Alan completed his meticulous, exploratory sweep of the entire castle, eventually looping his way back from the vast entrance hall and stepping into the Great Hall. By this early hour, only a sparse handful of early risers were already seated and quietly enjoying their breakfast. Realizing he had worked up a substantial appetite during his reconnaissance mission, Alan smoothly took a seat at the Slytherin table and began plating his food.
"Alan! I honestly thought you hadn't even gotten out of bed yet. I didn't expect to find you already down here eating," Vivian complained, marching through the heavy oak doors just as Alan took his first bite. Spotting him comfortably seated, she closed the distance and slumped onto the bench beside him, looking thoroughly put out. "I was sitting in the freezing common room waiting for you out of the goodness of my heart!"
"My apologies, Vivian. I woke up exceptionally early this morning to map out the castle, so I had no idea you were waiting for me," Alan explained, offering a slight, placating nod. "You don't need to worry about waiting up for me in the mornings moving forward. I am strictly accustomed to a military-style early rise."
"Well, I certainly won't be waiting around for you in the future," Vivian huffed, spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. "But what if you run off early in the morning and actually manage to get yourself lost? If you ask me, it is an absolute tactical blessing that our dungeon entrance leads directly up to the Great Hall. Otherwise, this castle is so ridiculously massive and confusing, I might not have even been able to find my way to breakfast."
"You don't need to worry about the logistics. I have already roughly mapped the castle's primary arteries and located all of our designated classrooms for the term. You can just shadow my movements later," Alan assured her calmly, lowering his head to quickly and efficiently consume his morning rations.
As the two of them continued their quiet conversation, the high, enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall suddenly darkened with a massive, swirling flock of postal owls swooping down to deliver the morning mail. To Alan's mild surprise, three separate envelopes plummeted directly onto his lap. The letters were from Lily, Sirius, and Tom the bartender.
Scanning the parchment, the contents were largely what he expected: warm congratulations on his official enrollment at Hogwarts. However, Sirius's messy scrawl was filled with eager, anxious inquiries demanding to know exactly which house Alan had been sorted into, and loudly expressing his profound hope that the boy had made it into Gryffindor.
*That is going to be a severe disappointment for you,* Alan thought dryly, a mocking smirk ghosting across his lips. *If the arrogant, prejudiced Gryffindor operative discovers I was sorted directly into the snake pit, I wonder if he'll immediately sever our strategic alliance.* Alan efficiently folded the letters, tucked them securely into the inner pockets of his robes, and stood up. He and Vivian navigated the shifting staircases together, making their way to the designated Charms classroom to begin their academic day.
Upon entering the room, Alan immediately analyzed the seating chart and discovered that the Slytherin first-years were actually scheduled to share this specific period with the Gryffindors. This administrative decision greatly puzzled Alan's tactical mind. It was a well-documented, universally acknowledged fact that Slytherin and Gryffindor harbored deep, volatile, and often violent factional conflicts. Forcing the two rival houses into a confined, highly energized environment seemed like a massive operational oversight, especially since the fierce house prejudice had already begun infecting the first-years.
Scanning the room, Alan spotted Charles McKinnon already seated at a desk on the far side, proudly wearing his crimson-trimmed Gryffindor robes. Alan and Charles locked eyes for a brief moment, exchanged a subtle, respectful nod of acknowledgement, and maintained their designated house perimeters. Shortly after, the heavy iron bell chimed, signaling the official start of the lesson.
The Charms Professor, Filius Flitwick, was a remarkably diminutive man. Rumor in the school corridors suggested he possessed goblin ancestry. He was so incredibly short that, in order to properly see over his heavy wooden podium and address the classroom, he was forced to stand atop a towering stack of thick, leather-bound encyclopedias. Thus, Alan's very first official academic class at Hogwarts commenced.
From Alan's highly advanced perspective, the standard Charms curriculum was incredibly shallow and agonizingly slow-paced. According to the syllabus, the first-years were only expected to master a mere dozen basic, utilitarian spells over the course of the entire academic year. Professor Flitwick utilized the entirety of this introductory session to exclusively lecture on the fundamental, theoretical principles of charm-work, actively refusing to even discuss practical casting mechanics or wand movements. This pedantic approach severely reduced Alan's interest in the lecture, given that he had already rigorously trained and practically mastered the vast majority of the first-year spell catalog during his brutal summer isolation.
Consequently, Alan barely absorbed a single word of the lecture. Instead, utilizing the safety of the back row, he discreetly withdrew a roll of parchment, his inkwell, and a quill, and spent the class drafting detailed replies to his active intelligence contacts.
His letter back to Tom was intentionally brief and straightforward, containing standard pleasantries and serving as a basic proof-of-life confirmation that he was safely established at the castle.
In his operational reports to Lily and Sirius, however, he provided a much deeper tactical debriefing. Aside from expressing his gratitude for their correspondence, he formally notified them of his unexpected sorting into Slytherin House. He provided a general, objective overview of the tense political climate and the radicalized pure-blood ideologies he had already observed within the dungeons. Finally, he openly expressed his cold, pragmatic concerns regarding his future safety as a Muggle-born in a hostile environment, explicitly requesting that the two seasoned Order veterans provide him with advanced tactical advice for surviving the coming years.
After meticulously drafting, sealing, and storing his outgoing missives, Alan glanced up to find that Professor Flitwick had finally concluded his lengthy theoretical lecture. As the class transitioned into its second half, practical casting instruction officially began.
The very first spell on the docket was the Levitation Charm—the exact spell Alan was undeniably the most intimately familiar with. Professor Flitwick spent a considerable amount of time painstakingly demonstrating the precise wrist articulation for the 'swish and flick' gesture, as well as drilling the class on the exact phonetic enunciation of the incantation. Finally, he distributed crisp white feathers to each desk and authorized the students to begin practicing.
The young wizards around him immediately launched into their frantic, uncoordinated spell practice. The vast majority of them couldn't even force the feather to twitch a single millimeter after their first dozen attempts.
"Wingardium Leviosa! Wingardium Leviosa!" Vivian chanted the incantation with a horribly inaccurate, rushed accent. She was frantically and aggressively slashing her wand at the innocent feather as if she were trying to physically beat it into submission, her face flushing a deep, frustrated red with the exertion.
Alan subtly rolled his eyes. *Did this girl invest absolutely all of her cognitive energy into gathering high-society gossip and save absolutely zero focus for basic magical application?* he wondered. Professor Flitwick had demonstrated the fluid motion with crystal clarity, yet she was still brutally mangling both the physical gesture and the vocal command.
On the other side of the aisle, Sampel Travers finally managed to force his feather to lift off the desk after several intense tries. The feather floated a few inches into the air, wobbling violently as if it were caught in a turbulent storm and might plummet at any second. Despite the incredibly unstable magical output, Travers immediately plastered a smug, arrogant smirk across his face, looking around to ensure the other struggling students witnessed his mediocre triumph.
Alan noticed out of the corner of his eye that Professor Flitwick had gracefully hopped down from his towering stack of books and was actively patrolling the aisles to inspect their progress. Realizing he couldn't just sit there openly slacking off without drawing suspicion, Alan let out a quiet sigh. As the diminutive professor approached his desk, Alan smoothly drew his black-jade wand and casually pointed the tip directly at his feather.
Instantly, the white feather shot upward and locked into a dead, perfectly stable hover exactly at eye level. It remained completely motionless, suspended by a dense, flawless grip of magical kinetic energy.
A second later, Alan's heart skipped a beat. *Damn it. I completely forgot to say the incantation out loud.*
Because Alan was so terrifyingly proficient with the Levitation Charm, and had spent weeks ruthlessly training himself to cast silently and without physical wand gestures, his body had simply reacted with pure muscle memory.
"An absolutely excellent Levitation Charm, Mr. Wilson! A truly superb display of controlled magical output!" Professor Flitwick beamed. Thankfully, the professor seemed not to have noticed—or perhaps tactfully chose to ignore—the glaring fact that Alan hadn't spoken a single syllable. Flitwick clapped his small hands together in genuine delight. "Take two points for Slytherin! That is as close to a perfect execution of the Levitation Charm as one can get on their first day. Everyone, please direct your attention to Mr. Wilson's technique!"
Every single head in the classroom immediately swiveled toward Flitwick and Alan. Many of the struggling young wizards stared at Alan's perfectly suspended feather with blatant envy, though several of the radicalized Slytherins, including Travers, glared at him with distinctly cold, unfriendly eyes.
Alan maintained a stiff, polite posture, awkwardly accepting Flitwick's enthusiastic public praise. Internally, his mind was racing; he hadn't utilized the mandatory 'swish and flick' gesture, nor had he vocalized the spell, and he had no idea how many highly observant students had just witnessed his lethal slip in operational security.
"You didn't even say the words just now, did you?" Vivian leaned in close, whispering sharply into his ear, her green eyes wide with shock.
"Shh," Alan hissed quietly, shooting Vivian a severe, warning look to keep her voice down.
Alan absolutely did not want to appear too highly advanced or exceptionally different during his baseline classes. His military doctrine had taught him a fundamental truth of survival: the taller the nail, the harder the hammer strikes. Being an obvious, overpowered target in a house full of blood-purist enemies was incredibly dangerous.
Professor Flitwick, mercifully, did not linger to draw any further attention to Alan's anomaly. He cheerfully continued his patrol around the classroom, patiently correcting wrist angles and gently guiding the other frustrated students through their incantations.
Realizing he couldn't just sit idle, Alan abandoned the pretense of practicing for himself and turned his complete attention to tactically coaching Vivian. After Alan strictly and methodically corrected the flawed angle of her wrist gesture and forced her to slow down her butchered pronunciation, Vivian finally managed to successfully cast a relatively stable, complete Levitation Charm just minutes before the heavy bell rang.
"Alright, excellent effort, everyone! That will be all for today's session," Professor Flitwick announced, climbing back atop his books. "For your homework, I expect every single one of you to go back to your dormitories and write a comprehensive, six-inch parchment essay detailing the foundational mechanics of the Levitation Charm." The professor then paused, his sharp eyes locking onto the back row.
"Mr. Alan Wilson, if you would be so kind, please remain behind for a brief moment."
Alan closed his eyes briefly. *As expected, I didn't actually manage to escape the veteran professor's keen observation.* Alan offered Vivian a subtle wave, signaling that she didn't need to wait up for him, and remained silently seated at his desk as the rest of the classroom quickly emptied into the corridor.
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