called him a rare talent—far better than a certain "celebrity" who only had a famous name.
Gabin didn't get arrogant about it, though Harry's Potions results really weren't great.
In McGonagall's Transfiguration class he was making steady progress too. With stronger magic and constant practice and observation, he finally started to understand the basics of how transformation worked.
You form a magical framework inside the object—the exact shape you want it to become. The object then shifts to match that framework.
The more precise the framework, the better the result. A rough, basic one gave poor transformations; a very detailed one produced clean, accurate changes.
First-years only needed to turn a match into a needle—the framework wasn't too complicated. After enough practice, Gabin became the second student in class (after Hermione) to succeed.
Flying lessons with Madam Hooch were pure downtime for him. The initial thrill of flying had been exciting, but it quickly became normal.
The lessons kept everyone in a limited area at low speed for safety. For someone who in his previous life had ridden high-speed flying motorcycles, it felt a bit tame.
He wasn't especially interested in Quidditch either (just like he'd never cared much about football before), so he didn't push himself too hard. That let Harry's natural flying talent stand out even more.
History of Magic with Professor Binns turned out better than expected. Gabin had braced himself for unbearable boredom—the books described Binns's voice as a perfect sleep aid.
And yes, the delivery really was that dull, like a professor who just reads slides word-for-word.
But the actual subject matter—magical history—turned out to be fascinating. Gabin paid close attention, second only to Charms class.
He became one of the few students who listened the whole time. Even Hermione sometimes read ahead for other subjects, but Gabin stayed focused from start to finish.
Later he realized why it interested him so much.
To people born in the wizarding world, magical history was just "history." Even Muggle-borns accepted it quickly after arriving.
But for Gabin—whose mind came mostly from a completely different world—magical history felt like opening a brand-new fantasy series he'd never read before.
Imagine if your history lessons weren't about real emperors and dynasties, but instead full of wizards dueling demons, ancient giants marching across continents, and elves making desperate stands to protect enchanted forests.
That kind of content was impossible to ignore.
Professor Binns's flat, unchanging monotone actually felt oddly familiar to someone used to listening to long audiobook narrations on his phone. It was almost comforting.
Because of his consistent focus, Binns once awarded Gryffindor five points for attentiveness.
Coming from a ghost, that was basically unheard of.
Even Hermione—who hated losing—had to admit after a few lessons that Gabin was clearly better at History of Magic than she was.
And she might never catch up.
Gabin found something worthwhile in every one of his seven classes. Even Astronomy let him enjoy the beauty of the night sky and think about how vast space really was.
The one exception was Professor Quirrell's Defence Against the Dark Arts.
If he could explain where his information came from without sounding insane, he would have reported Quirrell already and gotten the school a different teacher.