After relocating to the new school, the classes started right of the bat due to the international events and happenings, and surprisingly, not a single student complained. Therefore, for the second-year student it meant getting a two-week special course on occlumency. The art of supressing emotions, clearing the mind of thoughts, and building shields and defensive mechanisms.
Contrary to the Harry Potter books and online speculations Sebastian had heard his friends talk about, Occlumency was not getting penetrated over, and over again by a greasy ugly guy, or imagining a random thing which would come to exist and defend your mind. Because if that were the case, Sebastian would just summon Goku, one of the strongest anime characters he knew, or Kirito and Asuna with their fucking plot armour.
No, it was based on several different categories mentioned at the beginning of their first class. You could go on about controlling your emotions, which Sebastian was just as good at, as Severus getting a girlfriend. Then, there was clearing the mind, which was very different from controlling emotions. On one hand, clearing your mind meant literally thinking nothing, but this was only practicable as a support for the other types of Occlumency. On the other hand, contradicting its name, clearing your mind could also mean fulling it with so much trash that no one, not even the best mind rapist would be able to know what you actually think.
Lastly, there was building shields and defensive mechanisms. It was divided into several steps, firstly, building shields around your mind, which you would have to imagine as a cloud. Therefore, your shields would have to be spherical. The more shields you create, the harder it gets, and creating the first one usually took around three weeks to achieve. Then you could build defensive mechanisms. This was where you could go wild but with a hard limitation.
You would only be able to use mind energy, which was literally pure magic which was subconsciously used by every wizard inside their own body, primarily their mind. It could not be used to cast spells and was very limited in quantity and properties. Yes, you could imbue it with properties using intent, but it was very hard and depended on talent, which Sebastian surprisingly had, but only for offensive defence mechanisms, like destroying other peoples probes of mind energy or even hijacking it, which was difficult if you did not even know someone was there, but yes.
Luckily, there were new methods to bypass that, which was by letting someone else build in your mind and this would last until it was removed or destroyed. Unfortunately, the properties were even more limited this way, and they only got two shields, one maze mist, which also functioned as a detector after the shields were breached, one small layer which would tell you if someone came close to your shields, and lastly, a kind of energy force field which would try to divert attacks autonomously if the attack is detected.
In the end, Sebastian tried out different mechanisms he came up with and signed up for the Legimency course the next semester, as always wished to mind rape someone since reading it in Harry Potter. Well… mind reading was cool?
Most of the small wizards also realized that Occlumency was mostly useless if your enemy wasn't specifically focused on battle mind magic, as most knowledge which could have been extracted when captured was protected by pacts and vows anyway.
Yeah, after the wizards weren't as degenerate anymore after the ley lines reactivated, they realized they could just use rituals, pacts, and vows to protect any important knowledge. The best thing was, you could even create rituals, and all the others, to only work for a limited time or to dissipate when special requirements were fulfilled, like the muggle parents seeing their children again, or saying a safe word while stripping for Dumbledore in a tanga. Literally anything!
The two weeks passed and now it was time to do something special xD. Something they did not know about before they were called to. Therefore, upon arriving, the now second year students fully undressed while blushing furiously. Fortunately, even magical children that not even start their puberty with twelve or thirteen, therefore only a few boys (and girls) risked looking at their counterparts.
It was weird, but for a ritual to work, you need to be fully naked and there would need to be at least ten other people nearby, naked as well. The more there were, the stronger the ritual, though most rituals had a low upper cap.
It was weird to think about. Just imagine Tom Riddle standing naked amongst his death eaters which were naked too, doing a ritual and transforming into the abominations he was, turning into a snake. Sebastian even wondered if he lost his little snake for turning into one…
They were also warned about rituals, as many old rituals included dead cocks, virgin sacrifices or even gay intercourse, all while being watched by other people… yeah, the old times were crazy.
Luckily, there were also many druid rituals, which only needed animal or object sacrifices, like the head of a basilisk, or doing something as a sacrifice, like giving head to a basilisk. Nahm there were also normal ones, like dancing naked in the sun, bathing in tears or other random shit if you wanted to call it normal.
In the end, their own ritual was an ancient Celtic ritual to help the body. It granted increased strength and senses. In rare cases even night vision or superficial bat senses, aka weak radar.
Sitting down on the ground, Sebastian felt the cold marble touch his ass, making him shiver all over. What made him shiver as well was Nadine next to him. Now, he did not think of children his age as sexy or something, but he felt oddly attracted to her, though not on a sexual level.
"Please, take each other by the hand and create a connected circle so that we may start.", a female voice said. Fortunately, the old woman leading the ritual was not included in it, so she wasn't naked. Otherwise, Sebastian suspected that he would not be able to sleep for a week at the very least, and not in a good way.
He took Nadine's left hand into his right, while grabbing Alexanders arm in a no-homo way in his left, all the while having his eyes closed to focus on the ritual.
"Close your eyes now.", he heard the voice of the granny, as he expected beforehand.
"Swosh"
Sebastian heard a fire being lit in the centre of the circle, rising towards the ceiling of the ritual room, built to accommodate any kind of ritual.
A warm silence pervaded the air, plunging the students into a bright darkness. It was blue, no green. No, now it was purple.
It was strange. Loud and shouting into their minds but soothing like a healing quietness. Hot, like a fire burning his insides, but cool like an ice bath healing his internal injuries. Bright, like a supernova in close vicinity and dark, like in the deepest cave. Shaking like on a boat during a wild storm, and still, like flying in zero gravity. Distant, like the father that left you to get milk, and close, like the soothing hug of a beautiful girl with a very ample package.
[A/N: I hope my gf doesn't read this.]
A thumping went through the earth, or at least it felt like that as their bodies swayed like in a trance.
'Thump'
'Thump'
'Thump'
It resounded in their bodies, hearts, in their minds.
It was a bit painful at first, but slowly they just felt warm, like cuddling into a blanket in front of a warm fireplace in a dark and cold winter night, while snow continued to paint the world white.
Suddenly, it smelled a bit funny, like something Sebastian knew but could not describe. Then, the warmth in his body turned to heat, while the funny smell started to stink.
A sudden pain shot up Sebastians back, right up his spine and to his head, until everything became dark, and he passed out, like all the other children. He would have panicked if they hadn't been told that it was normal for the first few times, like an immunity building, comparable to apparation, just that it also raised their resistance against rituals, until they would have to stop at seven. Sure, you could bypass that, but if you did, you would have to sacrifice something big, which turned out to be Voldy's nose in his case. Truly ironic. But now was not the time to think about that.
It rather was much more interesting what currently happened in China, where the second fight between War Wizards was about to commence on an even bigger scale…
[A/N: This chapter was a lot of fun to write. Stay tuned for the next chapter.]
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Any wishes for villains/challenges/plot?
Please comment of errors or loopholes.
Remember, it is my first ff, so don't expect too much.
There will be chapters on Saturday/Sunday, depending on the power stones from now on.
50 = 1 Chapter on Saturday
100 = +1 Chapter on Sunday
200 = Additional bonus chapter