The Faction and the Stone II
…
When Harry opened his eyes, he was very relaxed. Warm candle-light lit the room, casting pleasant shadows on a cream-white ceiling. The bed beneath him was very soft. This, he dimly decided, had to be the legendary hospital wing. He'd heard tales of it (mostly about the strict matron, Madam Pomfrey), but - before now - had no reason to visit.
His body felt loose, almost faint beneath him. First he stretched his legs, enjoying the sensation of his joints popping, and the smooth sheets against his thighs; then he yawned, tensed his arms, and extended them above his head. His shoulders clicked pleasantly.
Now he just had to deal with the blur the world had become… he felt to his right, searching for his glasses on the blob he knew to be his nightstand. But just as he was reaching, the world seemed to sharpen on its own, and he felt his glasses perched upon his nose. Had they been there the whole time, and the blurriness was just a side-effect of waking? Or was a helpful house elf watching, and had used his elf-magic to teleport them onto his nose?
He discarded the question quickly as more important issues sprung to mind.
The troll; the chase; the blood. "Dammit," he whispered to himself, throwing his head back onto his pillow repeatedly. "Merlin damn it, why- why- why did that have to happen?"
It was undoubtedly Bad. Bad with a capital B.
A shiver of apprehension slithered through him. He didn't know much about politics, but knew enough to know that the killing of magical beasts was controversial - as was duelling itself. Together… together it was… a recipe… he yawned once more, and all his worries slid away, away into the back of his mind… disaster. He closed his eyes.
… And he woke once more to feel something rubbing against his ears. Blinking, he was met with Hermione Granger leaning over him, her hands on his glasses, almost cradling his face. They locked eyes; she squeaked, and withdrew as though stung, her cheeks flushing.
"Sorry," she said. "You've been sleeping with your glasses on."
Harry looked around. The candles were extinguished; daylight flooded in from stained-glass windows. "Doesn't matter," he said between yawns. "I sleep on my back. What day is it?"
"Saturday," Granger said, "about seven o'clock."
He'd been out for a day, then. From exhaustion; otherwise there was nothing wrong with him.
"In the morning? What're you doing up this early, Granger?"
"Harry…" Granger swallowed. "You saved my life. Visiting is the least I could do."
Harry shrugged. He could not let her know just how it felt to hear those words. You saved my life. "I, er, saved myself too."
"You stood in front of me… at… at the end."
Peering closer, it was impossible not to notice the dark rings around her eyes. "You look like you haven't slept."
The girl wilted, and Harry took the moment to study her in total. He swore her skin hadn't been so… waxy the night before, nor her hair quite so frizzy hair - dishevelled, even. "I can't sleep," she admitted. "When I close my eyes, I see that… thing, and you, covered in blood… and when I do…"
Nightmares; the word went unsaid.
Harry hadn't had any nightmares - and he'd killed it. There was, perhaps, a difference in attitude between them.
Granger turned away. Away from Harry. Her eyes remained fixed upon the floor.
Shame? Harry thought. No, his instincts whispered to him: worse. Was she scared of him? He could understand that - in theory, at least. Harry tossed his own feelings around in his mind, and discovered awfully little. It was kill, or be killed. Should he be feeling something for the troll, he wondered? Did that make him a bad person? After all, it was just an animal…
"I understand," he eventually said, and heard Granger give a sigh of relief. But she still wasn't looking at him. In fact, Harry thought, there was a chasm between them; the troll had brought them together, and thrown them apart all at once. "Find yourself some good friends, Granger. And remember - there's more w-" he caught himself before saying 'we', "you don't know about the wizarding world than you know you don't know.*"
Granger giggled. It was the first time he'd heard the girl laugh. She was awfully closed off. Not that he could criticise. "That's profound."
"I stole it."
From one of the Lyle brothers, he recalled. Though he couldn't remember which one.
Her giggles erupted into laughter, and the sound sent a sting of pain through Harry's heart. They could be friends, he knew, just not… not now. "Thanks… H- Potter. I'll keep it in mind. And I should really call Madam Pomfrey."
Harry gulped.
Madam Pomfrey's legendary reputation was well founded. "Mr. Potter," she had begun, bustling over to him, "of all the things, a troll! Your father didn't find himself in such a mess in all his seven years at Hogwarts!"
But as she fussed over him, Harry saw kindness in her eyes, and made a note to return later and ask about his parents. He hadn't had the courage to approach Professor McGonagall yet. As it turned out, he was only exhausted, and would be free to leave by the evening.
Alan and Susan arrived around lunch time bearing gifts - namely, treacle tart. They looked just as relieved to see him, as he was relieved to see them. For a while he'd been worried that perhaps they might've shared Granger's reaction.
"Thank the Founders you're okay!" Susan cried, crushing him in a hug. Harry tried not to tense up.
When she finally freed him, Alan clasped his hand manfully. "I second that," he said.
Susan took a place on one side of his bed, with Alan on the other.
"So…" Harry said, looking between his friends. Real friends, he thought, who had stuck by him. "What happened?"
"It was chaos for a while - after you fell unconscious," she said in her more familiar, soft voice. "We all knew beforehand that a troll had somehow gotten into the dungeons - Professor Quirrell burst into the Great Hall, shouted about it and fainted."
"-It was pretty pathetic," Alan butted in.
In response to the interruption, Susan executed a swift flick to his ear… then carried on talking in her subdued half-whisper. Harry failed to restrain his smile. "The teachers went down to the dungeons, while the prefects were told to escort everyone else to the common rooms. I realised that you were in danger, but the crowds were too thick. I couldn't get to anyone - so I went off to get you instead. I met Weasley - Ronald, that is - on the way; he thought Granger might've been in a girl's toilet, but she wasn't there, so we went after you together - thinking Granger would be in the duelling hall."
"To see the aftermath of the great Harry Potter slaying a troll!" Alan said good-naturedly.
But Harry pursed his lips. It did sound like something from a story, though it'd mostly been luck. And unlike in a story, he wasn't sure he'd get a pat on the back and just rewards… but that was a question for later.
"What happened then?"
"Somehow," Alan took over, "everyone got wind that the troll had caught you and Granger, but no one knew the outcome. Lots of people were pretty upset." He shrugged. "Then lots of people were pretty upset that the troll was dead. Thank Professor Quirrell and Adelita Land for that. Trolls are on the third and sixth year curriculum too, and on the OWL and NEWT exams."
That was what was worrying him. It sent his stomach into horrible flips. "Do we… do we still have a duelling club?"
His friends glanced at one another for a moment, and Harry feared for the worst.
"Yes," Susan eventually said. "But not a leader. Gabriel… Gabriel has been ill for the past day. She didn't seem very happy with how it… how it ended."
He distinctly recalled her white, startled face as the duelling hall door burst open. "That troll would've killed us, you know? It would've squashed us into paste. All this fuss... all this fuss over a troll." Harry shook his head.
"It's not the troll's death that's the problem, Harry," Alan warned. "It's how it died that's the problem. Weasley, of course, told everyone. He thinks it's 'bloody brilliant'."
"Mellisa Lovell disagrees," Susan added quietly.
"And she's far from alone, I imagine," Harry bemoaned. "Hermione Granger's grateful but, well, I think she's a little- a little scared of me."
Susan puffed out her cheeks cutely. "Ungrateful."
Harry disagreed. "No, I... I understand why. The troll didn't die well."
The terrible shriek, the wailing… the nosies the dying troll had made were so loud they might've been heard in the Slytherin common room at the other end of the dungeons. And with it, the creature must've bled a gallon of hot, violently spurting blood across the duelling hall's flagstones. Granger might not've wept for the troll's death, but the imagery alone…
And then Weasley's retelling of what'd happened - full of that same gory imagery - was now spreading through the school.
"Bloody or not," Alan said angrily, "you saved her life. She could at least try and make friends!"
Harry sighed, feeling the beginning of a headache grip at the edges of his skull. With Granger's own problems, it was a lot more complicated than that… "Could we drop it, please? I've been out for a day, has anything happened other than a troll rampaging through the school?"
"Friday was busy," Susan said, glaring at Alan. "Everyone was in a bit of a… wild mood." She went on to narrate an account of how Jones was so eager to talk to her potions partner, Hannah Abbot, that they obliterated not only their soothing solution, but also the desk they were brewing it on.
"Funny," Harry said at the end of it, "talking about them talking has made you talk more than I've ever seen you… talk."
The glare she gave him only made his smile wider.
"It was odd though," Alan said. "Snape wasn't as angry as usual."
Susan made a noise of agreement. "It was almost like he was distracted."
"By his injury, probably."
Injury? Harry felt his brow furrow. "What injury?"
"His leg," Alan said breezily. "Like he'd been bitten by a dog."
"Maybe Hagrid's," Susan murmured.
No, Harry thought. The dog in question - Fang - was, in the groundskeeper's own words, 'a coward'. Snape, reputed duellist in his own right, bitten by a boarhound? It seemed unlikely. Then again, maybe duelling was the answer? "Perhaps he hurt himself during his own duelling practice?"
That made Alan exclaim. "Oh!" he said. "That reminds me, there's been another corridor duel."
'Corridor duels' were spontaneous fights between students. Most were unskilled, and didn't last very long. Those that did were usually stopped by a prefect or a passing teacher.
"This one was pretty good," Alan continued. "Eddie Carmichael and Matthew Hartin got in a scrap. Hartin won with a banishing charm."
Both were second years, both members of the Self Defence Club, and both were big believers in Gabriel's cause of justice - so named for her opening speech. Carmichael was an outspoken character, while Hartin was a popular Ravenclaw. No matter who won though, the club had lost. They couldn't afford fights at a time like this.
"There's more to it than that," Susan said - especially quietly, almost reluctantly. Usually, she was frowning. "They were fighting… they were fighting about you."
"Me?"
He knew he was the-Boy-Who-Lived, but what about him could've caused them to go at it like that?
"Hartin said the troll was a set-up. You know - with it managing to get past Hogwart's defences and happening on Hogwart's… celebrity."
Harry winced at the word, ruining his good humour. A set-up? "That's ridiculous."
"It is," Susan agreed. "But it's an explanation."
"A better one than we've been given so far."
The school could certainly do with an explanation. While a troll might've been attracted to the Deep Earth in Hogwart's foundations - a reason for its presence in the dungeons - it had no way of penetrating the vast, magically reinforced walls of Hogwarts, or defeating one of her immense gatehouses. Someone, then, must've let it in… just as the doors to the duelling hall happened to 'malfunction'.
The thought threatened to turn his oncoming headache into a migraine, so Harry waved it all off. "It doesn't matter," he said. "It''ll cool off."
Thereafter, the conversation slowed rapidly, as each ventured off into their own thoughts. Harry tried not to think of much; he focused instead on the elegant dappling of the light across the flagstones of the hospital wing. It was shimmering, changing from red to blue to green with the moving of the stained glass.
"It's a shame about Granger," Alan eventually said, only half-joking. "We could've used a fourth friend, you know? It'd be more balanced - two boys, two girls."
Harry smiled wryly. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"
"Never," Susan said. For once, she wasn't quite so quiet.
Alan grinned. "It'll take more than a bit of blood to scare me off."
...
...
As scheduled, Madam Pomfrey let him that evening. Harry was eager to leave; there had been a strangeness to his brief stay, a sensation of isolation from the wonderful castle surrounding him. He had begun to miss Hogwarts, miss her gothic corridors, her strange classical rooms, her meandering stairs and innumerable portraits. And he'd only woken that morning!
Susan and Alan were waiting for him, and they'd immediately gone down to the duelling hall. Having slept for a day, and sat in bed for most of another, he was bursting with energy, and eager to burn it off before he had to go to bed.
Alan narrated the Weasley twins' latest prank on the way.
"... And the twins burst out laughing when Warrington started squawking like a chicken!" he chuckled as they opened the door to the hall.
"- Oh."
The hall was empty, silent. Almost everything was in order. The chairs and tables had all been repaired. It appeared untouched, as though no struggle had ever happened - with one exception. A great red stain scarred the floor, where pressurised blood had splattered - creating a strange image on the flagstones - thick at one end and thinning at the other, like the bloody tentacles of an octopus.
Susan grabbed Harry's hand, squeezing hard. She was staring at it, her pale face as white as a sheet.
"Troll blood's difficult to remove," Alan said. "According to Adelita, anyway."
"According to Madam Pomfrey, too. It ruined my robes, apparently."
Harry kept up an intense pace with the Lightspeed, hoping to tire himself out as he had hoped, so much so that he noticed his friends sharing more than one worried glance. An hour later, he thought he'd succeeded; everything ached, everything hurt.
But sleep did not come easily. While his body relaxed, his mind could not. Now devoid of distractions, Harry began to think - and soon began to worry. He worried mostly about the club. Specifically, if there would still be a club when next week arrived. Would the troll be a sufficient excuse to shut it down? He imagined a parade of teachers, Professor Sinastra and Professor Sprout in the lead, marching into the Headmaster's Office. Or at least, what he imagined Headmaster Dumbledore's office to be like. He'd never seen it; in fact, the Headmaster had never spoken to him.
At this rate, he despaired, burying his face into his pillow, he'd meet Headmaster Dumbledore before the end of the year - and not for anything good.
Sleep eventually crept upon him.
...
...
People were watching him at breakfast. It was like his first day all over again.
"Don't be too shy," Alan whispered gamely. "You've earned those stares this time."
Harry punched him gamely on the shoulder.
Tuesday arrived with trepidation; the first Self Defence Club meeting since the troll incident was scheduled for the afternoon… that is, if there still was a Self Defence Club. Gabriel, Harry heard, had recovered from her illness (if it was illness at all), but he hadn't seen her. Nor had Professor Quirrell made any statement declaring the club shutdown - or otherwise.
Not that Harry had expected anything from cowardly Professor Quirrell.
Some of the other teachers, on the other hand, had definitely been opposed to the founding of the Self Defence Club. His own head of house among them; the events of Halloween had strengthened their arguments. Which was not to discount the influence of some of the students. He'd only recently learned that Hogwarts was overseen by a Board of Governors, and many members of that board had children at Hogwarts. What if the board decided to move against the club at the urging of their sons and daughters?
He wished he knew where these pacifist tendencies came from, but Susan was nearly as ignorant as him. When asked, she'd mumbled something about 'Campbellites' and Dark magic. It didn't make Harry any less stressed, but he'd restrained the urge to snap at her. That would be like kicking a puppy… and she was no older than him. Why would she know more about wizarding politics than he did?
That Tuesday, Defence Against the Dark Arts seemed to crawl by. Harry was barely listening to the lecture. His forehead felt like it was burning, and the butterflies in his stomach fluttered like moths circling a light. What would the other club members think? Would a teacher be waiting there to inform them it was cancelled? Would Gabriel even arrive?
Harry felt sick on his way down to the dungeons. Susan and Alan were quiet. Apprehension walked with them like a fourth member of their group.
There proved to be no teacher in the corridor. Harry let out a breath of relief. The first pitfall was passed. Within the duelling hall, about half the members had already gathered; a conspicuous rug covered the bloodstain. Even better, Gabriel present. She was sitting in her customary chair and reading her notes.
Harry could not help but stare. He'd never really thought about her appearance before; he cast his mind back, thinking of the first time they met.
He remembered her encouraging smile, her flashing steel-grey eyes, and her resemblance to Alan. She was, he judged - without even a hint of emotion (or so he told himself) - pretty. Now, her pale skin had waxed; her dark brown hair had dulled to something limp and lifeless. As though sensing her gaze, she looked up and they locked eyes.
And just as quickly she looked away.
Harry's stomach dropped. Did that mean she was upset with him? Or that she was upset about the troll and the trouble it'd caused?
By the time the lecture began, about a third of the seats remained unfilled. Harry was very careful not to look at them.
"Afternoon witchlings and wizardlings," Gabriel began her usual humorous greeting... without any humour, "today we're going to examine shields." She gave her wand a tired flick; "Protego."
A shimmering silver shield appeared, cocooning her in a translucent shell. Harry observed it intently. The shield plumed directly from her wand, where the stream was almost invisible, and spread; the magic growing increasingly opaque as it reached the edge of the shield, which came to appear like a sphere cut in half.
"Protego is the iconic shield," Gabriel said tepidly. Her spell wavered as she spoke; clearly, it took effort to maintain. "But there are many shield charms. Protego is a modern charm, invented after the Great Turning of the eighteen-twenties. It is simple, strong, and frugal; its inventor, Michael de Lapin, was a genius."
That name caused some shifting in chairs, and some quiet grumbling, from some of the wizard-raised (and especially from the Pureblood) students. Harry sent Susan a meaningful glance. She puffed out her cheeks in false vexation. "The de Lapins are famously anti-British," she whispered to him. "They wanted to reignite the Wars of the Covenant. De Lapin argued that Protego would give the French the edge."
Harry turned that over in his head. From his scant knowledge of history, he understood the Wars of the Covenant to be a series of anti-English conflicts that erupted in the wake of the infamous Hadrian Incident. That'd happened all the way back in the mid-eleven hundreds. Wizards had a long memory.
Meanwhile, Gabriel continued; "You may have been told that Protego is a difficult spell to master - that it isn't tackled until fourth year for a reason. This isn't exactly true. Younger witches and wizards struggle to form a full Protego - a 'hemispheric Protego', like this-" she gestured with her wand, waving her full formed spell in the air, "- so called because it's shaped like a split globe, protecting one hundred and eighty degrees surrounding the tip of the wand."
"To be brief-" here, Gabriel clearly had to suppress a mid-lecture yawn, "- a hemispheric Protego requires a larger spark than most people can manage before their fourth year. However, with a bit of effort, a smaller Protego can be cast. It won't create a denser shield, but it will require less magic."
Bypassing the need for a large spark, Harry thought.
"Melinda Blishwick, Archie Smiles, Faye MacDougal and David Hayes are the instructors today. They're all great with Protego, but don't be disheartened if you don't get it straight away."
Susan frowned as everyone began to shuffle around, moving toward their preferred instructor. "G- Gabriel usually puts herself up as an instructor," she said.
"She looks tired," Harry put in hopefully.
Susan managed to convey what she thought of that with absolutely no expression at all. "Or she's a-avoiding you."
"Give her time," Alan said. "I'm sure she's just stressed."
Harry barely saw Gabriel for the rest of the club.
He put himself under Hayes' tutelage. Hayes was a Muggleborn, a talented sixth year with a crooked nose and a crooked smile. Like all the tutors, he was Gabriel's friend. Perhaps, Harry schemed, he could get something out of the older student - he and Hayes had always gotten along. But it was no use; Hayes avoided the topic like he was being paid to do so.
And in a frustrating flash, the session was over. Everyone filed out slowly, talking, chatting as they always did, meandering around the room. Harry waited until it was just him, Susan and Alan.
"Gabriel left first," Harry said, staring at the door. He'd really messed up, hadn't he?
Could the club continue under this strain? Only one small incident, and perhaps…
"If my cousin walked any faster she'd have been a blur," Alan joked… only to smile sheepishly under the combined glares of his friends. "Sorry," he added.
"Well you walked that back fast enough," Harry said, just a little sharper than he meant.
"I deserve that wa- ouch!"
Harry barely avoided Susan's second stinging spell. It had come out of nowhere. She was so quiet, her voice often gave no clue that she was casting. Alan was still jumping up and down, nursing his knee, when Harry cast; "Protego!"
And a full, hemispheric shield charm dissipated Susan's third stinging hex.
His friends stared.
"Show off," Alan said good-naturedly, rubbing his leg.
But Susan did not let the tension go. "L-let's not get distracted, o-or fight among ourselves!" She cried. "Y-you didn't do anything wrong, Harry! You can't blame other p-people for being silly!"
Susan's cheeks were as red as her hair; her scarlet eyebrows were tightly notched. Though her voice was always soft, almost monotone, her face equally betrayed her feelings. Harry smiled fondly, a strange sensation welling up within him.
"Thanks for the reminder, Sue."
Susan blushed at the nickname.
"Yes," Alan added mischievously. "You might say I knee-ded that."
He hastily dodged another stinging hex.
...
...
"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away," Paul Mcartney's voice warbled through the wizarding gramophone. "Now it looks as though they're here to stay; oh I believe in yesterday..."
Gabriel Jorkins closed her eyes and relaxed into her tattered armchair. The Gryffindor colours were slowly fading; they had been long before third year, when she'd smuggled it and the rest of the old furniture up to her hide-away.
With everything that had happened, last year seemed like five years now. And it'd all started with the Self Defence Club. Gabriel felt her chest tighten at the very thought. When Harry had come to her, it was like a miracle; a moment of destiny. Harry needed her, and she needed Harry.
It promised a way to pass on her skills, her message, beyond her friends. To seek a solution for the iniquities that plagued the wizarding world. It would all begin, she thought, by teaching the students of Hogwarts to defend themselves. With the rumoured - and likely very real - curse on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, they weren't going to learn any other way.
And that was appalling; especially for the Muggleborns lucky enough to be accepted into Hogwarts, as they couldn't circumvent the Misuse of Magic rules that prevented them using magic during the summers. While wizarding households could teach their children whatever they pleased, Hogwarts' Muggleborns - some of the most vulnerable in society - were left vulnerable after they finished schooling.
From what she'd been able to gather, the results of the other schools were... mixed. But Gabriel wasn't at any of the other schools. No, she was at Hogwarts, seat of the cancerous aristocracy. How Dumbledore ever let them into the school, cretins like Marcus Flint and Drusilla Rosier...
The mere thought made her shiver as Mcartney reached his bridging verse. Dumbledore, with his motions of moderation, his mighty tolerance, was obviously out-of-date. It was easy to be tolerant when you were Headmaster of Hogwarts, Supreme Mugwump and all his other stupid titles. Did he know what he was doing, letting all the Voldemort-supporting detritus infest the school?
And now, because of the troll, they were all whispering in their teacher's ears, propagandising against the Self Defence Club. Starting fights against members as evidence that the club was promoting violence... even the Campbellite teachers weren't really on their side, as Huey Campbell himself was famously pacifistic!
That sent the first stirrings of anger through her. Was there anything worse than someone who saw what was wrong with the world, but was unwilling to fight to right it?
Harry had definitely fought to defend Hermione. Gabriel wouldn't have been able to suppress the smile that came to her face if she'd wanted to. He was so shy, so quiet around people he didn't know - nothing like she'd imagined of the Boy-Who-Lived. But her imagination couldn't have conjured someone better. He'd shown true courage... Now, if only she could look at him without feeling ill, feeling all the pressure put upon the Self Defence Club crushing her.
But he was also, unknowingly, the centre of something - and not just the Self Defence Club.
"Still thinking about it?"
Gabriel cracked an eye open. David was looking at her with that annoying smile of his.
"Yes," she admitted testily. "How could I not?"
It was a puzzle; one she hadn't even realised she was putting together until recently, when she'd gone down to visit Hagrid and saw, buried under a mass of papers, a saved newspaper clipping titled GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST.
At first she'd thought little of it... but slowly, slowly it had begun to nag at her. Why would Hagrid save that? Why would he be interested in a bank robbery? He couldn't have been involved, so what was going on? It had remained a mystery until she'd requested a copy of the paper from the Prophet's archives, and came to read that the ransacked vault had been emptied earlier in that same day.
After some reflection, she'd realised that meant that whatever was in the vault was probably quite small... and sequestered in the third floor corridor.
After all, Hagrid must've been the one to remove it - and what could Hagrid own, lovely though he was, that would be worth stealing, especially from a place as impenetrable as Gringotts? No, he was there on Dumbledore's orders, and Dumbledore was keeping it in Hogwarts, almost certainly in the corridor he'd ordered off-limits. Which itself was strange, almost like a dare...
All that had been left to do was find out what it was. That had been easy; all she'd required was Hagrid and three bottles of Ogden's firewhiskey.
What he'd finally let slip - after finishing off two and three-quarters bottles was more fantastical than she'd imagined. It'd sent a shock like lightning through her system.
"Something strange is going on," Gabriel finally said, "something Dumbledore's designed. It can't be a coincidence; not only Harry Potter appearing at Hogwarts, but Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?"
Glossary:
*The concept of the 'unknown unknown' was brought to popular attention by the famous (some might say infamous) US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld during a Department of Defence news briefing in 2002. I'm sure you can guess what the topic entailed.
However, that's yet to happen for about a decade. Fortunately, something approaching the idea was created in 1955 by a pair of American psychologists. They framed it as a technique called the Johari window, which functions as a visualisation. Thereafter, the concept was passed around self-help guides and boardrooms. Vernon Dursley would probably be aware of it.
A/N:
Only one glossary note to satisfy my autism today, unfortunately. But a lot happens in this chapter! Harry learns Protego, a key spell, and we get a glimpse into Gabriel's mind. I always imagined the limitations of casting being based around the amount of magic a witch or wizard could manifest at one time - hence the 'spark'. After all, wouldn't it be weird that a simpl(ish) spell like Protego would require more magic than would exist in a first year's 'magical reserves'?
That simply can't be the case; ergo, the need for the limit to exist at some other point - here, in the amount that can be put into a single spell.
I don't know why I'm explaining the lore like this actually, usually I leave you lovely readers to figure it out for yourselves as you go along. I could delete this paragraphs and start again… but I won't.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and take care. Feel free to review, follow and favourite as you prefer to (or don't).
JoustingAlchemy
PS. Special thanks to people who hunted this story down while it must've been languishing deep in the busy Harry Potter section of . . Your follows/favourites/reviews were highly motivating.