"Ah, yes. Miss Potter. I guess you can figure why I asked to talk to you?" Professor Flitwick said with a solemn tone.
Iris hung her head. "Sorry I messed up the spell, professor."
His eyes widened for a moment. "Oh, no, don't worry Miss Potter, you did nothing wrong. It's about the peculiar way in which your spell manifested, which I have to add has me quite worried."
Iris swallowed. "Do you know what's wrong with it?" she asked hopefully.
"I have never seen such a thing in my life," he said reverently.
Iris sagged. She shouldn't have gotten her hopes up.
"It really is most peculiar. Have you attempted to perform any other spells?"
"Well, yeah. I tried the flame freezing charm along with everyone else," Iris said and trailed off reluctantly, not really wanting to talk about that.
"Ah yes, of course. I don't expect there were any problems with that one?"
Iris looked at her feet. "Well... Actually... It didn't work. Like, at all."
The professor took a sharp breath. "Indeed? I don't think anyone has ever failed to perform that specific charm before to my knowledge..."
Iris closed her eyes and took a breath. The professor really wasn't helping the situation. However, before her stood a chance to maybe learn something more about her magic, and perhaps figure out how she could actually do spells properly. She'd just have to talk about it, which was easier said than done. She sighed and began.
"The only time I've ever gotten spells to work was if I put my light through my wand."
The professor frowned. "Your light? What are you talking about, Miss Potter?"
In response, she raised a hand and called her trusty orb of light into it. It looked much the same as the spell she had performed before, except it was a lot less bright, and its source was a fist sized orb instead of the tip of her wand. Flitwick's eyes widened as he slowly stepped closer and held out a hand towards it.
"Marvelous! How long have you been able to do this?" he asked in an absent voice, gaze still fixated on the dancing colors in her palm.
"Uh, a few years, I'm not sure. Originally it would just happen on accident, but then I figured out how to call it back. At some point later I managed to make it float," she added, and gently tossed her orb up into the air, where it came to a rest above their heads, glimmering down on them like an oversized star.
"Truly marvelous. And is this what you did when you cast the spell today?" he asked with a knowing voice.
"No," Iris sighed.
Flitwick blinked. "No?"
"I thought about it, seeing how all my other spell attempts had worked so far, but decided against it. I just did the motion and said the words like everyone else."
His face fell. "But that would mean..." he trailed off and muttered to himself for a while.
Finally, he asked, "Your other spell attempts? Have you tried any others so far?"
Iris shook herself and nodded. "Yeah. Any spells I try just like that—well except for Lumos apparently—just do nothing. But if I put my light through my wand before, all kind of funky stuff happens."
His eyebrows raised at that. "Care to describe funky, Ms. Potter?"
"Well, I tried the levitation charm. If I just put my normal light through my wand, it does random things with each attempt. But if I use blue light, the result at least gets somewhat close..."
"What do you mean by put light through your wand?" he said and frowned.
She held up her wand to him and pushed her light into it. His eyes widened, and he reached a hand.
"May I have a look at your wand?"
Iris shrugged and handed it over.
Flitwick turned it around in his hands, raised it to his eyes to inspect the crystal, then grabbed it by the end and swished a few times, and frowned.
"Where did you get this... wand?" he asked slowly.
"Uh... from Mr. Ollivander, just like my brother. He did say it was really peculiar though..."
"I can imagine. I have never seen a wand such as this. I'd even hesitate to call it such. There doesn't seem to be any magical core in it as far as I can tell, and I can't get it to cast even the simplest spells. It's no wonder you failed to cast the flame freezing charm with this..."
"But... Mr. Ollivander said that I wouldn't be able to use any other regular wand..."
Flitwick paused at that. "Did he? That seems... Odd. Although it seems quite fitting, given your apparent affinity for light magic. So, you said you did achieve some results with this wand when using your... light?"
Iris shrugged. She figured she might as well show him. She took back her wand, aimed it at one of the books strewn on the ground in the professor's office, called her blue light, and once again swished, flicked and said: "Wingardium Leviosa."
The book immediately gained the properties of a hyperactive rocket ship, zooming around the room in random directions, knocking over stacks of books as it went. Iris was looking sheepishly at the professor, but the professor was simply staring at her blue glowing wand wide eyed. He held out his hand close to it and closed his eyes. After a second, he whipped up his own wand and moved it around her glowing wand, all while the book continued to wreak destruction on his office.
"That... Is... Impossible, it can't be..." Flitwick was at a loss of words.
Iris reluctantly cut off her spell and asked, "What's wrong, professor?"
"Well, that doesn't quite explain the erratic behavior of your spell, but still, you're a first year, this is unheard of..."
He spent some more time mumbling to himself, until he shook himself and looked back at her. "No, I fear I need reinforcements to deal with this one. If you'd please come along, Ms. Potter. I feel like we are getting closer to the crux of the issue, but I suspect we need the help of someone with a certain... expertise."
~V~
"Filius! You know how much I adore your little visits."
Flitwick sighed and stepped inside. "Septima. Always a pleasure," he said drily.
"And you've brought me a guest! I didn't take you for the social type," the woman said in a teasing voice.
Flitwick turned back to Iris and reluctantly introduced them.
"Miss Potter, this is Professor Vector. She teaches Arithmancy, which is one of the electives starting third year. Septima, I was hoping you could help us shine some- erm... light on an issue."
Iris groaned internally.
"Straight to business then? Okay, fine, I'll bite. What's the deal?" the professor quipped.
"I think it would be faster if we just show you. Miss Potter, would you be so kind as to perform that spell again?"
Professor Vector raised an eyebrow and straightened up.
Iris stepped up to her, looked around the neat room and asked in a dry tone, "Uhm... do you have any books or other things you're not very attached to, Professor?"
The woman quirked a smile at that, and lifted an ugly vase from her cupboard and placed it down on her desk. Iris' eyebrows went up. "Errm... Are you sure about that? It's probably not gonna make it in one piece."
"This is from Sibyll. She re-gifted it to me because apparently brown is a bad omen."
Flitwick's mouth quirked into a small smile at that. Iris had no idea what to make of that, but she just shrugged and said, "Well, don't say I didn't warn you."
She swished her wand, pushed blue light into it and incanted the familiar spell.
The vase went flying, and predictably crashed into the ceiling. The pieces continued to zoom in various directions, hitting the walls, bookshelves, and everything else in between. Professor Flitwick made an impressive show of casually dodging out of the path of several of the projectiles, but he seemed generally unperturbed. Professor Vector looked like she would have dropped another vase, if she had been holding one. She then proceeded to step up to her glowing wand and do much of the same thing with her own wand that Flitwick had done before. Iris finally cut off the spell before it could cause any more destruction.
"You see? It's mastery-level aspect focus! How is that possible?" Flitwick exclaimed excitedly.
"It does feel like it..." Vector murmured, lost in thought. "But yet not quite..."
Flitwick frowned at that. "What do you mean? What else could it be?"
"I'm not sure, but I feel like a magical spectrometer might have some answers for us..."
With that, Vector whirled around and swept into the back of her office, rummaging through several crates, until she retrieved a large glass object.
"Do you know what a prism does, Miss Potter?" she asked offhandedly, as she walked over to the other side of the room and placed it on a small pedestal.
She did. She had read about that in her physics book when researching how light worked.
"Well, it refracts light at an angle, and breaks it into all of its frequencies."
Vector looked up at her with a confused frown. "Frequencies?"
"Er... Colors, i guess," Iris said sheepishly. Wasn't the professor supposed to be the knowledgeable one here?
"Right. And did you know you can do much the same with magic?"
Iris' eyes widened at that. She hadn't known that. However, with the way her light worked with her spells, she guessed magic and light were more closely linked than she had thought. The professor waved her wand, and a black box materialized out of thin air, sitting on a small table in front of the prism. Then, a white paper wall appeared behind the prism.
"Now, I want you to stick your wand into this box, and produce the light again; if you can, without actually casting the spell please."
Iris shrugged and walked up to the long black box. It had a hole in the front where she could stick her wand, and in the back, there was a long narrow slit. She inserted her wand, focused, and called her blue light again. The light shone out of the slit at the back in a line, hit the prism dead center, and was refracted to the right, where it hit the white wall in a thin blue line. Iris didn't know what they had expected, it was just blue light after all.
"Impossible," said Vector.
Flitwick said excitedly, "It's true, isn't it? As I said, somehow she has mastery-level focus."
"No, Filius. That's not what this is at all." Vector said, sounding shocked. "This is a pure magical aspect. No amount of focus could accomplish this. It's just pure Force, nothing else. No wonder the spell was so erratic."
Iris was officially completely lost. "What's a magical aspect?"
Luckily, Vector seemed to be in the mood to explain. "Our magic is made up of seven aspects, or concepts if you will. They are Life, Force, Destruction, Elemental, Mind, Illusion, and Control. Most spells utilize two or more of these aspects. This is very advanced magical theory, as most wizards don't need to concern themselves with aspects. Our raw magic contains all aspects equally, the spells just utilize them. Allow me to demonstrate."
She walked up to the box herself, stuck her own wand in and incanted, "Lumos."
Brilliant white light shone out of the box in a line, hit the prism and refracted. It spread out over the white paper wall in a perfect rectangular rainbow. Iris stared at it in awe.
"The Lumos charm is a physical representation of our magic, including all its aspects. What dear Filius was talking about is a mastery-level technique that allows you to focus on certain aspects, in order to empower spells. For example, Force."
She closed her eyes. The light in the box seemed to turn blue, and the rainbow started to dim as a whole, but got brighter around the strip of blue color.
"As you can see, while the color of the wand looks similar, the spectrum is very different. If you were to cast the levitation spell using a pure Force aspect, but without the Control aspect, I assume you would get something like what you did to Sibylls vase."
All Force, but no Control. That made too much sense. She felt like she was learning more about her magic in the last ten minutes than she had over the last month.
"What color is Control, then?" Iris asked excitedly.
Vector frowned and said, "Well, technically, it's yellow. But this is the wrong way to go about it. You get the color from the magic, not the oth-"
Vector cut off and gaped as Iris had brought up her wand and cast a yellow light from it. In a daze, she lifted her wand and performed the same spells again. Iris frowned.
"I tried that though. But with yellow light the levitation spell just does nothing at all."
Flitwick spoke up. "Well, I don't suppose it would, if you had Control, with no Force behind it..."
"So, you are saying I have to figure out how to create both yellow and blue light at the same time to finally be able to cast the spell?"
Vector frowned. "You can't cast the spell regularly?"
Flitwick chuckled. "I guess we forgot to explain in our rush. She seems to be completely unable to cast using regular pure magic. The only magic she has been able to make work so far is apparently through the use of pure aspects. That, and the Lumos charm."
"Hold on, you can't cast spells regularly, but you can cast the Lumos charm?"
"Yeah, but it's- Well... hang on." Iris trailed off, and raised her wand again and cast Lumos.
Was the professor actually drooling? No, it had to be her imagination. Iris smiled, cut off the charm and called the light into her hand instead. Yeah, now she was just showing off.
"It's always been like this. I can make it into single colors if I focus, or make it float around. But I can't make it white for some reason."
"No, I don't imagine you could... Not if your magic is truly like this in its pure form. It's a miracle you're able to do magic at all to be honest," Vector said slowly.
Iris felt a chill in her spine. "Do you know what's wrong with my magic?" she said in a small voice.
"It's hard to say. I imagine this is the result of whatever happened with You-Know-Who?"
Iris looked down at her feet. "Yeah... Madam Pomfrey said something about that. Apparently, there was an explosion of polarized magic or something..."
"Polarized magic? Dear Merlin. Whatever happened must have really done a number on your magic. From the looks of it, your magic acts like it is being refracted; much like through a prism, except at a higher dimension. At least it does in its purest form. I really have never seen anything like it."
She paused and started pacing. "It seems you have somehow figured out a way to turn that refracted magic into a pure aspect of sorts, perhaps by only utilizing part of it? I can't say. But what I can say is that this will prove a significant challenge with spell casting. There are a rare few spells that utilize only a single aspect. Other than that, you'd have to learn how to wield two or more of them at once, if that is even possible..."
"How do you know which aspects a spell needs?" Iris asked eagerly.
"That's not quite so simple to answer. It's not written down anywhere to my knowledge, as nobody would ever have to concern themselves with that. It is only really relevant during the spell crafting process. Anyone utilizing the focusing technique would usually just feel out the spell, sense which aspects it is currently using and focus on those. Although, if you really understand what the spell does, you can take an educated guess in most cases."
Flitwick twirled his mustache thoughtfully. "I guess you could start by trying to cast a mono-aspect spell. Although, most of those are very difficult to cast, and require a lot of power and focus..."
Iris perked up. "Are there any spells in the first-year curriculum that use only one aspect?"
Flitwick frowned. "Huh... Now that I think about it, I'm not sure... Oh yes, of course! The unlocking charm, Alohomora! I suppose that just employs the Control aspect."
"Really? Can we try that?" Iris asked, bubbling with excitement.
"Why not?" said Vector, as she waved her wand, causing the door to her office to swing shut, and then give an audible clack as it locked itself.
Flitwick was now back in his element. "Okay, Ms. Potter. Now, wand up, aim at the lock, and perform a jab and a forty-five degrees clockwise twist. The incantation is Alohomora," he intoned clearly, and demonstrated the described motion.
Iris closed her eyes to focus for a second, and brought forth a bright yellow light once again. She took a breath. Her hand was shaking. Firming her resolve, she jabbed and twisted her wand and said, "Alohomora!"
A yellow bolt slammed into the door, and there was a sharp clack, as the deadbolt retracted. Iris broke into a wide smile. Something metal clattered onto the ground somewhere outside her vision. Her smile quickly turned into a wide-eyed blush as the door started to groan, and slowly came off its hinges as it tilted towards them until it crashed to the ground with a bang.
Flitwick was excited. "Very well done, Miss Potter. Although perhaps a bit less power next time?"
Vector chuckled. "Well, I guess that's what you get when using a pure aspect..."
"That... was that it? I did it correctly?" Iris asked, unsure of the result.
"Well, in theory, yes. I suppose using a pure aspect, and with how much power you put into it, your command to unlock included the hinge pins. Usually, doors would be charmed against this kind of thing, but I suspect a pure concept supersedes that."
Iris sighed in relief. She wanted to do a small victory dance. After all her failures, she had finally cast a proper spell... Well, mostly.
"I don't suppose any of the other first year spells would work with just a single aspect?" Iris asked hesitantly.
Flitwick frowned. "That seems unlikely. Usually, every aspect a spell uses is integral to its function. You would probably just get similar results to your previous attempt at the levitation charm..."
"So, I guess it's down to figuring out how to mix colors then..." Iris said dejectedly.
"Chin up, Miss Potter. You're already performing magic that most mastery students struggle with. Although you seem to have some trouble with the basics. But that's why we're here at Hogwarts after all, to learn the basics," came the cheerful voice or Professor Flitwick.
Iris gave a small smile. The professor was right about that, she guessed. Also, she had really learned a lot about her magic, and Magic in general, no matter how uncomfortable the situation made her. Finally, there seemed to be a tangible reason why she was struggling, an explanation that made sense, as well as a possible path forward.
"Thank you, Professors, both of you," Iris said sincerely.
Vector gave her a smile. "Feel free to knock on my door anytime if you have any questions. You really are a most interesting project- er I mean... student."
Flitwick grinned at her widely and said, "The same goes for me, Miss Potter. Now if you don't have any more questions?"
"Oh right, before I forget, could you tell me the colors of all the other aspects? I mean my guess is red would be Destruction, violet is probably Illusion, oh, and orange must be Elemental, huh. Is green Life or Mind then?" Iris rattled off, her mind going a hundred miles an hour.
Oh, great, now she had broken the professors too.
Also, there now was a firm gleam in Flitwick's eyes that couldn't possibly herald anything good.
"Life," came the dumbfounded reply of Professor Vector.
"Great, thanks!" Iris chirped, and fled the office.
~V~
Iris barged into her dorm room, flung the door shut, and braced her back against it as she slid to the ground.
"Whoa! You look like You-Know-Who is after you!" Tracey said with a smirk.
"Worse," Iris breathed, "Flitwick. I'm sure he wanted to dissect me or something..."
"He was that mad about what you did in class?"
"No... but apparently my weird magic is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have no idea what else they would have come up with if I hadn't escaped..." Iris said in a disgruntled tone.
Tracey started giggling. "They?"
"It's a long story..." Iris sighed. "He had me try to cast a spell, then waved his wand all around me, then he dragged me off to Professor Vector's office to do it all again. They explained a whole bunch about how magic worked, and maybe figured out what's wrong with mine, and then I actually cast my first spell, and maybe accidentally broke Vector's office door..."
Tracey had by now tilted over and dropped onto her bed laughing.
After a few seconds, she gathered herself and said, "What am I going to do with you?"
Iris just groaned and dropped her head against the door. Then Tracey perked up.
"Wait, did you say you actually successfully cast a spell?"
"Uh, yeah. Alohomora, the unlocking charm. It successfully unlocked the door, well, including the hinges..."
At that, Tracey descended into laughter again.
Iris turned indignant. "Hey, it's not my fault. Vector said, apparently, a pure concept overrides the protections the door has against that..."
"What's a concept?" Tracey asked bewildered.
That caused Iris to launch into an explanation of what she remembered about the seven aspects of magic.
"So, yeah. Looks like I need to figure out how to combine multiple colors if I want to do anything other than unlock doors this year."
"And hinges," Tracey helpfully pointed out.
"Shut it, you," Iris growled and tossed a pillow at her.
~V~
With everything going on, Iris had almost forgotten about the evening class they had today. It was one she had been looking forward to a lot. Also, she would have it together with Harry, which was always a plus. The ultimate wish of any girl dreaming about being a witch and growing up on American TV shows was to ride a broom. And tonight, she would finally get the chance.
The students had gathered outside the front entrance inside the massive courtyard of the castle, where a collection of scruffy old brooms was mounted to a wooden structure.
"Alright, everyone grab a broom and put it down on the ground to your side. We will begin by bonding the broom to your magic."
There was an immediate struggle for the few brooms that looked just a touch less withered than the rest. Iris ended up with a decent looking broom, while Tracey's seemed like it was about to split in half it you looked at it the wrong way. She looked over at Harry. He had ended up with a decent broom and was grinning ear to ear. This was apparently something he was just as excited for as her.
"Now. Before any of you try riding your brooms, we need you to perform a preliminary bond with them. While from the outside it looks like you control a broom just by leaning forwards, backwards, to the sides, or by pulling at the handle, more than half of the control is actually your magic connecting to your broom, and your intent providing it with direction and power."
The white-haired teacher paced along the group of students as everyone lined up and placed their broom in front of them.
"Attempting to bond with our broom is the preliminary step with any new broom before trying to fly it. The easiest way is to try to command it without actually touching it. Everyone, hold your hands above your broom and firmly say Up."
She watched Harry do just that and beam as the broom immediately leapt to obey his command.
"You must be resolute, determined, and solely focused on your broom. Imagination won't help much here, you aren't trying to make your magic pick up the broom, you are giving your broom an order and the power to execute it."
Iris firmed her resolve, held out her hand and commanded, "Up!"
The broom remained as unmoving as it had ever been. That Figured.
Already growing frustrated, she repeated her attempt. "UP!"
Yet, it was to no avail. Dismayed, she watched as more and more students managed to get their brooms to obey, or at least got them to move at all. Next to her, a smug Draco had already mounted his broom. Even Tracey had managed to get her broom to obey at last. Most of the others had also at least managed to get their broom to jump or roll around on the ground. Other than her, only one pudgy Gryffindor boy hadn't managed to get his broom to move at all. She saw the teacher walking up to him and sending him to wait by the side next to the wooden broom stands. Would she not even get the chance to fly if this didn't work? No. She wouldn't let that happen. So that meant it was time to cheat.
She focused and pushed a bit of blue light down her arm, causing her hand to glow slightly blue, barely visible in the evening sun. Resolve hardened, she firmly commanded, "Up."
The broom shot skywards, past her outstretched hand and way above her head. She quickly let go of her light, and watched the broom slow down, tilt over and come falling back down towards her. She flipped her hand around and deftly caught it out of the air. The teacher came towards her, yet she didn't say anything and walked straight past her towards the middle of the students. Iris grinned and blew a raspberry at fate. She was going flying, and nothing was going to stop her.
"Now, all of you, mount your brooms like this. Wait for my mark, and once I count to three, you push off the ground hard, hover for a bit, then lean forward to bring it back to the ground."
Iris eagerly climbed onto her broom. Suddenly, she was feeling awkward as the broom seemed far too large for her since she was so damn short. She glanced over at Harry, who was giving her an encouraging smile. Count on Harry to always know how she felt.
"Everyone ready? On my mark. Three, Two, One..."
The teacher blew her whistle, Iris pushed off hard, and started floating. Well, more or less. The broom was slowly gliding off the ground, yet nothing she did had any impact on its direction or speed. The sudden loss of control was strong enough to override even the joy of finally being able to fly. Nothing she did seemed to affect the broom in any way. In a fit of desperation, Iris called the blue light back into her hands. The broom immediately shot forwards, which at its current angle meant skywards, in a straight line. She wasn't moving directly at the sky, in fact, she could see the roof of the castle closing in at a rapid speed. Iris pulled on the handle, trying to force the broom to turn to no avail.
This was what Vector had been talking about. All Force, but no Control. Thinking quickly, she changed her light from blue to yellow and yanked. The broom smoothly turned its trajectory around and continued full tilt towards the ground, now upside down. She tried to force the broom to stop, but its speed remained unchanged. She rolled to the side, now right side up once again and yanked up, causing her to level just before hitting the ground. With wide eyes, she realized that she was currently heading straight for the wooden stands, or rather, the pudgy Gryffindor in front of them. She saw him turn towards her, realize what was happening, and his visage turning from resignation to horror caused Iris to lose focus for an instant. Her light turned back from yellow into its regular iridescent state, and her broom started vibrating and jerking, and after a single second it gave a defeated snap and broke into three pieces mid-air. Iris shrieked as she was tossed through the air, right into the Gryffindor boy, and caused them both to crash into the wooden construct.
Iris moaned. Her everything was hurting. She tried to roll into an upright position and felt a sharp jab of pain in her left arm. She heard a groan from beneath her. Iris carefully heaved herself up on her right arm and looked down. The black-haired Gryffindor boy was lying crumpled in a heap beneath her. His leg was twisted at an odd angle, his face was twisted in pain, and there was something protruding from his stomach. Iris face froze in horror as his robes quickly started to turn red; more red than even Gryffindors had any right to be.
"I... W-What happened?" the boy croaked weakly.
The boy lifted a shaking arm, and then closed around the unyielding jagged wooden stump impaling his stomach. "W-Wha?"
Iris felt the vice of panic close inexorably around her chest. This was bad. Really bad. She didn't know if magic could just fix an injury like that. That was if he even made it to the infirmary. She was pretty sure even magic couldn't fix death. Her fingers scrambled against the wooden stump uselessly, trying to do something, anything, to prevent this from happening. She heard footsteps around her, some gasps, but they meant nothing. This was her fault. This boy got hurt, or worse, because of what she had done. She didn't even know his name.
No. It couldn't be like this. She wouldn't let it. Iris didn't want anyone to die because of her. There had to be a way, right? Madam Pomfrey had fixed up her burns just like that. Surely, she could also fix this?
Yet no matter how much she tried to convince herself, there was this niggling voice of doubt, that it wouldn't work, that it would still be too late.
"No!" Iris cried. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
The boy looked at her with a pleading expression, but then his eyes fluttered and he sagged, unconscious. Or worse. She didn't even want to think about it. Iris did the only thing she could come up with on the spot. She wanted him to live, and her mind had provided only one solution.
Life.
"No! You can't die!" Iris wailed. Her hands started glowing green, as she did the only thing she could think of. She didn't know any healing spells, but she hoped that her magic alone would at least be able to do... something. Anything.
"You have to LIVE!" she shouted, bathing them and the onlookers in green light. Iris was breathing heavily, close to sobs.
"...Please," she added in a raspy voice.
Everything started to turn, the silhouettes around her becoming taller and taller with every heartbeat. Green light flickered and faded at last, and with it, so did her consciousness.