The wind carried the sharp scent of moss and old stone as I stepped onto the uneven ground near the ancient ruin on the Hogsmeade side of the Forbidden Forest. The morning sun had barely broken through the low-hanging mist, and already, the air crackled with that familiar tension—an unspoken anticipation that today's lesson wouldn't be easy.
Dumbledore stood at the center of the clearing, robes deep blue and lightly dusted with dew, his auburn hair and beard catching what little light there was. Despite the chill, his eyes sparkled behind half-moon spectacles. He turned as I approached, a gentle smile playing across his face.
"Ah, Marcus," he said, voice warm but expectant. "Punctual, as always. Tell me—did you bring your courage this morning, or shall I lend you mine?"
I smirked and drew my wand. "I figured I'd borrow your technique instead."
Dumbledore chuckled, then gestured toward the cracked pillars and scattered flagstones of the ruin. "Good. Because today, we refine not just your spellcasting, but your adaptability. You'll need it when the spells begin flying."
We bowed—a quick motion, more tradition than ceremony—and without another word, Dumbledore flicked his wand. A red flash burst toward me.
"Expelliarmus!"
I snapped my wand up just in time. "Protego!"
The shield charm rippled as it caught his disarming spell. I sidestepped, keeping my stance light, and retaliated with my own disarm. He batted it aside with casual ease, already launching a pinching hex that made the hairs on my arms rise.
I spun, ducked under the hex, and shot a stinging jinx low. He moved like a duelist from a bygone era—graceful and fluid, transfiguring a nearby rock into a stone shield mid-spin. It caught my jinx with a crack of heat, then melted into sand with another twist of his wand.
"Creativity," he called, sidestepping my next attack. "A duel is not merely a test of aim, but of invention!"
I nodded—barely—already summoning a gust of wind with a focused flick. He slipped slightly, and I used the moment to cast a transfiguration charm on a stray branch, morphing it into a snaking whip of ironwood. It lashed toward him.
Dumbledore's counter was instantaneous. The whip froze in midair, suspended in a web of glowing runes he conjured with a motion that etched them in golden light. I recognized at least one—an obscure binding sigil I had only seen in passing in the library's restricted section.
He gave me no time to admire it.
"Expelliarmus!"
I threw myself into a roll, wand blazing. "Protego Maxima!"
My shield held, but the force sent me skidding backward. My boots tore through the damp grass and stone chips. I blinked sweat out of my eyes and tried to refocus. Eleven minutes. That was my goal—to last longer than I had last weekend.
I re-centered myself and pressed forward.
We exchanged spell after spell, moving in a storm of hexes, counters, and clever uses of terrain. I transfigured loose rubble into flocks of fluttering paper birds that distracted him just long enough to land a well-placed pinching hex—he winced slightly, approvingly. But then he conjured a mirror of smoke that redirected my next disarm right back at me. I blocked it just in time.
He advanced now, forcing me back. I dropped low, slashing my wand horizontally and pulling heat from the earth—a minor application of thermomantic theory I'd been experimenting with. The ground shimmered under his feet, just enough to throw off his balance. I struck with a precise disarming charm, but he vanished from sight.
Apparition—not full, but a shimmer of obscuring displacement, more illusion than true teleportation.
"You're improving," his voice called from behind me.
I spun and cast. He blocked.
We circled each other again.
"Good," he said, wand raised, "but now we push further."
He threw all three spells at once—Disarming Charm, Shield-Breaking Curse, and the Pinching Hex, layered in a complex arc. I had seconds. My wand spun in a circle—"Protego!"—then again, "Expelliarmus!"—and again—"Constringo!"
My shield took the brunt, but the pressure cracked through. The pinching hex caught my shoulder, and my wand nearly slipped. I staggered, gasped, then gritted my teeth and retaliated with a wave of force—not a spell, but pure willbound magic. He raised his eyebrow, amused.
"That," he said, "was new."
"Obscure," I managed through panting breath. "Pulled from an Egyptian fragment. No incantation, just focus."
He smiled broadly. "Excellent."
The next minute was a blur. I used everything—runic traps drawn mid-duel, minor transfigurations to trip or bind, calculated deflections that redirected his spells back toward the ruin's shattered columns. The duel finally ended when I dropped to one knee, chest heaving, wand trembling in my grip.
Dumbledore lowered his wand, the air between us humming with the last threads of magic.
"Eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds," he said, tapping his watch. "A new record."
I fell onto the grass and laughed, breathless.
"Thought I'd die at six."
"You fought like a warrior," he said kindly, sitting beside me. "And like a scholar. You used your head, your training, and most importantly—your imagination. Magic is not only a science, Marcus. It is an art. And you, I think, are learning to paint."
I looked up at the clouds drifting above the ruin and let the silence stretch for a while.
"I want to do more," I said quietly. "More than just survive. I want to be ready."
His eyes, bright as ever, met mine. "And you shall be. But even fire must be tempered, or it burns out too quickly. For now—rest."
I nodded, exhausted but alive. The ruin whispered with old echoes, and the Forbidden Forest watched from the shadows. But here, in the ring of old stone and new magic, I was growing stronger.
One duel at a time.
The sun had long since dipped beneath the hills when I finally unlocked the wards of my little home in Hogsmeade. The familiar shimmer of magic peeled back like a curtain as I whispered the sequence under my breath—a series of arcane syllables I had crafted myself, etched into the very bones of the house when I first took control of its protections. The magic recognized me immediately. The garden's grass rustled as if sighing in welcome.
Inside, the warmth of enchantments stirred to life. The hearth sparked with a whisper of flame. Candles lit themselves in soft golden clusters, casting gentle shadows along the bookshelves and across the oak dining table. I didn't head straight for the kitchen or the bath, though both called to me after the brutal duel—I moved to my desk beneath the window, drew open the drawer, and took out the small, dragon-hide-bound notebook where I kept a personal log of every training session.
I dipped my quill, opened the fresh page, and wrote:
**Day 11: Duel duration – 11m38s. Progress notable. Transfiguration integration stable. Obscure casting (heat-warp, Egyptian pulse) successful under pressure. Dumbledore noted increase in creativity. Next goal: control under extended fatigue.**
I stared at the ink as it dried, a thousand thoughts colliding beneath my skin. The rush of combat still hadn't quite left me. My muscles were sore, bruised from missed hexes and tension, but there was a hum beneath the pain. I'd done well today—better than ever. I'd pushed beyond what I thought I could do. But I also saw, in every spell Dumbledore deflected with ease, just how far I still had to go.
He was right, of course—magic wasn't just about precision or power. It was artistry, creativity, trust in instinct and intent. My training wasn't just preparation for duels or dark wizards; it was shaping how I thought, how I reacted under fire, how I understood magic's depths beyond textbooks and incantations.
Tonight, I'd barely scratched the surface of what obscure branches could do—thermomancy, binding glyphs, elemental warping, even whispers of soul-tied invocation. So many of them were rare, forgotten, or forbidden. But they were *there*, waiting in ancient scrolls, half-decayed books buried deep in Hogwarts' restricted stacks, and fragments of knowledge passed down in duels and bloodlines.
I glanced at the pile of parchment on my desk, half-translated from an old Norse grimoire I'd borrowed—just before the year ended. Scribbled margins lined every page, my notes winding like ivy around the runes. I traced the edge of a glyph I hadn't yet dared to test—a ward-layered summoning circle that required intent, sacrifice, and exact pronunciation.
Even now, after two years at Hogwarts, I knew most of the world's magic remained out of reach. And yet, with each duel, each spell thrown and caught and bent and broken, I was reaching a little further. My dreams weren't of glory or titles or even revenge. What I wanted—what I needed—was mastery. Control. The kind of power that wasn't wielded out of anger but forged from discipline. So that no one could ever take from me what had already been lost.
I looked toward the empty fireplace, its flames low and steady. I thought of Eleanor and Edgar—how Edgar would be reading right now, and Eleanor probably making her father laugh with some clever turn of phrase. I imagined Henry arguing with Elizabeth over who was more skilled in Herbology or whose Quidditch team was better.
There was warmth in those memories. Anchor points, I realized. Even in the solitude of my warded home, those friendships gave me balance. I wasn't entirely alone on this path.
I stood at last, stretching my sore arms and lighting a pot for tea. Outside, the moon climbed the night sky, silver and slow, casting faint light across the window above my desk. And in the stillness, the lingering embers of today's duel flickered not just in my limbs—but in my heart.
After the tea warmed my chest and soothed the tightness in my shoulders, I returned to the desk. The house was utterly silent, the kind of quiet that let magic breathe without resistance. It was the best time for experimentation—not because the hour was late, but because the stillness seemed to amplify intent.
The next morning I drew the heavy, rune-etched tome closer. *Practical Foundations of Obscure Arts*, translated roughly from its original Greek, was a rare find—acquired not from Hogwarts but through a curious trade in Diagon Alley during the winter holidays. A shopkeeper with clouded eyes and a voice like dust had offered it to me in exchange for a copy of *Beasts and How to Kill Them* by Altair Black. A curious trade, in hindsight.
Tonight, I focused on something deceptively simple: the *Gleipnir Loop*. A binding charm drawn from ancient Norse traditions, meant not to restrain physically, but magically—to suppress a creature's aura, power, or access to specific forms of magic. Perfected, it could hold back a werewolf mid-transformation or prevent a dark wizard from channeling raw magical force.
I cleared a space on the floor and laid down a sheet of enchanted parchment. With a careful hand, I drew a triple-ringed circle using ink mixed with powdered obsidian and the tail hair of a graphorn—ingredients I had been saving for months. Each ring held runes representing entrapment, stasis, and severance.
I spoke the incantation slowly: *"Þeima fjǫturr mundi verðr,"* my voice low and deliberate. Magic sparked as I channeled intent—not toward any living being, but into the circle itself. Testing the loop. The air rippled, light flickering along the inked runes like heat shimmering off stone.
A sudden *crack* snapped through the room. The parchment blackened and hissed, the magic overloading as a ring cracked open along its seam.
"Too much pressure," I muttered, frowning. "The anchoring runes weren't balanced. Severance overpowered stasis."
It wasn't a failure. It was *data*—and better now than in the field.
I cleaned the parchment, reinforced the binding sigils, and tried again. This time, the reaction was more stable. The circle hummed softly for a full minute before dimming. Enough to show me it was viable.
Next, I moved on to *heat-warp*, a minor thermomancy technique used by desert-dwelling wizards to distort the air around them—perfect for obscuring vision in battle or slipping from line-of-sight. It required subtlety, a light touch, and an extremely sensitive control of ambient energy.
I pointed my wand toward the space in front of me and rotated it counterclockwise, whispering the spell. At first, nothing happened—then the air rippled slightly, a faint distortion like a heatwave rising from sand.
I moved across the room, and from the corner of my eye, I could see the warped image—a blurred reflection, enough to fool someone at a distance. Not perfect, not yet—but promising.
The final trial of the evening was less dramatic, but more ambitious. I opened the notebook where I had copied the Egyptian "pulse" glyphs from the restricted section. A low-impact technique used to send a pulse of magic outward to detect enchantments, hidden objects, or trap spells—effectively a magical echolocation.
I drew the glyph on my palm with temporary ink and pressed it to the stone floor. Then I whispered the activation word.
A pulse of soft blue magic shot outward from my hand in all directions. It hit the walls, bounced off the warded window, and flowed back into me. A rush of impressions followed—the precise location of my protective wards, the lingering heat from tonight's tea, even the faint magical residue from the earlier dueling training.
"Useful," I murmured, smiling slightly. "Very useful."
I let the glyph fade and closed the notebook. My eyes burned with exhaustion now, but there was a fullness in my chest—of progress, of understanding, of victory in small measures.
I cleaned the ink from my hands, reset the ward triggers, and made my way to bed. The sheets were cool, the window cracked open just enough to let the summer night breeze in.
As I settled beneath the covers, I stared at the ceiling and let my mind drift. To Dumbledore's laugh as I blocked his hex. To Eleanor's smirk. To the way the magical pulse felt like a heartbeat echoing through stone. To my own voice speaking languages long dead but still alive through magic.
Sleep took me slowly, gently—like water smoothing over a rough stone.
And in my dreams, the runes burned bright.