Simon lay in bed, reading his slate. He had just copied down every single book in the library, and he was sorting through the small pile of books his slate wasn't smart enough to categorize. He was going to Astronomy in a few hours, so he started to read through the unsorted books while he waited. So far, he had found several damaged books – he made a note to tell the librarian about that – as well as some hidden notes, from certain students both current and long dead. Apparently, stashing notes between books in the legal section was an interesting method of secret communication.
Astronomy was uneventful. He set up his telescope, similar in outward appearance to those of other students. However, it contained several Glass lenses of incredibly high power, and was linked to his slate and Glasses. The professor, Professor Sinistra, lectured about astronomy, and Simon payed attention, this being new material.
The next afternoon, after a not-too eventful day of lessons, Simon headed off to flying lessons. On brooms, no less! He was sketching designs on his slate for a personal staff-linked aircraft.
"Now, a want all of you to stand to the left side of your boom, hold your right hand over your broom, and say 'up'."
Simon did as Madam Hooch, the instructor, instructed, and nothing happened. He sent a few hundred k-joules of energy at the broom. It immediately lept up into his hand. He probed the inner workings, and found a simple sort of flight control system, although efficient, and undeniably elegant. Unfortunately, the system could not have external energy hooked in, so it had to rely on ambient magic. He mounted his broom, and looked around and waited. Some students didn't yet get it.
As the lesson progressed, Neville fell off his broom. With a swift leap, he jumped off of his broom, and drew his staff from within his robe's extended space. Pulling into the standard sky-diver's pose, he caught up to Neville as they fell, and wrapped his arms around Neville. Suddenly, the pair were slowing down, and they came to a stop just above the ground. Simon didn't notice the small glass bauble that fell out of Neville's pocket.
The Professor hurried off with Neville, leaving behind strict instructions not to go flying around.
"Hey Chicken-Coop! Look what Longbottom dropped!"
Simon turned towards Malfoy, and saw the glass (not Glass) bauble that Neville had dropped.
"You want to play silly buggers?"
"Cooper, I'll have this up a tree."
With that, Malfoy flew off. Harry lept on his broom, and sped off, despite objections from Hermione. Simon drew his staff, rapped it on the ground, then waved his left hand around a bit. Simon started to hover, then zoomed off after the pair. Malfoy threw the bauble when he saw Harry and Simon in hot pursuit. Simon flicked his left hand, as if throwing a rope, and an actual rope of blue light sped out of his hand and neatly snared the Remembrall. More ropes snapped out from his left hand, and snared both Harry and Malfoy's brooms. The trio then descended, with Simon pulling on the magical constructs linking him to the two boys' brooms.
The trio landed right in front of Madam Hooch, and her recriminations were severe, but not directed at Simon. Professor McGonagall handled that end, blasting him for blatantly misusing his own abilities, and showing off.
"Professor, I'm a mage. I can't help but show off. It comes with the metaphorical pointy hat and actual staff. It's a problem with holding so much mana."
"Well, try to keep it under control."
As the crowd of students headed back to their common rooms – flying lessons were Thursdays after all the other classes – Malfoy caught up with Simon.
"Wizard's duel, trophy room, midnight."
"How about a mages duel, same time, same place."
"Sure, whatever."
Simon didn't tell any of his friends about the challenge, and he woke up just before midnight. Quietly, and oddly silently, he put on his school uniform, stashed his staff and wand in his robes, and slipped out the door. As he stalked the halls, Glasses faintly glowing, he reached the trophy room. He pulled out his staff.
Malfoy entered, wand in hand.
"I'm sure you don't know the rules. First, we salute with wands."
He whipped his wand up in front of his face, as if saluting with a sword. Simon replied with the usual mages salute, striking his staff on the flagstones. He bowed, and Malfoy replied in kind. Simon straightened up, and held his staff at the ready.
"Expelliarmus!" Malfoy started the encounter with a disarming charm, which wasted itself against Simon's Faraday shield. Simon did not yet strike back. Malfoy continued, striking against Simon with a series of spells, each more powerful than the next, concluding with a fair attempt at a blasting curse. All were absorbed. Simon pointed his staff at Malfoy.
"Has this matter of honour been settled?"
Malfoy continued to cast at Simon. Simon sighed, and slammed his staff into the flagstones in front of him, where, oddly enough, the staff remained stuck upright. Simon started to wave arcane gestures into the air around the staff, all the while shielded against Malfoy's increasingly desperate spells. Simon concluded his gestures with both hands holding the staff, and he jerked the meter and a half of wood into a firing position. Simon gathered breath, and started a low, incredibly ominous chant. The floor and walls started to rumble as he continued, and Malfoy turned to run, but he found the doors out of the trophy room locked. The doors refused to unlock, even when he tried the unlocking charm. Simon finished the chant, and pointed the staff straight at Malfoy's rear end as he tried to run. The staff discharged a bolt of Cerenkov blue light, and the packet of magic crawled towards Malfoy at a leisurely pace. Malfoy saw the packet, and tried to run. The packet followed, homing in on Malfoy as it went.
"Draco Malfoy, of House Malfoy, Moste Noble and Ancient. Is your honour satisfied?"
Draco wondered about how an obvious mudblood could produce magic this powerful, and then he thought about how Cooper had even pronounced the 'e' in 'Moste'. He then thought about the implacable bolt of blue light, and how it moved at scarcely walking pace. He declined to answer.
"So be it."
Simon sighed, snapped his fingers, and the bolt of blue light suddenly sped up, and hit Malfoy squarely in the middle of his body (distance-wise), from the dorsal side. Malfoy crumpled to the floor, having been hit with a dueling mage's more commonly used spell, referred to as a 'magic missile'. The payload in this missile was a simple burst of electricity, intended to knock a target out. In this case, the missile was slightly understrength, Simon having adjusted it conservatively, not wanting to hurt Malfoy. Simon stalked off, back to Gryffindor tower, when he noticed the third floor corridor which Dumbledore had explicitly forbidden anyone to enter. Noticing a challenge, he walked in, staff at the ready and shield already up. He came to the second door, and saw it was locked. He cast a spell, and looked at his slate, before turning away from the door and hurrying back to his bed.
The next morning, Simon saw Malfoy at breakfast with the rest of the Slytherins, and gave a cheery wave. He was met with stony silence.
"Malfoy challenged me to a duel, and as I was returning last night, I went into the corridor on the third floor."
Hermione was aghast.
"Dumbledore warned us not to go in there."
"Relax, Hermione," opined Ron, "besides, what did you see there?"
"A good reason never to go back there. There was a three-headed dog, a Cerberus, I think, and it was guarding a trapdoor."
"That has to do with the package Hagrid picked up when he went to Diagon Alley with me," Harry supplied.
"I thought Professor McGonagall did that?"
The month of October passed by with great speed, as Simon continued to read through the books he copied from the library. The Halloween feast came with a swirl of decorations, but as they were going into the feast, Ron was poking Hermione about their recent charms lesson, and how Hermione seemed to be a know-it-all. Hermione had left with a flounce and a huff, before breaking into tears. Simon tried to follow her, but lost her in the crowd. He rejoined Ron and Harry as they sat down to the feast. Simon had brought his staff and textbooks from his lessons.
Ron was amazed at how Simon carried all those books. Simon explained that he didn't like to have to navigate the decidedly non-Euclidean passages of the castle.
"You see, I also can't just teleport within the castle: I have to know all the parameters of an interaction before I can use magic. For example, I can't just target Neville's toad and teleport him to me, because I don't know where it is, exactly. I could search for it with a wide-area pulse, but this castle is annoying. I can't feel out relative positions when going up, west, down, then east doesn't land you where you started."
Their conversation on the limitations of magic was interrupted when Professor Quirrell ran into the Great Hall, yelling. Simon briefly wondered why Quirrell wasn't in the hall with the rest of them, when what Quirrell was yelling was understood.
"Troll! Troll in the dungeons! Thought you ought to know."
As Quirrell fainted, mass panic erupted, but the house heads managed to get the students herded back towards their dormitories. Simon, Ron, and Harry realized together that Hermione wasn't with them. The group set off to find her.
The approached the girls bathroom, which was where Simon's spells told them Hermione was.
"Don't tell Hermione, but I put a tracker on her when she left."
The group burst into the bathroom to find a troll smashing up the place. Its club was headed towards their friend. Simon snapped into action, and with a grand wave of his hand, the troll's club was deflected to miss Hermione. Simon rubbed his hands together, then shoved the empty palm of a hand at the troll. As his hand reached full extension, a blue lance of light lept from his hand and smashed into the troll, hitting it squarely in the face. It stumbled. He followed it up with a second blast from his other hand, and drew his staff while the troll reeled from the impacts.
"Background magic just isn't up to the strain I'm putting on it."
Simon's observations were surprisingly calm for someone battling a troll.
"Oftentimes, for low-load spells, you can have them draw directly from background. Here, you've got a stronger background, so-"
Simon was cut off as the troll's swung club hit him, but the student remained unharmed. In fact, the club was cracked and fractured. Simon started chanting, but quickly stopped as the troll swung its club at his friends, instead snapping his staff to point at the club, sending blast of magic which blew the club into splinters.
"That spell is a standard force bolt. Basically, the magical packet continues towards a target, until it hits something liquid or solid, whereupon it sends a burst of force into its forward hemisphere. This produces a blast-like effect."
Simon was remarkably cool, perhaps safe in the knowledge that he couldn't be harmed by the troll. The troll looked confused, and continued its assault on Simon's friends with hands and feet. Simon, unnoticed by the rest, shot a second bolt of blue light at the troll, this time hitting its head. The troll crumbled.
"Somehow, I don't fell there's any tension in this scene. Hey! To whomever is writing my life, could you give me some more challenges?"
"Mate, who're you talking to?" asked Ron.
"It's just a silly habit of mine, thinking about my life as if it were a story. For example, what I just did there, and am doing now is an example of 'lampshade hanging'. It's a mage thing."
"Your going to have to explain the whole 'mage' thing to us one of these days." Harry said, still somewhat in shock over the nonchalant manner with which Simon had dealt with the troll.
"I will. Oh, here come the teachers."
Indeed, there came the teachers, and the group was scolded most severely for risking themselves, until Hermione spoke up in their defence. Professor McGonagall awarded house points, while Professor Snape looked on most distastefully.
WARNING! Divergence incoming!
Seriously, I know there isn't much tension. Simon's doing everything with ease, but Voldemort has noticed he's a mage.