Ginny opened her eyes inside of Teregatt for the first time in over a month. She sat up and saw Balthazar standing there as always.

“Are you always standing there?” Ginny asked curiously, “How are you there waiting each time?”

“I have several of your days at least of warning before you arrive,” Balthazar said, “I have been only standing here for an hour or so I believe. We seem to be in a slow cycle in comparison to your world at the moment.”

“Slow cycle? What do you mean?”

“A very large amount of time is passing in Teregatt in comparison to what passes on Earth. Hence a ‘slow’ cycle. It fluctuates over time with no true rhyme or reason. Usually the changes in the passage of time only shifts slowly, but other times it shifts all at once. One day, you may return here from Earth only to discover that not even a single second has passed in Teregatt since you left. This is a fast cycle for us. You are lucky that we are in a slow cycle, it allows me to spend time researching and creating more magical lessons for you to learn.”

“More?” Ginny asked curiously, “Aren’t we focusing on my telekinesis right now?”

“Yes. It is an excellent baseline magical skill. But past that there are many other paths of magic to pursue. I have been creating personalized lesson plans for each path I can think of for you, and will teach you whichever catches your interest the most. I’ve had plenty of time to think about them.”

“Thanks, Balthazar,” Ginny said gratefully, “That sounds like a whole lot of work for you. How close am I to getting there, do you think? Moving on to a new lesson?”

Balthazar rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Based on your current progress and the time differential remains roughly the same...”

“What is it at right now? Do you know?”

“I can estimate. How long do magical humans live on your planet on average?”

“Er, what? It’s a little longer than normal people, I think 150? 200 years? Something like that. Although really powerful people like Dumbledore live even longer.”

“Hm. Then a hundred years about… How long were you in your world? One week, was it?”

Ginny shook her head, “It was actually a month. After a week, it just didn’t feel right. I wanted to go longer for the ceremony.”

“Admirable…” Balthazar said, “So one month. Twelve months in your years. One hundred years. That’s at least a twelve hundred factor difference. Add the time after… Hmmm.”

Balthazar stood there pondering, seeming to do some mental math before nodding, “I estimate the dilation factor of time between our worlds to be at least two or three thousand at the moment.”

Ginny blinked. “What? You’re saying that one second on earth could be three thousand seconds here? You’ve been waiting for so long in the month that I’ve been gone?”

“I don’t mind,” Balthazar said with a chuckle, “The rest of us have all been here for far, far longer than that.”

Ginny blinked again, “Wait, I’ve been here that long before? Each time I was practicing in Terregatt while I was sleeping it lasted over…” Ginny did the mental math, “A thousand days?! No way! That’s… That’s like three whole years each time?!”

Balthazar gave a helpless shrug, “It is the truth. Your body has no need for sleep, rest, feels no fatigue, and your magic will not run dry while you’re sustained by the realm. In this body you have no brain to be fatigued by information overload, no other responsibilities to distract you. You haven’t noticed because the exercises we’ve been doing are largely mindless and you fell into a meditative state many times during our sessions. All this information you experience in this place is encoded in your soul, not your brain. So the information is retained no matter what realm or body that you are in. It’s one of the most complex features of this construct you’re currently inhabiting. It’s why you can retain so much knowledge without forgetting your old self or your decades of practice. When you are here it is all preserved, and will be supplied to your human brain when you are back in your Earth body.”

“Are you saying that I remember everything? Then what about forgetting things on my exams? Why didn’t I remember that?”

“Everything that you learn here is encoded in your soul,” Balthazar said, “As well as all your memories from when your soul first was bound and drawn into Teregatt for the first time. Harry’s memories. Anything you learn on Earth is not similarly preserved and will degrade as memories preserved in brains tend to do.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Okay. But… But… If I’ve been practicing for like… decades… then why am I not done yet?”

“You are already doing well,” Balthazar said encouragingly, “You have a natural talent for telekinesis. Within a subjective century or two, you will have truly mastered the basic techniques.”

“I… I’m over fifty years old now?” Ginny asked in shock, “How could this happen? I’m supposed to still be a kid. I’m only twelve!”

Balthazar shook his head, “Time is a fluid concept here. It rises and ebbs like the tide, but without the markers of the outside world we have no idea of how much of it passes. Did you notice that you were spending years or decades practicing before I told you? Your body has not aged in the slightest more than a single night while you are here. It is best to not count your days here towards your lifespan."

“If you are to believe that you had only practiced for a few hours, then who am I to say anything different?" Balthazar continued, "Who am I to say that it has been decades or centuries instead? Either of us may be right in this place. In the middle of those decades, the time dilation ratio may have shifted suddenly and thrown off our calculations long or short by who knows how much. My answer was simply a guess, that’s all it was. It is not healthy to agonize over what ifs when even I. with such a long time spent in this realm, am unable to determine how long it has been.”

Ginny struggled to comprehend that for a long moment before shaking her head violently, sending black mud coming off her from splattering the area with little wet droplets.

“Gah! I’m gonna… not think about that. Really not thinking about it. Why did you ask about how wizards age?”

“Oh, that Peter Pettigrew died of old age since you were last here. He was around fifty or so years old when you last left, so I took a hundred years and extrapolated as best as I could from there.”

Ginny blinked, “That’s… rather morbid. Did… what happened?”

“Died in his sleep,” Balthazar said, “You’d be surprised how successful he was here. He made some friends among the weaker Servants, despite the stronger ones disliking him for his attack on you. But he grew to like it here, I believe as I told you when you were last here. But even more so as he grew older and the other Servants began befriending him. His funeral was well attended by friends as his energy was returned to the realm.”

“I’m not sure how to feel about that…”

“It was a good end,” Balthazar said, “Better than most get. He came to be grateful that he was brought here in time. He truly had no malice against you or your family. You can at least know that. Plus, he was living as an animal for over a decade. This was a definite upgrade to his living conditions.”

“I suppose. So… I’m kind of nervous now. But should we start practicing now?”

“Certainly. Don’t worry about the time passing, simply focus on completing your task and the time will fly by.”

They went to the room with the floating balls and Balthazar started throwing them at various speeds at her from all sorts of different angles. By now he had graduated from throwing them with his hands to use his magic instead to control them. Sometimes he even nudged the balls even as Ginny pushed them away so she would have to overcome his resistance before stopping it.

The whole thing was about efficiency, so even a spec of lost magic in struggling against Balthazar’s opposing magic tendril was a small loss for Ginny.

At first Ginny tried to strictly track time to try to verify if Balthazar was telling the truth or not. But after a while, the time bled and smeared together and Ginny couldn’t track it anymore as she focused on using her telepathy to keep the metal balls from touching her.

Ginny finally understood what Balthazar meant when she came to in the middle of a barrage of seven metal balls attacking her all at once. She fought it off and realized that she had no idea how much time had passed. Had it been minutes? Hours? Days? Years? The room was unchanged, Balthazar stood exactly where he had been unmoving. No one was going to check them, remind either of them that they had to be somewhere. None of the things in her body that could normally tell her how long it had been. Time was truly… fluid. She’d focus on this task until she mastered it. Her own progress and increasing skill was the only true metric of time here.

So to make time pass faster all she had to do was to do her best to improve. She felt herself relax as her turmoil over Balthazar’s revelations went away. It didn’t matter how long it had been. She had all the time she needed.

She met Balthazar’s gaze and seeing her expression, he nodded his head slightly in approval. Then upped the difficulty of the assault of metal balls and Ginny had to refocus on the exercise.

Time passed. Or didn’t pass. Who was to say? Ginny improved, and that was what was important. Eventually, Ginny felt a tug on the crown indicating that it was time for her to go back to her body.

In one wave of magic she stopped being efficient and shot the ten metal balls around her away at high speed and started standing to her feet.

“Time to return to my body,” Ginny said to Balthazar, who pulled the floating metal balls back to himself and had them float behind him.

“You seem to have had a revelation during our training,” Balthazar said while studying her, “I hope it was a good one.”

Ginny nodded, “I realized that it didn’t matter how long it had been. My own progress was the only way to tell the time for sure. So I have to progress faster to make the time pass.”

Balthazar nodded and shot her a proud smile, “How very wise of you. Keep that attitude and you will go far.”

“See you tomorrow, Balthazar.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

Ginny felt the crown pulse with magic and then she was back in her body on Earth, opening her eyes to stare at the ceiling of her room. It had been eight hours. Years. Who knew the truth of how long? But it didn’t matter. She had improved and it was time to return to her life on Earth where time moved normally again.