HP: A Magical Journey

by Little Merger

Follow Quinn West, who finds himself in the world of Harry Potter, but are things as they seem, is the world he has landed in the same as the one he once read about. Will Quinn able to find his way in this new world? Will he ever be able to feel like he belongs here? What opportunity would the magic of this world provide him? Will it lead him to the light or drown him in the dark?

4. 97

HP: A Magical Journey #Chapter 97 - Sonar Vision, Another Bout, Tehom's End - Read HP: A Magical Journey Chapter 97 - Sonar Vision, Another Bout, Tehom's End Online - All Page - NOVEL NEXT

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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Working with no light and minimal sensory input was confusing when trying to gain a sense of direction. And when you completely took away sensory stimuli mostly used to navigate in your life, it created a heavy disability.

In Quinn's case, it got more difficult because he wasn't even sure what side was up. There was no floor beneath his feet. Floating in the deep waters made Quinn's search area much wider.

Quinn consciously blinked his eyes to make sure they were open before creating dozens of light orbs with magic. He used some spells that made bright lights and pushed them away from him at a distance in the water.

'Whoever made this vault thought things through,' thought Quinn, observing the lights in the distance.

The light orbs that he had released immediately went dull as they moved away from Quinn. A couple feet away and Quinn could barely see any light. And the problem wasn't in the spell; they were properly functioning. It was just that the water inside Tehom's Delight interfered with the propagation of light.

Quinn conjured another light orb between his hands and stared at the very dull light that should've been very bright. Feeling the water around the light orb, Quinn felt that the water had formed a peculiar composition that didn't allow the light to travel through the water.

The second trial area had made the use of light useless. Using light inside there to provide any form of usable visibility wasn't a viable option. The lights were dulled to the point that any light source was barely visible.

'This is fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.' Admired Quinn the water, even though it made his work there difficult, 'Not sure where I can use this, though.'

Quinn dispelled the lights and concentrated on his magic to use another approach to navigate.

A very brief burst of water magic emitted from Quinn, and a circular wave traveled outwards. Quinn couldn't see his magic, but vibrations were clearly detectable to him.

Human echolocation was the human ability to actively create sound and detect objects in their environment by sensing the echoes those objects made. People trained to orient with echolocation could interpret the sound waves reflected by nearby objects and accurately identify their location and size.

Visually impaired humans mostly used it to navigate their surroundings by tapping their canes, lightly stomping their feet, snapping their fingers, or making clicking noises with their mouths. They interpreted the sound echo from the objects in their surroundings.

What Quinn used was a highly advanced form of echolocation, made possible through water magic. By immersing himself in water, Quinn attempted to 'feel' and 'see' even the most minute aquatic vibrations in the earth. But instead of using sound waves, Quinn used aquatic vibrations, and instead of using his sense of hearing, he used his sense of touch.

By sending pulses of water into his surroundings, Quinn hoped that his sense of touch, or more specifically, the mechanoreceptors in his skin that responded to mechanical pressure or distortions, would give him some clues about the area drowned in complete darkness.

'No returns again,' thought Quinn. He had been doing this for two weeks, but not once had he gotten a hit. 'Time to switch frequency.'

Quinn started practicing this method of detection in the Great Lake. There he had gotten great results within days and, within a week, Quinn ended up developing the skill that allowed him to have a rough position of the objects that were nearby him.

He was recalling the time when he used his version of an underwater sonar against the best target practice.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn was standing inside the waters of the Great Lake as he looked down at the Kraken.

If he had to be honest, Quinn wasn't sure about his relationship with the Kraken. Quinn had tussled against the Kraken four times, but only once he had been able to get past the titanic creature. And that was because he had taken the Kraken by surprise.

Quinn wasn't sure if he would win a fifth-round against a fully alert and ready Kraken. One thing was for sure, though. Which was; if the Kraken and Quinn had played cat and mouse every time Quinn visited the third vault then, at least fifty percent of the times, Quinn would have been thrown out of the lake.

'Thank God, that isn't the case. I can't afford to fight the Kraken every day,' thought Quinn as he stared at the Kraken's main body.

The cephalopod had its eyes closed and looked like it was sleeping. So Quinn did the only sensible thing, raised his hand and shot a powerful cannon blast of water towards the Kraken.

The second the water blast hit the Kraken, it opened its yellow eyes and stared at Quinn with confusion and slight annoyance.

"Yeah, you get up. Now isn't the time to sleep," smirked Quinn and immediately sent two more water cannon blasts towards the Kraken.

The reason behind his actions was that every time Quinn exited the third vault after a session of exploration, the Kraken would push Quinn down to the lake bed and then proceed to ignore him. The Kraken would throw 'seaweed' in his face before he entered the tunnel and then, proceed to ignore him.

And that confused the heck out of Quinn. He couldn't understand why the Kraken was messing with him. Quinn had tried to stop it, but the Kraken only stopped for a day before messing with Quinn again.

So Quinn decided to channel his annoyance and irritation to productivity... and picked a fight with the Kraken.

"Come on, you big squid bully. Let's get some use out of you," smirked Quinn as he continued to shoot blunt water blasts that wouldn't injure the Kraken but had enough to push its body around. Just like what the Kraken did to Quinn.

The Kraken felt irritated from being awakened from its nap and from the continuous body blows from Quinn. It raised its two tentacles, and both moved towards Quinn, bringing a smile to the target's face.

"Now we are talking!" grinned Quinn and clapped his hand in front of himself, and immediately the surrounding water with Quinn in the center turned black. Waves and waves of black erupted, covering everything in inky black.

Now both the Kraken and Quinn had their vision impaired by the opacity of black water.

Practical learning was what suited Quinn. So that's why he had decided to learn aquatic sonar detection. As Quinn personally learned better with stress and pressure, he picked up a fight with the Kraken, rather than just sitting around and just detect the grindylows hiding in the weeds.

'Activating Sonar. Test one, burst frequency: 40 kHz.'

One spherical wave of water exuded outwards with Quinn as the source.

Then, Quinn waited, waited for a response, a response from the Kraken's incoming tentacles.

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Quinn had trust in the method. He was sure that the special water wave created from his water magic would return to him before the Kraken's tentacle.

And it did.

Quinn felt vibrations with traces of magic come back to him. The traces of magic marking the vibrations in the water told him that these vibrations were from the water wave he had exuded.

'Ah, so this is how it feels when something is rushing at you. The haptics are amazing,' wondered Quinn with a smile blooming his face as he waved his hand to his right, and a wall of ice manifested moments before a tentacle came swimming towards Quinn.

"Oh, Kraken! It's time to play!" laughed Quinn and immediately moved from his spot and once again started sending water waves out.

'Test two, burst frequency - 47 kHz.'

'Test three, burst frequency - 51 kHz.'

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'Test fifteen, burst frequency - 93 kHz.'

Spherical waves upon waves with different speeds and amplitudes rolled out from Quinn and spread out in the water. Every different frequency of the water wave sent back distinct vibrations, so when Quinn's haptic sense sensed them, he 'saw' something miraculous.

Quinn received tons and tons of vibrations that he would feel against his skin. Usually, his haptic sense wouldn't be able to differentiate these vibrations independently. But with his magic marking the vibrations, he ended up having the skill to discern them: which was, as Quinn thought, a mix of haptic and magical.

His occlumency aided brain was able to handle the mass information coming to him and quickly interpret it into understandable information for him to perceive.

"I can see it! I can see it all," gasped Quinn as he looked to his front and even with his eyes showing inky blackness. He could even 'see' the enormous body of the Kraken and the five tentacles racing towards him.

It was like another world had been opened to him. Quinn could 'see' his surroundings in all directions instead of just the normal span in front of him. The ability to observe both in the front and the back was an amazing and novel experience that Quinn absolutely loved.

He detected every tentacle and could see them as they closed on him. Quinn readied his magic. He didn't use ice magic to block the tentacles, but decided to go with the riskier option and evade the tentacles by swimming through the incoming entanglement of tentacles.

The water magic, which struggled against the Kraken's tentacles' speed, had been tempered against the chaos of Poseidon's Wrath, so it was no longer the same. All the time Quinn had spent working out on harsh waters made swimming inside water much easier.

Water undulated around Quinn as he darted in faster than any creature inside the Great Lake. The water magic user swam quicker than the fastest non-magical fish, the black marlin, which had a top speed of 129km/h (80 mph)! He swam at a pace of over 200km/h (124.27 mph).

With abnormal dexterity and speed, Quinn, twisted and turned around by the five tentacles, avoided every single of them by inches.

With every passing second, Quinn's mind ran at a faster speed than before. It computed and calculated, and he made micro-decisions as the frequency, speed, amplitude, density of the waves that changed.

With every adjustment, Quinn's 'vision' became better and sharper, which allowed him to truly 'see'.

It was instinct.

It was intuition.

It was magic.

...

The Kraken, who had been trying to get back at Quinn for waking him up, felt a little frustrated because of the black water. The black water didn't hinder It that much, but the Kraken was sure that this was why it wasn't able to catch the tiny human. Otherwise, it would have smacked the tiny human, pushed him around a little, before throwing him out of his home.

But then, the Kraken saw that the black water returned to normal. Finally, it was able to see the tiny human floating at a distance away, and he had his eyes closed.

The Kraken didn't think much of it and sent seven of its tentacles after the tiny human. But what the Kraken saw surprised it because the tiny human seemed to control water much better than before and even with its seven tentacles, the tiny human seemed relaxed as he dodged all of them.

Eight... Nine... Ten tentacles were sent after the tiny human, but the tiny human dodged every one of them without a problem. Even when it increased the speed, the tiny human continued to swim around its tentacle and refused to come into its grasp.

It was at that time that the Kraken's five hearts started to beat faster. It had been a while since the mighty beast of the water had felt this way.

Even though it liked to live harmoniously and spend its time in peace. The titanic creature was, as its name suggested, a Kraken. It was the legendary creature that was famous for sinking ships.

Now seeing something that it couldn't catch, the Kraken became excited, and the natural, primal instincts came up to the surface.

The Kraken wanted to go all out.

It wanted to face the challenge of the tiny human. No. The special human.

Yellow eyes shined with rigor, and the lake shook uncountable tall, massive tentacles fully came out and raised themselves. Fully showcasing the legitimate size of the titanic creature.

The grindylows all around scurried into their weed homes because of the tremors in the lake. The fishes panicked as they ran to find places to hide. In the distance, the merpeople in their village looked in the Kraken's direction with fear.

Quinn, who was now exclusively using the water sonar vision to perceive his surroundings, felt the tremors from the Kraken and had to adjust his magic to work in the great disturbance, and what Quinn saw shocked him.

Before, he had thought that the Kraken was already a giant. But now, with it standing tall with all of its tentacles out. Quinn finally understood that the creature in front of him was a titan on a different level.

It was so shocking that Quinn opened his eyes to actually see the Kraken, and he wasn't disappointed because the Kraken was absolutely massive.

Instead of feeling scared and regretful about his decision of provoking the Kraken, Quinn's heart pumped hard as an enthusiastic grin stretched on his face.

The water around Quinn erupted with energy as he laughed in the water and felt the rush of excitement.

He closed his eyes as waves of water restarted going out. The sonar vision returned as Quinn yelled, "Yeah, come on!"

That day, the Great Lake's residents spent the day in anxiousness, as tentacles, masses of ice, and undulations of water shook the entire lake.

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The day Quinn battled the Kraken while the legendary beast tried to catch him for over an hour was definitely one of the highlights of his year.

The progress he had made that day was so extensive that Quinn felt he hadn't learned something so quickly in his entire life. The only thing that he could compare it with was the month Quinn spent regaining his magic.

But right now, even that progress wasn't enough, as Quinn was struggling inside Tehom's Delight.

'The vibrations ain't returning,' sighed Quinn as he kept on sending more and more waves out.

The waters in Tehom's Delight were eerie still, and unlike the Great Lake, Quinn couldn't sense any ambient vibrations that weren't traced by him. The natural water vibrations gave Quinn a passive aquatic sensory vision, while his marked vibrations gave him the specifics and increased his perception to another level.

But there was nothing in Tehom's Delight. No vibrations at all, nothing that would give him any clue about his situation. Even the feedback vibrations that were caused by his water magic didn't return to him.

'I'm so lost,' murmured Quinn as he crossed his legs in lotus position and 'sat' down.

Quinn tried to swim in one direction to see if he could reach some kind of edge, but after spending a three-hour session swimming that way, Quinn ended up without finding any sort of edge or boundary.

'Hmm... maybe I should send out stronger waves,' theorized Quinn as he thought about how to clear this room. 'But how do I keep them stable. Stronger and larger waves collapse into themselves.'

Tehom's Delight made people clear their heads, let go of all thoughts and relax. And that was a feature of this trial that Quinn despised because of how it affected him.

But the same feature was great when one wanted to think about problems. If one could concentrate, then the no external stimulation environment heightened the ability to analyze and meditate upon problems.

And that showed, as Quinn arrived at a solution after thinking about the problem inside Tehom's Delight.

'I need to increase the wavelength and amplitude of my waves for extra stability. Yeah, what was it? Ah, yes, large-amplitude ocean waves with certain shapes can propagate unchanged.'

Quinn had read about ocean waves while he was studying water magic and, in there, it was written that certain oceanic waves could retain their shapes for a long time and travel enormous distances without losing their form.

Without getting up, Quinn regulated his water magic and created a wave of water with a large wavelength and amplitude so that the waves would have deep and long crests and troughs.

He sent multiple spherical waves at regular intervals for half a minute before kicking back and waiting for the feedback.

Quinn waited for a minute for the feedback and sighed in disappointment when nothing returned.

'I need to think something out. This isn't worki- !!!'

Quinn's thoughts were cut off when he felt a very faint of his magic returned as feedback and caused his eyes to widen like saucers.

'Holy shit, they came back!'

Every single wave he sent came back with a very faint feedback, but Quinn concentrated hard to catch all those faint signals.

Immediately afterward, Quinn used occlumency to increase his immersion in the memory and increased his connection with the memory. This was something Quinn did every time he thought something was very important that he needed to be at his fingertips.

After several minutes, Quinn was finally able to get the level of recall that he wanted on a few seconds of memories.

"I know what I want to do."

Quinn took a big gulp of water for oxygen before extending both of his hands. Quinn readied the water magic and used his hands as sources of the waves. He started to send out simultaneous waves.

The two waves matched each other, creating a unified wave with the help of a nifty little concept known as constructive interference. The resulting waves were stronger than the individual ones and were much more stable.

After a while, feedback returned, relatively louder than before but still weaker than he would've liked.

'I found it! Yes, I found it!' celebrated Quinn, turning towards his back as that was the direction from where he sensed something. 'There is nothing in here, so that must be the exit!'

He kept on sending waves to get a continuous sense of the direction because Quinn was sure that Tehom's Delight messed up with his directional perception.

After swimming for a mere minute at full speed, Quinn arrived at the place, and now that he was so close to the anomaly he detected, things were much clearer. The sonar vision was showing him a clear triangular 'entrance.'

It wasn't a traditional entrance in the sense that there wasn't any door, doorframe, or anything that showed that it was an entrance of some sort.

Quinn's sonar vision, nonetheless, demonstrated there was a triangular spot of water reacting differently.

'No text of any kind,' noticed Quinn. He wondered whether to enter then or not.

After some thinking, Quinn decided to get in there and stepped into the triangular water. He immediately disappeared from Tehom's Delight, leaving behind a representation of ocean depths where no light ever reached.

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Quinn West - MC - Can turn into Toph, and Daredevil while in water.

Kraken - Messed with Quinn because it was fun - While peace-loving, some excitement is always appreciated.

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If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https//fictiononlyreader ]??

The link is also in the synopsis.

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[This chapter isn't edited. I did go through it before posting, but I am not good at this, so have fun!]

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After another water teleportation, Quinn arrived at an appropriately lit area, and immediately his eyes hurt, causing him to wince.

"Ugh, should've seen that coming," grunted Quinn and squinted his eyes to let them adjust to the new lighting. After a few seconds, when his eyes adjusted to the light, he opened them up and looked around.

"Much better."

Looking at his surroundings, Quinn found he was standing on a white marbled floor and was inside a cylindrical room with walls that matched the white marble floor.

When he looked up, Quinn saw that the ceiling of the room was around twenty feet high. In the walls of the cylindrical room were crystals, inlaid in a grid pattern that went up to the ceiling, bathing the room in bright white light.

The next feature of the room that caught Quinn's eyes was the circular hole in the marbled floor. Quinn measured with his eyes and guessed that the circular floor had a fifteen-feet diameter, while the hole in the middle of the floor was of a ten-feet diameter.

Quinn walked closer to the hole and squatted near the edge.

"More water, huh," Quinn breathed out and touched the water with his hand, and at first touch, nothing stood out to him.

"What is the deal with this one?" asked Quinn to himself, and he got the answer when Quinn turned his head and looked at the wall behind. "Ah, there it is. Let's see..."

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「-~ HADAL ENCUMBRANCE ~-」

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"Hadal Encumbrance, now what in the name of Tehom does that mean?" sighed Quinn as he moved closer to the words etched on the wall with a bold and grand font.

"Encumbrance, now that is a big boy word," chuckled Quinn and crossed his arms as he stared at the wall. "An impediment or burden. Yeah, that checks out. At least it isn't something like delight. This gives me so much relief... And, there is Hadal. What does that mean? Pretty sure a mythological reference."

He turned back to the 'well' filled with water and wondered, "Now, what is the impediment or burden inside there." He walked to the edge and looked down to see if he could see the bottom of the water-filled hole, and surprisingly, Quinn could see the end clearly.

"Oh, there is the exit. Oh my, what a... pleasant... surprise," spoke Quinn as he stared down into the water. There saw the triangular exit on the floor of the cylindrical well. "I am getting weird. Why can't I just feel safe when I see positive signs. The side-effects of being a veteran are so stressful."

Quinn squinted to read the wording of the next door, but the text was too far away for him to make out the words.

"I guess I would just have to dive inside to see the words clearly," hummed Quinn and then rubbed the royal blue insignia on his arm, wondering about his next plan of action.

"Well, let's start slow," decided Quinn, and dipped his legs inside the water before slipping down into the blue waters.

From the second his body submerged into the water, Quinn put himself on full alert and very slowly let himself slip down the water.

'Hmm?! This...'

Immediately, Quinn felt something off. As Quinn continued to sink inch by inch, the pressure around his body started to increase at an accelerated rate.

The density of water causes ambient pressures that increase dramatically with depth. But right now, Quinn could feel that same pressure increasing unnaturally, something that wouldn't happen at the shallow depth Quinn was currently at.

'Underwater atmospheric pressure is increasing!' thought Quinn, and he understood what the trial title's meant. 'So this is the encumbrance, huh. Certainly, this is a burden.'

He looked at the distance he had sunk and then at the depth that Quinn had to sink to get to the bottom. He had barely sunk down five percent of the total depth, and already Quinn could feel a considerable amount of pressure.

'T-The pressure at the bottom must be incredible, huh,' thought Quinn, but then a smirk appeared on his face. 'But this is not that serious, is it?'

Quinn cast magic, and water magic showed its charm to create a sphere of water around him. The pressure that Quinn was feeling disappeared completely. It was like he was swimming at the base sea level.

"I can use water magic to adjust the water pressure," smirked Quinn before a serious expression appeared on his face. "Now, let's see how deep I can go."

Quinn had observed the increase in the pressure in his five percent descent, and if the development in water pressure was linear, then with Quinn's calculations, he didn't believe that he could cancel out it after a certain point.

"At least I would get some data to work with." Quinn gulped in some water and restarted his descent.

...

Ten percent mark: Quinn didn't break a sweat and continued on.

"What did the ocean say to the shore?" "Nothing. It just waved." "Then it became salty because the land didn't wave back."

...

Twenty percent mark: Quinn had to put in some conscious effort to cancel out the pressure.

"A cube of ice flexed on a glass of water by saying, I was water before it was cool."

...

Thirty percent mark: Quinn began feeling some difficulty in canceling out the pressure.

"The hipster fish didn't swim in the river because it was too mainstream."

...

Forty percent mark: Quinn had his eyes closed to concentrate and was solely focused on resisting the pressure.

'How do you make holy water?' 'You boil the hell out of it.'

...

Fifty percent mark: The water sphere around Quinn maintained at normal atmospheric pressure and started to ripple at the boundaries.

'R.I.P boiled water, you will be mist.'

...

Sixty percent mark: The protective sphere around Quinn had reduced to half the size it was in the fifty percent mark and was rippling wildly at the boundaries, and it looked like it was going to collapse.

'...'

...

Quinn didn't descend beyond the sixty percent mark, deciding to stay at the spot. Any more than that and Quinn wouldn't be able to keep normal atmospheric pressure.

It would start to slip, and the pressure would increase. Some slippage wasn't bad, but it turned out that while the increment in pressure was linear, the slope on the graph was too steep. If Quinn went down from his current spot, the pressure would start to slip too quickly and cause complications inside his body.

Nitrogen narcosis, the 'narks,' starts with the perception of euphoria and over-confidence but then leads to numbness and memory impairment similar to alcohol intoxication. Those symptoms were never a good sign and especially not in the current situation.

If he took the chance and couldn't handle the pressure and then tried to come up a bit too quickly, Quinn would suffer from decompression sickness, or the 'bends' and excess inert gas left the solution in the blood and tissues forming bubbles. Since bubbles could be developed in or migrated to any part of the body, they produced many symptoms, and its effects may vary from joint pain and rashes to paralysis and death.

His body could suffer from Bone degeneration and could injure while he was inside the water. Those injuries might cause him to lose control of the pressure sphere and cause further complications.

And above all of that, there was a danger of oxygen toxicity resulting from the harmful effects of breathing molecular oxygen at increased partial pressures. Severe cases could result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs, and eyes which would be fatal in his current environment.

Immediately Quinn swam back up, and because he was at normal atmospheric pressure, he was able to come out quickly without complications that deep divers needed to look out when emerging from deep down below.

"... Sixty percent cleared, not bad for the first try. I was totally expecting to escape using teleportation," laughed Quinn after taking deep breaths to recover from the relatively heavy magic exertion that was used to hold back the pressure.

"How much was that? Six hundred times the normal atmospheric pressure? How much is that? It is definitely more than the sperm whale can handle," shrugged Quinn because he didn't know the exact pressure values. "I need to see how much pressure is that in terms of underwater depth levels."

Overall, Quinn was feeling really good because, in a single day, he was able to clear Tehom's delight and had made substantial progress with Hadal Encumbrance. This level of progress was first for Quinn.

"After the water wave sonar progress against the Kraken, things are going good for Quinn. Good job, buddy," laughed Quinn as he patted himself on the back before triggering teleportation insignia on his arm.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn was reading his ass off in the Hogwarts library about how to deal with water pressure. He had books on water magic sprawled in front of him. Quinn had already gone through his own ever-growing collection and the books he could find in the Room of Requirements.

The amount of information he had read on water magic increased by the day, and Quinn enjoyed studying water magic more than any magic he was learning these days.

Quinn was so immersed in his reading that he didn't realize that someone had walked near his table.

"Quinn."

The person frowned when Quinn didn't respond and continued to read.

"Quinn."

The person called out again, and once again, Quinn didn't respond. So the person crossed to Quinn's side of the table and tapped him on his shoulder.

"West!"

Quinn trembled in his chair at the touch on his shoulder. His concentration snapped, and he returned out of the world of him and the book in front of him to hear someone call him.

He turned and raised his head to see the person who called him.

"Why would you call me by my last name?" asked Quinn with a frown of confusion of marring his brows.

"You didn't seem to respond to your given name. So I thought you forgot it," humphed Daphne Greengrass with her chin raised.

"Alright, calm down. No need to be snarky," replied Quinn, and gestured her to take a seat. "You just caught me at the wrong time. I wasn't cognizant of my surroundings. Please take a seat."

Quinn took out his fake wand, and with a lazy swing, the books closed and set themselves into neat stacks at the side of the table. Another fake wave and a transparent dome manifested around their table. Starting from the top, and flowing down to the floor, before stabilizing and no longer visible.

"What was that?" asked Daphne as she sat down in the chair opposite Quinn. "The dome that just appeared over us."

"That was a simple privacy ward," replied Quinn as he placed his fake wand back into the wand holster. "To be more accurate. It was a sound-isolating ward. Any sound that is made inside the cover of the dome won't get out. We are going to talk, and I don't want Madam Pince hounding at us because we were making too much noise."

"All sound?" inquired Daphne as he put some books on the table.

"All sounds," nodded Quinn before elaborating. "Well, if we go above a certain limit, the ward will break, and sound will go out. But I don't think it is humanly possible for two of us to produce the decibels to break the ward I cast. At least without magic, that is."

"I can teach it to you. It is actually simple," offered Quinn with a simple smile on his face.

Daphne stared at him but didn't give responded. And Quinn didn't notice the look in Daphne's eyes because he was looking at her books.

"Oh my, that book has potion recipes for that are on the level of fifth-year and sixth-year students," commented Quinn when he recognized the book. He had referenced that book in his first year of Hogwarts. "Now that is some advanced reading. I have read it so ask me if you have any problems."

"... You probably think that I won't be able to understand without your help, don't you?" asked Daphne with her eyes narrowing a fraction.

Quinn, who had just offered help, stopped and stared at Daphne, confused at her words. But he could tell that Daphne wasn't happy with him.

"I am sorry? What do you mean by that?"

"Bubble-head charm, sixth-year charm, do you remember," answered Daphne, her words to the point and concise.

The stone grey-eyed boy thought about the keywords, and it took him a moment, but he recalled what Daphne was talking about.

"The day you girls came to my office after you saw me in the lake," spoke Quinn.

He remembered that he ended up implying that the girls wouldn't be able to learn the sixth-year spell as they were in the third year. But he only said that to dissuade them from going into the lake and move away from the lake topic.

Daphne didn't say anything and just stared at Quinn, making full eye contact.

"Well, I am sorry if I ended up offending you. It was wrong of me to imply that," apologized Quinn because if he was, to be honest, anyone with decent enough magic knowledge could cast charms above their grade level with a focus.

And now that Quinn thought about it. To him, who liked magic a bit too much, that sounded like a pretty intense insult.

"I did think about what I said after you left, and from I know about you. I was pretty sure that you won't forget about it and thought you would prove me wrong."

Quinn pointed at the books that Daphne had brought and continued,

"And looks like I was right. You proved me wrong by learning outside of what they learn in the classroom. Not many people study ahead of the year material, and you taking the initiative, learning more about magic, impresses me a lot."

Quinn smiled broadly and wholeheartedly praised her, "So, Daphne Greengrass, I was wrong, and you can accomplish anything you want."

A small smile surfaced on Daphne's face, "Good thing you understand."

"It's a good thing, indeed," nodded Quinn in agreement.

...

A distance away from Quinn and Daphne's table, two people were looking at the pair.

"Both of them are smiling," said Tracey Davis, looking at the pair.

"Yeah, they are," nodded Astoria Greengrass as she stared at her sister. "Daph smiling in public. Now, that is rare."

"What do you think they are talking about?" asked Tracey, curious about what her best friend and her favorite Ravenclaw were talking about.

Astoria shrugged before asking, "Does my sister like Quinn? You know as in like, like."

The sudden question surprised Tracey but then gave it some thought before answering: "I am not sure. But between like and dislike, I will say that she definitely likes Quinn, but that is obvious. As for if she 'likes' Quinn, hmm, that is a difficult question. She hasn't talked to me about any of that stuff."

Astoria nodded, and the two continued to watch as Quinn chuckled, and Daphne still had a small smile on her face, but things changed quickly.

"Oh, why is Daphne pulling out her wand? She isn't smiling anymore," Tracey asked at the sudden change. "Quinn is raising his hand in surrender but is still smiling. What did he say?"

"... Ah, I might have told him about the time when Daphne sneaked into the kitchen at night for ice cream and got caught," replied Astoria, and then immediately froze when she saw Quinn raise his arm to point in their direction.

"Crap, she saw me. Try to slow her down for me," asked Astoria before running away to escape her angry sister, who had gotten up from her chair and was looking mad with anger.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Immersed in water magic.

Daphne Greengrass - Smart Slytherin - "Astoria!"

Astoria Greengrass - Lil' sister - "You will never catch me!"

Tracy Davis - Confused - "... What? What happened?"

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

People came into the room with their problems. They sat in the chairs, talked about what troubled them, opened up, and poured their worries onto the man behind the table. When they were done, the young man behind the table would give a solution, and the people would leave happier than when they entered.

Not all problems were memorable, and the man behind the table encountered the same types of problems every day. So when people came with unique questions, the man became happy because it made his job fun and interesting.

And it turned out that today was the day that he was going to get to talk to a person with quite the memorable issue.

...

Quinn was standing in front of a potion cauldron watching the Fanta orange liquid simmering slowly over medium heat.

There was a sheet of paper floating with a clip on it. A pen was levitating above the paper, which was controlled by Quinn. Its purpose was to write notes about the potion.

Walking over to a nearby wall side table, Quinn looked down at a long brown worm with red veins all over its body.

"Braid Wigglers. My god, these things are gross," said Quinn, disgust clear in his voice.

Nonetheless, despite the heavy disgust in his voice, Quinn put on himself a thin white cloth glove. And without hesitation, he picked a very thin scalpel and started to cut the body of the worm.

Blood spilled onto the wooden board. But because of charms on the wood beneath, the blood beaded up on the surface of the wooden board. Quinn had charmed the surface of the wood to be hydrophobic. Any liquid that made contact with the wood wouldn't get absorbed but would end up beading on the top.

The beaded up blood slid to the side of the board and drained out the board through a small outlet pipe built into the wood board into a container for later experimentation.

'Uwaa, gross, so gross,' thought Quinn, even though he was enthusiastically cutting the worm and poking the magical worm's internal organs.

'Yuck, to think that something this gross worm would grow inside a person and at maturity would try to escape through the rectum,' gagged Quinn and recalled what he learned about the Braid Wigglers. 'Holy crap, look at these claws; these would surely rupture the inner lining of the colon as it wriggles out of the anus. Haha, so gross~.'

The Braid Wigglers was just one of the many parasitic creatures that used a magical human's body as the host. Quinn had been reading about all kinds of these creatures as a part of his Healing magic education.

The Fanta orange-colored liquid brewing inside the cauldron was a potion that killed the Braid Wiggler and dissolved its remains into something more suitable for passing out of the body naturally.

"I would like even more to operate on a person who has a fully matured Braid Wiggler inside their body, though. Those need to be taken out through surgery," muttered Quinn as he beckoned the clipboard and operated the pen through magic to take notes on the dissected Braid Wiggler.

As Quinn continued to take biological observations on the dissected Briad Wiggler and kept an eye on the cauldron brewing potion, he heard the door chime ring.

"Now?" groaned Quinn as he looked at the glass wall as if trying to look through it before looking at the bloody Braid Wiggler. "I'll be back; you wait here." A tender green pyramid-shaped ward manifested around the bloody carcass of the centipede-like creature for temporary preservation purposes.

He walked towards the workshop door and gave a cursory glance to the potion, checking the progress.

'Hmm... another half hour of simmering before I need to touch it. That would be enough,' noted Quinn as he walked past the cauldron.

Quinn was about to put a hand on the door's handle when he noticed that he was still wearing the bloody gloves.

"Oops," blinked Quinn. He removed the gloves and tossed them into the cleaning hamper with other dirty gloves. 'That would've been bad. If I went out wearing those.'

Just before opening the door, in a second, Quinn fixed his clothes with magic. He opened the door and entered his office with what he called a 'TV host's' smile on his face.

"Pardon the wait," Quinn said, greeting the person that was in the room as he closed the door to the workshop. When he looked up at the client, he trailed off, "Thank you for your patience..."

In his office stood Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, The-One-With-The-Scar, and other titles that people use to refer to the boy who had been credited with vanquishing the latest Dark Lord.

"Mr. Potter, welcome to A.I.D.," said Quinn as he sat down on his barstool, turning into 'the man behind the table'. "How may I help you today? Please take a seat, make yourself comfortable."

Harry silently sat down on the chair while keeping his gaze on Quinn.

Ever since he could remember, Harry recalled the way people looked at him. Anyone who wasn't a friend or family would immediately look at his forehead to glance at the infamous scar. And, because of that, Harry had been conscious of how people looked at him.

Over time, he had come to judge people depending on where their eyes went while talking to him. Harry was fine with people glancing at the scar once and had become used to it; to Harry, it was the norm. If they glanced at the scar from time to time during their talk, Harry's view of that person would drop considerably. But if they spend their entire time looking at the scar, Harry would deem them as someone who wasn't worth talking to.

In the very few meetings Harry had with Quinn West, he had noticed that Quinn hadn't looked at his scar even once. Not a single time had Harry seen Quinn look at his scar. He didn't show any interest whatsoever.

Even now, Quinn hadn't looked at his forehead scar once. And that only happened with family members or the people whom he had spent a lot of time with. When he entered the room. Quinn gave him a look over him before maintaining firm eye contact.

So even before talking to Quinn West, Harry's impression of him had improved considerably.

"I'm here to get answers to some questions," started Harry after making himself comfortable in his chair.

"Of course, if you've questions, we at A.I.D will do everything possible to answer them," nodded Quinn, internally interested in what Harry Potter had in his mind.

"What can you tell me about Peter Pettigrew?" asked Harry bluntly while watching Quinn's reaction trying to see if he could glean something out of his expression.

But Quinn had been subtly using his occlumency to control his expression. The summer vacation had taught him lots of things, and one of those was to fake facial expressions when he had to detach from real emotions using emotional occlumency.

There were three levels of emotional detachment provided by emotional occlumency: One, detaching emotions from your face. Two, detaching emotions so that they would become a buzz in the back of the head, reducing the bluntness of said emotions in the judgment-making process. The third and last level was to completely cut off emotions from magic.

One had to activate the previous levels to activate the next level. And currently, Quinn was only using level one of emotional detachment. Which he usually did when he was cautious.

Before the sin curse, Quinn wouldn't use level two much. He didn't use level three at all. But, after the sin curse, Quinn had developed a dislike for levels two and three because detaching his emotions didn't feel good. He only proceeded to level two when he was at a heavy disadvantage.

Using emotional occlumency to control facial expressions drained every emotion from the user. And that was just parading the fact that someone was using occlumency to hide their emotions. But that could be bypassed by simply faking the facial expression, which was what Quinn was doing.

It surprised Quinn that Harry asked him about Peter Pettigrew, but he didn't show that surprise on his face.

"You would've to be more precise with your questions, Mr. Potter."

The first rule that Quinn abided by when giving out information was to not answer vague or broad questions. Quinn wanted the requester to ask precise questions so that they only got the information that they asked for. It was just something Quinn did to make them think they were getting more information because they would ask multiple questions.

There were exceptions to this rule, but currently, those exceptions didn't apply because the inquiry from Harry raised some questions in Quinn's mind.

Harry took a moment in silence to think of a more well-defined question.

He knew that Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater. The problem was that before returning to Hogwarts this year, he had heard a talk between his father, James Potter, and his godfather, Sirius Black, and from what he was able to eavesdrop, they were having a pretty heated discussion.

At that time, Harry had thought little of that conversation and believed that the two Aurors were talking about a Death Eater's escape.

Then, he would occasionally hear conversations about Peter Pettigrew from multiple individuals across the year: his mother; Lily Potter, uncle/professor Remus Lupin, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick all had talked about him sometimes.

After hearing so much about that person, Harry got interested in Peter Pettigrew. He asked multiple people about the Death Eater, but no matter who he asked, the people would invariably change the subject without telling him anything.

The only thing he knew about Peter Pettigrew was that the man was a Death Eater. And that had been in Azkaban for twelve years before breaking out this year.

"What did Peter Pettigrew do to end up in Azkaban?" asked Harry.

Quinn, who had been sitting on his barstool, nodded at the question.

The second the words Peter Pettigrew came out of Harry Potter's mouth, Quinn made an executive decision to use Legilimency to infiltrate Harry's mind.

'His shield is weaker than his sister's,' thought Quinn as he broke in without the bespectacled Potter's knowledge.

And as Harry was thinking about what to ask, Quinn snooped around and found the entire backstory about why Harry came asking about the question.

'He doesn't know the details about the night he got the scar. His parents and family haven't told him about Peter Pettigrew's involvement.'

Quinn saw some memories that showed some major decisions from James Potter and Lily Potter or Marauders in general. Quinn was able to make a quick glance of a photo wall in the Potter cottage.

'They erased Pettigrew from all the photos. They erased every evidence that Pettigrew ever existed as their friend while in Hogwarts.'

That didn't surprise Quinn. Given what they lost that day, it's no wonder that they didn't want to have any memories of Peter Pettigrew.

'This Harry Potter is insightful,' thought Quinn when he heard Harry's surface thoughts. 'He knows how most of the Death Eaters escaped imprisonment because of the Imperius curse defense. Not surprising given that his father is an Auror.'

Harry realized that the only Death Eaters who went to Azkaban were outspoken and fanatic supporters of Voldemort.

Twelve Death Eaters had gone to Azkaban after the war; Bellatrix Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Barty Crouch Jr., Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov, Thorfinn Rowle, Gibbon, Jugson, Mulciber, Travers, and, finally, Peter Pettigrew.

'Except Peter Pettigrew, all of those were avid supporters of Voldemort and didn't or couldn't use the Imperius curse defense,' thought Quinn as he stared at Harry. 'He knows that and realizes that Peter Pettigrew must have done something outrageous to end up in Azkaban.'

"Mr. Potter, I know about Peter Pettigrew. But are you sure that you want to know?" asked Quinn. "You might not like what I'll tell you."

Harry frowned at the question. He didn't give it a second thought before nodding.

"It's related to you and your family. There is a reason why your parents haven't told you about Peter Pettigrew," once again asked Quinn, making sure that Harry really wanted to know.

Harry's frown deepened. It surprised him a little that it was related to his family. However, most of the Death Eater-related activities could be connected to his family.

"Yes, I want to know. No need to continue asking" he said while nodding firmly, wanting to get the point.

"Alright, you asked for it," said Quinn before dropping the truth bomb on Harry Potter's head.

"During the First Wizarding War, Peter Pettigrew was a member of the Order of the Phoenix but became a spy when he was coerced into joining the Dark Lord. He was made the Secret-Keeper for the Potters when they went into hiding with the use of the Fidelius Charm. He ended up betraying the Potter family."

Quinn stared straight into Harry's as he revealed the hidden facts.

"He personally led the Dark Lord to the Potter residence that was the Secret-Keeper to, and that day the Potters lost Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. That was the day when you got the scar, and the Dark Lord was defeated. He also killed twelve non-magicals in an attempt to escape the Aurors."

Quinn went silent after he finished speaking and closed his eyes. He gave Harry time to absorb the information.

Harry Potter was close to his father, James Potter, and his godfather, Sirius Black. And to them, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter had been an extremely influential part of their lives.

For James Potter, they had been his parents, the ones who had given birth to him and raised him to be the man he was today. He had had an excellent relationship with his parents, who loved him very much, and he loved them back with all his heart. Before he got married and started his own family, his parents had been his only family.

For Sirius Black, they were the parental figure he never had. The nature of Sirius' relationship with his family during his early childhood was unknown, but at the age of eleven, Sirius earned severe disappointment and disapproval from his family by being sorted into the Gryffindor house. Sirius, in turn, became increasingly rebellious, flaunting his house affiliation and disdain for his family's pure-blood values. When Sirius ran away from home at age sixteen, the Potters took him in and treated him as their own family.

Harry Potter had grown up listening to stories about his paternal grandparents from both his father and godfather. When they talked about their death, he had been told that they had died in the war against Voldemort. But not that they had been killed by Voldemort himself, or that they were there on the day he got his scar.

"... What is the Fidelius Charm, and what do you mean by 'Secret-Keeper'," asked Harry after a long pause and with pain evident in his eyes.

"It's an immensely complex spell which involves the magical concealment of a secret inside a single living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to know; unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge the secret," explained Quinn. "If a dwelling is protected by this spell, it will then become invisible, intangible, unpalatable, and soundproof. An extremely old spell, one of the most ancient there are."

After another pause, Harry asked, "Peter Pettigrew was the Secret-Keeper, and our house was the secret? And he gave the secret away to Voldemort?"

"Yes," said Quinn shortly.

"... Why?" asked Harry, licking his dry lips. "Why was Peter Pettigrew made the Secret-Keeper? Why did my parents trust him so much?" He wanted to know. Harry desperately wanted to know.

"... Mr. Potter, do you know about the Marauder's Map?" asked Quinn, as that was the only thing he could think of to answer that question.

Harry, who was looking down, raised his head to look at Quinn and asked in surprise. "How do you know about that?"

The map was a secret known to him, Ivy, Hermione, Ron, and the Weasley Twins. The Marauders and his mum knew, but he wasn't counting them.

"It is my job to know, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn before giving a short reason. "And I have communications with the Weasley twins."

He omitted the part about Ivy Potter because Harry didn't know about it. And Quinn was okay with it staying that way.

"Mr. Potter, there are four Marauders. You know three of them, and we are talking about the fourth."

Harry's eyes widened to the size of saucers. He didn't know the identity of the fourth because he was told that the fourth Marauder was no longer with them. Harry just assumed that he was dead, and the other three didn't want to talk about it.

"Pettigrew had been trusted, and he broke that trust."

Another long pause ensued as Harry stared in the distance, thinking about what he had just heard. He hadn't even noticed that Quinn had gotten up from his seat, had gone to the workshop, and quickly continued to work on the potion, and came back to take his stool.

"... How do you all know of this?" asked Harry, his eyes focused on Quinn.

"I keep track of general happenings, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn as he took out a sheet of paper and started writing with a fountain pen. "Do you read the newspaper, Mr. Potter?"

"Newspaper? No, why do you ask?" replied Harry and then immediately asked. "Was it printed in the newspaper? Then Ivy or Hermione would've known. Both of them read the newspaper."

Hearing that Harry didn't read the newspaper wasn't surprising. There weren't many preteens, even teens, that thought of picking up a newspaper.

"No, detailed information about Peter Pettigrew isn't published in the Daily Prophet," answered Quinn, continuing to write on the paper from his memory. "The only thing present in the Daily Prophet is that Peter Pettigrew escaped from Azkaban and that he was a heinous Death Eater who killed twelve non-magicals."

"Huh? Are you implying that the Prophet didn't write the entire story?"

"Yes, but not really," said Quinn as he turned the paper he was writing on upside down and capped his pen. He was done writing. "They did write about Peter Pettigrew's entire story, but not this year."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry in confusion.

"When they caught Pettigrew, the newspaper covered his story, but not to the sufficient extent," Quinn pointed at Harry as he continued, "Their main story at the time was about how you, the Boy-Who-Lived, vanquished the Dark Lord. No one was actually paying attention to Peter Pettigrew."

"Wizarding Britain was in an after-war celebration, and no one really cared about Peter Pettigrew. Unlike the inner circle Death Eaters, he wasn't from an influential background or famous in any way. Those days, the Daily Prophet, which was the mainstream media, had been suffering from the oppression of the Dark Lord's regime. They found themselves free and wrote about the most famous of the Death Eaters. The unknown Peter Pettigrew slipped away from the public eye. Of course, many people knew about him killing 12 muggles. The papers had covered that when they wrote about his trial, but that wasn't nearly enough to trump what the others were being charged."

"Peter Pettigrew's contributions and deeds went unnoticed at that time because the media focused on the inner circle of Death Eaters. Of course, that doesn't mean that what he did wasn't published, just, it wasn't visible enough to anyone who wasn't particularly looking for it."

Quinn stopped talking for a second before continuing,

"It has been over a decade since the end of the war. A decade is a long time. It isn't weird that people have forgotten about Peter Pettigrew. Even though he played an important part in the course of events, it was never brought to light."

"But why didn't they write about it now?!" asked Harry, baffled. Pettigrew might not have been well known back then, but he was now. "Pettigrew is the first to ever successfully break out of Azkaban, a momentous event. That is a huge deal! Why didn't they write about him now?"

"The answer is easy, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn with ease and flow. "Censorship is the cause why Peter Pettigrew's deeds haven't been brought to light."

Quinn didn't give Harry a chance to respond with a question, as he continued.

"As you know, there is a new radical group active. The Novellus Accionites, who support the Dark Lord's ideology and work in his name. The ministry has tried to downplay the Novellus Accionites activities because of their ideology. They don't want the public to think of this group as the new Death Eaters. So what do you think will happen when they find that the person betrayed the Potters to lead the Dark Lord to the Boy-Who-Lived escaped Azkaban at the same time a group is flouting the Dark Lord's name?"

"... Everybody would think that Novellus Accionites are the Death Eaters as they would think that Pettigrew started the group? Is this why?" answered Harry after some consideration.

"Correct, Mr. Potter. The ministry is actively trying to suppress anything related to the Dark Lord. Recently they have started arresting the Accionites and putting their members on trial. The ministry really wants this to be over. Hence, they are keeping a tight leash on what is written about Peter Pettigrew. It helps that he hasn't made any appearances and has completely disappeared after his escape."

"How do you know all of this?" asked Harry after Quinn finished speaking. From where he sat, Quinn looked like an expert on this topic. "You said that people don't know much about Pettigrew, so how do you know so much about him?"

Quinn smiled peacefully. He then answered the question.

"I said that people who weren't looking for what happened wouldn't be able to find the truth. However, Mr. Potter, I was looking for the truth. I've actively looked for the story behind Peter Pettigrew. I wanted to know about the first man that broke out of Azkaban, which led me to all kinds of information. Everything is out there; you just need for someone good to go looking," Quinn then pointed around the room as he continued. "And, as you know, it is my job to know about things. I wouldn't be able to solve problems quickly if I didn't know enough."

Quinn had been surprised when Harry asked about Peter Pettigrew, even though Quinn hadn't been surprised that Harry came to him.

A.I.D. had a reputation that had been built upon real results. Quinn had a very high completion rate that spoke for itself. So Quinn didn't think of it as anything other than obvious that if a Hogwarts student wanted to know something, they would come to him for answers. As such, Harry Potter coming to him wouldn't be something difficult to imagine.

"There is an archive of old Daily Prophet and other newspapers in the library. I just went there and spent some time finding information about Pettigrew. No matter how close-knit the Order of Phoenix was, people talked, and at that time, lots of people had been interested in listening to what was said. I found about the Fidelius Charm from a niche monthly magazine that discussed interesting magic, and there was an issue where they talked about nothing else other than that charm because of its involvement with you."

"... I see," spoke Harry, taking a breath before looking at Quinn and saying, "I don't want anyone to know that I was here. Especially my mum. She mustn't know that I know about Pettigrew. I need time to take things in."

"That's fine, Mr. Potter. I don't want anyone to know that I'm the one who told you this. If you reveal what I told you this to anyone, then I'll say that you found it on your own," said Quinn as he slid the paper he was writing on towards Harry. "These are the names of the newspapers and magazines I went looking into with the edition number and date."

Quinn also passed Harry an inkpot and a parchment, "Copy everything down on that paper to this parchment in your handwriting. I will burn that paper after you're done."

Harry and Quinn had the same wish, and that was to not let anybody know about their involvement, they smoothly reached an agreement.

"... What do I need to pay for this and the information," said Harry pointing at the thin roll of parchment.

"Oh, nothing, you don't need to pay me anything. Just, as I helped you out, help me out if I ever ask," replied Quinn, trying to establish a connection with the Golden Boy, a golden opportunity.

"Alright. I'll help you out," said Harry as he stared at the parchment in his hands. His mind was too preoccupied to think about Quinn's words and readily agreed to what sounded to him like a fair deal.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Potter," said Quinn as he walked to the door while Harry exited.

Harry briefly looked up from the parchment and nodded. When the door closed, Harry once again looked up at the closed door. When he had entered the room, Harry had two things he wanted to ask, but in the end, the first topic had turned out to be too much for him.

'I'll ask him some other day,' thought Harry as he walked away. 'Maybe she will tell me before that day comes.'

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC - Had a memorable customer.

Harry Potter - Client - Can't say that he left happier than when he entered.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

[

Webnovel has been 'shadowbanning' comments recently. This means that any comment that contains profanities in any form, will be automatically deleted.

So, if you are commenting with curses and profanities, censor a single letter or get creative.

]

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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

After his talk with Harry, Quinn went back to study the butchered-up Braid Wiggle. He was wearing a fresh pair of white cloth gloves and used his magic to separate the guts, but then stopped even before his fresh gloves were stained with blood or bodily fluids.

He once again cast the tender green pyramid-shaped short-term preservation field before taking a seat. He thought about the conversation.

"That was unexpected," sighed Quinn.

Quinn still thought that the A.I.D. had developed into a place where students would bring their problems more than they brought to the professors. But he never would think that Harry Potter would come to him, given his close connection to the professors.

Remus Lupin, Rubeus Hagrid, and Albus Dumbledore were part of the Order of Phoenix in the First Wizarding War, and Harry had grown up with plenty of contact with the above members. Lily Potter, his own mother, was a professor and another viable option. Even though Minerva McGonagall wasn't part of the Order of Phoenix, she was Gryffindor's Head of House and had good relations with Harry's parents.

Ivy's case was different from Harry's, and her interactions with Quinn had started with purely academic purposes. But because of several series of events, their interactions had increased beyond that point. If those events hadn't taken place, Quinn imagined that his interactions with Ivy would have been limited to the annual purchase of study notes.

"I wonder how he will proceed with the knowledge he has now," wondered Quinn as he tapped his finger on the tabletop.

Quinn had read Harry's thoughts when he was exiting the room, and in those thoughts, he had seen impulses of confronting his mother, but from where Quinn was reading, they weren't strong enough for Harry to react on.

"He would definitely share the new information with his sister. That one is inevitable. The first thought in his mind was to share that information with her," murmured Quinn as he continued to tap on the table. "At least he has no intention of telling her the source of information. Let's just hope he does his due diligence before talking to anyone about it."

"I'm really looking forward to seeing how this entire thing turns out," smiled Quinn. He then thought about asking some people some sleeper-favors inside Gryffindor.

.

- (Scene Break) -..

Quinn took a deep breath in Hogsmeade. "The air's free of something and with that..." Quinn took another deep breath with a smile on his face.

"... What?" uttered Eddie, a confused furrow in his brow.

"Ignore him," said Marcus, eying Quinn, who had a confident expression on his face. "He started intending to say something cool and wise sounding but very quickly realized that he doesn't have anything fitting to say." Marcus sharply pointed at Quinn and continued, "Look at him. Always plastering that confident look on his face, expecting us to buy it, which is complete bullcrap."

Quinn clicked his tongue as he gave Marcus a side look, "You're getting too smart for your own good."

"Nope, we are spending too much time with you," Marcus shook his head as he responded.

Quinn queried a brow as he said, "So you're saying that my presence is making you smarter. Huh, never thought it like that. That is good to hear." A soft yet wide smile made its way to Quinn's face as if he was feeling fulfilled after doing a good deed.

"No! That isn't what I mean-," rebuked Marcus but stopped and sighed, shaking his head, "You know what, leave it." Marcus narrowed his eyes at Quinn and complained, "You know how annoying it is when you lead the conversations that way. Don't do that."

Eddie chuckled at the side as the three amigos moved across the streets of Hogsmeade.

"What are we going to do today?" asked Marcus as he and Eddie followed Quinn.

"I have got to pick something from Scrivenshaft's. Then we'll have fun," answered Quinn as he led the group towards the West family-owned business.

He had gotten a MagiFax message from home in which it said that there was a package for him at the shop and that he should pick it up today. When he wrote back for more details, all he got back was that it was a surprise.

'They could've just shrunk it and sent it to me via an owl,' thought Quinn, and that made him wonder what was it about the package that it couldn't be sent directly to him.

Eddie and Marcus looked at each other and shrugged. They knew that Quinn's family owned the Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop in Hogsmeade. Quinn never talked about his family, so they didn't know much about it. Both of them knew that Quinn's family was loaded, but neither of them knew about the true extent of Quinn's family wealth.

Quinn, Eddie, and Marcus entered the door as the door chime above the door rang to announce their entry. There were a substantial number of customers inside the store, which were mostly students browsing through school supplies.

"Good morning, Gary," greeted Quinn as he walked towards the counter.

At once, he saw something different in the shop manager of Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop.

Whenever Quinn saw the lanky man he would dress casually and, most of the time, he would have a work apron on and would've ink stains all over his fingers and clothes, uncombed clothes, and overall, no personal grooming. But today, Gary was wearing a pressed checkered shirt and a new set of pants with no ink stain on any part of his body. He also had very neatly combed his hair, clean shaved, and had cleaned up quite well.

"... Gary, you look great. What's up," asked Quinn, smiling at the man he met whenever he came out to Hogsmeade.

"Good morning, Mr. West," greeted Gary nervously, trying to do a proper greeting, fumbling as he tried.

'Okay, something is wrong,' thought Quinn as Gary didn't call him, 'Mr. West.' Quinn had asked Gary to call him by his first name, so the sudden name change was suspicious.

"... Gary, you are acting weird. What is wrong? Tell me, and I'll solve it," said Quinn, trying to reassure his acquaintance. Also, he was part of the family business, so if Gary had a problem, Quinn would try to make it disappear.

"Nothing is wrong with me. The package is waiting for you in the back room," replied Gary stiffly, clearly looking nervous and anxious.

"... I see," said Quinn and glanced at the door that led to the backroom. He turned to look at Eddie and Marcus and said, "... You guys wait. I will be back."

He glanced at Gary as he walked to the back door, and he could see that sweat was beading on Gary's forehead.

Just behind the door was the staircase that went up to the second floor. Quinn climbed the steps; with each step, the stair beneath him would creak because of his weight.

There was a single corridor on the second floor, and on that corridor were three rooms: two on the sides and one straight ahead. The two rooms at the sides of the corridor were storage rooms filled with shop merchandise and raw materials.

Quinn stared at the white door straight ahead. He had been into the room before. And that was why Gary hadn't specified the room and had just said the backroom. It was the door to the same room in which Quinn had told his secrets to his grandfather, George West.

Quinn opened the door and entered the room. He already knew what was waiting for him inside.

In the room, which had been completely fixed from the last time Quinn's magic had gone ham on it, sat a woman in front of a table, looking over some books. She had been peacefully reading and looked up from the books, which looked like ledges.

"Oh, you're here. Good morning, Quinn," greeted the woman when she looked at Quinn.

"What the hell, Lia. You could've just told me you were coming. For a second, I thought I was going to get jumped and get kidnapped," sighed Quinn as he closed the door and walked towards.

The woman, Lia West, Quinn's sister, smiled as she got up from her chair, walked towards Quinn, and hugged him.

"It is called a surprise, dummy," said Lia as she broke the hug. "Aren't you surprised?" There was a mischievous look in her eyes and a playful smile on her face.

"Of course, I am surprised! If I didn't peek into Gary's mind, I would've bombarded this room with spells," said exasperatedly Quinn. He had used a light Legilimency probe on the shop manager's mind and extracted Lia's face and name in the few seconds Quinn maintained the probe. He sighed as he then asked, "What did you do to Gary? He was all jittery and stiff in his shoes. I haven't seen him dressed properly before this."

"Hmm? I didn't do anything to him. I just asked him to bring me the shop account books. I thought I would audit them as I pass the time while waiting for you. And for his clothes, I am not sure how he usually dresses; this is my first time visiting this particular shop," answered Lia as she and Quinn sat down.

"I see; he was getting audited. That is why he addressed me by our family name," sighed Quinn and reached for a biscuit from a platter on the side of the table.

"I didn't say anything to him. And his accounts are all fine. I can't see any discrepancies, and the shop is pulling good profits. He shouldn't be nervous if he knows that his shop is working properly," talked Lia as she studied her brother.

"Anyone would be nervous if the owner popped one day and asked for the ledger," said Quinn as he cleaned his hands with magic. "So why are you here?"

"Isn't that obvious, dumb baby brother of mine? I'm here to see you. I was in the country, and I was talking to grandfather one day when he mentioned you had —what is it called, oh, yeah— Hogsmeade weekend, so I decided to visit."

Quinn sighed once more before another smile made its way to his face. He was happy to see Lia while at school.

"How have you been?" he asked while observing Lia. As he was studying Healing, Quinn's eyes automatically looked for signs about her health. He didn't use magic, but he could tell that she was healthy.

"I'm great. I went to Peru for a week with my friends," started Lia, telling Quinn about her vacation.

"Oh, did you? How was it?" asked Quinn. He was interested because he hadn't been to Peru while traveling.

"It's a beautiful country. We had lots of fun. I brought you some souvenirs. They are at home."

"Bought a company in Thailand," informed Lia with a proud smile on her face.

"Wait, did we have holdings in Thailand?"

"No, we didn't. This is the first one, and I took care of all of it. Grandfather handed me the project. It will be my biggest project to date. I have already submitted a ten-year development plan for Thailand."

"Congratulations!" cheered Quinn, happy for a clearly prominent occasion for Lia's career.

"Thanks! What else I did, hmm," thought Lia with a finger on her chin before her eyes sparkled and she spoke with a brag in her tone, "I entered a flying-horse tourney in Greece and won the entire event."

"Seriously! Woah, that is awesome! Did you get a trophy?" asked Quinn, clearly impressed by this event.

"I did. It's at home."

"What else did you do?"

"Oh, this one is my favorite. Listen to this. I found an old Oakshift 79 broomstick, but not any Oakshift 79, no, it was Jocunda Sykes's Oakshift 79 that she used for the first-ever flight across the Atlantic."

Jocunda Sykes was a woman who was famous for flying across the Atlantic Ocean - the first magical to do so. The broomstick that she used for the historical event would be absolutely priceless.

"No way! How did you manage that? Where is it? Is it also at home?" exclaimed Quinn.

"At home, no. I sold it," smiled Lia.

"Huh?" blinked Quinn, confused by the sudden reversal. "Why would you do that?! That thing is really priceless."

"I found two bottles of Dagueneau Seibel," Lia said as a very wide smirk made its way towards her face.

"... no, you didn't," said Quinn with a face full of disbelief. "From 1905? Are they from 1905?"

"Yes, the 1905 Dagueneau Seibel," nodded Lia smugly. "And I found two of those. I traded the broom for two of those bottles. The guy I traded was a big broom collector, and he didn't even blink when I put down the offer." She raised her hand and showed two fingers. "TWO! I found two. Haha!"

Dagueneau Seibel was a type of magical wine enjoyed by people who liked to indulge in wine. And Dagueneau Seibel, 1905 was an edition of Dagueneau Seibel, coveted by wine collectors. An edition that, with time, had become increasingly difficult to procure. Dagueneau Seibel, 1905, had become a collector and wine lover's dream.

But the reason Quinn and Lia were so animated about this wine was that their grandfather, George West, loved this wine. George only ever had a tasting pour of said wine; a tasting pour was half a regular serving. And after that single pour, George West had proclaimed that Dagueneau Seibel, 1905, was the best wine he ever had.

After that day, George tried to buy a bottle of Dagueneau Seibel, 1905, but was unsuccessful in acquiring a bottle because it had become increasingly rare, and no collector was willing to part from their bottles.

Another reason that this wine held a special place in George's heart was because the wine was as old as him. George West was born in 1905, and so was Dagueneau Seibel, 1905.

"It seems this year I will be winning the birthday gift contest as well," smirked Lia smugly. If you asked Quinn, she was too damn smugly.

Every year, both siblings would compete on who could get a better gift for their grandfather, and even though both George never told them whose gift he liked more, both grandchildren compared gifts and decided who got the better gift.

In that competition, Lia, who literally traveled almost all the time, got gifts from around the world and had the edge over Quinn, whereas Quinn's reach was limited. But Quinn didn't give up. Even if he couldn't find exotic items like Lia, Quinn explored the non-magical and found items that would be unfamiliar yet interesting items that would work inside a magical home.

But Dagueneau Seibel, 1905 was just another level. This was something that Quinn couldn't top. Even if he found something amazingly interesting, there wasn't anything George had tried so hard to find.

"This year, I'm going to make grandfather say that he likes my gift," smirked Lia as she giggled at the defeated sight of her brother. "Oh Quinn, you won't be beating me this year."

Quinn groaned because things weren't looking good. This competition was an annual affair that both he and Lia took seriously. And neither of the siblings liked to lose.

"You, you, came here to rub this in my face, didn't you?"

Lia laughed louder and nodded,

"... Yeah. I was so excited today. And I am not disappointed. This feels good~."

"Dammit! I will remember this humiliation," grumbled Quinn as he put his head in his hands. "I'm going to destroy you next year. I am going to utterly leave you in the dust."

"Yeah, we will see about that, you squirt," scoffed Lia, smugness oozing out of her.

After the West siblings got back to normal from their competition crazy state, Quinn suddenly stood up and exclaimed, "Oh, I forgot!" He looked at Lia and said, "You wait here. I will be right back."

Lia watched as Quinn ran out of the room, and she waited for around two minutes before Quinn returned. Quinn wasn't alone when he returned and had two other people in tow.

"Lia, meet my friends and roommates; Eddie Carmichael and Marcus Belby," introduced Quinn as he presented his two best friends to his sister. He turned to Eddie and Marcus and introduced the other way, "Eddie, Marcus, this is my older sister, Lia West."

Eddie and Marcus, who were shocked, stood still as they stared at Lia.

When Quinn had come running to them in the store to find them, all Quinn had said was that he wanted to show them something. He didn't tell them what he wanted to show. He just hurried them to follow him; he practically dragged them to the room.

So when the two entered the room, they had no idea that they would come across a stunningly beautiful woman. The two froze in their spots as heat rushed to their faces as they stared at the woman who was just introduced to them as Quinn's sister, Lia.

"Hello, it is nice to meet you two. I have heard a lot about you two," smiled Lia brightly as she stood up and from her chair. "Thank you for taking care of my troublesome baby brother."

"N-No, it is fine."

"Ah, h-he isn't trouble."

Eddie and Marcus stuttered as they replied to Lia. The two couldn't look away from Lia, partially because she was just too pretty, but primarily because the thought of looking away wasn't anywhere in their adolescent heads.

Quinn smiled widely because Lia always teased him by saying that Eddie and Marcus weren't real and that Quinn had made them up because he didn't have any male friends.

"Take that. They are real," humped Quinn at Lia before looking at Eddie and Marcus. He had to do a double-take when he saw the slightly open jaws of his friends.

"... Seriously," said Quinn in disbelief before sending harsh pinching hexes towards both of them.

Both Eddie and Marcus felt excruciating pinching pain on the sides of their waist as they squealed and snapped out of their dazed state. The two realized what they were doing, and their cheeks burned up for different reasons as they turned their faces towards Quinn, who was making an expression that promised pain afterward.

"Hello, I'm Marcus. Nice to meet you. We didn't know that Quinn had a sister. This is surprising," said Marcus, turning his attention to Lia and this time talking to her properly. He still found Lia very beautiful, but that feeling was overridden by the death stare from the guy who slept in the same room as him for most of the year.

Lia turned towards Quinn and pouted, "You don't talk about me?"

"Don't start," sighed Quinn, shaking his head.

Eddie and Marcus talked to Lia for a short while before leaving the West siblings alone to catch up.

Lia and Quinn remained in the room, talking, trading stories. Lia told him about the places she went, the people she met, the things she had experienced. Quinn would talk about the magics he learned, the students he had had contact with and fun tidbits about his school life. The two siblings talked for an hour or so before Lia had to leave.

"Do you have to leave so soon?" asked Quinn. He wanted to hear more from Lia. It was nice to see a family member after so many days, and the short time together felt that it wasn't enough.

"I have to. I have a portkey arranged for travel. I would have stayed longer, but the Thailand ministry requires that the people entering the country come at a time they specify. As such, I need to leave now to prepare for the trip."

"I see," nodded Quinn before his eyes shined, and he spoke, "Buy me books related to body magic. Thailand has a rich culture of body magic, and I would like to enrich myself with it. The books I have aren't that advanced, and I would like to have more information with me."

One of the reasons why Quinn practiced Muay Thai —which wasn't widespread in Britain— instead of Kick Boxing, was because the few books that Quinn had on Body magic referenced the use of Muay Thai for developing a base physique before starting learning Body magic.

Quinn had been slowly and consistently building his body by exercising every day because he wanted to study Body Magic one day. So when Lia mentioned Thailand, he immediately thought of getting more books, and Lia going to Thailand was perfect.

"Alright, I will hire a local who knows about Body Magic to pick out a selection," nodded Lia.

"I want everything on the subjects, so instruct the one you hire to get books that have extensive knowledge. I don't want books that describe things easily. I want the real deal that goes into depth."

Lia ruffled Quinn's hair and said, "I know, I know, you don't have to repeat it every time I go abroad. I already know what kinds of books you want."

"Then don't try to filter the books you hand to me. I want every one of them. Don't take out books you think are dangerous," said Quinn as he narrowed his eyes on his sister.

"I did that one time! Sorry for being a good sister and looking out for her brother," humped Lia and ruffled Quinn's rougher than before.

"If I don't say it every time, you'll do it again," retorted Quinn and removed Lia's hand from his head.

"See you later, alright?" said Lia. The two stood near the floo-fireplace inside the shop.

"Yeah, see you later," replied Quinn and watched Lia as she threw in the floo-powder and vanished inside the green flames.

Quinn looked behind to see Gary almost lying on his chair. The man looked like he had the most tiring day of his life.

"Don't worry, Lia said that your accounts are fine, and she was satisfied with the way you run the shop," said Quinn, giving Gary the good news to relieve him of his worries. "You don't have to worry about anything."

"Really?" asked Gary feebly but with hope.

"Yeah."

"... I want to close the shop early today."

"Of course."

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- (Scene Break) -

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The same day, Quinn was back in his dorm room reading a book on 'spell damage to muscles' when Eddie suddenly sat on his bed with a jump.

"You know I don't like people on my bed," said Quinn without looking up from his book.

"Do you have any other siblings," asked Eddie, not getting up from Quinn's bed. "Maybe a twin sister or someone near our age."

Quinn abruptly looked up from his book and spat, "Do you want me to beat you up?"

"... No."

"Then sod off from my bed."

Eddie got up from his bed, and as he did that, he heard Quinn speak up.

"We'll be waking up an hour early tomorrow. We're going to have an intense workout session. It will be fun."

"Come on! Not fair! I just asked a question!" whined Eddie and groaned.

"Yeah, whatever. Go to sleep. You have a busy day tomorrow."

Eddie walked to his bed with slumped shoulders, but before climbing up his bed, he spoke,

"... You didn't tell me if you have another sister."

Quinn closed his book with a snap and got up from his bed, "I'm going to beat you up."

"Wait, wait, wait! I was just kidding! Wait... Ouch! Aaah! Stop, no, not the nut tap! F*k!..."

Marcus, who stepped out of the bathroom, looked at his two friends as Quinn was trapping Eddie into a head leglock.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - I will win next year.

Lia West - Big sis - Haha, I am the winner!

Gary - Shop Manager - Had a stressful day - Want a drink and then go to sleep.

Eddie Carmichael - His horniness doomed him - Stop! Aaah! I am sorry!

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn looked down into the 'well' known as Hadal Encumbrance. It was definitely of the most intriguing concepts Quinn had seen, and only by researching the subject he had realized why it was called as such.

'Hadal', from the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. The underworld, which was the realm of Hades, was under the ground. Similarly, it would be the aquatic world that resided below the 'ground level.'

The Hadal Encumbrance represented the ocean depths in its deepest regions, where oceanic trenches lay. A place where humans couldn't survive and only those species evolved to withstand the harsh conditions would tread the waters where the warmth and light of the sun didn't reach.

"It is interesting how the creator was able to emulate the water pressure at ocean depths," noted Quinn as he stared down the well, and he could see the extraordinarily still water, remembering the pressure that would assault as he went down.

One of the simplest definitions of pressure stated that 'pressure was the force exerted on a body'. The air around the globe had weight, and it pressed against everything it touched. That pressure was called 'atmospheric pressure' or 'air pressure': it was the force exerted on a surface by the air above it as gravity pulled it to the Earth.

The oceans were deep. If one was to shave off all the continents and fill the trenches in the oceans with the ground from the continents, the entire globe would be covered with water about 2 miles in depth.

And within those depths was the world of pressure.

When one was in contact with air, a body would feel the pressure from the air, and it was dubbed air pressure. Similarly, when in contact with water, a body would feel the pressure from water and had the name hydrostatic pressure, or water pressure.

But the main difference between air and water pressure was that air was 830 times less dense than water. Meaning that water pressure was much higher than air pressure.

As one went down into a sea or an ocean, more water would get piled up on top and thus increase the weight of water above and thus increase the pressure on the body.

"Here, the water pressure increases much quicker than natural aquatic depth," said Quinn as he sat by the ledge with his chin resting on the palm. "I guess this would be difficult for some people."

Quinn had gone through two trials: Poseidon's Wrath and Tehom's Delight. And in those trials, Quinn had struggled a lot.

"Poseidon's Wrath required fine control over magic to get to the center. Without fine control, I would've stuck there without any progress."

"Tehom's Delight required ingenuity or maybe luck. Without the Ripple sonar, I probably would've found the entrance, but it would've been completely up to luck."

He continued to stare down the well and recited his thoughts about what was required by this trial.

"Hadal Encumbrance simply requires power. Pure magical force to overcome, oppose and repel the emulated oceanic pressure. I guess this trial is compatible with me."

Quinn had magical power in abundance. He had deep magic reserves that had been built through the daily exhaustion of his magic. Ever since Quinn was five, Quinn had used all of his magic every day. The only exception to that rule was the time he didn't have any control over his magic.

That had given Quinn deep reserves of magic that were perfect for Hadal Encumbrance. He just needed to optimize his magic usage against the pressure and pour his vast reserves into the magic till he reached the bottom.

So unlike the first two trials, Quinn was having a breezy time in going through Hadal Encumbrance.

"Alright, let's see if I can break my high score," said Quinn and dove into the well of water with accelerated water pressure increase.

With his body facing downward and aligning his entire body horizontally with the surface of the water/floor of the well, he sank down. The purpose of this posture was to decrease his surface area vertically.

The pressure in the vertical water column changed very quickly, meaning that the pressure at his head would be significantly less than that at his feet. So to get a uniform pressure all over his body, he distributed his body surface area horizontally. That way, his body mostly would have a uniform pressure.

As Quinn sank down, a cylindrical area constructed with water magic manifested around Quinn. The pressure inside the cylinder was normalized to the level of surface-level pressure.

In no time, Quinn reached fifty percent of the total depth without feeling any difficulty at all. The difficulty to keep the pressure normalized came when he hit sixty percent depth.

'I wonder if the pressure here is because of gravity manipulation or it is simply water magic that is pulling down the water.'

Quinn realized that the entire Aquatic Vault was based around water concepts. The instructions in the stone cave explicitly talked about Laws, but that didn't mean that the trials were created via water magic.

In Poseidon's Wrath, the vortex had been definitely created through water magic. But the vast array of conjuration and charm disablers weren't part of water magic.

The sheer calmness of the water that even weakened Quinn's Ripple Sonar was definitely achieved by water magic in Tehom's Delight. But Quinn realized that the extensive sensory deprivation didn't have anything to do with water magic. The zero ambient noise could have been achieved through a sound-dampening magic application. That state where the light was getting blocked could have been light magic weaved into the water and not an application of water magic.

And just like that, the accelerated gradient pressure increase might have been accomplished by other magic and not water magic.

But one thing Quinn was sure of was that if he was to complete the vault, he would need to use water magic to get past every trial.

Not because the trials were closely related to water; sure, that was a part of it, but the real reason was that Quinn constantly used water magic as he thought using water magic made his job easier.

It was clear that everything was related to water. From that, it could be inferred that the vault wanted Quinn to use water magic. And if he was to use water magic, then his journey would be a whole lot easier.

Sure, inside Poseidon's Wrath, Quinn could have extensively studied conjuration magic and try different spell designs till he got a hit that wasn't covered by the wards. Or he could design a new type of broom that didn't use the traditional broom charms and reinvent the wheel.

But all of those required much more thinking and effort on Quinn's part just to make the end result easier. If he had something that would allow him to fly over the vortex into the center, he wouldn't have to struggle against the raging water, but at what cost? How much time and research would it take him to accomplish that?

And when Quinn did create something like that, would he start the next trial? Would the broom that worked in Poseidon's Trial be helpful in Tehom's Delight? No, it wouldn't be helpful.

What would be effective was the knowledge and experience of water magic that he practiced and researched to get past one trial.

That is why Quinn didn't try to find 'unique' methods outside of water magic to solve the trials.

Because Quinn knew that if he stuck with water magic, then it would make his job much smoother.

And the results were showing right now.

Quinn had plenty of magic to expend from his reserves. What he needed was simply to change how he was directing his magic. Poseidon's Wrath had driven him to gain fine control over water magic so that he wouldn't be blasted every time he tried to water magic, and that was working now when extreme pressures were bearing down on him.

「90%」

The water magic cylinder's surface thrummed with erratic ripples. A humongous pressure was being normalized by using water magic as Quinn applied an equal and opposite force.

'Just a little more, and I will pass this trial without much problems or injuries.'

Quinn dipped further down and reached 92% percent but stopped because the pressure inside his normalized cylinder suddenly increased, and Quinn could feel the pressure against his bones.

'Some pressure is leaking through. This is the limit for now.'

Quinn retreated by a percent and stayed at 91%, and carefully tried to figure out how to normalize the pressure back to the surface level. He was extremely careful because one mistake and the pressure would bear down on him, and his muscles wouldn't contract, which would seal away his movement capabilities— while the water inside his lung cavity with lower internal pressure would be pushed out, and he wouldn't be able to breathe.

In the water column, Quinn swam alone inside the dangerous waters while trying to figure out how powerful the deep oceanic waters were.

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- (Scenes Break) -

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"It doesn't work that way," sighed Marcus as he sat in the Ravenclaw common room in front of a chessboard. "The knight only moves two squares vertically and one square horizontally, or two squares horizontally and one square vertically."

"But why? The horsie should be able to charge straight ahead," spoke Luna as she stared at the knight chess piece on the wizarding chessboard. "I have seen them. They are fast, you know?"

Wizard's Chess was the magical variant of the classic board game Chess, in which the pieces were enchanted to move of their own accord when commanded by the player. The moving chess pieces were reasonably sentient and could offer advice to the players who weren't good or experienced at the game.

The white knight piece on the board turned its head towards and looked towards its commander. The animated knight chess piece wasn't sure how to proceed. The chess piece wasn't sure how to react to this situation. The magic that made it animated didn't cover what to do when the commander wanted the 'horsie' to charge forward.

It looked at his white companions as if to ask what to do, but they looked as confused as it was and shrugged towards the white knight. The black chess pieces, on the other hand, were laughing hysterically. And that made the white pieces feel embarrassed.

Marcus turned his face towards Quinn, who was on the floor and sitting in the lotus position. He had his eyes closed, with his hand resting on his lap. "Quinn, explain to her that the knight piece can't move straight ahead."

Luna also turned towards Quinn. "Quinn, why didn't you make the horsie move forward. Why can it only move one way?"

Quinn, who was in his mindscape sorting and strengthening his memories using occlumency, opened his eyes and looked at his two friends.

Marcus was trying to teach Luna how to play Chess on the wizarding chessboard that Quinn had made for Marcus as a birthday present. The board and pieces could change colors and shapes.

The chessboard was a box with a grid on the top, and within the chessboard were number dials that could be used to alter the animation used by chess pieces to destroy each other when eliminating other chess pieces.

He had also crammed a copious amount of chess strategies inside the Chess set to advise inexperienced players. Quinn had ordered tons of Chess books from both the non-magical and magical worlds because both worlds had different chess strategies and philosophies. Using that data, Quinn had given his Chess set a more diverse recommendation/advice system than any other Chess set on the market.

It was an elaborate set with extensive charm work that Quinn had devoted time to create for his friend's birthday. But it seemed that even he had failed to take Luna Lovegood into consideration.

Quinn turned to look at the white chess pieces, who were holding his head while trying to think what it should do. Then he looked at Luna and gave an explanation.

"Luna, you see, the horse can charge straight ahead. But the knight on the horse doesn't want to move straight ahead; it only wants the horse to move a certain way. The horse belongs to the knight, so the horse will only listen to the knight. There is nothing we can do."

Luna furrowed her brows and turned to stare at four knights on the chessboard, who stared back while stroking the back of their horses, making them neigh and nicer.

"I see. If that is the case, then that's fine," shrugged Luna, as she accepted Quinn's reason quite easily. She stood up and spoke to Marcus. "I'm parched. I'm going for water; do you two want anything?"

Marcus politely refused while Quinn, who had once again closed his eyes, silently shook his head.

When Luna went away, Marcus turned to Quinn and asked. "What are you going to do when she finds a Chess set with only a horse as a knight piece?"

"Let's worry about that when the time comes," replied Quinn without opening his eyes.

Marcus sighed before flipping a switch on the side of the chessboard that made the chess pieces stick to the grid so that when the box opened, they wouldn't fall off. He looked at the array of dials and switches that customized the playing experience and turned off the destruction feature when attacked.

He didn't want to answer Luna's questions —which were full of curiosity— on why the chess pieces were acting mean to each other.

Quinn, who had his eyes closed, smiled very softly at the sight of his friends getting along.

Marcus was the one to invite Luna to play Chess when he saw her sitting by Quinn's side, drawing random scribbles. And Luna had accepted the offer with enthusiasm and without doubt or skepticism.

It had taken a lot of time for Marcus and Eddie to warm up to Luna because of her eccentric personality, and even though Quinn was still the connection between the two parties, the two boys and one girl had become friends.

And Quinn felt happy because of that.

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- (Scene Break) -

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After learning the whereabouts of the Potter family from Pettigrew, Voldemort traveled to Godric's Hollow on the fateful night of October 31, 1981. After breaking the protections on the house, Voldemort was able to enter the residence and blasted the front door open, catching its inhabitants off-guard.

Fleamont Potter, who had left his wand on the sofa, was murdered quickly trying to defend his wife and grandchildren. After Voldemort killed Fleamont Potter, he preceded to go up-stairs to Harry's and Ivy's nursery, where the grandmother and the twins were trapped inside.

Cornered in the nursery, Euphemia Potter was murdered after trying to oppose Voldemort and defend her grandchildren, the green light from this act actually lighting up the entire upper floor.

When the Dark Lord then attempted to murder the one prophesied to defeat him, the protection laid down by his grandmother's loving sacrifice caused the Killing Curse to rebound. It destroyed Voldemort's corporeal body but unfortunately also took out a significant chunk of the cottage's upper floor.

Harry was left with nothing but a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, and Ivy miraculously came out unscathed from the incident while Dark Lord Voldemort's powers were temporarily destroyed. Henceforth Harry was known as the "Boy Who Lived" and was marked as Lord Voldemort's equal, thus sealing his fate.

But there was someone else there, who waited outside, and saw the entire upper floor roof blew up.

Peter Pettigrew, who nervously stood outside, was feeling ecstatic on the inside. He was the one who led the Dark Lord to the Potter cottage, and for that, he was going to be rewarded. But then he saw the roof blew up, and immediately Pettigrew knew something was wrong.

The rat Animagus cautiously entered the cottage, and on the ground floor, he saw Fleamont Potter on the ground. But after a short glance, Pettigrew ran up the stairs, and there he saw the dead body of Euphemia Potter and two crying infants.

Pettigrew was stunned out of his mind. He couldn't believe the sight in front of him. He looked at the floor of the bust-up room and saw the unique wand of Dark Lord Voldemort lying down in front of him.

'The Dark Lord is dead. And Lily and James aren't here.' Those thoughts scared the life out of Peter. He had betrayed the Order of Phoenix and 'corrupted to the evil side. That decision was made because Peter thought that he was choosing the winning side.

He had stacked a stable life where he lived comfortably to risk it for a life of luxury and superiority. And the scene he was seeing screamed at him that the dream was over and he had destroyed his life.

As Peter panicked from his innermost being, he heard the sound of Sirius's motorcycle from outside the house, with several pops of apparition following.

'They are here!'

In that moment of trepidation and fright, Peter picked up the wand from the floor, and because of the broken wards, he apparated out from the room itself and faded away from the scene. From there on he started following the events that led him to be captured and imprisoned in Azkaban.

And now, twelve years later, Peter was inside his old house, sold to some old couple, who were dead from killing curse cast from a wand that he had stolen from a chump who had left it on a table of a pub while refilling his drink.

Peter, still as sickly and gaunt as he was when he got out of Azkaban, looked down on the bathroom floor and waved the wand to perform magic: violently, every single tile was pulled out from the floor. The foundation then was butchered by blasting curses until three feet in depth and a wooden chest surface out on the top.

The large chest levitated out of the dirt onto the floor. Two snaps of unlocking, and Peter used his skeleton hands to open the lid to reveal the sole object inside the wooden chest.

"... Here you are," said Peter, his voice wispy and coarse, but his eyes shined with vigor and tinge of mania. Peter picked up the object and stared at it with fascination. "The lord's wand. The symbol of his power."

In his hand was a 13? inches long, crafted from yew, and affixed with a phoenix feather core.

The phoenix feather wand showed its pickiness and didn't react to Peter's touch and magic. In the hand of Wormtail, the yew wand would be the same as a stick.

From his pocket, Peter took out a rat and watched the familiar creature stunned and unconscious. "It is time to bring him back," declared Peter as he clutched the wand in his hand, closed his eyes, and imagined the day he would've his revenge.

After covering up the mess in the bathroom, Peter left his old house and silently yet determinedly looked into a particular direction as a plan formed in his mind.

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Quinn West - MC - The water is always deeper than what it reflects.

Marcus Belby - Likes to play Chess - Owner of the only Chess set crafted by Q. West.

Luna Lovegood - Learning Chess - Likes activities that require more people.

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[A/N: Sorry about the no chapter yesterday. I faced some technical issues and wasn't able to upload. So two today. See ya~!]

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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Marcus Belby was a wizard and a Ravenclaw student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was a year above the famous Harry Potter.

He was from the British Isles and of the magical Belby family. The Belby name wasn't famous in political circles or in the world of business. The place one would recognize the Belby name was in the academic circles.

Two members of the Belby family had substantial contributions to the study of magic.

Flavius Belby had been the first person to come across a Lethifold and survived to tell the tale. In addition, he had been a master in charms and well-versed in the art of Defense Against Dark Arts. And he was the person who discovered the way to chase away Lethifolds, also known as Living Shrouds, a carnivorous and extremely dangerous magical beast. It was also considered a Dark creature because of its extremely aggressive and violent nature.

In a surprise combat against a Lethifold, Flavius had discovered that the Lethifold could be driven away with a Patronus Charm. That day Flavius, while fighting for his life, accomplished a never-before-seen act.

Flavius went on to research his discovery and its credibility and finally gave the world a method to drive away a dangerous creature like Lethifold, a dangerous Dark creature.

His accomplishments were celebrated for centuries after his death and he was immortalized on Chocolate Frog Cards and every Magizoology book that mentioned Lethifolds, credited for his contributions.

The second famous member of the Belby family had an even greater impact than his ancestor. He had won an Order of Merlin, and was a potioneer who single-handedly had changed the lives and fates of people infected by Lycanthropy. A person who had helped people's lives all around the globe and arguably became the most famous potioneer of the 20th century.

Damocles Belby was a famous potioneer credited for the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion, which was his greatest achievement among his other contributions to the field of potions.

Before the Wolfsbane, the unwilling Lycanthropes would rather die than suffer the consequences of losing sanity once every month for the rest of their lives. But after Wolfsbane, there was a beacon of hope in the Lycanthrope community.

Even though the Wolfsbane potion didn't cure Lycanthrope, it was the symbol of progress. It represented faith in magic, that with time, maybe, one day a cure would be found that would rid an unwilling person of the curse of Lycanthropy.

And from that family came Marcus Belby. He was not the brightest tool in the shed but had a passion for learning that landed him in the Ravenclaw house. Whenever people met Marcus, they saw a soft-spoken, shy boy who was polite and curt.

To people with whom Marcus was comfortable, he was a trustworthy friend who was a good listener, a keen observer, and a person who appreciated the little things. When you got him out of his shy shell, he happened to be a person with a bright personality, capable of talking at lengths on the topics he was interested in. And a friend who would be there for you no matter what.

In Hogwarts, Marcus had two close friends, Eddie Carmichael and Quinn West. Eddie and Quinn had extroverted personalities. They were outgoing and socially confident.

And one would think that Marcus would have problems getting along with the two people who had very different personalities than his, but that wasn't the case. He was very comfortable with his roommates.

Marcus, who wasn't comfortable taking the lead on things, was grateful that Eddie and Quinn always knew what to do and would pull him along with them.

It was easier for Marcus to talk to both Eddie and Quinn because he didn't need to initiate conversation, as the two of them would, for most of the time, would have topics and things to talk about. They would keep the conversation going while Marcus silently listened and sometimes chimed in when he wanted to contribute something.

But these days, Marcus found himself alone frequently. Both of his best friends were busy with their own activities.

Quinn West, his raven-haired friend, had always been a busy bee. He would start the day early (before him) and finish his day late (after him). Quinn would be busy during the classes doing the homework given to them; after classes, Quinn would disappear, and no one would know where to find him. In the evening, Quinn would spend his time in the A.I.D office that Quinn had built in his second year, and at night, he would regularly break curfew to do his own things.

The only reliable way to track down Quinn West was to approach him in the Great Hall, during mealtimes, where you would always, without fail, find him eating his food. For some reason, Quinn ate a lot of food for his size, and if he could help it, he would not miss a meal.

Marcus usually hung out with Quinn between classes, mealtimes, and just before sleep time, when Quinn returned after curfew. Or if Quinn didn't decide to disappear.

Then there was his second roommate, Eddie Carmichael, blonde-haired, talkative, loud, competitive, not afraid to say his opinions out loud; the exact opposite to Marcus. And many times, Marcus envied Eddie's personality.

Till last year, Eddie had been 'free' like Marcus and didn't have an 'extra-curricular' activity that required time from him. The two would hang around, spend time together playing gobstones, exploding snaps, Quidditch-catching and any other games they could find to play.

But this year, Eddie had decided to train for the Quidditch tryouts, and for that, he would wake up early and join Quinn for an early morning workout. And after classes, Eddie would do his own personal flying and Quaffle-control training.

Eddie was way less busy than Quinn and had a lot of free time for playing around. And Marcus still spent much more time with Eddie than he did with Quinn. But things had still changed a lot from the last three years.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Sitting in a chair inside the Ravenclaw common room, Marcus looked around the room and roamed his eyes over the room. Most of his fellow Ravenclaw students, both younger and older, were studying alone or in groups either completing their homework, studying in advance for the upcoming class or going through extra recommended material from the exclusive Ravenclaw in-house library with the faculty recommendations, among other things.

He sighed and looked at the busy people around him, and sighed. 'At least they know what they are doing. On the other hand, I...' Another sigh escaped him, and he sunk further into his chair.

A hand suddenly was placed on his shoulder, followed by: "Now, now, don't sigh. At least not a heavy sigh like that one."

Marcus raised his head to see Quinn standing there, smiling. His stone-grey-eyed friend had a barstool in his hand. He then sat in his chair.

As he watched Quinn sitting on a barstool, Marcus thought about how in nearly five years he had known his friend, the number of times he had seen Quinn sitting on a chair with a backrest was frighteningly low. Even when the client chairs in the A.I.D office were chairs with backrests, Quinn always sat behind his desk on a barstool.

Marcus looked at Quinn, who sat with the best posture he had ever seen from anyone he had met. 'Proper as always. Quinn always sits perfectly well, doesn't he?' thought Marcus and put himself back together from his slumped posture in his chair.

"You know what they say, right? A sigh is an amplifier for people who suffer in silence," said Quinn.

That made Marcus tilt his head and ask. "So you don't sigh?"

At that, Quinn laughed and shook his head. "Oh, no, I wish that was true. I sigh a lot, every day." Quinn then sighed, which made point his finger at himself and smile. "See! I just did it."

"Let's not talk about me. Tell me about you," asked Quinn and tapped Marcus's thighs, "Tell me why were you slumped in the chair with that introspective expression that you tend to get on your face when you are overthinking stuff."

'This is it. How does he do it so smoothly?' thought Marcus when he heard Quinn.

Marcus was used to listening to Quinn. He noticed that whenever Quinn wanted the conversation to go his way, he would very smoothly turn the direction of the conversation to his interest.

And right now, he was watching Quinn do it again. But it didn't bring discomfort to his heart to see his friend manipulating the conversation. The reason for that was because Marcus could see the expression on Quinn's face.

Usually, whenever Quinn influenced or manipulated the conversation, he would have a situation-appropriate expression on his face. And the times that Quinn smiled, he would have a calm and restrained smile on his lips. That same smile would slightly change according to the need, and those small changes would change the meaning of the smiles; confident, friendly, dominant, polite, embarrassed, and any other smile that Quinn wanted to portray.

But right now, Quinn didn't have that restrained smile. The smile on his face was wide and joyous, supportive, comforting, bright and free. This was the real deal and not something that was put on just because the situation demanded it.

"... What? why are you looking at me like that?" asked Quinn and touched his face with confusion. "Is there something on my face?" Marcus saw Quinn take out his wand and conjure a mirror to check out his face.

"Why are you smiling? Tell me, is there something wrong with me? Come on, tell me!" stressed Quinn when he looked away from the mirror to Marcus's smiling face.

"It's nothing. I just remembered something funny. There is nothing on your face," chuckled Marcus.

Quinn looked at Marcus with a suspicious face before banishing the mirror. "Now, tell me what had turned you into sad sap," asked Quinn, getting the conversation back on track.

Marcus stared at Quinn for a while before finally opening his mouth to speak. "I was thinking about how both you and Eddie have something you guys do so seriously."

It was clear to Marcus that Quinn loved magic. His friend spent time reading books out of the course material. This wasn't uncommon for a Ravenclaw, but to put it clearly, Marcus would rarely see Quinn read the course material. Most of the time, he would see Quinn reading something that wasn't even close to what was being taught in the school.

Even recently, Marcus had seen Quinn had been going through numerous books on Healing magic and biology. The number of books that changed Quinn's hands had been baffling to Marcus.

Then there was Eddie, who had started playing and practicing Quidditch because he wanted to get a girlfriend. Eddie was a person who got dialed in when motivated, he devoted so much time and effort to Quidditch that if one was told the real reason behind his actions, they wouldn't believe it.

Of course, Marcus and Quinn knew about Eddie's ultra-competitive nature from their early days of friendship. Eddie liked to win and succeed, and when he didn't win, he would get upset, but instead of throwing a tantrum, Eddie would try again to see if he could win.

Quinn and Eddie had been playing the card game Concentration for three years, and despite not winning a single time, Eddie would challenge Quinn regularly. Even after losing for three years, Eddie's competitiveness didn't let him back down.

Eddie was so competitive that he even challenged Quinn at magic. The two would often play the magical game of Tug-of-Accio. In the game, two to more people would simultaneously cast an Accio spell on an object. The objective of the game was to pull the target object towards them. And the one who was able to get the target object near them would win.

Despite knowing that Quinn was better at magic, Eddie would often initiate a game, trying to defeat Quinn at magic, which for obvious reasons never panned out. But that didn't stop Eddie from time and time challenging Quinn. Such was Eddie's personality.

"You have magic. You love it so much, we all knew that just after a few days of our meeting in the first year. The time you put in just shows how much you love it. Even Eddie is dialed in on Quidditch and won't leave his broom in his free time. That always-wants-to-win idiot won't stop till he makes it to the team," sighed Marcus, looking into his lap and whispering in a downtrodden tone. "Only, I have nothing to do. I don't feel passionate about stuff like you guys do. And, well..." he paused because it affected him a lot. "... I feel left out. Like I am wasting my time and that you guys are going to leave me behind."

Marcus looked up from his lap and saw Quinn staring at him with wide eyes. Immediately, Marcus thought he had made Quinn would feel uncomfortable and felt embarrassed because of it.

He was about to speak up, but Quinn interjected. "Marcus, do you remember my sister, Lia? You met her at Hogsmeade, remember?"

Marcus blinked at the question and silently nodded for the reply.

"You see, my sister travels a lot, like, a whole lot. She travels almost the entire year and goes to different parts of the world. One week she would be in Europe and the next week in Australia," spoke Quinn, but Marcus wasn't following where Quinn was going with this. "But you see, my sister doesn't decide where she goes. My grandfather decides where she is deployed, and he still sends her away. He's been doing that for a couple of years. Can you guess why he does that?"

Marcus silently shook his head. He barely knew Quinn's sister; he had no idea what Quinn's grandfather was like.

"My grandfather is trying to make Lia experience new and different things. He keeps sending her to different places to handle business, and while a representative is needed to communicate between countries, there is no need to send Lia as much as he has been sending her."

Quinn beamed as he continued.

"My grandfather knows Lia quite well. He knows that if you give Lia new and exciting things, she will try to find more things about them and see what it's all about. So by sending her to different countries that are different from ours, he stimulates Lia's curiosity by introducing her new experiences."

Marcus listened as Quinn spoke, and he felt like he understood what Quinn was talking about, though it was out of his reach.

"Eddie's character will make him pursue things just because he wants to win, but nobody knows how long he will keep doing things that way. He might get bored and drop them to pursue other interests. You say that you don't have anything you are passionate about. And I will tell you this, neither is Eddie. I think the reason Eddie does all these different things and tries to succeed is that he is trying to find something that clicks with him."

Marcus saw Quinn raise his hand and bring it near him (Marcus) to repeatedly poke his chest.

"The only difference between you and Eddie is that he tries all kinds of things and tries to get better at them. Eddie is trying to find something he enjoys, and he has already found one thing. He enjoys playing games, and that might not be something of importance, but it is still something Eddie clearly enjoys. Marcus, if you want to find something that clicks with you have to do new things."

Quinn then placed his hand on his own chest and continued.

"Yes, I love magic, and that is good for me, hurray! But don't you think I spend too much time on it. Look at the three of us. You and Eddie hang out and have fun while I am alone doing who knows what?"

Pointed out Quinn, and Marcus felt surprised to hear Quinn speak like this.

"I spend so much time on magic that I have barely any time left for other things. I love to play violin and piano, but because I spend so much time in the library in the A.I.D office, and practicing magic, I haven't played my violin for weeks, closer to a month, and that sucks! Then there is the piano which calms me down. And I haven't touched the keys for so long. I can't spend enough time with you guys. I miss so many things that you two do; many times, I don't understand the inside jokes and then realize that I didn't understand them because I missed things, yet again, and that sucks! I know it sucks, and despite that, I don't try to manage my time better."

Marcus felt more and more surprised as Quinn mockingly chuckled at himself.

"You and I aren't that much different, you know? While you haven't tried to explore new things to see what makes you interested, I have wrapped myself in this thing so tightly that I haven't tried something new in a long while and am losing touch with things that I did earlier. Sure, I learn new magics, and it is so much fun for me. And while that might be seen as doing new things, to me personally, it is the same thing: magic is magic no matter what the branch. And my own view is what matters at the end."

Marcus didn't know that Quinn felt like this about himself. The Quinn that Marcus knew was always prepared, confident; a person who commanded any room and company of people he was among. A person who had everything figured out and had his life set.

But now, here he was listening to Quinn vent about things that he didn't know existed a few minutes back.

And while Marcus knew that he should feel sympathetic for his friend, Marcus felt good. Quinn sharing all this made Marcus feel close to him. It made Quinn someone who wasn't flying miles above him, but someone who was right beside him.

"So step out of that comfort zone and try to do new things. Out in the wide world, many unique, intriguing, entertaining, mind-opening things exist. It is a complete waste and pity if you don't try them out. You only live once, Marcus, and it isn't too late to try them. Seriously. If you don't have something you aren't passionate about, then find things, try them out. I guarantee that you will find something that suits you, something that will feel like it was made especially for you."

Quinn suddenly and abruptly stood up and stared down at the surprised Marcus.

"Let's make a promise. No, a deal. As long as you try out new things without worry, I will try to get out the bind I have trapped myself in and get myself back to try things, both old and new."

Marcus felt his heart beat faster and felt his blood boil with enthusiasm as he stood up. He grabbed and shook Quinn's hand tightly as if the firm grip signified the sincerity of his determination and commitment to this deal with Quinn.

"Deal?" questioned Quinn, staring into Marcus's that now showed seemingly boundless energy.

"Deal!" affirmed Marcus, smiling a curve from the bottom of his heart.

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- (Omake: Two Weirdos) -

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Eddie Carmichael entered the Ravenclaw common room after performing maneuvers he deemed necessary to be in a Chaser's arsenal after an intense session of flying around Hogwarts.

'Ah, my chest hurts,' groaned Eddie as he stepped inside, and the first thing he saw with his tired eyes were his two roommates staring at each other with passionate eyes and ardent smiles on their faces, their hands locked in a handshake as they stood in the smack dab middle of the Ravenclaw room.

He stood there for half a minute, staring at his roommates, but they didn't move or break the handshake.

"What the hell are these two weirdos doing?"

But looking at them didn't give him answers, and he was exhausted. So Eddie acted like he didn't know them and walked past them to his dorm room.

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Quinn West - MC - "Marcus!"

Marcus Belby - A deal of friendship - "Quinn!"

Eddie Carmichael - Grinding hard - "I am too tired for this shit..."

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.

[

Webnovel has been 'shadowbanning' comments recently. This means that any comment that contains profanities in any form, will be automatically deleted.

So, if you are commenting with curses and profanities, censor a single letter or get creative.

]

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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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「90%」

A very calm Quinn horizontally floated at the near bottom of Hadal Encumbrance and gazed at the triangular entrance in front of him.

「Leviathan's Underpass」

'This time it's a monster,' noticed Quinn as he stared at the words written above the dark entrance. He had read that after keeping his eyes open at 70% and had, consequently, done some research on the Leviathan.

The Leviathan. A mythical creature with the form of a sea serpent. Known originally as a 'great sea monster' in the first chapter of Genesis, the Leviathan has become synonymous with any enormous monster or creature. It was occasionally invoked to accept blame for tsunamis.

According to legends, the Leviathan was a fire-breathing creature with such immense size that the sea boiled when it swam on the surface. It ruthlessly and fearlessly rules over all the creatures of the sea. The Leviathan's skin is like a double coat of mail with overlapping scales as large as shields on its back and as sharp and tough as broken pottery on its under-parts. Swords and harpoons would simply bounce off such protection. It breathed smoke from its nostrils and expelled flames from its mouth, which was rimmed with teeth. Its fins radiated a brilliant light, and its eyes were like the glimmerings of dawn.

In the magical world, the Leviathan was a type of dragon that lived in the deep oceans. The non-magical legends had gotten the description right; it was an enormous, long, thick serpent-type dragon and, according to the records, it weighed five tonnes (five thousand kilograms), clocking at just one tonne less than the largest dragon species in the world, The Ukrainian Ironbelly.

Even though the Leviathan was an aquatic species, they were just like any other dragon species; it was magic-resistant, had resilient scales and had fire-breath. On a side note, every part of its body had magical properties.

Quinn had thought about the upcoming trial, and one of his worries was to come across an actual Leviathan. If a Basilisk could be kept alive for a thousand years through deep hibernation, then there was no reason a Leviathan couldn't be kept alive the same way.

After thinking it thoroughly, Quinn was ninety percent sure that a Leviathan wouldn't be in there because of the trials he had been through. It didn't make sense to put a Leviathan inside because of the prevailing water concept themes.

'Well, the Leviathan is a predator species in the ocean. It might be a guardian-type trial,' thought Quinn, followed by another curious line of thought: 'Who would win between a Kraken and Leviathan, I wonder?'

Quinn flexed his muscles, and immediately arctic blue magic flashed. The magic originated from his body and went towards the triangular entrance, which created a glowing arctic blue tunnel of water.

'Let's go in there with the hope that there's no Leviathan,' wished Quinn, but there was a sharp glint in his eyes. He was prepared to do what must be done, even if it meant killing a dragon.

He floated down. His hands touched the edges of the entrance, and though he was at 100% depth, Quinn wasn't feeling an iota of it. The 100% of the pressure intensity was being thwarted by Quinn's magic, where he was applying an equal and opposite force to cancel the weight bearing down on him.

Pulling his feet to his front, Quinn went in the entrance to Leviathan's Underpass.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn found himself teleported to the trial, and like in most Tehom's Delight, he was directly transported underwater. However, unlike Tehom's Delight, this room was lit brightly.

Quinn looked down and saw that his feet were touching a white marble floor. When he advanced, the white floor extended ahead for around fifty meters. The entire passage was covered with a circular wall of water. It was a tunnel with a white marble straight path as the floor. The space outside the water tunnel was an expanse of blue, and Quinn couldn't see an end to the expanse.

"Ah, so this is the underpass, huh. A tunnel through the water. Though I am still underwater," noted Quinn as he took in the surrounding scene.

He looked straight ahead to the other end of the tunnel and saw another triangular entrance, but this one without a title above it. This entrance was like the one in Tehom's Delight; although it had another patch of water with a different flow than the surrounding water, there was nothing solid at the end of the tunnel and a wall of water sealed off the end.

Noticing that, Quinn looked back and saw the same wall of water. He raised his hand to touch the water wall. He found that the water wall was solid, and his hand didn't cross through the water wall.

"Now, what is the deal here? I can see that I have to walk to the other end of the tunnel and enter that entrance," observed Quinn and thought about what this trial was composed of, but nothing popped out to him from the get-go. "No way, this is a simple path. What is the catch here?"

Quinn raised his hand, and some of the surrounding water 5 to form a long ice spear in front of him. "Let's see how this does." Saying that Quinn shot the ice lance straight ahead towards the other end.

The ice lance raced through the water, and contrary to Quinn's expectation, the ice lance didn't face any obstructions, didn't trigger anything before it entered the triangular entrance, and disappeared.

'Hmm, unexpected, really unexpected,' thought Quinn before turning his eyes to the floor. Another seven ice lances manifested from the water and shot towards seven different parts of the path, but every one of them bounced off without scratching the marble. 'Nothing at that, too? Ah, I need to go in myself. Don't want to do that, really don't.'

Quinn sighed and took a step forward on the whiter marble, one more, and then another. As he moved forward, a very faint blue line shone on the marble floor. That delicate line on the floor went unnoticed by the boy as he walked ahead.

Fwipp.*

Ten strides in the walk towards the other end of the white floor, Quinn felt something on his body, the feeling was confusing and sudden, and it was only after two additional steps that he abruptly stopped and looked down on his shoulder.

There he saw red coming out of his shoulder. He couldn't see his shoulder because of the red staining the water, but Quinn could feel a deep gash above his collarbone.

As the realization hit and the pain set in, Quinn felt two more parts of his body rip; more blood spurted out from his calf and waist as deep gashes marred his body. One of Quinn's transfigured gills also got cut, creating further complications.

'W-What the hell-l!!' Alarms blared inside Quinn's head as his eyes showed panic and alertness muddled with pain and onsetting heaviness because of the continuous blood loss.

His mind was slowing down because of his condition: it took Quinn a few moments to focus through the pain and channel his magic into the safety insignia.

And as he did that, Quinn's darkening vision saw a swirl of water fissure come into existence ten meters in front of him, and from the center of that swirl a pressurized jet of water appeared, ripping through the water towards Quinn.

In defense, Quinn was only able to raise his hand; it didn't help much because the jet of water had cut through the muscles of his arm and pierced his body below his chest, just out of the heart's vicinity.

He activated the teleportation, and before disappearing from the Leviathan's Underpass, Quinn saw four more swirls forming in the water, ready to shoot lethal, cutting jets of water.

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- (Scene Break) -

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The water from the triangular entrance set Quinn down on the floor of the stone cave. For a moment, Quinn's eyes remained close as he leaked red blood on the floor. Then his eyes snapped open, and no emotion could be seen in his eyes or on his face.

Pain.

Pain was something Quinn was familiar with; it was something that he had constantly felt during the time he was trying to get his magic back. Every time he loosened the hold on magic, his magic would rush out, and that would cause pain.

With the volume of magic inside Quinn's magical core, the rampant magic had enough juice to cause pain for hours before it drained the core of magic. When Quinn finally decided to confront his magic, that pain followed him for hours every day, and Quinn had to bear with it for a good chunk of the day, every day, till he was able to get his magic back under his control.

But in those unpleasant days, the pain was Quinn's primary motivator. It was something that Quinn didn't want to feel; as such, Quinn focused on his emotions to ignore the pain.

And now, the pain had returned because of injuries. And with those injuries came back panic, a rush of urgency, and fear among multitudes of emotions.

Negative emotions were absent from Quinn's regular, peaceful life, but under the current circumstances, they surfaced and came back to his life.

Occlumency detached Quinn's emotions to the second level so that they were all but a buzz at the back of his head, but his magic remained firmly connected to his emotions.

'Five points of injury: shoulder, flank, calf, upper abdomen, and forearm.' Quinn's mind sunk into an analytical mode as he analysed his body.

Quinn slightly moved his shoulder and felt the first point of injury. 'Shoulder: deep cut in the Trapezius muscle. Left shoulder disabled. The clavicle bone is safe and unharmed.'

His attention moved down his body to his waist, and Quinn slightly flexed his abdominal muscles. 'F-Flank muscles: External oblique, internal oblique, transversus abdominis; three-layer of muscle penetration.' Quinn groaned in pain because of the injury. 'I-Internal injury: large intestine injury possible, degree of injury unknown.'

Then came Quinn's analysis of his mobility, and that was dependent on his legs. 'Severe calf tear; diagonal tear. Conclusion: right leg mobility severely restricted.' Another critical injury had sharply reduced Quinn's ability to move. He had practically lost his right leg.

After that was the turn of the injury Quinn was most worried about. 'Upper abdomen wound: no exit wound confirmed with severe blood loss. Punctured lung hindering breathing.' Quinn was relieved that his heart wasn't injured. The closeness of the injury had been very stressful to him.

The last injury was to his forearm and had slightly fractured his bone and had a flexor tendon, which had rendered his left hand's finger useless.

Finally, Quinn closed his eyes, and his study and practice of Healing magic came to use. A mix of blue and green light flashed inside and across his wounds and slowed down his blood loss. But the blood work wasn't over as Quinn's skill with Blood Magic came into play, and he mitigated the blood flow to the uninjured veins and arteries.

'The injuries are too serious for me to heal right now. I need to get out of here,' decided Quinn thinking about his physical situation.

His injuries were severe, and Quinn wasn't sure if he would be able to heal them on his own. He wanted to get out of the Aquatic Vault because apparition was disabled in here, meaning that if he failed to stabilize himself in here, Quinn wouldn't be able to call Polly to pop him to the Hospital wing where Poppy could take him.

While inside Hogwarts grounds, house-elves could elf-apparate inside or outside on their own. But if they had another being with them, they couldn't bring them out or in with them. Meaning that if Polly came to Hogwarts, she wouldn't be able to bring Quinn out of the castle grounds, but she was allowed to apparate him to any part of the castle that wasn't warded off to the house-elves.

Quinn wanted to get out of there before his condition degraded so that if he did fail to heal himself, he would have Polly pop him to the Hospital wing.

With grunts and groans of pain, Quinn conjured a stretcher to his side. After rolling onto the stretcher, Quinn stuck his body to the stretcher with magic.

The stretcher was levitated and brought Quinn to the tunnel, and after raising itself vertically, the stretcher with Quinn attached to it entered the tunnel. The bubblehead charm covered Quinn's face to provide him oxygen inside water.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

The stretcher with Quinn came out of the tunnel into the Great Lake. Water magic took over and raised Quinn above as he controlled the direction he wanted to go.

Quinn strenuously looked to the side, hoping that the Kraken would notice him and carry him to the lakeshore so that he wouldn't have to use water magic to get out, but it seemed that the fates weren't with him today because the Kraken's eyes were closed and it seemed to be sleeping.

'Need to hurry,' thought Quinn. He didn't stop to lament his bad luck. He immediately ramped up the water magic, which would have been difficult because of his current condition. But the negative emotions were very potent when it came to magic, and Quinn was solely channeling them to provide that extra juice.

The water around him pushed him up, and Quinn zoomed to the lakeshore while a calm bubble of water protected him from any disturbance.

Working through the pain, which Quinn hadn't numbed because it was helping him with a stronger connection to magic and kept him awake, Quinn came out to a portion of the shore with trees. He didn't want to be disturbed and wanted to work in peace.

The stretcher laid itself on the ground, and immediately, Quinn started to heal himself. Very slowly, Healing Magic began to work on Quinn's body and started to knit the very inner portion of his injuries. Quinn knew that he wouldn't be able to completely heal himself and completely recover at the moment; he would need potions and multiple healing sessions for that.

So, currently, Quinn's focus was to stabilize himself so that his wounds weren't life-threatening and he could move without degrading his injuries.

With his eyes closed, Quinn worked Healing charms and spells to slowly and carefully heal his injuries.

But it seemed that fate and lady luck definitely weren't at his side because Quinn felt a chill descend on him. Something that sucked seemed to want all the joy out of everything.

Quinn opened his eyes, and through his tired eyes, saw half a dozen Dementors descend upon him, with more Dementors circling above in the distance. And from the looks of it, they too were coming down towards him.

"Ah, this is great. Just f*king great." Spat out a tired and busy Quinn and stared at the six Dementors.

A Patronus was out of the question because Quinn was working with negative emotions, and right now, he was amid fixing his body. If he tried to use a Patronus, the Healing magic would be interrupted and further complicate his injuries.

Panic increased, and even though he couldn't feel it, the annoying buzz in the back of his head got stronger.

Quinn heavily sighed and murmured to himself. "I didn't want to do this. I really don't want to do this. I don't want to dip into that." His eyes got a little sharper as he decided. "But it is the best of all the choices I have."

He didn't want Polly to come here and see him all injured with a horde of Dementors coming down to get him. If she saw this, Quinn was sure that his grandfather would pull him out of Hogwarts, and he wasn't ready for that. Not to mention there would be further consequences to his lifestyle.

Quinn closed his eyes and firmly declared to himself. "Do it! Ask for it. And, hurry! We don't have much time!"

Then Quinn waited, waited for the thing he wanted to happen as he continued to heal himself.

The chilling presence from the Dementors became colder, but just before the happiness-sucking demons sucked the joy out of him, warm and positive energy enveloped him, bringing a smile to Quinn's face.

"Excellent," smiled Quinn and opened his eyes to see a bright-silver, translucent Raven flying between him and the Dementors.

The Raven Patronus turned towards Quinn and stared at him for a second before turning back towards the Dementors.

Then Raven flapped its wings fiercely, and as it did, the Raven increased in size from a normal-sized small Raven to an eagle-sized bird, but the size increase didn't end, and the Raven continued to grow.

Within a span of seconds, the small Raven had grown to an elephant-sized behemoth of a bird.

The silver light from the Raven Patronus was so bright that Quinn had to close his eyes to protect his eyes, but a small smile graced his face. Feeling relieved, Quinn went back to concentrating on healing.

The elephant-sized Raven flew up and towards the horde of more than a hundred Dementors. The wraithlike Dark creatures ran away fastly in all directions, doing their best to avoid the Raven Patronus and even the slightest silver light coming from it. The creatures that made beings cower were now fleeing in fear because of the silver guardian.

After chasing away the Dementors, the Raven Patronus returned. It shrunk down to the size of a regular Raven and flew circles around Quinn.

Quinn opened his eyes as the Healing magic stopped working. He was stabilized, no longer in life-threatening danger, and was healed enough to move around slowly without moving.

"Off you go," said Quinn and dispelled the Raven Patronus but not before saying, "Thank you for protecting me."

The Patronus flapped its wing rapidly before it was dispelled by Quinn.

"Ugh, now I need to work this out," sighed Quinn as he got up from the ground with a grunt.

"This sucks."

Quinn conjured a robe over his body and walked towards the castle as the sky dark, onsetting the nighttime.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Low on HP (Hit Points). Status: Injured.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

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.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn entered the A.I.D. office limping. He had conjured a shirt and pants over his body and under his robes in the time he had traveled from the Great Lake's shore to the A.I.D. office.

Other than his punctured lung, which he mostly had patched at the lakeshore, most of Quinn's injuries were still raw. All the muscle wounds were being protected and being medically stabilized by magic.

The fractured bone didn't lose any bone fragments, so Quinn was able to completely fix it. But the muscles were torn and ripped apart by the pressure jet. To fix them, Quinn needed to drink a muscle-protein nutrient potion that would provide the body with the material to restore the muscles.

Quinn slumped down in one of the client chairs and leaned into it before diving into his mind and recalled the information about his potion inventory. "I don't have enough doses. Two standard dose vials won't work." He looked at the red workshop door and sighed, "I will have to make it work for now."

Quinn raised a single finger, and a painting on the wall levitated and from behind a rose-gold key flew out. The rose-gold key flew towards the red workshop door and entered the key slot before turning to open the door.

This rose-gold key was a spare as Quinn's clothes were still hidden near the lakeshore. Quinn had built detachable pockets that he attached to his clean robes every morning. The primary key was in one of those pockets, so Quinn had to use this spare key.

The door lock unlocked with a click, and with an act of magic, Quinn manually opened the cylinder bars lock system that kept the door extra secured in case someone found a key.

After the door opened, two vials of dull, dark red potion flew out towards Quinn. Quinn grabbed one vial while the other one entered the conjured pants' pocket.

Uncorking the vial, Quinn drank the potion in one gulp and set down the empty vial on the table. He closed his eyes and felt the muscle-protein nutrient potion immediately took effect. The potion provided the muscle-protein nutrient to the body, and Quinn cast Healing Magic to utilize that concentrated intake of the nutrients.

With the Healing Magic doing its work, Quinn got up from the client chair and moved to his barstool behind the table. Opening the stationary drawer of his table, Quinn took out a sheet of black paper and a fountain pen with golden ink inside it.

It was the same color scheme as the A.I.D. cards; gold on black.

But before he used the pen and paper, Quinn opened another drawer and took out a fake silver sickle. He pumped magic into it; previously, he hadn't wanted to risk diverting focus and magic because the injuries were severe, but now he was comfortable diverting magic and focus as his wounds were stabilized.

The fake silver sickle transformed to say 'OFFICE' on both sides. Quinn put the coin back into the drawer and turned his attention back to the black paper.

"Let's keep it simple and authoritative," said Quinn as he uncapped the pen and thought about what to write on the black paper.

After forming the words and sentences in his mind, Quinn began writing.

.

[

To,

Ms. Hermione Granger,

Date: May 16, 1994.

Subjects: Summons for repayment.

Ms. Granger,

You are duly summoned and required to report at the A.I.D. office on the main corridor, west sections, fifth-floor, for repaying the debt owed to me for helping you in your time of need.

You are required to appear within 30 MINUTES of receiving this letter. The moment you open the envelope this letter came in, I would be informed, and the clock would start.

For your sake, please comply with the instructions to the point and without any delay.

Regards,

Q. West,

Proprietor,

A.I.D. consultations.

]

.

"This will do," nodded Quinn, folded the black paper into thirds and put it into a white envelope, and addressed it to Hermione. As he sealed the envelope, Quinn charmed the lip of the envelope in such a way that when it was opened, Quinn would know.

As he completed the letter, the office door opened, and his assistant, Luna Lovegood, entered the room.

"You called?" asked Luna as she skipped into the room. She raised her arm to show a leather and sterling silver bracelet on her wrist. The silver piece on the bracelet showed the words 'OFFICE' on it.

The sterling silver piece was charmed with the Protean charm connecting the bracelet with the fake silver sickle. It was a way for Quinn to summon

Quinn raised the letter in his hand and asked. "Yes, can you go to the library and hand this to Hermione Granger. She will most probably be there, but if she isn't, go to the Gryffindor common room and ask a Gryffindor to call Hermione Granger out."

Unfortunately, Quinn didn't have Recon on his person, or else he would have told Luna Hermione's precise location. But fortunately, Quinn had a lot of key people's regular routines memorized.

Luna took out the envelope from Quinn and looked at the Hermione Granger written on it.

"Okay," shrugged Luna and put the envelope inside her robes.

"Luna, please make sure that she gets the envelope immediately and tell her that she is to open it immediately. You have to give it to her as soon as possible," insisted Quinn, as he only had a little over four hours before the window closed, and he wanted this to end within an hour or two. "Also, after you give it to her, don't return to the office for today. When you go to dinner, tell Eddie and Marcus that I am busy and won't be attending the meal today. Tell them it isn't something to worry about and to not look for me."

Luna tilted her head and seemed confused about why Quinn was asking these things. But the serious tone in his voice told her that she should just comply. She did stare at him observantly, but nothing seemed out of order.

"Now, go on and hurry," instructed Quinn.

Luna nodded and exited the office to find Hermione Granger to hand over Quinn's letter to her.

Quinn sighed in relief and dropped the glamor spell, revealing a slightly pale Quinn. "Good thing I thought of disguising myself."

He closed his eyes to concentrate on the Healing Magic to direct the healing process, waiting for Hermione to arrive.

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- (Scene Break) -

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As Quinn had predicted, Luna found Hermione in the library, reading away from a thick tome with brows furrowed in concentration.

And even though she looked severe, Hermione was having a good time as she read the book.

"Hermione Granger."

The mention of her name made Hermione look up from her book and notice a girl with blond hair and silvery eyes looking at her, standing really close to the table, which surprised Hermione.

"Yes?" asked Hermione tentatively. She recognized the girl in front of her and knew who Luna was. She had noticed the younger girl because she usually hung out with Quinn West's group of friends.

Luna frowned at the tone and asked. "You are Hermione Granger, right?"

Hermione blinked and nodded in response.

"Oh, good. I thought I found the wrong person."

Luna took out the envelope that Quinn gave to her from robes and presented it to Hermione. "This is for you."

Hermione confusedly received the white letter envelope from Luna and read her name written in beautiful cursive calligraphy with gold ink.

"Who is this from?" asked Hermione. Something told her that the letter envelope wasn't from Luna.

"The letter is from Quinn," answered Luna.

"Quinn?" The person who was sitting at the table with Hermione, reading her own books, spoke up. She had been listening to the conversation, but when Quinn came up, she joined the conversation. "Quinn West?"

Luna looked at the person and saw a girl with red hair and green eyes, a sharp look in the girl's eyes as she stared at her.

"You are Ivy Potter. You are pretty," commented Luna, complimenting the girl. "From what I know, there isn't another Quinn in Hogwarts. But yes, Quinn West."

"What does he want?" asked Ivy, briefly glancing at the letter in Hermione's hand.

Luna shrugged her shoulders as she replied. "I don't know. He just said to deliver the letter." She turned to Hermione and instructed, "He said to open the letter immediately."

"And now I am done, so bye." After saying that, Luna turned and left without giving the two girls a chance. She would have stayed and talked to the two, but she had an article to write for Quibbler, and Quinn wanted Hermione to read the letter immediately, so she didn't want to delay that.

Luna's abrupt exit surprised Ivy and Hermione, and they just stared at her back as she walked away. Only after Luna had disappeared from their sight did Ivy and Hermione look at each other with surprise.

"That was... I don't know what that was," commented Hermione, still taking in the meeting with eccentric Ravenclaw.

"Yes... it was rushed." added Ivy and then pointed at the envelope in Hermione's hand. "Open it. Let's see what he wants?"

Hermione opened the envelope and took out a thicker than usual black paper. "This is definitely from him," said Hermione, immediately connecting the black sheet with the black A.I.D. cards. Her guess was strengthened when she saw the gold words upon unfolding the letter.

Ivy watched as Hermione read the letter and noticed that her eyes widened almost immediately.

"What is it? What does it say?"

"It is a summons for repayment. He is going to ask me to do something for him, just as he said he would," said Hermione, passing the black letter to Ivy for reading. "I need to be there within thirty minutes, and he knows that I opened it, read it."

Hermione had always told Ivy not to worry about the incident as they couldn't change what had happened, and they would worry about it when Quinn asked them for repayment. But now that time had come, Hermione started to worry about what Quinn would ask from her.

Ivy read the letter twice and then looked at Hermione. "Let's go. I will come with you." She held the worried Hermione's hand and assured. "I will be there for you, don't worry."

Hermione breathed and nodded, thankful for her best friend's support.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn opened his eyes when he heard the door chime ring. He immediately put on a glamor so that everything seemed normal. It masked the pale skin with some exhaustion with magic, and Quinn looked no different from the norm.

Hermione Granger and Ivy Potter entered the office with different expressions: Hermione had nervousness on her face which she was trying to hide whereas Ivy Potter had caution and vigilance flashing in her eyes.

The two girls looked around the office, and the two couldn't get used to the fact that the A.I.D. office was lit up with white light coming from an unknown source instead of candle chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

"Welcome, Ms. Granger, please come in, and I would be lying if I said I didn't expect you to tag along with her, Ms. Potter," sighed Quinn when he saw two people enter his office instead of one. "Now that you two are here, please take seats so that we can start. We have much work to do."

Ivy didn't reply and followed Quinn's instructions and sat down in the client chair, with Hermione sitting in the other chair.

Quinn raised his hand towards Hermione with palm up.

Hermione looked at the hand with confusion, but a split second later, she understood the meaning, retrieved the letter Luna had given her and placed it on Quinn's hand.

Quinn gripped the letter and threw it above his head behind him. The letter was incinerated into nothingness and smoke immediately after.

He ignored the astonished expression from the Gryffindor girls and started. "So we all know why I have called you here."

"To repay the debt," answered Hermione shortly. She glanced at Ivy, who was staring at Quinn, who wasn't paying any attention to Ivy.

"You are correct. And before we start, I can see that you are nervous. So I would like to reassure you that what I am about to ask will affect nobody other than myself. What I am trying to convey is that your lives won't be any different from before you received the letter today; you can pretend that nothing happened, and it won't make any difference."

Ivy narrowed her eyes: Quinn's words didn't reassure her one bit. "What's the task?" She would decide if the task would affect people after listening to what Quinn had to say.

Quinn locked eyes with Hermione and opened his mouth to say a phrase that revealed a lot.

"... I need the Time-Turner."

Hermione and Ivy's eyes widened to the size of saucers when the words came out of Quinn's mouth.

"T-Time-Turner? W-What do you mean? I don't understand," stuttered Hermione, trying very hard to pretend to be clueless.

Ivy, on her side, closed her eyes when she heard the shakiness in Hermione's voice. The obvious yet poor attempt to hide didn't help one bit.

"That stutter reveals everything, Ms. Granger. You need to practice lying if you want to fool anyone." A ghost of a smile graced Quinn's lips. "Ms. Granger, you have been attending classes for twelve subjects; without special circumstances, there is no way you would have been able to attend all those classes."

"You have to understand that twelve O.W.Ls are rare but not unprecedented. A lot of to-be Headboys and Headgirls have attempted and succeeded in accomplishing this feat. But the difference between them and you is that those people didn't sign up for all the subjects. Whereas you? You signed up for every subject class, and from what I have gathered, you attend every single subject."

It wasn't compulsory to sign up for all classes to take O.W.L exams. In theory, a student could give all twelve O.W.L exams without attending a single session of all subjects. Most of the students who got twelve O.W.Ls did exactly that.

Hermione rubbed her temple as she asked with a sigh. "But how did you know that I was using a Time-turner?" Time-turners weren't mainstream knowledge, it weren't the first thing that popped into one's mind when thinking about Hermione's situation.

Even when Ivy Potter noticed something weird about Hermione and noticed that her timetable didn't make sense. It took Ivy to pry the answer off of Hermione to know how she managed to attend classes from twelve subjects; Ivy wouldn't have figured it out on her own.

"Most people, when hearing about your situation, wouldn't think about it if they aren't close to you. Most people would just sigh thinking about the load that you were taking and then move on with their life." Quinn pointed at himself and continued. "Unfortunately or fortunately, I am not like most people. When I heard what you were doing because I am a busy person and have a strict time management schedule, I immediately thought about how you were doing this. And one day, I decided to investigate, and after some days of eliminating multitudes of viable and nonviable scenarios, I was able to figure out how you were doing this. The last remaining theory was a Time-Turner."

Then Quinn decided to plug an event that would strengthen his made-up argument. "Do you remember the first day of school when you and Harry Potter were called out to professor McGonagall's office by her?"

Hermione nodded as that was the day she got the information about the Time-turner.

"I understood why Harry Potter and I were there, but you didn't have to be there, so while investigating, that thought popped into my mind. It made me assume that professor McGonagall assisted you in some way, that you didn't find a way on your own, and that made the search radius a lot shorter. Professor McGonagall is a busy person and wouldn't be able to help you out every hour, so I was able to deduce that you were using a magical item from that."

Hermione and Ivy sat in their seats and watched as Quinn went on to state surprising insights about how he was able to narrow his final guess to a Time-Turner, all while keeping an expression that seemed to appear that what he did wasn't anything special.

"... And that is how you got the Time-turner, but enough about this, let's come to why I have called you here," explained Quinn before putting on his business face and stating his demands. "I want to go back in time. You have the means to accomplish that and will provide me with the Time-Turner."

"No," came Hermione's immediate answer.

Lending out her Time-turner wasn't an option in Hermione's mind. Once Ivy had asked to take the tag along because she wanted to see how it felt, but Hermione had put that idea down before Ivy could finish a single sentence.

"... I understand your apprehension. The ministry has tight control over Time-tuners; I assume that professor McGonagall got your Time-Turner from the ministry. You are only allowed to use it only for your studies and nothing else," stated Quinn, knowing that he would face some resistance. "But as I told you. What I will do while back in time wouldn't affect anyone but me; my actions are extremely isolated and won't affect anyone. The only people who even know that something happened are already in this room."

Quinn could still see the resistance and unwillingness on Hermione's face, so he decided to give her another piece of reassurance that could possibly convince her to allow him to time travel.

"Ms. Granger, how about this? You and Ms. Potter here can come with me. I won't go alone, and you can see firsthand what I do while in the past. If you think I am doing something that you aren't comfortable with, you can ask me to stop, and I will give you my word that I will stop."

He gauged Hermione's expression and thought as he waited for her response. 'Don't make me stun you and steal the Time-Turner. I don't want to erase your memories. I would have to erase Luna's memories, Eddie's and Marcus's to tie loose ends, and I don't want that.'

Luna had delivered the letter to Hermione, and Quinn had instructed her to inform Eddie and Marcus that he would miss the meal. So to effectively tie all loose ends, he would have to erase that Luna was ever called into the office and asked to deliver the letter. And by now, she would have met Eddie and Marcus, relaying the information, so he would also have to erase their memories to complete the erasure of the entire incident.

Hermione took a while to make her decision. Ivy Potter sat by her side, silent; this was Hermione's decision, and if Hermione wanted some advice, Ivy would offer it, but not before asking.

Ivy had listened to the entire conversation, and if she was in Hermione's place, she too wouldn't have been comfortable allowing Quinn to go back in the past. But the conditions that Quinn was putting forward were favorable to them. If she didn't have a choice to refuse, then Ivy would agree to Quinn's demand, given that he followed through with his promises.

"... I agree with your demands. All three of us will go jump back to the past," declared Hermione with a half-resigned and half-determined expression.

Quinn smiled and responded,

"Excellent."

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Negotiating a deal - Tik-tok, Tik-tok, Tik-tok.

Hermione Granger - Frequent Time-traveler - Holds the only Time-turner currently in Hogwarts.

Ivy Potter - Moral support - Vigilantly watching Quinn's every offer.

AlanL - Editor - Watching everything unfolding while eating popcorn (*′ω*)

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Nani!

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

[

Webnovel has been 'shadowbanning' comments recently. This means that any comment that contains profanities in any form, will be automatically deleted.

So, if you are commenting with curses and profanities, censor a single letter or get creative.

]

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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

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If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

"Excellent," smiled Quinn. The tough and first part of the problem was done. Now he only needed to get the straightforward part over with. "I have done some research with the Time-Turner, but you are the authority here; tell me, how should we do this?"

Hermione Granger was anything but uncertain. When she decided to do something, she went forward with composure, focus, and without second-guessing her decisions. Now that she had agreed to Quinn's demands, her previous hesitations were put aside.

She put her hand inside her shirt and pulled out a sparkling necklace that had an hourglass with blue sand.

"Oh, that is shiny," commented Quinn. Now that the difficult part was over, he was much relaxed, so carefree comments flowed out.

Ivy and Hermione looked up from the Time-Turner and saw that Quinn was closely observing the Time-Turner with a smile on his face.

"Time-Turners that are issued by the Ministry of Magic have an Hour-Reversal Charm placed onto them. They had a limit of traveling back a maximum of five hours, which is the determined safety limit to the person and the fabrics of time itself," explained Hermione before asking Quinn a question. "So, how long do you need to go in time, because if it is more than five hours, then we are already over before we start."

Quinn knew that because of his knowledge, and that was why he had hurried to call Hermione. If there wasn't a time limit, Quinn would have waited till he was fully recovered.

"I want to go a little under three hours back in time."

"I see, then it's fine. This Time-Turner turns back time in hours, meaning that we will go back three hours in time," nodded Hermione.

"Next, we need a place where we can't be seen. Somewhere we won't be disturbed. We need to find a place that has been empty for the last five hours," conveyed Hermione, another rule about Time-Turners. "Professor McGonagall has given me a key to one of the deserted and unused classrooms that I use when jumping back in time. "

Quinn pointed his hand towards the office as he said, "I knew that, so I have taken measures to ensure that we won't be disturbed in here. No one will be coming here today. I will lock the door, and just to be extra careful, we will start here." Quinn pointed at the workshop as he finished.

Ivy and Hermione looked at the workshop door and noticed that the door was different. Especially Ivy, who noticed that the new door looked much sturdier than before.

"Yes, the door is new. I had to make another one after our previous altercation. You won't be able to break it as easily as you did before," chuckled Quinn as he read their thoughts from their expressions.

The two girls twitched after hearing Quinn's remark. Hermione retrieved her eyes from the red door and nodded. "This will do. Now, before we go back, where are we going?"

"We will be going to the woods near the Hogsmeade station, near the lakeside. As I told you, my actions are going to be extremely isolated, and the location is the reason for that isolation."

"What are you going to do?"

Quinn shook his head and spoke, "I will tell you after we make the jump and reach the woods."

Ivy narrowed her eyes at Quinn's refusal to tell the details, but because Hermione didn't say anything, she kept quiet.

"... Well, let's get this over with," sighed Hermione, while guessing that asking Quinn again would be a waste of time and effort. The boy in front of her always had a shroud of mystery around him, and she didn't think that the shroud would come off today.

"Good, follow me so we can get started," said Quinn as he stood up from his barstool. He took out his fake wand and pointed it at the office door, melding the door and frame together.

The two Gryffindor girls stood up and followed after Quinn as he pushed open the red workshop door. Quinn closed the door after everyone was inside.

Last time, when Ivy was in the workshop, it was dark because she didn't know how to turn on the lights, but this time with Quinn with them, the workshop was brightly lit, and everything was clearly visible for them to see.

Hermione and Ivy watched with wide eyes, taking in the things that they could see. There was so much stuff in the room that the variety stunned Ivy and Hermione.

"Ms. Granger, let's get going. I would like to get started quickly, so we can get this over with quickly," spoke Quinn to the girls, who were occupied looking around.

"... Yes. Come closer to me," said Hermione as she pulled on the chain of the necklace with the Time-Turner. Then, the chain expanded. It actually kept on expanding until its length satisfied Hermione. "Get under the chain such that it is surrounding all three of us."

Ivy and Quinn walked closer and lifted the chains over their heads to walk inside the circle. The redhead girl and black-haired boy looked at each other with their vivid-green and stone-grey eyes as they stood in close proximity.

Quinn slightly smiled as he looked down towards the shorter girl while Ivy stared up with a stern, non-nonsense face.

"You look like Daphne, right now," commented Quinn suddenly and smiled when Ivy's face twitched. His objective had been fulfilled.

Hermione looked at the two and cleared her throat, and asked. "Are you sure? Three hours?"

"Yes, three hours will do. We'll be back here by the end of these three hours." He looked at Hermione and added, "We should hurry because three people just entered the office." Quinn pointed at the glass wall.

Hermione's eyes widened as she immediately understood what Quinn meant by his word. The three people that entered the office were the ones from the future.

She immediately turned the hourglass timepiece thrice, triggering the Time-Turner and slipping through the sands of times.

The bright workshop dissolved. Quinn had the sensation that he was flying very fast, backward. A blur of colors and shapes rushed past him; his ears were pounding; he kept calm and observed the phenomenon through all his senses.

And then he felt solid ground beneath his feet, and everything came into focus again. Quinn stood next to Hermione and Ivy inside the dark workshop. There was no light because there weren't any windows, and the rune lights were not turned on.

Quinn turned his neck slightly to adjust the chain of the hourglass-timepiece cutting into his neck.

"We've gone back in time," Hermione whispered, lifting the chain off and looking at Ivy and Quinn's figures appeared in the darkness. "We went three hours back..."

"Excellent. Let's get going. It will take longer than usual for us to get to the woods," said Quinn as he walked towards the workshop door.

"Huh, what do you -" Ivy asked what Quinn was talking about when she noticed a clearly visible limp in Quinn's stride that was previously missing. "Why are you limping?"

Quinn opened the workshop door and turned his face back to look at Ivy to state in a voice that made it seem that he was saying something obvious: "I am injured."

"The limp wasn't there before we jumped back in time," chimed Hermione as she looked at Quinn's feet.

"I was being careful, but now that we are here, I can tell you," said Quinn as he entered the office. The girls followed as his voice became faint. "I got injured, and we are going to make it so that I don't get injured further."

Ivy and Hermione looked at each other and followed, who kept walking with the limp in his step.

"You got injured in the woods?" questioned Ivy, trying to get information from Quinn.

"Kind of. Yeah, I got injured near the woods," said Quinn as the three exited the office and the door locked itself.

Ivy watched as Quinn looked around the corridor with an uncomfortable expression.

"What happened?"

Quinn briefly glanced at Ivy before going back to look at the corridor. "We have to make sure that we aren't seen. We aren't part of this time till the three hours pass: we don't belong to this time just yet. So, I would like to not be seen until the time after we return to the office after three hours."

To make sure that this entire operation remained isolated and contained as much as possible, Quinn wanted that three of them to not be seen.

Ivy and Hermione understood Quinn's point of view. Hermione looked at Ivy, who looked at her, and the two best friends talked with their eyes behind Quinn's back. After a few seconds, Ivy sighed and nodded.

"I have the Marauder's Map on me. We can use that," said Ivy looking at Quinn's back, who turned to face Ivy and locked eyes with her.

"Really? Finally, some luck. Then let's use the map. It will make our job much easier. I guess your tagging along is paying off."

The map alternated between the Potter siblings every day, and it turned out that today was Ivy's turn. She took out the map from her robes and activated the original inspiration for Recon with the secret phrase.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

The ink appeared on the old parchment as Ivy unfolded the map and manually looked for their position.

'My Recon has a voice-activated, auto-locator,' thought Quinn proudly.

Ivy found their position, and as she did, Quinn noticed that the map only showed Hermione and Ivy; Quinn was missing from the map.

"It seems I'm still not traceable with the map," smiled Quinn as he looked at the map. "That makes me happy."

"... We tried to fix it, but it didn't work," spat Ivy as he lightly glared at Quinn.

"That makes me happier," laughed Quinn at her tone.

"Let's talk about this later," reminded Hermione, who was the only one experienced with time travel. She had gotten used to managing time, and her two companions were wasting precious time.

"Ah, yes, we should hurry. With my limp, it will take us longer to get there," nodded Quinn before motioning Ivy to step forward. "If you would be so kind as to lead the way, pathfinder."

Ivy ignored Quinn and stepped forward to lead the way, while keeping an eye on the map to see the people in their surroundings.

Quinn, who was following Ivy, sneakily and silently cast a group Disillusionment Charm that worked on Quinn's understanding of physical illusions and light manipulation to turn the trio invisible. It was high-quality magic, and it was much better than his previous work this year as an invisible vigilante.

The fact that he had been noticed prompted Quinn to figure out a better spell that wouldn't become vulnerable while moving. The general Disillusionment charms worked on light manipulation, so Quinn upped the quality of light manipulation and beyond by adding aspects of physical illusions to provide another layer of depth to the stealth.

The three eventually made their way towards the woods, taking the party around three-quarters of an hour to get to the point that Quinn wanted.

"Alright, we are here. We are going to make camp here and wait till the event starts," informed Quinn.

He took out his fake wand for show and transmuted the ground to rise up to form three plateaus before transforming them into stone.

Quinn plopped himself down on one of the flat stones and gestured to the girls to take their seats as well.

Ivy and Hermione looked to their surroundings and saw that they were barely inside the woods, which had the Great lake on one side and the Hogsmeade station on the other.

From the way Quinn was sitting, they could deduce that whatever was about to happen was going to happen at the Great Lake's side.

After the two finally sat down on the transfigured stones, Quinn spoke up, "We have time before I have to start working, so to pass the time, I would like to make some things clear."

Ivy and Hermione glanced at each other while thinking that Quinn was about to tell them what was about to happen, but what followed differed completely from what happened.

"First, Ms. Potter," addressed Quinn. He took a short pause before continuing. "You were at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was going through a bad time when you came across me. And well, you know what followed."

Ivy silently stared at Quinn with a totally expressionless face. It was clear she was using occlumency. She knew that Quinn was talking about the Polyjuice incident.

"If times had been better, even though I wouldn't have condoned your actions— I would've simply ignored you and moved along minding my own business. But the circumstances lead to what happened. And I truly and from the bottom of my heart am sorry that I threatened you and your family."

It was true; Quinn would have ignored Ivy in Daphne's form and would have walked away because of his then reluctance to get involved with the events. The sin curse had decreased those inhibitions, and he vaulted into the incident with a particular savageness.

Emotions could be peeked from behind Ivy's occlumency barrier as surprise appeared on her face. She wasn't expecting this from Quinn when he said that he wanted to pass the time.

"Next, I don't really mind you breaking into professor Snape's ingredient inventory to get the potion ingredients. To me, it just showed that you guys were resourceful. I probably would have just mail-ordered the ingredients, but I'm sure you didn't have that option."

Quinn knew he was saying that he didn't mind identity theft and breaking and entry. But the truth was that he truly didn't mind it.

Quinn was what you called a serial Legilimens, which meant that he regularly used Legilimency. Every mealtime while he was in the Great Hall, Quinn would use Legilimency to peek into the unsuspecting mind of numerous students. Tens of students had no idea that their minds were being read while they chatted and ate their meals.

In his second year, Quinn had drugged Ron Weasley to get information out of him, which was again a tremendous violation of privacy. His first meeting with Ginny Weasley had turned into a walk where he tried to go through the girl's recent life.

He had practically hacked into a computer system to get the private passwords of numerous accounts. Recon was just that as he even had the passwords to the professor's private quarters that were practically like their apartments.

So when Quinn said that he didn't mind the stuff that he had held against them, he was speaking the truth.

"... Nonetheless, I vehemently oppose you breaking into MY office. That wasn't cool at all. The reasoning that you girls based your opinion were —pardon my language— idiotic." Hermoine was about to speak, but Quinn stopped her and continued, "I know what I am saying is highly hypocritical, but the truth of the matter is that I am somewhat of a hypocrite."

Another example of Quinn's hypocrisy was his thoughts about the Lockhart incident. He felt that Lockhart got his punishment but didn't like the fact that it had come from himself: Quinn would have been fine if it came from anyone else than him. And that was classic hypocritical behavior.

When Quinn stopped and Hermione said what she was planning to say, "You know that what you said makes things worse."

"I know, but the thing is, what I said is the honest truth. The only reason I am telling you guys this is because, at that time, I was going through a tough time, and telling you guys just lets me get a load off my chest."

Hermione Granger and Ivy Potter stared at Quinn, who had an honest smile on his face. Both of them knew what Quinn said was in some ways a lot worse, but the tone and delivery of his words made them confused if they should take it positively or negatively.

"If you are sorry, then why did you call us to repay?" asked Ivy. She had dropped her occlumency.

"Hmm? I said that I didn't appreciate you breaking into my office. That thing is still pretty much entirely on the table. And while I never wanted to ask you guys to repay the debt, Ms. Granger's debt was my best option. If I had something that would help me resolve this on my own, then I wouldn't have given her a single second of thought."

Quinn shrugged and referenced. "I praised you guys for being resourceful because I like to think I am resourceful as well. This was just me being resourceful. So no hard feelings, alright."

Quinn was now done with what he wanted to tell them. He had said everything he wanted to say; he had apologized for threatening the Potter family, about staining James Potter's reputation, getting them expelled, among other things.

He didn't mean any of those things, and those kinds of threats would only be true if they had done something that Quinn couldn't reverse or get out of easily. Because even though his grandfather and Lia would support him and he would inadvertently gain the support of the Dark Faction, the whole spiel would be a tremendous pain in the ass for Quinn.

The party of three sat in silence, with Quinn monitoring the lakeshore while Ivy and Hermione contemplated the words that Quinn had spoken to them.

After half an hour, Quinn suddenly stood up from his stone and garnered the attention of his companions.

"It is time," said Quinn as he stared at the lakeshore.

Quinn's abrupt stand surprised Ivy and Hermione, who were sitting silently for the past half hour. They followed his eyesight, and their eyes widened in shock when they saw a heavily injured Quinn West come out of the lake.

They were sitting at a distance, but even from there, both could clearly see the wounds on Quinn's body. The gashes on his body were deep and broad, and only their distance from the 'past' Quinn dissociated them from the gory scene.

"W-What happened to you?!" exclaimed Ivy as she removed her eyes from the 'past' Quinn to their companion, Quinn.

"... I got injured and am currently in the process of healing myself," replied Quinn, who had his eyes fixed on his 'past' self.

"Should we help you out? What should we do? You should've told us about this earlier!" rapid-fired Hermione as she frantically looked back and forth from both Quinns.

Quinn raised his arm to motion them to calm down. "You two don't have to do anything. Please remember that you are only here to keep an eye on me. You two simply need to stay put. I will take care of everything."

Hermione and Ivy had stood up from their seats and were now looking at the 'past' Quinn.

Both waited for Quinn to do something, but he just stood still and kept on staring at his past self.

"Why aren't you doing something?! You are going to die," exclaimed Ivy, anxiously looking at the injured 'past' Quinn. With every second that Quinn didn't respond, she grew more uneasy, and after some time, she couldn't hold it back anymore. "You are mad! I'm going to help him. He is going to die!" And stepped forward, fully intending to help the 'past' Quinn.

Quinn glanced at Ivy and sighed. With a slight twitch of his finger, a white dome force field appeared around Ivy, causing her to halt within the confines of the magic.

There was a sudden and sharp jump in tension between the group. Ivy threw a wary look at the dome around as she took out her wand. Hermione, who was still standing near her stone, also took out her wand in apprehension.

"Ms. Potter, nothing will happen to him. He will not die from his wounds. The fact that I am standing here is proof that he will come out of this alive," spoke Quinn, attempting to pacify Ivy as he threw a glance towards Hermione. "He is currently healing his wounds. I'm proficient in healing wounds. I'd like you to calm down. I assure you that he won't die."

Neither Ivy nor Hermione at this point knew how time worked, so it wasn't unusual that they would be stimulated by the sight of a badly cut-up person.

'People with lawful-good alignments can be a hassle sometimes,' thought Quinn. But he was a little surprised: even after what had happened between them, Ivy would readily try to save him...

The force field around Ivy disappeared, freeing her from the confines.

"And please try to remain quiet. I had to cast a silencing ward around us to stop the voice from reaching him. We need to complete this stealthily," instructed Quinn before going back to observing his past self.

Hermione gingerly walked to Ivy and stood by her friend. "Did you notice him casting a ward? Because I didn't."

Ivy shook her head in response, her eyes locked on Quinn, who didn't look worried at all. "Do you have any idea what is happening? Why isn't he doing anything? Didn't he say that he wanted to reduce his injuries? Why isn't he helping his past self?"

"I don't kno -" started Hermione, but her voice came to an abrupt stop.

Ivy watched as Hermione's face took an expression of horrified shock.

"... What?" spoke Ivy and turned towards where Hermione was looking and saw the thing that had Hermione stuck in frightening shock.

A flying tornado of dark cloaks descended from the dark evening sky. Hundreds of gliding wraiths gathered above the 'past' Quinn, circling in the sky as some of them silently flew down towards the injured boy.

The hundreds of creatures had a grim effect on the surroundings as Ivy and Hermione felt the temperature drop around them.

"It's time." They heard Quinn speak as he calmly looked at the hundreds of hooded-cloaks nearing his past self.

"The Dementors are here."

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Quinn West - MC - I am a hypocrite of a high-order.

Ivy Potter - Pathfinder - Lawful Good

Hermione Granger - Tensed - What is happening?!

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Alright, Dementors, 3..2..1. Go! Go! Go!

AlanL - Editor - This is getting interesting… (_)

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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"The dementors are here."

Quinn, Ivy, and Hermione watched a horde of more than a hundred Dementors descend upon the injured 'past' Quinn.

Ivy's eyes went back and forth between Quinn and the scene near the lakeside. She stood frozen, troubled by the scene; every second, her nervousness and impatience grew stronger.

She turned to Quinn and outright screamed. "What in the world are you waiting for?! Do something! You are going to die!" She knew that Quinn could cast a Patronus, as Hermione had told her about Quinn's Patronus demonstration in McGonagall's office.

"... It isn't time yet. He has to say it for me to move. I need his permission to act. Without it, I'm not going to act," declared Quinn, still staring at his past self with unblinking eyes.

"What? What?! WHAT?!" thundered Ivy as she incredulously gawked at Quinn. She couldn't understand what was going on in Quinn's mind.

It was then that the 'past' Quinn spoke some words that were audible to the group.

"Do it! Ask for it. And hurry! We don't have much time!"

Ivy, who was thundering at Quinn, went silent. "What did he say?" she asked.

"He said, 'Do it. Ask for it. And hurry. We don't much time.'" Hermione repeated the words said by 'past' Quinn and glanced at Quinn, who had finally raised his fake wand.

"Not the most accurate wording. I already asked and am already here. But I will let it slide since you're injured," chuckled Quinn, and immediately after, a silver glow of light burst out his fake wand.

Ivy and Hermione had seen Quinn's Patronus during the train ride to Hogwarts, and at that time, they were only able to identify it as a bird, but this time, they clearly saw the form of Quinn's Patronus.

"A Raven," muttered Hermione, watching the silver bird fly towards the 'past' Quinn.

Previously, they were stunned because of Quinn's lack of action. But now they were astonished as they gawked at the small-sized bird growing into an elephant-sized raptor, who chased away the horde of Dementors that numbered greater than a hundred.

'I'm still injured,' sighed Quinn internally as he looked at the elephant-sized Raven Patronus. 'If I wasn't injured, I could have ramped it up to the size of a giant.'

After the Raven Patronus chased away the Dementors, Quinn made it fly around his past self for protection.

"It's done. Now, we have to wait for him to get up and go to the office," sighed Quinn as he plopped back down on his stone.

The two girls turned their heads from the guardian Patronus to Quinn. Their eyes widened another fraction after they saw a paler than before Quinn.

Quinn took out the dull, dark red, muscle-protein nutrient potion vial from his pocket and gulped it down to replenish his body with another dose.

"Sit down; he will take some time to heal himself and go back to the castle," called out Quinn to the stunned girls.

"... What did you just drink?" questioned Ivy, eying Quinn's hand, which pocketed the empty vial.

Quinn briefly pulled up his left sleeve in response to show the girls a laceration, and inside the wound, they saw the muscle fibers constantly twitching.

The wound was covered quickly, after which Quinn explained. "I'm still not healed. What is happening to him happened to me a few hours ago. I couldn't heal the wounds of this level in the time I had."

'On that note, I need to prepare some dittany to make sure that these don't scar,' thought Quinn. Quinn was still relatively new to Healing magic, and even though he was miles better than the people who had studied with the time he had, Quinn still couldn't heal the wounds of this level without leaving scars.

Hermione walked back to her stone, and after sitting down, asked, "Can you please tell me what is going on? I need to understand what is happening."

Ivy had also sat down and was looking at Quinn with a look that asked the same question.

"Alright, let's start with a question from my side, and this is open to both of you. What is the greatest magic of all?" asked Quinn with a smile on his face.

"Friendship?"

"Love?"

Quinn put on an off-put face as if repelled by their answer. After seeing that expression, the two girls felt embarrassed.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?"

He looked at Hermione and spoke, "Friendship?! Friendships break all the damn time. You won't even talk to most of the people you know from Hogwarts after you graduate."

Then turning to Ivy, Quinn spoke in the same incredulous tone. "If a mother and son are iced in an alleyway by a psychotic murderer, it isn't because they didn't love each other enough! That is ridiculous."

"Love is love! Magic is magic! Even if you are talking about the strongest emotion that can stimulate magic, Ms. Potter, all emotions are the same. Love is just easier to access because of how we humans perceive emotions."

"Then what is the answer?!" asked Ivy, feeling embarrassed of Quinn's expression and tone.

"Chronomancy!" exclaimed Quinn. "The Greatest magic of all is chronomancy, the magic of time itself. If a person can manipulate time, then they are invincible beyond anything. Every change in the world is in reference to time. Life and death are just states that come with time. One moment, you are alive, but the next, you can be dead. But if you control the time, you can control life and death."

"Everything can be at your fingertips with time. If you look into the future, you'll know what is to come. Nothing would ever be able to phase you because you can already see it coming. Even if you can't solve something, you have the ability to rewind time until you are successful. If you can slow, reverse, fast-forward time, then there is nothing you can't accomplish."

Quinn raised his right hand wide while keeping his left hand down to reduce movement. "And right now, we are manipulating time to our advantage." He looked at Hermione and continued, "Something Ms. Granger has been doing for the entire year."

"But with such great power comes danger equal to the advantages. Time is dangerous, complex, chaotic, and not something to be messed with without proper understanding and knowledge. You must know what you are trying to accomplish and how you want to accomplish that," said Quinn with an earnest tone, enunciating his every word so that they would be clear and intelligible.

"So you understand time? You know what you are doing?" questioned Ivy.

Quinn slightly chuckled at the questions. "Oh, no. Not at all. I don't understand time. It's too complex for me to even get into the basics. But I know what I'm doing. I know enough to pull off what I'm trying to do... or maybe not? Yeah, I'm sure I don't know enough."

Hermione and Ivy looked at each other with skepticism. Quinn's words didn't actually inspire confidence in him.

Quinn continued to explain, ignoring their expression. "I can't manipulate time with magic; the Time-Turner takes care of that. I just needed to make sure that I keep my presence as little as possible to reduce my influence on the timeline. This is why I insisted we must be hidden to the limit. No interaction with anyone after making the jump back in time makes sure that we have a minimum effect."

"Now, do any of you know of the 'closed-loop theory' or 'causal loop theory' of time?" asked Quinn.

The two girls shook their heads. They didn't know the answer.

"A causal loop is a temporal proposition in which, by means of time travel, a sequence of events is among the causes of another event, which is, in turn, among the causes of the first-mentioned event. In simpler... no, just in other words, when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event."

Seeing that the girls were still confused, Quinn rolled out the current situation as an example.

"Let's take this current situation as a reference and an example. I got injured, and while I healed myself, a horde of Dementors swarmed around me to prey upon my soul. In that moment of desperation, I called upon a future version of myself to help me out from this situation by protecting me with a Patronus," explained Quinn and then pointed to Hermione. "All of this was only possible because I had the knowledge and means to procure a Time-Tuner from Ms. Granger. Without her Time-turner, it wouldn't have been possible."

"Moving on, a future version of mine came back in time and helped me out, allowing me to live past this unfortunate situation -."

Quinn was cut off, and Hermione raised a doubt. "So you are saying that time works in this closed-loop theory?" It made sense because what she had been doing was like this, but from what Quinn said, time was supposed to be complex and not something as simple as this.

"Oh, no. Of course not. I wish it was something so simple. Professor McGonagall must have told you about the catastrophic events that unleash with Time-Turners," said Quinn and then gave some examples. "Killing their past or future selves by mistake or altering one's life path in such a drastic fashion that it can result in temporal anomalies such as un-births. And these scenarios are anything but closed-loops."

"Did you know? Once, the Unspeakables down in the ministry, sent back one of their people five hundred years into the past. She stayed there for five days, and when the Unspeakables finally pulled her back, she died because it turned out that if you sent some back and forth in time, they age the time they travel back. The Unspeakable aged rapidly and died because of old age. And a lot more consequences that really caused more problems."

Quinn scoffed before he pointed out the restrictions placed upon the Time-turners. "The five-hour restrictions might be due to safety reasons, but believe me when I say this, we can do substantial damage to the timeline in mere five hours."

Ivy and Hermione didn't know Quinn well enough. But after what they had seen today, both were sure that he wasn't jesting.

"Coming back to the point. What I did was create an artificial closed-loop. I created circumstances that would keep the series of events as close to the actual events. By doing this, I would reach the same place where my future self did when saving me."

This time Ivy had a question, and from the tone, the subject irked her. "Doesn't this mean that there is no free will? Once the cycle starts, you will have to follow the course that was set for you."

Quinn ever so faintly smiled and turned his gaze towards his past self. "You may be correct, Ms. Potter. This type of time travel doesn't allow free will. Once started, every Quinn West will have to follow the path of events that was set for them." He turned back to Ivy and asked. "But I did have free will in this case. The events that you saw are exactly the same as I encountered. Look back to the events and think about when my free will came into play."

Both the girls went into retrospection about the recent events. It took a couple of minutes before Ivy came up with an answer.

"When you refused to move until you heard the words from your past self. Is that the free will you are talking about?" opined Ivy, though not sure if her answer was correct or not.

"Ding dong ding~," nodded Quinn and sang as the answer was correct. "I know myself better than anyone else. So I know that in this situation, every Quinn West would use this method because all of them would think this is the best choice. But even though they know that: it is their choice, their free will to start the loop despite knowing that they would have to continue onto a path that won't give them any more free will."

"... But what if your past didn't make the same choice? What would happen then?" asked Hermione.

Quinn shook his head as he answered. "I don't know. Maybe we would have disappeared, our existence erased forever; maybe we would have stayed here and we would have two sets of Quinn West, Hermione Granger, and Ivy Potter. Most probably, the Unspeakables in the ministry would detect the disturbance in time and then hunt us down to somehow fix things up."

Quinn was sure that if the past 'himself' that was healing himself right now didn't go back in time, around the same time he traveled here, then the Unspeakables would notice some form of agitation in time.

"... And you still did this?" asked Ivy in disbelief at Quinn's decision to go through this.

"Yes, I did. I told you, didn't I, Ms. Potter? You need to know what and how you are doing things, and if you know those things, the results will turn out how you want them to be. Every step I took was to ensure that things went smoothly," declared Quinn with confidence and certainty about his preparation. "And the fact that it worked for my future self, who helped me out, shows that it is possible for me."

"But your past self still hasn't gone back to the past? What if he decides not to go back? What if Ivy and I refuse to go back with you?" questioned Hermione, as from what Quinn said, all three of them need to go back in time.

"Oh, he will go back, Ms. Granger. He knows the fact that I am here and that the Time-Turner only allows one-way travel. My past self owes me for saving him; he will repay me by exiting this time, so I can take his place," laughed Quinn merrily and looked the two girls straight in the eye. "You thought that I only placed others in my debt? Oh, no, even me, Quinn West, owes myself a debt. He will now go to another time and get another Quinn West under his debt, who will pay the debt, and the cycle will continue."

Quinn straightened up and softly smiled with superiority flashing in his eyes. "This might sound corny but, One Mountain Cannot Contain Two Tigers. There can't exist two Quinn West at the same time. There can only be one and, in this timeline, it will be me."

As much as Quinn loved himself, he wasn't on board with another one of him existing alongside him.

"Ms. Granger, tell me, why do you think I brought you both here?" quizzed Quinn.

"... I know you are expecting to give you a different answer than us trying to stop you from doing things we are uncomfortable with," presumed Hermione.

"Smart girl. Yes, I brought you two here for a reason beneficial to me. Give it a thought," smiled Quinn, curious if they would be able to figure it out.

While Hermione and Ivy thought of the answer, Quinn thought something inside his mind. 'Why am I giving them all these questions? I should just tell them the answers. Whatever, this is going well.' Quinn knew he let people ask questions to control the flow of information. But today, he was asking them questions and guiding them to the answers.

"I knew that there was a personal angle," commented Ivy, as her eyes narrowed a fraction. "But I can't figure it out. What is it?"

Quinn smiled before looking at Hermione to see if she had an answer, but the holder of Time-Turner too didn't have an answer.

Quinn thought back to the time he was thinking about stealing the Time-Turner. Even though he thought of doing that, Quinn knew that Hermione would be coming with him. Ivy coming with them was decided the moment she decided to step into the office. He wasn't going to let them stay with the knowledge of what he was doing.

"Alright then, I will tell you. The reason I proposed the idea of you two coming along with me was that I wanted to turn you two into accomplices," revealed Quinn. He wanted them to know what position they were currently in.

"I was determined to get the Time-Turner from you, Ms. Granger. And when you decided to allow the use of a ministry-restricted artifact, given to you for education purposes, for something not even closely related to education made you an accessory to a crime. But when you made the decision to accompany me, your status jumped to an accomplice."

Hermione's eyes widened because she knew that allowing Quinn to use the Time-Turner could get in her trouble. Hearing that her original reasoning of making sure Quinn didn't do damage had turned against her.

Quinn turned to Ivy and told the redhead about her contribution. "Ms. Potter, if you, on a side note, didn't accompany me, you would be, at first, what we can call an 'abettor'; someone who allowed the crime to happen, although didn't help in the crime. Now though, you turned into an accomplice by accompanying me back in time."

While Hermione's jump was from an accessory to an accomplice, Ivy's jump was wider, as she turned from an abettor to an accomplice.

The reason Quinn allowed them to come with him so readily was that he wanted to implicate them with him. So, if a time came where the two girls were feeling loose-lipped, they would remember that the secret they were about to slip could get them in trouble.

"I'm sorry if this hurts, but I had to do it. I can't allow this to get out. This is something very private to me," apologized Quinn.

Hermione's Time-Turner was the resource that had allowed him to maintain anonymity. If it wasn't an option, Quinn could potentially have to reveal the existence of the third vault.

"You were a great help, so I do feel sorry for chaining you down like this. But just as I promised at the office, this doesn't affect anyone other than me. Ms. Potter made sure that no one saw us inside the castle, and our location made sure that no one saw this event."

"... We can forget about this, and it won't matter," muttered Ivy, staring at Quinn, who nodded.

"Yes, I'm not planning to tell this to anyone, and if you don't, it will remain a secret between us three."

The three fell into silence, with none of them wanting to speak. The two girls contemplated the events that had transpired while Quinn observed them.

After some time, Quinn noticed that his past self got up. He silently cast a minor mental illusion on the two girls, so they wouldn't see him getting up from the ground and clothe himself with conjured clothes without a wand.

When his past self was done, Quinn lifted the mental illusion and alerted the girls. "He's done."

Ivy and Hermione turned their heads to see the clothed 'past' Quinn limping towards the castle.

"What's next?" asked Hermione.

"We wait for Luna to enter the office. When she leaves the office, we go to the office," responded Quinn, looking at Ivy as she possessed the Marauder's map. "I want to be in the castle the less the better before our past selves leave. Minimum footprint, minimal interference."

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn, Ivy, and Hermione reached the A.I.D. office while making sure they weren't seen.

"Are they gone?" asked Hermione to Ivy, who had the Marauder's map open in front of her.

Ivy nodded to affirm that their past selves were no longer in the workshop, which prompted Quinn to limp towards the red workshop and open it to check inside, to confirm that the workshop was empty.

"They are gone," smiled Quinn, turning to the girls. "Congratulations! The mission is complete and successful."

He limped to the barstool behind his table. Quinn looked towards the girls and spoke. "If you hurry, you can still get to the feast with enough time to get a quick bite."

Hermione nodded with a sigh. She was definitely feeling both tired and hungry.

"Thank you once again. Both of you helped me out a lot, and I'm grateful for that," smiled Quinn.

Hermione looked at Ivy and was about to gesture to her best friend that they should leave, but then saw that expression on her face, and for some reason, it reminded her of the time when she asked Quinn about the information on the Basilisk after they had been blackmailed by Quinn.

'Oh, no, what is she about to do,' thought Hermione with worry, and then Ivy spoke.

"Were you the one who saved us inside the Chamber of Secrets?"

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - "Yeah, even me owes me a debt."

Ivy Potter - Abettor to Accomplice - Next time on HP: AMJ! What answer will she get?

Hermione Granger - Accessory to Accomplice - Thinks today was more stressful than the night before an examination.

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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"Were you the one who saved us in the Chamber of Secrets?"

Quinn, who was planning to brew a batch of muscle-protein nutrient potion and prepare an Essence of Dittany for his wounds, stilled for a split-second; he wasn't expecting this question, the thought that Ivy Potter would ask him this hadn't entered his mind.

There were still sometimes where Quinn didn't associate the decision and actions he had made last year with himself. So when Ivy threw this sudden bomb at him, he genuinely stopped for a moment.

But his acting skills came in clutch as there were no sudden actions from Quinn's side as he gained composure almost instantaneously and glanced up at Ivy, following the eye contact with a confused tilt of his head.

"Pardon me? Ms. Potter, I might have told you about the Chamber's location, but I haven't been to the actual Chamber of Secrets. I only know that its entrance is somewhere inside Myrtle's lavatory, so believe me when I say that I didn't save you," said Quinn before putting on an expression of curiosity. "I actually don't know what happened down in the mysterious Chamber of Secrets. Can you tell me what happened?"

He had no intention of ever telling anyone that he had been down in the Chamber of Secrets. It would raise many questions that Quinn currently didn't want to answer. Even now, there were glass vessels full of Basilisk venom and multiple Basilisk fangs, locked away in his suitcase, secured for the day when Quinn needed them.

Ivy didn't respond and continued to stare at Quinn for a solid few seconds before turning her back to Quinn and walking towards the office door.

"We're leaving," said Ivy to Hermione.

Quinn turned towards Hermione and nodded to her as a goodbye, who returned it before following Ivy to leave.

After they left, Quinn groaned as he got up from his barstool. "That was sudden. At least I handled it smoothly," sighed Quinn. He limped to the workshop and spoke as the door opened. "Now, let's get my body fixed."

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- (Scene Break) -

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Hermione and Ivy walked away from the A.I.D. office. As Quinn had said, there was still some time left in the dinner feast, and both were walking to the Great Hall.

"...Ivy?" probed Hermione, glancing at her silent and contemplative best friend. Hermione could guess it was about her question to Quinn but still asked. "What are you thinking?"

The question had been sudden as most of Ivy's abrupt actions when dealing with Quinn, but Hermione had to give it to Ivy because she asked questions that she was curious about or found useful.

Ivy didn't look at Hermione as she replied, "... He was the one who saved us. It was Quinn West who destroyed Riddle's diary."

"But West said he didn't."

"He did, and he was lying," spoke Ivy, still not looking at Hermione as she continued. "He mentioned something that only someone who has seen the Chamber's entrance would know."

"He did?" furrowed Hermione, trying to recall what Quinn said, but nothing popped out to her.

"Yes, West said that the Chamber's entrance was somewhere in Myrtle's lavatory, and that implies that he had never seen the entrance, but then he slipped up. He asked me what happened to us in the Chamber."

"Yes, but how is this him slipping?" asked Hermione, confused.

"It's the words he used; he didn't use something like 'inside' the Chamber but used 'down in' the Chamber," said Ivy, finally turning to Hermione. "West claims that he had never seen the entrance, so how does he know that the entrance is a tube that goes 'down' to the Chamber?"

Last year's event had led Ivy Potter to think a lot about her interactions with Quinn West. And one thing that she had perceived about Quinn West was his carefulness with words. He chose what to reveal carefully.

"Usually, he wouldn't make such a slip, but West was clearly hurt and uncomfortable. With those injuries, he unknowingly let that slip. From that, we not only know that he has seen the entrance but also has been inside there."

Ivy was convinced that her reason was correct.

"He was the one who saved us. I am sure of it."

And just as she thought last year, this made things complicated.

To Ivy Potter, Quinn West was a person who never did anything without a reason or some kind of self-interest. So why would he come down to Chamber of Secrets when he knew that there was a deadly monster like the Basilisk present there.

After thinking a lot about it, Ivy couldn't think of a reason Quinn would come down to a dangerous place. There was nothing inside there that would be worth it for Quinn to risk his life.

She didn't want to think that Quinn did it selflessly, without any profit, and that made things complicated.

Ivy Potter was conflicted.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Come on, run faster; this pace isn't good enough. Show me some spirit. You want to play as soon as possible, right?" said Quinn as he moved behind a slightly panting and sweating Eddie.

"What... are you... doing? Why are you pushing me today?" asked Eddie as he huffed and puffed.

Eddie had attended the Ravenclaw Quidditch team tryouts for the Chaser position. With his daily workouts with Quinn, mixed with his own flying sessions, Eddie passed the tryouts with flying colors and was by far the best Chaser applicant from the lot that tried out.

It turned out that Eddie was like a game character who completed all the side-quests before attempting the main boss because the result from three months of persistent workouts, broom training, and the daily grind had allowed Eddie to breeze through anything that was put in front of him.

Eddie was innately tough and didn't seem to scare away from incoming Bludgers and didn't dodge too early, which could lead to missing opportunities and was one the biggest problem with new Chasers. During the tryouts, Eddie's Bludger dodges were so close yet so smooth that the people watching were in awe while sweating at the sheer fearlessness that he displayed.

It had prompted Quinn to yell out, "Mad Lad!" a ton of times from the stands.

But that wasn't even the crazy part about Eddie's tryouts. It was his Quaffle-throwing skills that had everybody in shock.

It turned out that Eddie had a way with the Quaffle. He was able to swing the Quaffle in every possible direction. Eddie was so damn good that none of the Ravenclaw Keeper applicants couldn't block a single throw from Eddie.

And it didn't get any better when the official Ravenclaw Keeper switched in to test him. Eddie, the Quaffle-bender, successfully scored every single time he threw the ball.

In fact, Eddie's performance was so good that he was already better than the three starting Chasers. And the only reason he wasn't on the team was that the Chaser position required teamwork.

Unlike Seeker and Keeper, Chasers and Beaters had to work together to keep the Quaffle and Bludgers moving.

Eddie needed to be inducted into the Chaser system to function on the team. The team was already planning to make Eddie the primary scorer because of his Quaffle throwing skills.

Eddie thought that now that he had joined the team, he could relax a little, but it seemed Quinn had different plans.

"You passed the tryouts, but if you want to be the best chaser, you need to be able to handle the beating from other chasers, who will try to fly into you to knock the Quaffle out of your grasp. You need stamina and strength to withstand those blows, so we are upping your training," replied Quinn while still following behind Eddie. "Don't think now that you have made the team, you can relax. Nope, to attract the ladies, you need to shine, and I am going to make you shine on that field."

Eddoe turned his head back towards Quinn and looked down at Quinn's feet. "And what the hell is that?!"

Quinn was 'following' behind Eddie, but he wasn't running like Eddie was. Beneath Quinn's feet was a dark-blue skateboard deck-shaped structure with bronze streaks, but without the other components like the truck and the wheels.

And Quinn was standing on a wheeless skateboard that hovered off the ground and gilded behind Eddie as he ran.

"Oh, this? This is a hoverboard," smiled Quinn, leaning forward that made his speed increase and overtook Eddie.

He rotated after he got past Eddie and faced him while moving and was now moving along the board's breadth instead of the length.

"It uses similar charms employed to make brooms. Though I have made changes to them. This baby isn't as fast as a broom and can only hover a few feet above the ground, but it has much better control with a silky smooth ride. And if you can hold onto it, you can scale any surface as it can grip onto surfaces while hovering over them. It is pretty easy to control it by shifting your weight to change speeds and brake."

Eddie looked at the hoverboard painted in Ravenclaw colors with fascination and wonder.

"Holy shit, this is amazing! Are you planning to sell these? I want to buy one," asked Eddie as he continued to run.

"You can have one," smiled Quinn before saying. "But, I am not going to sell these."

Eddie looked up at Quinn's face and spoke in surprise. "But why?! This will probably sell more than brooms. I think parents would buy these instead of toy brooms. You have to sell these."

"Don't you think I thought of that? I already know if I sell these, they will fly off the shelves. But I can't sell them," sighed Quinn before revealing his reasoning. "If they go out, people will stop walking. And that is how people get fat." He looked at his feet and declared. "This invention of mine is too dangerous for the magical kind. I'm doing this for the sake of the world."

Brooms were big and long, so people didn't use them in their daily lives. But Quinn's hoverboards were small and compact. If he sold them, Quinn was sure that obesity would increase among the magical kind. People would stop walking and literally stand on his invention to get places.

"Also, this looks almost exactly the same as the non-magical skateboard. I'm sure that most of the governments would ban it because if people bought these, one of them could easily get into the hands of a non-magical person."

"Then change the shape into something else, problem solved," shrugged Eddie, without realizing that Quinn was very slowly increasing his speed, and he was subconsciously trying to keep up with it.

"I know that, but as I'm not going to sell these, I don't need to. I will change the shape of the one I'll give you, so it won't cause you trouble."

The only reason Quinn had brought the hoverboard out was that he was injured and needed to act like nothing was out of place. The first thing he did in the morning was the workout with Eddie. And Quinn never skipped a workout, so to make sure that Eddie didn't notice anything was wrong with him, Quinn decided to sacrifice Eddie's comfort by pushing his workout intensity up a notch while pretending to be a trainer monitoring him.

"Now, come on. Move those legs. I want to see enough sweat to fill a glass, but remember to stay hydrated."

Eddie groaned as he picked up the pace. "This sucks!"

"Yeah, show me that spirit! Whine more if it helps, I don't care."

"You suck!"

"Aww, thank you for the compliment."

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- (Scene Break) -

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Rivers Lock returned from his low-level clerk job at the ministry to his humble home. He opened his letterbox to check to see if he had some mail waiting for him. Taking out the contents, Rivers shuffled through the various pamphlets, advertisements, subscriptions and some personal letters.

"Hmm?"

Rivers looked at a cheap envelope with nothing written on it, not even the sender's name or who it was addressed to.

He opened the envelope and retrieved a folded parchment with words written in untidy scribbles.

As Rivers read the parchment and his eyes widened in shock. He immediately folded the parchment, looked around the street, and hurriedly entered his home.

...

Inside his home, Rivers sat down on his dining table. And once again read the letter that was left in his letterbox.

"This is fascinating. I didn't know this existed," muttered Rivers to himself as he re-read the contents. "The Shrieking Shack has a secret passageway that opens up beneath the Whomping Willow!"

Rivers Lock, pureblood, was a man in his mid-twenties who worked at the ministry as a low-level clerk. His daily job was collecting the memos from his office area and charm them into airplanes, so they would reach their destination across different parts of the office. A job that caused him to face a lot of abuse when someone didn't get the memo or pretended to not get the charmed memos.

It was a menial and repetitive job that had no scope of future progress, and Rivers only did it because he needed to pay the bills.

On the personal side of his life, Rivers lived a lonely life, alone without a significant other or even a pet. He didn't have much contact with his family because they liked his older brother better because of his more noteworthy ministry job, while he was stuck as a lowly clerk.

That was the Rivers Lock, which was presented to the public for everyone to see. A person with low self-esteem, who didn't stand up for himself, let others walk all over him, let others take advantage of him, didn't know how to socially navigate a work environment... someone others wouldn't give a single look of significance.

He was just another face in the crowd, forgotten after a single glance.

In actuality, Rivers Lock was anything but how he showed himself to the world.

A person with low self-esteem? No, Rivers Lock was a person with overflowing confidence in himself and pride that he was better than others.

He wasn't a person who didn't stand up for himself. If you crossed Rivers Lock, he would make sure that things would come around to bite them back. He didn't forget easily and held grudges.

It would seem that others were taking advantage of Rivers, but it only was because Rivers did nothing about it. If he wanted, they would end up losing instead of taking advantage.

He wasn't a socially inept person. Rivers knew exactly what he was doing. He made sure that people wouldn't give him another glance, that they wouldn't think of him as competent. It was all just for show.

All of it was a fa?ade so that people wouldn't find the real him. The real him that the world wouldn't accept because they couldn't understand him.

So Rivers Lock hid away and put on a mask, something that wouldn't gain him much attention, so that he wouldn't have to pretend much. He didn't make friends because that would be more pretending. He didn't get into relations because he wasn't interested. His family didn't seem to take an interest in him, and that was fine with Rivers.

But, unfortunately, or fortunately, Rivers found that he couldn't hide his authentic self. He needed an outlet that would let him vent the things that were locked away.

To achieve that, he created Novellus Accionites.

Somewhere he could be himself but at the same time remain in the shadows.

Rivers knew what he was doing, and because of that, some Aurors or even some members of Novellus Accionites knew who he was.

He was able to control an entire terrorist group without ever revealing his identity, not a single aspect that would point out that Rivers Lock was the one who started Novellus Accionites.

And right now, the anonymous leader of Novellus Accionites was sitting on a vital piece of information that allowed him to get inside the castle, which was said to be the most secure place in the country.

Rivers rubbed his finger over the bottom of the parchment, and while he considered the information in the letter extremely useful, he didn't like the fact that this letter was delivered to his home.

The sender had somehow figured out his identity that he had been able to hide from hundreds of people and the authorities that were out to get him.

"Peter Pettigrew," muttered Rivers with a flat voice as he stared at the sender's name at the end of the letter, with not a single emotion on his face.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Rolling on a hoverboard with style.

Ivy Potter - Smarter of the Potter twins - Conflicted with the knowledge.

Eddie Carmichael - Passed the tryouts - "I hate moving!"

Rivers Lock - Leader of Novellus Accionites - Anonymous

AlanL - Editor - So Quinn doesn't want people to get fat, huh? He's soo noble…

( ′? ?ゝ?)

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn stood in front of the full-size mirror in his, Eddie's, and Marcus's dorm room while twisting and turning his body. He was looking to the mirror to see the state of his body.

"Alright, no pain, no scarring, the coloration is consistent; everything seems to be back to normal," noted Quinn as he jumped, flexed, and moved his body to check if his body was functioning normally.

The Leviathan's Underpass incident had been three days ago, and it had taken Quinn this time to heal himself while pretending that nothing was wrong with him. With copious use of glamors and illusions, Quinn was able to hide the fact that he was walking around with a punctured lung and a ripped intestine amid healing.

After the Time-Turner events, Quinn had pulled an all-nighter to fix enough stuff that would allow him to function without arousing suspicion. For three days, Quinn had spent almost all his time in the Room of Requirements, fully concentrating on healing.

Quinn didn't have experience with healing humans. Sure he could heal minor wounds, but this level of injuries wasn't something he had tackled. So every step he took was planned with caution and executed with excess care, even if it meant that Quinn spent almost every waking second of his day casting Healing magic.

But that hard work and persistence were rewarded with a complete recovery. If someone were to look at Quinn, they wouldn't realize that he was stabbed, cut, and fractured just three days ago.

"Damn, I look good," smirked Quinn narcissistically, flexing poses in front of the mirror.

At that moment, Marcus walked out of the attached bathroom after having taken a bath to see Quinn making poses in front of the mirror while dressed only in his underwear.

"Don't be creepy, and drop that smirk; it's weird," said Marcus as he passed by Quinn towards his wardrobe. "Dress up quickly. I'm hungry; we need to go to breakfast."

"... yeah," said Quinn, clearing his throat as he stopped posing and walked towards his bed where he had laid down his clothes.

Then Marcus saw Eddie, lying face-side down on his bed, not really moving.

"What happened to him?"

"Hmm? Oh, it's nothing. I just put him through an anaerobic course. He is gassed out," replied Quinn, as he buttoned up his shirt.

Marcus lifted his leg and gently kicked Eddie on his bum. Eddie groaned.

"Come on, get in the shower. We need to get going," spoke Marcus as he too started to get ready for the day.

Eddie groaned for a solid ten seconds before pushing himself off the bed. He walked towards the bathroom. As he passed by Quinn, Eddie tried to kick him, but Quinn arched his back forward, making him miss.

Quinn chuckled as Eddie clicked his tongue and walked into the bathroom.

After getting dressed, Quinn and Marcus went down to the common room to wait for Eddie as he got ready.

"Good morning, Luna," greeted Quinn and sat beside his favorite Ravenclaw, excluding himself, of course.

Luna lifted her head from this week's copy of Quibbler to face Quinn. "Good morning..." She then stared at Quinn for a good few seconds before asking. "It seems you are feeling alright."

Quinn sat down beside Luna and raised a brow in inquiry. "What do you mean? I was always alright, Luna." Inside he was feeling a little worried.

"You weren't feeling well for the past three days, but today you seem fine," answered Luna.

"Why do you say that?"

Luna took out a package from her bookbag and turned to Quinn. "When talking to the clients in the office, you were less... Quinn-like, it wasn't that different, but I noticed it. Second, you were smiling and speaking less than usual, so I assumed you weren't feeling well."

She placed the package onto Quinn's lap and said, "This is your copy of the special issue of The Quibbler. It goes out next week, but daddy sent two in advance; one for me and this one for you."

Quinn stared at Luna in amazement as the blonde went back to reading the special issue of Quibbler while holding it sideways because of the sideways layout of one of the articles inside.

He had thought that he had successfully pulled acting normal, but it seemed like someone observant like Luna, who spent a lot of time with him, noticed that something was wrong.

'I still have a long way to go, it seems,' smiled Quinn, but then another thought entered his mind, and it made him think, 'Maybe it's a good thing.'

Quinn took out a chocolate from his pocket and held his hand in front of Luna. "This is for you, Luna. But don't eat it now, okay?"

Luna glanced at the chocolate, picked it up from Quinn's hand, pocketed the small chocolate before going back to reading.

Marcus came back from checking the in-house library to see if it was updated. "There are two new books: one on Arithmancy and the second on Astronomy... Why are you smiling?" asked Marcus when he noticed a broad smile on Quinn's face.

"It's nothing," replied Quinn as he put the special issue of The Quibbler into his book bag.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn stretched inside the Aquatic Vault's stone cave with a severe expression on his face.

He raised his eyes towards the triangular entrance and walked towards it to start the trials. As Quinn walked towards the entrance, he smoothly raised his hand to touch the orb of water, which provided him with the safety teleportation insignia.

The water orb was absorbed into his body, and the blue insignia appeared on his body.

"Let's do a speed run."

As Quinn stepped into the triangular entrance, he began transfiguring himself. The insides and outside of his body wriggled, and the underwater respiratory system began to form. By the time he was teleported, Quinn had already taken the first gulp of water, which activated the system.

...

Quinn opened his eyes. He felt the water around him disappear and saw the raging vortex beneath him.

Without using any magic to slow himself down, Quinn assumed a diving posture and plunged into Poseidon's Wrath with zero hesitation.

Inside the violent water, Quinn raised his hands wide and exerted water magic. Immediately the rampaging water started to curve around him, leaving behind a much gentler flow for him to stand in.

His eyes sharpened as he looked towards the center of the vortex, and even though he couldn't see the center because of the moving water, Quinn knew it was there, and he had to get there.

Out was the gradual path switch approach which Quinn had used when he had been helpless against the roaring currents.

But now?

Quinn looked at the gentle stream of water surrounding him.

Now, the angry maelstrom bent under his will, under his magic, under the control he was able to exert on anything water.

Quinn contorted his body slightly, and with that movement, the magic started to build inside him. It rushed, ready to perform supernatural feats, and with a command from Quinn, it released into the world.

He shot forward, and the arctic blue magic rushed ahead and around him, forcing the water to calm down for Quinn to cruise through the path as if he owned it.

Poseidon's Wrath, which required Quinn to go in circles around the vortex as he got close to the center, was conquered as Quinn paved a straight route directly to the center.

When he came out to the center with speed, Quinn dropped straight down, without bothering to slow himself down, and entered Tohem's Delight without an intermission.

...

Quinn enjoyed the calm embrace of the chasm of darkness.

But he instantly broke the calm by creating spherical waves of water to launch a search operation to the next trial.

Tehom's Delight shook as wave after wave of deepwater vibrations were sent out from Quinn, who stood straight in the water, already used to the unusual calmness of Tehom's Delight. He could shake the effects if he concentrated.

Within a few seconds, Quinn got back the vibrations, and using haptics and magical senses, he interpreted them to find the location of the next triangular entrance.

'Up,' thought Quinn as the entrance was above him.

A burst of arctic blue magic pushed Quinn up at a jet speed. He left behind shock waves of water in trail.

Quinn didn't slow down and directly entered the entrance, which teleported him out of Tehom's Delight.

...

The light from the crystal lattice assaulted Quinn's eyes, causing him to squint a little, but the moment his eyes adjusted, Quinn focused on his next target.

The well of Hadal Encumbrance that aimed to crush anyone who dared to venture inside. And it waited for Quinn to get inside and face the challenge.

Quinn stepped into the well, and despite it being a deep hole, Quinn walked to the center as if he was walking from the shallow end of the pool to the deeper side.

Ripples shook the water inside Hadal Encumbrance as Quinn sank down into the well.

Instead of just creating a small area of normalized pressure, Quinn normalized the entire well and all the water inside.

The entirety of the pressure that threatened to crush Quinn disappeared as his magic applied dynamic water force to push up against the downward pressure.

His magic overrode the oppressive nature of the trial and forced it to convert into something that Quinn desired.

Quinn stared down towards the entrance at the bottom of the well. The words etched above the entrance stared back at him, which made him recall the jets of razor sharp water that pierced holes in his body.

His eyes closed them as he slipped into the entrance and was taken away to the place that was named The Leviathan's Underpass.

...

The same tunnel greeted Quinn with its white marbled floor and the circular wall of water that encased Quinn inside in a tubular form.

His feet touched the white marble, which had a grainy surface, probably designed to prevent slippage since there was water there.

'I'm back again,' thought Quinn, as he stared straight ahead at the entrance that was fifty meters ahead of him.

Quinn closed his eyes, and water started to ripple around him.

He felt some rage bubble inside of him. Quinn had been channeling anger the entire way. His usual methods of passing the trials were injected with the emotion of anger. And that added an aspect of brute-forcing through his actions today.

Quinn wanted to get here as quickly as possible without wasting time in the trials he had already passed.

'You have caused me a lot of trouble in the last few days,' thought Quinn, staring at the Leviathan's Underpass. It was as if he was talking to the trial.

'I had to mess with time without knowing how it actually works. It could've gone wrong, and I could've lost my life.'

Just remembering the thought of asking someone else —even if that someone else was himself— made his blood boil. That, in consequence, made the rippling more and more pronounced.

'You made me use a debt that I wasn't planning to cash in. I had to reveal a part of my life that I didn't want to share.'

Ivy Potter and Hermione Granger's debt had been gained while under the influence of the sin curse. And it had been obtained through blackmail, which wasn't Quinn's preferred means of gaining favors.

He liked people to think that they were simply helping Quinn back when he helped them out. Quinn preferred when the other party thought they were doing things with their own free will and not because he held something to their heads.

Calling that debt not only meant that he had been backed into a corner but it also revealed something that he had been keeping under the wraps.

Last year, he had to reveal the second vault to his family, and while he didn't regret it, Quinn didn't want more people to know about the cursed vaults. But then, this happened; Ivy and Hermione ended up seeing him in his most prone state, and even though they never found about the vaults, it was too close for comfort.

It pissed him off.

"Let's get this started."

Quinn stepped forward, and the spherical waves rippled out from him, initiating his sonar vision. The waves went out, bounced off the water walls, and came back to him to whisper about the things around him.

Ten steps in, Quinn felt four chaotic swirls twisted into existence in the surrounding water; two behind him, one above him, and the last right in front of him.

Quinn did a lazy wave, and the water swirls flashed in arctic blue before fizzling into oblivion.

"More!"

From then on out, with each step Quinn took, more and more swirls started to appear at an increasingly fast rate.

'You get a boop, you get a boop, you get a boop, everyone gets a boop!' thought Quinn. He had his hands behind his back as he walked forward.

Quinn destroyed the water swirls that were supposed to shoot pressurized jets of water before they could get them out.

From outside of the water tunnel it looked like Quinn was walking on the white marble while several artic blue lights flashed all around him.

After passing the quarter mark, Quinn cancelled out thirty water swirls every few seconds. His Occlumency was working overtime to decipher the information from the sonar, and his magic casting skill was being pushed to the limit by targeting thirty randomly emerging targets.

'Hmm...'

Halfway through the second quarter, Quinn had to handle forty targets every couple of seconds. It was getting difficult to consistently destroy all targets.

'Need to change tactics,' decided Quinn; he was getting into the territory in which one miss would hit Quinn with a pressurized jet of water that would rip any part of his body.

So right after he stopped a wave of swirls to annihilate him, Quinn raised his arm up, and a dome of transparent arctic blue briefly flashed around him.

'Let's see how the defense works.'

Quinn stopped walking, and just when the arctic blue light disappeared, another forty swirls appeared, and for the first time today, forty spears of pressurized jets of water shot out.

All forty water spears collided against Quinn's dome, and every contact point glowed in arctic blue while ripples went out on impact.

'Alright, pretty stable integrity. Nothing seems to be getting past,' noted Quinn and once again started walking.

What started at four swirls had now become fifty swirls and thus fifty simultaneous hits against his dome of protection. Fifty hits every couple of seconds were so abundant that Quinn's dome of protection was fully glowing in arctic blue.

The color wouldn't even get to fade before another volley would light up the dome.

Quinn finally crossed twenty-five meters which marked the halfway point of the fifty-meter path. Then, the barrage of pressured water stopped.

'... What?'

He immediately became cautious and pushed magic into the dome of protection, making it glow a fluorescent arctic blue all around.

The sudden stop of attacks didn't fit well, and Quinn's hunch proved to be correct when ten bigger, more contorted swirls of magic appeared around him.

These new swirls looked more menacing, and looking at them closely, Quinn could see that water was being funneled and sucked into the swirls, making them wider and more contorted.

Then the attack came.

Ten beams of pressurized water came out of ten swirls.

'Ooh,' voice Quinn as he felt the push of the beams against his protection.

Unlike the previous swirl attacks, which shot spears of water before disappearing for new ones to appear, these were continuous sharp emissions of water endlessly assaulting Quinn's dome of protections.

The power of impact was much higher than the previous type.

'But... it's not enough.'

Quinn stood up straight and once again began confidently walking ahead.

For each step he took, five more water beams would be added to the tally, and within eight steps, Quinn was again back to fifty attacks, but this time, he was facing a continuous assault.

'This is still not enough,' thought Quinn.

Just as Quinn had predicted, with every passing trial, things got easier for him.

Not because of the trials getting easier. No. The trials were getting tough in their own way. It was because of Quinn's decision to apply water magic to solve the trials.

The second he entered, Quinn employed the sonar vision he developed for Tehom's Delight. He was able to tell when and where the attacks were coming and thus had an easier time defending against them.

Before deploying the shield to defend, Quinn had been on the offense, fizzling out the swirls before they could shoot out their attacks. He had learnt to manipulate water from Poseidon's Wrath. As he had to learn the art of controlling turbulent water, the spears of pressurized water became simply another form of that.

If Poseidon's Wrath was an application —where moving water was used to sweep everything in its path— then, the swirls in Leviathan's Underpass were applications where moving water was being used to cut through anything placed in front of them.

The dome of protection which Quinn used was also water magic. The swirls were a physical offense where water was being shot at high pressure to form concentrated beams of destruction.

Unlike ice, where the molecules were densely packed, water had an element of flexibility. Quinn's water magic dome, when assaulted, transferred the energy from the incoming water beam. It employed the flexibility of water to carry that incoming energy, divert it away across the dome's surface, and finally released it into the surroundings.

With every trial, Quinn had gotten better at using water magic. This year he had studied a lot of water magic, and because he had to go through different water terrains every time he entered the Aquatic Vault, Quinn had been able to gain tons of experience with water magic.

And all that experience was coming into play right now, which allowed him to stroll through Leviathan's Underpass.

Quinn couldn't see anything because the fifty water beams obstructed his view, but under his dome, Quinn felt safe, so he continued to walk.

Quinn noticed when he walked into the fourth quarter as the fifty water beams suddenly gained a ton of strength.

'Oh, my, if these hit me, my body won't be solid anymore,' thought Quinn, but continued to walk. 'What would it be? Instant gory mush.'

The first few shots at the start of the path, which were much weaker than the current attacks, had disabled Quinn. If he had stayed there for a few seconds more, he would've been dead.

It made Quinn think about how much magic could achieve.

Then suddenly, all attacks stopped, and Quinn found himself in front of the entrance at the end of the tunnel.

'So, it's done, huh,' thought Quinn.

He looked back to see the white marbled floor and the opposite end he had started at. If Quinn was honest, he expected more out of the trial that had almost killed him.

'I guess the element of surprise was the thing that doomed me.'

After thinking that, Quinn turned back to the triangular unnamed entrance. He took a big gulp of water and went through it.

He disappeared from Leviathan's Underpass.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - I am gooood looking~!

Luna Lovegood - Observant - Knows her boss.

Eddie Carmichael - Chaser - Uuuuggggghhhhh.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Next chapter is the end and the reward

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn opened his eyes and, once again, he was in the water. That didn't surprise him. It was the last thing that would surprise him.

He looked to his side and saw that he was lying on a white marbled floor.

'What's the deal here?' asked Quinn to himself and tried to get up, but then things changed.

The second Quinn tried to get up, the entirety of water around him glowed artic-blue, and Quinn's eyes widened because of an emotion he couldn't describe.

All thoughts of getting up from the floor disappeared, and Quinn laid back, not moving a single muscle in his body.

'... What is this?'

A warm and comfortable feeling enveloped Quinn, and it was like nothing he had ever experienced. Quinn felt like he had been living in unrelenting conditions, struggling with the harsh realities of the world, and now he was at the end of the road, finally able to rest in peace.

His taut muscles all over his body relaxed as the magic in the water made him relax.

Without Quinn knowing, the injuries he had healed to completion somehow healed some more and then went even further.

Quinn didn't realize it, but his body was going through a process of healing so thorough and miraculous that it wasn't something he had ever experienced. Things that Quinn's own body didn't realize needed healing were healing.

Every single part of the body was going through healing.

Every system in the eleven organ systems, including the integumentary, skeletal, muscular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, urinary, and reproductive systems was covered.

Not a single cell in Quinn's body was left behind. Every cell in his body was being filled with a never seen before vitality.

While all this happened, Quinn was busy feeling his magic.

For someone like him, who used all his magic every day, it was needed to know how much magic he had to plan for consumption. Quinn had an excellent awareness of how much magic was there in his body.

Right now, Quinn was feeling something mysterious and enchanting.

'My magic is being regenerated, but at this speed...'

Every magical human had a magical core that held all their magic, and one could increase the capacity of said cores by using more magic. Quinn did that every day by using all his magic and was absolutely confident in declaring that he had the best magic growth in the entire world.

When someone used magic, they also regenerated it back, and everybody had their own magic regeneration speed.

It depended on a few factors:

The size of the magical core: as the capacity increased, so did the recovery speed.

A person's health: if a person was facing injury, was sick because an injury, or facing some kind of affliction, their rate of recovery would be on a down low.

A person's lifestyle: if one lived a healthy lifestyle, the recovery speed would be higher than a person with an unhealthy lifestyle.

Rest: the recovery speed increased when a person was resting. Activities like relaxing or sleeping would exponentially increase the rate of recovery.

And currently, Quinn was feeling his magic recover at a rate that he hadn't ever experienced before. It was even faster than when Quinn was asleep at his best health.

'At this rate, I could recover from zero to hundred within three hours, no, maybe even faster.'

Quinn closed his eyes and immersed in the fabulous feeling. Quinn felt that he could stay in here for his entire life and wouldn't regret a single second of it.

He was feeling so absolutely fantastic that it was borderline euphoric.

Then Quinn felt a very gentle nudge of mental magic against his occlumency shields. It wasn't trying to break into his mind; its intention was different. The mental magic was asking for permission to enter.

Quinn thought for a moment before deciding to send a legilimency probe towards mental magic poking against his shields. He wanted to see if he could find something out before allowing it entry, and the response Quinn got was that it was some kind of memory.

'A memory, how surprising!' thought Quinn, feeling very intrigued.

He had no idea who had constructed the Ivy vault or the Sin vault because of the lack of any kind of trace indicating their creator's identity, so to see a memory made Quinn think he would be able to find who created this vault.

Quinn rescinded the legilimency probe and opened his occlumency shield to let the mental magic carrying a memory come in.

Inside Quinn's mindscape, a mental representation of him looked up to see a glowing water orb followed by various shades of blue manifest, from the lightest of baby blues to the darkest of the midnight blues.

And with that, the memory was revealed with a bright flash of blue.

Outside, Quinn's eyes snapped wide open, and his eyes —both his irises and the sclera— turned a solid glowing arctic blue. His chest raised up as the water surrounding him lifted Quinn up from the white floor, and as he lifted up, his body glowed in different shades of blue.

The incoming memory engulfed his entire being.

...

The memory started with a vision of extremely hot bubbling water. To match that, the water surrounding Quinn heated up, not to the point in the vision, but enough for Quinn to feel the heat.

There was nothing at first, but slowly things started to change as microscopically small organisms emerged and developed in the extremely scorching water. Then the vision seemed to fast forward at an incredible speed as the water started to cool down, and with time which seemed to be eons, different mysterious creatures roamed those waters.

...

The vision switched, and now Quinn saw a gigantic huge Tsunami wave coming right towards him, and within seconds, it crashed against him. The water outside turned turbulent to match the memory and rode all over him.

Rain and storm accompanied the Tsunami waves, creating a tandem whose sole aim was to cause destruction.

The enormity of the Tsunami waves was more terrifying than whatever Quinn had ever seen, and it caused his heart to race in fear. Against the titanic waves, Quinn felt they could erase him like an insignificant bug.

...

The vision shifted, and Quinn found himself among a myriad of fishes swimming underwater. There were all kinds of aquatic creatures that swarmed around and past him; he saw both magical and non-magical creatures gliding around. He looked down to see beautiful coral reefs below him.

He felt a shadow cast upon him and the reefs, and when he looked over, he saw a large blue whale swimming over him. But then what Quinn recognized as a Leviathan appeared above the whale, and the gigantic serpentine dragon dwarfed the whale and cast an even deeper shadow over both him and the blue whale.

...

The image dissolved, and Quinn was suddenly in the air overseeing a forest full of lush and vibrant trees. Then, Quinn heard a rush of water; he turned and saw a horrifying flood trampling towards the woods. Within seconds, the angry flood crashed against the lush tree forest, and he could hear the shaking crunch of trees breaking through the roaring waves of water.

Suddenly, the vision made Quinn descend into the forest, and there he saw the sickening sight of animals that lived within the forest struggling against the flood. Quinn heard the screams and witnessed the death of a beautiful ecosphere rich with flora and fauna, something that would take the area years to recover from.

...

The scene once again disappeared like sand in the air to show a drastic change in the scenery.

Quinn stood at the bank of a river stream, and on the opposite side of the stream was a herd of deer drinking water, and it was not just the deers but all kinds of animals near it that relied on the river.

He looked into the clear water and watched fishes swimming by. Quinn followed a fish with his eyes, and suddenly a heron bird, who was standing by the bank, swooped in with its beak, picked a fish out of the river, and flew away.

...

The vision again went through a change, and now he stood near a pond of steaming water. Quinn stood still for ten seconds staring at the steaming water before, without warning, the water started to bubble, followed by an eruption as a water geyser emerged from the pond.

The water from the geyser came down, steamy mist filled with the area, obstructing Quinn's vision. In the foggy mist, the atmosphere changed from humid wetness to a chilly cold.

And when it cleared, Quinn stood on an icecap over the vast, cold, unforgiving ocean. He was facing a spanning glacier that stretched across the horizon.

Unlike the violent and noisy geyser, the glacier and ice caps were silent, reserved, and deadly.

The icecap beneath Quinn's feet abruptly cracked and, just as abruptly he had appeared, he sank down into the bone-chilling water.

Quinn splashed around in the water; he tried to move and was unexpectedly successful. He raised his body and Quinn found himself coming up a stream of running water.

At the end of the stream, Quinn heard a roaring noise, and when he reached the end of the stream, his eyes popped out because he was flung down from an edge of what seemed to be a gigantic waterfall.

Quinn fell into the blasting water at the base of the waterfall, and suddenly there was no wild water. It became calm, and the model of serenity surrounded him.

He felt his back touch and settle against a surface, and when Quinn opened his eyes, he was back in the Aquatic Vault, his back against the water marble, while staring at the light streaming through the water.

Quinn didn't say anything and silently lay against the white marble floor. His mind was going through the scenes he had seen in the memory and contemplated what he had seen.

His initial hope of seeing the creator of the Aquatic Vault had been dashed, and what he was shown had left a deep impression on his life.

Quinn closed his eyes and let the feelings he was experiencing sink in.

It was an indefinite time after which Quinn opened up his eyes, and they showed tranquility, unagitation, and peace.

The teleportation insignia on Quinn's arm flashed with a blue light and whisked him away from the place, leaving behind a ripple.

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- (Scene Break) -

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The Kraken watched one of its tentacles as it swished back and forth and was about to add another tentacle to create a double swish when its yellow eye caught the special human coming out of the dangerous place.

Kraken's eyes sparkled when it saw the special human, because it had decided today that it was going to push the tiny human a whole seven times before letting him go.

But then the Kraken noticed something odd with the special human. Through its mighty eyes, the Kraken could see a noble blue aura around the special human, something that hadn't been around the tiny human before.

It had seen the same aura once before.

It was a time before the Kraken had come to rest in this place and lived in the oceans. During those times, no creature of water dared to go against its mighty self; all of them bowed their heads to it and feared him.

But one day, a traveler came to its territory, simply passing by, as if he was looking for a place to rest. The traveler had the same appearance as the fish-people (merpeople) that lived along with him now.

But unlike the weak fish-people, the traveler was strong.

The traveler had the same blue aura around him, and the water seemed to talk to him. The water seemed to enjoy moving along the traveler's will, enjoyed his touch, and seemed more lively when the traveler was around.

The Kraken didn't know what the blue aura meant, but it knew that the blue aura was special.

And now it was seeing it for the second time on the special human.

In Kraken's mind, the special human just became more special. More special than almost any human it had ever seen.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn stood on the lakebed in the center of the lake with his eyes closed.

Water was one of the mysterious gifts of nature that supported and held life on earth. Many indigenous communities had known the value of water for a long time. On the surface, water could be seen as food, a means of transport, an element for cleansing, purification, and initiation in cultural ceremonies.

But deep down, water was something much more important, and while everybody knew it, Quinn became aware of it on a deeper level.

'Yet, it's the source,' thought Quinn back to the sentence in the riddle. 'Friar was right; it was the source.'

'Water is The Cradle of Life.'

If the sacred gift of the earth was life. Water was the custodian of life.

Water was sacred because it held life on earth. A seed in the soil does not germinate until it receives water. No life on earth could live without water.

But at the same time, there was a duality to water.

'It can give life, but it can also destroy it at the same time.'

While rain brought life to the earth, storms uprooted the same life that it nurtured.

If water was life, then the absence of it was death. Without water, drought and famine would overrun the earth.

Tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, tidal waves could wipe out all life in its path with no regard. They were the destructive phenomenon of nature that harnessed the power of the thing that covered seventy-one percent of all earth.

No matter how much any species on earth tried to avoid it, they wouldn't be able to come out of it unscathed. Even humans, who built structures that tried to stand up to these agents of destruction, couldn't come out of it without suffering massive losses.

In many mythologies across the world, floods were seen as divine retribution from higher powers sent to destroy the corrupt civilizations so that rebirth could start from those waters.

Water was the driving force of all nature, good or bad.

Quinn had been looking at water from the perspective of magic. He thought about how it could be manipulated, how he could use it for his advantage. To Quinn, it was just something he could use magic on.

The visions he had seen inside the vault made Quinn realize how small his view of water was.

The visions had caused him to gain enlightenment of sorts.

And from the bottom of his heart, Quinn wanted to showcase that enlightenment.

Quinn deeply desired to show what he had experienced. For him, magic was the best way in which he could display his understanding, and the Great Lake was the best canvas, on which the brush of magic would showcase its charm.

He knew that what he was about to do would garner a lot of attention, and if he was found out, it would be a giant pain in the future.

But Quinn couldn't hold it back. Quinn could feel his magic demanded that he do it now; his ego desired it more than anything in the world; every cell inside Quinn's body urged him to do it.

His mind, body, and soul wished for it.

So Quinn let his restraints go.

For this one time, Quinn let desire trump logic and let his ego overtake his identity.

Quinn's eyes opened, and instead of the stone-grey, two orbs of glowing purple greeted the world.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Ivy, Harry, and Lily Potter walked together through a corridor to Lily's private quarter in Hogwarts.

"How are your studies going?" asked Lily as they walked.

Harry, looking at the chocolate card of Flavius Belby and trying to remember why it seemed familiar, shrugged in response.

"Except potions with Snape, everything is fine."

Lily furrowed her brows before sighing, "I have tried to talk to him, but he doesn't seem to want to listen. And Harry, it's Professor Snape."

Harry rolled his eyes in response and shook the card in his hand, hoping that would jog his memory, but he drew a blank.

"What about you, Ivy, dear?" smiled Lily, looking at her daughter. While her son took after his father, her daughter took after her.

Ivy had better grades than Harry, and Lily liked to think it was because of her.

"Everything is fine. Hermione and I are already on revision," answered Ivy smoothly.

The redhead Potter twin took her studies seriously. Unlike Hermione, who seemed to have made books of her daily sustenance, she liked to learn by doing; she enjoyed the practical experience rather than the extensive reading that her best friend enjoyed. That didn't mean that she didn't read; Ivy still read much more than the average person; she just enjoyed casting magic more.

"Bookworms," muttered Harry at the mention of revision.

"Whatever, four eyes," retorted Ivy at the quip.

Lily smiled at her two children's antics before asking, "On the subject of revision, did any of you two buy Quinn West's notes this year? If you haven't, I'll give you the money to buy them; they are quite a good buy."

The Potter twins stilled for a second and didn't reply. Both thought about their interaction with Quinn.

Harry still hadn't talked about Peter Pettigrew with anyone other than Ivy. The twins had decided to research Peter on their own and to simply wait for the day their parents would talk to them about Peter on their own.

Ivy, on the other hand, thought about the time travel events. It didn't help when the events had taken place just a few days ago. She still couldn't wrap her head around what happened that day. Not to mention when she found that Quinn was the one to save her and Harry from the Chamber of Secrets.

As Lily didn't hear a response from her twins she assumed that the two hadn't bought the guides. "If you two want to buy it, I highly recommend them. Come to me for the money if you decide to buy them."

"Yes," replied the Potter twins at the same time.

Ivy sighed and decided to look out at the scenery to distract her from her thoughts, but lo-and-behold, she saw the Great Lake in full view.

'Lovely,' sighed Ivy, but then she stopped in her tracks when she saw ripples on the surface of the lake.

Lily and Harry also slowed when they saw Ivy suddenly stop.

"What is it, Ivy?" asked Lily and walked towards her daughter.

"There are ripples in the lake," replied Ivy and pointed at the Great Lake in the distance.

The mother and son followed Ivy's directions and saw rapid ripples on the surface of the lake.

But the situation changed very quickly when they saw some very drastic changes in the lake.

Their eyes widened to the limit when they saw a drain right in the middle of the lake. It started with a narrow point, but then, the water sank down in a line, and in a few seconds, the water started to split in the middle.

"... The lake is splitting?" spoke Harry, trying to put the scene in front of him in words.

The girls didn't say anything and just stared at the bizarre scene in front of them, and within a minute, the entire lake was split into two parts, and they could see the lakebed path in the middle of the lake.

Lily finally snapped out of it and realized that she had to do something. "I-I have to alert the other professors." She turned to her children and ordered, "You two go to your common room."

Immediately after saying that, she ran off to alert the other faculty.

Ivy and Harry, of course, didn't listen to their mother; they stepped closer to the edge of the corridor and stared at the lake.

Ivy thought about who was causing this, and only one person came to her mind. The person who had come out of the Great Lake, heavily injured.

But just like her previous many suspicions and conjectures about the person, she had no proof that he was the one causing this.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Friar, the Hufflepuff ghost, was gliding his merry way through the walls of Hogwarts. It was just another day of his ghostly life, but that changed when he got out a wall, and right in front of him was the view of the Great Lake.

"In the name of Helga herself! What..." exclaimed Friar as his belly jiggled in shock.

He stared at the spit that was right in the middle of the Great Lake.

The single body of water was turned into two with a clear and visible divide in the middle as the water tried to come back together but couldn't because something was stopping it.

And just when he thought that his ghostly self couldn't be more shocked today, another change happened in the Great Lake, and two whirlpools appeared in the lake, one on each side.

Anyone who could see this would assume that it was because of magic, and Friar was no different. So his next thought was that whose work was this.

Then the answer struck, and he uttered the name.

"Quinn... Is this because of the cursed vault down below?"

At first, he thought it couldn't be Quinn, this feat of magic was too much for a child of Quinn's age, but when he thought about it more, the more the possibility of it being Quinn got stronger.

'If it's indeed Quinn, then how is that child capable of splitting the lake? How strong is that child,' such thoughts revolved in the mind of the ghostly being.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Albus Dumbledore stared out of his window in his office, which was located on the headmaster's tower, and at a height only second to the Astronomy tower.

The headmaster with a long beard, who was over a hundred years old, stared at the Great Lake with his aged eyes full of wisdom.

He had just returned from the ministry after handling some business, and when he was passing by his window with a bowl full of sour candy in his hand, he saw the Great Lake divided into two with a whirlpool on each side.

And now, as Dumbledore continued to stare at the strange and out of the place phenomenon, he saw two massive masses of water come out of the center of whirlpools, floating up into the air.

"Oh my, that's some impressive magic," chuckled Dumbledore in an impressed tone, but his eyes weren't portraying the same emotions.

The blue eyes shined in a calculative and analytical light as Dumbledore stared at the Great Lake.

The holder of the Elder Wand thought about who was doing this and where did they come from.

Dumbledore first eliminated the possibility of the person being a student because the reserves and knowledge of water magic required was something he believed a student couldn't achieve. He knew of a few smart students in the castle, but even the smartest of them couldn't possibly achieve this.

Dumbledore was so sure of it because the brightest student he had seen Hogwarts produce was the one named Tom Riddle, and even he couldn't do this while he was in his school years.

So the remaining options were a professor, a resident of the Great Lake, or an unknown outsider.

He eliminated the Great Lake resident because only merpeople in there could manipulate water, and he was sure that none of them was this capable.

The remaining options were professors or an outsider, and he was leaning towards intruders because none of his professors were this powerful.

"It's an outsider, then. I have to make sure the students are safe," said Dumbledore, and the bowl in his hand levitated to the nearby table as he walked out of the office with the Death Stick in his hand.

But it turned out that by the time he got to the Great Lake, the waters had gone back to normal. Even after investigating, he didn't find anything but rich and heavy traces of advanced water magic.

He talked to the merpeople inside, and the only unusual thing they told him was that the recent upheavals in the lake had been caused by the Giant Squid.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Moses!

Ivy Potter - Girl twin - '... This is him, isn't it?'

Harry Potter - Boy twin - Rapidly blinking in confusion.

Lily Potter - Professor - Fan/promoter of the A.I.D. guides.

Friar - Hufflepuff ghost - His belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly.

Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster - Going through a sour candy phase.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https//fictiononlyreader ]??

The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

It was a time of the year that Quinn really enjoyed. Just as his second year when he completed the Icy Vault; this year, he had completed the Aquatic Vault, and now he was feeling as cool as a cucumber.

There was spring in his steps and dance in his moves. At random times, he would break into a dance and enjoy the vibe he was feeling. The same thing happened when he finished the Icy Vault.

While he very much enjoyed going through the vaults, there was always a sense of urgency in the back of Quinn's head in which he needed to complete one vault a year.

So when he wrapped up the Aquatic Vault, Quinn felt he was done for the year. If he had to draw a very loose parallel, then the cursed vaults to him were what examinations were to students. When they ended, students rejoiced like they were part of a nation that just got independence from an oppressive power. The only difference was that Quinn enjoyed the time he spent down in the vaults, unlike many students who didn't enjoy exams.

And for the first time in months, Quinn was free, so he took out his violin, and with it, decided to cast some magic to lighten up that extra-high tension exam mood that plagued the Ravenclaw house every year.

He rested the violin on his shoulder and his fingers on the strings; the other hand grasped the bow. He then gently descended on the strings to play a vibrant tune with sweet calm tones.

At first, the sound was only audible inside Quinn's dorm room and partially audible to the nearby rooms, but as the minutes progressed, the fiddle of the violin traveled all across the boys' dorm.

Some of the boys didn't appreciate the sudden disturbance when they studied for the exams, which were close, but no one got up from their seats and asked the player to stop; something in the sound made them keep still and listen.

In his room, Quinn smiled with his eyes closed. Seeing that no one was here to stop him from playing meant that the magic was working and, thus, he could increase the radius.

Streams of magic traveled down from Quinn's arms to the violin and bow, and the sound started to flow with an extra something behind it. The slow tempo mixed with magic carried all the way to the common room and the girls' dormitory on the other side, and filled the entire Ravenclaw dorms with Quinn's music.

Anyone who heard the music felt the tension drain from their bones, and calm seep into their minds and bodies. The slow sound made them forget about the stress of the incoming exams. That moment made them stop running, stop and kick back to get a relaxing pit-stop.

Quinn, who had his eyes closed while playing the violin, mixed two types of magic together to create his desired effect.

He blended mind magic together with the enchanting sorcery of sound and music to create magical melodies. Using the wings provided by the harmonies, Quinn spread the influence of the mind arts to sway the mood of those who listened.

This idea came from two sources: the first was, of course, the dreaded Sin vault, which had messed with his mind and emotion on a deep level; the second inspiration was from his mind magic teacher, Alan D. Baddeley, who had once used mind magic to forcefully calm him down.

Like Alan, Quinn subtly altered the listeners' present mood. It wasn't as intrusive as the Sin Vault, but did reside on the same mental magic line.

The use of sound magic was to increase the range and effectiveness of magic. Quinn, who had studied illusion magic, knew how to influence the human senses and recognized its efficacy while manipulating a target.

People would subconsciously concentrate on sounds, and this was especially true for magic. So when Quinn laced the music with mental magic, the listeners got quickly influenced because their minds were concentrating on the music. Of course, there were downsides to this usage— it wasn't particularly effective when people were at guard against it, or if they had earplugs on and couldn't listen to the music, or were outright deaf.

'Alright, let's hype up this performance,' thought Quinn, and the tune went through a drastic change. The rhythm started to build up, and the sound turned from gentle and calming to upbeat and exciting.

Everyone in Ravenclaw started to tap their feet and bob their head to the rhythm of the cheerful tune. Slowly they were being guided from the calmness of the earlier piece to the bop of the current one.

The person who felt the most was Quinn himself, who channeled his current spirit into the animated funk. His moves while he played the violin were wild and crazy.

'Oh, yeah, let's blow the roof off this place. Come on, move it~,' thought Quinn as he continued to play; the more he got into playing, the more freely his magic flowed, making everyone who was listening to the melody, felt their hearts beat faster with excitement and exhilaration.

'Rum, pum, tum, and we are done~,' thought Quinn as he finished his piece and bowed to no one.

"WOOHOO!!!!"

"I'm going to ace these exams!"

"Bring it on! I'm going to smash the O.W.L.s!"

"I'm going to get a girlfriend!"

"Exams are nothing! I'm the smartest girl alive!"

"Wrackspurts!"

"I will recreate Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem!"

"Where is Professor Flitwick. I challenge him to a duel!"

Quinn's piece had left the people in a hyped-up state and filled with confidence and enthusiasm. It caused them to feel exhilarated and happy.

Quinn smiled at the shouts coming from the common room and the dorms around him and knew that his showcase of mental and sound magic was a huge success.

Looking at the violin and bow in his hands, Quinn nodded with a grin, "Yeah~, I still got it."

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

A shady figure stood under the shade of a tree looking at the abandoned house with the windows and doors boarded up.

"The Shrieking Shack," muttered the figure looking at the building, which was supposed to be the most haunted in Britain. "To think this shack would be hiding something of such importance."

Rivers Lock smirked at the thought, "It seems this building is just like me. And that's why it's going to get me what I want."

The smirk from his face dropped like it was never there, and he thought about the circumstances that brought him here.

"A bunch of cowards, they are. How can they be scared when I'm planning their moves."

Rivers Lock was the one who created and managed the group known as Novellus Accionites. Just within a couple years, he had been able to gather people together into his banner, and he did it without ever showing his face.

But the series of raids from the Auror Office had instilled fear in the members of Novellus Accionites, and when he tried to bring down the order, he didn't get much of a favorable response.

"I didn't ask them to go to those gatherings," Rivers clicked his tongue in distaste. "If they wanted to mingle together like fools, they could've at least made sure they weren't tracked."

The disadvantage of being a hidden leader was that he couldn't be involved too deeply without being in danger of revealing his identity. As such, he couldn't control what his followers did outside of the plans he drafted for them.

He wanted people to be good with the Disillusionment charm. People who would be able to get around without others noticing. But all he got was some dumb bozos who were absolutely shit at magic, who were complete rock brains and didn't have an ounce of cunning in them.

But this opportunity was too critical for him to miss. The school was about to end soon, and if he didn't act, he would've to wait for the next few months to get the next chance.

Rivers didn't have those months. The Aurors were striking hard on his minions, and he couldn't be sure what would be the situation down the line.

And this opportunity was what he needed to gain the momentum back. If he could pull this off, then the world would know about Novellus Accionites, and all the members who refused his calls like cowards would come scurrying back.

"I guess I will have to do this on my own. This is too important for me to leave it to the idiots," muttered Rivers. He decided that he would be going inside on his own with a couple more members that were at his disposal.

The gears in his mind turned as he continued to stare at the abandoned and decrypt shack.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Quinn shimmied his way to the hospital wing with a rabbit in a cage. The rabbit had been very sick, infected with rabbit calicivirus, which was an illness that had an incubation period of 48-72 hours.

Poppy had given him the brown rabbit and told him that he had a day and a half to return with a perfectly healthy rabbit. He knew nothing about calicivirus; it was a type of hemorrhagic disease virus. So he had only 48-72 hours to learn everyone about the disease and then heal the rabbit before it died.

The research had been easy but lengthy, so by the time Quinn was done learning about the rabbit calicivirus, the rabbit was suffering from lethargy and fever.

Quinn eradicated the disease from the brown rabbit and then healed the fluffy bunny. He did it within the confines of the time Poppy had given him; the rabbit was back to new in twenty-four hours.

'Poppy is slowly getting used to my learning speed. If I was still spending time at the vault, it probably would've taken me a day and a half.'

Quinn walked across the tiled floor of the hospital wing towards Poppy's office as he looked to the sides at the beds to see if she was tending to some students.

And at the end of the wing hallway, Quinn stopped because he came across two people who he wasn't expecting to see in the hospital wing.

"Daphne. Astoria..." said Quinn, finding the Greengrass sisters with Astoria sitting on the bed while Daphne sat on a stool by her side. Multiple thoughts ran through his mind within the second he first laid eyes on the sister. What came out of his mouth was: "Have you seen Madam Pomfrey? I have something to talk with her."

"She is out for the moment. Went down to the dungeon to meet Professor Snape to get some potion ingredients," replied Daphne, and while Quinn couldn't get a read from her expression, her body language told him that she was feeling uncomfortable.

"You just missed her. She went out a minute ago," chimed in Astoria with a smile on her face.

Quinn turned his eyes to the younger sister, and his stone-grey orbs noticed a pale pallor on her skin, a thin sheen of sweat on her face; her whites of eyes were muddled, and many other signs that Quinn had learned to pick up from his time with Poppy learning Healing Magic.

'She is obviously sick. The fact Poppy had to go out to obtain potion ingredients means this isn't a common ailment. I wonder what plagues her?' thought Quinn before smiling and asking, "May I join you two, ladies?"

Daphne opened her mouth to speak something, but Astoria beat it to her.

"Yes, please. You're free to join us," spoke Astoria with a smile on her face.

Daphne glanced at her sister with an inscrutable expression that Astoria ignored, as she continued to smile towards Quinn.

Quinn nodded and pulled a stool from beneath the bed. He took a seat and set the rabbit cage down on the floor. Astoria was sick, and Quinn didn't want to make it worse by introducing a rabbit to the girl.

'She does look the type who loves fluffy and cute things.'

"How have you two been?" asked Quinn, opening up the conversation. "I hope you two are feeling fine, nothing serious, I hope." Quinn knew the topic would come with their location, so he decided to use it as an opener.

"Thank you for asking; we are doing fine, just a small dip in health," replied Daphne, matching eyes with Quinn.

'Ah, it is serious, then,' thought Quinn and then he heard Daphne speak up. 'She must be worried.' Even though she had used 'we' in his answer, all three knew who she was talking to.

"You don't have to lie. We can't change anything about it, so why hide it?" sighed Astoria and softly glanced at her older sister. She turned to Quinn and spoke without hesitation. "I have-"

"Astoria!"

"No, I'm telling him. There is nothing to hide, and I don't get why you get to decide. I'm the one who has it. I should be able to decide who to tell and who not to," answered Astoria in a firm tone, which was less weaker than her usual voice.

Daphne softly sighed and closed her eyes in acceptance. She knew her little sister better than anyone and knew that when Astoria decided to do something, then even their parents wouldn't be able to change her mind.

"I have a condition known as 'blood malediction'. A 'blood malediction' is a curse of the darkest type, passed down to the descendants for generations. Even the most common type of blood malediction is known to stay in the family for half a century," said Astoria with a smile on her face as she was retelling a fascinating story. "One of our ancestors was cursed with the curse, and from then on, the curse resurfaces even though it skips some generations. Our great-grandfather had it, and for two generations, our family was free of it, but it turned out that our generation wasn't so lucky because I got it."

Quinn held his expression in place as he continued to listen to Astoria, and while the younger Greengrass spoke, Quinn felt the older sister glance at him from time to time.

"There are many types of blood malediction: the one I have causes debilitation, leaving me frail and sickly. From time to time, I suffer from these lapses in health that will leave me in a very fragile state."

The usually young and bubbly of the Greengrass sisters smiled helplessly and sighed, "Unfortunately, the curse also reduces my lifespan. None of my ancestors who suffered from the curse ever lived past fifty."

Quinn silently listened to Astoria tell her story without uttering a word, and while he heard all of it, two things stood out to him.

The blood malediction and the resignation in her voice hidden behind her smile.

"I see. So you have a blood malediction. Now, that is rare, isn't it?" started Quinn, and as he spoke, Quinn removed his Hogwarts robe from his shoulder. "A curse that carries down to the descendants. Descendants that suffer from their ancestors' mistakes or misfortune. I guess if you can get your ancestors' fortunes, then getting their misfortune is a fair part of the deal."

"And while getting the curse is unfortunate, and I might seem presumptuous for saying it, I don't think I like the fact that you have accepted you'll never get rid of the curse."

Quinn folded up the sleeves on both of his hands and secured them in place so they wouldn't slip.

"Astoria, don't get me wrong, I like the fact that you don't live your life in despair about your unfortunate circumstances, but your reason is wrong. You should happily live because you know that one day your curse will be erased and you will get to live just as everyone else does— not because you are trying to live the most of your limited life."

He smiled a wide grin as he spoke, "Where is the fun in that? If you accept that then there is no hope. That's no fun at all."

Quinn put out both of his hands towards Astoria and gestured with his finger as he asked, "Give me your hands."

Astoria and Daphne looked at Quinn with bewilderment. The light-hearted tone that Quinn spoke with made it seem that he was not taking this clearly heavy condition seriously. But the words did make some sense to them, and that left both the girls confused.

"Come on, now, don't be scared. I won't eat you. Give me your hands," asked Quinn once more.

Astoria looked at Daphne for guidance, but the look in Daphne's eyes reflected the same confusion as her. So she hesitantly placed both her hands in Quinn's.

"Excellent, thank you for trusting me," smiled Quinn and gently grasped Astoria's petite hands. "Now, let me show you some nifty magic. I think you two will like this." He pointed at his and Astoria's joined hands.

The two Greengrass sisters looked down and witnessed the glowing red veins on Quinn's visible arms and hands.

"Astoria, I don't think you realize that we, who possess magic, are in the presence of something truly grand and extraordinary."

The two girls watched with wide eyes as the glowing red veins seemed to creep from Quinn's hands to Astoria's hands through the connections of their hands.

"Magic has infinite potential, infinite! There is nothing that magic can't accomplish. Those who possess magic can be saints, gods, devils, or anything they want if they understand and know how to use what was so graciously given to them."

The glowing red veins traveled up Astoria's arm, and as Quinn spoke, her entire body was covered in fiery red glowing veins. Astoria could feel a comfortable heat all around her body.

"I know this curse has been in your family for generations. And in all that time, there hasn't been a cure to this ailment that you don't deserve. But losing hope is losing the battle before even starting the fight."

The glowing red veins on Quinn's forearms and Astoria's entire body turned into a sparkling blue color, showing a beautiful charm to the world.

Astoria, who had been feeling a comfortable heat, now with the color change, felt a refreshing cool feeling envelope her body. She closed her eyes because it was the most pleasant she had ever felt. It felt like she was swimming in cool water, and she let go of everything and simply enjoying the bliss as she listlessly floated in the coolness.

But then her eyes snapped open as she felt the frailness and sickness lessen and slowly disappear from her body. It wasn't just that, but the true shock was that her own delicate constitution felt strength and vitality that she had never felt before.

She had never felt so... lively. Astoria felt like she could do anything right now.

Astoria looked up from her hands and looked at Quinn, who was smiling with confidence.

"Astoria Greengrass, I, Quinn West, here and now, declares this to you. From this moment onwards. I assure you that as long as I am alive, you will never ever again feel the presence of the blood curse."

Quinn's smile widened, and as did the eyes of Astoria.

"I will ensure that you will never suffer and feel weak because of the blood malediction. You will live a long life, and it will be a healthy life just like anyone else's."

Astoria felt Quinn's grip slightly tighten as he announced.

"It's my promise to you, and I will never forget it."

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Promise of a lifetime.

Astoria Greengrass - Cursed - Received a promise.

Daphne Greengrass - Worried Elder Sister - Witnessed something magical.

Rivers Lock - Prideful - Planning something big.

Editor - AlanL - Worried. (;?﹏?)

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis.

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https//fictiononlyreader ]??

The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Astoria watched as Quinn's hand left her, the glowing veins disappear and the glow recede.

She lifted her hands and clenched her fists, and surprisingly, she was able to clamp them hard instead of the weak fist that she usually made while suffering from the blood curse. Her body also no longer felt weak and fatigued, like she was feeling a few minutes ago.

'... I feel strong, but how?' she thought and looked up at the reason this was happening, who was pulling down his sleeves and buttoning them back into place.

"... Astoria?"

She turned her face to her sister Daphne, still spinning from the shock and surprise.

"A-Are you alright? You're crying. Is something wrong; do you feel well," asked Daphne in surprise and worry.

Astoria touched her face, and indeed she felt her fingers stained wet with tears. "N-No, I-I am fine. Everything is fine," said Astoria, with her voice cracking with emotion.

And with that, the dam broke, and Astoria started to cry, startling both Quinn and Daphne.

Quinn, who was putting back his outer robe, became startled when he heard Astoria break down and looked at Daphne for assistance.

Daphne leaped into action to her sister's side on the bed and hugged her close to provide comfort. Astoria grabbed onto her sister and hugged her tight.

Quinn felt like he was intruding on a family moment, just as he did at the start of the year, so he once again stood very still to become invisible while his magic silently fixed his clothes.

Astoria calmed down and gently pulled herself out of Daphne's embrace. She turned to face Quinn and swiftly got off the bed to trap Quinn in a very tight hug, surprising the boy with the strength coming from the small figure.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..." repeated Astoria while trying to meld herself into Quinn.

Quinn gently hugged the girl, who he felt was trying to perform a fusion with him and patted her on the back. "Don't mention it. Also, don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened."

Astoria nodded into his shirt and gradually stopped crying before separating from Quinn. She looked up towards Quinn and smiled as he had told her to.

"See, that looks much better," smiled Quinn and booped Astoria on her nose. "Also, we need to talk, so get back on the bed."

Astoria nodded before climbing back onto the bed, and from the way she was sitting, anyone could tell that she was feeling much better.

Quinn sat back down on his stool and spoke, "Now, I fulfilled what I promised, but-" He stared at both the Greengrass sisters and continued after a pause. "- you can't tell anyone outside your family about what I did."

Daphne and Astoria immediately had confused expressions on their faces. They couldn't understand why Quinn would want to hide the fact that he could erase the blood curse.

"I'm not supposed to know what I did. What I used to repress the curse isn't looked positively at by the world," spoke Quinn and rolled his eyes at the end of the sentence.

"What do you mean?"

Quinn knew that if he wanted to continue to treat Astoria, he would need to tell them what he was doing. She needed to know what he was using to help her. "The curse is called 'blood malediction', so I used the same branch of magic to repress the effects of the curse... I used blood magic."

Daphne and Astoria's eyes widened because they knew what Quinn was implying. Blood magic was considered dark magic and something not to dwell in; thag branch of magic was associated with evil sacrifices, to defiance nature in twisted ways, cruelty, and was seen as forbidden theurgy.

The blood malediction, as the name suggested, was a type of blood magic. It was the classic type of magic which was seen as dark magic.

"You might not know this, but I have been studying Healing Magic with Madam Pomfrey, so she especially can't know that I used blood magic to help you. If she knew what I did, she would definitely stop teaching me, and I don't want that," stated Quinn, and he was serious about the relationship that he had with Poppy and didn't want this to jeopardize what he had built over the years.

"Of course, we all know that blood magic is considered dark magic. But I couldn't give two hoots about that. Magic isn't dark or light; the labels are our creation. Your ancestor was cursed with blood magic, and now I used the same magic to cure you. This just shows you that magic can transform into whatever the user desires."

"Unfortunately, others and even you two might not see things as I do, and that is fine because I don't care. But I don't want others to know that I can use it because it will bring me a lot of trouble, which I would like to avoid," sighed Quinn when he thought about society's views. "So if you don't want to continue with this, I completely understand, but then I'd have to pretend that this never happened."

"When Madam Pomfrey returns, you can simply tell her that you are feeling better. She won't know why you suddenly feel better if she doesn't know what to look for, so if you don't tell her, this entire treatment will go unnoticed. She will scratch her head for a while but, after a while, she'll attibute this to the curse's unpredictability, and you will be free."

Quinn folded his hands over his lap and asked, "So what is your decision?"

"Any side-effects and/or backlashes that may come up because of this treatment?" Daphne inquired because of the nature of the magic.

"As long as I'm not kicked in the face while I treating Astoria, she will not suffer from complications of any kind."

The magic that Quinn had used on Astoria was a combination of his knowledge on three separate sources. He knew about blood magic from having studied for two years and he had never stopped learning it since then; healing magic was in his current active rotation; and the last was the most recent enlightenment in water magic.

One of the components that made up blood was plasma and constituted more than fifty percent of blood. And ninety percent of plasma was water.

Having mastery over water magic didn't allow blood manipulation because it was closely tied to magic and a being's life force. But because Quinn knew both blood and water magic, he could apply the knowledge about water's connection to life and transfer it to blood, which was also connected to the life force.

Quinn had a firm grasp on what he had done to Astoria; as long as he wasn't uprooted during the treatment, there were zero percent chances that he would fail.

Astoria, who was a first-year and didn't consider herself knowledgeable about magic, left the decision to Daphne.

Daphne thought for a while before answering, "We will have to ask our parents before we make any decision."

"Of course, I have no complaints if you consult your parents. Talk it out, and if you feel comfortable, I will continue to help Astoria out," nodded Quinn. "From my estimates, Astoria will be fine for another month and a week before the curse surfaces again. So get in contact with me before that."

The Greengrass sisters nodded in response.

Quinn got up from his stool, picked up the rabbit cage from the floor, and placed it on the bed. "Good, I think it's time for me to leave. When Madam Pomfrey returns, please pass her this cage and tell her that I dropped by."

But then he suddenly turned his head back and whispered, "Forget it, she is here." He turned back to the sisters and reminded, "Hush on what happened."

A mischievous glint sparkled Quinn's eyes as a grin made its way to Quinn's face. He picked up the rabbit cage in his hands and jumped out from behind the curtains that covered the view of the bed.

"Madam Pomfrey, I'm here~!"

Poppy, who had just entered the hospital wing after a trip to the dungeons and was thinking about the potion she needed to brew for the poor Astoria Greengrass, suddenly and unexpectedly came face to face with her student, Quinn West.

"Kyaaaah!"

A surprised cry filled the hall as the small crate of ingredients she had brought dropped.

Quinn, who wasn't expecting her to be holding things, moved very quickly and levitated the crate and all items inside it before any of them hit the floor and made them fly towards him. Now, he had the rabbit cage in one hand and the ingredient crate in the other.

Poppy calmed down and was now glaring death beams at Quinn with a palm above her heart.

Quinn blinked and half-chuckled in nervousness, "... Oops."

"Quinn... stand still and let me pelt you with stinging hexes. I promise it will hurt a lot, so just stand here," huffed Poppy and took out her wand with hands shaking in anger.

"Madam Pomfrey, you can hurt me later, but I believe you will want to check up on your patient. She tells me that her condition has suddenly changed," informed Quinn in an attempt to not get hit by stinging hexes.

Poppy's anger vanished in an instant, and she hurried towards Astoria's bed to check up on her.

"What happened? How are you feeling? Did it get worse," asked Poppy as soon as she laid her eyes upon Astoria and moved closer to observe her.

"No, no, it didn't get worse. I'm feeling much better," beamed Astoria, and her eyes subconsciously moved towards Quinn at the back.

Poppy frowned at the response, but as she checked the signs, she did see that Astoria's complexion had improved, and she looked much more lively. Poppy cast some spells to check on her condition, and similar results came up; Astoria had indeed recovered, and the previous signs she had diagnosed were no longer evident.

And just like Quinn had said, Poppy fussed for a while, but when she wasn't able to see any negative signs, Poppy concluded that Astoria was indeed healthy.

"Stay here today for observation. If there are no complications, you can leave," concluded Poppy.

"That's good, isn't it, Astoria?" grinned Quinn before turning to Poppy and speaking, "Madam Pomfrey, here you go, this is the rabbit you gave me yesterday. I have cured and healed him, and he is ready to hop and hump like any other bunny."

Quinn suddenly set the cage into Poppy's hands and waved goodbye to everybody. "See you all later. Madam Pomfrey, I will drop by tomorrow." He had to get out here before Poppy remembered that she needed to kill Quinn with stinging hexes.

Astoria waved back before speaking to Daphne as she pushed. "I'm fine now; you should also leave." She faced Quinn and said, "Quinn, would you escort my sister?"

Quinn, who was about to bolt, stopped and nodded. "Sure, I wouldn't mind." He turned to Daphne and asked, "Shall we?"

"Are you sure you don't need me here?" asked Daphne.

"No, I'm fine, and Madam Pomfrey is here to take care of me," smiled Astoria and once gave her a sister a little push.

Daphne observed Astoria for a moment before nodding. She walked towards Quinn and the two left the hospital wing.

"Hmm, should I say it?" Astoria looked at the now-empty hospital wing and smacked her lips.

She then faced Madam Pomfrey and spoke with a mischievous shine in her eyes, "Quinn escaped from the pinching hexes."

"He thinks that, but when he comes back tomorrow, I'm going to get him," snorted Poppy as she went through the ingredient crate to see if anything was broken.

Astoria giggled before asking, "Anyway, Madam Pomfrey, what do you do in a day as the Matron?"

Poppy suddenly had a bad feeling, and when she looked up, she saw Astoria with a big smile on her face.

She immediately knew the reason for the bad feeling, and the reason was the smile on Astoria's face was the same one Quinn had had when he came to the hospital wing and wanted to talk.

"Oh, no. You're just like him, aren't you?"

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Daphne and Quinn walked out of the hospital wing and, as Astoria had asked of him, Quinn escorted Daphne to the dungeons.

He looked at Daphne and noticed that there was a lost expression on her face.

"What are you thinking about?"

Daphne looked up at Quinn and stared at him for a few seconds before opening up.

"I want to become a healer."

"A noble profession," responded Quinn shortly because he could see that Daphne had more to say.

"I was seven years old when Astoria showed the first sign of the curse. Our parents clearly explained what the curse was, and it took a while to understand the seriousness of the condition. But when I did, I decided to become a healer so that I would one day cure the blood curse from Astoria."

There was a faraway look on her face while Daphne continued to speak.

"As the years passed, I saw Astoria get sick every month because of the curse, and that strengthened my desire to become a healer," she paused for a second and took a deep breath before continuing. "She is the complete opposite of me. So lively, cheery, bright. She's a person that always wants to run to discover new things. But she can't do any of that because the curse will reemerge if she gets too physically active."

"Her curse always gets in the way of doing the things she loves. She likes the outdoors but she can't go outside because she gets sick. She'd love to run around and fly on the broom all day long but she can't because of that curse," she turned to Quinn and looked Quinn straight in the eyes. "Do you know we were worried about whether she would be able to get around Hogwarts with all the corridors and staircase without the curse reemerging? That's how much the curse affects her. We even worried if she would be able to attend the school."

Quinn gently directed Daphne to the side of the corridor and stopped walking because Daphne was feeling very emotional right now. Something that surprised Quinn because this was the most emotion he had seen from Daphne.

"Are you sure that Astoria will be free from the blood curse as long as you continue to treat her?" asked Daphne, and to assert the seriousness, she grabbed Quinn's wrist and maintained firm eye contact with him.

"I'm assuming that you're wondering whether the curse will reemerge if she gets more active?" asked Quinn.

"Yes."

"No matter what she does, even if she somehow manages to move around so much that she collapses because of fatigue, the curse won't flare. As long as I continue to treat her, the curse won't ever reemerge. Daphne, if I continue to treat Astoria, she won't even face the fifty-year age limit; she will, without a doubt, live way past it and continue to her natural lifespan."

Daphne exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"I can tell you right now that if what you say is true, then our parents will agree no matter what. As long as this doesn't hurt Astoria, they will come to you and plead that you take care of her."

Quinn noticed that Daphne didn't have a smile on her face even though her body had lost that tension that she had before Quinn answered her question.

"What is it? Is there still something on your mind? If you have any doubts, then ask me because I can answer them."

Daphne leaned against the wall, stayed silent, and stared at the floor for a good while before starting.

"I wanted to become a healer because I could cure Astoria. But with you, I don't need to, do I? I… Now I feel a little lost and even though it might sound silly, a little sad."

Ever since she understood Astoria's condition, Daphne had made it her life goal to become a healer to cure Astoria. And even though she was happy that Astoria would live a healthy life, Daphne wanted to be the one who helped her, but now with Quinn, that was over.

"I think you are misunderstanding something here, Daphne," spoke Quinn, causing Daphne to look at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Astoria isn't cured. I'm simply repressing her curse, and that isn't a cure. If I stop, she will once again start to live as she has been until now."

Daphne frowned because she knew all this but wasn't following what Quinn was trying to say.

"Life is unpredictable. I can die on a random day, and that would start the clock on Astoria's life. She can be struck with a curse that might hinder my ability to work blood magic without making things worse. As I said, magic has infinite potential, and that also means that things can go wrong in so many ways."

Daphne's eyes widened, and she now got what Quinn was trying to convey. What Quinn had wasn't a permanent cure, and as he said, if things went wrong, Astoria would return to square one.

"So don't let go of that dream just yet because I have no idea how to actually cure Astoria. I might figure it out one day, but that day isn't anywhere soon. So, if you become a healer, you might be able to figure it out before me," shrugged Quinn.

He was learning magic from an all-around perspective and didn't have any plans to specialize. Quinn wanted to learn everything and master everything, but that would take a long time, and that would also delay the discovering of Astoria's cure.

"I have no plans to die and will continue to treat Astoria. And you know what? See this as an opportunity," smiled Quinn and put a different perspective on things. "I'm giving you time; I will keep Astoria healthy. So study, learn, experience magic while living your ideal life. And no matter how much time it takes, find the remedy and cure your sister."

Quinn put out a hand forward for a handshake and asked, "Deal?"

Daphne looked at the outstretched hand and then at Quinn. She thought back to the things Quinn said, and a determined light appeared in her eyes.

She grabbed Quinn's hand and shook it, "Deal."

"Excellent," beamed Quinn.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Made another deal with another friend.

Daphne Greengrass - Future Healer - I will fulfill that deal.

Astoria Greengrass - About to start a new chapter in her life - "... So, then Quinn points at me. And when I saw it, I knew that he had betrayed me. I told him about Daphne in confidence!"

Poppy Pomfrey - Medi-healer - "No, no, no! Not another one!"

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https//fictiononlyreader ]??

The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Three men stood at a shady and hidden corner of Hogsmeade. The three men had arrived individually and converged at the position they had been given.

"Do you know what we're going to do today?" asked one of the three men.

Another man glanced at the one who had said that and asked back, "Are you new? Is this your first time?"

"I have been on one of the sweeps for muggles and muggleborns, but there were more people than this..." he looked at the other two and said, "... If you get what I mean."

The third man joined the discussion and shared his own experience. "This is different from the sweeps. If I am correct, this is going to be something different."

"... So you don't know what we are going to do today?" asked the first man.

The other two looked at each other before shrugging and shaking their heads.

"No, I was just asked to arrive at this place at a certain time," answered the second man.

"The same instructions for me as well," said the third man, but then he asked. "Were you guys asked to bring that?"

"The uniform, you mean?" asked the man and pulled out a matchstick bag from his robes.

"Yeah, the uniform. I mean, if that was asked... Do you think we have to?"

As the three men talked, an invisible Rivers Lock, under cover of a Disillusionment spell, was listening and observing the three men. These three men had been selected from the Accionites that had responded to his calls.

All three were chosen because they were easy to control and had something that would help him in what he was trying to accomplish.

But before he revealed himself, Rivers wanted to see how these three reacted to the other; how were they feeling today; what did they discuss, the information they exchanged, and other traits that would help him decide on the finer details of the plan.

Rivers never shared the complete plan with anyone. He always made sure that other than him, no one knew the entire picture. This way, he could limit the flow of information and isolate leaks if anyone decided to switch to the other side.

And today, these three knew nothing other than the fact they were asked to bring their Hogwarts uniforms with them.

'These three will work. Yes, these three will do just fine,' thought Rivers and decided that it was time to start.

He dropped the charm and revealed himself, startling them and caused them to take out their wands.

"It's good that all of you are here on time. It would've been unfortunate if you were late," said Rivers before glancing at the wands and then at their owners. "Drop the wands. I'm your leader today."

The three breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew their wands back into their robes.

"Do you have the orders," asked one of the men.

"Yes, I do. I received the orders from one of the higher-ups; they said that this is quite important," replied Rivers and began establishing his image among the three.

"Alright, who is A, B, and D," asked Rivers.

The three told Rivers about their assigned alphabets.

"I see; here you go. These are your potion vials," said Rivers as he handed them potion vials with the letters A, B, and D and kept the vial with the letter C.

Of course, he already knew about their letters, but he wanted to establish that he was just one of them and was assigned to be the leader. That is why he gave himself the alphabet C, as that would imply that he wasn't unique or separate from them.

"What are we going to do?"

Rivers took out a shrunk-down uniform from his robes and showed it to them.

"I think you have already guessed it, but we are going to Hogwarts," he lifted his vial and continued. "These are reverse-aging potions. They will return your outer appearance to your Hogwarts years. We're going to drink these, put on our uniforms, and go inside the castle."

"How are we going to get inside Hogwarts? Today isn't a Hogsmeade weekend," asked the second man.

Rivers put on a fake yet flawless grin as he answered. "Through the Shrieking Shack."

All three men shivered and looked at each other in worry. The building was famous for being haunted. None of them had ever approached the abandoned building in their school years.

"I have been briefed that there's a secret tunnel in there that opens up in the castle grounds. We are going to use that tunnel and get inside to complete the mission."

"... What are we going to do inside?" asked the third man.

The other two men also looked on with the same curiosity, wondering what they were about to do inside Hogwarts.

Rivers dropped the grin and revealed today's objective in simple words.

"We are going to kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived and kill him in front of everyone..." he paused and put on a proud expression. "... For the Dark Lord."

The three young, pureblood men, who had joined Novellus Accionites because they believed the Voldemort ideology, nodded and felt the fear of entering the Shrieking Shack lessen as they felt they were doing something revolutionary.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Are you sure we aren't going to be recognized?" asked one of the Accionites, looking uncomfortable in the state he was.

He looked around the castle and, if the situation had been different, he would've felt nostalgia. Nonetheless, right now, all he felt was anxiety.

Rivers looked at the man, who looked uncomfortable, and nodded. "No one will be looking at your faces. You can hide behind your clothes, and people will turn blind. Within the school, if you have a uniform, no one will give you a second look."

All four people had entered the castle wearing Gryffindor-styled Hogwarts uniforms. Rivers was also wearing a Gryffindor-styles robe, but he had been Slytherin in his time at Hogwarts. The three men had been chosen because they had been from Gryffindor and knew some key areas of the castle like the Gryffindor Tower.

"Tell me, where would be the best place to grab and stun a Gryffindor student?" asked Rivers, his body relaxed.

Rivers had ordered one of the men to take him to the places where Gryffindors frequented so that he could scout the places where the nabbing could take place.

He had left the rest of the group to one of the places he had found in his school career that wasn't frequented by students.

"I would say that the base of Gryffindor Tower is a good place. Every lion will have to pass through there to get to the common room," replied the Accionite grunt.

Rivers hummed in thought before scratching the location out of the viable options. "No. If every Gryffindor goes through there, then the chances of being seen are high."

"How about the passages around the Quad, especially the ones near the suspension bridge? We can wait at the ones that lead to the Gryffindor Tower and get the brat there," offered the man-turned-into-child.

Rivers rolled his eyes in a way such that the grunt couldn't see it and internally sighed.

"Not there; students from all houses walk those passages. Too much risk and exposure," said Rivers, keeping his voice straight to hide the contempt towards the stupid plan.

As they passed the Great Hall, Rivers' eyes caught the notice wall, which had, understandingly, all kinds of notices on it. He stopped and walked towards the wall to get a good look.

The man-child grunt followed Rivers and gave the wall a cursory glance while Rivers read every notice, and it seemed it was the right move because he found something good.

"I found the perfect place," smiled Rivers, and a plan immediately formed in his mind.

"Huh, where?" asked the grunt in confusion.

"The Gryffindor team booked the pitch from after lunch till the closing time." Rivers pointed out the notice that mentioned the pitch's schedule.

"Harry Potter, the youngest seeker in Hogwarts' history," River's smile widened as he decided how he was going to pull his plan.

"This is going to work."

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Ugh, I'm so tired!" groaned Fred, wiping his body down with a towel.

"Oliver is going to kill us at this rate," continued George as he put a fresh shirt on his body.

The Quidditch practice had just ended, and in the boy's locker room were the Weasley twins, Fred and George, along with Harry Potter. They were changing out from their Quidditch gear. While the captain was out to lock the ball kit into the storage closet.

Harry sighed and stretched his hands above, trying to elevate the tension after keeping them at the broom for the entire practice. He was tired but not as much as Fred and George, who had to be on alert for the bludgers all the time and had to use extra energy and stamina in hitting the bludgers with their Beater bats.

"Hey, did you hear about the new Ravenclaw chaser? What's his name," asked Fred. He turned to George expecting an answer, but the other twin also couldn't recall. "I don't know, but they're saying that he is the real deal. The Ravenclaw Keeper can't stop him from scoring."

They both turned to Harry and asked in unison,

" "Harry, do you know??" "

Harry shut his locker and spat out the name of the newly added Chaser of the Ravenclaw team. "Eddie Carmichael."

Harry didn't like Eddie since their previous meeting. He hadn't talked to Eddie after that, but whenever their eyes would meet, Eddie would raise up his chin and look at him as if he was looking down at him.

"I mean, let the bloke play a game before putting him over the shoulders. Playing in practice and in a game is different," grumbled Harry.

He had been hearing the name too much. Even Oliver, who had been strict with his praises, had sung some after scouting a single Ravenclaw practice in secret.

Fred and George got dressed quickly and left the locker room with their stuff.

"Harry, we'll be waiting-" "- outside, so hurry up-" "-and come out."

Harry turned and said, "I'll wait for Oliver. You guys go and see if the girls are ready."

"Alright-" "-we will see-" "-see you-" "-two outside."

Harry heard the door close and started packing his thing into his bag.

Then he heard the door open up.

"Oliver, hurry up," said Harry thinking that Oliver had come back. "The rest are waiting outside."

He turned back to see two people dressed in Gryffindor robes standing at the door, and then his world went black.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"It has been a while since we have done this, hasn't it?" said James Potter looking at the decrypted walls of the two-store building.

"It's been a while. We haven't done this since the wolfsbane potion was discovered," answered Sirius Black as he whipped out his wand to clean the room they were standing in.

"You both didn't have to do this. With me on the potion, I usually just sleep after I transform," spoke Remus Lupin, looking at his two friends who were here to keep him company.

The three Marauders stood in a room, a very disordered, dusty room. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls. There were stains all over the floor. Every piece of furniture was broken as if somebody had smashed it. And the windows were all boarded up.

"To be honest, we aren't doing this for you," grinned Sirius as he took two bottles out from his coat. "We just wanted an excuse to get together so we can get plastered."

Sirius and James were quite busy with their jobs as Senior Aurors, and the load had been recently heavier, with them interrogating and preparing for trials of the people arrested from the raids.

Plus, both of them were also occupied with their seats in Wizengamot. James had been involved with politics since a long time ago. But Sirius was new to the scene and had only been handed the position after his grandfather, Arcturus Black III, had died. In his will he had reinstated Sirius into the family before his death.

Remus, too, had a busy schedule as a professor at Hogwarts. A professor at Hogwarts needed to handle seven years' worth of students and thus it was quite a hectic job.

With three friends busy with their lives, they decided to use Remus' Werewolf transformation as a short time to catch up with each other. It was also a nostalgic thing for them as they did it during their school life.

James squatted in front of a broken chair and pointed it as he looked at Remus. "Hey, do you remember this chair? I remember lifting it up with my antlers and throwing it at you."

"I don't think that it's that chair. I'm not even sure it was this room," remarked Remus. "Though I might be wrong. I don't remember much of those days. I didn't have the potion back then. All of it was kind of a blur."

Sirius lifted and shook the two booze bottles with a rascal-like grin. "That is what we are trying to do. Make things blurry, but you know, more fun."

"Are you sure you can drink?" asked James as he got up from the floor and turned to Remus. "Will the effects change when you transform? The last thing we need to look out for is a drunk Werewolf."

Remus chuckled and shook his head. "No, as long as I take the potion without any addition to it when I drink it. I'll be fine. As for any changes? I will just be more sleepy, more silent, and probably go to sleep more easily."

"Aww~, I wanted to wrestle like the old days," mock-whined Sirius, who had now sat down on a conjured sheet on the old floor with the booze bottles and glasses in front of him.

He smacked the floor and called out. "Come on, now. Let's hurry. I want to get that buzz going."

James and Remus chuckled before sitting down on the sheet as Sirius poured them drinks.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"What should we do with his stuff?" asked one of the Accionite grunt, holding up Harry's Quidditch.

Rivers, who was making sure that Harry Potter was tightly bound and secured, looked at the grunt.

"Drop it in here," replied Rivers.

They had slowly and stealthily made their way back into the Shrieking Shack-Whooping Willow secret tunnel. It had taken a while because Rivers wanted to make sure that they weren't seen.

The task to smuggle the unconscious Harry Potter to this point had been difficult because they had to travel outdoors with nothing to hide them. Rivers had to purposely make the entire group move slower so as to not distort the effects of the Disillusionment charm a lot.

The grunt dropped the kit on the floor and asked, "Why did you make me take this?"

"If someone saw that the Potter brat was missing, but his things were still there, it would create some suspicion. But if his things aren't in view, they would think that he left on his own. And it would take time for them to figure out that he is missing," explained Rivers as he sat down on the ground of the rough tunnel.

Unlike the grunts he had brought along, Rivers had thought about things and took steps that were beneficial to him and the success of this mission.

"Why have you sat down," asked another grunt.

Rivers glanced at him and pointed at himself. "We're still under the effect of the potions. We can't go out like this. This isn't over; we still have work to do." Internally he was sighing at the idiocy of everyone around him.

"What do we have to do more?"

"We are going to kill the Boy-Who-Lived and make him a showpiece in the middle of the Hogsmeade. I want the world to know that their savior is dead. That will start the revolution," said Rivers, but he didn't have a smile on his face as things were going in his mind. "But we have to do it, and we have to do it quickly."

"... Why?"

"Someone will know that the Boy-Who-Lived is missing and when they do, the entire Auror's office will move to find him out. The general public, too, will start looking for him. The entire community will be looking for him. And I mean everyone, even Death Eaters," he stared at the three grunts and said very severely. "And finally, Albus Dumbledore will look for him, and that is the worst threat. If Dumbledore starts looking, he'll find the boy quickly. That man is dangerous."

Unlike almost everyone who looked at Dumbledore as he was the greatest thing under the sun, Rivers knew how much power Dumbledore held. He knew that Dumbledore had both political and magical power, and he had both of them in excess.

To Rivers, Dumbledore was a person who was capable of controlling everything. He even thought that he was probably doing it already.

"We need to complete this quickly and then separate from this boy. The longer we stay with him, the greater the chance of us getting caught. As I said, people will be looking for him, and when they do find him, we will be there."

He stared at them and ordered.

"We will move as soon as possible."

And when they nodded, Rivers thought,

'Though you guys won't be coming out of it alive.'

They had seen his face, and that connected him to Novellus Accionites.

He couldn't have that, so they needed to die.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Yeah, this is about it, I guess," smiled Quinn as he sat in front of Gary while approving some designs.

"Good, you will get them by next week," nodded Gary and collected all the design papers.

Quinn had arrived at Hogsmeade quite early and had been inside the Scrivenshaft's, deciding upon the designs on the new A.I.D. cards and ordering more copies of his notes.

He had arrived quite early, but Gary had showed him some new stuff, and that got Quinn interested, and he ended up going into research mode.

And because Gary was free, Gary and Quinn bounce ideas off each other. Then came lunch, tea, and what was planned to be a single-hour ordeal turned into a multiple-hour affair.

"I'm getting late. I need to get back to the castle," said Quinn as he looked at his pocket watch. He looked up and smiled. "Today was fun, Gary. Let's do it again sometime."

After saying goodbye to Gary, Quinn looked in different directions and wondered.

"Which passage should I take?"

Seven passages connected Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, and Quinn liked to not repeat the passages.

"Let's go through Shrieking Shack today," decided Quinn and started to walk towards the so-called haunted building. Without looking at all at the rising full moon that shone in the evening sky.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - That wasn't enough screen-time.

Rivers Lock - Leader - Can't let his identity get out.

James Potter - Senior Auror - Reminiscing about things he broke.

Sirius Black - Senior Auror - Let's get shit-faced~!

Remus Lupin - Werewolf - Ugh, Wolfsbane tastes nasty.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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"Is everyone ready?" asked Rivers, putting on his Novellus Accionite robe and throwing away the Hogwarts uniform.

He looked at the soon-to-be-dead grunts and saw that they were still putting on their clothes.

"Hurry up, we need to get out of here and get to Hogsmeade," urged Rivers and looked at the watch on his wrist. "Soon, the friends of Potter will realize he's missing."

After everybody changed into their robes, Rivers ordered.

"One of you will be at the back with me, while two others will carry Potter. Levitate him, and let's get going."

Two pulled out their wands and targeted the ropes around Harry's body and levitated him off the ground.

With Rivers at the back, the four with an unconscious Harry started to walk towards the Shrieking Shack.

The grunt in front raised his wand to cast the wand-lighting charm, Lumos. With the three guys in front of Rivers, their shadows hid River's expression in the darkness, who looked at them with an apathetic expression.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Where is Harry?" asked Ron as Fred and George entered the Gryffindor common room through the portrait entrance guarded by the Fat Lady.

"We don't know-" "-he suddenly disappeared-" "-we think he's pulling-" "-a joke!-" "-We think he used-" "-the Invisibility Cloak-" "-to get past us.-" "-Sneaky boy~!-"

When Oliver came out of the stadium, he came out alone. When Fred and George asked about Harry, Oliver said he thought Harry was waiting with them because he didn't see Harry in the locker room.

Fred and George had been pulling practical jokes on people before Harry came to Hogwarts. When Harry came along, he showed his Invisibility Cloak to the Weasley twins, and it seemed to open up the possibilities. Harry and the jester twins often collaborated to pull practical jokes on the students.

After Harry didn't come out with Oliver, they thought Harry had used the Invisibility Cloak to get past them.

"That doesn't sound right. Harry couldn't have used the Cloak," said Ivy, who was sitting beside Ron along with Hermione. She frowned in confusion and explained. "Today is my day with the Cloak. Harry has the map while I have the Cloak."

She opened her book bag and took out the folded silvery fabric cloak.

"I have it right here."

Fred and George looked at each other before smiling as if they understood everything.

"You're kidding, too-" "-aren't you?-" "-Harry must've come here-" "-and he's given you that-" "-to make us confused."

They walked towards Ivy, kneeled in front of her, and patted her shoulder in unison.

"To think-" "-you would be-" "-pulling-" "-jokes, too!-" "-We are very-" "-proud of you!-" "-We will look-" "-forward to working-" "-with you!"

Satisfied with their reasoning, the twins got up and walked towards their dorms to take a shower.

The three members of the golden squad looked at each other in confusion.

"... Do you have any idea where Harry is?" asked Ron, looking at his two companions.

"Probably somewhere pulling a joke on someone," humphed Hermione. The bushy-haired girl still didn't approve of her friend's jester antics. "He'll be back in a while." After saying that, Hermione went back to studying.

Ivy and Ron also thought that Harry was pulling a joke on someone and went back to their own things.

If only they had the Marauder's Map. They would've seen that the map didn't show Harry's position.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"I'll say this! Really, listen to me!" laughed James as he snacked on pigs-in-blanket as the three marauders drank. "Tell me, what are the three magical words?!"

"I love you," answered Remus, a light smile on his lips while feeling a little drunk.

"Let's have sex!" shouted Sirius, already having drunk what James and Remus had.

"No! 'Let's have sex' doesn't work!" chuckled James and then pointed at Remus. "Yes, it's 'I love you'. Those are the words!"

He giggled before saying. "I've been married for fifteen years. I'm telling you. When you are married this long, the magical words are no longer, I love you. They change from 'I love you' to 'I told you.' Lily says 'I told you' more than 'I love you'."

After having said that, James laughed loudly at his own joke. And even though Sirius and Remus didn't understand it, they too laughed because they were a little tipsy.

As Remus laughed, his eyes widened as he felt something familiar come up.

He looked at James and Remus and blurted. "It's happening! Ready yourselves."

James and Sirius immediately sobered up and stood up from their spots. As James vanished the glasses, Sirius pocketed the bottles. Both of them stepped back and got ready to transform into their Animagus forms.

Werewolf instincts didn't flare when surrounded by animals. They would still be feral, but as long as the animals didn't threaten the transformed lycanthrope, they wouldn't attack animals.

While Remus had already taken the Wolfsbane, there was no harm in being cautious.

Remus transformed; his body started to shake with violent tremors. Remus' head lengthened and also his body. His shoulders hunched. His hair sprouted visibly on his face and hands, which curled into clawed paws.

But then, as the Werewolf reared, snapping its long jaws, the door of the secret entrance that connected the Shrieking Shack and the Whomping Willow opened up.

The two Senior Aurors and the in-control Werewolf looked at the door and saw four people barge into the room.

The man in front had a wand out and pointing forward. When he saw people in the room, he yelled out to his companions.

"There are people in here!"

"What?!" came out an exclamation from the back as the people entered the room.

Suddenly, the room became crowded as everyone took out their wands and pointed at each other. There was a loud thump when the new people —the Accionites— pointed their wands at James, Sirius, and Remus.

"With my authority as an Auror, I order you to drop your wands," commanded James as he wielded his wand at the intruders.

His mind rapidly worked as he thought about his current location, the door they had entered through, and what this all meant.

'They came from Hogwarts!' thought James and glanced at Sirius, who nodded, showing that he understood what was happening.

The lighting in the room was insufficient because of the boarded-up windows. Only the candle on the floor illuminated the room. So it took a brief moment for one of the Accionites to finally notice Remus.

"A-A W-Werewolf! T-There is a f*king W-Werewolf in here! Shit!" the accionite screamed and pointed his wand straight at Remus.

And as this was happening, Sirius observed the intruders, and his eyes caught something on the floor. At first, he thought it was a sack, but when he looked carefully, he saw there was a person tied up. And when the person who freaked out seeing Remus moved, he saw the person's forehead.

Sirius' eyes widened to the limit, and he yelled. "James, they have Harry! These bastards kidnapped Harry!"

"What!" thundered James, while furiously glaring at the intruders.

Rivers, who was standing close to the door, positioned himself near Harry's bound body. He looked at the three people who weren't from his group.

'James Potter and Sirius Black! What are they doing here?!' he quickly thought and then looked at the third one. 'And a Werewolf. This isn't making any sense.'

Rivers deduced that the Werewolf was on Wolfsbane potion because he wasn't attacking anyone.

He flinched when the Werewolf growled at him threateningly with a savage glare in his eyes. 'Still very dangerous,' he thought and started to think of a plan.

'Three-on-three, I can get out of here. Yes, I can get out here,' thought Rivers and immediately moved. He swung his wand, and Harry's bound body flew up.

Rivers levitated the body of the child that had a small build, of course, one suitable for playing Seeker. He then held it in front of him while pointing his wand at Harry's neck.

"No sudden moves, or the Boy-Who-Lived is dead!" threatened Rivers and then addressed his other companions. "Point your wands at the three, and immobilize them if any one of them moves as much as a squeak."

Rivers understood that he had the best possible hostage he could have had in this situation. James Potter and Sirius Black wouldn't move a single bit as long as he had Harry Potter in his hands. And even though he wasn't sure about the Werewolf, he could see that it was restrained and cautious.

"Keep a strong stand. This is for the Dark Lord. We will avenge him today. It'll be glorious," announced Rivers. He said that to make sure his meat shields were motivated and didn't surrender. "This moment will go down in the annals of history. We will trump the likes of Lestrange and become his greatest followers."

And his words seemed to do the work. Of course, he knew they would work. He had selected these three because they were the most fanatic of the followers. They had donated frequently amounts that were surprising given each of their salaries.

Rivers had done his research when he chose them. He knew that they could be manipulated with a few words, and given their personalities, they would stay devoted and loyal under situations like the current one.

"You! You are one of those Novellus Accionite shits," snarled Sirius as he gripped his wand tighter but didn't move because Harry could be in mortal danger.

"Yes, we are the most devoted followers of the Dark Lord. We are the messengers who will spread his teachings far and wide. We will erase the filth and give rise to True Justice," replied Rivers fanatically.

The truth was that Rivers didn't give a shit about Voldemort. Voldemort and his ideology was simply something he used because it would allow to further his goals.

Rivers Lock had spent his entire life hiding his true personality. He had created Novellus Accionites so he could let loose and let his true self play out a bit.

He wanted to manipulate and scheme.

He craved to influence people in a way that wouldn't be seen as the norm to society.

Rivers Lock wanted to spread chaos among the people who tied themselves in fake notions of morals and laws. He wished to disrupt the norm and spread the seed of turmoil, discord, and disorder.

To do that, he needed laborers who would help him out. He needed people who would become his pawns and do his bidding while he sat back and watched.

So he used something that would give him the quickest and most results. He used the influence of the now-dead Dark Lord. Appealing the young and brash. Calling out to their fake superiority, fanning their pureblood egos to make them believe that they were doing something of great importance.

In actuality, Rivers was a man of wisdom, intelligence and intellect. He didn't believe in pureblood supremacy and would spit on it if it didn't put him at a disadvantage.

He only believed in one power, and that was intelligence. Rivers believed that if one had sufficient intellect, they could take down anyone. If you were unrivaled in terms of brainpower, even the strongest wizards and witches wouldn't do anything but submit.

And Rivers had proved it by controlling many people without ever putting himself in the sights of authorities.

Rivers Lock only wanted one thing.

He wanted to see the world burn and look down at it burning like a god hidden in the shadows while controlling everything and everybody.

This situation wasn't great, but Rivers wasn't going to let himself fail here.

He had Harry Potter, the savior of the Wizarding World, in his hands.

The death of the Boy-Who-Lived would sow enough chaos to satisfy Rivers' soul.

'I'm the smartest man in the room. I can get out of here unharmed.'

"Cover me, we're going to get out of here and complete our mission," ordered Rivers while moving behind his three meatshields.

The Marauders couldn't do anything with Harry being held hostage. All three men would've thought better if the hostage hadn't been Harry, but right now, all three were drawing a blank in worry.

As River's group moved towards the door that led out of the room towards the main entrance of the shack, it suddenly opened up.

Every single person immediately tensed up and looked at the door.

"Oh."

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn opened the door of the room that had the entrance to the passage. And, oh, boy, he wasn't expecting what was waiting inside.

He stared at seven people and...

'Is that Harry Potter?'

One bound and unconscious Harry Potter being used as what seemed to be a hostage.

Quinn almost did a double-take when he saw a Werewolf in the room.

'Oh, for magic's sake! Today's a full moon?!' he exclaimed in his mind and knew this was Remus Lupin in his Lycan form. 'What the hell is he doing here?! Shouldn't he be in his residence sleeping!?'

Quinn had monitored Remus on a few full moon nights. Remus, who had been getting his Wolfsbane potion, didn't come to Shrieking Shack. He had enough control to just sleep in his residence inside Hogwarts.

Then he looked at James Potter and Sirius Black and pieced together that these two were the reason for Remus' sudden change of location.

And finally, Quinn looked at four people who were in the middle of the room.

'Woah, they've kidnapped Harry. Now that's more than anyone has ever accomplished,' thought Quinn. 'They're the Novellus Accionites. Yup, I'm pretty sure they are.'

He thought all of this within a few seconds, and after Quinn was done with speculating and observing, he said.

"Oh."

Quinn didn't remove his left hand from the doorknob and raised his right hand to point a thumb back.

"... Excuse me? I feel like I'm interrupting something important. How about I leave you to your... thing here and let you continue? Yes, I'll do that," said Quinn and very slowly stepped back and tried to close the door.

Trying to get out of the place so it won't turn into a Mexican standoff.

"Don't close that door! Kid, if you don't want to get hurt, I suggest that you do whatever I ask you to do," yelled Rivers, who stopped Quinn from closing the door.

Rivers was slowly getting frustrated. This situation was already tough, but now, some kid had strolled into the situation and made things a little more complicated.

'Just how many people know about this secret passage,' thought Rivers furiously.

The matchup was four-on-three, and he couldn't let it turn into four-on-four, so he tried to intimidate Quinn.

"You see who I'm holding? This is Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. If you don't do as I say, I'm going to blow up his brains. You don't want to be the person who let the Boy-Who-Lived die, do you?" said Rivers, trying to make sure Quinn didn't make any erratic moves.

"See the man on the left? He's James Potter, the father of Harry Potter. If you don't do as I saw, I will kill his son, and he will blame you. You'll let his precious son die. Let me tell you something. James Potter here is a Senior Auror and has a seat on Wizengamot, and that makes him a powerful man. He can ruin your family and put you in Azkaban, and you don't want that, do you?"

Quinn shook his head in response.

'There's no way in hell he could do that. If I was arrested, I'd be out before they could even think of harming me.'

George West would tear down the ministry walls if he ever heard that his grandson was under arrest. The richest man in the country and probably the magical world would bring down hell if he heard a word about putting Quinn in Azkaban.

If Death Eaters were able to bribe their way out, George could do much, much more. Not only would George get Quinn out, but he would also cause massive problems for anyone involved. George would put so much pressure on the ministry higher-ups that they would have no choice but to tread very, very lightly, because their future would very well depend on their next decisions.

Sure, James Potter was politically powerful, but George West was on another level. James Potter could gather the support of the Light faction, but George West could buy out the Grey and Dark factions and even get his hands on some of the Light faction.

But of course, Rivers didn't know that the random kid he was threatening had such a background.

And Quinn wasn't about to whip his background out. It wasn't time for that. He had different plans for the current situation.

When Quinn shook his head, Rivers internally smiled and said, ""Now back off and move to the side with your hands raised above your head. I don't want you reaching for your wand."

Quinn raised his hands above his head and walked back as instructed, moving sideways, out of the view of everyone but Rivers. He showed complete compliance.

Rivers nodded and slowly moved forward towards the open door while his grunts covered him.

Quinn stared at Rivers with a silent gaze and waited for an opportunity.

'Just a little more and it will be the time.'

They were still behind the threshold of the door the moment Rivers got out of the room, as his grunts were still behind and bunched up.

'It's time,' thought Quinn.

Suddenly the wand in Rivers' hands went flying. Right after, the door snapped closed.

Quinn lowered his hand and ran towards Rivers. He used magic to pull on Harry's binding to separate him from Rivers.

Rivers became too stunned-slash-shocked at the sudden change of events. He couldn't help but look to his side just to feel a kick planted in his stomach.

The force of the kick knocked the air out of him, and he immediately knelt. The next second, he once again felt a kick, this time in his chest, and it made him lie on the ground.

Suffering from panic, he looked through his shaky vision and saw Quinn as he descended on top of him. Then he felt his arms being trapped under Quinn's knees.

"This will hurt, so brace yourself," said Quinn and raised his fist and brought it down onto Rivers' face.

The solid fist impacted Rivers' jaw and cheeks, making a sickening sound.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

As soon as the door closed, the Marauders took action.

They raised their wands and shot spells on the Accionite grunts.

The grunts were surprised to see their path cut off, and in that lapse of concentration and focus, they were hit with spells. It was over for them.

The Aurors and the lycanthrope stunned and bound their opponents within seconds while using extra power just to make sure they wouldn't be waking anytime soon.

The second the grunts' wands were retrieved, the three men ran towards the door, but when they opened the closed door, they were greeted with a shocking sight.

In front of them was Harry's unconscious body. James immediately moved towards his son to check upon him.

And on the side, Sirius and Remus saw the kid that had barged in standing up on top of the Novellus Accionite who led the others.

It shocked them to see him raining punches on the Accionite's face.

Then they heard him speak,

"Dammit! My knuckles hurt! Oh, Rowena, I haven't punched anyone without gloves before and it hurts."

They saw as the kid looked down. He then shrugged his shoulders and elbowed the Accionite in the face.

Sirius moved to stop the kid, but the kid stopped on his own and stood up.

Sirius, who was closer to the kind, saw the bloodied face of the Accionite. And from the looks of it, he was completely and totally out.

Sirius looked up and saw that the teenager was facing him. He was scrunching his face and raised his hands to look at them.

"I think I injured my hands. This really hurt. I definitely need to go to Madam Pomfrey. They don't look well."

The tense situation inside the Shrieking Shack had come to a sudden and dramatic end.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC - I think I fractured my knuckles! Shit, it hurts!

Rivers Lock - Wants chaos - Broken face and knocked out.

James Potter - Auror, Off-duty, Tipsy - Has been married for a long time.

Sirius Black - Auror, Off-duty, Tipsier - Have to collect the booze, first.

Remus Lupin - Lycanthrope, Werewolf - What the hell! What the hell! What the hell!

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

"I think I injured my hands. This really hurts. I definitely need to go to Madam Pomfrey. They don't look well," said Quinn with his arms raised in front of him and his hands hung limply from below the wrist area.

"Who are you?" asked Sirius Black, while moving his eyes from Quinn to the bloodied face and back to Quinn. "And what are you doing here?"

Quinn weaved magic into his hands and numbed the pain. He didn't attempt to heal his battered-up hands and only stuck to eliminating the pain from his injured knuckles and wrist.

"Oh, I'm Quinn West, a fourth-year student at Hogwarts," introduced Quinn while scrunching up his face to portray that he was feeling pain.

He then focused on the Werewolf in the room and said, "Professor Lupin might know me from his classes."

Sirius, Remus, and even James, who was checking up on his son, widened their eyes when they heard Quinn address Remus in his Werewolf form as Professor Lupin.

"What are you talking about?" uttered Sirius, while trying to separate Remus Lupin from the Werewolf that stood beside him.

"Oh, please. I already know that Professor Lupin is a werewolf," scoffed Quinn and turned his head to look at the Lycanthrope. "The signs were all there; he disappeared for a few days because of weak health and the absence period was always after the full moon."

Quinn then brought in the statement that would close this line of conversation.

"Professor Snape tried really hard to point out that Professor Lupin is a Werewolf. The preparation he did for the Werewolf revision lesson was outstanding. For once, he was completely involved in teaching. He even asked if anyone of us had doubts," shrugged Quinn and then finished with a smile. "It was an unusual yet fascinating day. It made me think that people can accomplish anything if they put their hearts into it."

"What! That snake did that?!" exclaimed Sirius, his hands tightening into fists at the thought of Snape trying to out his friend. "I'll blast him when I see that twat!"

Werewolf-Remus put his hairy paw on Sirius to wind his friend down.

After calming down, Sirius continued the conversation.

"If you knew, why didn't you tell anyone," he paused and then slowly asked. "... Did you tell anyone?"

"I didn't tell anyone. When I realized that Professor Lupin was a Werewolf, I gave it a thought. Then I realized that if Professor was allowed to work here, then he must've been provided a supply of Wolfsbane," said Quinn, and then glanced at Remus. "From the looks of it, he's on the Wolfsbane. Or else, he would've already tried to bite me."

Werewolves, when transformed, had the instinct to bite anyone they could get their paws on. The average Werewolf didn't aim to kill; their wild instincts knew that the only way to continue their race was to turn other people into Werewolves, so the damage that a Werewolf would do was a few bites.

Sometimes, the bites would be at some of the body's vital spots, and the victim could die because of blood loss and shock. Of course, there were exceptions like Fenrir Greyback, who had that innate desire to kill and slaughter at times.

"Aren't you scared?" asked Sirius.

Sirius knew from experience that Werewolves were proper people and not monsters. He knew better than anyone that, even though Werewolves were dangerous, a lot of them tried hard to live normally and had hopes and dreams like everyone else.

But he asked because there was always a risk. He still asked, even with Remus right beside him. And Remus didn't mind because he understood where the question was coming from and was curious about Quinn's answer.

"Scared? No. I was cautious, not scared. I prepared myself and made sure that if one day Professor Lupin stood in front of me in his current form, I'd be ready," smiled Quinn as he unveiled his magic prep. " I know the Homorphus Charm and have practiced it a lot to get it down on my fingertips."

The Homorphus Charm was a charm used to temporarily change a transformed werewolf back into their human form. It would forcibly turn back the transformation and would revert the Werewolf into a human. Quite valuable for stopping a werewolf in its tracks.

In the room's darkness, Quinn's expression wasn't clearly visible. But Quinn was looking at Werewolf-Remus as he was a test subject.

He was thinking about how the spell would work against a Werewolf. Because the spell only temporarily reverted the transformation, the Lycan transformation would come back very shortly. But that small window was enough to incapacitate the Werewolf.

However, Quinn's usage was a tad bit too powerful than your average user. His spell's effects would linger instead of ending after a bit. And that would cause a tussle between the Lycan transformation and Quinn's magic.

Even though Quinn hadn't tested it out against a real Werewolf, he, at some level, was sure that the tussle between the transformation and his magic would be very painful for the target. Two opposing forces trying to forcibly change a person's body wasn't optimal, and it would, in normal circumstances, cause immense pain.

As Quinn finished his thinking, James spoke for the first time and informed everybody of Harry's condition.

"Harry's fine. He's just knocked out. I checked for the basic signs, but we should send him to Madam Pomfrey just to be sure," informed James with his eyes still on his son.

"Alright, then let's divide the tasks," nodded Sirius and looked at everyone in the room. "I will take these shits to Holdings and see if I can get something worthwhile out of them. James, you take Harry, and... Quinn to Madam Pomfrey and inform Dumbledore of what happened here. Remus, you stay here. I know this isn't good for your body, so take a rest and go to sleep."

Sirius took the lead and assigned everyone their tasks, all the conscious people nodded in consent and understanding.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

James Potter, with Harry Potter on his back, walked with Quinn. They made their way through the secret tunnel that connected Shrieking Shack and Whomping Willow tree.

Harry was still unconscious while Quinn's hands were still injured. Sirius and James had tried to offer to cast Healing spells on him, but Quinn had politely refused and said that he could wait for Poppy, the Medi-healer, to take a look at them.

"Why do you know about this passage?" initiated James to fill the very silent underground passage with conversation.

"Hmm? Oh, I found it a few years back when I tried to get a good look at the Whomping Willow. Saw it when I finally figured out that I needed to shoot a pocking hex at the knot at the base of the tree to make it calm down."

The Whomping Willow would attack anyone who would come closer, but if you pressed the knot at the base of its trunk, the magical tree would calm down for a while.

Pomona Sprout used this method when she needed to check if the Whomping Willow was healthy, and so did Quinn when he needed to use the secret passage.

"I know that, too," smiled James as he reminisced about the later of his school years when the Marauders would sneak in after Remus to keep him company.

The elder Potter glanced at Quinn while wondering whether he should say it or not. He, then, decided to say it.

"Quinn, about the thing that person said about me doing those things to you and your family," said James carefully. "None of those words hold any truth. I would never do any of that. Those actions wouldn't be ethical, and no matter what could've happened back there, I would have never blamed you for any of it."

James wanted to erase the thought that Aurors would take advantage of their position. Aurors were the people who withheld justice, and he wanted to make sure that a child around the same as his son wouldn't build a negative image.

"Don't worry about it. I actually don't care about the threat," smiled Quinn. "Even if things went south and you developed a grudge. I wouldn't be worried if you tried to do what that man said."

"You wouldn't?" questioned James confusedly.

"Not at all. I'm a West," smirked Quinn. "If you tried to do things that you describe as unethical, you wouldn't be able to move a finger. I would've been out of your reach before you could've even thought about what to do."

When Quinn mentioned his last name, James finally recalled Quinn's full name, and then it hit him what Quinn was trying to say.

"West, as in George West?" asked James, his eyes widening.

He had only met George West a couple of times. He didn't know the man personally. But he knew who George West was. His work at Wizengamot and in the political circle made sure that he knew of the man who held a substantial amount of influence in every social and professional circle.

James also knew that his parents knew George West. He sparsely recalled that his parents had been invited to dinner with George West a few times and had a business relationship with the head of the West business empire.

"Yes, West as in George West. He's my grandfather," confirmed Quinn, and that was why he wasn't worried. As long as Quinn didn't do anything wildly illegal or wrong, he would be fine.

James was still surprised that Quinn was the grandson of George West, but then it dawned on him how dangerous things could've turned out.

'What would've happened if he had got severely injured or harmed? What if he had died?' thought James in mild horror.

He could almost imagine what George West would've done when he found that his only grandson had been involved in a potentially dangerous situation. James was sure that his life would have been terribly difficult for a long time.

James looked at Quinn's hands and nervously thought, 'He won't make a big deal about this, right? He did that to himself on his own and isn't very bothered about it. So we are good, right…? Right?'

While James was thinking about if he was in trouble, Quinn was silently thinking about what would happen when they reached Hogwarts.

'I need to handle this carefully. There will be only one chance for me to work with,' thought Quinn. He saw the end of the tunnel. 'Let's hope he won't come out and stay inside.'

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Quinn and James, along with the unconscious Harry, entered the hospital wing.

"Madam Pomfrey! I am here to visit~!" called out Quinn with a chipper voice.

Both James and Quinn heard a sigh from the inside, and it brought a smile to Quinn's face.

"Quinn, it's almost dinner time. Why are you here right now?"

James and Quinn saw the Matron walk out from her office.

"What do you want to ask that couldn't wait-" sighed Poppy as she walked out while straightening a crease on her clothes, but when she looked up, she saw that it wasn't just Quinn.

"James Potter? What are you doing here?" asked Poppy. She saw the former student and now Auror standing there beside Quinn, and, then, she saw Harry in his arms. "Is this Harry Potter? Merlin, what happened to him?"

She walked forward and towards a bed that was beside the three.

"What are you standing there for? Lay the boy down on the bed."

James moved as instructed and gingerly lay his son on the bed.

"Did you check up on him?" asked Poppy as she diagnosed Harry.

"I did. Harry is knocked out. He was dropped to the ground. I think he has a concussion on his head," nodded James as he replied.

"Huh?" Poppy looked up from Harry at James. "I was talking to Quinn. But, yes, you are an Auror, so I guess you have some elementary healing skills."

James looked at Quinn with confusion.

"I was in a bit of a pinch, Madam Pomfrey. I couldn't concentrate with the pain," smiled Quinn.

"Pain?" Poppy once again looked at Harry and saw Quinn raise his arms and show his hands. Quinn's hands had swollen from below the wrist, and the knuckles had turned green and purple.

"What really happened to the both of you?!" asked Poppy, shocked.

Quinn would've waved his hands if they weren't hurt, but he assured, "Oh, it's nothing. I just punched a man and, well, this happened. If you're concerned, then that man was more injured than I am. In any case, all's well when it ends well."

"I wasn't concerned about that," sighed Poppy in exasperation. "Show me those hands."

Poppy looked at Quinn's hands and pulled out her wand to cast healing spells on the bones and swollen areas. The fractures in the bones started to knit back while the swelling began to subside as the color in Quinn's hand returned to normal.

"Wait for a while, and they'll be good as new. Even stronger than before," said Poppy before turning to James. "Your son is fine. He will be up in a few hours. I could wake him up now, but let him wake up on his own."

James breathed a sigh of relief at the assurance of the healer.

"Good, then I'll go find McGonagall. She'll take me to Dumbledore. I need to talk to him," said James.

"I see. Wait for a second," stopped Poppy and then called out. "Tipsy!"

A Hogwarts house-elf appeared in the hospital wing after a pop.

"What can Tipsy do for Healy-lady Poppy?" said the house-elf in her squeaky voice and looked at Poppy with her big eyes.

"Tipsy, where's Professor McGonagall?" asked Poppy.

The house-elf tilted her head and spoke after a short silence, "Proffy Cat be in her office."

Poppy turned to James and said, "You heard her. Minerva is in her office. You remember where her office is, right?"

James nodded, and after saying a short thank you, he left the hospital wing to find the Scottish Professor.

After James left, Poppy turned to Quinn.

"You're staying here till your hands are healed; don't even think of leaving before I give you my consent," warned Poppy as her eyes narrowed.

"Madam Pomfrey, have you ever seen me trying to leave your company early? I'll stay with you as long as you desire," grinned Quinn.

"I still don't know what happened. How did you get injured? And what about the person who you punched? Where is he? Doesn't he need medical attention? And why was an Auror here at Hogwarts?" rapid fired Poppy, adamant about knowing what was happening.

Quinn slightly smiled and narrated the events from his point of view, emphasizing his heroics that saved the day.

"... Thus, a visit to Hogsmeade turned into an adventure where I saved the Boy-Who-Lived and the Aurors from the Accionites. Not bad for a day's work, right?" beamed Quinn.

Poppy stared at Quinn with her mouth slightly open and then smacked him on the back of his head.

"Why?!" exclaimed Quinn, not expecting the sudden beating.

"You-you knew about Remus being a Werewolf," fumed Poppy. "You were messing with me that day when you brought up Werewolves! Do you know how scared I was?!"

"Oh," uttered Quinn, and then a smile bloomed on his face. "Yeah, that was fun. I loved the tea. We should do it again soon, how about next Thursday? How does that sound?"

Poppy raised her hand for another smack, but Quinn dodged it with a grin on his face.

"So you don't mind that Remus Lupin is a Werewolf?"

"I don't mind. As long as I or anyone else isn't bitten without their consent," spoke Quinn. "Lycanthropy is a disease. I don't blame people who have it. As long as they don't try to spread it, I couldn't care less if they are Werewolves."

"Without their consent?" asked Poppy with a tiny bit of confusion.

"Yeah, people are stupid. If they went near a Werewolf during a full moon intending to get bitten. I wouldn't blame the Werewolf. Their instincts command them to bite. You can't blame someone for what they can't control."

After talking to Poppy, Quinn sat down on a bed and closed his eyes. He needed to concentrate. He needed to be prepared for what was about to come.

There were two possibilities, and Quinn needed to simulate how they would unfold.

'That's difficult given the fact that I haven't talked to him,' thought Quinn.

He had come to the hospital wing so that if the first possibility unfolded he would have an audience, which would restrict any possible foul play.

And if the second possibility came to happen, then Quinn would need to be in a place where he would have the chance to gain back up.

'It depends on who will be the messenger. If they are good, I'll have a chance to explain it in-depth, otherwise, if they aren't, I can still get the message across, but it'll have to be short,' thought Quinn as he kept thinking about how things would unfold.

Both possibilities had their own pros and cons.

What Quinn needed was to think about how to maximize the pros and minimize the cons.

"Mr. West, you have gotten yourself involved in something big, haven't you?"

Quinn opened his eyes and saw his Head of House standing there, arms crossed, looking up at him.

"Professor Flitwick. I hope I'm not in trouble," smiled Quinn, and at the same time, he thought, 'what will happen, though?'

"You're in trouble, Mr. West. You're going to be in detention," sighed Flitwick. "Now, if you are healed, let's go. The headmaster has called you to his office."

'The second one, it is,' thought Quinn.

The first meeting between Quinn West and Albus Dumbledore was ahead.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - "Oh boy, let's go meet the old man in the tower."

James Potter - Auror, Wizengamot member - Still worried if he is in trouble.

Poppy Pomfrey - Matron, Med-healer - This kid is too much trouble.

George West - Grandfather - I don't need to be in the chapter to flex.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

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The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn and Filius exited the hospital wing after Quinn's hands had healed enough. Poppy had bandaged them up and told Quinn not to move them. She finally told him to return after he was done to complete his recovery.

"Professor, would it be alright if we take a detour?" requested Quinn to the diminutive goblin at his side. "I would like to change out of these clothes."

Quinn straightened his clothes to show that the front of his shirt was stained in blood. The bloodstains were from when Quinn had wiped his knuckles that had the Accionites' blood on them with his shirt.

"I wouldn't feel comfortable when I have blood on my clothes. Especially when I am about to visit the Headmaster."

Filius looked at and saw that Quinn's clothes were indeed stained with blood.

"If you want, Mr. West, I can vanish that blood off your shirt," offered Filius, knowing that it wouldn't be good for a child to walk around with blood on his clothes.

"I appreciate the offer, Professor, but I would like to change these out. Even if these clothes were cleaned of the blood, I'll still be uncomfortable in them," replied Quinn.

Filius nodded and accepted Quinn's request, "If that is so, then we can take a detour to change your clothes. I'm sure that the Headmaster won't mind."

'Excellent, he is indeed a good messenger,' thought Quinn. He felt positive that things would end up without any complications.

Quinn and Filius climbed up to the fifth floor, but then, Quinn turned to the opposite direction from the Ravenclaw dorms. Filius asked, "Where are you going, Mr. West?"

"To the A.I.D. classroom, Professor. I have a set of clothes there," answered Quinn. "I don't want to go to the dorms and worry my friends."

"I understand, Mr. West. Let's proceed to your office, then" nodded Filius, empathizing with Quinn.

Quinn and Filius walked to the A.I.D. office and Quinn invited his Head of House inside.

"Professor, please, make yourself comfortable. I'll change my clothes, and we'll be off in no time," said Quinn. He aimed his hand at the client chairs while he unlocked the workshop door and entered inside.

He closed the door behind him and immediately started to move quickly.

'I don't have much time. Let's get everything over with quickly,' thought Quinn, a few things moved in the workshop.

One of the drawers opened, and a few sheets of paper flew out from the ream of paper inside. From the same drawer, a fountain pen flew out after the sheet of paper.

On the other side of the workshop, a cabinet opened, and from inside came a white short-sleeved t-shirt, a grey-and-white dynamic work jacket, and red-grey-black work trousers.

As Quinn started to change his clothes, the fountain pen uncapped and glided across the page. It penned the words Quinn wanted.

By the time Quinn was done dressing up, the pen had penned two-and-a-half pages of words.

The pages flew towards a side of the room, and after two glows of light, Quinn exited the workshop. His work was done.

"Let's go, Professor. I'm ready," said Quinn, dressed in new clothes. His jacket wasn't zipped up, so the white t-shirt he was wearing inside could be seen.

Filius saw Quinn dressed up in new clothes and nodded before he hopped out of his chair.

"Excellent. Let's go, Mr. West."

As the two exited the office, Filius couldn't help but ask, "What are you using to light up the room, Mr. West. I was surprised to see no candles in the room."

"I knew you would ask about them, Professor," laughed Quinn. "I used rune applications on metal platings designed to work as light sources. I used the basic Lumos spell as a base inspiration and then worked up from there. I had to specify the dispersion, color tone, warmth, and intensity. The resulting rune cluster was what you saw up there."

Quinn had already thought of pitching his light-rune designs in the summer break to his grandfather and Lia. This was another thing that could bring a revolution in the existing industry and could replace the standard everlasting (long-lasting) candles that were used everywhere.

Flitwick looked at his smiling student and asked, "Why are you smiling, Mr. West? From what I've told you, you are in trouble."

He was a little concerned because Quinn wasn't showing any of the signs that would be visible after what had transpired. Quinn was cavalier and engaging instead of silent and shocked.

"I'm alright, Professor. I understand the situation I was in and how things could have turned out if things had gone differently. If you are thinking why I am so casual about the situation," said Quinn as the smile drained from his face. "This is my attempt at self-preservation through disassociation. I'm detaching myself from the situation by acting like it's nothing serious. I wanted to change clothes because they made me think that blood could very easily have been mine."

Quinn sneakily glanced at Filius to see if his lie worked. From the moment Quinn had opened the door, he hadn't been scared in the least. He had assessed the situation and made sure to secure his safety before taking any action.

All of them would find that Quinn's behavior was consistent throughout the ordeal, as from the very first words in which Quinn had joked about disturbing the conversation between the Accionites and Marauders to him acting goofily with Poppy he had acted in a similar way.

"... I see, Mr. West," said Filius after a pause. "Please be assured that those people will be brought to justice, and the faculty will do its best to improve security. I personally will make sure that none of my students are harmed."

"Thank you for your kind words, Professor. They mean a lot," smiled Quinn. He chuckled as he continued. "I'm guessing that the Shrieking Shack passage will be closed down."

"Definitely, Mr. West," smiled Filius. "No more outside castle visits for you."

"Aw, that's lame!" laughed Quinn, not worried about it because he knew many more passageways that would allow him to sneak out of the castle.

As the student and Professor continued to talk, the pair arrived at the Headmaster's office.

'Alright, let's see how this goes,' thought Quinn as Filius said the password. The entrance opened.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Lily and Ivy Potter practically rushed to the hospital wing. They had been told that Harry had come close to being kidnapped by the terrorist group called Novellus Accionites, who had infiltrated Hogwarts and had captured Harry in broad daylight.

They were semi-relieved to hear that the attempt was thwarted because the Marauders had been partying in the Shrieking Shack.

When they heard that Harry was resting at the hospital, both mother and sister ran to see Harry.

Inside the hospital wing, they saw Poppy tending a sleeping Harry while casting some spells at Harry's head.

"Poppy, how is he?" asked Lily, her eyes stuck to her son.

Poppy turned to her colleague and gave her the same answer that she had given the father.

"He hit his head on the ground. Other than that, he is fine. He's sleeping and will wake up in a while."

She waved her wand, and two barstools came gliding for Lily and Ivy to sit down.

"This was close, wasn't it?" said Poppy as she herself took a seat. "To think they used the tunnel made for Remus. I used to guide him to that house every month when he was still a student here."

Everything from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack, including the passage that joined the two, had been added after Remus Lupin had sent back the reply in which he said he would be attending Hogwarts.

The school had added these landmarks to ensure that Remus could go through his lycanthrope transformation in isolation and continue to study at the school with no one knowing about his condition.

Every evening, Poppy would guide the then-teenager Remus to the Shrieking Shack. The house had been commissioned by the school and got its name because, in the absence of Wolfsbane potion, Remus would bite and scratch himself due to a lack of humans to infect.

Albus Dumbledore encouraged the rumors about the house being haunted because they would keep people from approaching the building, making it a safe haven for Remus to go through his monthly transformation.

"James, Sirius, and Remus were lucky to be there. To think Remus's condition would help thwart the attempt," sighed Lily as she ran a hand through Harry's hair.

"They were indeed lucky," Poppy, too, sighed. "To think not only those three were at the shack for Remus, but the kidnappers also used the same route… and finally Quinn also used the same passage."

Lily and Ivy both looked up at the Matron, who was shaking her head at her semi apprentice's antics.

"... Quinn?" asked Ivy, surprised to hear that name in the current situation.

"Yes, apparently that child had been sneaking in-and-out of the castle to visit Hogsmeade outside of the Hogsmeade weekend. He used that passage as his sneak route. Today, after he was returning from Hogsmeade, he chanced upon the tense situation and saw wands pointed from both parties."

"How's he?" asked Lily with wide eyes, looking around to see if Quinn was lying on another bed.

"He's fine. Filius took him to meet the Headmaster. Quinn punched the man who was holding Harry hostage," sighed Poppy, thinking about Quinn's hands. "That child's hands were in bad shape. He, a fourteen-year-old, hit an adult enough times to draw blood and break his bones. Despite this, he smiled the entire time."

A fourteen-year-old wasn't developed enough and had low strength. Poppy realized that, and when Quinn told her that he broke the man's jaw, she imagined from checking Quinn's hands how many times Quinn had to punch to break a person's face.

Quinn's knuckles would've been injured way before accomplishing what he had. So Poppy realized that Quinn had ignored the pain and had kept hitting.

While Poppy was thinking about Quinn, Ivy, too, was thinking about him.

She couldn't believe that Quinn had once again saved Harry from another dangerous situation. Ivy had just managed to put aside the thoughts about Quinn's slip about the Chamber of Secrets, but now this happened, and she again thought about Quinn.

From her very first year, Quinn West had been a part of her school life one way or another. He would always be connected to the bizarre and wild incidents that happened to her and her friends.

In the first year, he had warned them about the Philosopher's stone's chambers, and she was sure that he had been inside those chambers.

In the second year, he had caught her trying to sneak into Slytherin's common room; he had told them about the Basilisk and the Chamber of Secrets and saved them from the monster inside the chamber. He had found things before anyone else and seemed to know everything about what was happening.

In her third year, he had made Hermione take him to the past because he wanted to save himself by creating a time travel loop. How did he get injured? She still doesn't know because Quinn was somehow able to avoid that entire line of questioning. Then she saw Quinn produce the biggest Patronus she had ever seen.

She thought that those few hours completed the yearly quota of interaction with Quinn West, but now that she heard this, Ivy realized she was wrong. He had saved her brother and had gotten injured while doing it.

Ivy remained silent in her thoughts as Lily and Poppy continued to talk about the incident that took place today.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn walked inside the Headmaster's office and he had to say that Dumbledore's office was interesting, to say the least.

It was a large and beautiful circular room, full of funny little noises. Several curious silver instruments stood on spindle-legged tables. They whirred and emitted little puffs of smoke. Portraits of old Headmasters and Headmistresses, some gently snoozing, covered the walls of the office. Every headmaster (or headmistress) had their names and their period of tenure on their frames. He also saw an enormous, claw-footed desk and, sitting on a shelf behind it, a shabby, tattered wizard's hat— the Sorting Hat.

Quinn's eyes were also attracted to the shelves-after-shelves of old tomes and books that graced a knowledgeable presence to the Headmaster's chaotic office. If Quinn had been left here with no supervision, he would've definitely opened every book and read through every page.

As Quinn walked in, he looked over his shoulder and saw a golden perch beside the room's entrance. Quinn identified the golden perch as the Phoenix's resting place.

After taking in the interior of the Headmaster's office, Quinn nodded in satisfaction.

"Mr. West, would you like to share your thoughts with us?"

Quinn looked to his front and saw Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, clad in purple robes with stars, sitting behind his desk. He was looking at him through the half-moon glasses with a smile on his face.

"Certainly, Headmaster. I was thinking that, after observing your office's interior, my office on the fifth-floor is better," a relaxed smile on his face as he spoke.

A chuckle came from the right, and a deep hum from the left came in response as James Potter chuckled and Severus Snape looked at Quinn warningly.

"Is that so? It saddens me a little to hear that. I have put in a lot of work to make my office unique and fun." The owner of the office smiled through his beard. "I even had to suffer from the nagging of the previous owners for years before they settled down."

Dumbledore roamed his eyes at the sleeping portraits of previous Headmasters and Headmistresses who occupied this office before him.

"I'm not saying that your office isn't unique and fun, Headmaster. I agree with you. Your office has a charm that sets it apart from others. It's just that mine is better," smiled Quinn.

Dumbledore smiled and then looked at the other three men in the room.

"James, Severus, Filius. You three can leave. James, you should join your family down in the hospital wing. My dear professors, it's almost dinnertime, I'm sure you all are hungry. Please, proceed to the Great Hall," said Dumbledore before turning Quinn. "Mr. West and I will have a short talk before joining you at the Great Hall."

James Potter and Severus Snape walked past Quinn. Both had different thoughts in their minds.

James was thankful to Quinn for knocking out the Accionite, who was about to get away with his son. If Quinn hadn't interfered, James didn't know what he would be doing now. He wasn't sure where his son would be or if he would even be safe.

Snape looked both pleased and conflicted. He was pleased that his attempt to convey that Remus Lupin was a Werewolf was successful because, from what James had said, Quinn already knew about it and had understood what he was trying to do. Snape was conflicted because Quinn hadn't outed Remus as a Werewolf to the school or family.

Their eyes met and they immediately became hostile towards each other. Before Quinn had entered the office, they had been exchanging taunts to each other. They only stopped because Dumbledore scolded them both.

Filius tagged along with his former students, so the three men exited the Headmaster's office. They left behind Quinn and Dumbledore in the office.

"Please take a seat, Mr. West," said Dumbledore, and with a wave of his hand, a chair was pulled back for Quinn.

"Thank you, Headmaster," said Quinn as he sat down.

"You can call me Professor like your other teachers, Mr. West," said Dumbledore as Quinn made himself comfortable.

"You are the head of the school, Headmaster. I like to use the proper title when I address people," smiled Quinn. "Maybe if you teach the Alchemy class in my sixth and seventh year, I'll call you professor."

Dumbledore looked interested at the mention of Alchemy. He asked with his eyes shining with interest.

"You are interested in Alchemy, Mr. West? I haven't seen many students who are interested in Alchemy. The lack of interested students is the reason we have to cancel the Alchemy subject every year."

"Alchemy is magic, Headmaster. I'm interested in anything that is magic," stated Quinn as if he was stating a universal fact.

"Your grades certainly show that. They are truly impressive, Mr. West," said Dumbledore as he turned parchments on his desk. "Other than Potions and History of Magic. You have scored more than a hundred percent in every exam of every subject in your four years at Hogwarts. Even in the two mentioned subjects, you haven't once scored anything less than an Outstanding."

Quinn shrugged and smiled, "I do well in class, Headmaster. It's what I like to do."

Dumbledore continued to turn parchments, stopped at a certain parchment, and said.

"Your establishment of an office on the fifth-floor, allowed by Filius. You've called it the A.I.D., and if I recall correctly, it has been a huge success. The notes that you release every year have been a great success; even though I haven't read them, the faculty have told me that they are excellent. You have been known to create interesting knick-knacks that see great sales, and interestingly, none of them have been banned by our caretaker, something that I consider a big accomplishment. The A.I.D. has become popular for helping other students which is another great and unique accomplishment."

"Tell me, Mr. West. Why did you start this initiative of yours?" asked Dumbledore, curious about the birth of the A.I.D. He hadn't seen something like this in Hogwarts before.

Usually, Prefects, Headboys, and Headgirls would be the students who helped the other students. If they couldn't solve the problem, they would go to the Professors. But ever since A.I.D. had opened up in Hogwarts, there had been a steady increase of students relying on Quinn to help them.

In one of the faculty meetings this year, the faculty had noted that they had seen a dive in the number of younger students coming to them for help. They connected it to the presence and ever-growing popularity of A.I.D. Every year the A.I.D. would gain a new batch of students.

After the professors exchanged their experiences, they realized that the A.I.D. had been equally popular in every house: no student, regardless of their house, had ever turned away from the door of A.I.D. If they had a problem, A.I.D was the space.

Pureblood students who had a strong sense of blood supremacy used A.I.D's services because Quinn was a pureblood himself. Muggleborn students, who were on the opposite side of the spectrum, didn't shy away from the A.I.D. because it was a place that would explain anything they wanted to know about the new and unknown magical world.

The A.I.D. was an establishment that reached every type of student present in Hogwarts.

Dumbledore, who got informed about what was happening in the school from the faculty meeting, became impressed and curious about the A.I.D. and how it was able to rise up to this point in only three years.

"Hmm, originally, I wanted to do something different. Create something that nobody in Hogwarts had ever done and something different from what my schoolmates were currently doing," answered Quinn, not telling the real reason about A.I.D.s' founding. He still provided Dumbledore with some actual facts, though. "I wanted to create something of my own and, in-process, use magic. I wasn't expecting it to get this big. But well, I guess I'm happy how things turned out."

'I have more than a hundred students who would do what I ask of them, students from all houses on every step of the social ladder. Indeed, I guess I'm happy how things turned out,' thought Quinn.

"I see," said Dumbledore and once again started to turn the parchments and stopped when he saw something that interested him. "Hmm... this here says that you had access to the Restricted Section of the Library for the entire year, last year." He looked up at Quinn and said, "It was given to you by Professor Lockhart."

Quinn nodded and confirmed the statement from Dumbledore but didn't say a single word in response.

Dumbledore waited for a moment for Quinn to speak something, but when he didn't say anything, Dumbledore asked, "May I ask why did you ask for the pass to the Restricted Section?"

"I was interested in the books there, Headmaster," replied Quinn, keeping it short.

"... And Professor Lockhart gave you the pass for the entire year? Not a particular book, but an entire year?" asked Dumbledore.

Quinn shrugged in reply, "I established his fan club at Hogwarts. I was the reason for his popularity in the school, so I guess he simply allowed me to browse through the library because of that."

"Yes, I recall hearing about Professor Lockhart's fan club," said Dumbledore before asking with a pause. "... Did you have contact with Professor Lockhart after he left the school?"

"Unfortunately, I lost contact with Professor Lockhart after he left his post. He was a fun person to listen to and hang around. He had fascinating stories to tell," answered Quinn.

"What books interested you, Mr. West," asked Dumbledore as he observed Quinn through his half-moon glasses.

"Hmm, there were many, but mostly some advanced applications of what I was studying at the moment," answered Quinn, and he didn't lie. Dumbledore didn't know what level of magic he was studying at that point.

Dumbledore once again waited for Quinn to explain what he meant by the vague answer, but Quinn didn't say a single more word.

He once again looked down at his desk and turned some sheets before once again asking.

"You've been learning Healing Magic from Madam Pomfrey," stated Dumbledore as he looked at Quinn with surprise.

"Yes," answered Quinn with a single word.

The third time around, Dumbledore finally caught up with what was happening.

"... Do you want to become a healer, Mr. West?"

"No, sir. Not at all. Healing is a type of magic, and I'm interested in anything that's magic," smiled Quinn.

The Headmaster stared at the student while the student looked around the office with a curious gaze.

"Headmaster, my view of your office is improving by the minute. It's growing on me," complimented Quinn.

If Dumbledore didn't want to get straight to the point, Quinn also didn't mind stretching things along. Plus, he employed his usual strategy of letting the other person ask questions to control the flow of information.

"It seems I have gone off the topic, Mr. West," said Dumbledore and closed the file of parchments. "It's just that I don't get to talk to students often. So whenever I do get to talk to a student, I get a little distracted as I want to know more about them."

"It's fine, sir. You are a busy man; the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Supreme Mugwump of the I.C.W., and the Chief Warlock of Wizengamot. All these titles and the responsibilities that come with them are time-consuming," said Quinn and then suggested as he looked at Dumbledore. "If you aren't enjoying your current workload and if it makes you feel uncomfortable... perhaps you could drop a position or two and concentrate on fewer things."

Dumbledore watched Quinn, and as Quinn said the last sentence, the Headmaster smiled widely, more widely than he had smiled since Quinn had entered the office.

"Let's get to the point, Mr. West. Let's talk about what happened at the Shrieking Shack."

Quinn held back the smile that was threatening to break out on his face and nodded.

"Let's."

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - Let's get started.

Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster - Yes, let's get started.

Ivy Potter - Has a Quinn-encounter quota in her mind - *Sigh.*

Poppy Pomfrey - Matron, healer - I repeat, Quinn is troublesome.

Severus Snape - Conflicted - I knew that brat knew!

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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"What were you doing at the Shrieking Shack, Mr. West?" asked Dumbledore to the student sitting in front of him.

"I was returning from Hogsmeade, Headmaster," answered Quinn to the question. "And Shrieking Shack is the route that I used to travel back-and-forth from the castle and village."

Today's situation had revealed that Quinn went out of the castle, so there was no reason for him to hide the fact that he went out to Hogsmeade.

"What were you doing in the village?" questioned Dumbledore. "What prompted you to leave the castle?"

Quinn raised his right hand and snapped his fingers for a playing card - a joker - with a royal blue back appear in his hands.

"I was out at the village to confirm the new design on my business cards."

He then, with a flick of his wrist, threw the playing card from his right to left at a snapping speed, making a faint noise as the card jumped hands.

Dumbledore's eyes from Quinn's right to left, following the card, and they widened a fraction when instead of the throwing card, Quinn's left was holding a black card with golden lettering.

"These cards are my main source of advertisement, Headmaster," said Quinn as he leaned forward and gracefully placed the card on Dumbledore's desk and the black business card glided on top of the polished surface of the table towards Dumbledore.

Dumbledore removed his surprised eyes from the business card on his desk and looked at Quinn's hand, which had returned to resting on his lap.

"And you couldn't do it from within the castle? Communicating via owls, perhaps," asked Dumbledore as he continued to stare at the card on the table.

"Somethings come out better when you discuss them face-to-face, sir. As I said, these cards are my primary source of advertisement. I need for them to be perfect."

Other than the slight widening of his eyes, the old Headmaster didn't show any signs of surprise and picked up the card from the table to observe it.

His experienced hands and knowledgeable eyes looked for magic laid into the cards. Dumbledore found that hidden under a layer of bogus charms laid animation charms and a Protean charm, but other than that, no other magic was woven into the card.

Dumbledore looked for how Quinn transformed a playing card into a business card, searching for a transfiguration charm or a simple cantrip, but there was nothing like that on the card. Which told Dumbledore that Quinn had accomplished it without magic, surprising him further.

"That was an impressive show of sleight-of-hand, Mr. West," complimented Dumbledore as he gently shook the card in his hand. "I've heard that muggle magicians do tricks like these, but this is my first time seeing something like this."

"Thank you for the praise," smiled Quinn. "Sleight-of-hand seems like magic, a skill that requires pure skill and dexterity to fool people." The smile widened into a wide grin. "And I have found that it does wonder when I show it to magicals. I can get individuals to look at me with funny and, quite frankly, dumb faces."

"Did I make the same expression that you see on others?"

Quinn shook his head with a shallow smile, "You barely made an expression, Headmaster. It made me think that I should've done something more... wilder."

"Oh no, Mr. West. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was surprised," answered Dumbledore. "I'm an old dog, who was a little slow on the uptake, that's all."

"Oh, please, Headmaster. You aren't that old. You are what? A little over a hundred years old. You still have a full life ahead of you," chuckled Quinn and then gave a glance over to Dumbledore's face. "You have the dressing sense; if you trim that beard off, you would immediately shave decades off your appearance."

Dumbledore stroked his long beard and smiled, "Is that so? I will give it a thought. I'm a little attached to my beard: it has been with me for a long time."

"Follow your heart, sire. It will take you ways."

Dumbledore was about to laugh in agreement, but then he realized that Quinn had taken him off the tangent and blinked a bit at the smiling student in front of him.

There was a slight pause after Quinn's statement, and Dumbledore directly brought the conversation back on track.

"James tells me that you -." Dumbledore started to speak, but Quinn cut him off.

"James?" question Quinn, despite knowing who Dumbledore was talking about.

The conversation a few seconds, even if it was off-topic, was going smoothly, and Quinn wanted to break the rhythm, so he asked the question to which he already knew the answer.

"... James Potter, the person who escorted you to the castle," said Dumbledore, who indeed was slightly thrown off his rhythm.

He wasn't used to being interrupted or being pulled out of topic. It had been years, even decades, since Dumbledore had experienced close to what he was doing with Quinn.

"Ah, Auror Potter. I wasn't able to attribute the first name to him. Please do continue," gestured Quinn.

"Yes... as I was saying, James tells me that you knew that Professor Lupin is a Werewolf. My question to you, Mr. West, is that if you understood what Professor Snape was trying to tell you, why didn't you reveal to anyone," asked Dumbledore, and his eyes shined with curiosity.

Dumbledore was shocked that Snape had tried to reveal Remus's identity despite his insistence and order to not disclose the condition. But to think that the childish feuds would carry over to adulthood and Snape would try to circumvent the rules he had set and attempt to point the students towards the answers.

"I understand that Lycanthropy or the more funny word, Werewolfry, is a disease. As long as people with Lycanthropy take proper precautions, I wouldn't treat them negatively. Professor Lupin, from my view, took those proper precautions and made sure that the surrounding people wouldn't be affected," answered Quinn, speaking things from his heart. "I don't think that just because Professor Lupin was something he can't do anything about, he should be segregated. As for why I didn't reveal his identity? He and the faculty were clearly trying to keep it a secret. I can read the room, so I kept quiet. Of course, if he had been a danger to the students. I would've revealed his identity to the entire school and have him kicked out of the school."

Quinn had already spoken these things at the Shrieking Shack, so he didn't mind repeating them. Anything to keep the conversation where and how Quinn wanted to go.

"Let's talk about the fact that you intercepted the terrorist."

But, Dumbledore was an experienced old goat. Even with Quinn's little tactics to keep the conversation moving in the direction he wanted, Dumbledore simply used blunt questions and his position as the Headmaster to force the conversation back where he wanted.

'Hmm... I wanted a little more time before we got here, but things are still within my expectations,' thought Quinn and once again waited for Dumbledore to front a question.

"From what James described, the man that held Harry hostage got out of the room, the door suddenly shut close, and when the others got out, you were on top of the man and beating his face red with your fists," recalled Dumbledore.

The Headmaster took a conscious pause in which he stared at Quinn before asking.

"You didn't have your wand in your hands, Mr. West. How were you able to shut the door that was clearly shut with magic?"

Quinn stared at Dumbledore for a good few moments before raising his hand and pointing it at the folder of parchments that Dumbledore was previously reading from.

His face scrunched up in concentration as one... two... five seconds went by before the folder flew up from the table and zoomed into Quinn's hand.

Quinn breathed out a heavy breathe and lightly smiled. "I-I can do a little wandless magic, Headmasters. At that moment, I thought it was the best option for everyone if I separated the man from his associates."

'There, I established my limit,' internally smiled Quinn.

He looked down at the folder and opened it to read what Dumbledore had on him, but the speed at which he turned the pages made it seem like he was simply turning pages.

"I can't do any more than that. And that man had a wand pointed at Harry Potter, so I chose the physical route and forced him away from Harry, and then to make sure that he didn't have any other moment, I punched him." Quinn looked up from the parchments and continued. "I've been told that you can't stop after an initial blow. You've to keep going until the hostile is no longer, well... hostile."

Quinn rubbed his upper arm with his opposite hand and whispered, "I was scared and just followed what came to me instinctually."

Feeling frightened in that situation was natural, and Quinn, on some level, was scared. Even if he had planned things to ensure that he was safe, Quinn still felt the fear that the situation could go wrong. So, right now, Quinn was simply using that slight feeling of fear to portray a dread that brought out his instincts.

"... I understand, Mr. West. Things must've been terrifying for you at that moment. I will tell you something that I've heard from several Aurors and Hit Wizards I have met. Most of them told me that even after doing what they do for years, they still fear afraid before going into a dangerous situation. They tell me that fear is what keeps them on their toes and keeps their mind cautious."

Quinn nodded, whole-heartedly agreeing with the fact that a healthy dose of fear helped in dangerous situations.

...

Dumbledore observed Quinn with an inspecting gaze.

There was something about Quinn that was bothering him. Ever since Quinn had entered the room, there was something that had been bothering Dumbledore. Something that he couldn't put his finger on.

Quinn didn't show any signs of nervousness or worry about being in his office. And while Dumbledore wasn't trying to make anyone nervous, he understood that his position and reputation did bring that something in people when they met him.

Then there was the fact that Quinn had shown that even though he wasn't reluctant to talk, his answers told him that Quinn wasn't going to completely open up.

Dumbledore wasn't dense or a greenhorn; he understood what Quinn was trying to do. Short and vague answers... going off topics... trying to interrupt the conversations... not providing anything new that he didn't already know.

He had deduced that Quinn used wandless magic to close the door. There was no other reasoning for the door suddenly closing. And Quinn had simply confirmed the clear fact by showcasing that he had wandless capabilities just enough to shut a door.

Quinn simply confirmed that he punched the man to stop him. Dumbledore already knew that. Other than a few additional background facts, Quinn hadn't told him anything that would add to the narrative.

Even before the two started to talk about the incident, Quinn had simply agreed with statements that he had put forward.

Lockhart gave him an all-access pass to the Restricted Section for an entire year.

Quinn's answer? Yes. Short and simply confirming a recorded fact.

Why? I don't know, maybe he liked me. Vague conjecture and nothing definitive.

What did he study? Advance concepts. Everything in Restricted Section was advance. Once again, too broad of an answer.

He provided similar answers when asked about his Healing lesson with Poppy.

Dumbledore thought about it what didn't fit into place.

'He is prepared, a bit too prepared. He is too relaxed,' noticed Dumbledore.

But when he thought about Quinn's background and what he had learned from his faculty. It was just barely within an acceptable behavior from Quinn.

'He is too accepting,' thought Dumbledore. 'Yes, that's it. He transitioned a bit too quickly.'

When Quinn spoke about fear, he showed some emotion that would be normal given the situation he had been through.

'But when I told him about Aurors and Hit Wizards. He accepted it too easily,' recalled Dumbledore and reflected on it. 'The look in his eyes wasn't relief at not being judged. It was as if he already knew it and was showing his agreement.'

This tipped the scales in Dumbledore's head. He wanted to know what Quinn West was thinking.

Here in front of him was George West's grandson. The grandson of the person with immense wealth and resources, who he had tried to bring to his side.

Dumbledore had failed to persuade George West to join his side and his cause. Fortunately for him, George West had also refused to go to the other side and join Voldemort. If George West had joined Voldemort, then Malfoy's financial support would have seemed like pocket money allowance.

Dumbledore's bubbling curiosity about Quinn, along with his family background, made Dumbledore decide his next course of action. He was going to use some magic to see what was going inside Quinn's head.

...

Quinn was looking around Dumbledore's office when he noticed something from the corner of his eyes.

'Hmm?'

He turned to face Dumbledore and saw the Headmaster's eyes glittering and shining with an unnatural light.

'Ah! He is using magic to attract my eyes to his,' thought Quinn. 'He is going to use Legilimency!'

But Quinn wasn't scared.

Not at all.

Instead, he was excited.

Except for Alan, his teacher, no person had ever challenged his mental Occlumency shields. He wanted to see if Dumbledore's attack could pass through.

'The invisible, omnipresent radiation matter is also ready and present in my mind,' thought Quinn and thought about the latest addition to his mindscape. 'Let's see if he can even get to that point.'

Quinn slightly raised his chin in confidence and locked his eyes with Dumbledore. With a barely noticeable smile gracing his lips, his shields went into active mode as they solidified, and the radiation edges started emitting waves of mental probe degradation magic.

Dumbledore, who saw Quinn lock eyes with him, gathered his magic and engaged his mental magic to cast Legilimency.

The mental probe went forward and was about to reach Quinn's mind when the two parties heard a pop.

Dumbledore and Quinn broke eye contact and looked towards the direction of the sound. There they saw a house-elf standing with a letter in his hands.

'I guess my ticket is here,' thought Quinn when he saw the letter in the house-elves hands. 'It came at the right time. It's good to see I know him well.'

"What is Galry?" asked Dumbledore to the house-elf who had the responsibility to clean up his office and was the only elf who was allowed to enter the Headmaster's office.

"A letter came for the Headymaster," said Galry the house-elf and handed the letter to Dumbledore. "One of me kind pop to Hogwarts and told us house-elves to give this to you and give it fast."

Galry then twirled his fingers and spoke in a distracted voice.

"She wore pretty toga and was so pretty. Like the best elf, Darly had ever seen... so pretty."

Quinn's eyes smiled when he heard the little house-elf spoke in a dreamy tone. 'Of course, she is pretty.'

Dumbledore opened the letter as the Garly the Hogwarts house-elf popped away. He began reading it, and Quinn didn't see any reaction on the Headmaster's face before he looked up and spoke.

"It seems your grandfather doesn't want me to speak to you without his presence, Mr. West."

"I see."

Rewinding back time to the moment Quinn had opened the door in the Shrieking Shack.

The second Quinn saw the men inside the room, he was sure of one thing, one thing that was sure to happen.

Quinn thought about the future, and no matter what decision he took, every path led to him meeting the old man in the tower and talking about what happened today.

All paths lead to Albus Dumbledore.

And at that time, the meeting with Dumbledore became his main priority, and Quinn started to prepare for it.

The first thing Quinn had to do was to get out of there alive. And make sure Harry Potter wasn't hurt and taken away. Doing this was easy enough. But when he added Dumbledore to the equation, Quinn had to select his methods.

He took the physical way rather than the magical way. Quinn started by discreetly disarming the hostage-taker. The door shutting close made sure that no one noticed that fact, meaning if Dumbledore examined the memory, he wouldn't find a wand flying because Quinn made sure that the wand went in a direction that wasn't visible to the Marauders.

Quinn didn't want to show his actual magical capabilities to Dumbledore. But because the door was closed with magic, Quinn decided to use his reputation as a prodigious student to explain that he had enough wandless skills to close the door.

But that was it. Quinn couldn't show anymore, so he turned to his trusty fists and battered the man into submission.

Going physical and hurting wasn't only to hide his magic. Quinn needed time to prepare. He made sure the Marauders knew he was hurt so they would take him to the hospital wing.

This went great because Harry Potter was unconscious and needed medical attention, and Quinn simply tagged along.

The reason Quinn wanted to go to the hospital wing was to separate from James Potter. He didn't want to meet Dumbledore right off the bat and wanted to prepare his exit ticket in advance.

In the hospital wing, there were two options:

Number one, Dumbledore would come to the hospital wing and talk to him there. In this option, Quinn wasn't able to set up the exit ticket, but he would have an audience who would see him and Dumbledore talk.

He would have Poppy and most probably the rest of the Potter family in the hospital wing. If Dumbledore asked to talk in private, Quinn would've refused and would reply that they could talk about it in front of everyone. That he trusted Poppy and that the Potter family deserved to know what happened.

This way, Dumbledore would've to carefully tread if he tried some hanky-panky.

The second option was Quinn being called into the Headmaster's office. Which was the version of events that happened.

In this option, Quinn had further sub-possibilities. The possibility was the messenger, who would escort him to Dumbledore. On the scale, Quinn had someone like Severus Snape who wouldn't listen to any of his requests on one side and someone like Filius Flitwick, who was much more empathetic and would allow Quinn to go into his office. With everyone else in between these two people.

Quinn's blood-stained clothes weren't an incident. He could have come out of the mess without a single speck of dust on him. Quinn needed to go to his office so that he could prepare his exit ticket.

The exit ticket was a MagiFax mail sent to every MagiFax unit inside the West Manor. Quinn had sent the same two pages that he drafted while changing clothes to Ms. Rosey, Elliot, his grandfather, and to the MagiFax unit for general use at West Manor.

The two pages covered the events, what was about to happen, and some instructions.

If Snape had come to escort Quinn and had refused his request to change clothes, Quinn would have directly called Polly, who was the one who had delivered the letter to the Hogwarts house-elves and would have given her a short message for his grandfather.

Quinn was confident that even with a short message, his grandfather would've pulled off the same thing as he had done now, and he would get his exit ticket.

Quinn had used MagiFax because Filius, the charms master, was sitting right outside. Quinn wasn't sure if Filius would be able to detect a sudden ward that Quinn would have cast to silence the elf-apparate pop of Polly arriving to collect the pages.

He was okay with Snape seeing him speaking to Polly because after being refused a change of clothes, Quinn had the justification of complaining to his grandfather.

Then came the talk with Dumbledore.

Quinn didn't know what would happen in the office. The talk could have gone pleasantly where he and Dumbledore could've exchanged pleasantries, and after making sure that Quinn was fine, Dumbledore allowing Quinn to leave and rest.

But Dumbledore pulled out a file on Quinn and started to ask questions that didn't have anything to do with today's incident. Dumbledore brought up everything from his grades to his thoughts about various subjects and his activities.

Quinn knew that there was a possibility that Dumbledore would try something, and thus he wanted to get out of the office, and his grandfather's letter was enough to accomplish that. But to make sure that it got here in time, Quinn had to make sure that he extended the conversation without revealing too much.

Dumbledore using Legilimency was within Quinn's expectations. Quinn knew the power of Legilimency: he used it every day. So, he knew that if Dumbledore could, he would use Legilimency because if Quinn was in his place, he would have done the same thing.

Sure Quinn was confident in his Occlumency, but his opponent was Dumbledore, and Quinn knew that the over hundred-year-old man was strong. That is why Quinn went to all the trouble to create an exit ticket.

In the words of George West, the exit ticket told Albus Dumbledore to back off and leave his grandson alone.

Albus Dumbledore was magically and politically powerful, but he lacked the financial wealth that George West had plenty of. If Dumbledore refused to heed his warning, George would make his life difficult.

The saying that money made the world go round was built on solid ground.

Dumbledore looked up from the letter towards Quinn stated, "It seems your grandfather is aware of the incident."

"So it seems," nodded Quinn.

"I wonder how he got to know them so quickly," inquired Dumbledore.

"I wouldn't know, Headmaster. My grandfather is a resourceful man. I'm sure he has his way," replied Quinn, not admitting that he was the source.

Quinn put the folder which held the information on him back on the desk. He had already glanced at it and just needed to use Occlumency to strengthen what his eyes saw.

"It seems we would've to end our talk, sir," smiled Quinn as he got up from his chair. "As much as I enjoyed our talk, my grandfather has the authority to ground me for the entire summer, and I don't want that."

Dumbledore glanced between the letter and Quinn and nodded.

Quinn turned back and walked towards the door but stopped when he heard Dumbledore speak.

"Detentions till the end of the term, Mr. West. For sneaking outside the castle without permission."

Quinn didn't turn back and simply replied with: "I understand, sir." And then walked out of the office, leaving behind Albus Dumbledore alone, with the letter from George West.

Outside the office, Quinn took a deep breath with a big smile and thought.

'That went rather well.'

The first meeting between Albus Dumbledore and Quinn West had come to an end.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC - Mind games! Let's play mind games!

Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster, sir. - "... Quinn West, hmm..."

George West - Exit ticket - Back off! I don't want my grandson alone in a room with an old man.

Garly - Hogwarts house-elf - "... She was pretty."

Polly - West house-elf - Well dressed and pretty house-elf

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

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The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn walked back to the hospital wing. He was stretching his limbs while thinking about his conversation with Dumbledore.

'It went well. I was pulled out at an appropriate time. I need to thank grandfather for that.'

Quinn looked at his bandaged hands. They were almost healed, which was the reason he had been able to do a sleight-of-hand card swap in front of Dumbledore.

'I'll write him a letter after Madam Pomfrey gives me her consent.'

The matron had asked Quinn to return after his talk with the Headmaster. Quinn knew that if he didn't return Poppy would come to his dorms and drag him to the hospital wing.

'I'll probably have the reply waiting for me at the workshop,' thought Quinn as he entered the hospital wing.

"Madam Pomfrey, I'm back!" called out Quinn as he began to remove the bandages so as to make it easier for Poppy to cast the spells and get his hands healed.

Quinn's attention was on the bandages wrapped around his hands. As such, he wasn't looking to his front but, then, he sensed something in his front. He stopped.

He looked up and saw Lily Potter standing in front of him. Suddenly, she walked to Quinn and hugged him.

Quinn's arm immediately went up in the air as Lily Potter embraced him.

'What? What's this? What's she doing?' thought Quinn while being hugged tighter.

He could look over her shoulder and saw Ivy Potter standing at a distance. After spotting her, Quinn mouthed out some words.

'What's happening?'

Ivy didn't say anything and simply gestured to Quinn to allow Lily to do whatever she was doing.

"Thank you. Thank you for saving Harry. Thank you so much." Lily finally spoke as she continued to hug Quinn.

Quinn gingerly patted the lady with one arm on the back to soothe her. "It's alright, Professor Potter. I simply did what seemed right at that moment."

Lily finally let go of Quinn. She thanked him for the last time before stepping away from him.

But it seemed this wasn't over as James Potter stepped forward after his wife. He heavily padded Quinn on both his shoulders.

"You did well out there, son," praised James with an approving smile on his face. "Damn good quick thinking. You saved the day."

"Thank you for the compliment. It means a lot when it comes from the mouth of an Auror of your calibre," replied Quinn humbly.

James, too, was done thanking him and stepped back.

This time Quinn was sure it was over and was about to go find Poppy, but he was wrong once again.

He couldn't move as Ivy Potter walked near and stood in front of him.

The two students stared at each other as Quinn waited for Ivy to say something.

"...k y..." said Ivy, not looking at Quinn. She seemed very interested in the floor between her and Quinn's feet.

"Pardon, I didn't catch that," said Quinn, not able to hear Ivy's words.

Ivy bit her lower lip before looking up at Quinn and spoke again, this time loud enough for Quinn to hear.

"Thank you."

Quinn was surprised for a moment. Not because of her words, but because of the expression the redhead had and the look in her eyes.

Except for their first meeting, Ivy had always looked at Quinn with a guarded and cautious look. The way she looked at him worsened after Quinn slammed her into a wall as he threatened and blackmailed her.

Right now, however, there was a true and honest thankfulness in her eyes. There wasn't any caution. There were no worries. It could be seen that her face truly reflected how she felt.

"... You're welcome," replied Quinn. He had to recover from the surprise of seeing someone he was used to seeing explicitly angry with him in another way.

Ivy wordlessly nodded and stepped away. She walked towards Harry's bed and disappeared behind the curtains that framed the beds.

With his eyes following Ivy, Quinn didn't notice Lily step forward once again.

"Quinn, I would like to invite you for dinner at our house during the summer break," invited Lily.

Quinn, who was watching Ivy, abruptly turned to Lily when her words landed on his ears.

"That won't be -"

He politely tried to decline the invitation, but the mother of the twins cut him off before he could even finish his sentence.

"I insist, Quinn," pressed Lily. "You saved my son today. Please give me the chance to thank you for it."

Quinn opened his mouth to once again refuse, but Lily's expression stopped him. He nodded.

"I would be delighted, Professor Potter."

A beautiful smile bloomed on Lily's face when Quinn accepted her offer.

"I'll send an invitation to your house for your parents," smiled Lily.

"That would be helpful, Professor," nodded Quinn in reply. He then looked up and spoke. "Please excuse me, Professor. I need to meet Madam Pomfrey so that she can complete the healing."

Saying that, Quinn raised his unbandaged hands.

"Oh my, yes. Sorry for making you wait. These must hurt," said Lily hurriedly.

Quinn politely nodded and walked past both the Potter parents towards the matron's office, who saw Quinn and noticed that his hands weren't bandaged.

"Quinn! Didn't I tell you not to remove the bandages! Why did you remove them?" scolded the Matron. "This is why children are foolish. They don't know what's good for them."

Quinn blinked his eyes and opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying.

"... I didn't!"

"Liar! I can see from your hands that the bandages weren't removed right now."

"But, but, but..."

"Don't make excuses. Now sit down and let me heal them!"

Quinn, who had been stopped because of the Potter family, sat down as Poppy focused on healing his hands while she lectured him about the importance of following the proper recuperation practices.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Sirius Black and his direct senior, Captain Auror Gawain Robards, sat inside an interrogation room. In front of them sat Rivers Lock.

The two Aurors had the leader of the Novellus Accionites, but neither of them knew this crucial piece of information. With no one actually knowing Rivers' true identity, they had no idea that they were sitting in front of the kingpin.

"Talk, Rivers," asked Gawain as he stared at the prisoner in front of him. "You were caught trying to kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived. Something that the court won't look lightly at."

"You're screwed, Lock," cackled Sirius at Gawain's side. "A long stay awaits you in Azkaban."

Rivers didn't say a single word. Not a peep could be heard from him ever since he came here. His face still wasn't fully healed. The Aurors had healed him enough to not feel pain, but if Rivers moved his face and expression too much, he'd feel the burning sting of his injuries.

To Rivers, the pain was a reminder that he had failed.

"As Black here says, you'll be in Azkaban for a long time, Rivers. You tried to kidnap Harry Potter and, to boot directly from Hogwarts. That isn't something the heads will look lightly at," said Gawain and then leaned forward. "But if you help us out. Provide us with some information, and we will help you out. We'll ask the Chief Warlock to reduce your sentence based on your cooperation."

"Forget it, Captain," scoffed Sirius. "This shrimp doesn't look like he knows something. We should just chuck him in Azkaban, and the world would be better for it."

Gawain and Sirius had interrogated many Accionite members in the past few months. The aggressive raids had brought in many people through their doors. As such, they had tried to get information about them.

Nonetheless, even if they had tried to get information about the internal structure of Novellus Accionite. The problem was that when they tried to build a clear view of the structure, there were blanks and misses one after another.

After interrogating hundreds, they couldn't tell who was in the inner circle of the Novellus Accionites. There were some who led muggle and muggleborn hunts, so many people pointed at them when asked about the inner circle.

But when the Aurors interrogated those people, they found that the people who had multiple leads under their belts knew absolutely nothing.

Those people simply received detailed instructions about the hunts and were asked to complete them for people who had a higher position in the Novellus Accionites. Successful people would be granted titles and positions that would let them show superiority over others, but other than that, they had no control over the actual organization.

It stunned the Aurors that such a big operation was built solely via communication through letters. Letters from an unknown source.

The Auror department hadn't been able to find who was sending the letters. They wanted to get their hands on the people who planned everything because those were the true inner circle and not the people with bogus titles.

Unfortunately, despite their rigorous attempts, they failed to locate the person or people who sent these letters.

When Gawain heard about the attempted kidnapping while enjoying an early dinner with his wife, he immediately had to come to the Auror office because he thought something of this level would reveal something about the inner circle of the Novellus Accionites.

"Rivers, if you tell us about the people who write the mission plans. We won't not only try to reduce your sentence, but we will also make sure that you aren't in the area of Azkaban frequented by Dementors."

But Rivers didn't even look at them. He kept staring at the table between the two parties. It looked like he wasn't going to cooperate.

The thing was that even if Rivers wanted to cooperate, he couldn't. He was the person in the inner circle they were looking for. No other person drafted the mission plans. Rivers curated and created everything himself, so there was no one that Rivers could point at.

And giving himself away was the last thing he would do. If they found that he was the person behind Novellus Accionites, the Aurors wouldn't bat an eye before chucking him into the deepest hells of Azkaban.

This was the biggest failure of Rivers' life. In an attempt to become the sole controlling force hidden in the shadows, he had isolated himself from any friends or scapegoats. In his arrogance, Rivers had dug a hole to himself, and now there was no way to climb out of it.

After seeing there wasn't any response from Rivers, Gawain and Rivers looked at each other and nodded to move onto the next stage.

The Bad Auror and Good Auror tactic wasn't working, so they had to try something more aggressive to see it achieved something.

Sirius slid a file to Gawain, who opened it and started reading it out loud.

"Rivers Lock. A clerk who works for the ministry memo department," spoke Gawain as he read from the file in front of him. "You've been working in the same position ever since graduating from Hogwarts. You've rented the same house from the time you started working. No partner. No friends. Nothing to look at, and absolutely nothing to work with."

Gawain looked up at Rives and asked, "Tell me, Rivers Lock. Why were you made the leader on the kidnapping of the Boy-Who-Lived? Why would someone as mediocre, ordinary, and average as you, who hasn't done anything relevant in his life, be chosen to front something as important as this?"

The two Aurors finally saw a reaction, as they saw Rivers clench the fist of the hand he had on the table. They had finally been able to elicit a reaction out of Rivers. It was the first reaction he had given ever since being brought to the holding cell.

Inside Rivers, the words 'mediocre', 'ordinary', and 'average' rung loudly. He had been used to hearing these and was able to control the rage he felt when someone said words like these to him. But right now, after the biggest failure and amid the crisis of his life. Some of that rage leaked out.

Gawain glanced at Sirius, and Auror Black pulled on a sneering face.

"Haha, these Novellus Accionites must be complete idiots!" he scoffed derisively. "To think they would handle something so important to someone like you. If it was me, I think any musclehead would have been a better choice than... you."

Sirius' voice dripped with mocking and belittlement. He drew those words directly from his family members from when he had been sorted into Gryffindor. He even was channeling the same tone he had gotten used to hearing whenever he was at home.

And for once in his life, these words brought him joy, as he saw Rivers look up at him with a look full of hatred.

'It's working,' thought the Auror inside Sirius.

He knew this was his job and he had work to do.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Huh?!" Sirius leaned back into his chair and smirked.

"Look at the difference between us. I'm the head of the Black House, while you're just an important son of a small pureblood family. I am an elite Auror while you are a f*cking useless clerk. I'm sitting here deciding your fate while you are sitting there with a broken face."

Sirius laughed loudly and then continued to mock Rives.

"Can you believe that this shit got beaten in by a fourteen-year-old? A fourteen-year-old! That's hilarious! Getting his face broken by a damn kid!"

Rivers started to shake as he looked at Sirius. Sirius's words were becoming super effective and were doing critical damage.

Rivers knew that his entire plan had failed because a kid had beaten him. The kid that he had thought nothing of, had disarmed him. Then kicked him twice and punched him till he lost consciousness.

Everything had failed because of one kid.

And that thought haunted him from the moment he had regained his consciousness.

Rivers considered it the darkest stain of his life.

He wanted to tell the two in front of him that he wasn't ordinary. He wanted to reveal that he was anything but ordinary. That he was the one they were looking for.

But...

Rivers Lock knew that if he spoke, he was dead. So he bit his tongue strong enough to draw blood and used the pain to regain logic.

Spit*

He spat saliva mixed with blood on the table. Rivers put on an ugly smirk and said.

"F*k you."

Sirius and Gawain looked at blood mixed spit on the table, and something told them that Rivers wasn't going to talk.

But Rivers wanted to get in one blow in, so he looked at Sirius Black and cackled.

"Oi, Black."

Sirius looked up from the table at Rivers, and when he did, Sirius saw superiority on Rivers' face as he spoke.

"Peter Pettigrew says hello."

Sirius and Gawain's eyes widened after they heard Rivers and immediately pressed to get answers, but Rives only laughed at them as the two Aurors coaxed him unsuccessfully in order to get him to talk.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Ivy Potter sat beside her brother under the cover of the Potter Family's Invisibility Cloak.

Harry was still sleeping and, although the Potter family had wanted to remain in the hospital wing, Poppy chased them out as it was late.

James left Hogwarts to the Auror's office as he got a call from his seniors. Lily was kicked out because she had wanted to stay the entire night.

Ivy was also kicked out of the hospital wing, but the girl twin returned under the Invisibility Cloak and sat down beside her twin just in case he woke up in the middle of the night.

Her decision had been wise. Harry did wake up in the middle of the night.

Ivy watched as Harry shifted in his bed. He then silently sat straight on his bed.

He didn't seem to panic, so Ivy simply watched her brother while still under the cloak.

Harry stretched his arms and blinked as he looked around with his sleepy eyes. It took him a full five seconds to shake the sleep of his eyes and recall where he was and what he was doing before going to sleep.

"W-What!" stuttered Harry as he looked around cautiously.

Ivy pulled off her cloak to reveal herself when she saw Harry panicking.

"Hey," called out Ivy to gain her brother's attention.

Harry snapped his eyes towards the voice in surprise but calmed down when he saw Ivy.

"Ivy, what am I doing in the hospital wing. I was in the locker room then everything went black. What happened?"

"You were almost kidnapped by the Novellus Accionites," replied Ivy as she poured water from a pitcher into a glass.

"What?! Oh, thank you," spoke Harry as he took the glass, and after taking a short sip, he asked. "What do you mean? I was kidnapped?!"

Ivy then proceeded to explain what had happened. She had listened to everything their father had told their mother while they talked in the hospital, so she had a good grasp of what happened in the Shrieking Shack.

After Ivy finished talking, Harry collapsed back in his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Harry didn't know how to feel about this. He just went through a serious situation, but he couldn't relate to any of it because he hadn't been conscious.

"... So in short, Quinn West stumbled upon my kidnapping and then saved me by beating the man into a pulp," summarized Harry.

"Yes, something like that," nodded Ivy.

"How do you feel about that?" asked Harry, still lying on his bed and looking at his twin.

"How do I feel? I feel relieved. What kind of question is that?" asked Ivy looking at Harry's head wondering if he was dropped too hard.

"What I mean is how do you feel about Quinn West saving me?"

Ivy stared at Harry in confusion as she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I know that you don't like him, so I was wondering your thoughts about it?" clarified Harry and observed his twin.

"Why would you think that? I don't hate him or anything," asked and replied Ivy suspiciously.

"Oh, come on. You become all jittery when we find Quinn West in the hallways. Don't try to deny it," pressed Harry.

Ivy averted her eyes, but she still could feel Harry's gaze boring into her. She turned back to face Harry and sighed.

"I had something against him, but things are complicated now. I don't know what to think," said Ivy while looking at Harry. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

Harry wanted to press her more but decided against it. He really wanted to know what happened, but seeing that Ivy really didn't want to talk about it, he didn't force her to speak.

"I know I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but I visited Quinn West alone once," said Harry, and it caught Ivy's attention at once.

"What? When? Why?"

"He's the one who gave me the information on Peter Pettigrew. I wanted to get answers, and you know how everyone says that he has all of them. So I visited him, and he indeed answered all my questions in frightening detail," spoke Harry.

Ivy instantly became worried and asked the first thing that came to her mind.

"Did he allow you to reveal that he was the one who gave you the information?"

Quinn had clearly specified to not let anyone know he was the one providing the information. Ivy and Hermione had been repeatedly warned not to leak the information he had provided them.

She had been worried if he had given the same condition to Harry.

"Hmm? I was the one who asked to keep things between us. West did say that if someone asked him whether he was the one to give me the information, he would straight out deny it," replied Harry. "But he didn't say that I wasn't allowed to tell someone. He would just reply that I'm lying. He even asked me to copy the new article and magazine issues and then burned the paper with his handwriting on it."

Ivy was able to relate to the last sentence. Quinn had burned every sheet of paper with the information he had ever given to her. He even burned the letter he had given to Hermione. He always made sure there weren't any physical traces of their communication.

Harry observed his sister, and he deduced from her question that she had experienced something similar, or else she wouldn't have asked that specific question.

'She must've asked West something,' thought Harry, and his curiosity grew. 'I wonder if Hermoine knows something. Maybe I should ask her... no, l should wait. Perhaps I could go to West and ask him directly… or not. Yeah, I'll wait.'

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC - The healer is bullying me... unfair.

Lily Potter - Professor - Gives strong hugs.

James Potter - Auror - Got a big shock when he reached his office.

Rivers Lock - Leader, prisoner - Has his mind on one person.

Ivy Potter - Girl Twin - It seems the Quinn-encounter rate keeps increasing.

Harry Potter - Boy Twin - Man, I was just kidnapped... huh, well... whatever.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - That ends the quota of an accident from Harry Potter per year.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn entered the Great Hall with a newspaper tucked under his arms and walked towards the Ravenclaw table to get himself a seat. He found an empty area at the table, so he sat down on the seating bench. He put the newspaper on the table.

"Let's see what does this say," said Quinn and picked up one of the newspapers from the left stack. He started to look for what he was looking for. "As expected, it's on the down-low now. They pushed it down to the sixth page."

Quinn's eyes read the article that interested him. Right after, he reached the end of the page and turned to the instructed page to read the article's continuation.

As Quinn continued to read the newspaper, Ravenclaw students walked by, saw him, and went to sit to another spot on the bench. No one sat near Quinn.

The Hogwarts students sat down at Great Hall thrice a day for meals, and because of that, the students from the same house knew about the groups and cliques that existed. As such, everyone knew not to sit adjacent to Quinn if he was sitting in a certain spot.

"Excellent, there's nothing at all" smiled Quinn as he folded the newspaper and placed it below the plate in front of him.

Both Quinn and George knew that this incident would go viral. The newspapers, magazines, and any other form of media would definitely want to publish that story, so George had to silence any mentions of Quinn's name in any published articles.

Most articles outright omitted there ever being someone else other than the Aurors and Accionites at the scene and only specified that the Aurors freed Harry Potter from the kidnappers. The few that mentioned there being someone else on the scene termed Quinn as an unidentified Hogwarts student, and even then, Quinn's role was disguised as a bystander.

Quinn would check the newspapers daily to see if someone published his name and, in the following weeks, his name didn't come up even once.

The people in Hogwarts who knew about the incident were instructed not to talk about the incident. This essentially placed a gag order in regards to the kidnapping incident.

Thus, the general public ended up without knowing his identity, which ensured Quinn's anonymity. It was something he appreciated. Quinn was glad Hogwarts students who wanted to know what happened hadn't crowded him.

Just when Quinn finished reading through the newspaper, he felt a tap on his shoulder and a soft pat on his head.

He looked to the sides to see Eddie's hand on his shoulder and Luna on his other side, who had patted him on his head.

Quinn looked at his front and smiled at Marcus, who sat down opposite to him. The newspaper stack was in front of him.

"Good morning. Ready to go home?" said Quinn.

Today was their last day at Hogwarts, and after eating breakfast, everyone would head to the Hogsmeade station, board the train, and go home.

"Of course, I can't wait to get home," said Eddie and questioned back. "What about you? Are you happy to be free from the daily detentions?"

Quinn had been serving detentions every day for weeks. Yesterday had been his last detention session.

As the faculty had to mask Quinn's participation, another reason for his detention was required. The faculty and Quinn discussed it and decided to make Snape catch Quinn out of the dorm after hours and because Snape was Snape, he'd dish out severe detention to him.

Snape's bad reputation among the students had finally come to use, as after Quinn told everyone that Snape caught him, everyone instantly accepted he had to serve detention without question.

Quinn had been a little miffed that his perfect record of not being caught while breaking curfew was tainted. To boot, he hadn't even been caught while breaking curfew.

"Come on, my detentions haven't been that bad," smiled Quinn. "I've had a lot of fun hanging out with the Professors. Even Filch is fun to hang out with; that man knows a whole lot about the castle."

Quinn's detentions rotated among the faculty. Within his detention period, he had spent time with all the faculty members, including Poppy and Filch.

"Your standard of fun is weird," said Marcus, shaking his head as he piled up food on his plate.

"Weird, yes." nodded Luna fervently in agreement. She had had several talks with Quinn where he had tried to tell her what he thought of as fun and interesting.

"Well, my definition is wide and refined. It's not my fault you don't understand it," humphed Quinn with a smile.

Quinn looked around the Great Hall and thought about the recent events that happened.

His eyes turned to Draco Malfoy, who was laughing with his friends. He then thought about Buckbeak, and about the Hippogriff case, where Lucius Malfoy had tried to push for Buckbeak to be put down.

But the case had been thrown out of Wizengamot. Unlike the canon, Hagrid and Buckbeak had the full support of the Light faction.

The Light faction, in fact, had used this case to introduce Sirius Black to the Wizengamot as the holder of the Black seat. Sirius Black, and consequently the House of Black, had officially joined the Light faction. To commemorate that moment, they allowed Sirius to lead the opposition. He smoothly handled the case.

It was decided that Buckbeak wouldn't be executed, although the third-year students wouldn't be allowed to interact with the Hippogriff. The only thing that Lucius Malfoy was able to achieve was light-slapping Hagrid and the Hogwarts administration.

'From the looks of it, Draco doesn't seem to be bothered with it,' thought Quinn. 'Well, it wasn't a big deal.'

Quinn then looked at the High Table. He noticed the entire staff was present.

He looked at Remus and thought about the talk he and the Lycanthrope had had during one of his detentions.

...

Quinn was seated in Remus Lupin's office as he helped him grade Lupin's students— except the fifth and seventh year for record purposes.

"I'm leaving Hogwarts," said Remus, suddenly.

Quinn stopped writing grades onto the parchment and looked up at Lupin.

"I don't think your identity as a Werewolf ever came up in any of the Accionite trials," stated Quinn. "Those four Accionites did talk about a Werewolf but, well, no one believed them."

The Wizengamot had dismissed the talk about a Werewolf. It was thought the four Accionites were trying to waste time, and the Auror prosecution did a fine job of keeping things on track.

"James and Sirius omitted me being in the Shack in their reports," spoke Remus, looking down. "They had to lie while being on duty because of me. I can't stay here. It might bite them in the future."

Quinn looked at Remus to see if he was making a pun with the 'bite'. But he didn't seem to, so Quinn continued the conversation.

"Well, I also got out of the entire situation without anyone knowing. I don't really blame those two for helping you out," replied Quinn. "But I guess you're right about this backfiring if you stay here. I figured out your identity, and the longer you stay, the greater the chance of someone else finding out."

Both Quinn and Remus knew that the longer he stayed, the more familiar the students would get with him. So it wouldn't be long until someone noticed.

"That's true. I'm sure that if I stay for another year, Severus will get more agitated and angry. I wouldn't be surprised if he directly told the students," spoke Remus.

"I guess you're right," chuckled Quinn. "Given Professor Snape's desire for the Defense of Dark Arts position, his attempts to out you will get more direct."

Remus nodded, and his mind wandered to his school days and the relationship he had had with Severus Snape. Snape had been the first student outside of his friends who had known he was a Werewolf, and he had kept that secret for more than a decade. Remus knew that if he had come to Hogwarts, Snape would have never tried something like this.

Remus Lupin, a Gryffindor, saw himself thinking about his school years, and he realized how much of a coward he had been. The friendship he had with James and Sirius also led him to not stop their bullying of other students. A most notable example being Snape. But Remus had been terrified of losing them, so he didn't do anything to stop them, something that he regretted to this day.

"I only agreed to attend Hogwarts as a Professor for a year," said Remus. "I'll get back my previous job. It's better this way."

"Your previous job? What did you do before this?" asked Quinn. The canon Remus Lupin lived a disorderly life. He could only manage to work for short periods of time, so he was curious about what this version did for a living.

"I'm a woodworker. I make furniture, sculptures, joinery, and cabinetmaking. When you have magic on your side, you can create things quite easily," replied Remus with a wide smile. "I sell to both muggles and wizardkind. I have Squib associates who run shops in the muggle world and sell my creations for me."

Remus used magic to create intricate pieces of woodwork. With the help of James and Sirius, he had figured out a way to build woodworks that would be considered of excellent quality in the muggle world but were within the confines of wizarding laws of secrecy.

Remus liked the job because he felt peaceful, level-headed, and calm while working. He could do it with his condition because it didn't take long to create things with magic, and he could rest for the period after he transformed.

"Oh my, now, that's an excellent job. Great idea, turning the non-magical world into a stable asset. I respect that," nodded Quinn.

...

Remus had revealed what he was about to do next year, which was to return to his previous job.

'Well, at least this will keep the canon timeline more or less the same. At least, I hope so,' hoped Quinn.

It was to his benefit that the timeline had remained more or less the same. As long as the major events were more or less the same, Quinn would continue to have information beneficial to him; he would know the future.

'Next year is where it all starts,' thought Quinn.

The first three canon years had been just the opening act. An innocent world. Just magic and the golden trio, who got up to all sorts of mischief while they tried to solve the mysteries and its surrounding problems.

But then, things changed. As the main characters grew older, the problems got heavier and the world got darker. That world of magical enjoyment became quite different.

The Goblet of Fire had been the turning point. It had been the transition from the magical world of fantasy to a more complex world. And this complex social world came into play, and with that came new dynamics in the relationships between the characters. And because of that, jarring shifts happened as a result of those new relationships.

'Not to mention The Goblet of Fire is the book where Voldemort returns. Not as a specter, parasite or a mind-controlling soul fragment, but a magical entity with a body that had his soul, this leading to him returning to his previous power.'

Quinn knew what that meant. He realized what the return of Voldemort signified and how it would affect the future.

'It will reintroduce a magical powerhouse to the playing field. And not just any powerhouse; a powerhouse with the backing of an entire political faction and the capability of changing political circles and converting others.'

After Voldemort returned in the canon timeline, the Dark Faction acquired the leader the greedy and distrusting Dark Faction members were lacking. They got what they needed to come together under the same banner.

Quinn turned his attention to Albus Dumbledore, who was conversing with other Professors.

'If Albus Dumbledore is the Light Faction's backing, then Voldemort is the Dark Faction's backing,' thought Quinn.

Even though magical power wasn't needed to gain political power, the wizarding community considered magic as might. Lots of magical species considered themselves to be better than the non-magical kin because they had magic. And when one of their kind mastered the magic to a level considered impossible to others, they gained respect and standing.

That was one of the reasons both Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort were at the top of their groups-slash-factions. They had the skills to lead and the magical ability to back it up.

Quinn turned his eye to the Slytherin table and focused his vision on Daphne and Astoria Greengrass.

'I wonder whether Jacob and Sophie Greengrass will manage to keep the Grey Faction together,' sighed Quinn. 'I hope their efforts over this year will allow them to maintain firm control over the Grey Faction.'

The Grey Faction was a cooperative group and, while the Greengrass family acted as the leaders, they weren't leaders like Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort. The Greengrass couple, in fact, were more managers than leaders, and with the times that were ahead, managing the Grey Faction would become harder.

"Hey, why are you brooding? Get some food; we have to leave soon."

Quinn snapped out of his thoughts from Eddie's voice.

"Yeah, let's eat."

He collected himself and left his thoughts for a later time.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn deboarded the Hogwarts Express at Kings Cross Station and stepped on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

As every year, there were groups of parents and guardians waiting for their children, eager to meet them after months of separation.

"Now, where's my family?" murmured Quinn to himself while looking around.

While looking around, Quinn noticed a familiar figure.

"Oh my, someone's flirting with her," smiled Quinn as he watched a man try to hit on his sister, Lia West.

A man was trying to talk to her but Lia stood there without bothering to show the man any attention. She even looked bored.

"Now, what should I do? Well, let's help her out," sighed Quinn, and as he walked towards her, he called out. "Lia! I'm back!"

Lia West, who was tuning out whatever the man beside her was spewing, turned back when she heard her name and saw her precious baby brother walking towards her.

"Quinn," smiled Lia. She went towards her brother without even bothering to give the man a single glance.

Quinn and Lia hugged for a moment. Then Quinn walked up to the man that had been talking to Lia and was now leering at her.

"Hey," smiled Quinn and beckoned the man to lean down a little. "Do you want to know a secret?" Quinn gave a discreet glance over his shoulder towards Lia.

The man nodded and leaned down to Quinn's height level.

Quinn calmly raised his head. Then, a barely visible mist of pink escaped his fingers and went into the man's forehead. The man's eyes glazed over and he became unaware of the current situation.

"Walk, walk away. Walk, and keep walking," whispered Quinn into the ear of the man before leaning away and walking to Lia.

As Quinn walked towards Lia, the man stood up straight and started to walk away, just as Quinn had told him.

"What did you do?" asked Lia as she watched the man walk away on the Platform.

"A little Confundus charm, nothing major," smiled Quinn.

"And what did you ask him to do?" asked Lia, knowing what the Confundus charm did.

"I simply asked him to walk."

"Mhm, walking is easy enough to accomplish. No wonder he obeyed so easily," nodded Lia.

"I could've asked him to strip, given his mood. It would have taken just a little more magic, but I could have made him do all sorts of things," said Quinn. He then asked, "And why were you standing there without bothering to talk to him?"

"I had him as a white noise machine. Also, it kept others away," shrugged Lia.

"You could have used magic as I did. See how easy it was. He walked away without saying a word," replied Quinn. He especially knew how easy it was to influence people's minds temporarily. "That man will probably wonder what he did after he snaps out, but then, after just a bit, he will continue on with his life, as simple as that."

Lia ruffled Quinn's hair but then lightly gripped his head and rocked his head.

"You got in trouble once again," said Lia in a somewhat strict voice. "This time, it was a kidnapping."

Quinn raised his hand and a finger. "First of all, I wasn't the one being kidnapped. Second, I wasn't planning to be a part of that thing."

"You just stumbled into it," finished Lia. "Still, it was dangerous to confront that Accionite and beat him up. You could've gotten seriously injured."

Quinn wanted to tell her that he was in no danger but didn't say anything, as then, the conversation would ensue and Lia would get angry with him.

He gave her a look of silent apology, and that seemed to do the trick, as she released his head, and she smiled.

"Alright, let's get going. The others are waiting."

"Let's go. I hope you have gotten better at apparating. Side-apparating with you isn't comfortable, and that is assuming that apparating is comfortable," grinned Quinn.

"Shush, I don't apparate that often and even less bring someone with me."

The West siblings turned to walk to the apparition point. Nonetheless, they stopped, as they heard two voices say in unison.

" " Quinn. " "

Lia and Quinn stopped, and Quinn turned to look back to see who was calling him.

On his left side, Quinn saw the Potter family. Harry Potter, Lily Potter, and James Potter along with Ivy Potter.

On his right side, Quinn turned to see the Greengrass family. Jacob Greengrass and Sophie Greengrass were there with their two daughters, Astoria Greengrass and Daphne Greengrass. There were the others who had called out Quinn.

Lia suddenly looked very interested and excited as she saw two girls call out for Quinn.

"Yes?" asked Quinn. He moved his head side-to-side to look at both parties.

The two parties looked at each other. The fathers were the first to speak to each other.

"Potter," said Jacob Greengrass with a relaxed smile.

"Greengrass," returned James Potter with a barely discernible nod.

Then it was time for the mothers to greet each other. Those two were much friendlier to each other than their husbands.

"Lily, it's been a while since we've seen each other," smiled Sophie as she stepped forward towards Lily Potter. "You've been so busy with your new job that you seem to have forgotten me. Is this what our friendship has come to?"

Lily also stepped forward and hugged Sophie in greeting.

"Of course not. Don't tease me like that. You haven't written to me either in such a long time," replied Lily. "It's summer; I'm free for a while. How about we get together to catch up? Just like the old times."

Quinn scooted near Lia and asked, "They've called for me, but then they ignore me. Isn't this a bit rude?" asked Quinn.

But Lia wasn't listening to her brother. She was too busy looking at the two girls who had called for Quinn.

She had seen and met Daphne Greengrass before, though Daphne hadn't talked much during that meeting. Her impression of the girl was that she was the quiet type who didn't speak to people she just met.

Then there was this other girl. And Lia also recognized this girl as the sister to the Boy-Who-Lived. She had never met Ivy Potter, but she could remember her from the pictures in the newspapers.

And now, she was watching the two girls staring at each other. If she read them correctly, they were slightly glaring at each other.

'What's this? This is exciting. So exciting!' thought Lia as she looked at the girls with interest.

Astoria waved at Quinn and smiled. Quinn waved back. Harry Potter nodded and Quinn returned the nod.

After Jacob and James finished staring at each other and the mothers finished making plans, the two families finally turned to Quinn and Lia.

"Quinn, it's been two years since we met. At the ministry ball, remember?" asked Jacob Greengrass, taking the initiative.

"Indeed, Mr. Greengrass. I remember," nodded Quinn. "We were briefly introduced at the ball."

Quinn then turned to Sophie Greengrass. And from the bottom of his heart came the most charming smile he had ever graced his face.

"Mrs. Greengrass. It's a pleasure to see you again after so much time. I can't believe we haven't had the opportunity to meet a second time till now."

He was about to greet her physically but stopped when he felt a glare from a certain someone and stood in his spot before turning the other side.

"Auror and Professor Potter, I hope you are doing well."

He didn't say anything more because he didn't want to spread any knowledge about what happened at the Shrieking Shack. Though he understood that the Potter family already knew about it. There was an excellent, close to a hundred percent chance that Jacob Greengrass was aware of the actual events and, thus, the rest of his family.

He gestured to Lia and briefly introduced, "I believe you are already acquainted with her," He fixed his eyes on the Greengrass Family. He then turned his head to the Potter Family. "This is my sister, Lia West."

Lia nodded gracefully to everybody with a smart and beautiful smile.

"May I inquire what both of you want to talk about?" asked Quinn, cutting straight to the subject.

Lily Potter was the first one to speak and brought up what the Potter family wanted with him.

"Quinn, about the dinner. When are you free for it? We can set it up whenever you want."

From the corner of his eyes, Quinn saw that neither Jacob nor Sophie looked surprised or curious. Though Daphne and Astoria did have those looks that their parents lacked.

'So the sisters don't know, but the parents do. He does have a high enough position to know about it, I guess' thought Quinn and shrugged.

"It would be prudent for you to write a formal invitation addressed to my grandfather, George West. I'll be the one to reply and decide the date, but it's more convenient if you address the invitation to him," replied Quinn. "I advise you to keep the invitation precise and polite. My grandfather will surely appreciate it. If he approves your invitation, I'll be at your house for dinner without any hitches."

"I understand. We will act as advised," replied Lily. "We're looking forward to hosting you and your family."

"And I'm looking forward to the evening. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, Professor," nodded Quinn.

He then turned to the Greengrass side, and even though he knew what they wanted, he waited, as waiting was what the social protocol demanded.

"I wanted to talk about the deal and discuss the details," replied Jacob.

As Daphne had said, Jacob and Sophie Greengrass would agree to whatever was needed as long as Astoria got healthy again.

"I believe you also need to write to my grandfather. This time, it should be a letter to set up a meeting with him to discuss the details. You'll probably have to come to visit us, I'm afraid" stated Quinn.

Lia looked confused, as she didn't know what Jacob was talking about.

"Also, please make sure that the letter doesn't arrive today, tomorrow, or the following day. I haven't talked to him about it yet, so it would be beneficial to everyone if I have the necessary time to catch up with him."

Jacob nodded. He wanted his daughter to become healthy; following Quinn's instructions would be the best way to achieve that.

"Excellent, now that both of you know what to do, I'm afraid it's time for me to leave. I'm looking forward to your letters and our eventual meetings."

He turned and walked away without turning his head back. Staying there any longer would attract attention to him and draw questions. Besides, there wasn't anything else to talk about; any further fruitful talk would happen after they wrote to his grandfather.

Lia looked at both families and, after a nod, she too walked away. She followed Quinn.

The two families looked at each other, and its members wondered how and why they were connected to Quinn West.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Peter Pettigrew sat in an inn in Albania while enjoying a warm meal after weeks of traveling. He was currently under no guise.

The people here, unlike Britain, didn't know his face. They didn't see his 'wanted' posters daily.

'Not that it matters,' thought Peter as he read a local newspaper. 'I look nothing like in those posters.'

The image for the posters had been taken before he had been brought to Azkaban. The physical appearance of his past self was totally different from the one he had now. The difference was substantial.

But it turned out that Peter was wrong about people not recognizing him in Albania. He hadn't taken into account one type of person.

"Peter? Peter Pettigrew? Is that you?"

Peter froze. One of his hands sneaked into his robes and grasped a compatible wand he had stolen.

He looked up and saw a plump woman standing in front of him. It took him a few moments to recognize her, but he did recognize her.

'Bertha Jorkins. What's she doing here?' he thought, and then it struck him. 'Work? No, she's here for tourism.'

After years in Azkaban, Peter had gotten infinitely better at controlling his emotions and his actions. He was naturally able to control his emotions without the use of magic such as occlumency.

"Sorry, lady, but you've got the wrong chap. I don't know this Peter guy you're talking about."

He kept a confused and slightly annoyed face as he said that.

"No, no, I know you. You're Peter Pettigrew," insisted Bertha Jorkins.

Bertha Jorkins was a British witch. A Ministry of Magic employee who worked in the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

Bertha Jorkins had been a few years ahead of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew when they studied at Hogwarts.

She had been a gossipy girl and not very bright, which Peter noted to not be a good combination. During her school years, she would regularly complain about the mistreatment other students apparently had. She would even spread rumors. That had pushed Dumbledore to act on one occasion following one incident.

"Nope, not me. How about you sit down and tell me why you think I'm this Peter Pettigrew bloke," said Peter. He wanted to make sure whether his guess about Bertha's personality had been correct. He had his wand ready just in case.

It turned out he had been right, as Bertha sat down at Peter's table and started to tell him why she thought he was Peter Pettigrew.

'Gossipy and not bright. Not a good combination, I'm afraid,' thought Peter as he continued to listen to her while nodding and humming in response.

After a while, Peter had his fill of food and drinks and was ready to leave. He turned to Bertha.

"Let's go take a walk. I want to talk more but I need to stretch my legs."

He got up and went to the barkeep to pay for his food. He then walked out of the inn with Bertha following him out.

"Are you sure you aren't Peter Pettigrew? You look like him if he was thin," asked Bertha.

"I guess I'm Peter Pettigrew, after all," replied Peter when they were alone.

"So you say, but I think-." Then Bertha stopped when she heard what Peter said. "You said it! You said that you're Peter; no takebacks!"

Peter smiled, calmly raised his wand, and pointed it at her.

"Imperio."

Bertha's eyes glazed over, and she stopped talking and became silent.

"Follow me."

Peter and the Imperio-ed Bertha Jorkins headed to the Albanian forest for a few hours without stopping.

Peter Pettigrew was also Wormtail, a rat Animagus. And with that transformation came the ability to talk to rats while in his Animagus state.

He had been at a loss as he didn't know how to find the Dark Lord, but then he heard some chatter among the rats. For years, there had been a dark shadow that lived in the Albanian forest. Someone who took over other animals, killed them, and then moved on.

The Albanian forest had become a feared place for these creatures, and no one went there as their instincts screamed at them to run away.

Peter had nothing to go on with, and as such he investigated the only lead he had.

'Where's he? Let him be here,' thought Peter and looked at the sky to see the sun setting. 'I should leave before it gets dark.' He looked to his side and thought. 'I should get rid of her.'

He had only brought Bertha along with him because the rats said that the shadow used bodies of animals. Peter had thought that a human body would be more suitable if the dark shadow was the Dark Lord.

As he raised his wand to kill Bertha Jorkins, but then, Peter heard a loud and deep hissing sound.

He looked around and saw nothing, yet the hissing sound continued to come from all around him.

Then all of a sudden, it stopped, and the area went eerie silent.

What followed put a smile on Peter's face.

"... Wormtail," came a voice like a whisper, yet it was everywhere.

Peter stood up straight and smiled.

"I'm here, my lord. At your service."

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- (End of Volume 5: Year Four) -

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[

A/N [1] - Same deal as the last time. Will take a small break before returning. Two/three/four days.

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A/N[2] - I will be floating a poll tomorrow so be sure to vote what you prefer.

]

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Quinn West - MC - This will be a busy summer.

Peter Pettigrew - Wormtail - Determined, tempered, strong.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - See you guys later.

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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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Quinn sat down on the chair in a semi-ornate and elegant office. To his front was the office's owner, who sat behind a desk.

"I assume we're going to talk about the Greengrass and Potter matters," asked Quinn.

"Yes, we are," replied the older gentleman. "I understand the Potters, but you didn't tell me anything about the Greengrass family. What relation do you have with them?"

It was the day after Quinn had returned from Hogwarts. He was sitting in his grandfather's office talking about his associations with children of affluent and well-connected families.

"The Potters want to invite me to show hospitality and their gratitude for having helped them out. When their invitations arrive, I'll reply at my own discretion," answered Quinn before moving on to the next family.

"... The Greengrass matter is a bit more complicated and yet so simple," sighed Quinn. "The Greengrass bloodline suffers from a blood curse, a generational curse that is passed along to the descendants. It causes them to have a limited lifespan and an even weaker constitution. The curse skips generations and doesn't affect everyone, but this generation was out of luck."

"This curse resurfaced? Who is it?"

"Astoria Greengrass, the younger of the Greengrass children. She bears the curse and with it, all its malignant effects," answered Quinn thinking about the weak Astoria that he saw in the hospital wing bed.

"And you have a way to cure the blood curse?"

Quinn shook his head in rejection. "No, I'm not able to cure it. If I had the cure, we wouldn't have this talk. I would've cured her, and that would have been the end."

"It seems you've made friends. Friends you don't mind helping out with nothing in return."

"Yes, I have. I have made a few close friends," nodded Quinn. "I gave Astoria my word that I would help her mitigate the symptoms of the blood curse whenever she needed. And I assured her older sister that I will continue to palliate Astoria's symptoms until a cure is found or discovered. And that can be in many, many years from now."

"How have you been able to help the younger daughter? I'm sure the Greengrass Family must have been looking for the cure for centuries."

Quinn sighed and then raised his hands. He willed his magic and his forearm glowed in a fiery red light, highlighting his veins.

"Blood magic," sighed Quinn. He didn't want to show magics that were questionable from a moral point of view. "I used blood magic to repress the curse. It worked wonders because the blood curse has been created with the same branch of magic."

He didn't go into the details of the magic as it wasn't necessary.

"Blood magic. Yes, I remember there being a few books in your collections. I just hoped it would be a while till you started to dabble in dangerous magic," sighed George West. "The books weren't from around here, that's for sure. Are you sure it's safe for you? Any dangers in general?"

"There aren't. It's just like any healing spell. I won't be in danger of any harm from the blood curse and neither will Astoria," answered Quinn.

"So what do you want me to do? She's your friend. Of course you can continue to heal her," said George.

"Astoria is my friend, but Jacob Greengrass isn't. He is the Greengrass householder," said Quinn. "I was thinking you could use this opportunity to build some positive and profitable ties with the Greengrass Family. I will leave the matters to you. I will continue to heal Astoria regardless of whether you get a partnership or not."

"Mhm, you think Jacob Greengrass will likely show some goodwill towards us because you're healing his daughter."

"Yes, his daughter will continue to receive my treatment. If you could take advantage of the situation, strike a deal and start a business venture together, it will be a win-win for everyone. I'm sure Jacob Greengrass will be thrilled to do business with us and, thus, he will be quite proactive," suggested Quinn, seeing this situation as a viable business opportunity.

George nodded. He agreed that this would indeed be a good business opportunity.

"Alright, after Jacob Greengrass sends over a letter, I shall set up a meeting. We'll see if he wants to cooperate."

Quinn nodded. He didn't want to be part of such matters.

"Now, about the Potters?" asked George.

"What about them?"

"Do you want us to go with you?"

"Hmm, if you want. You're welcome to join me," said Quinn. He shrugged. He didn't care whether his grandfather came along with him or not.

"I see, then I won't be coming along," declared George. "I've nothing to talk about with the Potter Family. You could ask Lia. Perhaps she'll want to come with you."

"Alright, I'll ask Lia." nodded Quinn.

"Anything else you want to talk about?" trying to end the conversation. He needed to leave for a meeting in a while.

"Oh, yes. I want to learn apparition, so I'll need you to book me an apparition course..." said Quinn, and when he saw George didn't look averse to the idea, he continued. "... in Denmark."

George was about to agree but then stopped at Quinn's words. "In Denmark? Why?"

"They have legalized under-seventeen apparition there, so I thought, if I am going to learn apparition, why not learn it where it's legal at my age," shrugged Quinn, explaining his reasoning to his grandfather. "Also, I thought it would be fun to get out of the country for a week."

"A week?" smiled George. "Are you implying that it will take you only a week to learn how to apparate? That's too little time to learn apparition, don't you think?"

A smile of confidence surfaced on Quinn's face as he replied, "Of course not, I'm sure it will take longer to become a master, but I'm sure I'll get the basics down in under a week. Enough to get around, I presume."

George tapped his finger on his desk. He gazed at Quinn for a few seconds before nodding.

"Alright, I will arrange your travel and stay. One of our associates will chaperon you while you stay in Denmark."

"I don't require a chaperon," rebuked Quinn.

"Of course, I understand, yet I insist that there be one," inquired Geroge. "Of course, whomever I choose won't restrict your movements. They will only make sure that you're safe."

Quinn sighed. He knew that no matter what he said, it wouldn't work. George West had decided it, and Quinn wasn't feeling rebellious enough to defy his grandfather.

"Please choose someone fun. At least someone who is... flexible. You know, not reluctant to do some exploration," asked Quinn.

George smiled in reply.

"I shall see what I can do."

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- (Scene Break) -

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"You've become sloppy. Your fingers are rigid, the flow is terrible, and the sound, oh my ears, the sound. It's like the chords have been substituted by arpeggios."

Quinn winced as he played the piano. Listening to cutting taunts and criticism to his playing wasn't his cup of tea.

'Now I know why I never got the urge to play after I returned home,' thought Quinn as he continued to play Diabelli's Sonatina Op. 151.

He glanced over his shoulder to see his strict piano teacher looking at him disapprovingly.

"I didn't have much time to regularly practice, Ms. Rosey," said Quinn. He was conscious that he had played the piano a little more than a handful of times.

"I didn't expect you to make excuses, young master," humphed Ms. Rosey as her eyes narrowed. "If one wants to make time, they'll find the time. It's called time management. If you want to make excuses, at least choose a believable one."

Quinn suppressed a groan but didn't stop playing, as stopping while playing a piece in the middle wasn't an option.

He closed his eyes, and the efficiency aspect of his occlumency came into play. His mind became sharper, and so did his control over his body.

The fingers became mechanical as the sound of the piano began to flow. It lacked individuality and emotions, but it was correct, precise, and how the piece was supposed to be played.

Ms. Rosey looked at the piano, then at Quinn's hands, and finally at Quinn. She didn't say anything until Quinn was done finishing the piece.

The piece was finally done, and Quinn's fingers finally came to a stop. He looked up at Ms. Rosey and asked, "How was the last act? It flowed, didn't it?"

"It was more than decent," nodded Ms. Rosey. "But you used magic as an aid. It wasn't your natural skill. But I will allow it. It will, at least, shake off the rust."

'I can't get a break,' sighed Quinn.

"I will get better than this by the end of the break," assured Quinn.

"No magic?"

"No magic," nodded Quinn. "Pure skill."

Quinn turned back to the piano and once again began playing. This time the piece was more mainstream: Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 12 in F Major.

He didn't use occlumency to improve his skill. The accuracy while playing was lower, but the individuality and emotion remained.

"Better," complimented Ms. Rosey as she could tell the difference.

As he continued to play, Quinn heard Ms. Rosey speak up again.

"I heard you'll soon be going to the Potter's for dinner?"

"Yes," replied with a furrow of his brow in confusion.

"I see. Then we shall revise your table manners and other skills. I want to see how bad you've gotten," sniffed Ms. Rosey. "I wonder how bad your manners have become after eating with children."

Tang*

"Ms. Rosey!" whined Quinn and stopped playing with a discordant note. "My manners are fine. I consciously made sure they stayed the same, as you taught me to."

Quinn was expecting a hot retort in return, but he got a hand brushing through his hair.

"How else am I supposed to spend time with you?" asked the woman who had been the motherly figure for Quinn. "If I don't try to nag you, would you spend time with me?"

Quinn looked at the oldest person in the West manor. She was even older than his grandfather.

"Now, why would you say that?" asked Quinn as he stood up from his seat. "You just have to say it, and I'll spend all the time you want with you."

Out of all adults in his life, Quinn considered Ms. Rosey to be the one who influenced him the most. More than his grandfather, more this sister, more than Elliot and, finally, more than Alan.

Quinn's personality was an amalgam of qualities that he liked in the adults surrounding him. These qualities, along with his own base personality, had combined together to form the personality of Quinn West.

But the thing that first attracted people to Quinn was the way he held himself. The way he walked, sat, and moved his body was all thanks to Ms. Rosey.

People communicated in two ways. There was verbal and nonverbal communication. But what people often took for granted was body language, and the truth was that 70 to 93 percent of all communication was nonverbal.

Quinn's current personality was based upon his old personality. His old self from his previous life was still the base for his new one.

But Quinn's body language had nothing of his old one. Everything from his previous home had been erased, stripped away. He was the way he was now thanks to Ms. Rosey.

Quinn's body language accompanied his words with the backbone and backing that they needed. The slight gestures he made while talking, such as the tilt of his head, the movement of his hands, the way he sat, the balance of his weight while he stood… were what made his words gain that plus that made people listen to him.

Quinn liked magic, but what about the hard work that he put in? He was nowhere this hard-working in his previous life.

It was Ms. Rosey's constant pestering that forced him to work on things. He wasn't good at any of the things Ms. Rosey taught him, but her tutelage was what showed Quinn how good it felt when hard work paid off.

Quinn was sure that if he hadn't had Ms. Rosey in his life, Quinn wouldn't have been able to maintain the level of hard work he put in now.

"I promise that I will spend time with you," said Quinn as he gave Ms. Rosey a side hug. "You know I can't live with you. If you weren't here, I'd be lazy, like Lia."

Ms. Rosey lightly slapped Quinn's shoulder. She gave him a little smile.

"Your sister isn't lazy. I sometimes worry about that girl. Your grandfather makes Lia work a little too hard. Georgie needs to reel it in a little."

While Ms. Rosey had raised Quinn ever since he was a one-year-old baby, Ms. Rosey had also raised Lia ever since she was eleven years old. And similar to Quinn, she had been the only motherly figure to Lia, and that was even more important to Lia, as she was a girl.

Quinn smiled after he heard Ms. Rosey calling his grandfather 'Georgie'. That nickname would escape her mouth sometimes whenever she felt safe enough.

"She is fine after all, I guess," chuckled Quinn. "I'm sure she has fun after work. Besides, I think she is a secret workaholic."

Ms. Rosey shook her head before separating from Quinn. She, then, returned to her usual strict mode.

"Now, let's get to the piano," instructed Ms. Rosey. "I need to see you better than now by the end of summer."

Quinn smiled. As much as he enjoyed playing the piano on his own, as it calmed him down, playing with Ms. Rosey standing near his back let him feel nostalgia. It had another kind of charm.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Elliot watched as Quinn stood in their old wood shack near a herb garden that he and Quinn had built together when Quinn had been younger.

No one other than Quinn used the shack, and it would be in the summer breaks when Quinn would use it. Aside from that time, the shack would remain closed. Nevertheless, Elliot made sure the shack was kept functional throughout the year.

Last year, Quinn hadn't used it once because of his inability to use magic. He even refused to even touch the shack even after Elliot had offered to handle the magic portion of the potion brewing.

So it was a pleasant sight to Elliot to see Quinn working on potion brewing in the old shack where he taught Quinn the art of brewing.

"What are you brewing?"

Quinn looked up to see Elliot standing near the shack's door.

"Uncle Elliot, I didn't see you there," smiled Quinn as he moved to another table and retrieved a light yellow powder. "I'm performing some Alchemy."

Elliot's eyes widened when he heard Quinn.

"Alchemy! Young master, I didn't know you knew how to perform Alchemy."

Alchemy was an advanced branch of magic, and he didn't think that someone as young as Quinn would know how to perform Alchemy.

"I know a thing or two," smiled Quinn as he carefully sprinkled the yellow powder into the bubbling cauldron.

"What are you doing?" asked Elliot in fascination and curiosity. He had only met a few Alchemists in his life but he hadn't seen any of them work. So this was an exciting moment for him.

"I'm brewing a fertilizer of sorts," replied Quinn. "I've been working on alchemic solutions that encourage and enhance plant growth."

Quinn pointed at the cauldron in front of him and continued, "This one here is a solution that would enable the growth of a magical herb that only grows near the radiating heat of volcanoes. If I add this solution to a soil patch in our garden, that magical plant will grow here even if the environment isn't suitable for it."

A smile surfaced on Quinn's face as he observed the change inside the cauldron.

"It's almost ready," smiled Quinn.

Elliot saw Quinn raise his hand. Suddenly, orange magic beams appeared and entered the cauldron. That made Elliot gasp because in potion brewing, inserting external magic into a boiling brew was inviting an explosion to the face.

But this was alchemy, and it was all about external magic to push the magic essence of ingredients to create something extraordinary.

After Quinn was done, he stepped back as the brew inside the cauldron started to flash in earthy colors. The flashing lights grew stronger and brighter before everything died down, and what remained was a sizzling sound from inside the cauldron.

Quinn stepped closer, peaked inside the cauldron before turning to Elliot in satisfaction. "It's a success."

He collected the resulting solution, which had reduced from a full cauldron to a jug.

"Let's see this in action," grinned Quinn. He raised the jug full of the alchemic fertilizer and showed it to Elliot.

Elliot and Quinn walked to the herb garden, where Quinn had prepared a wide and shallow reinforced claw pot filled with soil from the garden.

"I don't want the other plants to be affected, so I'll be using it in here," explained Quinn to Elliot, who listened thoroughly. "The seeds are already in there, so let's pour it in and see the result."

Quinn poured the jug of alchemic solution into the soil, and the effects were instant.

The brown soil turned black as the solution seeped and spread throughout the pot. But it wasn't over, as the black soil also gained a red sheen that would very dully flash when the sun reflected on it.

Elliot could feel that the color change wasn't the only thing it changed. He could feel an intense heat coming from the pot. If he weren't looking, he would have thought that he was standing near a blazing fire.

"Now we will have to wait for a few days to see the results," guessed Elliot. "I'm looking forward to seeing how the plant will grow inside this soil."

"Oh, no, Uncle Elliot," chuckled Quinn. "While it would indeed take weeks for the plant to grow to full maturity. This is alchemy; a wondrous art."

Quinn pointed at the soil, and Elliot saw brown twigs emerge out of the hot black soil.

"The solution I brewed had a little boost in it. The sprouting of the seeds is the hardest part for this plant due to the conditions it grows in. But with alchemy, we'll be able to kick start that sprouting, and now every seed will be able to grow to maturity."

Elliot continued to watch as Quinn continued.

"This could also have been accomplished with potions, but it would've taken weeks or even months for me to brew a potion with similar effects," smiled Quinn. "Luckily, this is alchemy. I've been able to recreate months of potion brewing within a day. Uncle. I know you once said potions are the ultimate transformative magic, but I think alchemy takes that crown."

Elliot wordlessly nodded as he continued to see seeds sprout from inside the black soil.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC - Back home and catching up.

George West - Grandfather - A lot of times, people can't refuse me.

Ms. Rosey - Motherly figure - Raised two excellent and talented children.

Elliot Dalton - Potion Master - Finally saw alchemy in person.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

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If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_L / Alan_Loo]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

George West and Elliot Dalton stood near the fireplace of West Manor, which was in an ornate room that was used to greet guests who arrived at the villa via floo travel.

"Are the floo wards adjusted?" asked George, making sure for the last time.

A floo fireplace could be warded to block its connection to the floo-network, and the West Manor floo fireplace had those wards always active until needed. So until the wards were adjusted, no one could enter the West Manor via the fireplace.

Elliot nodded in reply. "Yes, the wards were adjusted half an hour ago."

"Where's my grandson?" asked George, looking at Elliot, who was standing beside him. Ms. Rosey, on the other hand, was behind them, near the door.

"I am afraid I am not sure." Elliot shook his head.

He looked back at Ms. Rosey to see whether she knew Quinn's whereabouts.

"He is in the rehearsal room," replied Ms. Rosey.

George glanced back at Ms. Rosey and asked. "Why isn't he here? Is he not aware of the time of arrival?"

"I don't think he is aware," replied Elliot after thinking if Quinn had been made aware of today's events. "It seems we forgot to tell him."

"They are coming because of him," sighed George and then looked at Ms. Rosey to ask. "Is he presentable?"

Ms. Rosey nodded her head in confidence, as though that wasn't even a question.

"Good," nodded back George, before turning towards the fireplace. At that moment, the fire turned green, which signified the arrival of someone at the West Manor floo-point.

Four figures came out of the fireplace. They gracefully stepped onto the floor of the floo-room of the West Manor. All of them were dressed in smart, semi-casual clothing.

George stepped forward and greeted the new arrivals.

"Welcome to the West Manor." greeted George.

"Mr. West, it has been a while," greeted Jacob Greengrass as he stepped forward to shake hands with George.

"It has been, Jacob. It's good to see you after such a long time."

George turned to the lady beside Jacob and softly smiled.

"Lady Sophie, you're still as beautiful as I saw you the last time," he took the offered hand and kissed it on the knuckles.

"Thank you for the compliment, Mr. West," smiled Sophie gracefully. "You, too, are as charming as ever."

George turned to the remaining two of the four and greeted them with a friendly and calm smile.

"Daphne and Astoria, right?" greeted George to the two Greengrass sisters. "It's lovely to meet you two. Quinn has told me a lot about you two."

The two girls curtsied as practiced and greeted Quinn's grandfather.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. West."

George looked at the Greengrass parents and said. "How about we adults move to the lounge..." he turned to glance at Daphne and Astoria. "... and leave them alone? Let's not bore you with our talks."

He turned back to face the door and face the door where Ms. Rosey stood.

"Ms. Rosey, would you lead these two ladies to Quinn?" instructed George and then looked at the Greengrass sisters. "If you two would follow Ms. Rosey, she will lead you to Quinn."

Both daughters looked at their mother for permission, who nodded in agreement.

Daphne and Astoria followed after Ms. Rosey. The three left the floo fireplace room.

After the three left, George turned to Jacob and Sophie Greengrass.

"Let's talk."

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

"How's Quinn when he is at home?"

Ms. Rosey looked to her left at the younger Greengrass sister, who looked at her with starry curiosity in her eyes as she asked the question.

"Could you elaborate?" returned Ms. Rosey, as the three continued to walk to the rehearsal room.

"I mean, is he different at home than when he is outside, in front of others when he has company," asked Astoria. She wanted to know if Quinn was the same at home as he was at school.

Ms. Rosey briefly glanced at the girl. She thought about the question and how she should answer it before speaking.

"From what I have observed, the young master is the same at home as when he is outside. If there was a difference, then it would be that the young master is much more relaxed at home. He is much more carefree and unrestricted while he is at home."

."

Astoria felt confused because, from what she had seen, Quinn was always carefree and relaxed. And from what she had heard from Daphne and Tracey, Quinn was pretty much the most unrestricted person in Hogwarts.

"So he isn't sloppy or a slob at home," asked Astoria. She was secretly hoping that Quinn was the total opposite of what he was outside.

Ms. Rosey raised her eyebrow. She had known Quinn since he was born and, from what she remembered, he had never been a slob or sloppy while he was at home.

Astoria seemed to understand the answer from Ms. Rosey's look.

"Has Quinn lived in this manor ever since he was a babe?" This time it was Daphne who asked the question. And while Astoria asked the questions, Daphne looked around. They were walking through the corridors of a really large home.

The mansion at the Greengrass estate was large, but it was way smaller than West Manor.

"Yes, the young master has lived in this villa ever since he was a babe," replied Ms. Rosey with a smile as she recalled the days before Quinn started school.

"How was Quinn when he was a child?" asked Astoria. Even Daphne seemed thoroughly interested in how Quinn was when he was a child.

"The young master was a lively child. When he wasn't staying still, he would be moving all over the manor," smiled Ms. Rosey. "If we didn't keep an eye on him, he would be gone before we knew it. He covered a lot of ground back in those days."

Daphne and Astoria imagined a baby Quinn with a childish grin on his face as he ran away on his chubby feet while laughing with a baby chortle.

"We are here," informed Ms. Rosey. She stopped in front of a large double door. "The young master is inside."

She stepped forward and opened the door and a faint sound of a piano immediately leaked out.

Ms. Rosey placed a finger on her lips before stepping inside. Daphne and Astoria looked at each other and then stepped inside the room. The sound of the piano became louder, more pronounced and clearer than when they were outside of the room.

The rehearsal room was covered in sound charms that provided great acoustics. Originally, the grand piano inside the West Manor wasn't in this room. Quinn had moved it to this room to help him experiment with sound charms. Hence, he had gradually added charms to the room, so he built up and changed the charm scheme there was in the room.

The result was the room achieved the best acoustics Quinn could accomplish with magic, which were much better than the acoustics there were in the original room.

The three entered the rehearsal room, which opened into a corner of the room.

Daphne and Astoria turned to their right and saw Quinn playing the piano. He had his back facing them.

The music was fast and loud. The piece Quinn was playing didn't seem to have slow moments.

Daphne and Astoria could see Quinn's head moving slightly as his fingers glided over the keys. Because of the pace, Quinn's fingers stuck close to the keys, while not getting a second of rest.

Whereas Ms. Rosey listened to the music with her experienced ear and judged Quinn's playing, Daphne and Astoria became wholly entranced by the music that came out of the piano and was flowing around them.

The music made them feel they needed to move around. It became impossible to stand still doing anything. Daphne softly tapped her foot and Astoria swayed her body.

It took two minutes for Quinn to finish his piece. When the music ended, silence gained a hold on the room.

"Young master, you have guests," said Ms. Rosey after Quinn had stopped playing the piano.

Quinn turned back, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw Daphne and Astoria standing beside Ms. Rosey.

He looked at Ms. Rosey and asked. "They arrived today? Was I told about this? Did I forget?" He did a shallow and quick dive into his mindscape and sorted memories, but he couldn't recall hearing about the Greengrass Family coming today.

"It seems we forgot to inform you," replied Ms. Rosey. "They've just arrived. Jacob and Sophie Greengrass are with your grandfather." She politely gestured to Daphne and Astoria. "I was asked to escort these two ladies to you."

Quinn stood up from his piano stool and walked towards the girls with a smile on his face. He wore a grey crew neck shirt and white shorts that went a little below his knees. On his feet were a pair of slippers that he wore for comfort while inside the house.

"What has it been, two weeks?" smiled Quinn. "It's good to see you two." He pointed at the piano at his back and continued. "Did you like my playing?"

"It was great. I felt I needed to move the entire time," nodded Astoria enthusiastically.

Quinn looked at the other sister to see whether she had something to say.

"I didn't know that you played the piano," asked Daphne.

"I do," he gestured to Ms. Rosey by their side. "Ms. Rosey has been teaching me since I was young. I can also play the violin."

Quinn then addressed Ms. Rosey, "Where's grandfather and his guests?"

"In the lounge."

"Then we will go to the living room," told Quinn. "Please prepare refreshments for us."

"Yes, young master."

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

While the lounge was a sitting area with a more formal vibe, the living room was a sitting area with more of an informal feel. So while the adults did their thing, Quinn brought the Greengrass sisters to unwind in a relaxed setting.

"How are you two?" asked Quinn, as he sat down on the sofa. Daphne and Astoria took a seat on the sofa in front of Quinn. "How's the summer break going?"

"I rode a horse!" exclaimed Astoria. "It was my first time, and even though it was frightening at first, it became so much fun later on."

The Greengrass estate had a working horse stable. The horses there were bred and taken care of by the family. Every member of the Greengrass family learned how to ride a horse. But because of Astoria's health, she hadn't been allowed to learn.

Now, however, as the blood curse had been repressed, Astoria could finally do things she had missed out on. And learning how to ride a horse was one of the things she had on her list. As such, the first thing Astoria asked after she had been 'cured' was to be taught horseback riding.

"Now isn't that great," smiled Quinn. "I have only ridden horses a couple of times. I've ridden a winged horse, though, which is awesome."

"Really! That sounds fun! I want to try it, too," exclaimed Astoria. She mentally added that to her to-do list.

Daphne, on the other hand, softly sighed. She could almost see what Astoria was thinking of. It had been tough for her and their parents to get used to the new hyper-active Astoria, who wanted to do everything she hadn't been able to do previously.

They still had the necessity to treat Astoria as someone who couldn't do strenuous physical activities. Even after Quinn had repressed the curse, they would get urges to stop Astoria from moving around so much. The three had to consciously remind themselves that Astoria's curse was no longer a problem.

Quinn glanced towards Daphne and asked her the same question.

"What about you, Daphne? What have you been doing?"

"I've been busy keeping her company," sighed Daphne as she pointed at Astoria. "She drags me everywhere and makes me do all the things she's doing. Honestly, I don't know how someone can have so much energy. She's been moving all day without taking a break."

Astoria stuck out a tongue and then hugged Daphne's arm. "Yet you still keep my company without complaining."

Daphne shook her head with a sigh. Actually, she had been having fun. Astoria had been all smiles recently, and seeing her like that made Daphne joyous from the bottom of her heart.

"What have you been doing?" asked Daphne as she shifted in her spot to get comfortable (Astoria kept snuggling into her side).

Quinn shrugged in reply. "As of now, nothing new; I'm spending time with my family, relaxing, and doing things I can't do in Hogwarts. I've been going to many markets, too, both magical and non-magical."

That surprised Daphne and Astoria as they didn't have much contact with the non-magical world. But unlike many of their pureblood peers, the Greengrass sisters had a curiosity about the non-magical world.

"How is a muggle market?" asked Daphne, interested. "Is it different from something like... Diagon Alley, for example?"

"Markets are the same everywhere. Shops selling all sorts of items and assortments. The only difference is that the items are non-magicala," answered Quinn. "Well, some items out there might interest you because of their exotic origin. How about I take you out to the non-magical world someday? It will be a fun trip, I'm sure."

Daphne looked at Quinn, who had just offered to take her to the muggle world, and thought. '...Is he talking about a... date? Is he taking me out on a date?'

The mind of the adolescent girl began to whirl. Lots of thoughts began to revolve around her. Daphne ended up thinking that Quinn's offer of escorting her to the non-magical world was him asking out for a date.

"... Daphne... Daphne?.. Daphne..."

Daphne snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Quinn, who was calling her.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright? You seemed to zoom out there," asked Quinn. "Something you'd like to share with us?"

"It's nothing. I was just thinking about the muggle world," replied Daphne. She then sat up straight. She became attentive. "I will take you on that offer to show me the muggle world."

Quinn nodded with a lop-sided smile. "It would be my honor to escort you, my lady."

Daphne held back the blush that was threatening to break out on her cheeks. It took all her will to not show how she was feeling. In the end, she simply nodded.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

It was after lunchtime, and everyone had gathered in the living room to witness Quinn repressing Astoria's curse.

The trace placed on wands by the ministry to track underage magic didn't work in magical households. The trace functioned by detecting magic when it happened around traced wands. But inside a magical home, the detected magic could be from an adult, so the ministry ignored any magic detections if the marked wands were inside magic-heavy areas.

Not that it mattered because Quinn hadn't touched his wand in a year, and the wand that he was holding while sitting in front of Astoria was the fake that he had crafted before his first year.

"Are you ready, Astoria," asked Quinn as he gazed at the condition of the girl in front of him. The curse was still a week away from resurfacing, but Quinn had decided that he would heal Astoria a week before the due date so she wouldn't ever feel the slightest of the effects.

"Yes, I am ready," answered Astoria, sounding nervous.

The last time she hadn't known what Quinn was doing. It happened so abruptly and swiftly that she didn't have time to comprehend what was happening. But this time, she was aware of what Quinn was doing and, thus, it made her feel a little nervous in case something went wrong.

"It will be alright. You just need to sit back and relax. I will take care of everything," assured Quinn with a smile as if trying to calm a child before they got an injection. "Concentrate on the pretty blue that will appear on your body and enjoy the process. It will be over before you even know it."

Quinn put hands out just ahead of his lap, and Astoria placed her hands into Quinn's, though not before exhaling a deep sigh.

For a few moments, Quinn did nothing but hold hands with Astoria, giving her time to adjust and get ready. After he thought she was ready, Quinn gently released his right from Astoria's left, held the fake wand in his hand, and did a bogus swing to get the wand out of the way.

Red fiery glowing veins appeared on Quinn's forearms, covering his hands in a network of blood that was channeling blood magic.

He gently grasped Astoria's hands and then looked at her to see that Astoria was still a little nervous.

"Astoria, look at me," he called out, causing Astoria to look up from his hands to his face. "Look at my face if you are feeling nervous. Concentrate on my eyes and forget about the magic. It will feel relaxing in a minute."

Astoria nodded and concentrated on Quinn's stone-grey eyes, which were smiling. She tried to ignore the magic in Quinn's arms.

Jacob and Sophie Greengrass watched as the glowing red veins traveled up Astoria's arms and covered her entire body in a network of illuminated veins. They both felt anxious about the treatment that was happening in front of their eyes.

They had had a healer who had been really experienced in curses check on Astoria when she returned home. And the healer confirmed that Astoria's blood curse had been repressed, and that she wasn't in any immediate danger.

But even then, they were nervous about the current treatment. The two parents had no idea what Quinn was doing and only knew that blood magic was dangerous. It caused them to be anxious. As such, they prayed that everything would go smoothly.

George, Elliot, and Ms. Rosey also watched Quinn healing Astoria. Aside from George, who had seen Quinn briefly activate blood magic, for the others it was the first time they had seen blood magic performed.

None in the room knew Quinn's full capabilities in the room, and his family was no exception. His family knew Quinn was advanced for his age, but none of them knew the specifics. Hence, it was their first time seeing Quinn perform blood magic.

They all watched. Then, the flashing veins covering Astoria's body and Quinn's forearms turned a sparkling blue. It was at that moment that the knowledge from healing magic and water magic came into play, as Quinn started to repress the blood curse to sleep for a while.

Daphne sat perpendicular, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the color changed to blue, as she saw Astoria immediately relax and loosen up. It was clear that Astoria was feeling better already.

Her eyes then went to Quinn, who she saw was still smiling, though she could see his eyes were observing Astoria with concentration and focus. It was clear he wanted to make sure nothing went wrong.

As she watched, Daphne got lost watching Quinn, who was different from what she usually saw. She was used to seeing Quinn joking around, laughing, making jokes, joining up with Tracey to act silly.

But she hadn't seen Quinn acting seriously that much. The only time she could recall him being that serious was when he chased away the Dementors. Nonetheless, at that time, she had been scared of the dementor and wasn't paying much attention. By the time she returned to normal, Quinn was grinning and talking about chocolate.

So this was Daphne's first time seeing Quinn really focused on something, and because she was so close to him, she couldn't help but find herself lost at the sight that was in front of her.

It took a few minutes to complete the process. After finishing, Quinn breathed a sigh to release the magic; the blue colored veins retreated from Astoria's body and his forearms. Then, he cut the connection by releasing Astoria's hands.

"How are you feeling?" asked Quinn.

"It felt good while you were doing magic, but right now, I don't feel any different from before," answered Astoria. "Maybe a little skippy, but nothing else."

"Excellent, that means it went fine," nodded Quinn and then turned to the Greengrass parents.

"She'll be quite energetic and active today. It would be something like a child hopped up on sugar, so let her run around and tire herself out, or she won't sleep at night," said Quinn, giving follow-up remarks to the parents of his patients. "She will be fine for the rest of the summer break. I think we should do this once more before going to school. For the rest of the sessions, I will take care of this inside the school itself."

Sophie Greengrass stepped forwards towards and took his hands in hers. "Thank you, Quinn. You've done a great favor to my family. I can't express how grateful we are to you."

It took Quinn a moment before he was able to speak. "... Oh, not a problem at all, Mrs. Greengrass. It was my pleasure to help Astoria out. Astoria is more fun when she's like this."

Jacob Greengrass, too, thanked Quinn for his help and told him that if Quinn ever needed any help, he only needed to ask.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

It was time for the Greengrass to return home. Everyone was standing in the fireplace room.

"Mr. West. Thank you for your hospitality," smiled Jacob Greengrass as he shook hands with George. "It was a pleasure to meet you again, and I look forward to our cooperation in the future."

As Quinn had suggested, George had proposed a business proposition and, as Quinn had thought, Jacob had been open to participating in a profitable venture with the West Family.

"Let's meet soon to talk, Jacob," nodded George.

As the adults talked, Astoria approached Quinn and beckoned him to lean down.

"What is it?" asked Quinn as he leaned down. He wondered why Astoria wanted to whisper something in his ear.

But Astoria had other plans as she placed her hand on Quinn's shoulder and then placed a soft peck on his cheek.

"Astoria!" exclaimed Daphne, who was standing nearby with her mother. She felt a little annoyed at Astoria's actions.

"Oh my~," smiled Sophie with a hand in front of her lips. She had watched with interest when her younger daughter kissed Quinn on his cheek.

The younger Greengrass then shyly giggled and ran towards the fireplace, threw the floo-powder into the fireplace, and then jumped inside after speaking of her destination.

Quinn couldn't help but be stunned. His hand went to his cheek.

He suddenly became conscious of the eyes of others in the room and felt a little shy as everyone stared at him.

Unfortunately for him, unlike Astoria, he couldn't disappear into the floo-fireplace. He could only stand still as the adults chuckled while a blonde girl glared at him from the corner of his eyes.

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn West - MC- Don't just leave me alone here!

Astoria Greengrass - Escaped from the scene - Hehe~, I kissed Quinn.

Daphne Greengrass - Stunned - Feeling miffed and another emotion that she can't recognize.

AlanL - Editor - Fufufufu~

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

[ https//fictiononlyreader ]??

The link is also in the synopsis.

.

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_L / Alan_Loo]

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn sat inside in the living room of the West Manor. He had his trusty suitcase by his side. In his hand rested a work on sound and auditory magic. Illusion magic and glamours had been one of the magics that Quinn went back to studying from time to time.

In his free time, Quinn would learn about the five senses and how to manipulate them. To use them to create convincing and persuasive illusions that would hold capabilities to alter the target's sense of reality.

"Auditory pareidolia: tendency to make meaningful interpretations from a nebulous stimulus. Those who suffer from this have a tendency to perceive meaningful patterns when hearing obscure sounds," read Quinn from one of the more interesting parts of the tome. "Isn't pareidolia usually a visual phenomenon? Like the moon rabbit. How could one put this in the auditory spectrum?"

Quinn thought about it for a while before coming to a rudimentary conclusion. "Hmm, maybe it's those hidden messages inside a song. Or maybe an audio clip played backward to reveal a message. No, those are too simple. I'll have to think of something else, something I can exploit."

But Quinn saw himself without any more time to think as he heard footsteps. The thing about family (or close friends) was that, if you belonged to that family, you ended up recognizing each other's footsteps.

He stood up from the sofa and closed the tome he had in his hands. He put it then into one of his every day expanded pockets that he had attached to the insides of the summer jacket he was wearing.

The footsteps entered the room from the living room entrance and called out to Quinn.

"The portkey is ready. The departure time is in ten minutes," announced Elliot. "I hope you're packed and ready to go."

Quinn picked the suitcase that had been gifted to him by Lia before his first year. The suitcase held his entire personal library, his personal effects from his workshop, and the stuff Quinn never showed to anyone. Such objects remained most of the time inside the suitcase.

"I'm always packed," replied Quinn with a smile.

Elliot and Quinn started to walk outside the ward line of the West estate. The ward line that enclosed the West estate stretched beyond the manor and encompassed a sizable land. Furthermore, to indicate the limits of the villa, high walls surrounded the property.

In order to get outside the ward line, one would need to get outside the manor and walk outside the estate's main gates, which were rarely used by anyone in the family. The only time they were used was for using the portkey and, as such, Lia was the only one who would use them when she traveled outside of the country.

"Do you have any information about the chaperone that grandfather has appointed for this trip?" asked Quinn, as he and Elliot walked on the tiled pathway that started from the manor gates to the front gates and passed through the green meadows of the estate.

"Unfortunately, the only information about your chaperone is their name and that they work for our family business," replied Elliot.

Quinn glanced at Elliot and gave him a look of unbelief. "That's false, isn't it? I'm sure you have read through the person's entire file."

Elliot was the close confidant to George West, and his position in the business was only second to George. There was only so much a butler could do when the family had a house-elf who had magic that specialized in house care.

And Ms. Rosey was in charge of the West family's personal side, like managing the estates that spread around the countries.

As such, Elliot was heavily involved in the business side of things. Even Lia, at the level she was now, had less authority than Elliot. It would take some for even the heir apparent to surpass Elliot when it came to business affairs.

Elliot smiled at Quinn's words and nodded. "I do know a lot about the person. But I'm afraid I've been told not to share those details with you."

"Why? I should know who will be accompanying me on my first solo trip outside the country."

"If we were to give you the detailed files on the person, you would have probably figured out how to evade 'them' or exploit 'them' in some way," chuckled Elliot and looked at the teenager who boasted to have over a hundred people owing to him. "But if we send you without knowing anything, we assume that by the time you figure 'them' out, it will be time to return home."

Quinn clicked his tongue in disappointment. If he had some background information, he would know what buttons to push to make things go easier as, no matter what his grandfather said, Quinn was sure that his chaperone would try to restrict some of his movements.

"Alright, then tell me his name," asked Quinn. If nothing else, he could start with the name.

"Aksel Thorn," replied Elliot.

Quinn raised his left brow in response. "Is this name a common one, because that's a cool name. I mean, just listen to it, Aksel Thorn. It sounds badass."

"Young master, I'm not an expert on Danish names, so I can't comment on the rarity of the name."

"Hmm, whatever. Is this Aksel Thorn meeting me here, or will he be meeting me in Denmark?"

"He will meet you on the other side," answered Elliot as they finally reached the main gate. "Wouldn't it be a hassle for him to take a portkey here and then return to Denmark immediately? He will be the first person you will meet."

Quinn looked at the large metal gates that stood as the 'official' gates of the West estate. The gates were needlessly large and didn't have any small sub-gates built into them for easy access. One of the things that the architects forgot to add because of how little they were used.

Quinn lazily waved his right hand once to unlock the chains that locked gate. Right then, the heavy chains slipped down. The lock holding them in place opened. Slowly, the large and heavy main gate creaked open just enough for Quinn and Elliot to pass through.

"Should I transmute the metal to create a more practical gate?" asked Quinn as he and Elliot stepped onto the dirt road outside the estate.

"I don't believe that's a good idea. Your grandfather doesn't like the architecture of this manor to change," denied Elliot. "If you want to, you will have to ask your grandfather."

Elliot then took out a Breton hat from his inner pocket and handed it to Quinn. Quinn grabbed it.

"This is the portkey?" asked Quinn looking over the blue Breton hat.

"Yes," replied Elliot. "It should be active by now. The keywords to trigger the magic are 'happy travel.'"

Quinn clenched the cap tight before giving Elliot a hug.

"I'll see you in a week or so," said Quinn. "I have a MagiFax unit in my suitcase. I'll write every day, and you can write to me every day."

"That would be nice," nodded Elliot. "Do alert us if you require something. We will relay the message to our associates in Denmark, and you will have what you require as soon as possible."

"I expect nothing less."

Quinn ended the hug and stepped back from Elliot, and smiled. "See you later. I will send you a letter in a couple of hours."

"Have a safe trip, young master."

Quinn nodded, raised the Breton hat, and uttered the keyword.

"Happy travels."

It happened immediately. Quinn felt a hook just behind his navel suddenly jerk him irresistibly forward. His feet left the ground, and he sped forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; his hand always clenched the Breton hat. His hands were stuck to the cap as though it was pulling him magnetically onward. Then, he felt that the ride was about to end, so Quinn prepared for landing.

He felt the end of the speedy travel that had him in transition for an entire minute because of the cross-country travel. Quinn prepared his feet and softly landed, without being flung onto the ground.

"This is wild," sighed Quinn, taking a couple of seconds to readjust himself. He was feeling a bit windblown. He then looked at the hat in his hand.

"Huh, perfect timing." Quinn put on the Breton hat on his head and, as he expected, it was his size.

There was a clear opening in front of him. A forest began not far away. It was clearly an isolated place where non-magical people won't wander around to see a person suddenly appear out of nowhere.

"Quinn West."

Quinn heard his name be called, so he looked at his back to see a tall Caucasian man with brunette hair and long stubble adorning his face. He wore a Louis brown leather jacket over a black shirt, dark-grey denim pants, and leather boots.

"My name is Aksel Thorn, and I will be your guide while you stay here in Denmark," greeted Aksel.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Thorn," replied Quinn as he stepped forward to shake hands with his babysitter. "I've heard about you. It's nice to meet you."

Aksel shook hands with Quinn and asked. "Really? What have you heard?"

"Just some tidbits," responded Quinn. Of course, he didn't know crap about Aksel. Except for his name, he had no knowledge about Aksel. "But I would like to hear from you. Tell me about yourself."

Aksel looked at the person he was to follow around and make sure he didn't get hurt.

"You already know my name. I work for the West Family business here in Denmark," started Aksel.

"What do you do?" asked Quinn. "What's your role? I'm sure you aren't a full-time guide, are you?"

"No, of course not," replied Aksel. "I hold a management position at one of the businesses owned by the West family."

"... Is that so," said Quinn and glanced at Aksel.

Aksel Thorn was a well-built man, and while Quinn understood that people with desk jobs could be fit, Aksel Thorn looked a different kind of fit.

If Quinn had to compare, then Aksel Thorn reminded him of -

'He walks as James Potter did,' thought Quinn. He was starting to notice some similarities between the Senior Auror and his guide. 'Is he an Auror... or maybe a Hit wizard?'

'I wonder what he actually does?' Quinn glanced at Aksel's head and thought. 'Should I get a little peek? Hmm, maybe 'not now. I just met him. Let's do that if he gets in my way.'

Quinn withdrew his eyes from Aksel and looked around to see his surroundings.

And as he did that, Aksel Thorn started to observe Quinn and thought about his current assignment. He had been called out of his regular job to be a guide and bodyguard for George West's grandson. He had been charged with the safety of someone from the West Family.

Whenever the order came from the very top, he couldn't refuse. He had to accept this assignment that was keeping him away from his real job.

'Quinn West,' thought Aksel.

He had been giving a briefing about his current charge. Aksel had been told not to let Quinn out of his sight. As long as Quinn wanted to do something, Aksel had to accompany him. He was asked to allow Quinn freedom as long as it wasn't dangerous.

'The file did say that there was a possibility that Quinn West would try to go out alone,' recalled Aksel. He had been told a few things about Quinn, and one of those was that there was a possibility that Quinn would try to explore the area and the magical hotspots and that he would try to do it alone.

'I will need to keep an eye out on him,' noted Aksel. He saw that they had arrived at the beginning of the forest.

"What's your preferred method of travel? Do you want to get to the hotel by floo, or would you be fine if we apparate?" asked Aksel.

Quinn smiled in reply. "I'm here to learn apparition, so let's go with apparition. From now on, as long as it's possible, let's go with apparition."

Aksel offered his arm to Quinn, which he held, and immediately it felt like he was being forced through a rubber tube. Quinn held his breath to make sure he wouldn't be knocked out. He felt as if had iron chains around his chest. As his eyeballs were being forced back into his head. As his ear-drums were being pushed deeper into his skull.

After a short few seconds, Quinn felt the world return to normal, and he was on his feet.

"Ugh, tell me that apparition feels better than side-along apparition because that won't feel good no matter how many times I do it," asked Quinn with a grimace on his face.

"It feels better than side-along," answered Aksel. "It's like driving a broom with someone riding along with you. You feel fine no matter how much you fly, but the person behind is scared half to death."

Quinn nodded at the analogy. It was the magical version of sitting in the passenger seat of a speeding car.

"Where are we?" asked Quinn as he looked around.

He saw that they were in what looked like a lobby of a hotel. There was a marbled floor below his feet, a big crystal chandelier over his head, luxurious sofas (where people sat and chatted with each other) and other furniture placed around, filling the room with lively energy.

Bellboys carried the luggage as their services. But because it was a magical hotel, the luggage floated behind the bellboys in queues.

Aksel patted Quinn on his shoulder and walked towards the front desk. Quinn followed behind Aksel while taking in his surroundings.

"Balbh East," said Aksel to the hotel concierge, announcing the name under which the room had been booked.

Quinn raised his brow at the fake name Aksel had used.

"Yes, a master suite has been booked under that name," confirmed the concierge, and then his eyes widened a little when he saw a note against the record, which said that the guest was to be treated with extreme care and utmost importance.

The concierge called upon a bellboy to ask him to escort them to their room while giving him a look that clearly said to be extra polite to Quinn and Aksel.

When Quinn and Aksel stepped into the hotel's lift, Quinn asked. "Did you choose that name on your own?"

The fake name Balbh East was the complete opposite of Quinn West. Quinn was a word of Irish origin, and it meant wise, while Balbh was the Irish word for dumb, the opposite of Quinn. The family name was self-explanatory, being in the opposite directions.

"No," denied Aksel. He didn't even know what the name meant. "I was asked to book the room under that name."

"Then it must be her," sighed Quinn with a smile. He realized that Lia was the only one who would come up with that name.

He looked at Aksel and asked again, "Where are we? As in, where are we in Denmark?"

"We are in Aarhus," replied Aksel as they stepped off the elevator and followed after the bellboy. "Aarhus is the second-largest city in Denmark. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea, in the northwest of Copenhagen. Aarhus is the central hub of Denmark's sorcerer society."

The magical people of Denmarks called themselves 'sorcerers' and 'sorceresses' instead of 'wizards' and 'witches', as was preferred in Britain.

The two reached the master suite that had been booked for them, and the bellboy handed them the keys after opening the door.

The master suite was more luxurious than Quinn expected. It had two rooms with a common living room space, which connected the two rooms.

"Please ring the bell at any time of the day, and someone will be at your service," said the bellboy. He then left after making sure the guests were settled.

"You should take the master bedroom," said Aksel and walked to the other room. "I will take this one. You should rest for the day. Your classes start tomorrow."

Quinn nodded, but before Aksel could leave, he said. "I'd like to see the magical society today. So please be ready to escort me."

Then he walked into his room without giving Aksel a single look. Aksel Thorn might be his chaperone, but that didn't mean that he could control his actions. If Quinn West wanted to go sightseeing, then Aksel would have to comply.

Quinn West had arrived in Denmark.

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Quinn West - MC - Hej, Danmark!

Elliot Dalton - Confidant of the West family - More of a part-time Butler.

Aksel Thorn - Cool name - What's his actual job?

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_L / Alan_Loo]

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It was ten in the morning, and Quinn was walking through a green field with Aksel following behind him. It was the day after Quinn had arrived at Aarhus, Denmark, and Quinn had gotten up at six in the morning to start his day with the two-hour workout exercise he had started in the summer break.

Unlike Hogwarts, where he had to walk across the lengthy webs of corridors and go down the stairs between every period to get to his next destination, the summers at West Manor were different, as they lacked the staircases and intricate corridors.

Therefore, Quinn had decided to compensate that by adding an hour to his morning conditioning session and his evening Muay Thai practices. Quinn had been thinking about upping the intensity and length of his sessions for the upcoming year. He had plans to tackle the mind, his body and soul.

After eating breakfast, Quinn and Aksel arrived at the place where Quinn was going to learn apparition.

Aksel looked at Quinn's back and thought about yesterday and this morning. Quinn had been perfectly polite and manageable while he escorted him through every place Quinn asked for. He had followed his lead and didn't seem to be a problem at all.

Yesterday, Quinn had promptly informed him that he exercised in the morning and asked Aksel to show him to a park to work out, preferably outdoors.

Aksel had met his share of kids from wealthy families; his job had made him come across a few of them. Rich kids who had all kinds of luxuries and, more often than not, those luxuries would make them complacent. They wouldn't know the fruit of hard work.

In his experience, rich kids didn't like to wake up early in the morning and work out till sweat was dripping down their entire bodies. But he had seen Quinn voluntarily wake up and vigorously work out. And from the looks of it, Quinn had been doing it for a while as he looked comfortable doing it despite putting a lot into it.

"When will this teacher of mine show up, I wonder" asked Quinn as he looked around the patch of green that surrounded him.

"There are a few minutes to go before the agreed time," replied Aksel, looking at his wristwatch.

The location of this place was also a good distance from the urban Aarhus. It was in the countryside. Many magical places were like this because they would provide a decent enough cover from non-magical people.

'There's only a simple non-magical repellent ward around the place,' noticed Quinn. He looked at the small wooden cabin in front of him and saw the sign hanging on the cabin roof. 'I wonder if it's a charm covering the area, or is there a ward stone inside that cabin with runes keyed to it.'

"What does that sign mean?" asked Quinn. He knew a number of languages, but Danish wasn't one of them.

Aksel gazed at the wooden sign and read the text written in his mother tongue.

"Haldor's Apparition Class."

'Haldor, that's a male name,' thought Quinn.

After a minute, Quinn and Aksel heard a familiar pop sound; they saw a man dressed in a jacket and pants with a cap over his head appear in the field.

The man had his hands tucked deep into his pockets, and the way he walked looked like he had just woken up and was slowly strolling through his house. It looked like the man didn't notice them because he kept walking towards the wooden cabin without looking at either Quinn or Aksel.

"Hello," called out Quinn.

The man stopped in his spot and turned his head to see two people standing nearby him. His face lightly scrunched up as he wanted to get a cup of coffee before starting his day.

"... Yes?" said the man in Danish. Quinn understood it as he had learned a few common phrases from Aksel yesterday.

"Are you the owner of this place?" asked Quinn.

The man stared at Quinn, who spoke in English, and from his accent, the man could guess that he was British. Then he glanced at Aksel suspiciously. The kid was smiling, but the big fellow with the kid had his arms crossed and was staring at him with unblinking and observing eyes.

"... yeah, I'm the owner, Haldor," replied the man in English, who owned and operated the Haldor's Apparition Classes.

"Excellent! Nice to meet you, Haldor. My name is Quinn West," introduced Quinn, happy to know that he could finally get started. "I'm here from my apparition lessons. You asked us to meet you here at ten."

The man looked confused for a second as he couldn't recall setting up a meeting today. Then he slightly grimaced because his head hurt.

'Damn, I shouldn't have drunk so much. This hangover is killing me,' thought the man. He suppressed a groan before saying. "Yeah, wait here. I'll be back in a second."

He entered the cabin and closed the door behind him. The interior of the cabin had only a single room with no partition or walls separating anything.

The cabin was messy, as if it wasn't cleaned regularly, and the things inside weren't arranged properly.

A small wooden desk stood near the wall that was opposite to the door with a wooden chair a distance behind it in the opposite direction from the table. Moving to the side, one could see a metal closet in a corner near the desk that had its door ajar open.

The door to the cabin was near the corner of a wall and on the other corner of that wall laid a cot that had enough space for one person to sleep comfortably. The covering sheet was haphazardly spread out, and the bedding, too, was a mess.

On one side was a brick fireplace built into a wall that looked like it had been recently used. It was connected to the chimney. The brickwork framed the fireplace and had a ledge over it for storing things. Right now, the ledge held empty liquor bottles, dirty mugs, glasses, and ash.

Haldor walked to the table in the cabin and started to riffle through the unorganized mess of parchment, newspaper, magazines to find something.

"Where is it?" asked Haldor, reading papers, seams of the newspapers, and flipping through the magazines in an attempt to find a particular parchment.

Haldor's hands moved through the pile, and his eyes studied until they caught sight of the item he was looking for. He snatched up the crumpled sheet of parchment and moved it in the path of the sole window in the cabin to get some light on it.

"Here it is," muttered Haldor. "Quinn West; paid in full. Today at ten. Classes will be every day, yes, I remember now."

Haldor, through his hangover haze, remembered being contacted for this case. He had got this client through his landlady, who had suddenly, out of nowhere, brought him a customer.

'Didn't she say that the kid out there is someone from a rich family?' thought Haldor while rubbing his shoulder.

Haldor's landlady had suddenly knocked on his door and said that she had a job for him and wanted him to teach a kid how to apparate, which wasn't unusual here in Denmark, but then, she said that the kid would be a foreigner.

She told him that some kid from Britain would be coming to Denmark to learn apparition and that she had snatched this opportunity for him. The landlady told him that the kid was from a rich and powerful family, so the pay would be extremely good.

Haldor, who was short on money and was deep in debt, had accepted because he ran apparition classes and knew how to speak English. Haldor really needed the money because the people he owed were getting annoyed that he couldn't pay up; some of them had even come up to his house to ask for money.

It wasn't until he had a fat pouch of coins in his hand that Haldor realized the landlady wasn't kidding when she said that the kid was from a rich family. He was able to pay all his debt, pay his bills for the month, and still had some coins left. So to celebrate being debt-free for the first time in years, he went to drink and splurged to his heart's desire.

And now here he was, suffering from a heavy hangover on the day he needed to teach.

'Well, whatever, I'm sure they won't notice,' thought Haldor, and a yawn overcame him and then another bout of headache. 'Ugh, I'm not drinking ever again.'

Haldor, who was thinking about getting a coffee before starting his day, threw the thought out of his mind and walked out to do the job.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Good morning," greeted Haldor. "My name is Haldor, no family name, just Haldor. I'll be your apparition instructor as long as it takes you to learn apparition. I realize that you aren't from Denmark, but I hope that by the end of our time together you pass the apparition test set up by our ministry."

Haldor looked at Quinn, who stood in front of him, listening to him attentively. Then looked at Aksel, who stood under the shade of trees, observing them with a lazy, yet watchful eye.

Haldor withdrew his eyes from Aksel and looked back to Quinn. "Before we start, I would like to warn you that apparition, if not used properly, is a dangerous magic. There are places where you can't apparate because of wards and enchantments. And some of those wards can be nasty, so I insist that you exercise caution."

Quinn nodded. He knew about the danger of anti-apparition wards. He had read about anti-apparition wards and knew the variety of extra effects that could be added into the wards aside from just prohibiting spatial travel.

Some wards wouldn't allow apparition when you tried it from your origin/destination point. The apparator wouldn't be able to jump to the destination and would simply remain in their spot while feeling a wall-like feeling while trying to apparate to the ward destination.

Other wards would allow the apparition to be initiated. But just before reaching the destination, the ward would come into effect and they would be violently thrown just outside the ward line. If the person was skilled at apparating, they would only suffer physical damage from being thrown down mid-travel, but if they weren't, there were good chances of being severely splinched.

"This area here doesn't have restrictions against apparition. Thus there won't be any danger in that regard," assured Haldor. He didn't want to scare Quinn before they could even get started.

"That's good to hear," smiled Quinn. He took out his fake wand.

"Let's get started," said Haldor and took out his wand from his pocket and held it in his hands which were covered in fingerless gloves.

He pointed his wand, and at a distance of ten feet, a patch of grass turned bright yellow.

"As you can see, I turned a patch of grass to yellow. The yellow color is the most noticeable color to the human eye, you see," explained Haldor and then instructed. "I would like you to concentrate on that spot and properly memorize it. Make sure that you can hold it in your mind."

Quinn nodded and gazed at the yellow patch of grass and nothing else for a few seconds before diving into his mindscape to use occlumency to strengthen that memory by magical means.

Haldor continued to stand beside Quinn, but didn't urge him to hurry up. He wanted Quinn to be satisfied with his image of the yellow spot so that the upcoming tasks would be smoother. Plus, he felt lethargic and didn't want to speak anything more than his usual teaching dialogue.

"I'm ready. What's next?"

Haldor nodded and started. "There are three important things you need to remember while apparating..." Haldor paused for a second before continuing. "... In English, they would be Destination, Purpose, and Deliberation."

"How about we call them, Destination, Determination, and Deliberation," smiled Quinn as gave him the three concepts he had read in some books. "That would make it three D's. The three D's of apparition."

"I see. Alright, let's go with that," nodded Haldor at the suggestion. It didn't matter what the three principles were called as long Quinn understood what the three points meant. And it was Haldor's job to explain to him right now.

"Step one: Focus your mind firmly on the desired destination," started Haldor. "We already have done that. You've already memorized the yellow patch, which is the destination that we will be going to. But still, concentrate upon that destination once more, please."

Quinn nodded and immersed himself into the memory book that held the image of the yellow patch of grass.

"Alright, I'm done," informed Quinn.

"Step two," said Haldor and tried to put some strength into the speech. "Focus. Be determined, as if you were occupying the visualized space! You have to long for it. Let that thought invade your mind, to every particle of your body! You want to feel from the bottom of heart that you want to be on top of that yellow spot!"

Quinn followed the instruction and willed his magic to transport him to the yellow spot. Quinn called upon the magic inside his body to permeate all over his body.

"Step three," called Haldor, "And only when I give you the command... Rotate around yourself. Feel yourself delve into nothing, but always with deliberation! At my count of three. On my command, now... one -"

Quinn took a deep breath, looked at the yellow grass patch, and focused on the image that he had created in his mind.

"- two -"

The sight from his eyes and the image in his mind started to overlap as Haldor continued to countdown.

"- THREE!"

Quinn triggered and felt himself spin; he momentarily felt the tug and the slight feeling of being sucked, and just when Quinn thought he was successful, then proceeded to lose his balance, and fell over the ground... on his butt.

What greeted him was the clear blue sky staring down at him with fluffy clouds carelessly floating away.

"Never mind, never mind," said Haldor dryly, who did not seem to have expected anything better. "Get up, please, and we will try again..."

Haldor had been teaching apparition for a while now, and even though he didn't get students regularly, he had enough teaching experience to be used to seeing his students fail.

Aksel, on the side, under the shade of the tree, also didn't look surprised. He had learned apparition in a group with his friends and remembered that it had taken him and his friends a lot of time to get themselves from one spot to another.

And even though Aksel was supposed to protect Quinn, he couldn't protect him from splinching mishaps. Of course, Aksel was going to make sure that if Quinn left behind some of his body parts, the damage would be fixed as soon as possible.

Quinn got up from the ground and brushed his clothes.

"That was fun," said Quinn. "Let's do this again."

He thought back to his recent and first failed attempt at apparition.

'What went wrong? The first D, that is, destination, was perfect. My memory wasn't the problem,' thought Quinn, 'which means it was one of the last two Ds.'

Quinn prided himself on having firm control over his emotions and, consequently, his will. As long as it was magic, Quinn's will was the one thing he could count upon. And as Quinn never used a focus, so he was pretty sure his will when it came to magic was quite strong.

'Let's hope it's not will that I am lacking,' thought Quinn.

Determination was the part where Quinn had to imagine traveling to the place that he was imagining; wanting his magic to make him travel to the destination. Deliberation was the part where he would trigger the magic to apparate; it was the thing that would let his magic do the job and appear on the other side.

Quinn closed his eyes and imagined the yellow patch of grass. He then let his magic flow throughout his body so that every part of his body could apparate when he triggered the magic. And then, he triggered the magic so he could transfer his body to the yellow grass patch.

Once again, Quinn felt the tug of the apparition and felt being sucked in. This time it was a little more than before, but once again, the magic was interrupted. And Quinn, once again, fell down.

"Damn," muttered Quinn as he admired the clouds. "That cloud looks like a wolf, or is it a dog."

Haldor sat down on the grass beside Quinn and said. "Don't give up; it will take a lot more time to get to the destination. Apparition is a difficult art; it takes a lot more practice time to get the hang of it."

Quinn didn't reply and used his hands to roll on his back. He then pushed himself into a handstand, and then he thrust himself up to get up on his feet.

He walked to the starting point, lightly held his fake wand in his hand, and slightly tilted his head as he gazed at the yellow patch ten feet in front of him. Magic once again covered his body, and the desire to get to his destination coursed throughout the active magic.

A cool breeze rustled the grass on the ground and the leaves on the trees. Flapping of wings could be heard as birds took off in the distance. The sun shone warmly from above the clouds. All of it came together to create the perfect day to be outside.

Then everything went silent as the wind paused for a moment.

Aksel was looking at the leaves above his head and the light filtering through the gaps in the canopy. Haldor let his eyes drop to give them a rest after a night of drinking and short sleep.

And in that moment, Quinn imagined traveling through the fabric of space to the yellow patch.

Quinn recalled the words that Haldor had spoken to him.

'Feeling my way into the nothingness. That's it.'

Quinn felt the tug and pull of the apparition. It wasn't like a side-along apparition; it wasn't his entire being was being remodeled to be fit into a pipe. No, this felt much natural, a little uncomfortable, but natural.

And then he was gone.

Pop*

Haldor and Aksel heard a loud pop, one that akin to a small explosion. Their eyes widened after they noticed what happened. Both adults looked up to see Quinn, who had disappeared from where he was standing.

Their eyes immediately went to the yellow patch of grass, and there he stood, looking at his arms and body with a watchful eye.

The two grown men looked at Quinn with their eyes as wide as saucers. Haldor even had a slightly open jaw. Both were shocked that the kid in front of them only took three attempts to successfully apparate.

But to Quinn, it wasn't surprising. Even though it was Quinn's first day performing apparition; it wasn't his first day at reading about it. He had read a lot about apparition magic. Knew what to look for, and that's what he did.

In his first turn, Quinn attempted to apparate and failed. But in doing so, he was able to identify the process of activating apparition. From that identification, Quinn was able to draft a list of possible fail-points.

In his second turn, after activating apparition, Quinn analyzed every fail-point he had considered and checked listed to see what caused the travel to fail. And in doing so, he was able to find what the problem was.

After thinking about it, Quinn realized why his magic failed— his magic had resisted aparating. Apparition was magic that, when activated properly, made sure that the user would be teleported without fault.

Splinching happened when some parts of the body weren't covered with the 'apparating magic' and, thus, was left behind. As long as the entire body was covered, apparition magic would take care of the rest by itself.

But Quinn's apparition had failed because he didn't relinquish control to the magic. Apparition magic wanted to teleport Quinn, but his magic wouldn't let the 'apparating magic' take control. Quinn's tight rein over his magic after the sin vault interfered with his ability to apparate.

When Quinn was lying down on the ground, looking at the sky, he also thought about why he could side-along apparate just fine. Why didn't his magic resist side-along apparition?

Quinn concluded that his magic didn't act up because he let the other person take him along. It was like he was letting someone drive him to a place, and as such, his magic didn't act up.

Back to the problem. What was the answer? Quinn had to let the magic do its job.

If this was any other situation, Quinn wouldn't have relinquished control, but this was his own magic, so he let the apparition magic take him.

And his imagination of traveling through the fabric of space became a reality through the use of magic.

Quinn had traveled from the spot beside Haldor to the yellow grass patch.

He turned to them and grinned. "I am whole. I didn't leave anything behind. But I think I need to work on the sound. It was rather loud, wasn't it?"

Quinn looked at the stunned men and then at the sky above.

"It's a really good day today."

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - "I can teleport! Pop-pop-pop!"

Haldor - Apparition instructor - Hungover but debt-free, so he can't complain.

Aksel Thorn - Standing under the tree - "... How?"

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Pop!*

Quinn vanished from his spot and appeared near Aksel, who was standing under a tree.

"Pop!" grinned Quinn, enjoying his new ability to apparate.

It was two days after Quinn learned to apparate. On the first day, he had shocked both Aksel and Haldor by succeeding apparition in mere three tries. At first, both of them thought that Quinn had gotten lucky, but then he proceeded to apparate five times in a row and established that it wasn't a fluke.

On the second day, Haldor repeated the exercise from the first day and kept it safe. He wanted Quinn to get used to the feeling of apparition before moving on.

Aksel looked at Quinn, who was grinning, and asked. "If you want, we can switch instructors and join someone more competent."

"Hmm? Now, what would prompt you to say that?" questioned Quinn.

"You saw how he arrived yesterday," pointed Aksel. "He was clearly hungover and not prepared. That wasn't professional. You already understand the first level of apparition. So, if you want, we can go and choose another instructor. I know some good ones and can arrange classes with them by the end of the day."

Aksel didn't have a positive impression of Haldor. He didn't like those who didn't take their jobs seriously, and Haldor coming to his job in an unsightly manner didn't make a good impression.

Quinn shook his head with a small smile. "Actually, I think Haldor is a good teacher. A teacher needs to be two things to be a good educator. First, they need to be good at what they teach, and Haldor was clearly good at apparition."

Quinn, too, had noticed Haldor's condition when he had arrived, but he also noticed something else.

"Haldor wasn't feeling good, and from the looks of it, he was feeling it bad, yet he still apparated without a problem. Despite suffering from what I am guessing, headaches, nausea, and dizziness, which are all big red signs for not apparating, he did it without splinching."

"That just shows he is good at apparition," shrugged Quinn.

"Point the second, a teacher needs to be good at teaching," continued Quinn. If Haldor wasn't good at explaining, it wouldn't matter how good he was at his craft. "Haldor taught just fine. If he was hungover yesterday and I still managed to apparate, then I'm sure that he would do better today, given that he isn't hungover."

A light pop was heard behind them.

"Speaking of the devil..." said Quinn and turned saw Haldor standing at a distance from them. "... See, he is better today."

Unlike yesterday, when Haldor arrived with a messy appearance: uncombed hair, rumpled clothes, black circles under his eyes, and his mood was also down. Today's Haldor looked like he had taken a bath, used a comb on his hair, wore clothes that weren't from the last day, and had a good night's sleep.

"... Good morning," greeted Haldor, his voice held more energy than yesterday.

"Morning," replied Quinn while Aksel silently nodded.

Haldor beckoned Quinn to the center of the field and started today's lesson.

"Yesterday, we got you familiarized with apparition. And you somehow grasped it quickly, too quickly, really quickly," said Haldor. He still couldn't believe what Quinn had accomplished yesterday. "So today, we will be moving on and practice the next step. Follow me."

Haldor and Quinn walked to the edge of the circular clearing, just beneath the trees surrounding the clearing, which Haldor used as his instruction center.

"Yesterday, we stuck to apparating to a three-meter (10 feet) distance," recapped Haldor. "So today, we will be going beyond that and go further."

He pointed somewhere around the center of the circular clearing and expressed. "The distance from here to the center of the field is thirty meters (100 feet). I want you to apparate to the center."

Haldor then, without any warning, disapparated from beside Quinn and appeared at the center of the field.

"Right around here!" shouted Haldor as he looked at Quinn from his new spot.

Quinn grinned, visualized his destination, covered his body with magic, triggered the apparition magic, and then let the magic do its work.

Haldor watched Quinn disapparate from his spot and was expecting Quinn to appear beside him, but Quinn didn't. Haldor heard the loud pop and looked in that direction to see Quinn standing near the opposite edge of the clearing and was waving his hand.

"How about we move on to the next step?" beamed Quinn, traveling double the distance Haldor had specified. "You should change the exercise to something more fun."

Haldor looked at Quinn and felt amazed. When still new to apparating, people tend to be scared about apparating to lengthy distances. Unlike Quinn, a majority of people experienced splinching or at the very least witnessed splinching while learning. And that created a slight fear about apparating longer distances.

But Quinn lacked the experience of splinching and thus lacked the fear. He understood that as long as the distances weren't changed exponentially, the difficulty remained the same.

"Well, let's do something else," sighed Haldor and called Quinn closer, who apparated to arrive near Haldor.

Haldor took out a thin tie from his pocket and handed it to Quinn. "Blindfold yourself with this, and then you will try apparating without your sight. You will try to picture the place and apparate to it." He pointed back to the initial spot Quinn apparate from and continued. "Apparate back the point we started from. You won't be able to see it, so let's see how strong your imagination is. It's all about the image, Quinn. It all starts with the picture in your head."

Quinn shrugged and wrapped the tie around his eyes and secured it tightly so that he couldn't see anything.

'Hmm, this is different from Tehom's Delight,' thought Quinn. The time spent in Tehom's Delight had taught Quinn that lack of sense wasn't a bad thing.

He had spent a lot of time in the darkness of Tehom's Delight before he got the ripple sonar. All that time had numbed to the lack of sight, numbness of hearing, the dullness of touch, altered hearing, and scent deadness.

Quinn imagined the spot he apparated from and then let the apparition magic do its work. And Haldor and Aksel watched as Quinn apparated to a destination that wasn't in his vision.

"How was it?" asked Quinn, still blindfolded and confident smile on his face. "Did I get it right?"

"Yes, you did," answered Haldor. But before he could continue, Quinn disappeared and popped right in front of Haldor. "What's next?"

Haldor blinked at his blindfolded student and sighed. "Now, remove your blindfold. I have the next task for you."

Quinn removed his blindfold and walked towards Haldor as he described the task.

"Where are you staying?"

"At a hotel."

"Is it warded against apparition?"

"I haven't checked my room, but the lobby isn't warded against apparition."

"Where is it?"

Quinn turned to Aksel and jutted with his chin.

Haldor turned to Aksled and called out in Danish. Aksel turned his attention to Haldor and replied back in Danish. The two communicated about the hotel's location and how far it was from here.

"That works out for us," nodded Haldor. "The distance within the range that will be perfect for this. I want you to apparate to the hotel and come back. It's a distance much greater than the one you just traveled. If you are able to apparate to the hotel, it shows that you have the basics of apparition under your belt."

The distance from Haldor's apparition classes to Quinn's hotel was within the range most people used apparition for travel. It was nearly the same distance that the apparition-license test in Denmark used as a benchmark. If a person could travel that distance, they would check one of the things off the list.

"Alright, let's see if I can do it," nodded Quinn and loosened his body and was about to start the apparition magic when Aksel spoke up.

"Wait. I will go to the hotel lobby first. If you mess up and splinch, I will be there to take care of you." And before he apparated, Aksel advised, "Do remember to imagine the lobby. Specifically, the center of the lobby. That's what the hotel tells you to do."

After then Aksel apparated off to the hotel lobby.

Quinn put his hands behind his back, his fake wand in his hands, and smiled. He stood straight up and looked at Haldor while smiling.

"I will be back in a little bit."

Then his body was taken by the apparition magic as he very momentarily traveled through the fabric of space while his body was forced into a narrow pipe-like tunnel.

On the other side, Quinn was greeted with the hustle and bustle of the hotel lobby. He looked around to see guests passing by the lobby, bellboys doing their services, and Akseld standing in front of him.

"It seems I passed, didn't I?" said Quinn.

Aksel shook his head in reply. "You still have to go back. He asked for a round-trip." Then he disapparated back to Haldor's apparition classes.

The concierge behind the welcome counter looked at Aksel disapparate after barely a minute of getting here. If it was another customer, he would've talked to them, but the instructions were very clear, Quinn and Aksel could do practically anything and they wouldn't get in trouble.

"That's technically true," said Quinn with an accepting nod but then turned to face the entrance to the hotel. It showed the street outside, and Quinn could see non-magical folk walking by and cars driving on the road.

The people outside couldn't see into the hotel. It had been charmed to show a closed and locked door. And over that, the area had been charmed with a non-magical-repellant ward, which made sure that no non-magical would even give the building the first look, forget about a second look.

According to the International Statute of Magical Secrecy, every magical building near a non-magical area was required to ward off the buildings with extra precaution. The hotel followed the code to a T. The entire building wouldn't attract the eyes of any non-magical person, theoretically cutting it off to anyone who couldn't interact with magic.

'Hmm...' wondered Quinn and stared at the view outside. 'It's the third day. Should I?'

If he included the day he went sightseeing with Aksel, it was the fourth day. And in those four days, Quinn had dragged out Aksel every day to show him more of the magical community. And Denmark had been fun, but Quinn had some other plans regarding Denmark and the magical community in Aarhus.

But after giving it a thought, he shook his head and looked away and apparated away with a final thought.

'I will start tomorrow. It will be fun.'

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Thousands of miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.

Harry Potter lay flat on his back, breathing hard as though he had been running. He had awoken from a vivid dream with his hands pressed over his face. The old scar on Harry's forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning was burning beneath his fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to his skin.

He sat up, one hand still on his scar, the other reaching out in the darkness for his glasses, which were on the bedside table. He put them on, and his bedroom came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harry ran his fingers over the scar again. It was still painful.

Harry turned on the lamp beside him, scrambled out of bed and crossed the room. He opened his wardrobe and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A fourteen-year boy looked back at him, his bright green eyes puzzled under his untidy black hair. He examined the lightning-bolt scar of his reflection more closely. It looked normal, but it was still stinging.

Harry tried to recall what he had been dreaming about before he had awoken. It had seemed so real. There had been two people he knew and one he didn't. He concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember...

The dim picture of a darkened room came to him. There had been a snake on a hearth rug, a small man called Peter, nicknamed Wormtail, and a cold, high voice... the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harry felt as though an ice cube had slipped down into his stomach at the very thought...

Harry concentrated on the image of Peter. He looked so different from the picture he had seen in the posters. Wormtail, as Harry had heard in the dream, was a thin man rather than the fat in the poster. No wonder no one recognized him: he looked completely different.

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like, but it was impossible. All Harry knew was that at the moment when Voldemort's chair had swung around, and he, Harry, had seen what was sitting in it. He had felt a spasm of horror, which had awoken him... or had that been the pain in his scar?

And who had the old man been? For there had definitely been an old man in his dream; Harry had watched him fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harry put his face into his hands, blocking out his bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in his cupped hands; the details were now trickling away as fast as he tried to hold on to them.

Voldemort and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harry could not remember the name, and they had been plotting to kill someone else him! No, he could remember something. It was a woman; he could barely remember Wormtail talking about a woman and some kind of cup. But as seconds passed, that image was also sinking away.

Harry took his face out of his hands, opened his eyes, and stared around his bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. But instead of his usual room, there was nothing that stood out as unusual.

A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of his bed, revealing a cauldron and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of his desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which his snowy owl, Hedwig, usually perched.

On the floor beside his bed: a book lay open; Harry had been reading it before he fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all moving. Men in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harry walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched one of the wizards score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then he snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch - in Harry's opinion, the best sport in the world - couldn't distract him at the moment.

Harry went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it, running a finger over his scar again. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; Harry was no stranger to pain and injury.

He had lost all the bones from his right arm once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced by a venomous foot-long fang not long afterward.

Only last year, Harry had fallen fifty feet from an airborne broomstick. He was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that bothered Harry was that the last time his scar had hurt him, it had been because Voldemort had been close by. But Voldemort couldn't be here, now... The idea of Voldemort lurking in Godric Hollow was absurd, impossible.

Harry knew a thing or two about his house. This was the house where Voldemort had come to kill him but had instead died. At least, the ground was the same; the house itself was dismantled down and built anew.

When he had met Voldemort in his first year, and Quirrell had burned on touching him. And after that night, his parents had told him that because of ancient magic that his grandmother had cast, Voldemort couldn't touch him or harm him. As long as Harry lived with his family in this house, Voldemort wouldn't harm him.

Harry shook himself mentally; he was being stupid. There was no one in the house with him except his father, mother, and Ivy, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

And he liked it to keep it that way. They didn't need to be worried for him. At least for now, he didn't want to wake them up and ruin their night's sleep. He went back to bed and laid back down on his bed. Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise slowly crept into the room.

But Harry didn't notice that he had been forgetting. That the images of the dream were slipping away from his mind. He didn't know that the moment he went back to sleep, he would forget about the dream until the moment something that would trigger this specific memory.

The residents of Godric Hallow slept in peace, not knowing the turbulent year in front of them.

.

[

A/N:

As I wrote in the poll. I experimented with my writing and for it was half-good and half-bad. The bad was that I messed up the pacing of the Denmark Ark. I wrote a little too much in decriptive text, so it's stretched out a little.

The chapters all have something fun(?) but they could've been wrapped up quicker. It will be at least this week where you will see a little too much of decriptive text, but after that I will amp it up a bit. Don't want another Aquatic Vault.

]

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-*-*-*-*-*

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Quinn West - MC - Denmark wouldn't be fun without him planning something.

Haldor - Apparition teacher - Huh, that was easy money.

Aksel - Unknown Occupation - Isn't a man of words.

Harry Potter - Boy-With-Scar - Scar and Dreams

.

-*-*-*-*-*-

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Aksel Thorn sat on the sofa in the lounge area of the hotel's master suite, booked for Quinn to stay in for his time in Denmark, reading the newspaper Daily Eyewitness for the daily happenings in the community. He, too, had been staying with Quinn instead of living in the comfort of his own home. The instructions for his job had been clear; he was to stay with Quinn and don't leave him alone.

It was eight days since Quinn had arrived in Aarhus, Denmark, and today was also the last day of his stay here. Tomorrow morning, the portkey back to Quinn's home, Herefordshire in West Midlands of England, would activate, and Quinn West would return to his own country. Setting Aksel free from being a chaperone so that he could return to his actual and much more meaningful job.

He looked up from his newspaper to the closed door of the master bedroom that Quinn was using. The British teenager had been spending a lot of his time inside his room since day five.

Quinn would wake up at the same time as him and would go work out at a park nearby, wash up, eat breakfast at a new restaurant, and then they would go to Haldor's apparition classes to learn apparition. They would return after Quinn spent two to three hours practicing apparition. A time that both he and Haldor believed to be a ridiculous amount of time to devote to apparition magic every day. Most people would practice it for a quarter of an hour each session and not the time Quinn put in.

They would return just before lunch and eat their second meal at a new restaurant yet again, and then Quinn would rest for an hour in his room before he would drag him to explore more of the community for the rest of the day and call it a day after eating dinner a new restaurant. After that, Quinn would retreat into his room, and it would be the last time Aksel would see him for the day.

But this tourist-guide routine changed on the fifth day when Quinn didn't ask him to continue exploring his homeland and choose to rest for the day inside his room.

Aksel assumed it was magic fatigue from the long sessions of apparition every day. Apparition magic was magic-heavy sorcery, and it was already astonishing that Quinn was able to go three days without choosing to rest after spending more than two hours of continuous apparitions.

Aksel's assumption seemed right when on the sixth day, Quinn once again asked him to be his guide for the day, and they repeated the routine they had been following. Quinn seemed to be feeling as energetic as ever, suggesting that the day's rest had worked for the magic recovery. But then the same thing happened on the seventh day when Quinn decided to stay inside his room for the entire day, only coming out for meals at new restaurants.

And today, on the eighth day, Quinn was once again holed up in his room after returning from apparition classes and lunch. Aksel raised his wrist to check the time on his watch and saw that the time was five in the evening and decided to check on Quinn.

Quinn had been civil in his stay here with him and hadn't given him much trouble, unlike what the briefing had warned him. Today was Quinn's last day in Denmark, and Aksel wanted to find if he wanted to go out today.

Aksel got up from his sofa and walked to Quinn's door.

"Quinn," called Aksel, knocking on the door. Then waited for his charge to answer, but no answer came from the inside. So he knocked on the door once again and called out a bit louder this time. Once again, the silence was returned to his calls.

Aksel's first thought was that Quinn was asleep and turned away from the door to let him sleep until it was time for dinner. But after talking a few steps away from Quinn's door, Aksel stopped and turned back to the door. He thought back to the briefing he had been provided on Quinn, and another thought entered Aksel's mind.

"... Would he? No, right? He didn't give me any trouble," muttered Aksel as he stood still for a moment before walking to Quinn's door and turning the door handle to open the door.

Inside he saw that the candles were lit, bathing the room in light, but his eyes widened when he saw no signs of Quinn inside the room. Aksel immediately entered the room, briskly walked to the attached bathroom, and opened the door to see it empty.

"Oh, no," spoke Aksel as his hands tightened into a fist.

Quinn West had evaded him without knowing, and he had no idea where the person he was supposed to protect was.

.

- (Scene Break) -

.

Quinn smiled as he walked through the biggest magical hotspots of Aarhus, wandering between the magical population of Denmark, which gathered to work, shop, and enjoy themselves. The streets he strolled through were similar to the ones of Daigon Alley and the other markets surrounding it.

He had already visited the area with Aksel, so he knew the layout and had memorized the streets. Occlumency had helped him greatly to remember the details needed to navigate without the assistance of Aksel or any other native.

Exploring with Aksel was fine-and-all, but the Danish chaperone stuck to the shops in the central area and some of the local spots he knew from living in Aarhus, refusing to be adventurous and detour to new and exciting places.

'Places similar to Knockturn Alley back home. Places frequented by those who deal in the so-called "darker" arts,' thought Quinn as he browsed through the shops on the central street where people who wanted nothing to do with the "darker" aspect of the society.

These were the places that Aksel took him to, but Quinn was only in Denmark for a week and didn't have much time, so he needed to move along and dive deeper to get what he wanted. And to accomplish that, he started to sneak out of the hotel room starting from the fifth day.

It wasn't easy to get past Aksel; as it turned out, his chaperone was great at his job. It had taken a bit of magic to get past without Aksel doing aware that he was gone. Quinn had employed very subtle use of confundus charms, illusion magic, sound magic, and watching his timing of sneaking out.

He was successful on his first day, which turned out to be great because it didn't arise Aksel's suspicion, and Quinn could easily sneak out today and the day yesterday. He had to stay with Aksel on the sixth day to check if the Danish man was suspicious: fortunately, Aksel didn't have any inkling of what had transpired.

Quinn ducked into a dark alley between two buildings, momentarily distancing himself from the crowd. No one came out of the tunnel for a full minute before a grown man with golden hair and blue eyes walked out of the dark alley with a handsome smile on his face.

He casually walked back into the crowd and continued to walk among them with his hands behind his back, but if one was paying attention, they would notice that the man was trying not to make even the slightest contact with anyone.

The man was, of course, Quinn West, albeit not in his usual form. This was the form Quinn used to mingle amongst the market while hiding himself from everyone.

There were a couple of ways through which a person could change their appearance. The ones Quinn knew were Polyjuice potion that could copy the target's appearance to a T, full-body transfiguration to alter the body structure, and finally, illusion magic to cast a glamor that would deceive the eyes of an observer.

Polyjuice potion wasn't usable in this situation because Quinn didn't have any hair from a British person, and taking hair from a Danish person would be risky with chances of getting recognized. Plus, the Polyjuice potion took a month to brew, and Quinn only had a few doses that he was saving for emergencies.

Full-body transfiguration was an application of transfiguring the body to alter the structure and appearance to resemble someone else. The concept was a simpler version of what a metamorphmagus did instinctively on a daily basis.

A highly skilled and trained transfiguration master who specialized in self-transfiguration could recreate a metamorphmagus's genetic ability. What came naturally to a metamorphmagi required hard work to a person who lacked the trait. Quinn, on his current level, could perform a self full-body transfiguration. But not on a level where he could change his body structure on a whim.

The last option was illusion magic, something Quinn was quite skilled at, and it was the method he was using. The face he wore was an amalgamation of features from a couple of different people from non-magical England. A random face, yet slightly charming face, made from borrowed facial features to create something that couldn't be tracked as the person didn't exist.

Recreated by the use of illusion magic to sculpt a body over Quinn's actual body. The body was taller than Quinn's, meaning that if he were to turn his head, then the illusion's head a few inches above him would also turn the exact same way. If he raised his hand, then the surrounding illusion would raise his hand.

If he grabbed something, then it would be through magically produced telekinesis. Even if Quinn collided with someone, then they would be coming in contact with a force field roughly in the shape of Quinn's illusion body, and they would feel like that they came in contact with an actual body through the means of tactile illusion magic that messed with the sense of touch.

But it was best Quinn didn't come in contact with anyone at all. Prevention was better than cure, after all.

Slowly the crowd thinned, and people started to turn away from the direction Quinn was walking in. The central area that shone with activity and beaming with lively air slowly faded into grey streets and dim buildings. The place's turned dull and simple, but yet there was a freeness in the air.

As Quinn walked, the few people in the different streets would give him a glance over for identification as if he was prey. The shopkeepers inside their shops would check him out to see if they could profit from him as they ripped him off his money for artifacts that would turn out to be a fake.

But Quinn didn't give any of them a single look. He simply walked with a smile of confidence on his face that radiated that he belonged here and knew what he was doing. Walking for five minutes and deep into a darker side of the Danish magical community, Quinn arrived at a storefront with no signboard on it.

None of the stores in this part of the area had name boards. The people who visited here either already the names and function of the shops. If they were new, the information was communicated via word of mouth. No advertisement was ever required or necessary.

Quinn had gotten the information about the entire region on the first day when he let a woman lure him into a shop where she tried to con him into buying a book that she described as a grimoire with a thousand ancient spells. Quinn let her talk and went along by pretending to believe her lies. In actuality, he was simply listening to gain time as he used legilimency on her to find all he needed to know about the place known as M?rke Gade.

The door-chime over the door rang while it loudly creaked open as Quinn entered the store. The ringing and creaking filled the otherwise quiet store, alerting an old man behind the counter who had his eyes closed to open them to see Quinn's illusion form standing there.

"Mr. John," greeted the old man. "You're here once again."

Quinn, or the name he was using, John without a family name, just like Haldor greeted back. "Of course, old man Gamel. You've things that I'm interested in, and you drive a hard bargain. But today, I'm going to get what I want.

The old owner of the store chuckled slyly. "You're asking me for something precious, Mr. John." He then looked at Quinn with a gaze as clever as a fox. "Not only it's precious, but the tomes you seek are also dangerous. If I give them to you, would you be able to handle them?"

Quinn, in the form of John, laughed lightly. "Thank you for your concern, old man Gamel. But, I will be fine." He then reached into his clothes and took out a medium-sized pouch, and jiggled it for the bag to make clinking sounds. "I have coin and lot of it. You want it, so let's put an end to this farce, and you tell me how much do you want."

Gamel, the shop owner, was able to speak English, and because Quinn couldn't speak Danish, he had to communicate with someone who spoke English. Gamel was one of them, and he had the thing that Quinn wanted.

The old man stood up from his seat and walked to the back room of the simple store with his walking stick for support. Gamel returned with an ancient tome in his hands. It had a thick brown case as its cover, and the pages inside were thick parchment which had turned yellow with time.

The tome looked like it could fall apart any moment, and yet Quinn knew that it wouldn't fall apart. He could feel traces of esoteric magic coming from the tome, and that's what told him that the ancient tome was the real deal and not just some old book.

Gamel set down the tome on the counter, and there was word engraved on the thick leather-bound cover of the tome.

「Book.」

That was all the cover of the tome said. But that wasn't important; the important thing was the language of the word. Quinn was able to read it because he knew the characters. It was written in runes and a type of runic language he recognized.

'Younger Futhark,' thought Quinn and looked up at old man Gamel when he said the source of this book.

"The tome is from the Nordic warlocks of the Viking age."

Vikings.

It was the modern name given to seafaring Nordic pirates from southern Scandinavia who, from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries, raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and North America.

And in this world, with the presence of magic, there existed Nordic magicals, who called themselves Nordic warlocks. A sub-group of magicals that practiced and developed magic that was rumored to have destructive capabilities that could wipe out areas without traces.

Quinn didn't know if the rumors were true or not. He didn't know if the records were exaggerated to boast the power of Nordic warlocks. All he knew was if there was smoke, then there must be a fire.

The Vikings had their own laws, art, and architecture. Most Vikings were also farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, and traders. Popular conceptions of the Vikings often strongly differ from the complex, advanced civilization that emerged from archaeology and historical sources.

This meant that the romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages must've come from a place where people really felt despair. And Quinn believed that it was those Nordic warlocks' actions that completely changed the conception of Vikings as it was today.

So when Quinn came to Denmark, which was once part of the Viking's homeland, he couldn't let a chance like this get away from him. Quinn wanted to see if there was a way he could find the tomes from an age that closely preceded even the Hogwarts founders. And to his luck, Quinn was able to find a single book that held magic inside. Quinn's razor-sharp magical focus, which allowed him to do spells without an external focus, picked up the traces of esoteric magic hidden behind the old tome.

The clever old Gamel, too, realized that this tome was somehow significant, so he jacked up the price. And Quinn had to come back every day because he wanted that book, but he would not fork the ridiculous amount Gamel asked for. At least not until the very last moment, at which point he would give the money and take the risk.

Quinn didn't know what the book held; it could be a tome with basic-level spells or even a memoir preserved like a magical tome. Meaning that it could be useless to Quinn, and he would've wasted his time and money.

"You know the price," said Gamel, still persistent on the price he had quoted to Quinn yesterday.

"That's ridiculous, and you know it," sighed Quinn with the voice he had chosen for John. "I'm going to be generous and raise my offer by a hundred. But this is my last offer. Any more than this, and it won't be worth it."

Gamel remained silent for a moment before returning. "Two hundred."

"One twenty-five and not a single more," said Quinn shaking his head.

"One seventy-five."

"One twenty-five."

"One seventy."

"One twenty-five."

Gamel sighed and nodded in acceptance. "I will take it."

Quinn put down the pouch in his hand on the table and then took out two more pouches and slid the three to Gamel.

"Do count."

Gamel didn't need to be told as he counted the golden currency of Denmark's magical society and checked random ones with his wand for authenticity.

"It's the correct amount. You can take the book."

"That's good," said Quinn, picking up the tome and slipping it inside his expanded pocket. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

Quinn turned back towards the door to leave, and just as he was about to exit, two men appeared and blocked Quinn's path. Quinn recognized both of them as he had seen them every time he entered and exited M?rke Gade.

Quinn stopped for a second before trying to get past the two men standing at the door, but one of them stepped directly in front of Quinn and stared down at him. Quinn looked at them and saw that both of them had wands in their hands.

"The price has doubled, John," heard Quinn from his behind. "You need to give me the other half."

Quinn turned back towards Gamel and saw the old man looking at him with an apathetic gaze and a natural smile.

"Gamel, I don't want any trouble," spoke Quinn, trying to reason. "We already did the exchange. I got my book, and you got your coin. You don't have to make it like this."

Gamel shrugged, but his look didn't change. "Pay me or leave the book behind."

Quinn stared at Gamel for a second before asking. "If I give the book back, then will I get my money back? Let's pretend this purchase never happened."

"I'm sorry, but I can't agree to that, John. I will be keeping that as a service fee."

Quinn sighed and groaned as he covered his face with his hands: the illusion of John did the same.

"Alright, I understand," spoke Quinn from behind his hands.

Gamel and his two helpers smiled when they heard Quinn. They were going to get paid double the price for a stupid book that Gamel had lying around from before he could remember. And he wouldn't get in trouble because he realized that Quinn(John) was a foreigner and not a local. Tourists were always an easy target.

"It's good that you understand, John. It's good for everyone this way," replied Gamel, his smile widening. But then he felt confused when he saw Quinn remove his hands, and there wasn't a single touch of worry on his face.

Gamel saw Quinn raise his hand, and suddenly his two helpers went rigid. He watched as his two helpers turned pale and started to shake and struggle.

"I warned you, Gamel," said Quinn, walking towards Gamel.

Gamel hastily turned his eye to Quinn and raised his wand in a warning. "Don't come near, or I will attack."

Quinn looked at the wand lazily, and it went flying away out of Gamel's hand, shocking the old man.

"I'm feeling good today, Gamel," said Quinn as he picked up the three pouches that he had paid Gamel while staring into his eyes. "So I won't do anything to you. You brought me this book and because you're old. I will leave you alone. But the other boys won't be so lucky."

Quinn blinked, and cracking was heard in the store. And then muffled screams filled the store as the two men collapsed on the floor. They couldn't move an inch, and it was like something had bound every inch of their body. And then they felt the pain come in, but because they couldn't even open their mouths, the screams were muffled.

"I broke every bone in their arms and legs," answered Quinn. "They are in a tremendous amount of pain. I did it in a way that small shrapnels of bones are digging away at their flesh from inside. They won't die from this, but those small pieces of bone will continue to tear through their arms and legs."

Gamel's gulped when he looked into Quinn's eyes and heard his words.

Quinn tapped his knuckles against the table and continued.

"It's easy to rid them of their pain. You just have to vanish the bones, and they will be fine." Quinn twitched his finger, and Gamel's wand came flying up from the floor. "But the deal is that you won't be able to vanish anything because-"

Quinn held Gamel's wand in his hand and snapped it.

"- you don't have a wand anymore."

Quinn dropped the pieces on the counter and then stroked one of Gamel's cheeks.

"I know you do shady business, but do it honorably. Because someday, someone like me won't be in a good mood. Someday, you might just be lying on the floor with your bones broken. I hope you have a good day, Gamel."

Quinn pocketed the gold pouches, turned back, and walked away. As he walked away, he broke the two men's wands. Just before he exited the store, Quinn turned back and smiled at Gamel.

"Oh, before I forgot. I can't have you call for help, can I?"

Gamel's eyes widened before everything went black as he was stunned.

Quinn closed the door behind as he exited the store, and as the door closed, the binding charm that holding the two men in place broke, and they started to thrash around in pain. The bone shrapnels dug deeper into their bodies, causing more pain.

It would be a couple minutes later when someone passing by would hear faint screams and look inside to see two men limp on the ground on the verge of fainting and an old man hunched over a counter.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - My name is John... just John: no Wick, no Doe, no Cena.

Aksel Thorn - Chaperone - Code: Red! I repeat, code: red!

Gamel - Store owner, horrified - Messed with the wrong foreigner.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - Explanation in the next chapter.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

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If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn arrived at the dark alley where he applied the illusion glamor upon himself and dropped the magic to return to his usual black hair and stone-grey eyes. John was gone, and Quinn was back, and with today being Quinn's last day in Denmark, John's appearance would never come back again. At least in Denmark, John would never step on the Danish soil, in case Gamel and his chaps think of revenge.

'Why did he have to make things difficult?' thought Quinn with a heavy sigh as he stepped out of the dark alley and joined the crowd of people back in the central region.

While Quinn didn't consider magic to be light or dark, he did consider people to be tending towards light and dark: ranging from lighter shades of grey to the deep, dark hues of murky grey. And the place like M?rke Gade was full of shady people who had different moral compasses than the average person.

Quinn understood the reason behind's intimidating-extortion strategy, which Gamel had tried to employ. He was clearly a foreigner who couldn't speak the language and was carrying a large amount of money on him. Quinn was sure that in Gamel's eyes, he was a fat cow that Gamel could milk a lot out of.

'Didn't think that I would be using the bone-breaking curse here in Denmark.'

The curse was a cousin to the deboning curse sometimes used while healing magic and surgeries to clear out a bone: used in cases where the bone had problems that couldn't be fixed in a short amount of time, like the bone being afflicted with a curse that took time to cure.

The bone-breaking curse used the magical-medical knowledge of bones and translated it into offensive magic. The skeletal system was the supporting frame of many creatures, and if one snapped that underlying supporting structure, they could cause take away a target's mobility, rendering them immobile.

Quinn initially had learned the spell in his sin curse days from the Room of Requirements under one of the "dark" spell books and had practiced it against animal bones to get better at it. But it was in his fourth year that Quinn was able to tap into the bone-breaking curse's true potential. After learning about the human body in healing magic, and was able to understand the spell on a deeper level. This allowed him to work with the bone more profoundly.

"I hope they use the bone-vanishing curse," humphed Quinn, shaking his head. He had intentionally suggested the bone-vanishing curse was because then the vanished bones would need to be regrown, and Skele-Gro would make sure they didn't sleep at night from the pain and excruciating discomfort.

"Even if someone uses the bone-mending charm, it would still cause more pain," shrugged Quinn. There were so many bone shrapnels inside Quinn's target's bodies that when they would be put back, they would scrape against the muscles and cause more pain.

Quinn had no guilt regarding the amount of damage he had caused. Gamel and the two men looked used to what they were doing and seemed pretty confident while confronting him, meaning that they had been successful at it. And that was all reason he needed to break their bones and leave them in pain. Plus, the injuries were reversible and won't leave any permanent harm. The losses they would suffer were their wands and the free book that Quinn had come away with.

'I can't feel guilt with something like that,' thought Quinn knowing what was to come. If he felt guilty at this level, later he won't be able to do his part in the future. There were terrible things in the future, and if Quinn wanted to get rid of them, he needed to fight the terrible with some terrible of his own. Something like breaking bones would seem minor to what was going to come in the future.

Quinn slid the thoughts to the back of his head and looked around the Danish market streets, thinking how it was his last day here and tomorrow morning he would be going back home.

"I should probably buy souvenirs, or they would hound me later," reminded Quinn. People like Eddie and Luna had outright demanded him to get them something when he wrote them letters about going to Denmark. If he didn't buy Lia something, she wouldn't bring him back books, and that wouldn't be good for him.

"I wonder what I should buy? Oh, right! I should buy them Legos. We are in Denmark. after all. Should I charm them somehow? Or should I give them the stock version? Oh goody~!"

But then Quinn stopped and looked around among the magical people of Denmark and wondered aloud.

"Now, where would I get Legos?"

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- (Scene Break) -

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After roaming around some and luckily finding a store, Quinn bought a ton of Legos. He was sure that Luna would want a lot of them when she discovers what they were. So he made sure to buy an amount that shocked the shop owner.

"I wonder what she would make with them," smiled Quinn as he stood in front of the hotel door and cast disillusionment on himself before silently opening the door.

The door wasn't visible from the living room, so as long as Quinn was silent, no one would see him entering. And sound magic was something Quinn researched since his second year when Filius Flitwick had introduced it to him.

With silent and slow steps, Quinn walked into the living room area to find five new people sitting in his living room along with Aksel, who was looking at a map on the table in front of him.

Aksel raised his wand and pointed at the map for red spots to appear all over the map. "These are all the places where I took him. I stuck to the central and a whole lot of the muggle areas. I would've preferred not to go muggle, but he dragged me along."

"When did he leave?" asked a guy dressed in a suit and overcoat.

"I don't know," sighed Aksel while observing the map. "I found him missing around half an hour ago. But, I've no idea when he left the room."

Aksel's words brought a smile to Quinn's face. He could barely understand them speaking in Danish, but he did recognize some phrases, and to him, it sounded like an achievement because he had been gone for hours.

"... Leave? Are we sure that he left on his own discretion, or was he taken away?" asked another man, dressed in casual clothing. "Quinn West is from the West family, and they are filthy rich. So are we sure he wasn't abducted?"

"I was here the entire day," replied Aksel shaking his head. "He wasn't abducted. If he was, I would've known."

"Yeah, right," scoffed the guy in the suit. "If that's true, then you let a kid get away from you right under your nose."

Aksel withdrew his eyes from the map and looked up at his colleague with a heated gaze. "Are you sure you want to do this now? Because my principal is missing and I want to find him, and do it quick. So I will make it very quick: all it would take is one spell."

The guy in the suit and Aksel locked eyes for a few seconds before the suit guy broke eye contact and looked away. Aksel gave every other man in the room a stern gaze, asking if they wanted to say something else and the promise that he wasn't kidding.

"Good, then let's get a move along. As time passes, the search radius lengthens. We have to find Quinn and quick..." Aksel looked at the band of his colleagues and finished his sentence. "... because if we don't, we will be over. Everything we have built will go drain. Even if we start over, the Wests will ruin us."

All men looked at each other and solemnly nodded. The West family was the owner of their business. A lot of what they did depended on the West family, and if they lost the support, they would have to start again and build up from the ground. Plus, if they didn't find Quinn or if Quinn got hurt, their future would be in trouble as Quinn was the grandson of George West, and that man with his resources could ruin their lives.

Everyone got up, and that made Quinn decide that it was over for the day. And that he should probably reveal himself before they go out looking for. Though Quinn wouldn't lie if he said that, he didn't entertain the thought of letting them go out and sweat a little.

But in the end, Quinn decided to end before it ended up getting out of hand. So he dropped the disillusionment on himself and revealed himself to the group.

"Hello, everyone," greeted Quinn with a smile. "My name is Quinn, and it's a pleasure to meet you all."

The six men, including Aksel's first reaction, were to whip out their wands and point them at Quinn. Within two seconds, six wands were trained on Quinn as the six adults went into combat mode and were ready to cast at a moment's notice.

Quinn slowly raised his hands in the surrender posture with a smile on his face. "Calm down, calm down, no need to be so wand-happy. Let's relax and have some good fun."

He opened both his fists to show choco-balls between his index and middle fingers.

"Chocolate?" asked Quinn, wiggling his fingers that held the choco-balls.

Aksel dropped his hand down and stopped pointing his wand at Quinn. The others also put their wands down as Aksel spoke in a stern voice. "Where were you? Why did you leave? How long were you out?"

"Now, there is no need to take that tone," responded Quinn, giving Aksel a look. "I was out, exploring the city. I have to say it has quite a lot to offer. There is no need to get all huffy about that. Also, you should've told me about the flavored milk tavern? The choices they had were just Magnifique." He did a chef's kiss to show his delight.

"... But why did you go out on your own?! You should've asked me, and I would've taken you. It's my job to guide you and show you around," frowned Aksel.

"That's true, but you were restricting my moments, Mr. Thorn," said Quinn as he unwrapped one of the choco-balls and popped it into his mouth. "I wanted to see both magical and non-magical Aarhus, not just the magical parts. But you insisted that I restricted my movements. You even protested against the random and new restaurant plan. No offense, but I explore better alone."

Quinn was also sure that if he asked Aksel to take him to M?rke Gade. He would've got shut down before even saying the entire sentence. The area was just too shady for a teen like Quinn to wander around.

"But what if you had got lost," asked one of Aksel's colleagues in English. "This isn't your country, and you could've gotten lost with no one to ask for help from."

"Oh, please," scoffed Quinn in response. "I know how the hotel's lobby from memory. With its image and some apparition, I can return from anywhere a few kilometers without breaking a sweat, do ask Aksel. I can't get lost in public, and even if I do, I can teleport at will to return to the safe lobby.

Quinn walked past and settled on one of the single-seater sofas in the living room. "I can tell that you guys are Mr. Thorn's friends, and from the looks of it, you also work together with him. How about you guys sit down and we talk?"

None of the guys sat down as Aksel once again asked. "Why would you leave? Did you not know how much panic you caused? How did you even sneak out?"

"Mr. Thorn, why are you even surprised? Didn't your briefing stress on the part that I will try to sneak out?" replied Quinn. He took out a Durum shawarma wrapped in foil out of his pockets and spoke as he unwrapped it. "It was your fault that you put your guard down. Just because I acted politely, you assumed that the information you had turned null and void. Is this what they taught you when you were training to be an Auror?"

Aksel's eyes went wide open when he heard Quinn speak up. "I didn't tell you that. How did you know that?"

"I didn't," smiled Quinn and took a bite of the pita and the meat inside. He pointed at Aksel and chuckled. "I simply guessed, and just you confirmed it. So, thanks for that. I was genuinely curious if my guess was correct."

Quinn then looked at the other five men: except for the suit guy and Aksel, the rest of the gang had sat back down and were listening to Quinn speak. He observed every one of them and took in what they gave to him. Every one of them looked fit, and the way they had whipped out their wands the second they saw Quinn was indicative of a few things. When combined that with Aksel's confirmation, Quinn concluded.

"All of you are either Aurors or Hit Wizards," started Quinn. "To be precise, ex-Auror and ex-Hit Wizards. Given that you guys work for the family business means that you all left the ministry jobs."

Quinn looked at the detailed map on the table and recognized the detail in the map. "Hmm... let me front a guess. You guys are bodyguards or maybe wands for hire that work under the banner of the West family."

And looking at them, Quinn could see that his guess was correct.

"I didn't know that we worked in this business."

Quinn heard clapping and turned to see the man in casual clothes and flip-flops clapping his hands while smiling.

"Aren't you a smart one," grinned the man. "I am Niel. And yes, you're correct. We are bodyguards for hire. Got trained to be Aurors and Hit Wizards, did some time as Aurors and Hit Wizards, and then left the ministry to start this up."

Aksel, Neil, and Lucas: the guy in the suit, were three childhood friends. One pureblood, one half-blood, and the last a first-gen magical. All of them were poor or came from tough backgrounds. Two were orphans, while one of them had an abusive parent. So they banded together and formed a lifelong bond to stick together and be the family none of them had.

The three were bright students, and when they graduated, all of them applied for Auror and Hit Wizard apprenticeships, and with their grades and aptitude, passed the tests and got trained to become Aurors and Hit Wizards. The three, who didn't have much money in their lives, finally had a substantial income with the job.

"But you see. People can hire Auror and Hit Wizards for protection when they have a good reason to do so, or they have the money and influence to haul around Aurors are guards," spoke Neil with a smile as he crossed his legs; his flip-flop removed from his hanging foot. "We saw an opportunity to earn more money than we were already making, and thus, we left our jobs to start our protection service. We could be hired as bodyguards at a fee. And as it turned out, many rich folks are willing to fork out money for some protection."

Quinn nodded, well familiar with the private security industry, which was prevalent in the non-magical world. But in the magical world, it wasn't common, and thus, this here could be considered a new industry and job line.

"How does the West family business come into play?"

"The connections," answered Lucas, dressed meticulously in a suit. "Not a lot of people do what we do. Most of them were used to going to the ministry for such services, and the ministry would take care of it. But unlike the ministry, we didn't have that level of credibility. Sure we were trained but lacked the connections to get the business started."

Gathering cliental was always one of the hardest parts of starting a business. And this was also for the trio of private bodyguards.

"At that time, we met with Adam West," continued Lucas.

"Adam West," repeated Quinn at the mention of the name. Adam West was his father, who had died in an accident when Quinn was a one year infant. Quinn didn't know much about 'his' parents. He never asked, and none of his family members told him about them.

"Yes, he offered us the connections of the Wests and provided us with clients," nodded Lucas. "From then on, everything was uphill. We never ran out of clients as someone was always looking for guards and defenders. It has been fifteen years, and we have grown from the group of three to forty trained wands working in Scandinavia."

Quinn felt impressed and whistled at the growth. This was the first private security company he had seen, and from what Quinn knew, Britain didn't have something like this. There were retired Aurors who sometimes did something similar for money, but there wasn't anything organized like this, not even close.

"What do you guys call yourselves?"

Aksel, Neil, and Lucas exchanged before Aksel turned to Quinn and answered.

"Limax."

The Limax was a magical creature with a wide, hammer-shaped head, four arms, and a serpent-like lower body. It was capable of wielding multiple weapons at once, including axes, maces, and daggers.

Quinn smiled at the choice of the name and praised.

"Now, that's cool."

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[

A/N:

If the storyline permits, and if I am able to find time in the progression of events, I will bring up the plot hook of exploration of parent's death. Looking forward to if I will be able to create an out-of-Hogwarts plot with the death of Quinn's parents.

Just to be clear, it's not decided yet. It's just an plot idea.

]

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Quinn West - MC - Has a foodie side to him.

Aksel Thorn - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Auror.

Neil - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Hit Wizard.

Lucas - Founder (Limax Group) - Bodyguard, ex-Auror.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer some ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.

The link is in the synopsis!

Report chapter Comments

If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

.

Quinn stood in the hotel lobby of the hotel with his suitcase in his hands. He tapped his foot against the floor as he absentmindedly gazed around the hotel lobby to pass the time. The hall was silent because it was just before seven in the morning. The lobby would regain its activity when the breakfast time down in the hotel restaurant would start, and people would start their day.

He retrieved his trusty pocket watch from its pocket and checked on the time. There were only a few seconds till the minute-hand struck twelve, and the hour-hand arrived at seven on the watch dial. Quinn watched the second hand smoothly travel clockwise and arrive at number twelve, marking the time seven in the morning.

The clock's interface shifted as the dial background shifted from the indigo shade of the sixth hour to the gold of the seventh hour. A faint yet visible outline of the number six also changed to seven, and some other changes magically appeared on the watch front to signify the change of hours.

When the clock turned seven, Quinn looked up, and like clockwork, the man he was waiting for walked into the lobby and walked towards Quinn with a steady stride and semi-brisk pace. Aksel Thorn, his Danish bodyguard/guide who he had evaded many a time in his stay.

"Good morning, Mr. Thorn," greeted Quinn. "I hope my portkey is ready to be deployed?"

Aksel nodded and took out a small wooden cube with blunt edges which rested on his palm. Quinn picked up the dark wood cube from Aksel's palm and observed it. The wooden cube was larger than a cuboidal die, but it wasn't big enough to cover the entire palm. Quinn could comfortably close his first around the cube, and it would be completely enveloped.

"It will activate at five past seven. The portkey will trigger on its own; there is no activation phrase," answered Aksel.

Quinn nodded in response and wrapped his fist around the cube. As there was no activation phrase, Quinn needed to hold the cube because, at five past seven, the portkey would trigger and take him to the destination with no delay.

"It was a fun week, Mr. Thorn. Thank you for your services; you were an excellent guide," praised Quinn.

"... And yet you sneaked away without me," commented Aksel. The fact that a teen could sneak away from him under his nose was embarrassing for someone from his line of occupation and his position, and Aksel wasn't taking it lightly. His partners and subordinates were having fun at his expense. And from what he knew about his company, they weren't going to let it go anytime soon.

"Now, now, don't beat yourself up that much up. It happens to the best of people," chuckled Quinn. He could see that it bothered Aksel, so he tried to soothe the wound before returning home. "It was simply a little too motivated to go out on my own, so it's not your fault that you missed out on my escapes. I'm good at magic, after all."

Quinn took out a card from his pockets and handed it to Aksel. "This is my personal contact details. If you ever come to England, do contact me, and I will be your guide just as you were mine."

Aksel looked at the deep royal blue card. On the royal blue background was a monogram logo in the shape of QW, and beside the logo was Quinn's name full name, also written in gold. He turned the card to see a WMF-id printed on the back.

"That's my personal WMF-id. Not many people have that number, so please don't share it. I like this id I have and don't want to change it," pointed Quinn.

This card differed from his AID cards, which were for promotion and availability, as the cards changed when Quinn or Luna was inside the office for a consultation. This card held his very personal WMF-id, which not a lot of people were aware of. Other than his family, only Luna knew of his WMF-id because her father had purchased an office version MagiFax and put it in his home as Xenophilius Lovegood worked as a reporter/writer from his own.

Quinn hoped he could give a few others his contact details as the MagiFax personal home models were launched just before Quinn left for Denmark. Quinn was sure that as the year passed, his friends would have a MagiFax unit at their respective homes.

"Do you have a personal WMF-id?" asked Quinn.

Aksel shook his head in reply. "I don't have a personal machine, but our office has one." Saying that, Aksel took out a white business card with black text reading contact information of the Limax group, such as their WMF-ids, address, and Aksel's name in the top-left corner on the card.

Every West business subsidiary had made MagiFax a part of their office culture. And because the West business empire spanned across continents, the MagiFax had bridged the gaps in communication that existed before the invention of MagiFax. Quinn's invention had transformed the way communication was handled between and within different organizations.

Quinn pocketed the card, and as he did, the cube started to faintly glow. Within ten seconds, the portkey would trigger, and he would be whisked away.

"It seems time's up," noted Quinn and then said the last words to Aksel. "Once again, Mr. Thorn. It was a nice week. Thank you for keeping it time; let's meet someday. Maybe it will be you coming to England, or I return here to Denmark. Until then, it's a farewell."

Quinn made a small wave before the portkey glowed up, and he was gone.

But Quinn missed the look that came over Aksel's face when he left with the portkey.

"... Quinn West, huh. I wonder what they would say if I told them about him," muttered Aksel as he stared at the card in his hand.

Quinn's time in Denmark had come to an end.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"We got a reply to the invitation."

The rest of the Potter family, who were sitting in the living room of the Potter home, looked up at their mother/wife. They saw the lady of the house waving a letter in her hand with a smile on her face.

"West family sent back a reply to our invitation," announced Lily.

James, Ivy, and Harry Potter all became attentive for different reasons. James Potter wanted to know if George West would be visiting because then he would need to prepare. And the twins wondered what reply their one year senior, the mysterious Ravenclaw Quinn West, had sent.

"Only one member, Quinn, would be coming for dinner," revealed Lily and passed the letter written in Quinn's handwriting down to her family. "The rest of the family, unfortunately, is busy or unavailable, and he would be visiting this Saturday."

James Potter read the reply twice before breathing a relieved sigh that George West wasn't visiting. Sitting with George West for an evening was something he wasn't prepared to do, not after what had transpired.

Ivy and Harry received the letter from their father and read the reply together. They both noticed the handwriting and recognized that it was Quinn who had written the letter. They had seen Quinn's writing, and even though the lettering on the reply was fancier, they could tell that it was Quinn who wrote it.

"Alright, everybody. Sit down," said James.

The twins glanced at each other, wondering what their father wanted to talk about. They communicated with their eyes if they knew what this was about. But none of the two had any idea what this was about. Lily also sat down beside her children to listen to what her husband wanted to say.

"Ivy, Harry, what can you tell me about Quinn West," asked James. "I've only talked to him for a few minutes, so I don't know how he is? Can you tell me about him? I know you aren't in the same year, but words travel; how is he seen in the school?"

Ivy and Harry exchanged glances once more, again initiating a round of twin-eye-talk discussing what to reveal and hide. In the end, they decided to tell what they thought about Quinn without revealing their interactions with him.

"Well, he is smart: scores at the top of his class. Runs a... club? Yeah, let's go with a club. He runs a club to help out students," started Ivy to sum up how others who didn't have much interaction with Quinn saw the Ravenclaw.

"He is pretty popular," continued Harry. "I think almost everyone likes him. No matter what the house or year, he's friendly with everyone. I think even professors like him, especially professor Flitwick. He likes him a lot."

"That's true," nodded Lily in agreement. "Except for the fact that he's known for breaking curfew, Quinn West is the perfect student."

"What about his personality?"

"A diligent and hard-working child," answered Lily with an earnest smile. From the times she had interacted with Quinn, she had a great impression of Quinn and genuinely thought that he was a charming child. "He's also so kind. Not only he helped me out with the Monopoly game, but his notes are also always on discount. I think he made it so everyone could buy his notes."

Ivy's brows twitched when she heard her mother's impression of Quinn. On the outside, Quinn did seem like Lily's description. But then she thought about her first few interactions with Quinn.

"Likes to act all mysterious," shared Ivy. When they were looking for the Philosopher's Stone, Quinn had acted all cryptic and had shut the door in their face after giving them a sudden warning.

Harry thought about his experience with Quinn, and him going to Quinn was the only time he could draw upon him.

"A know-it-all, but not in an annoying way. It's more like a guy who has answers to your every question," spoke Harry, nodding as he felt satisfied with his answer.

"Control freak," added Ivy, reaching deep into her bag of adjectives for Quinn.

"You don't want to play tag with the guy," said Harry, looking very serious. "One of the Hufflepuffs said that it took five guys ten minutes to chase him down and trap him into being tagged."

Ivy gave Harry a look like she was looking at an idiot.

"He's very good with magic," continued Ivy, commenting about Quinn's magical ability. From the time he trapped her into a wall to the time he conjured an elephant-sized Patronus towards a horde of hundred Dementors, Ivy had plenty of experience with Quinn's magical abilities.

"I can beat him," commented Harry with his arms crossed, the pride of the Auror's son coming out.

"He went sixty-nine to zero in the dueling club. Most of his opponents were older students," reasoned Ivy, eying her brother and then humphed. "You lost to me two out of four times and once to Hermione."

Harry grumbled but didn't try to debate with Ivy because what she said had indeed been correct.

Quinn's accomplishment in Lockhart's (Flitwick) dueling club was legendary. Not once was Quinn hit with a spell in his entire sixty-nine fights, and more often than not, he defeated his opponent with a single, swift spell. And just when students thought Quinn would cross into the higher double digits, he stopped at sixty-nine duels and didn't step on to the dueling stage anymore.

When asked why he stopped, Quinn would grin while saying the words to everyone: "Sixty-nine, nice." And didn't explain what it meant.

"... So, he is a reasonable person, right?" asked James. While Quinn had been a massive help to them, James didn't have a hang of Quinn's personality in that short period.

Ivy opened her mouth but then closed it without speaking. Quinn was a reasonable person, but he had called himself a hypocrite of a high order. And from what Ivy saw, Quinn was a tad bit prideful, had hidden greed, plagued with paranoia that supported his controlative nature, and finally was a manipulative person who seemed to be always operating in the background.

Ivy had been cautious of Quinn ever since she met him, and that cautiousness had increased as time had passed. After Ivy deduced that Quinn was her and Harry's savior in the Chamber of Secrets and heard about the recent event of him saving Harry from terrorist abductors, her wariness had almost vanished.

She still felt a little wary of Quinn because her debt was still unpaid, but there was a deep sense of gratitude and thankfulness towards Quinn.

"What are you talking about? Of course, he is a reasonable person," said Lily. The muggle studies professor from the very first conversation with Quinn had nothing but praises for him. "Why are you asking these questions?"

James thought about his reasons for worries. If this was any other kid, he wouldn't have been worried, but Quinn West wasn't any other kid.

"It's nothing," sighed James and semi-explained. "I was just worried about the West family, that's all."

"What do you mean worried about the West family?" asked Ivy, and the same question floated up in Harry's mind while Lily somewhat understood what James was talking about.

"West family is an influential family here in Britain," started James to explain the significance of the West family. "They have their hands in almost every major sector here in Britain and many minor profitable businesses. From agriculture, mining, forestry, fishing, potions, textile, metalworking to transport, hospitality, consulting, legal practice, healthcare, tourism, they do it all. And every single business they open gets support from their resources, so more often than not, their business quickly grows and becomes one of the top contenders for major market share."

James looked up noticed that while his family understood what he said, they weren't where he was coming from. So he simplified it for them so they would realize what he actually meant.

"They are rich," he said, and that was understood by the three, but then he gave them a comparison of wealth to get his point across. "To compare if we combine the wealth of say... Malfoys and Greengrasses, even that amount would lose out to West family's wealth in Britain. If we were to add on the Black family's wealth when they were at their peak, then that amount would beat West family's wealth in Britain."

"So, they are filthy rich," summarized Harry in concise words.

"Yes, son. They are filthy rich."

Lily furrowed her brows because even though she understood what James was saying, but one thing from James's words bugged her.

"Why do you keep saying West family's wealth in Britain?"

James turned to his wife and nodded as if he was expecting this question. "That's the real reason that sets West family apart from any other wealthy families. The West family business isn't concentrated in Britain; it goes way beyond that."

He paused before telling them what he had heard from his father and found from his job. "... West family's business spans across continents and has such reach that the amount of money and influence they have is more than any family in Britain and probably more than any group or organization that exists in the wizarding society. That makes Malfoy's wealth look like they are a bunch of poor chaps."

"Then why aren't they more famous?" asked Ivy because before she met, Ivy didn't have any idea about the West family.

"There are a few reasons for that," answered James. "First, they aren't involved in politics, so they aren't in the center of attention. If they want to get something done, they do it behind the doors, away from people's eyes."

"Second, the newspapers don't report on them because none of the family members appear in public," continued James and then revealed the size of the West family. "The West family only has three people; George West and his two grandchildren, Quinn and Lia West."

"People don't see George West any other place other than official events; he doesn't speak to newspapers, so most people don't know about it. Lia West, whom I researched, has been working outside of the country. She was only featured a couple of times since she entered the business, but that's because she spends a lot of time out of the country. She does get plenty of media attention, but because she moves a lot, no one country gets too much of news about Lia West."

"Lastly, there is Quinn West, who is still in Hogwarts. He spends most of his time in the castle, outside of the eyes of the media," spoke James before picking up on one of the tangents. "George West went to Hogwarts, and then after him, Quinn went to Hogwarts, but between those two, none of the other members went to Hogwarts. Lia West studied in France. Quinn's father also studied in France, and his mother studied in Italy. Lastly, George West's wife also came from France."

All three Potter audience noticed that James mentioned Quinn's parents. But previously, he had said there were only three West members in the family. Which meant that they were no longer alive. Ivy recalled how Lia was the one who came to pick up Quinn from the King's Cross Station. She hadn't given it a thought, but now she realized that Quinn's parents didn't come because they weren't alive.

"So the West family hasn't personally been active in Britain for some time, and that's the reason why most people don't know about them," spoke James, taking a sip of water from the glass of water on the table to quench his parched his throat.

No one cared about rich people if they weren't involved in some sort of scandal, and the members of the West family remained out of trouble.

"The members of Wizengamot know about them, most of the ministry bigwigs know about them, but from below that level, not a lot of people know about them. For some reason, their businesses aren't named after their family name, so the family isn't a household name," explained James, and he was done explaining to his family why the West family was such a big deal.

"The same day Harry was kidnapped, George West walked into the ministry and made his way straight to the minister's office," retold James the tale that he had heard from his peers in the Auror's office. "From what I heard, he walked to the minister's office and had his secretary announce that he was here to meet the minister. In under a minute, Fudge came running out with panic on his face. Fudge walked George West into his office, and when he left, Fudge issued an internal memo that essentially was a gag order to not let Quinn's name come in any of the forthcoming proceedings."

Such was the power of the West family. George West could walk into the ministry, and his wants would be entertained by the Minister of Magic himself.

"Voldemort had tried to recruit George West to his inner circle, no question asked, but he refused and fled the country, taking his family with him. They returned only after the war," brought up James. "This was the power of West family. Voldemort wanted West's financial support so much that Dumbledore had to go beg George just to make sure that he didn't support Voldemort. Forget about getting the West's supports for our side. If George West had decided to support any one side, the war could've gone very differently."

"So, I was just wondering if he is a type of person who gets offended easily because then I would step around him carefully," finished James. He didn't want to invite trouble just because he said something that offended Quinn, and that went to George West because that would be a huge trouble for him.

Ivy and Harry thought about Quinn and then compared him to Draco but didn't see many parallels between them. Draco liked to brag about his family, money, and the new things his dad had brought him. But Quinn didn't do anything of that; students didn't even know or thought that he was rich even though they paid him for multitudes of things.

Ivy thought back to the day she asked Quinn for the information about Nicholas Flamel, and that day he had asked her to pay upfront before she could even pick up the envelope that the information came in. She had to borrow money from Hermione to pay for that information.

'Ah... now with hindsight, Quinn did say that he would've mail-ordered the ingredients instead of picking them from Snape's inventory,' thought Ivy, picking up on things that showed he was from a wealthy family.

That day the Potters continued to talk about Quinn and the West family just because Quinn was coming to their home later that week.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn West - MC - I know

Aksel Thorn - Founder (Limax Group) - How is he connected?

James Potter - Soar throat - I haven't spoken so much in a while.

Ivy Potter - Some hindsight - Opinions in transition.

Harry Potter - Boy-Who-Lived - "... What? Tag is important."

Lily Potter - Professor - Has a really good impression of Quinn.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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Quinn stood in front of a full-sized mirror inside his room, watching his reflection in the mirror. He wore a well-fitting white shirt and black denim pants layered with a hunter-green blouson jacket. His pants were fastened around his waist with a tan belt, and down in his feet were a pair of brown leather loafers over checkered grey socks.

Quinn's appearance had evolved and transformed as he grew up. He was going to turn fifteen years old in a week and had changed a lot from his pre-teen eleven-years-old self at the start of Hogwarts to today, where he was a budding teen in his growing years.

Over the years, the innocent look of a child had transformed into a boyish youth of a teen. The smart appearance that Quinn was known for had gained a tinge of roguishness that people would miss if they weren't looking closely.

His hairstyle, which was tapered on sides and back while the top kept short, giving him an easy to maintain Ivy league haircut, had slightly changed with his age. Now Quinn's matte-black hair was kept short on the sides and back while the top part was of a medium length and styled into choppy, textured combed back layers with a side part.

Quinn's wiry frame that came with his young age and daily workouts was finally experiencing change, with puberty kicking into full effect. In the last few months, his chest had widened, and not only his arms and legs grew faster, but he also gained some height, finally pushing past the hundred seventy centimeter mark and stopping at hundred seventy-six.

And the final change that came with puberty was Quinn's voice. His vocal pitch deepened by nearly an octave. And the process of voice change to his adult voice finally started and would continue to deepen until his eighteenth or nineteenth birthday, as magical humans reached physical maturity by that age. After that, aging slowed down because of their increased lifespan than their non-magical counterpart.

The air and vibe around Quinn had also changed, not because of his age but because of his magic. Magic was an essential aspect of his life, maybe even the most vital part of his life. Quinn's attitude and personality were deeply tied to his magic.

When Quinn had lost his magic, he rarely spoke to anyone and would like to remain alone rather than spend time with anyone. He became so obsessed with regaining his magic that Quinn pretty much ignored every person in his life and acted that he and his magic were the only two existences in the world.

Quinn lost his magic, regained it while suffering from pain. He came very close to dying from injuries and Dementors and had to time travel to save his life. Learned a magic that was much higher than his capabilities, beyond what he was currently capable of. And finally met with Dumbledore and got out without getting his mind read.

After all those ups and downs in a single year, Quinn had come out with a new level of maturity, confidence about his magical capabilities, and faith that he could come out of situations no matter what. He was much more comfortable with himself and felt secure with his magic beside him. And the trip to Denmark with the apparition lessons had given him the magic that increased his ability to move around, providing Quinn with a sense of freedom.

If previously, Quinn had a hidden and reserved attitude to his public persona, now he was coming out of his shell. For the first time since coming to this world, Quinn truly felt safe. He knew that with his family around, he would be safe from most dangers.

But Quinn always had that sense of urgency in the back of his head to get stronger so that he could be safe on his own. To be able to protect himself from dangers on his own without depending on others.

That was Quinn West's thing: On His Own.

In many of Quinn's retrospective sessions, he thought about why he had such a terrible reaction to a wand that clearly suited him and had chosen him to be its wielder. The answer that Quinn came up with was his view of magic: he wanted to be self-sufficient, free from any form of support and dependence, and that carried over to his magic.

Quinn wanted his magic to be always present with him so that if one day he was dropped buck naked into an unknown place, he would be able not only be able to survive but also return home safely with ease. But a wand stopped Quinn from achieving that. Take the magical focus from a magic-user, and except for a handful of people, everyone else would essentially lose their magic and be the same as non-magicals.

Even those handful of people couldn't access their full capabilities if one took away their preferred choice of focus from them. But Quinn could confidently say that he was the same no matter what the situation.

And now here he was, standing in front of a full-sized mirror inside his room, straightening out his semi-casual clothes while checking them out to see if they were proper and if he looked presentable or not. Soon he had to leave for the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollows for dinner with the Potter family.

"This will do," nodded Quinn after confirming that his outfit was appropriate for the occasion. He turned away from the full-sized mirror beside which hung beside his closet and walked to his bed.

From the bed top, he picked up three white pockets shaped objects and one by one applied them to the inner lining of his hunter-green jacket. When white of the pocket-shaped fabric would touch the dark green fabric of the inner lining, threads would appear and stitch the white secure to the green, and then the white color would change to match the green.

These were Quinn's trusty detachable pockets, spelled to have an expanded inside them. The idea had come to Quinn in his second: the year in which he had just begun working with fabrics and leather. Quinn had taken inspiration from a certain blue robotic cat, who had a half-moon-shaped pocket that held numerous fascinating gadgets.

The three pockets didn't hold gadgets from the future. But the pockets did store the things Quinn wanted to carry with him: vials of numerous potions, safety equipment, a couple of tools, a lot of chocolate, two decks of cards, coins, and other miscellaneous things that Quinn always wanted on hand.

"Alright, I am ready. Let's go," said Quinn before exiting his room and walking to the general study of the mansion.

He entered the study to find the person he was searching for and found Ms. Rosey sitting in the sport that was usually reserved for her, and from the looks of it, she was working on the monthly budget and inventory of the West mansion.

"Ms. Rosey, I'm leaving for the dinner at Potters," informed Quinn to the only adult in the house. Lia was in France with her friends while George and Elliot were out for business.

Ms. Rosey looked up from the account books at Quinn and gave him a look over, examining his outfit and judging if it was proper for the function he was going to attend.

"I still don't understand why you enjoy muggle clothing so much," sighed Ms. Rosey. The old caretaker was a conservative lady and didn't understand the appeal of clothing from the non-magical society. "When will you return from the Potters?"

Seeing that Ms. Rosey didn't critique his clothing meant that it passed her check and got her approval, meaning that he was good to go.

"It will end quickly, from what I am guessing. I will go there, converse a little before dinner time, enjoy a meal and wrap up things with a short after-meal talk," shrugged Quinn. "I'm not particularly close to the Potter children, so I think it will be back just a little after grandfather and uncle come back home."

"Do they have the floo prepared for your arrival?"

"I'm not traveling via the floo-network," answered Quinn with a shake of his head. "I will be taking the Knight bus to Godric's Hollows, and then I will walk to the Potter cottage."

"Again, with the Knights bus, you have been using that service a lot, haven't you?"

Ever since returning from Denmark, Quinn had stopped using floo-travel as a mode of transportation altogether. Instead, he had shifted to Knights bus to get around. Taking the bus was time-consuming, but it was all for the sake of magic.

"Ms. Rosey, I finally know apparition," grinned Quinn. "I've to know the places so that I can pop by anytime I want. The Knight bus simply allows me to travel places I can't travel by a floo-fireplace, especially the muggle ones. My current long-time goal is to map the entire country, so I can get anywhere via apparition."

Apparition required the user to have memory or a clear image of the destination they wanted to visit. And that clear image could only be obtained by visiting the place and couldn't be replicated by the destination's image.

So Quinn, while he was outside of Hogwarts, was trying to use his time to go to important places so that he could increase the destinations he could travel to.

"But you can use the floo-fireplace to travel to the Potters," pointed out Ms. Rosey.

"Yes," nodded Quinn and then grinned in reply. "but the Knight bus is so much more fun."

Ms. Rosey sighed at the teen in front of her and lightly waved her hand. "Alright, off you go. Remember to maintain decorum, go straight to the Potter cottage and return directly. Don't take things from strangers, don't follow anyone you don't know, and if in trouble, immediately apparate. If you can't apparate or get out of trouble, you know how to send an emergency signal."

The emergency signal was a blaring alert system that Quinn had set up inside the West mansion. Everybody in the West family wore a piece of jewelry connected to the alert system in the manor. If, in any case, they were in trouble, the family member could use the jewelry to fire off the alert inside the mansion. Effectively send an SOS signal to get help.

"Ms. Rosey, I'm not a child anymore. You don't have to repeat that every time I go outside," pouted Quinn while touching the thin silver chain necklace with a hexagon piece hanging from it around his neck. This was the jewelry Quinn had chosen for himself and was connected to the emergency/SOS system inside the manor.

Ms. Rosey didn't grace him with a reply and went back to work while ignoring Quinn. To her, Quinn would always be a child.

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- (Scene Break) -

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Quinn walked out of the West mansion gate, which he had been using a lot these days. As he exited, the enormous gate, which was slightly open, closed back up, and the chains that locked it went back around the two panels of the gate, binding the two together before the lock snapped into place.

"Maybe, I should talk to grandfather about changing this gate," thought Quinn.

He didn't mind opening the entire gate every time, and it wasn't even a task because, with magic, he could do it every day, all day without breaking a sweat. But opening the gate just so that he could walk out seemed inefficient.

Quinn raised his hand with his fake wand in his grasp. The wand tip glowed as he held the fake wand over his head. He waited in silence as the fake wand tip glowed and gazed around to look for something noticeable.

It took a minute before the silence in the darkening evening sky broke, and there was a deafening BANG, which made Quinn involuntarily twitch.

'I can't get used to this even after all this time,' sighed Quinn as he watched to see a gigantic pair of wheels and headlights screeched to a halt just in front of him. They belonged, as Quinn saw when he raised his head, to a triple-decker, violently purple bus, model name AEC Regent III RT, which had appeared out of thin air. Gold lettering over the windshield spelled The Knight Bus.

Then a conductor in a purple uniform leaped out of the bus and began to speak loudly to the night. "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Kevin Kendall, and I will be your conductor this eve -"

The conductor stopped abruptly. He had just caught sight of Quinn, who was putting his fake wand back into his pockets.

"Oh, it's you again," spoke Kevin Kendall, who looked to be the age of eighteen or nineteen, with large, protruding eyes and a thick beard for his age, but that only meant that he could be below thirty.

Quinn had been using the Knights Bus for travel so much that Stan had gotten acquainted with him.

It was so ridiculous that when Quinn was visiting places, so that he could use apparition later, he would call upon the Knight Bus twenty times a day so that he could travel around. Quinn traveled so much that he was acquainted with a good part of the Knight Buses fleet and their conductors.

Unlike in the books, where the Knight Bus wasn't explored in detail, Quinn had found that more than one Knight Bus was running all over the country. Every Knight bus operated in their own area and didn't go out of their territory. Quinn's destination list was so extensive that the conductors had come to recognize him.

"Good evening, Kevin," greeted Quinn nodding to the recognizable conductor. "How are you today?"

The conductor didn't reply to the question. Instead, he returned with a question. "Are you going to travel today?"

Quinn had called the Knight Bus to travel, or why else would he call upon it? But Quinn understood what Kevin meant. He meant if Quinn was going to a place, walk around that place to memorize a general layout and scenery before calling the Knight Bus again.

"No, Kevin. I'm not going to do that today. Just one place today," answered Quinn.

Kevin looked a little disappointed because that meant that Quinn wouldn't be shedding money to travel, which, in turn, meant that Kevin won't be earning more today. All Knight Bus conductors not only got a base salary but also got paid on a commission basis.

"Alright, where do you want to go?" asked Kevin, going back to conductor mode.

"Godric's Hollow," answered Quinn and reached into his pockets. "How much will it cost me?"

Godric's Hollow was a village in the West Country of England. The West Country was a region of south-western England. And covered the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and finally, Herefordshire, where West manor was situated.

This region of England also played home to many other wizarding families, including the Weasleys, Malfoys, Lovegoods, Diggories, Abbotts, Scamanders, and once the Dumbledores. Indicating that the region was densely populated as a residential area by the magical community.

"Eight sickles is the price," quoted Kevin.

Quinn paid the amount and stepped onto the bus. There were no seats; instead, half a dozen brass bedsteads stood beside the

curtained windows. Candles were burning in brackets beside each bed, illuminating the wood-paneled walls. There were a couple of passengers other than Quinn sitting/lying on the beds.

He laid down on the bed as if it was his own home. Quinn knew what was about to come, and he was prepared for it.

Kevin walked up to the driver's seat and spoke to the old driver, who had been driving the bus ever since its founding.

"Take 'er away, Bol," said Stan, sitting down in the armchair next to Bol's.

There was another tremendous BANG, and the next moment Quinn found himself flat on his bed, pushed down by the speed of the Knight Bus. He had been thrown back a couple times before Quinn learned that it was best to start the journey lying down. Pulling himself up, Quinn stared out of the dark window and saw that they were now bowling along a path outlined by trees.

"Best go wake up Madam Marsh, Stan," said Bol. "We'll be in Wiltshire in a minute."

Kevin passed Quinn's bed and disappeared up a narrow wooden staircase. Quinn continued to look out of the window and recalled the first few rides on the bus. None of the Knight Bus drivers seemed to have mastered the use of a steering wheel, and it had freaked him half to his death. The Knight Bus kept mounting the pavement, but it didn't hit anything; lines of lampposts, mailboxes, and trash cans jumped out of its way as it approached and back into position once it had passed.

Kevin came back downstairs, followed by a faintly green witch wrapped in a traveling cloak.

"Here you go, Madam Marsh," said Kevin happily as Bol stamped on the brake and the beds slid a foot or so toward the front of the bus. Madam Marsh clamped a handkerchief to her mouth and tottered down the steps. Kevin threw her bag out after her and rammed the doors shut; there was another loud BANG, and they were thundering down a narrow country lane, trees leaping out of the way.

Bol slammed on the brakes, and the Knight Bus skidded to a halt in front of a small pub.

"Thanks," Quinn said to Kevin.

Kevin tipped his conductor cap and then slammed the door close before there was another loud BANG, and the Knight Bus was off doing its duty.

Godric's Hollow could be described as being quaint. There was a narrow road with look-a-like cottages that resided on either side of it. There were streetlights at the center of the village, indicating it as the square. Beyond that square was a church, and even though Quinn couldn't see it, there was a graveyard behind the church.

"Now, which one is Potter cottage," muttered Quinn as he walked inside the village and looked around the cottages on the side of the roads.

"Oh, I see them. These must be the homes," spoke Quinn as he noticed non-magical-repellant charms and wards around some cottages riddled around the villages. "Which one of these belongs to the Potters."

Quinn walked for a couple of minutes before he arrived at the edge of the village and saw a comfortably sized, two-story building with a small gate and hedges surrounding the front yard. He peered at the wall beside the door and saw the sign that read Potter.

He lifted the latch of the small gate and entered the well-maintained greens and lush front yard with a small garden with colorful flowers to the side. Quinn walked down the paved path from the small fence gate to the main door and knocked using the door knocker installed in place of a bell.

After half a minute, the door opened by the girl with red hair, and the moment their eyes met, Quinn greeted with a smile.

"Good evening."

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Quinn West - MC - Buses are useful.

Ms. Rosey - Conservative nature - Motherly figure.

Kevin Kendall - Conductor - Let's keep 'em rolling.

Bol - Bus Driver - Even though it doesn't seem like it, he's a master of the wheel.

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-*-*-*-*-*-

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The sound of a calming chime reverberated inside the Potter cottage, filling the home of the Potter family with a familiar sound.

Lily Potter, the Lady of the house, Professor of muggle studies at Hogwarts, was setting up the table for dinner with the special cutlery that only came out when special guests were coming to their home. When she heard the chime, which only rang when the knocker at the main door was used.

"Someone open the door!" shouted Lily across the house to her family.

"I will do it!" A voice came in reply to Lily's instructions, and footsteps moved towards the main door.

Lily stepped back from the table and gazed at it to see if she missed something, but the table setting for five people was set up perfectly. She moved her eyes to the kitchen, where food was currently being prepared by utensils autonomously with magic. She observed that the food was close to being done cooking.

It was then when Harry came walking into the dining area to get a glass of water for himself.

Lily looked at her son and immediately questioned him. "Did you clean your room?"

Harry was about to pour himself a glass of water but stopped when he heard her mother's question. "Mum, he isn't going to come up to my room to see if I have cleaned it or not. Why do I have to clean it?" sighed Harry and went back to pouring himself a glass of water.

"Don't give me that and go clean your room," ordered Lily, her eyes narrowing threateningly. "Quinn is already here... go comb your hair a little. It's like there is a bird's nest on your head."

Harry ignored his mother and silently walked out of the room with the glass of water. He wasn't going to clean his room; he, for his life, couldn't comprehend why did he have to clean up his room every time someone visited.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"Someone open the door!"

Ivy Potter sitting in the living room, reading Witch Weekly, a magazine targeted towards women in the Britain magical community, looked up from her magazine.

"I will do it!" replied Ivy to her mother's call and got up from the sofa and walked through her house towards the main door.

She opened the door, and there stood the person supposed to visit her home for a thank-you dinner for saving her brother from a bunch of abductors. Her deep-green eyes met the stone-grey and saw the smile bloom on his face as he spoke up.

"Good evening."

Ivy Potter had Quinn West a lot while they were in Hogwarts. Even if she only talked to him a little while in a year, all students gathered in the Great hall three times a day for meals. Everyone got to see everyone if they caught the eye, and Quinn was somewhat of an eye-catching figure.

He was popular in the school for running A.I.D and generally famous for helping everyone out. So if any glanced at the Ravenclaw long table, their eyes would briefly stop at Quinn before moving on. And Ivy was no different; she, too, would sometimes have her attention caught by Quinn because of their shared history.

In the near three years she had known about the person named Quinn West. Ivy could recall seeing him in Hogwarts school uniform. The uniform was the same for everyone except the house color, and thus, the school uniform wasn't exciting to look at when every student you knew wore the same thing every day. And Quinn was among the students who would wear the uniform to the T with the robes and all. The only variation she had seen was when Quinn would remove the outer robes inside the A.I.D office.

But now, here he stood, in front of her, in casual clothes. She looked down to see the white shirt, black pants, and green jacket all coming together. Ivy Potter had many thoughts regarding Quinn West. But before today, thoughts like good-looking, handsome, and attractive weren't among them.

Suddenly, she could notice all the things she had seemingly missed. Quinn was tall, not as tall as her friend Ron Weasley, but quite tall. Unlike Ron, Quinn wasn't lanky: he was quite fit under those clothes, something the school uniform robes had hidden. With her mind not filled with thoughts about if Quinn was planning something could finally notice that Quinn was remarkably handsome, particularly with that smile on his face.

"Ms. Potter?" Quinn called to Ivy. Wondering why she was staring at his face without speaking anything.

"... Ivy," muttered the girl with rich red hair and vivid green eyes.

"Pardon?" spoke Quinn, confused.

Ivy matched eyes with Quinn and spoke. "You should call me Ivy. Or are you going to address me as Ms. Potter, Harry as Mr. Potter, mum as Professor Potter, and dad as Auror Potter? Surely not, right?"

"... Now that you mention it. That's a mouthful of Potter," nodded Quinn seeing the Potter-point. He looked at Ivy and smiled. "Alright... Ivy, let's start again... Good evening. I'm here for dinner."

Ivy nodded and stepped back to clear the way for Quinn to enter her house. "Please enter."

Quinn nodded, stepped beyond the threshold of the Potter cottage, and entered the Potter home. He looked around and saw an interior much different from his own home.

The West manor was ornate, and Ms. Rosey, who was in charge, placed everything to form a clear structure and design that screamed a dignified beauty. The only parts of the West mansion under others' control were their own rooms and offices. Quinn himself had only control over his own room, the practice hall, and the piano room. Other than that, Ms. Rosey decided the place of everything.

While the Potter cottage, from one look, was much more personalized to the residents and very homely and homey. Right by the door were photos of family and friends along the walls. A shoe rack by the side, coat hangers on the other side. They painted green and white wallpapers along the walls while the ceiling was white.

Ivy watched as Quinn watched her home and recalled that Quinn's family was exceedingly prosperous. Her father had told her that the West family lived in an enormous mansion in the distant countryside and owned vast land in that area.

'He must think that the house is too small,' thought Ivy, but Quinn had other plans.

"This is a nice home," complimented Quinn. "When I grow up, I'm going to get something like this for my own. Something personal and cozy. I like my home, but there is just so much walking! I spend a lot of time walking, you know. Not as much as Hogwarts, though: that place is crazy. And think about the cleaning that's needed. Thank Morgana, we have Polly, or we would be so screwed."

He turned to Ivy and asked, "Shall we move in?"

Ivy snapped out of her thoughts and gestured, "Yes, mum is looking forward to seeing you. She hasn't stopped talking about you ever since you sent the reply."

"Not surprising," grinned Quinn. "I'm most teacher's favorite student. They can't love me enough. All of them want some Quinn. Let's go and meet Professor." He winked with a cheesy grin, making Ivy roll her eyes.

The pair went inside the home with Ivy in the lead as Quinn continued to examine and observe the house. The chance to be inside Potter cottage was a rare opportunity, so Quinn was taking in everything he could see with his eyes. The two entered the living room where Harry Potter was sitting with a Quidditch magazine in his hand.

"Mum, Quinn is here," called out Ivy to inside the and turned to Quinn. "Please sit down and make yourself comfortable."

Harry stood up from the sofa and stepped towards Quinn to shake hands with him and greeted, "Good to have you here, mate. Also, I didn't get the chance to say this, but thanks for saving me. Seriously, I don't know what happened, but from what I heard, it could've been gone very wrong."

Quinn shook the Boy-Who-Lived's hand and shook his head, "Don't mention it. It was just luck that I happen to be here. Also, the situation was set up for me to have an advantage."

Being humble and courteous was much better than being cocky and overwhelming when creating an impression. Quinn was definitely going to exploit the fact that he saved Harry in the future, but until then, he would rather be a friendly acquaintance so that when the time came, he could exploit this connection.

Lily Potter finally entered the living room with a smile on her face and greeted Quinn. "Welcome, Quinn. Were you able to find the house easily?"

"Yes, it wasn't a problem. The repellant wards made it easier for me to narrow the houses down," answered Quinn. "And we live in the same Knight Bus area, so it was just a bus ride away."

"That's good to hear," nodded Lily and then gestured around the house to ask. "How did you find our house?"

Quinn looked around as he answered, "It's a lovely home, Professor. I can feel the time and effort you put in to turn a house into a home. But I do have to see one more thing before I can give my final remark."

"What is it?"

Quinn turned to Harry and asked with perfect seriousness, "I want to see your room. You did clean it, right? Let's go see it right now."

Harry's jaw dropped when he heard Quinn, and he started to feel flustered. He glanced to his side towards Lily and saw her mum staring at him like she expected him to show Quinn his room.

"... Okay, let's go see my... room," said Harry, sounding shy with a low voice. In his mind, he was planning on how to convince Quinn to keep quiet about his messy room. 'I will even grovel to Eddie Carmichael if he keeps quiet.'

The other three exchanged looks as Harry turned to walk to his room and burst into laughter. Harry turned to face them and was surprised to see the three loudly laughing like they had heard the joke of the century.

"Harry, d-don't worry, he's joking," spoke Ivy between her laughs. "No one is going to see your room."

Harry turned towards Quinn, who was giving him a thumbs up. "You have a talent, mate. Don't let it go to waste."

Harry Potter, the young prankster, grown under the wing of Marauders, felt embarrassed about getting caught in a prank. He hadn't been caught in a prank since his first year when the Weasley twins launched a week of prankster hazing to show him that they were the prankster general.

"How did you know that mum asked me to clean my room."

"Every mum says that. I was sure that here was the same deal," grinned Quinn. "I know you are a prankster, so I wanted to see if I could pull one under from you."

Now that Quinn was here, he decided to showcase some of his charms and entertain his hosts: a good way to pass his time here.

"Before I forget. I brought you a gift for you," said Quinn as he put his hand down in one of the expandable pockets.

"You didn't have to bring us anything. We are the ones who invited you to thank you," spoke Lily and wanted to refuse, but Quinn had already taken her with surprise, and she was holding an envelope.

She opened up the envelope and took a dense golden straight pressed parchment out of it.

"What's this?" asked Lily and read the bold and sizeable words on the golden parchment. "MagiFax Q1?"

"Yes, Professor, do you know what a fax machine is?" asked Quinn to the first-generation witch. He wasn't sure if Lily knew about the fax machine because she had been in the magical community for so long, and the fax machine wasn't popular in her childhood.

But Lily Potter wasn't dubbed as the smartest witch of her age for no reason and the Professor of muggle studies of two years. "Yes, I know of the fax machine."

"Excellent, MagiFax is the same thing but made from magical technology. It performs the same function using none of the non-magical technology," answered Quinn and then point at the slip in Lily's hand. "MagiFax Q1 is for personal home use. It's compact and is optimized to work in homes instead of the office as our original line of products launched one and half years ago. I think Mr. Potter might know of it because the British ministry approved the use of MagiFax in communications recently."

"The slip in your hand is a discount coupon that will get you a fifty-percent discount in our store in Horizont Alley on MagiFax Q1. Take this to the store, and they will explain to you about our entire line of products."

"You replicated a muggle item, and it got ministry approved?" asked Lily, stunned about what she was hearing.

"It might function as the non-magical fax machine, but as I said, it's nothing like the non-magical fax machine. Unlike the Hogwarts Express and Knight Bus, our product isn't based on the fax machine, so there was no way they would flag it. There was some resistance because we released the first MagiFax nearly two years ago, and it took the ministry more than a year to decide to introduce this in their offices even though we launched it here first."

The British ministry was forced to integrate MagiFax into their offices because other ministries were finally getting used to their MagiFax system. And they would ask to be communicated via MagiFax because it was so much easier this way. But British ministry wasn't able to do so because they were showing resistance to the system.

"Where is Mr. Potter?" asked Quinn after everyone settled down in the living room.

"He was called to the office because of some important work," answered Ivy.

Quinn nodded, and inside his mind, connected it to one particular thing. 'It must be because of the Tri-wizard tournament.'

Quinn turned to the Potter twins and started to converse with them. "So, what have you two been doing? How is the break going?" asked Quinn.

The Potter twins exchanged glances because they felt a bit awkward. The boy in front of them wasn't their friend particularly, and both of them had their own relationship with Quinn. Before the abduction, Ivy never got along with Quinn, and it was touchy for her to talk to Quinn as those things never happened. Harry didn't have much of a relationship with Quinn except for the one time he went to get information. The fact Harry and Eddie hated each other with such passion made Harry never initiate a talk with Quinn because of his close friendship with Eddie.

And yet, he was here talking to them like it was nothing. So the two twins felt lost on how to talk to Quinn.

"I keep my business and personal life separated," spoke Quinn startling the twins. "You don't have to worry about your respective dealings with me because I won't bring them up. There is a time and place for everything, and right now isn't time to talk business. I came here because Professor Potter asked me to, so I will be the perfect guest and have a good time. I suggest that you do the same time and given this is your house, you should relax."

Quinn picked up the glass of mixed-fruit juice that Lily had offered him and observed the twins. He already peaked into their mind to see that Harry had spilled his side to Ivy, which he didn't mind. As long as Ivy kept her side a secret, Quinn didn't mind Harry sharing. If someone came to him, Quinn would deny everything they threw at him because that was the deal made with Harry.

"Dad has been busy, so we decided to stay in for this year," answered Ivy deciding to take Quinn's advice. If he was so relaxed in her home, why shouldn't she be? "What about you? What did you do?"

"I went to Denmark for a week, alone."

"Alone?" asked Ivy.

"Yes, it was my first solo trip... well, kind of. But yeah, you can say it was a solo trip. It was an excellent trip."

Quinn turned to Harry, saw him reading the quidditch magazine, and decided to rope him into a conversation.

"Are you excited about the world cup game?" asked Quinn, pointing to the magazine.

"Yeah, it will be a fun game," nodded Harry, and his eyes shined, thinking about the upcoming game.

"Who are you supporting?"

"Ireland, of course. They are the ones who be winning the game," declared Harry with utter confidence.

"Not Bulgaria with Viktor Krum. His season record has been way better than any of the active seekers," asked Quinn. He had little idea what was going in the quidditch world, but Quinn read enough of everything that he could hold a conversation if he wanted.

"... He isn't that good," humphed Harry, feeling competitive with a pro player while being a student-athlete.

"You like quidditch, any plans to go pro in the future," asked Quinn, genuinely curious what this version of Harry Potter wanted to be in the future.

"Hell yeah, I'm going to be a pro in the future," responded Harry as if there was no other thing he wanted to do. "I'm going to apply for the teams when I turn sixteen."

"Yeah, right," Ivy snorted and held back a laugh, but a lot of it escaped out.

"What?" questioned Harry, looking at his twin.

"Like mum is going to let you go professional before graduation. Dad might agree, but mum will close the door on that before you could even suggest it."

"You don't know that."

"I know it. You know it. And even he knows it," said Ivy to Harry and pointed at Quinn.

Quinn raised his hands to separate him from the conversation, even though he was the one who started.

The twins started to argue, and as they did, Quinn's mind wandered to the Tri-wizard tournament, but with the quidditch talk going on, his mind connected those two things.

"Oh, shit..."

Harry and Ivy looked at Quinn, who was suddenly holding his face in his hands.

"Aah, this isn't good. This isn't good at all. How didn't I connect those two?" groaned Quinn.

"What happened?" asked Ivy.

Quinn raised one hand and waved the question off while his other hand was still hiding his face.

'Eddie is going to kill me when he hears they will cancel quidditch this year,' thought Quinn. 'He is going to try to kill me.'

Quinn had run Eddie hard all year long in the preparation of the next year. But if Eddie hears that there won't be quidditch because of the Tri-wizard tournament, he would come after Quinn to release the frustration. Eddie could be exceedingly single-minded when he put his mind to it.

'I need to fix that somehow. I really need to fix that somehow,' thought Quinn before he looked at Harry, who was looking at with confusion. 'Alright, I would've to pull the biggest pitch of my life.'

Harry and Ivy seemed confused to see Quinn hide his face, groan, and then pat his thigh as if deciding something. They exchanged looks of confusion, wondering why Quinn was suddenly acting weird.

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- (Scene Break) -

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"So Quinn," spoke James Potter, finally home from work after the sudden call to the office. "This year is going to be your O.W.L year, isn't it? Are you nervous about the end-of-year examinations?"

"Yes, it's my O.W.L year the coming year," answered Quinn as he sat down at the dinner table for dinner. "But no, I'm not worried. Exams are easy if you study regularly."

"As expected of a Ravenclaw," smiled James as he too sat down.

"Oh, no, no, no," chuckled Quinn, wagging his finger in refusal. "Ravenclaws aren't good at handling examinations. For Ravenclaw, the examination period is really stressful. Most of them turn into backward savaged when the time for exams come."

"... Backward savages?" All four Gryffindors: former and current, turned to Quinn for an answer.

Quinn laid a napkin down on his lap before he answered, "An average Ravenclaw wants nothing more than to score well on an exam and want to score more than anybody, and that includes other Ravenclaws. During exam times, it's every man for himself as the house unity is thrown into the trash. Then there are betrayals, backstabbings, fake notes, fake leaked papers, bogus potions, and herbs that are supposed to sharpen the mind, and so on..."

He looked up at everyone on the table and continued, "One thing that every Ravenclaw has in common is that they study regularly. Meaning that when exam times come, they are already on revisions. So to get that competitive edge, they try to mess up with their competition. Employ any means that would reduce even a single mark of others would mean that their rank would increase by some number."

"My notes eliminated the fake note problem because mine is the best, and no other notes are needed," spoke Quinn as if stating a fact. "But other than that, Ravenclaws are known used to employ laxatives to make each other miserable. When exam time comes, Ravenclaw gains the ambitiousness of a Slytherin, the courage of Gryffindor, and the hard work of Hufflepuff. Of course, every one of those traits is used in not-so-positive ways."

Quinn looked at the food in front of him as the four Gryffindors looked at him because he spoke of tales of betrayals, backstabbings, and sabotage as if he was already used to it.

"Do you also do it?" asked Harry.

"Hmm? Oh no, I don't do any of that. I don't need any of that. My grades are the result of simple and pure intellectual superiority," said Quinn before turning to Lily and complimented her. "Professor, all of this food looks absolutely appetizing and stunning. I can't wait to get started."

"Ah, please start," gestured Lily, and the meal started.

As everyone ate, Ivy continued the previous conversation. "Has anyone tried to sabotage you... during exams?"

"Plenty of times," answered Quinn between bites. "They have tried to give me foods laced with laxatives, vomit-inducers, bloating potions, and a lot more things that would cause trouble if it got out of Ravenclaw walls, so I'm not at liberty of disclosing any of that. Have to keep the darkness inside the walls."

"Did they succeed?"

"Not once. I know to check my food around that time." Then Quinn chuckled at a thought, "If we ever show all those sabotage potions to Professor Snape, he would be stunned to see the quality of potions that we Ravenclaw can produce when we are motivated. They are fantastic."

Quinn looked up at Lily and once again threw a compliment at her. "Professor, I didn't know you could cook this good. Have you ever thought of changing professions? If you have, please contact me so we can set something up because this... this will be an overnight success."

Lily brightly smiled and seemed happily embarrassed because of the repeated compliments. The twins looked at their food and then at Quinn's plate, wondering if he was eating something else because what they ate was the usual cooking of Lily, who was an average cook, and that was with magic.

James, though, understood what Quinn was doing. He could see the deliberate charm talk that Quinn was laying on. He had done this a lot back in the day when he was pursuing Lily.

"Lily flower, this is really good." James complimented his wife's cooking.

"Huh? thank you, dear," replied Lily shortly before turning back to their guest. "Quinn, would you like something else? You aren't eating enough." Lily was getting excited because Quinn's charm was working, and she reciprocated by being more friendly and hospitable.

"Yes, Professor. I would like some mashed peas. I never liked mashed peas, but these are delectable. I can't get enough."

Lily happily passed Quinn some mashed peas, and he ate them as if they were the most delicious thing he had ever eaten.

'Oh, come on, enough with that. Reel some of it in,' thought James as he couldn't believe how thick Quinn was laying it and how well it was working.

Then he saw Quinn look at him and winked before going to talk to Lily.

'This kid!' thought James, flabbergasted.

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- (Scene Break) -

.

After spending some time with the Potters after dinner, it was time for Quinn to leave.

"Thank you for the wonderful evening, Professor," smiled Quinn towards Lily and kissed the knuckles of her offered hand. "I had an excellent time in your company."

"Oh Quinn, stop it. You are embarrassing me," replied Lily. If before today she was the fan of Quinn West, the student, today Lily had become a fan of the person known as Quinn West.

James Potter rolled his eyes at that. Even Ivy had caught up with what Quinn was doing and sighed with an eye roll just like her father. Harry knew that something was off, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Harry, meet you at school," spoke Quinn to Harry. "Tell me about the world cup game. I won't be able to attend because of some previous commitment."

"Yeah, sure. Let's do that." Harry nodded and was okay with that, even looked forward to it. As long as it was quidditch, he could talk about it for days. Quinn had given him an impression that he liked quidditch, and it helped that Quinn commentated on most Hogwarts games.

Next in line was Ivy, who Quinn spoke to briefly. "Ivy, it's always fun talking to you. Let's talk some more when we meet again... and if you need any help, you know where to find me."

Ivy nodded but didn't reply in words. She had a fun evening with Quinn West, and that thought seemed unreal to her some time back. She never thought she could even speak to Quinn politely, forget about having fun.

"Mr. Potter, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to host me. I'm sure that the current time is hectic for you," spoke Quinn to James, who was the final member.

James gazed at Quinn and wondered if the West child knew about the reason behind his business. And after thinking about it, he concluded that Quinn knew about the upcoming Tri-wizard tournament.

"Are you excited about it?" asked James, making Harry and Ivy confused while Lily understood what her husband was talking about.

"Oh, yes. It will be mighty fun," nodded Quinn with a small grin.

After saying goodbyes, Quinn left. He exited the boundary of Godric's Hollow, and after looking around for a second, there was a pop, and Quinn disappeared.

Back at the Potter cottage, the Potter family entered their homes after seeing Quinn off.

"What were you two talking about?" asked Ivy about the small talk that her father had with Quinn.

"It's a surprise," grinned James but didn't reply.

Ivy didn't seem satisfied with the answer and tried to pester her father for an actual answer, but the Auror refused to answer.

The Tri-wizard tournament was on its way.

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Quinn West - MC - Perfect guest. His charms work well on older ladies.

Lily Potter - Lady of the house - Fan of Quinn. Thinks he is an excellent child.

Ivy Potter - Girl Twin - For the first time, she noticed Quinn and...

Harry Potter - Boy Twin - Wants to be a pro-quidditch player before Hogwarts ends.

James Potter - Auror - "Oh, come on. Now that's too much, right?! How is that working?!"

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