Chapter 9: The Price of Obsession
The main library at Hogwarts was, for Hermione, a shrine.
It was his home away from the Gryffindor common room, a place of order, answers, and a glorious silence rarely found in the wing of his house.
That October afternoon, the silence was only broken by the scraping of pens on the parchment and the rustling of pages as they turned, as students prepared for midterm exams.
Hermione was surrounded by a fortress of books, working diligently on a particularly complicated Transfiguration essay for Professor McGonagall.
From time to time, his gaze drifted to a nearby table, next to a window overlooking the rain-swept grounds.
There he was. Timothy Hunter.
But I wasn't studying. He was just sitting, with an open book in front of him, but his gaze was lost, fixed on the rain hitting the glass, as if he were a million miles away.
Hermione frowned. It had been like this for weeks.
The boy I'd met on the train, the one who had shown such a natural and irritating talent in the first few lessons, now seemed... absent.
He had heard Parvati and Lavender whisper that Timothy's grades were going down. An "acceptable" in Enchantments. An "acceptable" in potions.
For someone who was clearly a genius, it was an insult. It was laziness. And Hermione hated laziness.
Eventually, his frustration overcame his reluctance to interrupt. He picked up his heavy tome of Intermediate Transfiguration and walked over to his table.
"Tim," he said, his tone a mixture of mockery and genuine curiosity. She dropped the book on his table with a thud, jolting him out of his trance.
He blinked, his eyes regaining focus, and gave her a tired smile. "Hermione? Is something wrong?"
"That's what I'm asking you," she said, sitting down across from him. "Finally. I think I'm catching up with you. I've heard that your grades in Divination are almost as bad as Ron's."
Timothy chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Congratulations, Hermione. Keep it up."
Her lack of reaction baffled her. She expected a denial, an excuse, perhaps a little embarrassment. But he only got indifference.
"Really, Tim. What's wrong with you?" he insisted, his voice dropping to a more sincere tone. "At the beginning of the course you were... Well, you were an arrogant idiot, but you tried hard. I could see you think."
"Now," he continued, "it seems like you don't even care. You're here, but you're not. Are you bored?"
Timothy looked at her, and for a moment, the façade of the absent-minded student vanished, revealing the obsessive scholar below. His smile became mischievous, but his eyes were tired.
"Don't worry about me, Hermione," he said, his voice a funny whisper. "Even if you were to strive for a hundred years in a row, you would not be able to catch up with me."
The arrogance of the phrase was so pure, so absolute, that Hermione was speechless.
But it was said without malice. It was not an insult to her; It was a simple, infuriating, statement of facts on his part.
Instead of getting angry, he found himself laughing. It was a laugh of pure frustration.
"You're an idiot!" he exclaimed, grabbing a roll of crumpled parchment and tossing it at his head.
Timothy caught him in the air effortlessly. "And you are brilliant. But we're playing different games."
The tension was broken. The moment of genuine friendship settled between them.
"Hermione? What are you doing?"
Two familiar voices interrupted the moment. Harry and Ron were standing by the table, staring at the scene in confusion.
Ron, in particular, looked at Timothy with a clear distrust. "What do you do with it?"
Ron's gaze fell on Hermione. "How long have you been friends with this know-it-all Ravenclaw? Are we not enough for you?"
Hermione blushed furiously. "Don't be ridiculous, Ronald! Were... discussing the task."
He turned to Timothy, rebuilding his dignity. "Tim, this is Harry Potter and Ron Weasley." Then, to them: "This is Timothy Hunter. We met him on the boats on the first day."
Harry and Ron looked at him, their faces a mixture of confusion. Clearly, they had completely forgotten about it.
"A pleasure," Harry said awkwardly. Ron just muttered something.
Timothy felt the atmosphere change. The intellectual conversation was over, replaced by adolescent social awkwardness. Boring.
He got up from his chair in a fluid motion. "It's been a pleasure, guys. Hermione."
"Wait, are you leaving yet?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, his gaze already directed toward the exit of the library. "I have... research to do."
And with that cryptic farewell, he walked away, leaving a confused trio behind him.
"What bug has bitten you?" asked Ron.
Hermione ignored him, staring at Timothy's back as he disappeared between the shelves, an expression of deep, thoughtful concern on her face.
…..
Timothy's obsession became his new routine. The days blurred into a voracious learning cycle, and the lines between his public student life and his secret scholarly life began to blur dangerously.
In Charms class, while Flitwick explained the complex theory of commutation charms, Timothy was physically present, but mentally miles away.
His body was there, nodding at the right moments, his hand taking notes without looking.
But his conscious mind was elsewhere. I was going over that morning's Potions lesson, not the instructions, but the theory.
He wondered why ginger root had to be cut and not crushed.
Did the conceptual structure change? Did he release magic in a different way?
The slow trickle of the Charms class was torture for a mind that was already thinking about the grammar of creation.
Their grades, inevitably, began to drop. The effortless "Extraordinary" of the first week became "Exceed Expectations."
Then, to Hermione's absolute horror, those turned into a series of "Acceptables" and, in Divination, an "Unsatisfactory" that she didn't even bother to watch.
It wasn't because the work was difficult. It was because he hardly did. He delivered essays that were functionally correct, often with ideas that left professors scratching their heads, but that were written in a hurry and lacked any real effort.
In Ravenclaw's Common Room, his companions noticed the change. The "Hunter boy," the eccentric new boy, had become a ghost.
He hardly spent time there. When he was present, he was silent, staring blankly, clearly somewhere else. His housemates took him for arrogance, a genius who thought himself too good for them, and soon stopped trying to talk to him.
The real Timothy now lived in the seventh-floor hallway.
The Room of Requirements had become his sanctuary, his addiction, and his home. He hardly set foot in his bedroom, except for the few hours of sleep he allowed himself. The rest of the time, he was in "his" library.
That was where he was alive. The joy I felt was pure, almost divine. The outside world, with its teenage dramas and meaningless grades, was a dull, gray distraction.
Here, among the books, he was at the center of the universe.
He felt the knowing flow into the strength of his mind, which expanded to accommodate the avalanche. Each book was a new tool, a new piece of the cosmic puzzle.
The ecstasy of understanding was a drug more potent than any potion, and he was hopelessly addicted.
The reactions of others were inevitable and varied.
Hermione watched him from a distance in the Great Hall. I could see the dark circles that formed under his eyes, but I also saw the feverish energy emanating from him.
He did not look tired; Seemed... consumed. It worried her and, much to her regret, fascinated her in equal parts.
Ron and Harry, for their part, simply tagged him. "He's a weirdo," Ron said one day, watching him stare at his plate of porridge, clearly absent. "Even weirder than Hermione, and that's saying something." Harry nodded, agreed.
Meanwhile, in the teachers' room, the debate was more serious.
"His flying notes are still impeccable," said Madame Hooch. "A natural ability I've never seen."
"But in Transfigurations," McGonagall sighed, "his job is ... lazy. Correct, but lazy. It is a lack of respect for the matter."
"It's a shame," Professor Sprout muttered. "A talent like that, wasted out of sheer indolence."
But Filius Flitwick, his Head of House, knew that it was not indolence. It was something else. It was an obsession. And he knew he would have to step in soon, before his brightest student was completely consumed.
…..
Timothy knew the conversation was inevitable. It had come in the form of a polite but firm note, summoning him to Professor Flitwick's office that afternoon after dinner.
The office of his Head of House was as full of books as the library itself, but it was a more cheerful chaos. Old dueling trophies glittered on the shelves, and a small silver metronome marked a silent rhythm on the desk.
Professor Flitwick, with his small stature, seemed dwarfed by the immense pile of scrolls before him. He motioned for Timothy to sit down, his normally cheerful face serious and filled with deep concern.
"Ah, Mr. Hunter. Thank you for coming," he began, his sharp eyes fixed on him. "Timothy, I'll be straightforward, because we're both Ravenclaws and we value efficiency. Am... perplexed."
He pushed aside a scroll. "His first weeks were some of the most promising I've seen in a decade. His running of the Lumos was, frankly, at the third-year level. His intuitive understanding of the principles of levitation... impeccable."
He paused, his expression soured. "And now... 'Acceptable'. 'Acceptable' in Enchantments. 'Unsatisfactory' in Divination, although that is forgivable. What happened, boy?"
Timothy didn't stir in his chair. He had decided to be honest. The lie required too much effort.
"With all due respect, Professor," Timothy said, his voice calm, "I'm bored."
The word seemed to strike Flitwick physically. "Boring? Does magic seem to you... boring?" There was a hint of genuine offense in his high-pitched voice.
"No," Timothy replied instantly, this time with a passion that surprised Flitwick. "No, professor. Quite the opposite."
"Magic is the only thing that matters to me. Am... obsessed with it. I love her. It's the most fascinating thing in the universe."
"So?" asked Flitwick, confused.
"It's the classes," Timothy explained. "They are slow. We spent an entire hour learning the wrist movement to levitate a feather, when we could be discussing why the feather levitates."
"We could be talking about theory, about intention, about how our will imposes a new history on gravity. That's what's fascinating! But we only read the first few paragraphs of the textbook and call it a day."
Timothy leaned forward. "I've been reading on my own. In the library. In... other places. And I've realized that what we learn here is just the introduction to the prologue."
Flitwick sighed, a long, tired sound. "Ah, the classic first-year genius complex. Mr. Hunter, you think that by reading a couple of advanced books you already know everything."
"Discipline, Timothy," he said sternly, "the practice of the fundamentals, is the basis of all great magic. You can't build a house without foundations."
"I know. And I respect that," Timothy said. "But I'm not reading 'a couple' of books. I'm reading... all of them. And it is not arrogance. It's the truth."
Flitwick stared at him. She saw the honesty in the boy's eyes, the dangerous spark of an all-consuming obsession.
"Very good," said the professor, deciding to put that claim to the test. "If it's so advanced... prove it to me."
It was not a challenge. It was a request.
Timothy nodded. He reached for his wand. He simply looked up at a heavy bronze book that was on a tall bookshelf, at least three meters high.
He concentrated, not on the words Wingardium Leviosa, but on the feel of the book. In the idea that it was in his hand.
With a gravity-defying smoothness, the book slid off the shelf, floated silently across the room, and landed in Timothy's outstretched hand.
Flitwick's eyes widened. "Non-verbal magic. A first-year student..."
"That's just levitation," Timothy said. "Professor, you taught us Lumos the first week. The theory behind this?"
"The conjuration of an orb of pure light, channeled through the wand...," Flitwick began to recite.
"Exactly," Tim interrupted. "But why an orb? Why not a leaf?"
He lifted his wand, and from the tip of his wand, a light sprang up. But it wasn't a sphere. It was a flat blade of light, sharp as a razor, which cut through the air with a hiss.
"Or a thread?" he continued. The light changed, becoming a shiny, thin fiber that spread to the ceiling.
"It's the same principle," Timothy said, as the light faded. "It's just a different story. An orb is safe. A leaf is useful."
Flitwick fell into a stunned silence. It wasn't just magic without a wand. It was understanding. The boy wasn't reciting spells; I was improvising them. I was treating magic as a language.
"Merlin...," the professor whispered. ¿Where... where has he learned that?"
"From a book I found," Timothy said simply. "It's called Forms and Functions: Beyond the Standard Spell. I read it last night. And it made sense."
Flitwick slumped into his chair, looking at his student as if he were seeing him for the first time. I didn't see a lazy boy anymore. He saw a prodigy on a scale that he had not encountered in his entire career as a teacher. A prodigy who was, dangerously, consuming himself.
"A talent like his... it is a rare and dangerous thing. It's not something to play around. What he just did... Most adult magicians wouldn't be able to do it."
"I know," Timothy said. "That's why the classes seem to me... Slow. I'm learning more in a night at the library than in a week of school."
Flitwick nodded, his Ravenclaw mind conflicted. "I get it. Believe me, I get it. The hunger for knowledge is the trademark of our house."
"But," he continued, his tone turning to that of a teacher again, "what I can't allow is for that hunger to consume him. He can't just abandon his other responsibilities."
"The other teachers are worried. McGonagall thinks he's arrogant, Sprout thinks he's lazy. If their grades continue to fall, I will be forced to take action."
Timothy frowned. The idea of losing access to the Chamber was unacceptable. "That would be... counterproductive."
"So, we need to come to an agreement," Flitwick said, watching the opening. He saw the boy's calculating mind at work.
"I cannot, in good conscience, force a mind like yours to keep pace with others. It would be a crime against magic itself," the professor admitted.
"But I also can't let him fail in his basic duties. I propose a compromise. An agreement between you and me."
Timothy waited, his expression wary.
"I'm not asking him to be number one in the class. Frankly, I think that would be a waste of his time," Flitwick said. "But he must maintain his qualifications. ' Exceeds Expectations' in all subjects. Not less."
"You must turn in your work on time. You must participate in the internships. He must show that he masters the curriculum, even if it seems boring to him."
"And in return," Flitwick concluded, "I, as your Head of House, will make sure that the other professors understand that you are working on... 'advanced projects'. I will give him the space and freedom he needs to continue investigating on his own."
Timothy considered it. It was a price. An annoying price, which required me to waste time on trivial tasks. But in exchange, he obtained freedom. The freedom of the Chamber.
It was a logical deal.
"I do," Timothy said, holding out his hand.
Flitwick shook the young man's hand, feeling the power latent in his grip. "Good. I'm glad we understand each other, Mr. Hunter. Now, leave. Have... a lot to think about."
Timothy got up and walked out of the office. The corridor was silent. He had won. He had secured his access to knowledge.
As he walked back to his shrine on the seventh floor, a smile was drawn on his face. "Exceeds Expectations." It was a small price. He could do it while sleeping.
In his office, Filius Flitwick poured himself a glass of sherry with a trembling hand. He realized that he had just made a deal, not with a student, but with a force of nature.
And he wondered, with a mixture of terror and excitement, what kind of wizard he had just helped unleash on the world.
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