After she had finished her breakfast, Lily retrieved her wand from her right hand pocket with her right hand and thought about what she should practice.
As Lily was muggleborn, she hadn't practiced her magic while she was living at home. While she was of age in the Wizarding World, she did not trust that the Trace would actually break when she turned seventeen. She felt more comfortable assuming she still had the Trace on her.
"Well," admitted Lily honestly, "I'm likely to be very rusty. Magic is no different from any other skill. If you don't use it, you risk losing it. I should try some simple magic first just to see where I stand. Room of Requirement, please give a table of objects I can practice magic on."
Next nanosecond, a green table appeared in the center of the Room of Requirement with numerous silver objects on it.
"Thank you, Room of Requirement," said Lily warmly, "Let's get down to business!"
Lily saw a silver paper clip on the table and realized, "A good way to get back into the swing of doing magic would be to start with the Levitation Charm. "
Lily pointed her wand at the paper clip and made some movements with her wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" cried Lily.
Normally, Lily's Levitation Charm would lift an object up five feet.
However, being rusty, Lily had made some mistakes with her wand movements. She knew what the right movements were, but she needed to get some practice in to learn to execute them again. As such, the paper clip only rose two feet."
"It's okay, Lily," Lily told herself reassuringly, "You're a very capable witch. You just need to get into it, and you'll be fine."
So, Lily ended the spell and allowed the paper clip to fall back onto the table.
Lily aimed her wand at the paper clip again and made some movements with her wand and then declared, "Wingardium Leviosa!"
This time, Lily had made fewer errors but still not been perfect. This resulted in her giving the paper clip a rise level of three feet.
"An improvement," said Lily humbly, "Let's try again. "
Lily terminated the charm, and the paper clip reassumed its position on the table.
Lily again directed her wand at the paper clip and made some movements with her wand and then exclaimed "Wingardium Leviosa!"
This time, Lily only made one mistake where she let her wand drift very slightly too far to the left of where it was supposed to go on her last movement. The paper clip's rise on this attempt was four and nine tenths' feet.
"Okay, Lily, you're almost there," piped up Lily in a determined voice, "Fourth time's the charm."
When it came time to do the fourth attempt, Lily calmly made all the right wand movements before saying, 'Wingardium Leviosa!" out loud.
As Lily had hoped, this attempt resulted in the paper clip achieving a rise of five feet.
"YES!" yelled Lily, "I've got it!"
Realizing the importance of practice, Lily spent the next hour repeatedly doing the Levitation Charm.
She had a few slip ups here and there, but for the most part executed the spell correctly.
Lily kept at it until the wand movements required to make her Levitation Charm were second nature to her and she wasn't thinking about them anymore.
"So," observed Lily, "That gave me some good practice and retraining with regard to wand movements. I think I should now attempt a charm that requires great mental focus to practice keeping my mind sharp in magic. I think some practice of the Simple Color Charm is in order.
So, Lily pointed her wand at a silver slinky on the table and imaged the slinky as green.
"Greenify!" cried Lily, pointing her wand at the slinky.
The top part of the slinky turned green, while the bottom part remained silver.
"Oh," Lily instructed herself, "I had the right idea. I just need to be more locked in and focused. I should be able to get this one on my second attempt. It's just a matter of focus and concentration."
Lily now held her wand towards a silver goblet on the table and concentrated her mind as hard as she possibly could on an image of the goblet as green.
Continuing to focus on that mental image of the goblet as green, Lily belted out, "GREENIFY!"
Next nanosecond, the goblet changed colors from silver to green.
"I'm starting to get the hang of things again," said Lily calmly, "I started off simple and I'll progress to more difficult spells. But I think this is a good start."
Lily spent the next hour practicing her Simple Color Change Charm with mostly successful results.
She did have a few times when the spell wound up incomplete because she wasn't locked in enough, but that was to be expected when one was doing the spell over and over again in an hour. No one could have perfect concentration for that long.
After the first two hours after breakfast, Lily declared, "I'm determined and I'm going to succeed."
Lily, having been in the Hogwarts choir in her previous three years, decided now would be a good time to sing a song for herself and burst into song.
"Like a small boat on the ocean, sending big waves into motion.
Like how a single word can make a heart open.
I might only have one match.
But I can make an explosion.
And all those things I didn't say, wrecking balls inside my brain.
I will scream them loud tonight.
Can you hear my voice?
This time this is my fight song.
Take back my life song.
Prove I'm alright song.
My power's turned on.
Starting right now I'll be strong.
I'll play my fight song.
And I don't really care if nobody else believes.
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me.
Losing friends and I'm chasing sleep.
Everybody's worried about me.
In too deep they say I'm in too deep.
And it's been two years.
I miss my home.
But there's a fire burning in my bones.
I still believe, yeah I still believe.
And all those things I didn't say, wrecking balls inside my brain.
I will scream them loud tonight.
Can you hear my voice?
This time this is my fight song.
Take back my life song.
Prove I'm alright song.
My power's turned on.
Starting right now I'll be strong.
I'll play my fight song.
And I don't really care if nobody else believes.
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me.
A lot of fight left in me.
Like a small boat on the ocean, sending big waves into motion.
Like how a single word can make a heart open
I might only have one match, but I can make an explosion.
This is my fight song.
Take back my life song.
Prove I'm alright song.
My power's turned on.
Starting right now I'll be strong.
I'll be strong.
I'll play my fight song.
And I don't really care if nobody else believes.
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me.
Now I've still got a lot of fight left in me."
As Lily finished her song, she felt a confidence in herself engulf her heart.
She felt certain that whatever she needed to do in the year to come, she would be able to do it.
Sure, she needed to shake off the rust a bit and get back into her magical groove.
But she had no doubt that she was on the right track and that she would be in a position to help and contribute when the time came.
I have always seen magic as a skill that a witch or wizard would need to practice or use to keep sharp. I also think that after having been away from it for awhile, it makes sense to ease back into it with more basic stuff.
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