{Hogwarts Express}
{29th June 1992}
{Rigel's POV}
"How did you do that with your trunk and the levitation charm?" Hermione's question caused me to pause for a moment. Her cascading interest in her voice and confused look made me think about how I wanted to approach this. I looked back at my floating trunk and shrugged.
With a wave of my wand, the trunk perfectly slotted into the upper compartment as I turned to Hermione, who was now thinking out loud as she continued asking a barrage of questions, "Is it the levitation charm or some variant of it? The box looks heavy, so you shouldn't be using just the levitation charm unless you used the weightless charm. How did you stop the two charms from clashing and nullifying each other?"
As her barrage stopped, I considered how to answer her questions. It seemed like a very basic thing to me, but considering that she wasn't alone in staring at me like I was doing something impossible, I paused before asking her a question of my own, "How many times have you used the levitation charm?"
Her eyes shined with confusion for a moment before she firmly answered, "I mastered the charm during our first class; since then, I have used it multiple times."
'Mastered the charm?' I suppressed the urge to scoff. I had cast the levitation charm for thousands of seconds, and still, it took me multiple weeks to get the charm to the maximum level.
"I'm not hearing a number," I leaned back as I continued, getting the sense that I wouldn't continue until I was provided an answer; she huffed and spoke, "10-15 times."
'That's lower than I expected... how the hell does she live without using the levitation charm at least a dozen times a day.' I knew almost everyone around me was like that, as Daphne and Tracy had to be very conservative about their mana. Maybe the grind made all the difference. With a mental command, my status sprang up in front of me. I stopped looking at the screen after every training session as progress slowed, but compared to when I started, the year-long comparison still improved my outlook on my progress.
...
[Name: Rigel Black]
[Age: 18]
[Gender: Male]
[Family: Black]
[Level- 11 (327/1000)]
[Mana- 1723/2506]
[Mana Control- 37%]
[Allegiance- Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, Most Ancient House of Gaunt]
[PHY- 9/20{Race Limit}]
[REF- 14/20{Race Limit}]
[VIS 12/20{Race Limit}]
[AGI- 12/20{Race Limit}]
[Mana Points- 12]
[Points- 0]
...
'My mana pool is almost five times as large as when I started the year in September. Combined with the two boosts of 25% that I got from the rituals, almost 800 boost from adding points from my level-ups, plus my increased mana control, I use almost 50% less mana for all the spells. Yeah, I can understand them not wanting to waste mana on a spell you already know, but I'm pretty sure even then, they won't be utilizing their mana pools to their full capacity.'
"Well?" Hermione asked, her eyes filled with curiosity at my thoughtful look.
"What about you, Harry? How many times have you cast the levitation charm?" I asked, but I didn't trust the canon timeline to hold itself. There is no way I'm trusting something like the fact that Harry was the real owner of the Elder wand, and that's why Voldemort's killing curse was just rebounded and lost to an Expelliarmus.
"Why does it fucking matter?" Ron butted his head in, a scowl splattered across his face.
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, and as Harry turned to look at him as well, the redhead huffed and scooted closer to the window, his ears burning red as the compartment was slowly engulfed in awkward silence.
'Right, maybe I shouldn't have come; I may as well find pansy; at least the ride would have been a little bit enjoyable then.'
My thoughts were cut off as Harry spoke, "A little more than Hermione. I have used the spell around 30-40 times; I didn't get the hang of it as quickly as Hermione." He shrugged once again, easily dismissing himself. It was quite interesting that even though Harry had to live in the hellhole for much longer and through his teens, his personality didn't deviate much.
"Why don't the two of you try to use the spell then? I'll show you the difference." I offered. With Harry and me sharing the same house over the summer, it was time to get closer to the BWL. Plus, it was time to get closer to Hermione as well before she and Ron had any chance to develop anything.
Harry and Hermione shared a look before she placed her book on her lap and leaned slightly toward me to get the wand out of her jeans. Her forehead gently touched my shoulder, which caused Ron to send another withering glare my way; the redhead was still paying attention to our interactions.
"Let's see then, Wingardium Levi'Osa~" Hermione chanted as she went through the standard movements of the spell, a swish, and a flick.
The book floated upwards gently, but Hermione's frown made it clear that it was taking all of her concentration to keep the heavy book floating.
'Hmm, it's not that bad. She used around 7-8 mana to make the spell work, and the current drain of the spell wasn't noticeable. It would only pick up after the minute is over, so considering her reserves, she should be able to hold that book floating for a while, I'm guessing 40 minutes.'
I let her keep the book floating for a full minute, and only when the drain on her mana increased to a steady flow of 8 mana per minute did I speak, "That's okay. What about you, Harry?" I turned to the green-eyed boy, "Want to try?"
He looked at the book now lying on Hermione's lap and then whipped out his own wand. His wand flowed through the swish and flick movement as he clearly enunciated the spell, "Wingardium Levi'Osa~."
'Well, I was expecting there to be barely any difference in their spell levels, but it seems like Harry has managed to leave Hermione behind in this case. Which makes sense, considering the brunette was pretty sure she had mastered the spell.'
"Well," I began speaking, but then paused. There was really no need to antagonize the third member of their group, who was needlessly there.
"Ron, do you want to try?" I asked, bringing the other two group members' attention to the dark-faced Weasley. He hesitated for a moment but finally relented and pulled his own wand out.
"Will you explain what this is about? Wingardium Levi'Osa~" He cast as he asked the question; his movements looked practiced, sharply contrasting to what I imagined it would be. Through my mana sense, I could see his mana visibly weaken as it flowed through the wand, but even still, the book floated upwards. The drain on his mana was clearly larger than Harry and Hermione's, but I'm quite confident that with a proper wand, he would have the easiest time out of all of them.
'Huh, who would've thought?'
"Well, that's quite interesting; how many times have you practiced the spell, Ron?" I asked, getting a long silence in reply from the boy before he frowned and, through gritted teeth, replied, "I don't know; I practiced it every day before going to sleep for a couple of months."
...
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AN: 50+ advanced chapters on P.atreon!