Alter Forte: Chapter 3

"Alrighty class, go ahead and turn your books to page 57, it should say 'Chapter 2: Multiplying Fractions' at the top, we'll be continuing where we left off Friday," Brian heard his teacher, Mr. Brown called from the front of the classroom as the bell rang to start class. He glanced around the room, making sure to make a show of dragging his math book out of his bag as he did so. His fellow ten year olds were all groaning at his teacher's words.

"Just another few months until my birthday arrives and I should get my Hogwarts letter, then I'll just have to finish up the year and I won't have to sit through this anymore," Brian thought to himself, doing his best to pretend like he was paying attention. Reaching into his bag once more, he looked around for a moment before grabbing out the book he had rented from the public library a few days prior with his mother's assistance, Learning Latin, The Ancient Way, which he carefully placed on top of his math textbook to make it appear he was looking at it instead before he'd started reading. He grimaced slightly as he started working through some more of the book.

"Even with the six other books on Latin I've already worked through, this one is confusing as hell," He thought to himself. He'd been trying to work through it ever since he'd acquired it from the library but compared to the more modern books on the language it was practically an entirely separate language. Still, it never hurt to be more prepared and he was doing his best to master Latin. Even if not all spells were direct translations, he figured knowing the language spell incantations were roughly based on wouldn't hurt.

"Mr. Williams?" Brian suddenly heard the teacher calling from the front of the classroom, forcing him to pull his attention away from his book in front of him. Looking around, the entire class's eyes were on him.

"I'm sorry sir? What was that?" He asked sheepishly at being caught not paying attention.

"I asked, Mr. Williams, if you had a question, you looked quite confused while looking down at your book, though now I wonder if you were paying attention at all or just thinking of other things," He answered. Brian did his best to look ashamed.

"Ah I see, I'm sorry sir I don't have a question, my mind was… otherwise occupied I suppose," He replied apologetically. Mr. Brown let out a sigh for a moment as he looked towards Brian.

"Just this once I suppose I can let the matter go, see that it doesn't happen again alright," He said, resuming the lesson. Brian did the mental equivalent of a shrug. "If I had it my way I wouldn't be here at all, but my parents decided I needed time with my esteemed peers, so here I am" Brian thought to himself, slumping down in his chair, as he recalled that particular conversation with his parents all the way back when he'd first started year one.

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"Brian, your teacher called yesterday, she mentioned you asked her about the possibility of skipping grades and the requirements for it. She told me you more than qualified if that's what we wanted," His mother told him at dinner one night, shortly after he'd started his first year of true schooling.

"Really? I know I asked her a few days ago but I wasn't sure what she'd say! That's great! I knew I tested well but I still wasn't sure-," Brian began excitedly, practically bouncing in place at the news that he might soon be escaping from that particular hell.

"Your mother and I discussed it and we decided you won't be jumping ahead," His father interrupted, stopping Brian in his tracks. He froze momentarily as he heard his father's words. His first instinct was to lash out, but instead he took a moment and calmed himself down.

"I see. Can I ask why? I'm more advanced than my entire class, I'm not learning anything staying where I am," Brian argued, doing his best to keep his voice calm.

"It's not a matter of intelligence Brian. We know you're smart enough to handle it. We're worried about you socially. You haven't made any friends since you started preschool over two years ago. Being put into classes with kids potentially years older than you would only make you even more isolated," His mother explained. Brian cursed himself mentally as he heard their reasoning. Of course his lack of friends would come back to bite him.

"Of bloody course they're worried about me not having any friends! I know I come across as a loner at school but I hadn't realized they picked up on it too. I was a loner in my last life already but trying to make friends with my fellow five year olds when mentally I'm older than four of them put together is a kind of suffering I refuse to put myself through. I can't exactly go and tell them that though," Brian thought to himself, realizing that his goal of rapidly finishing his schooling wasn't going to be happening anytime soon.

"It's alright. I understand," Brian said aloud, not having to fake the disappointment in his voice. Wasting six hours a day doing nothing was painful, and it seemed he'd be stuck doing it for a while longer.

"We're sorry Brian but it's better in the long run for you this way," His father said apologetically.

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"I didn't let being stuck in this hellhole for six hours a day stop me from getting as ready as I could for Hogwarts though," Brian thought to himself with a smile, discreetly levitating a pencil about an inch above his hand. It didn't matter how many times he did it, the novelty never wore off for him. He smiled to himself as he recalled himself finally learning to use his magic.

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Brian sat on his bed, several months after his first day preschool, focusing on the feeling of his magic, doing his best to understand just what it was. While it had taken him almost a year to truly master sensing his magic, he'd taken each chance he got to practice sensing it and he finally felt like he understood it, at least how it was present in his body. In the very center of his chest resided a reservoir of magic, with a vein-like series of channels that allowed his magic to slowly permeate throughout his body during his day to day life. From there it was replaced by new magic from his reservoir as it circulated through his body. He could even feel faint amounts of magic in the air, while it wasn't as concentrated as the magic was in his body, there was still some present, which was slowly but steadily refilling his body's reservoir whenever it needed more.

"Now all I have to do is figure out how the hell to get it to actually do something," Brian thought with a frown as he tried drawing his magic out from his core. He was able to draw it out from his core, guiding it along the channels in his body but as soon as he sent the mana outside his body it became far harder to control and it just dissipated into the air instead of listening to his will..

"Just how good does my control have to be to send magic out of my body? I'm perfectly in control of it when I'm directing it through my body, and I know magic can exist in the air, I feel it there already," Brian pondered to himself. Unfortunately for Brian, it was a puzzle he'd be stuck trying to solve for a while.

It was near his sixth birthday that he finally solved the issue that had been plaguing him when it came to actually using his magic. As he sat on his bed once more doing his best to draw out a strand of magic, he attempted to draw out as much as possible, while also doing his best to keep the strand as dense as he could manage. Guiding the magic carefully, he willed it to leave his body, staring intently at the pillow in front of him. The magic shook under his control as it left his body, fighting against his will slightly but he managed to direct it towards his pillow, mentally ordering the pillow to rise. To his utter delight the pillow slowly, albeit shakily, rose into the air.

"Are you kidding me!? That's what I've been doing wrong? I just wasn't using enough bloody magic?! I know my magical capacity has definitely been growing over the past few years while I tried to puzzle this out, but I'm pretty sure I had enough magic to accomplish this when I was five at the bare minimum!" Brian thought to himself in annoyance, resisting the urge to punch his bedroom wall in frustration. Within a few minutes Brian let the pillow fall back to the bed as he started feeling oddly exhausted.

"Just how weak of a wizard am I? I lifted a pillow for a few minutes and I got tired?" Brian criticized himself, still frustrated. He his senses inward as he felt his magical core. To his surprise, his magical core wasn't empty as he'd been expecting. It looked still mostly full, if he had to guess he'd only used about a fourth of his magic.

"So the exhaustion I felt was mental then? There's a limit to how much I can control before I need a break, even if I have more magic in my body to use," Brian realized. He thought over what he'd accomplished, unable to keep a smile from creeping its way on his face.

"I'm a freaking wizard!" He thought to himself with a grin. While he'd obviously done accidental magic before and he'd been sensing his magic for a while, levitating his pillow was his first act of conscious, controlled magic.

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Over the next several years he pushed himself, growing his magical capacity whilst doing his best to increase his control over the power as well, even managing to lift up to three objects at once by the time he turned eight. He'd done his best to replicate spells he could remember from the Harry Potter books but he hadn't had much luck, only successfully recreating a Lumos and Reparo wandlessly aside from his obvious bastardization of the levitation charm in the form of his makeshift telekinesis using magic. Unfortunately, his other project, achieving some form of occlumency shields hadn't been met with quite as much success.

"I'm pretty damn sure I've been 'clearing my mind' successfully, just like Snape told Harry to, but I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do after that," Brian pondered. He'd tried everything he could think of but nothing he did made anything happen, and it wasn't as if he had an occlumens on hand to teach him so, for the time being at least, he was at a dead end there.

The rest of class dragged on painfully slowly for Brian, only daring to look down at his book on Latin whenever Mr. Brown seemed thoroughly distracted. Thankfully though, the school day eventually came to an end and he was free to head home.

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A week before Brian's eleventh birthday, as his family all sat around the couch playing games together, his father suddenly shared a look with his mother that told Brian something was off.

"Brian, we have something we've been meaning to talk about with you," His mother began slowly, trailing off. Brian looked at her in alarm.

"Are they holding me an intervention at the age of 10? Just what did I do to deserve this? Do they discover I'm secretly older than I look?" He wondered to himself, doing his best to not look panicked as he thought over any potential clues he could've given them and came up blank. He looked towards his mother in confusion.

"Sport, there's not really an easy way to say this but, well, you're a wizard," His father explained, staring at Brian as he did his best to gauge his reaction.

"THAT'S what this is about? You guys had me actually worried for a minute," Brian thought with a mental sigh of relief. Still, this was a surprise, he hadn't been expecting his parents to fess up about his magical heritage until after he'd received a Hogwarts letter.

"A wizard? What do you mean?" He asked, looking as confused as he could manage.

"Well, you see son, my grandmother used to tell me stories as a child. Stories about a world hidden away from ours where dragons, goblins and more importantly wizards lived. She told me that a few hundred years ago, because of all the burnings of anyone who had magic, that the wizards hid themselves away, doing their best to erase any traces of magic that we might find," His father elaborated. Keeping up the act, Brian continued looking confused.

"What does that have to do with me though Dad? You said it yourself, those are just stories," He questioned. His father shifted uncomfortably for a moment until his mother interjected.

"It's because of some things that've happened around you Brian. You might not remember it but you had some weird stuff happen when you were a toddler. And I'm sure you remember the incident that happened when you were eight. If your father's grandmother was telling the truth those things happened because you have magic too, " His mother said, causing Brian to wince slightly. He remembered that one all right. He'd been doing his best to use his magic to create a small fire outside and instead he'd somehow caused the entire oak tree on the other side of their back yard to catch ablaze. That incident was actually the reason he'd stopped trying to recreate spells from the books for the moment. He was glad his mother thought it was just another example of his accidental magic, the fire department had been called due to that one.

"So, let's assume that you guys are right and I am, is there any way to tell?" He asked his parents.

"Well, assuming the stories my grandmother told me are true, sometime around your eleventh birthday a week from now, you'll be getting a letter inviting you to attend Hogwarts, it's a boarding school where young wizards like you are trained on how to use their magic," His father said.

"So for now all we can do is wait?" Brian replied. His parents both nodded in agreement.

"It's all we can do for the moment, we just have to wait, but in the meantime, you need to get off to bed mister, you have school in the morning" His mother told him with a smile.

"Okay, goodnight Mom, goodnight Dad, love you," He told them sincerely. While his life growing up there might've been about to come to a close, he'd grown to genuinely care for his new parents. He headed up to his room and climbed into bed, it was just like his parents said after all. All there was to do was wait, he was as ready for Hogwarts as he'd ever be.

AN: Haha! I did it! A chapter for each story written in a singular day, even if this one is a bit on the shorter this definitely won't be a regular thing, I had a day off today and felt like writing, so I managed it this time. Thank you to all of those who've favorited, followed or reviewed my story so far, seeing so many people enjoying the story I'm writing really makes me happy. I actually rewrote this chapter too after I decided to do it as a series of flashbacks. I originally wrote it as events with time skips between them but I felt that it didn't flow quite as well. Anyways, please leave a review and tell me your thoughts, feedback will help me improve as a writer and I enjoy reading them.

Response to a guest review on chapter 2: I wholeheartedly admit that magical cores are fanon, and I agree they're a somewhat overused premise but I like them and they make wizards of differing power levels make more sense so I use them anyways. That being said, eye contact being crucial to legilimency is canon, Severus Snape said as much in the Order of the Phoenix, chapter 24, to quote the books, "The Dark Lord is at a considerable distance and the walls and grounds of Hogwarts are guarded by many ancient spells and charms to ensure the bodily and mental safety of those who dwell within them," said Snape. "Time and space matter in magic, Potter. Eye contact is often essential to Legilimency."