The next morning, Kent woke up a bit later than usual. The mental fatigue caused by the visualisation of the pattern for half an hour had far more serious consequences than he thought.
'Next time I have to be more careful,' he thought while his hands and feet were moving gracefully in a coordinated fashion.
After three years of daily practice he didn't need to consciously think about moving his body anymore while practicing the set of martial arts. It had become an instinct.
But after practicing for so long, he also had started to notice some obvious shortcoming of his practice.
At first when he optimized the set of exercises he mainly focused on shaping his body to have more stamina, flexibility and speed. It was oriented toward dodging and escaping rather than attack.
As a result he lacked a proper means of combat.
It wasn't that having high stamina and flexibility wouldn't help him attacking his opponents but there was a huge difference between having only speed and having both speed and a proper combat tactics. Because its quite impossible to make decisions for every attack you do with conscious mind as it would make your movements slower and predictable.
So he decided to compile and optimize a set of melee combat tactics which also included the use of dagger.
Fortunately he had accumulated huge amount of data in the library of the system.
It took only half an hour to deduce and optimize the melee combat tactics.
"Kent, freshen up. Breakfast is ready," suddenly his mother's voice sounded from inside the house.
'Mom's already awake?' Kent questioned himself before he realised–
"Oops I forgot, I woke up late today," muttered Kent tapping his forehead.
"Okay mom," replied Kent loudly.
...
After a short discussion during breakfast it was decided that Mr. Granger would be going to the clinic while Mrs. Granger would be staying at home.
Although Hermione's fever had gone down and she was in normal condition but still Mrs. Granger insisted on staying home, just to be sure.
Hermione and his mother was sitting on the sofa and watching the television when suddenly Hermione stood up.
"Mom, I'm going upstairs to Kent's room," informed Hermione.
She was still anxious about yesterday's matter, how did Kent know about 'Harry Potter'?
'Did I talk while sleeping?' Hermione thought as she hurried upstairs.
"Don't run on the stairs," chided Mrs. Granger.
"Okay mom," Hermione was already on the 1st floor by the time she slowed down.
...
Kent just finished the practice of visualisation of the pattern when he heard a knock on the door.
He looked at clock sitting the desk beside his bed and noted down the time. After three hours, he would have to practice again.
He opened the door to see that Hermione was standing there.
"Why was your door locked?" asked Hermione as her eyes roamed around the room looking for clues to what Kent was doing.
She was disappointed that she couldn't find anything worth noting.
"I was just meditating," chuckled Kent looking at Hermione's behaviour.
"Do you want to become a monk or something?" asked Hermione jokingly.
"Who knows?"
"Well, let's get down to business," said Kent seriously as he took out a pile of paper from the drawer of the desk.
Placing the pile of paper on the bed, Kent asked, "You want to know how I know the name 'Harry Potter', right?"
Hermione nodded and sat on the bed, looking curious at the papers placed on the bed. They looked like parchment paper.
Kent dragged the chair to the side of the bed where he put papers and sat on it.
"But before that," Kent took a deep breath and asked,"Do you think magic exists?"
"What?!"
Hermione was taken aback by the sudden question.
"How did you–"
"Guess, right?" Kent handed her the top most paper from the pile. There was a realistic drawing of a series of boats with four kids each floating towards a magnificent castle illuminated with lamps, under the night sky.
"Where did you get picture?" asked Hermione staring intently at the drawing.
'Looks like she recognised it,' Kent guessed looking at the subtle changes in Hermione's expression.
Kent had drawn the pictures yesterday night just to check whether Hermione had clear memories or visions of the future or just some occasional visions. As for Hermione being from future, he was not very sure. Kent had observed her for the last three months but couldn't find anything that would indicate that she was from future.
"I drew it," chuckled Kent and handed over the rest of the drawings, "also look at these."
Hermione took the parchments. Putting the rest back on her side, she unfolded the one at the top. It was a considerably small compared to the others.
Unfolding the paper, she saw the sketch of a huge man in shabby clothes holding an equally large umbrella. Most of his face was covered in beard which reached down to his belly.
"Hagrid," she whispered subconsciously tracing the drawing with her index finger. She didn't notice that Kent was looking at her closely.
Her whisper only solidified Kent's guess that Hermione not only dreamt of future but also she could recall the content of the dream.
Putting aside the picture of Hagrid, she picked up the next one.
Looking at the sketch of a classroom, she frowned. It was of a classroom where students dressed in robes were paired together and there were cauldrons placed in front of them. A man with long hair was standing in front of them holding a short stick. Kent had perfectly portrayed the professor's serious and gloomy expression.
Hermione looked a bit uncomfortable when looking at the man. This time she didn't whisper anything but looking at her expression Kent knew that she recognised the man.
She soon moved on to next picture. One by one she picked up the drawings and watched them silently.
Finished looking at the pictures, Hermione took a deep breath and said one word, "How do you know?"
"Hermione, in the beginning I asked you that if you believed that magic exists, right?"
Hermione nodded.
"I also believe magic exists and I also believe that we both have magic powers."
"But–"
"Don't be in a hurry do deny it." Kent interrupted her and continued speaking.
"You remember that in our fifth birthday when cousin Sally teased you about your front teeth and suddenly a book was flung from the shelf toward her,"
Looking straight to her eyes Kent asked, "What do you think, caused the phenomenon?"
Clearly remembering the incident, Hermione was stumped by Kent's questions.
"But, It could be wind or–"
"Do you really think that wind would have such an accuracy that it only flung the book without disturbing other things and most of all there wasn't even strong wind or storm at that time." argued Kent.
"Okay, let's just say that the incident was a coincidence but what about our dream."
"Yes, I also had dreams about the castle and the classrooms and many more," Kent admitted. Looking at her unbelievable expression, he argued, "How do you think I drew those pictures?"
There was a brief silence. Kent sighed and stood up.
"You probably heard about fortune telling, right?" Kent went to desk and picked up a book on metascience on Divination and gave it to Hermione.
"What if, the dreams we had were from future?" Kent voiced his thoughts and without giving Hermione a chance to argue back, he continued to speak.
"It sounds unbelievable, right? I also didn't believe it at first but there are some places I recognised from the dream. One of them is 'Leaky cauldron'. It's a shabby pub on the Charing Cross road. I also visited the place and saw the same kind of people with robes and wands. I even saw them levitating objects," explained Kent although the last part was a lie. He didn't see someone levitating objects. He just made that up.
Hermione's expression brightened up.
"I think magical people or better call them wizards, they might have magic to turn away any non-magical people that's why we don't hear anything about them and the reason I could see them, I guess that I might be magical as well."
"I also think the magical world might be dangerous," Kent took out some other papers that were in his pockets and unfolded them one by one.
There were drawings of huge snake, a huge creature with a small head carrying a big club, three headed dogs, giant spider.
"Basilisk, Trolls, Cerberus, Acromantula. I have seen them in my dreams. The Basilisk can kill a person with–"
Interrupting Kent in the middle of his talk Hermione explained the rest of it, "–its eyes and if a person looks at them through a reflection they become petrified,"
"And according to what I remember from my dreams, I was petrified by looking at its through a mirror." confessed Hermione.
'I might be wrong about her. She knows more than I thought. Did she get memories from the future without affecting her personality?' thought Kent confused by the contradictory fact that Hermione's personality remained the same even with rather complete memories from the future.
'Or her personality is same as that of the future? My impression of her may be biased due to my previous life's memorie–'
"What happened?" Hermione' s voice woke him from his thoughts.
"Yes, as I was saying, the magical world is dangerous. So it's better not to venture into the world without sufficient protection." Kent voiced his thoughts.
"Yes, I know. I had a nightmare yesterday about the man with pale sickly complexion. He called himself V-Voldemort. H-he ki-killed–"
Hermione started panicking.
"Hermione! calm down. That could really just be nightmare," said Kent snapping her out of panicked state.
Hermione quickly composed herself.
"Okay, now that you are calm. Let's talk about the future,"
"If what we saw in our dreams are accurate then we better prepare ourselves for the worst and I think its better not to inform our parents about this. They might not believe us or even if they did, what we saw was not something our parent can handle," suggested Kent.
"Hmm," nodded Hermione agreeing with Kent.