"Mr Lionheart, what exactly happened here?"
"They fainted, guess they were tired." Allen shrugged his shoulders.
Madam Pomfrey on the other hand, furrowed her eyebrows, then let out an exasperated sigh. "I understand, a few students have been coming to the infirmary because of them, so I'll let it go just this once if I discover that it is as you say, and they just 'fainted' now, off you go. Shoo, shoo."
She kicked him out of the infirmary before he could say anything else.
—----------------------
Allen had hoped for that little scare to calm them down, alas, things don't always go to plan. They became increasingly obnoxious, the good thing was that they didn't remember him being the one who scared them, otherwise the twins would've hound him down the rest of his school life.
*Sigh*
'Good thing that I'm a second year… I barely see them when I'm on and about during classes, so hopefully things can stay that way.'
—--------------------
He continued to explore around the castle in his free time, and whenever he memorized a part of it, it would be time to translate it to his mindscape, of course, he first started with the great hall, since it would be weird to have an entrance without anything inside of it, then he worked on the next major hallways of the castle, after that it was turn for the small passages and hidden corridors. He made sure to always work on the major hallways but after constructing a few of them, the rest of the castle followed suit.
Of course, there would be a few things he wouldn't be able to replicate even if he wanted to, one example would be the Room of Requirements, or the exits leading to Hogsmeade.
—--------------------
One of the creations he was most proud of, even if it was not something he thought of himself, was the alarm spell he used to scare the living daylights out of the Weasley twins.
It was a specified spell that was capable of mixing with others, and with sound as well, just like in this case. He casted multiple spells, sprayed around the corridor with a specific timer, and when the timer was done, it would activate the sound, the footsteps. Allen delayed the time in between each spell to create the illusion of walking from both sides.
A few alarm spells shot out of his hands, creating a circle around a target, each spell had different intervals for activation, and all of them had the expelliarmus spell engraved onto them.
After the first expelliarmus was shot, a new one followed five minutes later, another one two minutes later, sadly, the last two spells shot at the same time.
'Damn, it gets really hard to get a track of time, when there's multiple of them.'
There's a few downsides with the spell, but they can also be advantages if you know how to play your cards right; First of all, you'll need to specify the time, how long it will take for the spell to activate, second, the direction of where you want the spell to be throw off, in the case of sound, in the case of sound would be the same.
—--------------------------
He blinked a few times before taking a big puff of air through his nose.
"So… Bored.
What the hell, why is a magical school so boring…? Nothing ever happens! No big bad guy to take down, no secret passages that guide me to a secret chamber (for now) and no horrifying monster with an unspeakable description for me to kill to then harvest and use all of its body as materials… (for now)"
Allen suddenly stood up and scratched his head out of frustration.
"Everyday is the same thing! Wake up, go to class, do homework, eat…! At least when I was in the orphanage I could do more, now I feel like I'm being watched every waking moment. If it's not the damn ghosts it's the damn twins, and if it's not the twins, it's the whole school! Because they are scared of my Mystic Gaze.
I'm tired!" He shouted in a fit of rage as he pulled the grass from the ground.
He flopped on the ground again. "I mean, getting my grades up is entertaining but, it just became something mechanical at this point. I know what we are going to cover and I can manage to do it after one or two tries."
'What about a hobby? Something that doesn't have to do with magic, otherwise I might go crazy.'
His eyes blinked slowly a few times before an idea came to his mind. 'Drawing, maybe? I mean, I used to do it before… Maybe I can do it again now. I used to entertain the idea of one day being good at it.
Yeah, why not. Couldn't be worse than now.'
Contrary to his expectations coming from his previous life, drawing became a sort of relief for him. And it helped that there were so many interesting things around the castle. The castle itself was something he paid the most attention to, specifically the details of certain parts of hallways and rooms. Something he wouldn't have been able to see before if he didn't try to draw it as detailed as possible, this then translated into his mindscape, creating a detailed replica in his mind.
Whenever he found something that he couldn't quite remember how it looked, he would take a walk around the castle until he found the place, then draw it.
Back and forth, draw, go to his mindscape to complete it, something it's lacking, draw, go to his mindscape, etc., he spent the next couple of months just like that until he was done with it.
'Finally, it's done! And it only took me… the whole semester!' He exclaimed to himself.
Allen was traveling right now inside of the Hogwarts' Express, going back for the winter holidays to Sophia's state, he had just finished making the last dot of his mindscape on the journey back.
'There! Now, onto the next step…'
He began to circulate his magic throughout his three dantians, starting from his Energy towards his Mind and Body, creating a chain reaction. The more he circulated his magic to power the Mind dantian the more he felt his defenses strengthen and not only that, but even his mindscape began to feel more alive.
At a certain point he decided to start putting his memories in order inside of the mental castle.
One after the other, a menial task that had to be taken care of with the utmost care. He arranged it from top to bottom; in the first floors, his memories from his first years in this world, then his Hogwarts years, of course not much could be filled since he was only a second year, but better start preparing early, right?
And the memories from his previous life? Scattered all around, from one place to another, they took the shape of armors, paintings, instruments, even staircases, leading to other classrooms full of useless memories.
"Allen?"
"Hmm?"
"The train stopped, time to go down."
"Right, thank you Elsie." He smiled at her, taking down the trunks with a flick of his wand and passing them along to each of his friends.
"So, how did it go in your case?"
"Hehe." She beamed him a smile. "The leaf stayed a whole month. Thanks to you and Armand."
"And Sophia?"
"What about me?" She chimed in, pulling down her trunk effortlessly because of the lightweight enchantment.
"How did it go on your end with the mandrake leaf?"
"Hehe, it went just fine." She opened her mouth showing off a clean leaf on top of her gums. "But why do you ask? We held regular meetings, so you should know."
Allen shrugged his shoulders. "Just wanted to make sure. We are closer to the date after all."
"That's right!" William jumped at them, putting his arms around them. "We are ready! The youngest animagus in history!"
"Calm down, William." Armand tapped him from behind. "I'm pretty sure we are not the youngest in history, but at least the youngest in Britain in the last five years, probably.
But since we are keeping it a secret, we can't really tell it to anyone." He shrugged.
"Umm. About that…" Sophia perked up. "I was talking with my dad and… well…"
"No, don't tell me…" Armand uncrossed his arms.
She nodded.
"Argh. Whyyyy…"
"Uh? What? What did I miss?" William asked.
"From what I can tell… We may be required to register as animagus." Complimented Allen for Sophia, making her and Armand nod their heads.
"Ohhh.
Oh.
Dangit!"
"Ahh." The five of them let out a disappointed sigh before walking again.
—-------------------------------
"Well then, let's see how it went for the five of you." Professor Malik gestured with his hands around one kid after another, then handed each of them a phial to put their leaf in.
"Alright, then. All of your leaves are properly inside the phials, correct?"
The kids responded in agreement at the same time.
"Good. Now, Since this is a delicate process but I still want each of you to do it, we'll go one by one, so, first of all, close the phial, one by one, starting with you, Mr Malfoy.
Armand nodded and put the cork in, closing the phial in the most careful manner possible, then, he stuck a tag with his name in the front of it. It was a normal piece of paper with a bit of masking tape, since the less magic you use, the better.
After Armand was Allen's turn, he followed the same process, followed by William, Elsie and Sophia.
Every time one of them finished they would let out their breath, which they didn't know were holding it.
"Good, now, Mr Malfoy, your turn, again."
Armand nodded. "Yes, sir." Then he began to pour the ingredients inside of his phial with the utmost care, and when he was done, he closed it, and handed it to Professor Malik who nodded in approval before putting it inside a box of complete darkness.
They took turns again in the same order until all of the phials were inside their own box. "Good job." He gave them a warm smile as he closed the last one.
"I hope you know what needs to be done now." Professor Malik spoke in a serious tone. "Just because we are done with the first step, it doesn't mean the rest of them are better off.
No, they are as extenuating if not worse than the first one. "I'll tell you how we are going to do things going forward. First of all, these boxes will stay here, in the Bailey manor, with the permission of Mr and Msr Bailey, of course." He added as he looked towards Sophia's parents. They nodded in affirmation. "Except for one. Mr Malfoy's, since he was the one to employ me, I need to take priority with him, so I hope the rest of you can understand."
The rest of the kids nodded.
"Now, where will I take this box? I'll use an international portkey to travel to a place in the world in which there is rain, hoping to catch a thunder as fast as possible, meanwhile, the five of you need to say the incantation that was in the book I provided to you. Every sunrise and sunset before the storm.
You'll feel a second heart beating alongside yours if everything went well, in case you feel nothing, don't hesitate to tell me, we may need to stop the process and start anew. And lastly, why am I doing it at one student at a time? Because it requires all of my concentration to make sure your transformation proceeds as smoothly and painless as possible.
I need to procure a safe location for your transformation, somewhere no one can see, preferably, but one which is full of nature to ease the process. Of course, I'll need the support of your parents since if we want the process to be easier, it needs to be without anything on top of you, meaning, no clothes, glasses, etc."
"Wait! What does that-" Sophia's dad suddenly shouted, worried for his daughter. Then Elsie's dad interrupted him, just as worried.
"What do you mean by that!?"
Before they could continue to argue, Professor Malik pulled out a robe out of his bag. "Fortunately, we at Uagadou, developed a special kind of robe for these situations. They can wear this instead and it will not interfere with their magic.
It's made partially of demiguise hair, unicorn hair and thestral hair. Intertwined together to create this robe impervious to changes. So what is going to happen is that when they transform into their animal, the robe will be left behind. Of course, I need the parents' help to cover them up when the transformation is over."
They let out relieved sighs. "You should've started from there, professor."
He nodded. "My apologies. I didn't mean anything bad by it."
"Then, should we practice the incantation? It needs to be done perfectly every time, otherwise it will not work."
"Yes professor." They answered in unison as they continued with the lesson.