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Alaric's life had fallen back into normality after the incident in the common room— as close to normality as he was going to get, anyway.

He had started working on magical shielding and had made significant progress on it but had quickly realized that mastering the art of defending which was generally taught to sixth-years would require some time, so he started learning some other standard but weaker spells for protection. He would have been frustrated from the lack of progress had he not learned to do things in moderation, so at the moment he just made sure to end each practice with a few minutes of work on the protego shield in hopes that he would master the spell in two or three months. Magic was just power and intent, he lacked the former at the moment but it could be developed with time and practice.

His days had been spent balancing his curriculum with his personal practice of magic and the exploration of the castle. The book regarding Mind Arts and the exercises described inside helped calm his mental state even though they were no more than mundane meditation practices at the moment and ensured that he would not be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge he was consuming regularly.

As for the lectures themselves, they remained interesting enough by his standards which was somewhat surprising considering he had already mastered his first-year syllabus. Alaric had also finally decided that he was going to start not going to history at all after testing Binns's range of observation. The ghost did not even do the roll calls properly, and he could always show up for tests when Daphne and Tracey told him they would happen while studying out of the materials themselves.

He had enjoyed all of his other lessons— Professor Quirrell was by far his favourite teacher, and he was quite invested in the subject now that he was actively researching defensive magic. Potions was fun as well since he usually worked with Daphne and was improving very fast with her help. But charms had perhaps been the easiest subject so far though if one were to ask him.

The lessons were interesting but they had barely done any practical work at all and the only spells they had gone over were the wand light spell, the time display charm, and the colour alteration charm.

That would change today though, a fact that had Alaric rather excited as he took a seat next to Daphne and Tracey who had chosen to sit near the back today. Professor Flitwick had promised them they would be working on the levitation charm, and everybody in the class seemed determined to hold him to his word.

Alaric knew he could perform the spell without effort but that was not the point— just getting to do the spell in an actual lesson in the first place was rewarding enough for him. Thus far, they had done no more than read an obscene amount of theory, write an obscene amount about theory, and learned mundane spells that took absolutely no effort to master.

Flitwick gave them a long lecture about the dangers of the spell before allowing them to draw their wands in the classroom and punctuated his point with an odd story about a man who incanted incorrectly and wound up with a buffalo on his chest. The Slytherins all saw this for the metaphor it was except for Crabbe and Goyle. After which, they were all told to come to the front of the class and grab a feather to begin.

"Weasley's so thick, I bet he'll buy the rubbish about the buffalo," Daphne told as they neared the front of the class.

"All of the Gryffindorks would probably buy it too," Tracy said with a roll of his eyes, making him snort with amusement as they collectively picked up a crow feather each for themselves and went back to their desks, picking identical pairs in each of their lectures had become somewhat of an inside joke in their group considering none of them had any other friends outside their circles and did everything together at this point.

The conversation switched tones after when they took their seats again and went back to talking about magic with Alaric trying his best to explain advanced magical theory to the two of them— he did not think he was quite as articulate at the theoretical side of magic as somebody like Hermione Granger but he was proud of the natural talent he had demonstrated on more than one occasion, Professor McGonagall had described it as an intuitive sense for magic.

Finally, the feathers were in front of them and Alaric took a breath before drawing his wand from his holster in a practiced motion. Tracy beside him wasted no time as she took out his wand and attempted the charm— on the first attempt, nothing happened, nor on the second. But the feather twitched on the third.

"Wingardium Leviosa," she spoke more forcefully this time, swishing and flicking her wand almost vehemently at this point.

Her feather merely twitched, causing to Alaric crack even as both girls scowled at him. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's just that the wand movement and incantation aren't enough," Alaric raised his hands as he moved his feather into position. Tracy looked as if she was ready to bite back with some of her rather explosive vocabulary whereas Daphne looked partly amused despite her odd tendency to get defensive whenever her friend was put on a spot even if in good sport.

A swish, a flick, and a carefully enunciated incantation later— Alaric's feather was floating casually above the desk where he allowed it to hover for a few seconds before slowly lowering it back down, he needed neither the wand nor the incantation to repeat the feat and he demonstrated it by repeating it again without either of them this time. Daphne had rolled her eyes so hard that the raven-haired youth was afraid they might fall out as Professor Flitwick bore down on their desk with a gleeful expression, praising him to the moon and back for his talent and informing him that all Peverells had been prodigies in the subject.

When Flitwick left their table after awarding him ten points, Tracy came close to his ear and whispered quietly enough that nobody else heard her, "All right, Alaric. I'm listening."

"Intent," He spoke simply and just as quietly. "Charms isn't that different from Transfiguration that way, even though it's easier. You need to visualize the effect you want your spell to have or just focus on the intent of the spell if you can control your mind more. Order your magic to do what you want it to do."

Daphne took a moment to digest his words, and nodded thoughtfully from his side a moment later. "That makes a shocking amount of sense, actually. The books from my family library use technical jargon to describe the process but they all emphasize visualization. "

She tried was the one who this time, his feather jerked a few inches up the desk before falling back down in a shot but successful attempt. At the end of the day, Tracy had been the third person in the class to master the charm and the only other to do it faster was Daphne, who was easily the third-best in their year at both the subject and in general.

The Great Hall was more elaborately decorated than Alaric had ever seen, there was so much orange present that the entirety of the hall seemed to be bathed in its vibrant, fluorescent light.

The walls were draped in orange and pumpkins had replaced the torches which had previously hung on the wall before with their eyes and mouths exuding magical light. Even the usual golden plates and goblets had been replaced by orange that matched Headmaster Dumbledore's holiday-themed robes which were of the same colour. It was all actually rather catching.

His friends were not that impressed by the decorations, and even Alaric was not quite sure what to make of the place which was saying something considering he was the most open-minded of the three. The Great Hall had been their favourite room in the entire castle, at least among those they had visited together so far. It had a magical yet entirely homely feel to it and Tracy absolutely loved the enchanted ceiling which turned even more beautiful about the candlelight that danced in the evenings.

"It's disgusting," Draco declared loudly from his place in the middle of the table, "Father goes on and on about Dumbledore and his stance on muggleborns. He says Dumbledore is going to be single-handedly responsible for destroying the old ways if he isn't stopped soon."

"The pounce might just be right for once," Daphne whispered, glaring daggers at Dumbledore from her seat at the Slytherin table. The blond cared deeply about magical culture and would not hesitate to make her opinion known whenever necessary. "The headmaster seems ready to change every tradition our society celebrates at this point, he doesn't care about any of them and it couldn't be more evident."

Alaric quietly listened to their banter, though he found himself unable to put forward his opinion most of the conversation due to both lack of knowledge and general disregard over something as trivial as harmless decorations. All he knew was that pureblood wizards who were used to traditionally celebrating Samhain in their manors were not that enthused by the prospect of Halloween celebrations which had gradually started replacing the old festival of magic both in Hogwards and outside.

The core of the problem was that Halloween was a fundamentally muggle festival. Daphne was certainly not one of the purebloods who despised muggleborns on principle by any stretch, she couldn't care less what somebody's blood status from what he had seen which was rather evident from the fact that she considered Tracy whose blood status was far inferior to her own as one of her closest friends. But the blond had been raised in a household that respected the ways of the old aristocracy and pureblood culture in general.

She might not expect the muggleborns to abandon their culture over old traditions and follow every rule without exception, but she did expect them to respect their ways and integrate into it if they wanted a place in a magical society. The same went for muggle-raised students and purebloods proper, of course. The Peverell was somewhat inclined to agree on that front— on one hand, the decorations were magnificent if one looked at them objectively but his thoughts echoed the complaints that were running up and down the Slytherin table on another.

It really was a disgrace to wizarding culture and a slap in the face to any who followed the old traditions— the great hall was so blatantly catered towards the muggleborns that even Alaric who found the stereotypical Slytherin sneer distasteful had to fight very hard not to wear it himself. But before he could make his thoughts known to his friend who was furiously whispering something to Tracy, the doors to the Great Hall slammed open with a resounding crash that rang through the room like the clattering of many bolts of thunder.

Argus Filch staggered into the room, wide-eyed and clearly terrified. He could barely walk in a straight line and Alaric could not help but notice how his typical habit of shuffling in place was miraculously gone— he had never seen the cantankerous man move so quickly and he was on his knees in front of Dumbledore in what seemed no more than an instant, wheezing and gasping as he managed three feeble sentences that were somehow caught by every single student gathered in the luridly decorated hall.

"Trolls…" He panted loudly, his wide eyes were almost bulging out of his head and his words causing a hush fell over the hall as he staggered towards the staff table. "There are trolls in the dungeons, thought you ought to know."

Then he fainted, and pandemonium broke loose.

It seemed that every student in the Great Hall had chosen that exact same moment to speak as whispers spread across the hall at an unimaginable speed which was made even more chaotic by the growing shouts of unrest which only added to the mayhem. Both his friends were saying something but he could not even hear them properly as several booming fireworks exploded from the tip of Dumbledore's wand at that very moment, making the collective mass fall silent with the sheer strength of his presence.

"Prefects," Dumbledore said in a surprisingly strong and clear voice for one his age. "If you are members of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, you will carefully escort your students back to their common rooms. Hufflepuffs and Slytherins, you will all remain here, as I view it unwise to allow you to draw so close to the troll's alleged location."

"I and the other Professors will leave after the prefects and their houses, at which point I shall be locking you all in the hall. Nobody is to make any attempt at leaving until one of us returns and instructs you all to do so." Everyone fell silent at the declaration, and the older man glanced around for a moment to let his words sink in before he added, "Well, we don't have all night. Please get on moving!"

The sound of the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw benches scraping backwards screeched through the hall and the prefects led their charges out the massive doors faster than Alaric might have expected. The staff were on their heels with Dumbledore in the lead, his lurid orange robes billowing behind him dramatically.

The doors to the Great Hall closed with a loud thud once all of them had left and Alaric's sharp eyes took note of the fact that their defence professor did not seem to be among them. The Peverell could not help but bite down on his teeth in shame when he realized that he should have prevented this.

"Daphne," A terrified-sounding Tracey whispered as she glanced at the two of them and Alaric cursed himself for his oversight when he saw the mixture of confusion and fear in those brown eyes of hers— it might have been hard to make sense of the memories from his previous life that had been fragmented by his awakening and even then he might barely remember anything about novels that he had read decades ago but he knew deep down that those were all excuses. He had taken comfort in the fact that changing the direction of the future was too much for any individual to bear alone by conventional wisdom, much less a boy who was barely eleven years of age.

"We're going to be fine, Tracey," Daphne assured her friend, giving her hand a small squeeze under the table that was unnoticeable to any who were not closely watching even as Alaric lowered his head. Occlumency could have helped him make sense of broken memories and remember things he had long forgotten. This was his world now, and he had only been focusing on making himself stronger without any consideration considering the wider picture.

Tracey bit her lip as she looked around. "I know we are but the Girl-Who-Lived was not in the Great Hall at the time, and neither were Longbottom and Granger."

Daphne's eyes widened and even though he knew deep down that Rose and her friends would probably emerge from this unscathed for one reason or other, Alaric could not help but think that this all could have been avoided had he not been swept away entirely by the prospect of magic and this wonderful new world where everyone seemed carefree. A pang of guilt shot through him, forces larger than him might be at work but this was his world now and he should have done something to protect it rather than leaving everything in the hands of a protagonist whose luck might not even work this time around.

Those thoughts dominated his psyche even after the Professors returned and told them all to return to their common rooms without allowing them to put a single word in question. He was so lost in conflicting thoughts as they walked back up towards the oak front doors that he hardly noticed Daphne fawning over Tracy who had been tense throughout their return.

He was too consumed by emotions that were as foreign to him as the look of concern Daphne had sent him when they parted towards their respective rooms.

Thanks for reading.