Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
The Hogwarts Express softly rocked as it sped toward its destination, the gentle patter of rain almost relaxing as it left London. It clicked, it clacked, and it echoed with the greetings and laughter of children as they reunited after a summer apart. It was the perfect place for them to reconnect before they focused on learning magic at the world-famous Hogwarts.
Alexander Dantes wasn't connecting with his peers nor even sitting with them. He was instead looking out the window, enjoying the passing scenery while he reflected on his summer holiday. It had, after all, become a turning point in his magical studies.
A conversation with his father, Adrian, at the dinner table one evening allowed Alexander to solve the greatest question Rune Masters had been asking for centuries. Namely, how were runic alphabets created? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, had to do with blood.
Ancient civilizations had spilled whole kingdoms worth of blood, which was the first part of the equation. The next part involved speaking specific words or carving certain symbols which are then filled with blood. Alexander had long since known that everyone has magic in their blood, only in differing amounts, and the concentration of said blood in one location could lead to the creation of a Philosopher's Stone. And apparently, it could also lead to the creation of new spells or runes.
If you spoke a language long enough with enough freshly spilled blood on hand, the magic within the blood would slowly start to seep into that language. This was why Nordic and Latin languages had so many bastardized spells; they were among the most popular languages of warmongers at various points in history.
But some languages died out and lost the spoken word. So, instead, all of their magic resides in their written word, or runes. This did raise the question of why you couldn't use Latin script as runes, but Alexander reasoned that this was because the armies of the time shouted their messages, not carved them into the bodies of their enemies. Thus, the magic would be more closely associated with the spoken word rather than the written word. Which wasn't to say it was impossible to create Latin runes, just that no one had figured out how.
Magic had a consistent methodology across the globe. It was also continually evolving, only becoming more intricate and refined as more magicals were born, lived, and died. Alexander reasoned that it might one day become so advanced it would develop true sentience about it, but wagered that would be many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in the future. It was still a fascinating prospect, however, and one he was eager to explore further.
When he had first discovered wandless magic, after his wand was snapped in his first year, he had experimented with many different spells for weeks. He felt how his magic formed within him, and replicated what he experienced as often as he could to make it feel normal. He hadn't thought much more about it until a few weeks ago when he developed this new theory.
He called on his magic to perform a levitation charm, but rather than let the spell end after a moment, he tried to examine how it felt internally. The magic seemed to rest in his feet before surging up his body to his hand. If he focused on the feeling, he could describe it as being as light as a feather. When he cast a basic transfiguration spell on a sock, to turn it into a sweater, it felt like pins and needles forming in the joints of his fingers, not unlike the sensation of having a limb fall asleep.
He tried dozens of spells and felt how the magic seemed to move all over his body before leaving, directed at whatever he was focused on. He noticed how casting the same spell over and over again made it form just slightly faster each time.
It wasn't until he cast a stunner at his pillow that he realized what his magic was doing. On his forehead, between the eyes, it felt as though something heavy had hit there. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he could almost see the faint outline for a basic stunning ward on his brow, but the image vanished the moment he blinked. But he saw it, and that's all that mattered.
It took him another week to write down the spell formulas, an area of Arithmancy that wizards used to prove why spells work, for all the spells he knew. Casting them one at a time, he kept an eye out for runes forming within him, and to his glee, he began to see them. At first, the spells would form too fast for him to notice any definite shapes, but with practice, he eventually began to see the runes. There were usually three to four times as many runes needed, but the spell formulas were all present in one form or another.
As a fourteen-year-old wizard, Alexander Dantes solved a problem that had been stumping wizards for centuries. He couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts and prove it by creating a runic alphabet. And the conversation that led to Alexander figuring it all out?
Where did Magicals come from?
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
While his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts, the rest of the world did not sit idly by, waiting for Alexander to notice it. The compartment door slid open to reveal two girls, both wearing green trimmed robes, looking at him with curiosity in their eyes. His mother's parting words flashed through his mind:
"Try to make some friends this year, Alex," she had said to him fondly. She hugged him. "You're far too special to live your life alone."
Despite not wanting to, Alexander wanted to disappoint his mother even less, so he nodded politely to the two girls. "Good morning, Davis. Greengrass," he said.
"Dantes," Tracey Davis replied. Daphne Greengrass was just giving him a searching look. "Would you mind if we join you? It seems as though all the other carriages are full."
Privately, Alexander doubted that. But rather than call them out on it, he shook his head in reply. "I don't mind. Do you need help with your trunks?" he asked, gesturing to the racks above the seats.
"Yes!" Tracey almost shouted. Alexander and Daphne looked at her, the former in surprise and latter in exasperation. Tracey blushed. "I mean, please."
Purposefully drawing his wand, he enunciated the Levitation Charm clearly and stored the trunks in the racks above the seats. As the two girls sat across from him, he could spy an almost disappointed look on Tracey's face. Retaking his seat, he returned his attention to the window and the landscape passing them by.
Tracey fidgeted out of the corner of his eye. She leaned into Daphne and whispered, not at all quietly, "I thought you said he knew wandless magic?"
"I thought that what happened at the end of last year would remain a secret," Alexander said out loud, causing Tracey to flinch. "Or at least, that's what you led me to believe, Greengrass."
She didn't flinch or blush, which Alexander appreciated. Despite her circumstances at the end of last year, Daphne Greengrass was made of sterner stuff, despite what her porcelain features implied. She stared back at Alexander cooly, unafraid of anything. It was a mask, Alexander could tell, but he didn't feel the need to break it.
"I tell Tracey everything," she finally said. A small crack in her mask formed as the memory of the event replayed in her mind. "I needed to tell someone..."
Alexander reluctantly nodded and averted his gaze, allowing her to calm herself down. He had no judgment for her. He knew what it was like to be unable to do anything while others overpower you.
Rain pelted the window as the compartment fell silent, each occupant occupied with their thoughts. Ten minutes, twenty, half an hour went by before anyone moved, and it was Daphne Greengrass pulling out her wand. She emptied her pockets of half-formed figurines and began to poke them with her wand, trying to force the transfiguration to complete.
The silence seemed to get to Tracey the most. She was fidgeting, her eyes darting from the figurines to Alexander, to the window outside and back again. It finally grew too much for Alexander, causing him to sigh and make eye contact.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Why don't you have any friends?" Tracey Davis asked with all the bluntness of a hammer. Alexander was shocked and began to consider leaving when she threw up a hasty hand. "Sorry! That came out wrong. What I mean is, well, you're the smartest in our year, why does everyone in Ravenclaw seem to avoid you like the plague?"
Alexander briefly considered telling her to go to hell but found his curiosity too strong to resist. "How do you know where I rank in the class? I don't even know that."
She gave him a mischievous smile. "At the end of last year, I had a detention with Professor Flitwick for shoving a dung bomb into Goyle's bookbag when he wasn't looking. He made me stay afterward to clean the classroom, but I guess he forgot to secure his desk, as I found the Ravenclaw records in the top drawer. Had the past three years in it."
Tracey leaned forward eagerly. "Except for Exceed Expectations in Transfiguration and Potions, you have Outstandings in most courses. Arithmancy was weird, though, because instead of a grade, Vector just wrote a rant about something being impossible."
"Fascinating," Alexander deadpanned, "but that doesn't tell me how you know the class rankings."
She shrugged. "It was on another piece of paper, marked for professor's eyes only. You're even beating Hermione Granger! The know-it-all!" she finished with a giggle.
Alexander rolled his eyes but couldn't help but feel faintly pleased. He knew it was a meaningless rank overall, that his wandless magic and research into runic languages deserved far more acclaim, but he couldn't help but feel pleased his intelligence was noticed. Daphne's continued casting caught his eye.
She was transfiguring a pile of rocks into a village made out of crystal. He watched as she spoke the spell correctly, making the wand motion with precision, but always ending in the tightest of little twirls, a flourish that threw off the concentration of her magic, disrupting her focus and intent.
"You're adding a flourish," he suddenly found himself speaking. Both witches turned to look at him in surprise, and Alexander found himself blushing. "At the end of your spell, you do the wand movements correctly, but you're adding a flourish, and it's throwing off most of the magic."
Daphne's eyes narrowed at him. "You should not tell a witch how she should cast her spells," she warned. Alexander turned to the window, finding his eyes drawn to her in the reflection.
Daphne and Tracey shared a look before she tried the spell again. Alexander watched her wand movements carefully and was pleased to see she stopped herself from adding the flourish at the end. The transfiguration completed correctly, creating a crystalline horse rearing back on its hind legs.
"How do you not have an Outstanding in Transfiguration too?" Tracey demanded. Alexander barely turned his head to reply.
"McGonagall thinks I'm a liar. She marks every assignment I turn into her a Troll, but she can't argue with practicals or exams," Alexander answered with surprising honesty. His eyes darted in the window between the two girls.
Tracey looked satisfied with this information and was settling back in her seat comfortably, but it was Daphne that he focused on. She was busily transfiguring the rest of her pebbles into crystals, each wand movement precise and with no hesitation at the end. Alexander belatedly realized that Daphne Greengrass was faking her transfiguration, doing it wrong on purpose to get him to reveal the extent of his knowledge, to get more information. As the train sped away, Alexander found himself reluctantly impressed by her cunning.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
It was perhaps, the most pleasant experience Alexander had ever had on the Hogwarts Express.
Daphne and Tracey did not feel the need to fill the air with needless chatter, the forming choosing to perfect her little crystal village while the later revised her summer homework quietly. Every once in a while, Tracey would ask Daphne a question about it but would occasionally throw the odd question at Alexander, always probing for more information. And to his surprise, he found himself willingly helping her with her homework.
It was odd but nice.
They arrived at Hogwarts without issue but rushed to the horseless carriages and the shelter they provided from the heavy rains. Their haste might as well been without purpose, as when they entered the Entrance Hall, they were soaked to the bone by water balloons, thrown by Peeves. As Alexander sat at the Ravenclaw table, he used his magic to dry his robes, so he wouldn't be sitting there shivering like the rest of his house. They had magic for a reason; they should learn to use it.
The first years were sorted quickly, but before the food appeared, Headmaster Dumbledore stood.
"Welcome, one and all, to Hogwarts. There are just a few start-of-term announcements we need to go over, so please bear with me before we may eat. Now..."
He droned on about several unimportant matters to Alexander. But at the end of Dumbledore's speech, the ancient wizard said something that caught his attention.
"Now, Quidditch has been canceled this year." A wave of boos met Dumbledore, and he shook his hands placatingly. "I know, I know, but I think you'll all enjoy the replacement this year, as we're bringing back the famous TriWizard Tournament!"
The students began to talk excitedly about what this would mean. Dumbledore continued speaking. "Delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving a day before Halloween, to get settled in before the choosing of the champions! Yes, this is an exciting time."
Students from other schools coming here to compete in some sort of tournament? That could be interesting to do. Alexander wondered if he should try to become the champion for Hogwarts.
Albus Dumbledore spoke once more. "Now, before you get too excited, only students who are of age by Halloween may enter. I'm sorry, but it's for your own safety."
And just like that, Alexander felt his interest in the Triwizard Tournament die.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
AN: And the start of Year Four! Thank you everyone for your patience, jet lag is killer. Normal posting scheduling should resume.
Magical languages: So yeah, if you want to make a runic alphabet, or craft a new spell, you need to spill a ton of blood doing it. Considering how bloody and violent human history is, I can see that as being viable. It's something I mention in my published story Mayhem at Miskatonic: August Beginnings.
Internal Runes: There's really no good explanation for how humans cast magic. My take on this is that a wizards internal magic makes runes to create specific effects. This is how a wizard "trains" their magic, by repeatedly casting the spell to get their magic used to it. Wands, wand movement, and words come into play with this, allowing you to train your magic much more easily than relying entirely on will power. (This is the difference between Alexander and other wizards, he had to rely almost entirely on his will power in order to cast magic). It's impossible to create an internal ward (a forcefield/shield/whatever) as you'd need to be constantly casting the same magic non-stop. Nobody could ever maintain that focus, not without going insane. Besides, it's simple to just cast the spell to make a ward.) This does mean Arithmancy isn't useless, and does have a benefit to wizarding society.
Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis: Tada! Daphne is who Alexander saved at the end of their third year. They're not going to be best friends suddenly with Alexander, but he will be friendly toward them as they're pretty much the first people, aside from Hermione, who have noticed him.
The Trace: The Trace is cast on every wizards wand the moment they buy it, and is tied to their birthday, causing it to expire once they're seventeen. So Alexander can cast all the magic he wants wandlessly and the Trace won't notice, especially since the Trace was broken when his wand was snapped the first time. The ministry does have other means to track magic, but that won't be explained until Year Six and not become significant until Year Seven.
Finally, instead of using their wands to banish the water balloons away, the witches and wizards of Hogwarts took Peeves' attacks head on, even Alexander. It's just meant to highlight how the structured teaching of Hogwarts actually limits the creativity of Hogwarts students.
I hope you all enjoy Year Four. It's the longest one yet!