When Harry next woke it was to pitch blackness. He slapped his hand around til he bashed it against his bedside table and wrapped it around his wand. Casting a quick tempus he realized that it was 11 in the morning.
"Minnie!" He shouted causing a pop to fill the silence.
"Yes Master Harrys?"
"Why's it so dark?"
He heard the elf clap his hands and light suddenly exploded from where his window was. "Sorry Master Harrys, Mistress tells Minnie to cover windows so to not wake Sir up from his nap."
"She knocked me out!"
The elf flapped her ears about as she nodded, "Yes Master. Sir and Mistress says many rude things to each other. Minnie happy Master was only sent to bed early and not punished harsher."
"Harsher?"
"Yes, Minnie would be very cross with Mistress should anything have happened to young master. She would have protected young master should there be need for intervenings."
He blinked at the elf.
"But Master is fine! Minnie tells Mistress she uses too much magic for sleepy spell, but Mistress waves poor Minnie off, says not to worries. But Minnie worries very much. Would Master likes breakfast?" She was gone before he could respond, popping back in a minute later with quite a large selection of food. "Minnie keep food heated for young master, though Lunch be ready soon if Master would prefer to dine down stairs."
"Um, sure Minnie, I'll just have some eggs and toast." The elf nodded and snapped away most of the food.
"Minnie shall be downstairs should Master needs anything."
He chewed on his toast as the elf disappeared, trying to figure out what he'd do next. Ashleigh hadn't hit him during their argument yesterday, but she was definitely willing to use magic on him and he didn't know how to feel about that. With a sigh he decided to take a shower and get ready for the day.
Over an hour later Harry was heading downstairs dragging his bag as he went. He still needed to do his homework and his room just felt… off to him. It just seemed so empty to him; he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So, as he trudged down the stairs he pushed his thoughts towards his studying and wondered what books he could ask Minnie for later. He reached the living room and threw his bag into a chair and jumped into the seat with a huff and began riffling through for his essay.
"Pretty loud for such a small brat, aren't ya?" He snapped his head up and stared at the couch across from him where Ashleigh was laying down with a small colorful box in her hands. "What? No good morning?"
"Uh, I-"
"How was your nap." She was grinning like a shark now, "You slept for a long time, must have been a great night sleep."
Harry merely glowered at her.
"Aww don't look at me like that. You got put in timeout for a reason, no need to pout."
Choosing to ignore her, he instead decided to fish out his Charms essay to get started on it… again. Once more he had decided to restart it after coming to a dead end again, he'd really need to ask Minnie about that library sooner rather than later. Suddenly he grimaced as he recalled Snape's word of needing a perfect score on his Potion's essay.
He'd Have to figure out what to do about that later, for now he had to worry about his Charm's essay.
Harry glanced up at the woman and saw that she was fiddling with the small box again. He had planned on continuing to ignore her, but as he watched her turn pieces of the cube around and move the many different colors around, he couldn't help but become curious.
"What's that?"
"Hm?" She grunted at him.
"The cube," he gritted his teeth.
"You don't know what this is? It's a rubix cube. Everyone your age has played with one."
Vaguely, in the back of Harry's mind, he remembered a shattered cube in Dudley's second bedroom that reminded him of the item. "I'm from Britain, maybe its an American game."
"Right… It's the world's most popular toy. I think the no-mag's have even started competitions for it. Speed Cubes or something. Basically you just make each side a solid color." She twisted the cube a few more times before tossing it to him, fully complete "There's a trick to it that will work every time. I've got loads around the house, fun way to keep the mind sharp I suppose, doesn't work for me anymore, once you memorize the trick to it you can solve it fairly fast. If you, on the other hand, can solve one I may even give you a prize."
"But it's already solved?"
She flicked her wand and the cube rose up changing as it went, until after a few seconds it fell back into his hands.
"Why are you giving it to me?" He asked in suspicion.
"Do I need to have a reason?" She met his sharp gaze, " Consider it an apology for yesterday, I won't apologize for what I said as I meant it, but Minnie has informed me that I could have said it in a nicer way."
"How could any of that have been better?"
Ashleigh sighed as she sat up straighter. "The last time I was in Britain, my Husband was murdered, I swore I would never have anything else to do with that country after that. Yet here we are. It's not you I had a problem with per say, it was the country as a whole. Albus twisted my arm on taking you in as well so that didn't help much. As you said I'm an adult and it was wrong of me to take my annoyance out on you. I was curt with my responses instead of being more detailed. I figured Wulfric had told you about myself and our history."
"Wulfric?"
"Albus, one of his many middle names. I once made a joke about a spell of his and people ran with it. But that's a story for another time."
"So why apologize?"
"Minnie would be annoyed with me if I didn't."
He stared at her in disbelief.
"So. What's got you annoyed; you know besides me?" She flashed him a wicked smile.
"I'm just having trouble with this Charms essay, it's on the Theory of Magical Submission."
"That Charms professor of yours is pretty smart to have made that an essay topic. Of course, he probably would take a simple answer as well, even something as simple and stupid as, "Because of the Soul" I'd fail any student that put that in one of my assignments."
"Hehe, yeah, real stupid," Harry fake laughed as he began ripping up his last draft.
She swung her legs to the floor and clapped her hands together with a smirk, "While it goes by many names most call it, Andrei's Theory of Magical Submission. The theory has been something talked about in some circles for thousands of years, however it wasn't truly brought to light until Marcius Andrei, a Romanian Philosopher and Magical Researcher, got turned into a Vampire. Now if you didn't know, Vampires have an enhanced ability when it comes to Legilimency and Occlumency. He was turned during the 15th century and was already a well-established researcher. Once he turned, he began experimenting on his Legilimency as well as other mind-altering spells, from a simple Confundus to the Imperious curse. Eventually he discovered that someone with a strong enough will, or Soul as some argue, can overcome these spells, one such individual even instantly overcame an Obliviate. One day while doing an experiment he cast a levitation charm, instead of casting it on the drink, or whatever it was that he was aiming for, one of his subjects walked in front of the spell and it simply failed. The subject was lifted initially, but only by an inch or two. Thinking it a fluke, Marcius tried the spell again, this time the subject didn't move an inch. Do you know why?"
"Because of…" He really didn't know.
"As I said earlier the bare basic answer would be, because of the soul, of course I can still cast spells on you like," She twisted her wand and Harry began floating in the air, before falling to the couch once more. "The stronger someone's magic the stronger their soul is as well and vice versa. It's why no-maj are the way they are, they have very little magic, less than a squib, and their soul is dim. It's why we use obliviate to wipe their memories, they have no natural defense and it's nearly impossible for one to regain their memories. Wizards on the other hand can regain their memories thanks in part to their magic, it actively repairs their minds, the stronger someone is the more likely their memories are to return. For example, I had an experiment go wrong some years ago, I was in the hospital for years and it took some of the best mind healers in the world to bring my mind back to consciousness. Even once that happened it took another 2 years after that for me to function as a human once more. If it happened to anyone else they'd have been gone for decades, if they ever came back."
"What does any of this have to do with the Theory."
Ashleigh snorted at the question, "Marcius theorized that our ambient magic can fight back against other spells, not just ones effecting the mind. Marcius used quite a few spells on his subjects in his experiments, constant exposure caused their magic to grow stronger, which caused their soul to burn brighter."
"I haven't heard of any of this in my research."
She smiled, "That's because you're doing a charms essay. 9 times out of 10 when you see a reference to Marcius' Theory it'll be in a transfiguration book. The rest of the time it will be in a defense book, generally only a few sentences on the matter."
"What?"
"Minnie! Bring me Charms and Transfiguration a Beginner's Guide to Mastery of the Soul." A few seconds and a quick pop later a massive book sat between the two. "You will understand maybe a small fraction of this book, but it is a good reference guide should you know how to use it. Do not tell anyone you've even seen this book understand? It's banned in 73 countries including the US and the UK. Especially in the UK. Albus would probably have a heart attack if he knew I had it."
"Then why do you have it?" He glanced at her in suspicion.
"Because I'm a researcher, if I let a few laws stop me I wouldn't be here right now. Besides the book isn't necessarily bad, it just has to do with soul magic, the basics of it at least, and more has to do with magic of the mind than anything." She flipped the book open and quickly found the page she was looking for, sliding it to him and pointing at a paragraph. "Everything has a soul, from the smallest bug to the largest animal. Normally you wouldn't cast charms on an animal, a monster most often but not a normal animal. Transfiguration on the other hand, actively uses spells on many things, including other humans. When I joined Hogwarts in what would be my 4th year, we had to turn a table into a pig, I'm sure you had to do smaller things in the past, rats to teacups or porcupines into pin cushions. Did you ever feel a difference when casting on inanimate objects compared to living?"
"Well, I… I always felt I've had to… push? A little more."
"It's because you're fighting against the creature's soul compared to doing a spell on a dead piece of wood or stone. It's something you subconsciously learn over time, whenever you cast a spell at a living target, you'll subconsciously pumped more magic into your spells. This also affects Self Transfiguration, such as Animagus, though to a lesser extent, do you know why?"
"It's your own magic?"
The woman clapped and stood, "Exactly, you're using your own magic to cast spells on yourself, however unlike casting charms, your soul resists the change of Transfiguring." She walked over to his side of the table and flipped through a few more pages.
"This section speaks a little more on the subject, but you should be able to make an essay out of what I've told you and those bits in your book. Try skimming through your transfiguration books, those outta give you a little more information."
Harry excitedly lapped up the information, struggling to write down the rest of what she had said, maybe, just maybe, staying here wouldn't be too bad.