Having secured a vital promise from Hagrid regarding the custom forge work and the essential market intelligence on potion ingredients, Anduin bid the gamekeeper farewell. He had arranged to return the following weekend to follow up on the requests and, more importantly, to break ground on his new, strategically located garden plot.
As he made his way back towards the main castle structure, crossing the wide expanse of Clock Square, an unusual cacophony drifted down from the upper reaches of the Astronomy Tower. It wasn't the sound of general student chatter; it was a distinctive series of sharp, splintering sounds punctuated by muffled shouts and the unmistakable, sickly crackle of poorly cast curses rebounding off stone.
Ah, the great confrontation has finally begun, Anduin thought with an almost academic detachment. He considered the sound—the scraping, the desperate scuttling—and wondered if Charles, ever the chaotic element, was involved, orchestrating the retreat or perhaps leading the charge.
But the thought was fleeting. His initial strategic assessment held firm: intervening now, or even showing concern, would only paint a massive target on his back, incurring the animosity of two major, highly-motivated factions who were, at present, destroying each other quite effectively without his assistance.
A faint, cynical smile touched his lips. He chose the path of the unseen observer, ignoring the escalating clamor overhead, which sounded increasingly desperate. He continued his steady, unhurried walk, heading straight back to the relative sanity and quietude of the Slytherin Common Room.
Once safely behind the walls of his dormitory, Anduin felt an immediate, palpable surge of energy. The monumental meal of Boiled Tepo Ribs and Potatoes was proving to be more than just sustenance; it was a profound, invigorating force.
The magical essence imbued within the Tepo boar's flesh seemed to be dissolving his residual fatigue, sharpening his focus, and flooding his limbs with revitalizing strength. He felt light, yet grounded.
Seizing this feeling, he changed into his practice wear and began a long, flowing session of Tai Chi exercises. The slow, controlled movements, typically a discipline for mental clarity and internal energy cultivation, now felt physically charged.
Each rotation and shift of balance aided the deep digestion of the powerful Tepo meat, turning the meal into a core reserve of magical stamina. It was a meditative process, allowing him to cycle through the day's strategic successes and future plans: the garden, the custom wok, the potion research.
After his training, feeling centered and mentally crystalline, Anduin approached his study desk. His immediate goal was practical: he had decided to master Potions not as an academic subject, but as a path to financial and strategic independence.
He pulled out the Potions textbook, opening it to the simplest recipe with the greatest market demand. He knew the path to power often ran parallel to the path of gold, and mastering the alchemy of liquids and botanicals was crucial to his grand strategy.
The following morning, the atmosphere in the Great Hall was not merely tense; it was thick, oppressive, and heavy with unspoken recrimination. As Anduin completed his morning run and entered the Hall, the shift in population density was immediately apparent.
The long tables belonging to Gryffindor and Slytherin were conspicuously sparse. Usually, the Hall would be buzzing with close to eighty percent capacity, but dozens of chairs were empty at the two rival House tables.
The remaining students from both sides sat stiffly, separated by vast stretches of polished wood. They were exchanging not glances, but glare-wars—silent, potent expressions of enmity that promised future reprisals. The air was practically vibrating with the aftershock of conflict.
Anduin scanned the Gryffindor table and spotted Charles, seemingly oblivious to the collective gloom. Charles was eating a plate piled high with sausages with the same easygoing nonchalance he always possessed.
He caught Anduin's eye across the room and gave a barely perceptible nod—a greeting that contained no hint of regret or defeat, only the acknowledgment of a fellow player on the school's chess board.
As Anduin settled into his usual quiet spot at the Slytherin table, the gossip immediately descended upon him in the form of Vivian.
"Anduin! You must know what happened yesterday, right? It was a disaster, a glorious catastrophe! I've managed to piece together the entire blow-by-blow account," Vivian leaned in, her eyes wide with the adrenaline of relayed drama, ready to burst with the information she had meticulously gathered.
"I heard noises near the Astronomy Tower, yes," Anduin stated flatly, stirring his porridge. "But beyond that, I neither know nor care. I have more pressing matters than late-night school yard skirmishes, Vivian. You needn't recount the details for my sake."
Vivian made a theatrical, disappointed sigh. "Oh, Anduin, you're so utterly pragmatic, it's criminal! But I'm telling you anyway, because it involves the complete, total public humiliation of our rivals! You must hear this." The urge to disseminate the juicy details was clearly overwhelming.
"So, it turns out our upperclassmen—those insufferable pure-blood blockheads—somehow got wind of a private, high-jinks party the Gryffindors were planning in the Tower. Our side saw a chance for a preemptive strike, a way to deliver a message," Vivian recounted, her voice dropping conspiratorially but vibrating with excitement.
"Their original plan was utterly juvenile: infiltrate the area, toss a few dozen Stink Pellets and Dung Bombs to ruin the atmosphere, and perhaps ambush a couple of the main Gryffindor leaders with a simple Leg-Locker Jinx on their way out. The objective was merely disgust and slight inconvenience. A childish prank, really."
Vivian paused for dramatic effect, drawing closer. "But, here's where they failed: they were discovered while setting up their ambush. What was meant to be a minor, targeted humiliation instantly detonated into a full-scale, free-for-all brawl between at least fifty students! It was pure chaos—curses flying everywhere, stunning spells ricocheting off the walls... It was an embarrassment of tactics."
She shook her head with a mixture of disgust and awe. "Of course, the whole riot lasted less than ten minutes before Professor McGonagall and Filch were on the scene. They scattered like panicked Kneazles, but nearly every single participant was caught. The heavily injured were immediately rushed to the Infirmary, and the rest? They've been sentenced to weeks, perhaps two months, of detention and solitary confinement. They won't see the light of day, or a good meal, for a long time. It's pathetic, truly."
Vivian's finger stabbed accusingly toward the House Points hourglasses. "And look!" she hissed, pointing toward the rapidly emptied emerald column.
"Both Gryffindor and Slytherin lost at least one hundred points each. Vanessa is absolutely livid. We're only two months into the term, and already, the House Cup is effectively lost, thanks to a gaggle of late-night buffoons who can't cast a simple Silencing Charm before a reconnaissance mission."
Anduin listened, his expression remaining utterly impassive. He processed the information not as gossip, but as a strategic report. A hundred points, dozens of strong upperclassmen neutralized for the next two months, and the political capital of the pure-blood faction severely depleted. He felt no sympathy for the captured students.
They were not only causing trouble but were spectacularly incompetent at it. Such reckless short-sightedness confirmed his earlier resolve: he would not waste his energy on these petty games of adolescent rivalry. Their conflict only created a power vacuum, which Anduin intended to exploit.
Later that week, Anduin arrived early for the Charms Club meeting, held in a cozy, circular annex classroom near Professor Flitwick's office. The small room was lined with shelves overflowing with ancient, dusty texts related to magical theory and advanced spellcasting.
He was waiting for the other members to arrive when he decided to browse the bottom shelf, tucked just behind the main podium. His fingers brushed past a forgotten-looking volume bound in deep green leather, titled: A Defense of Magical Theory and the Practical Application of Warding. He pulled it out; it was heavy and felt well-used.
Inside the front cover, scrawled in an elegant, spidery hand, was a name: L. Evans.
Lily Evans. He realized he was holding the notes of the woman who would become the mother of the future Harry Potter—a renowned Charms and Potions prodigy of her time. His heart gave a curious, strategic thump. This was more than just a library book; it was a potential masterclass.
Flipping through the pages, Anduin found dozens of inserts: folded pieces of aged parchment, annotated with relentless detail. These were Lily's personal research notes.
He glanced through the material: much of it was dedicated to defensive spellcraft—how to bolster a Protego to repel non-verbal attacks, methods for instantly identifying and counter-casting an opponent's signature jinxes.
Even more intriguing was a section on the dismantling of dark magic—a precise, almost surgical methodology for unraveling curses by targeting the structural weakness in their composite runes. Lily had outlined processes for enhancing a counter-spell by introducing a resonant frequency into the ambient magical field, effectively short-circuiting the incoming attack before it could land.
However, a large portion of the latter notes contained complex diagrams and equations based on Ancient Runes. The script was alien to Anduin, a swirling language of symbols he couldn't decode, representing fundamental concepts like binding, inertia, transfer, and focus.
"Ancient Runes is an elective course, starting in the third year," Anduin muttered to himself, replacing the notes carefully.
"Waiting two years to decipher this level of practical application is inefficient. If the core mechanics of high-level spellcraft depend on the language of the runes, I need to find a way to learn them immediately." He decided then and there that obtaining a Third Year Ancient Runes textbook and starting his self-study was now a mission critical priority, second only to the potion trade.
Soon, the Charms Club meeting began, and despite the high level of the conversation, Anduin remained his usual silent self, a mere shadow in the corner. He acted the part of the slightly overwhelmed freshman, soaking up the knowledge.
The upperclassmen, still reeling from the House Point disaster, mostly ignored him, assuming Professor Flitwick simply allowed him to attend as a gesture of encouragement.
The discussion quickly moved into the intricacies of spell refinement. Flitwick's protégé, Quirrell—a senior student whose primary fascination lay in applying theoretical physics to magic—was making remarkable strides with his Strengthening Charm project.
Quirrell gave a demonstration. His charm, originally designed to merely magnify the volume of sound, had been dramatically refined. He explained he had successfully shifted the focal point of the amplification to the sonic range, effectively turning visible light (the image on the wall) into an audible wave.
After casting his enhanced charm onto a blank classroom wall, the students could distinctly hear faint, albeit slightly distorted and crackling, conversations taking place in the corridor outside the room. It was a staggering improvement in penetrating power and selective filtering for the charm.
Anduin was riveted. Quirrell's work, far more than the simple defensive spells, opened up entirely new conceptual frameworks for magic. The club discussions focused on the underlying rune research required to achieve this kind of fundamental innovation.
To invent a new spell—not just modify an existing one—one must first create a Base Rune. This primary symbol acts as the fundamental magical conductor, the conceptual foundation upon which all other effects are built, much like preparing a blank, magically receptive canvas.
Then, one must carefully inscribe a series of Caster Runes beneath or around the Base Rune. These are the active instruction codes: to heat, to move, to reflect, to magnify. These runes are combined in various sequences and matrices to define the exact effect and execution of the final charm.
The key to successful spell creation, as Anduin realized from listening to Quirrell's detailed failure reports, was runic balance. Some fundamental Caster Runes, such as the rune for "Aquam" (Water) and the rune for "Ignis" (Fire), possessed an inherent, powerful repulsion force. Combining them within the same core structure was not impossible, but extremely hazardous.
If one attempted to cast a spell with such an inherently unstable and unbalanced runic matrix, the resultant uncontrolled magical feedback would inevitably lead to a violent, and likely catastrophic, explosion or uncontrolled dissipation of energy. The magic, unable to reconcile its opposing instructions, would turn violently inward.
Anduin leaned back, his mind racing. Lily's notes, Quirrell's progress, and the fundamental principles of runic balance all converged on a single truth: magic was not merely reciting incantations, but a science of structure, language, and controlled conflict. To truly innovate, he needed to unlock the ancient language that served as the very grammar of magic.
Mandrake berries, a custom wok, and the language of the Ancients, he concluded. The pieces of his puzzle were slowly falling into place.
Anduin now knows the secret to high-level spellcraft lies in the Ancient Runes. Where will he begin his clandestine search for the prohibited third-year textbooks, and how will he finance his first foray into the Forbidden Forest?