"Feel my magic?" Bell signed, her sky-blue eyes narrowing in confusion.
The classroom buzzed with the particular chaos of first-year students attempting new spells. Feathers floated, dropped, and occasionally spun in wild circles as my classmates wrestled with their first real charm.
I ran my fingers through my hair, frustrated at my inability to explain something that felt as natural as breathing to me. Was this also why i could use my I Cast magic, was it because I was a scribe. I really had to get my hands on that hat. Regaining from my thoughts I looked back at Bell and signed.
"Yeah when you use it, can't you feel it moving through your body, kind of like when you have a bad stomachache and can feel the vomit make it's way up, it's something like that."
Bell just stared at me like I had just said something completely batshit insane. Her expression made me realize I probably needed a better analogy - comparing magic to vomit wasn't my finest teaching moment.
I scratched my hair, trying to find a different approach. The magic in the room swirled around us, each feather seeming to leave a small trail of magic as they floated. "Ok scratch what I said then. Do the wand movements for Wingardium Leviosa."
She performed the movements carefully, though not quite right. The magic gathered around her wand but dispersed before it could take effect, like water slipping through fingers.
"Did you feel something move through you?"
She shook her head, and I could see frustration beginning to build in her eyes. Around us, other students were having varying degrees of success. Rebecca had managed to make her feather float vertically slightly, while Kenneth's had somehow caught fire - which was impressive considering we were supposed to be learning levitation.
I scratched my head even more vigorously, willing an idea to come. "Grr okay then. Do the wand movements again."
As she repeated the motion, I watched how her magic responded, trying to understand why she couldn't feel what was so obvious to me.
"Do them slowly, I'll move your wrist."
I placed my hand on her wrist, and immediately felt the connection, just like with the gargoyle - her magic swimming inside her like a lake. Carefully, I guided her through the proper motion, showing rather than telling. The feather responded, rising briefly before settling back down.
Happy sounds escaped Bell's mouth, but I pressed on, determined to help her understand. "Did you feel it that time?"
"Feel what?"
"Your magic Bell, your magic."
She shook her head, and I felt a familiar frustration rising. How could she not feel something so fundamental? It was like trying to explain color to someone who'd never seen it.
"Ok then we are doing this until you can do it on your own."
For the next fifteen minutes, I guided Bell's wrist movements, paying careful attention to how her magic flowed. With each attempt, I learned more about how magic worked inside a human body, how it would work inside mine, after all it's much easier to see someone do it than actually doing it yourself and I was going to use this principle to help me advance in my own way.
The Sorting Hat's words echoed in my mind. "You truly are a scribe." Was this what it meant? This ability to read and understand magic inside beings? The question nagged at me even as I continued helping Bell master the spell.
The bell's chime interrupted our practice, and students began gathering their things. Bell rose to leave, but Professor Flitwick's voice cut through the noise.
"Felix can you stay here."
I quickly signed to Bell. "Go, Drake is waiting for you in the mess hall if I can make it I'll go see you guys there."
She nodded and left with the others, while I remained behind. The classroom was now silent and the streams of magic from the feathers dissipated with nothing to sustain them, that being our own magic which made me think back to the sentient objects and how they had their own magic, I really needed to get my hands on them.
"So Professor why am I here? Did I do something wrong?"
Instead of answering, he walked to his desk, which was covered in a ton of different magical instruments. I recognized some from my mother's classes - a compass that seemed to always be pointing at Flitwick, something that looked like a modified Probity Probe, and several devices I couldn't name but desperately wanted to examine.
"Pull up a chair."
I did as instructed, watching as he climbed onto his desk.
"Sit."
I sat.
"Good now that I'm taller than you we can talk."
I bit back a smile at his practical solution to our height difference. The professor's eyes, sharp behind his glasses, studied me with surprising intensity.
"Did you learn magic before coming here."
"No, I mean I learned and read the books with my mom's help but I didn't use any of the magic in the book."
"Hmm okay that's good. Your mother is Felice right."
I nodded.
"I remember your mother it was my first year teaching and it was her sixth year here at Hogwarts."
I wondered where he was going with this.
"Well you probably know that your mother as a muggleborn was placed in the Slytherin house, a very very rare occurrence in fact your mother is one of the few to do so in the past century. There were seven others beside her, one which turned out to be a half-blood actually though everyone thought he was a muggleborn at first. What I'm getting at is that your mother was crazy and ambitious enough to actually get placed there meaning she learnt a little known secret among grown wizards from those families. Do you know the secret?"
I shook my head, though my curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
"Well there is this little glitch in the system to detect magic from minors, we don't actually know who cast the magic only that the magic was cast in the vicinity of a minor, you see where I'm getting at?"
The pieces clicked together in my mind, forming a picture of a clever yet easy to spot deception. "Yes, if a minor were practicing magic at home they could just say that the magical parent was the one practicing the magic right?"
"Good so you figured it out, now the reason why I'm telling you all of this is because I want you to be sincere with me and tell me if you used this method, I won't be mad I promise, I won't even tell anyone."
I was kind of appalled at the insistence, like couldn't I just be that good at magic
"And I'm telling you I never learnt magic from the curriculum at home."
I didn't technically lie after all my I Cast magic wasn't in the curriculum, loophole!
"Well then that's good," he sighed. "You have a talent for charms like none I have ever seen, being able to cast a new spell even one as simple as Wingardium Leviosa without a chant in your second try."
Before he could continue, I felt an urge to demonstrate something more impressive. I mean why hide, my magical prowess this was a school not a war zone after all.
"I can also do this."
Without looking back at the feathers scattered across the desks, I moved my wrist exactly as I had guided Bell's. The magic flowed through me in that familiar squiggly pattern, connecting to each feather like invisible threads. With a thought, they all rose in perfect unison. I felt a smile form on my face, helping Bell had been much more helpful than I imagined.
Flitwick stared at me for a few seconds, closing his eyes and massaging them with his fingers under his glasses.
"Of course you can, well this just made it all the easier for me to reach my decision. It's something solely reserved for fifth years or above but it is something that will help you and all magic should flourish and be trained upon, so here's my offer. Become my assistant and I'll teach you everything you could possibly learn about charms."
I felt a growing smile on my face as possibilities unfurled before me like pages in a book. This could be, no, would be an amazing opportunity In couldn't miss it so without a second thought I agreed.
"Thank you professor, I will take you up on that offer."
"Wait a second, my soon to be assistant. There are a few conditions to this, first is that once you reach your third year I will start giving out responsibilities for you like grading homework from 1st and 2nd years for example. The other thing is that you won't be able to an assistant to another professor."
I considered his words carefully, weighing the pros and cons but then I thought of something else. "Would you be able to teach me other subjects aside from Charms."
"I'm pretty good at Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Transfiguration. If I could say so myself with the first two I'm as good as the teachers of said subjects while I'm a little worse than McGonagall at Transmutation."
"One more thing can I have access to your part of the library?"
"I will do you one better, I'll check out books that you want from the restricted library as long as they aren't about rituals, black, blood magic or anything which I can see as detrimental to your development. Plus I can teach you dueling if you wish since I don't mean to brag but I'm one of the best duelist in the world. So what do you say?"
The answer was obvious. This was exactly what I needed - not just to learn magic, but to understand what made my magic different, what being a Scribe meant. Maybe somewhere in those restricted books, I'd find the answers I was looking for.
"I say yes, let's do this professor."
I clasped Flitwick's small hand with mine almost equally small, feeling the magic in the room shift, this was going to be so, so much fun.
"Let's do this assistant."
A/N: The more ps you use the more extra chapters I'll upload: Top 100: +1 bonus chapter, Top 50: +2 bonus chapters, Top 20: +3 bonus chapters, Top 10: +4 bonus chapters, Top 5: +4 bonus chapters, Top 3: +5 bonus chapters, Top 2: +6 bonus chapters, Top 1: +8 bonus chapters.
If you want to read ten advanced chapters, you can do so at Patreon.com/JoanjudoStories