Passing my NEWT's was simply a breeze, something any four of us could have done years ago and still achieve with ease. And now all that's left for me to do at Hogwarts is History of Magic, Astronomy, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. And only Divination leaves me uncertain about my ability to achieve Outstanding with distinction within those. It is a subject where one either has it or you don't, and I don't so I make for it by being the best I can in as many forms as possible.
The only fun thing that happened was an agreement I brokered with the department of magical education head, Griselda Marchbanks. I simply requested that if a student can achieve the new O++ I am responsible for creating during their NEWT's, then they would be allowed to skip the apprenticeship necessary for a mastery title. The idea is that for someone to achieve the grade at this level, they should demonstrate abilities indicating that they are ready for such a title. That would be the bar set for the grade now and in the future.
It took some convincing and a bit of back and forth between myself, Griselda and the department leaders, but they agreed that such a thing would be impossibly rare in general and that it would be a standardized requirement for a grade they had a lot of trouble with almost 2 years ago, so they agreed to have it added to the official grading system. It would certainly be extremely rare for it to be awarded, but I wanted this set up for myself and my friends. I firmly believe they have reached the requirements for mastery in their chosen fields, only needing to complete the necessary steps. And now I took away the most tedious part for us. It's not like any of us lack experience in our fields of interest anyway. Victoria and I have been helping out Madam Pomfrey for years and she's been rapidly amassing medical knowledge. James has been crafting enchanted gear at a prodigious level and has been involved in the production of my broom. Christian was apprenticed under Newt Scamander, the authority on Magizoology and has been working on his Primal island project with my people. And I have shown mastery of Charms in my products, potions in the innovations I've released under my real name, for Herbology it's my books, Arithmancy for my modded spells and primer, my own rune language speaks for my skills there, a now registered animagus for Transfiguration, my Dueling and combat skills are approved by a former world champion, Aurors and the Head of the DMLE, enchanting with my products, healing with Poppy, and my DADA will be unquestionable once I release my new branch of magic almost designed to counter dark arts.
We have the skills, proof and the connections to get ourselves certified as masters. All that's left is to get it done.
Before leaving the ministry though, I managed to make Tonks promise to hang out during the summer. I wanted to catch up and have some fun with my friend. She always was able to make me laugh when I was being too serious or had an idea for a prank to pull on someone with a stick too far up their own ass. She would hate how Percy ended up. He would probably become her exclusive target for a long time if she knew.
It only took a few days to get my results since I was the only one taking any testing at this time of the year. And the he results of my early testing were great:
-Ancient Rune: O++
-Arithmamcy: O++
-Charms: O++
-Defense Against the Dark Arts: O++
-Herbology: O++
-Muggle Studies: O+
-Potions: O++
-Transfiguration: O++
'I love my brain sometimes.' I thought as I looked at me sweeping my results.
This meant I was eligible for the masteries I had in mind. All of my O++'s are targets, but I also qualify for the Healing, Warding and Dueling masteries on top of that due to my experience and grades. It also meant I was already eligible for almost any job in the ministry already.
They couldn't give me a better grade than with O+ in Muggle Studies for the simple reason that there is actually no mastery in the subject. Wizards are so dismissive of the subject that it's pathetic. I looked up Arthur Weasley's grades when I was preparing my plans and wanted to know the players in the upcoming war, and I found something so ridiculous I couldn't even laugh: the man never even took Muggle Studies. That's right, the man in charge of an entire department focusing on Muggles has never even studied the subject. Even if it's over a hundred years out of date, learning at least some of it would build a kind of foundation to learn from. But no, the man just goes along with his idiocy.
'No wonder he doesn't know what a condom is and has never used one.' I thought as I remembered my previous encounter in Diagonal Alley.
With everything taken care of until the last task, I began to work on my side projects and helping my friends in theirs.
Victoria's projects were the most known ones in the wizarding world. Her two major projects involved her new treatment method for people like the Longbottoms, who've suffered from brain damage due to a myriad of causes and the release of her book on a new age of healing.
The first is being achieved by demonstrating her amalgamation of current healer knowledge, my personal creations, modern medicine and her inventions. The trial has been ongoing since new year and the couple has been showing a drastic increase in brain activity and their memory retention has been steadily returning to normal levels. It was giving the healers hope of new possibilities as each day show's some kind of improvement. Victoria has even received a letter from the Dowager Longbottom expressing her sincere and heartfelt thanks for her efforts and the results they have shown. Neville also come to see the two of us and gave Tory a tear filled hug as the kid kept thanking her, which led to a very funny faced fiancé being unsure of how to deal with such emotional physical contact and simply patting the guy on the back until he calmed down.
She pretty much made the Longbottom family lifelong allies at this point and she didn't even finish curing them yet. And I have no doubt she will succeed. She's actually gotten permission to go to St. Mungo's to monitor their progress a few times a week in order to make sure everything was going well. She understood that a theoretical cure is just that and until clinical data proves it, one must be careful. Our estimated prediction for the two to return to full capabilities is this summer, but they will need extensive psychotherapy and rehabilitation due to the stress the event caused, as well as the need to catch them up on the last decade.
We decided to hold back on the book until the official version of my new magic is generally accepted and proven to work. We want to wait so no one does stupid shit without understanding my magic and tries to heal others by following the steps badly and ruin her work's reputation in the process. But he success with the Longbottom couple will be more than enough to establish her name.
James was actually starting something pretty revolutionary as well. See, even if we are magical guys aiming to reach the peek in our fields, we're both a bit nerdy. We sometimes try to recreate things we've seen in movies or comics of the Muggle world using magic. I am not ashamed to say it was a bit fun to mimic the force and that it was an inspiration for my physical boosting alongside chi. Well my friend is more on the sci-fo side and has decided to create a freaking robot using some modern robotics, his own enchanting and crafting skills, and my binary rune system he's mastered.
Now, it isn't a true robot. The thing would be closer to an automaton from his designs. It would be a humanoid mechanical and crafted being capable of moving and acting based off of its programming. He wants to make things capable of helping him when he's crafting and his idea led to the possibility of bringing automation to the wizarding world. That is something we are still discussing the pros and cons of though.
But all this will be after he passes his final tests to become a master smith this summer. So we've actually been brainstorming and writing down the runes the thing would need to work as intended. I am also making sure we don't get anywhere close to an AI. I know there are good AI's like R2, Vision, EDI and a few others, but way too many dangerous ones pop up. So unless we accidentally create one, I'm gonna try to avoid that problem.
Christian has been focusing on his project with Mr. Scamander and Hagrid as they make the island of their dreams come true bit by bit. But it will take a few years to get everything done proper and have a true ecosystem going on in their magical version of the Savage land. It is a very ambitious project designed to protect many species and encourage reproduction.
My friend has also been writing his own book on new methods of getting materials from magical creatures like unicorn horns, acromantula silk, Scylla scales, dragon blood and even got a piece of Lethifold somehow. And he's also going to be introducing his and his families herbology discoveries, making it a good read for naturists all around.
All three of my friends were making their preparations to show witches and wizards everywhere that they are more than just freshly graduated wizards. They are experts and soon to be masters of their arts. They are strong, smart and capable of steamrolling most wizards in magic and connections.
I'm proud to see how far they've come.
Now on to my life since we returned from the ministry.
At school I was getting my affairs in order mainly. I was giving Cedric a crash course of pretty much anything that came to his mind and an intensive training in combat and Magical Creatures. He seemed to have a passion towards the latter which he said he acquired from hearing about his father's job in the ministry. Amos though was too proud of his son and always pushed him to go for the best, meaning minister, and wouldn't listen properly when Ced wanted to talk about his own dreams.
That resulted in some tension between the two. So I did my best to give some advice on having a proper and confident talk with his father. Helped him plan out what he exactly he could do with his passion and how he could live a happy life with it. I even got Christian involved to have talks together. It helped him a lot since it's going to be his last year next year, and he needed to really think about this stuff.
I've also been helping Luna improve in many areas in the hopes she can take over the exchange after Cedric graduates as well. She would be perfect for the role in my opinion.
The Dueling Club presidents were also being put through the wringer. I didn't want the club to become a joke after I left so I made sure to break bad habits now and bump up their skills and arsenals. Members pitied and envied the four kids in near equal measures. I also taught them how to maintain the club properly by getting new equipment, where to get repairs, how to get funds, knowing club rules and how to use them, and general organization.
They were only nearing the end of their fourth years, but they had the potential to be very dangerous inside and out of the ring. Hannah was a little spitfire when she fought, not afraid to take hits and dish them out. Padma had a very wide array of spells she can chose from to not let her foes guess what came next and showed her ability to link them properly. Ron had a very good sense for danger and well developed body and reflexes, allowing for great dodging capabilities as well as a very solid style based on the maximum usage of set number of spells. Daphne was like a duelist which came out of a book, perfect form and execution, with great knowledge on spells all around.
They were still diamonds in the rough, but after a few more years and some proper experience, they will shine brightly.
The most exciting thing for me was that I had finally completed my patronus project: iustus patronus. (It basically translates to just patron. You know, just as in a just person.)
This particular spell took so long to finish for two reasons: the concept behind it was difficult to quantify and things just kept coming up.
The second is pretty easy to understand. I have a hidden network to manage, my lordship to maintain, other projects to complete, my friends to help, the triwizard tournament stuff to deal with, stuff to do in secret, appointments, training and then I have classes to attend to even if I'm better than the teachers. So even with an few extra hours thanks to my not so legal time turner, it's hard to manage.
My first reason was derived from the fact that the patronus charm is heavily relient on emotions and the person casting it, making it difficult to truly understand how it could be translated to Arithmancy properly. And even after figuring it out I had to find another to fuel the spell while still retaining its abilities and then boosting them. Not easy on any level and that's without mentioning any of the hundred other annoying parts of creating/upgrading any spell.
The end result was something which could be classified as an offensive spell for my white magic.
Let's first talk about the requirements for the spell.
The emotional fuel needed to activate the spell on top of magical energy is still very much present, meaning that even if a caster doesn't have the necessary magic to cast a full patronus properly, the emotions can empower it to that state. That's actually my theory on how students are able to learn a spell beyond the Hogwarts curriculum in the canon, the fact that positive emotions are just as much a fuel for the spell as magic.
My solution to the fuel was to change it to a more solid one. Something which would be more solid when you need to attack and defend against dark creatures. So I picked the desire to protect. The need people have to protect those dear to them. Wanting to protect what you yourself have lost already. As long as a strong desire to protect is there, the spell will be able to form.
Now, the spell has other requirements obviously. This is a white spell, hence the casters core needs to be free of dark magic influence or taint. The amount of magic necessary however can vary greatly depending on how strong the emotions used are. If strong enough, I estimate a mid to late 1st stage should be able to caste a fully corporal iustus patronus.
The spell's effects are generally the same as a regular patronus, but has much strong offensive and defensive capabilities than its progenitor. My new version has the ability actually to tank dark magic until a certain point, it depending on the strength of the caster. This means if someone like canon Harry learnt this, he could at most block a few strong curses, whilst I could tank the Unforgivables with mine. It's offensive abilities are made from a combination of the purifying and destruction aspects found in Phoenix fire. This means that by carefully structuring the intent of the spell and the aspects of true Phoenix fire, I created a patronus with the ability to erase dark magic, dark creatures and thoroughly tainted dark wizards. I don't mean cancel it out either, i mean erase from existence. It matters not if the being should be considered immortal because it is akin to being burnt by an immortal flame itself. It matters not if one is a dementor, lethifold or ancient vampire, they would turn to naught but ash in front of a fully powered iustus patronus. Voldemort would still survive since fragments of his soul are still out there, but that should be the only exception so far.
And as a side effect, it can make people feel safe and protected when it is around you, much like how a regular patronus would calm or make others happy.
There are two obvious differences from the original patronus to tell when casted. The first is the color changing from the pale silvery light to a solid golden one. The second would be the shape. If someone has something like a dog or cat as a pratonus, the iustus version would be something like a wolf or panther. It basically gives a more powerful version of your inner animal spirit represented by your patronus. It's something people can use to get a feel for their animagus transformation so there is a powerful link found in their forms.
That means there now exists a spell which people can use to truly kill dementors. And someone like me could kill a hoard using the pulsing energy a powerful patronus can emit.
This means I've effectively become capable of taking on Vampires and Dementors from Voldemort's army, leaving Wizards and Giants as threats since he already lost the werewolves. He even lost some of his lieutenants without knowing it yet.