A short time after the trio broke into the restricted section the school was getting decorated for Halloween and a festive mood spread, even to the trio, of which only one was actually studying the book she brought from the restricted section eagerly:
Lia was fully satisfied with the plentiful knowledge about a usually taboo topic like human transformation and would take the book everywhere, of course only after putting another cover on it and after all of the three had done their best to make sure there was no tracking spell on the book.
Habol on the other hand was quite disappointed with his book as he had expected far more from a book the headmaster deemed to dangerous for the students to access and even though he appreciated some of the more mundane rituals he found inside the only thing that actually lived up to his expectations was a small part about how to create a new ritual, though it didn't even nearly go deep enough into the subject to allow him to actually do so, or at least it would've had it not been for the prior knowledge he already had from what he learned before coming to Hogwarts.
Lastly Julius hadn't touched his own tome even a bit.
One of the reasons he hadn't even tried learning legilimency before coming to Hogwarts had always been his reluctance to face the temptation to read the minds of others whenever there was the slightest temptation to do so or do even worse things if he found out how to do so.
But on the other hand exactly those things he was reluctant to do could be extremely useful in many situations and he had always planned to learn it someday.
…
On the morning of the 31st of October Julius woke up earlier than usual to carry out a little prank he had been working on for a while.
He hadn't just been sitting around and brooding over the moral and personal ramifications of learning legilimency by himself when Habol was learning about rituals and Lia about human transfiguration, instead he had been doing his best to modify the Melofors jinx to not only make it last for a while longer, but also make it as hard as possible to remove it.
To his immeasurable disappointment, Julius was unable to truly reach it goals and still get a stable spell so he focused his efforts on making the spell more durable and decided to get up early enough so he would be able to try the jinx again and again until it finally worked.
Or at least that was the plan.
Unfortunately Habol seemed to notice Julius targeting him and immediately shot up, creating some kind of shielding without even using his wand.
Of course there happened to be quite the power imbalance in favour of Julius with him already having reached the 20-points-mark but even then the barrier which was barely more than accidental magic miraculously managed to reflect part of the jinx with an outstanding accuracy.
Needless to say breakfast had to be cancelled for both of them this morning, but fortunately, or rather unfortunately, the weakened version of the jinx both had been affected by was no longer strong enough to persist long enough to interfere with class and so the two of them had to sit through the usual boring Defense Against the Dark Arts class before they could be able to have at least a bit more fun in potions class, where they were actually learning and doing something instead of the boring repetitions of the Periculum spell together with a fair bit of theory about the assessment of a potentially dangerous situation, something which sounded much more interesting than it actually was.
Or at least that was what it was supposed to be, but of course it couldn't just go as planned.
With the intention of getting some semblance of an efficient use of his time out of the Defense class Julius tried to dedicate it to his studies of legilimency by reading the book underneath the table and outside of the teacher's field of view only to get so deeply engrossed into attempting to deciphering the hints at useful information on the topic that he almost hit his knees on the table when he was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder.
When he quickly turned around Julius found himself looking into the eyes of his Professor and one of the country's top aurors Amanda Crown.
„Mr. Abraxus, stay come to me after the lesson. We have something to discuss."
Julius immediately hid the book under the table and only put it back into his back again after Professor Crown had turned her back again, still hoping she hadn't seen the topic of the book, much less that it was from the restricted section.
As an auror she was after all much more scary than most of even Harry's Defense teachers with the notable exception of Mad-eye Moody, even if he wasn't actually the one teaching.
After the when the lesson ended Julius quickly told his friends not to wait for him as he didn't know how long this would go and Snape obviously wasn't one to excuse latecomers, even if they were from Slytherin, and worriedly made his way over to Professor Crown's desk.
The Professor used the time while students were still leaving the classroom to start writing something on a piece of paper as Julius had no other choice but to wait, with only Rachel's familiar weight on his shoulder to calm him.
As soon as the last student, Julius remembered him to be Aarav, the first one to be assigned a house on their first day, had left the room and closed the door behind him the Professor started speaking, though she didn't look up from what appeared to be a letter, nor did she stop writing it.
"Mr. Abraxus, may I ask why you would be reading about the mind arts, or specifically, why you are reading about the part which is morally questionably enough to make even some of the most power hungry members of the Wizengamot consider banning it?"
During the lesson Julius had already decided to tell her the truth as she was no doubt trained to notice if that wasn't the case and there was no real reason to lie either, legilimency wasn't illegal after all.
Though he would've of course preferred if it wasn't specifically an auror who found out about it.
"I've always wanted to learn the mind arts. I just don't think I can avoid it if I want to take on such a powerful position as the head of one of the sacred 28. And since I found a book about legilimency, or, well, actually a book about the mind arts in general, but since I already got training in occlumency I don't really need that, I decided I'd just try learning as much about it as I possibly can before going back home during Christmas break and getting a book that's actually useful."
The Professor hadn't looked up from the letter she was writing even once while Julius was talking and even after he'd finished speaking she stayed quiet for a bit before apparently finishing the letter and putting it inside of an envelope, only looking at him after she'd closed it and laid it down on her desk.
„I do agree with you on that Mr. Abraxus, but I believe you are too young to learn about something like that. It could have a bad impact on your growth as a person, for example obviously your morals. But I also just so happen to have a good relationship with George and he has been sending me a letter every now and then in which he has been praising you, but he also mentioned how stubborn you could be, so I suppose I can't really keep you from learning.
Because of this I decided on a compromise, basically as a favour to George: I wrote everything in this letter and I will send it to George per owl, if he agrees I will teach you legilimency myself, since I do know quite a bit about it. In turn you will not try anything on your own until then, can we agree on that?"
Julius just nodded, if Professor Crown really was a friend of George, and he would of course make sure of that, it would be far more efficient to get her help instead of trying to figure it out by himself.
Apparently satisfied, the Professor sent him away and Julius again had something to look forward to in the near future.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The end of this chapter seemed a bit rushed to me, what do you think?
(Also concerning the Mig-23 I managed to finally get it, but I'm still failing everywhere else, obviously including writing this fanfiction, I'm just constantly getting distracted by something.)
Thanks for reading and have a nice day (or month until I release a chapter again because I'm just that f*cking lazy).