Professor Sprout's words gave Leonard a great deal of inspiration.
Whether it was potions, alchemy, magic, or even Magical Creatures and plants—all these mysterious and extraordinary things shared one fundamental basis: magical energy. And the flow of that magical energy was the main reason behind the difference in their effects.
It could be said that mastering the flow of magic meant mastering the foundation of all knowledge in the wizarding world.
This realization made Leonard think of an ability he had long regarded as nothing more than a tool for True Sight—something he never really used otherwise.
Magical Sight.
This special power, inherited from ancient Sprout, allowed one to directly perceive the flow of magic. Yet Leonard had never used it seriously, except when intimidating Death Eaters or studying traces of ancient spells.
Now he realized he had been underestimating this ability, wasting what might be his most valuable gift. If he used it to observe the magic within his own body, to watch the magical reactions inside a cauldron, or to study the effects of alchemical creations—wasn't that far more meaningful than simply looking around?
Perhaps this was the true purpose of Magical Sight.
Leonard didn't understand alchemy—Hogwarts didn't offer such complex courses to lower years—but he was quite skilled at potion-making.
Before diving into that, though, he decided to first use Magical Sight to observe how his own magic flowed while casting spells. He figured this might help him adapt more quickly to wandless, nonverbal casting, allowing him to channel magic faster without incantations or gestures.
And it worked.
He went to the Room of Requirement, which transformed into a dueling arena. A practice dummy stood there, clutching a fake wand, waiting to be thoroughly demolished by Leonard.
Seeing it ready, Leonard didn't hold back. He drew his wand, aimed at the dummy, and cast a spell he had practiced for quite some time with Professor Flitwick.
"Expulso!"
A burst of sand and gravel erupted beneath the dummy's feet, and a powerful shockwave sent it hurtling into the air, leaving dents and cracks all over its surface.
Leonard didn't bother looking at the dummy's sorry state. Silver light gleamed in his eyes as he focused on his own body and arms.
The angle wasn't ideal, so his view wasn't complete, but combined with his long training in magic control, he could still sense the flow of magical energy within him.
Crack!
The tattered dummy hit the ground hard, then quickly repaired itself and stood again, as stubborn as ever.
Leonard watched it quietly for a moment, then lowered his wand.
"Expulso!"
He chanted again, channeling the magic inside him. A faint gust of sand formed beneath the dummy's feet—but it vanished halfway up.
Leonard wasn't discouraged. He noticed a break in the flow of his magic, caused by the absence of his wand.
He tried again.
"Expulso!"
Boom!
The dummy was blown two meters into the air before crashing down. Compared to when he'd used the wand, it looked much less damaged this time.
Sure enough, once he could see the flow of magic, adapting became much easier. Leonard wasn't at all displeased by the spell's weakened power; in fact, he was thrilled.
After all, on only his second try, he had successfully performed a complex, high-level spell he wasn't yet proficient in—without using a wand.
Both wandless and silent casting require separate practice for every spell. It's not as if mastering one simple spell's wandless or silent form lets you apply that method to others. Each spell's magical flow is distinct and needs its own training.
It's a tough process too—trying to perform wandless or silent casting before mastering a spell is nothing short of wishful thinking.
But with the help of Magical Sight, Leonard found that what had once seemed hellishly difficult now felt only moderately challenging.
A few more tries were all it took!
"Magical Sight really does work. Ugh, what was I even doing wasting all that time before?" Leonard sighed and continued his practice.
Next, he focused on silent casting while holding his wand. Once he mastered that, he could move on to combining both wandless and silent casting together.
...
Half a month later, Leonard was practicing spells in the dueling chamber inside the Room of Requirement.
During those two weeks, he had used Magical Sight to experiment with all kinds of spells, observing the exact trajectory of the magical flow to master wandless and silent casting.
The process went smoothly. Leonard could now quickly and almost effortlessly perform spells without either wand or incantation. When paired with a simple gesture—like a snap of his fingers—his success rate became nearly perfect.
But Magical Sight did more than just help him refine wandless and silent casting. It also let him "steal" glimpses of dangerous spells.
He would search the library for spells such as Incendio or Confringo, then approach Professor Flitwick or Professor Sprout under the guise of curiosity.
Though those spells were still far beyond his level, the professors were more than happy to demonstrate their power.
During their demonstrations, Leonard would watch carefully through Magical Sight, memorizing the flow of magic and then reverse-engineering the gestures needed to reproduce them.
Thanks to this, he also grew increasingly proficient at Transfiguration.
Transfiguration was one of the most complex and specialized branches of magic—and also one of the hardest. Compared to other spells, its magical flow was far more intricate and delicate.
To transform one object into another, a wizard not only needed to fully understand the flow of their own magical energy but also to observe the magical imprint of the target object.
The principle behind Transfiguration lies in altering that imprint through magic, changing the object fundamentally into something else.
It's no wonder every Headmaster of Hogwarts had once been a Transfiguration Professor. To reach that level of mastery meant having extraordinary knowledge, vision, and magical power.
For example, to turn a stone into a dragon, you'd need to understand the magical flow that sustains a dragon, right?
And to turn that dragon back into a stone, you'd need enough strength to disrupt the dragon's internal flow of magic.
That's why Transfiguration stands as the most essential branch of all magic. Compared to it, the Unforgivable Curses—aside from their permanence—are inferior in both power and sophistication.
However, precisely because of that, Leonard realized he couldn't yet perform Transfiguration entirely without a wand.
More accurately, he found it impossible to cast it wandlessly. Without a wand, he couldn't directly manipulate the target's magical flow.