Mat and the others went to their dorms after the sorting and quickly got settled. He took a trip up to the common room and noticed Tiana laid on a sofa, her hair was different, he noticed, it was longer now. He blushed as he realised he'd been looking at her a bit too long, smiled and walked away. He sat on a seat, pulled a rune book out and pretended to read it. Inside he was having an internal discussion with himself, 'why was I staring at her? Her hairs only a bit different, wait… oh shit'. "Puberty" he whispered to himself smacked his head onto the book groaned. 'How could I have forgotten about that? This is going to be a nightmare' he thought to himself. Why didn't he notice it on the same on the train here? Maybe because he had a mission and he barely spoke to her on the train. 'Seeing her laid on that sofa like a cat made her clothes hug her in all the right places' he thought to himself. He quickly squashed that train of thought, he was technically nearly 50 years old. It's disgusting. He felt pressure build up behind his eyes. As he realised that this might happen a lot, how it will affect his thinking.
Teenagers have a drastically different brain chemistry than adults do, therefore they think and act differently. Will this change in the brain happen to Mat? He thought about it and thought that he might initially do but if he was aware of it, maybe he could rationalise thought. Teenagers are impulsive and had other… distractions. He remembered those distractions while at school, and they did start at the same time thinking about it. He took a few deep breaths and raised his occlumency to calm down. Maybe he could rely on occlumency to train his brain to think rationally and less impulsively? Or would that change him on a fundamental level and somehow block out emotions? Going through puberty is an essential part of life, yet one that Mat wished he never wanted to go through again, but he was aware this time, he could control it, he hoped. He pushed these thoughts aside and started reading about rune clusters, that calmed him down a bit until it was nearly time for bed, he hoped he didn't have any physical reactions in the morning, he could do without those.
He chilled with Rand, Eddie and Craig for a bit until they all decided to go to bed. In the morning they did their usual business and walked to the main hall for breakfast, early like Ravenclaws tend to be. There were a few at Slytherin and a couple at Hufflepuff. All normal apart from one girl in Gryffindor, Hermione Granger. She was sat there alone reading a book while munching on toast. Something that Mat could never get the hang of, eating and reading. He shrugged it off and sat with his dorm mates and ate breakfast, the hall slowly started filling up as people trickled in. Mat had finished his breakfast by the time it was full and the normal hustle and bustle of a room full of kids. It was then that Dumbledore decided to do his speech. It should have been the day before after sorting, but it wasn't for some reason. Regardless, he gave the usual spiel about not venturing into the forbidden forest, everyone did anyway though, and Filches banned list, which had grown since last year and Dumbledore seemed to be pleased about that. The final piece was what Mat had been expecting, but pretended to be as unknowledgeable about it as possible "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." Dumbledore announced, giving his most serious look to the school, his gaze lingering on Harry a bit too long Mat noticed which made him a bit angry 'ever the puppet master' he thought. There were a few murmurs about that which were then quieted by the heads of house giving timetables out for the year.
Mat's schedule was hardly any different than the year before, a few classes were moved about, no new core ones though which was a shame. In place of flying was a spare space which could be either free time or be filled in by a subject of their choice, the other spare time slots also had this option within them. There were seven choices, Art, Ghoul Studies, Magical Theory, Muggle Art, Muggle Music, Music and Xylomancy. Mat was thrilled about that, he had heard of them the previous year but didn't think that all of them would be available, he chose to fill three of the four spare blocks with Ghoul Studies, Magical Theory and Muggle Music and told Flitwick about two minutes after he had had been given the option. He could feel his hunger for knowledge kick in. He decided to have three Duelling Club days, Tuesday and Thursday evenings after tea and all-day Saturday, when people can just stop by whenever they wanted. It was a Sunday when they were given their timetables and so nearly everyone decided to socialise a bit longer than usual at breakfast. Mat chose to remind everyone who agreed to the days that the duel club, he edited the flyers with the new Duelling Club times and spent the rest of the day in the gym in the Room of Requirement. He did a good work out and left happy and hit the showers in his dorms. He relaxed in the common room reading a book about ghouls and ghosts in preparation of his new module he'd taken until teatime. Rand and the others discovered him in the common room and asked if he would go with them to get food. He agreed and went with them.
On Monday morning, a huge brown and white owl came into the hall and dropped off a parcel in front of Mat, he looked at it in slight shock with his mouth full of scrambled eggs, until he was elbowed in the ribs. He snapped out of it and gave the bird some bacon absentmindedly, it grabbed it and took off. The parcel was wrapped in a plain brown paper with an envelope on top, which was stamped with the Lawson Enterprises logo.
Dear Mr Lawson,
Enclosed within is our latest invention, we are proud to finally get a working prototype of a more advanced set of magic nulling runes which work with more advanced tech, such as a laptop. The people at the tech division have developed a laptop powerful enough to play the latest computer games (Max Payne, The Sims, Diablo 2, Deus Ex, Age of Empires 2 and Unreal Tournament) and are all installed onto the hard drive and are available to play. We intended to gift you this before you left but we had to figure out some bits and bobs to streamline everything. We mainly want you to use it and see if works well in a magically saturated area see if it needs any work.
Have fun! (but not too much),
Clair
Mat couldn't help but grin as he ripped off the paper and stared at a black plastic case, he unclipped and opened it. Inside was a silver-white laptop, a square bulky thing about 30cm wide and had a separate holding bit for the mouse. There was an attachment to the back side of the laptop which looked like a metal grille which faintly glowed blue in between. He could see faint symbols which he assumed were runes in the glowy bits. He reverently took it and the mouse out, inspecting the laptop he saw that it was solid steel, it was quite heavy, that meant expensive. He saw that the casing was solid and completely welded together, like it wasn't supposed to be opened again. Made sense if it was to stop magic from getting in. It had a flat tube-like thing underneath which split and went into three areas of the laptop, he saw that they were covering the air vents. It also had four blocky feet keeping the tube from touching a surface and placed it on the table, the blue grille thing was attached to the tube giving it a long flat fifth leg to stand on. Mat was impressed. Nearly everyone around him had stopped talking and were watching him, he didn't notice.
He placed it in front of him and lifted the screen and it looked like a normal laptop except it was all metal apart from the screen. It was indented further in than usual, it looked at the edges and saw that there were parts of small runes around the screen, going into the laptop itself. Looked like a protective bubble that surrounded the screen. He pressed the on button and it lit up perfectly. The blue of the battery lit up and shone brighter as it powered up. It took only a minute to fully turn on and it asked for new user information, like you would for a newly bought machine. He plugged the mouse in and got it going in no time. He finally noticed the large crowed around him and that's when the silence was broken, and questions were asked in the form of a verbal tidal wave. Mat just smiled and said he will speak to everyone later, got up and headed to his dorms to keep it safe, he had a day of classes after all.
Apart from questions about his new toy, it was a relatively uneventful day and he found that he accumulated back at Hogwarts pretty fast. He answered the questions from people from the Wizarding World explaining what it was and did and told the muggleborn ones that it was just a prototype and would probably be released in a year or so.
It felt good to use his magic around people again. He was way in front of his peers in most subjects. There was a drop-in class for muggle music which he attended after his day lessons had finished. There were many instruments in the large cavernous space. The reverb was amazing. It had a high ceiling with posters and paintings of famous muggle musicians, ranging from the Beetles to Tchaikovsky. There were violins, guitars, a harp and a plethora of other instruments, even a full drum kit, however, he immediately found the grand piano in the far corner of the room and worked his way toward it. He sat down and started playing his fingers immediately found the keys as he played. It felt so good, he could see the golden colour of his magic pulsing with the music and he just let it go. He forgot how good this felt. He played every genre imaginable within half an hour. He was lost in the music. He felt sated after his time on the keys, he finally looked up after reigning his magic back in and noticed he had an audience. The music teacher, who he didn't know the name of, was staring at him open mouthed and teary eyed, similar looks from the other students, about 10 in total. Mat blushed, not liking the attention, he just gave them a cheesy grin and shrugged.
"Merlin's beard" the music teacher stated "that was magnificent, I didn't know you had that ability! I've hard of it, but to see it first hand… Amazing!" he exclaimed, joy radiating from him. "What's you're name boy?"
"Mat, Mat Lawson, Sir" Mat replied, embarrassed.
"Well Mat, You've very gifted indeed. Do you understand what it is you can do?"
He mumbled to himself "I get that a lot" before replying "errr, no sir, I only thought that I could do it, I didn't know it was a thing really"
"You're a Harmonic Mage" He stated with a wide smile and wonderment.
"OK, what's one of them sir?" The other students looked as curious as Mat did.
"It's an ability that enraptures an audience with the wizard's music. You can influence emotions with the music you play. It was first mentioned in Assyria, have you head of the Horns of Jericho?" Mat nodded "well, it wasn't a horn, it was a Harmonic Mage who used a horn to influence the people around him and made people fight harder and with greater strength and ferocity. It was said to have also made the wizards more powerful, powerful enough to destroy Canaan's walls, turning them into dust. Obviously, the muggles didn't fully understand what was happening, so the story got distorted and used as a story in the Christian Bible."
"Your telling me that I can make wizards more powerful by playing the piano?" Mat asked sceptically, raising his eyebrow.
The Music Teacher coughed into his hand a bit "errr well, no, well, I don't know, it's a very rare gift and not well documented. The history of it is probably as distorted as the muggle version I suppose. They think that the lead singer of the Weird Sisters had a bit, but we can't know for certain."
Mat nodded and thought to himself 'now I have a name for this ability, why did none of the books I got from Flourish and Blotts mention it?' "Why have I not heard of this before sir?"
"Ah! That's because these skills are rare indeed and because they are so rare, they tend to be forgotten. I only discovered it while reading an old family book. Like Metamorphmagi, it's a skill that can be passed down through blood, do you know if any of your relatives had any affiliation with music?" He asked, genuinely curious.
"Muggleborn sir" Mat said with a little smile.
The teacher smiled back all knowingly, "I beg to differ, and its Mr Thompson".
After that, they broke up and Mat felt the urge to search the Hogwarts library for information on his ability. It turns out he was not as unique as he thought. Or maybe the way he discovered his ability could have changed how it manifests and how he can see magic when he activated his sight. On his way he wrote a quick note to send to his mum to ask the Goblins for an Inheritance Test. Curious to see if anything came from it, but that was an afterthought. He was more focussed on what he could do himself. He gave the note to an owl and sent it off. He strolled into the library, stood at the entrance, cracked his knuckles and said to himself "time for some book diving".
He found a couple of mentions in 3 different books. Turns out that magical skills are quite common if you knew what to look for. Parselmouth is a skill, so is having an innate knowledge of herbology, being a Seer, having magical resistance, the previously mentioned metamorphmagi, as well as abilities which affect certain other species, like the Veela allure and werewolf enhanced senses. The books that mentioned Harmonic Mages appear to be only references about it or mention a few people who may have had it and appear to only suggest that they could influence emotions with their music, though nothing specific or ground-breaking like power behind the Horns of Jericho. He would have to ask Mr Thompson to borrow the book he got the information about the power in. It was near curfew, so he took a light jog back to his dorms.
It was Tuesday and he did his rounds in the morning to ask people to come to the duelling club. He focussed on Harry and the others to make sure they would come to the first session and try it out. Lessons went smoothly all day and he had kept everything up and running. He managed to convince Professor Flitwick to oversee the club and said that they would do an exhibition for them.
After tea, it was finally time and Mat rushed off with his volunteers, two sixth years, Gideon Crumb of Gryffindor and Micky Ferdinand of Ravenclaw, to make sure everything was ready, his emotions were all over the place. He was excited, nervous, apprehensive, scared and everything in between. The duelling room as spacious and it had specially made shields which protected the spectators from stray spells. In the centre of the room was a huge table-like platform with markers on to tell the duellers to stand. Around the room were similar style set ups but not raised, more like lines drawn on the floor. There were also training mannequins which looked like very sturdy straw men. People started filtering in and he watched them all come.
Strangely, the first ones to come in were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson. They came in looking all superior and sneering at everyone. Malfoy locked eyes at Mat, Mat nodded at him but was ignored so Mat rolled his eyes. A few other firsties came in from different houses, some from Hufflepuff which he was happy about. The main ones were from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw though, and finally the main ones he wanted to arrive, Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville, Neville looking nervous and Ron and Harry looking exited. Hermione came in slightly after, alone. The last to arrive were Mat's friends with Flitwick who he smiled at as they came in.
It came to 7pm and Mat and Flitwick walked onto the main duelling platform. Mat turned a bit red as he quieted everyone down. "Hello everyone! Thanks for coming. You know the rules, they are on the pamphlet, I'm in the process of making a timetable so we can learn at a quick yet steady pace. No one will be paired with different years and I encourage you all to pick your partners from a different house too. The first thing we are to do tonight is see me get my ass kicked by Professor Flitwick over there." Mat nodded to the professor and a few students laughed.
Mat heard Malfoy mutter "I can't wait to see this filthy mudblood get taken out". Mat just took a deep breath to calm down as he turned to Flitwick.
They both locked eyes and bowed to each other, they never broke eye contact then they both stood up and turned around, walking 7 paces away and turning back and they took their stance. Flitwick had his wand over his head, slightly turned and a hand out for balance, legs slightly more than shoulder width apart. He stared at Mat with the serious expression he came to expect in from the man.
Mat had his wand out in front of him pointing at Flitwick, turned completely to his side and his spare hand in a defensive boxing position for balance, his legs were wider apart than Flitwick but he was bouncing on his toes.
Micky had the honour of starting the duel. "Once my hand drops, the duel begins, the duel lasts three bouts, the best of three wins. No serious injury, lethal spells, or unforgivables allowed. There is no time limit. On three, two, one. BEGIN!"
His hand lowered and Flitwick immediately cast a disarming charm wordlessly which Mat dodged with ease. Mat spun and got down on one knee as he cast back a stunner quickly followed by a leg locking charm and another stunner "Stupefy, Locomotor Mortis, Stupefy!"
Flitwick dodged the first one by just moving a little bit, batted the leg-locker away and redirected the stunner back at Mat. Mat expected it and quickly batted it away and followed up with a water summoning charm which made a ball in the air on near the tip of his wand, freezing it in mid-air and blasting it apart with a bombarda, all in quick succession "Aguamenti, Glacious, Bombarda!". Flitwick wasn't prepared for the explosion but expected to get wet so created a shield around himself which would have frozen the water, so it blocked the ice but pushed him back making him stumble. Mat kept the pressure on him and sent a couple of stunners in quick succession, one to the chest and another to the leg "Stupify Stupify!". Flitwick rebounded the first stunner but didn't see the second one to his leg which made him fall to one knee, his leg numb. The redirected stunner hit Mat on the shoulder of his spare arm at the same time as Mat cast a disarming jinx at the Professor, making him lose the first round.
Mat stood up straight, never taking his eye off Flitwick and rolling his numb arm. It was lucky it was a redirect and a glancing blow, otherwise he might be a bit too dazed to carry on. Flitwick looked at Mat wide eyed and gave him an uncharacteristically, goblin-like grin and summoned his wand wordlessly, which caused a few mutters in the audience. Most of the students were a bit gobsmacked at Flitwick because they had never seen the usually jolly professor like this before, also not realising that he was powerful enough to do wandless magic. They both got into position for round 2 and waited for the others first move.
After about 10 seconds of staring each other out, Flitwick made the first move by throwing a stream of fire at Mat, "incendio!" Flitwick whispered as he controlled the stream of fire rushed toward him. The wall of fire rushing toward him made him panic. Mat knew he couldn't dodge and conjured a powerful shield spell "Protego Maxima!" Mat new he screwed up then because when the flames hit, he could barely feel anything hitting it and using that spell makes you unable to do anything else, and he couldn't use his ability in front of all these people. He held the shield up and the torrent of flames carried on, turns out that the shield doesn't fully stop the heat from coming through, so it slowly got warmer and warmer and Mat started to slowly be cooked alive. He made a split decision as the sweat dripped off his body and struggled to breathe and charged at the Professor planning on hitting him with the shield, but he couldn't see where he was going because of the fire and charged right past him. Mat turned around and dropped the shield when he saw Flitwick and that the fire was extinguished. He was in the process of casting a Stupify when he was hit by three spells, a disarming spell in his hand, leg lock on his left leg, above the knee and a Flipendo spell in the chest which catapulted him across the stage and onto the floor in a heap. He looked up into the rafters of the ceiling, struggling for breath. He noticed Flitwick at the edge of his vision, and he felt a soothing wash over him as the Professor cast a small healing charm over him. After about 10 seconds, Mat stood up and shook his grogginess off.
At the beginning of round three, Mat was hurt, his chest was heaving, legs were wobbly and shoulder numb. Still he nodded to his teacher, who nodded back, and they squared up again. Mat was holding his arm to his chest and was struggling to fully move, and Flitwick was favouring his right leg. Mat's first move was to cast the Fumos charm which cast a smokescreen and the cast a Bird-Conjuring Charm slightly after "Fumos, Avis" Mat cast, voice just above a whisper. He made his way forward slowly toward Flitwick, redirecting the birds so they came from a different direction to hopefully sneak up on the Professor while distracted. What Mat didn't know however, is that the professor had cast a heat seeking charm which, made Mat light up like a Christmas tree for himself and cast a disarming charm at Mat through the mist which cancelled Mat's Avis spell as it made his wand fly away. Mat stood there dumbfounded as Flitwick banished the fog and the whole room erupted in applause.
Flitwick walked up to Mat bouncing on his toes and a huge grin on his face congratulating Mat "Brilliant! Brilliant, Mr Lawson your skills have certainly improved! Absolutely marvellous!" He slapped Mat on his back as the applause slowly died down. Mat couldn't help but hear Harry and Ron mutter "Wicked!"
Flitwick then gathered them all up and got them into pairs, Mat split Ron and Harry up as they immediately got into a pair. Mat placed Harry with Neville and Ron with Hermione, got the first years together and told them what they will be practicing in this session. "Expelliarmus is one of the most underrated yet one of the most important spells you can have. Disarming your opponent is key for victory in the Wizarding World, and as you saw, can literally let you win against a superior opponent". Mat nodded towards Flitwick who was instructing the higher years, of which only 7 had turned up. "I want you all to keep casting and casting until it comes naturally. Do this with every spell and you will eventually not have to say the word and some of you may not even have to move your wand to do it. Every spell you saw me cast I have cast over 100 times each. Its tiring, but you will never forget it. I'll show you the incantation and then you try. Don't be afraid to ask for help".
And so they went. They spent the next hour doing that and then against each other once they managed casting it. Mat joined in every so often, helping. Harry and Hermione were the first to get it right. Hermione tried to boss Katie Bell claiming that she couldn't cast it because she didn't say the word right. Mat couldn't help but smile to himself as the she basically repeated the "its Levi-OOOHHH-SAAAAHHHH not Levi-O-SAAARRR" from the movies.
"No Katie" Hermione said "It's Expelli-ARRMUS, not Expelli-A-mus!"
"Is it?" Mat asked her, she spun round and puffed up when she saw him.
"Of course, I am repeating exactly what you did!"
Mat nodded, "well, if that's how you learn" he then turned around and took 10 paces away from her, turning back to face her "cast it at me". He commanded.
"W-what?" She stuttered and clung her wand to her chest.
"Cast the Expelliarmus spell at me, go on!" she puffed up again and went to cast it.
"Exp…" Mat flicked his wrist and sent a silent Expelliarmus at her sending her wand flying. She squeaked and watched it fly end over end to the other side of the room. She turned and stared wide eyed at Mat. Mat just smiled softly and cast the summoning charm for her wand and gave it to her.
"Did I have to say the word to use that spell?" Mat asked
"Errrr, no, you didn't say anything." She replied
"So why do the words matter if I can cast it silently?"
"Because you thought the spell and because you thought it you did it and cast it that way."
"Partially correct. Magic is about intent. I use the spell in my mind to remember the feeling of using the spell. Magic can't hear you say the words to cast it, it's your brain that links the incantation to the word and then magic does the rest. Read Bagman's Guide to Wandless Magic for a good start. She explains how to feel the spells your using so you can master them. Look it up." Mat replied. She looked chastised at first and about to argue until he told her about the book and she grinned and nodded thanks. Other students were looking at him with thoughtful expressions and so Mat helped Katie and was able to cast it once and never had trouble. At the end of the session all the first years were happy that they'd managed to learn a new spell.
It was the start of something amazing. Mat stood and observed them and smiled as they had fun. He wanted to treasure this time as much as they could and have fun while they can. He hoped that he could end the coming war faster and prepare them for the future. He became melancholic as he felt the weight of the Wizarding world on his shoulders for the first time. He locked eyes with Tiana, and she smiled at time. He smiled back and felt the weight ease off a little bit.
