==================== A few hours later================

...

I opened my eyes, feeling a stiffness in my neck.

An overnight of reading had done quite a number on my muscles..... Rubbing it to massage my muscles, I sat up with my back leaning on the pillow...

Books... books everywhere.... Scattered on the floor, near the bed, on my blanket.....in my hand...

What the fuck did I even do last night.....

tsk....I could only click my tongue in annoyance. I do remember that after finding nothing in the first book, I had resorted to indiscriminate skimming of every single book I could get my hands on. After reading to the point of exhaustion, I simply dozed off and left a mess in the room.

Well it couldn't be helped....I shuffled out of bed and got to work immediately. Stacking the books in a somewhat reasonable manner....

At this point I had completely destroyed any semblance of organization in the bookshelf. Either way, once I had gotten myself out of my morning rut, I made sure to go to the bathroom and wash up.

Unfortunately, the water running in the sink was cold....

An unwelcome surprise, I wasn't really bitching about it, but cold water on the face really was a harsh way to start the day. I wonder which psychopath had switched the water? I thought this was charmed to be hot..... Did wizards have plumbers for this?

A failed attempt at a joke... I know. Not to waste anymore time, I dried my face and rushed downstairs.

As I had expected, no one was here in the early mornings. Although to be fair, glancing at the clock hung above the counter, it was quarter past eleven in the morning.. Definitely not early...

I soon spotted Sophie doing her morning routine. Humming a tune, as she wiped down the drink glasses in the bar. It was then that I noticed the plethora of glass beakers, tubes and a stone mortar, neatly lined up behind the counter. I wasn't quite familiar with them, but looked to me like some brewing station.

Potions?... I did scurry through a few books on potions and ingredients in the bookshelf, so it wasn't far fetched to assume she knew how to brew them. I was a bit curious on the process, not entirely interested because I fancied it or anything...but considering its utility and economy. Potion making was not a bad choice at all.

In the end, my ideals wouldn't change at a single glance, potion making was beneficial. But strength was the main goal. I wanted to depend on my own magic. Prove my own strength. As I muttered these things seemingly unaware of the surroundings.

Sophie saw me standing by the staircase and started waving in my direction.

I saw her smiling and naturally, I flashed a sweet grin befitting of a golden child. I had to admit, my acting skills were getting better by the hour.

I didn't just come down here to greet her, well aside from the fact that I was hungry, it had dawned on me that I was also flat broke....

Since I wanted to practice magic, it wasn't a bad idea to save up some money. I also needed some funds to sponsor my growing book collection....

What better way to make some pocket change than to help around the pub? Besides, I was sure the work wouldn't be taxing to me. I wasn't really going to ask for money in return for work. I wasn't that stupid.

But once I helped around for a few days, and then got offered something in return? Well now that wouldn't be bad at all.

So I scuttled up to her and made some small talk...

"Would you like to have breakfast?"...

"No thank you, I will have some later".....

After a few minutes of failing to refuse her repeated offerings for breakfast, I could only give in.....

So she offered me a bowl of stew she had cooked overnight.

A hearty meal later, I tested the waters and asked if I could help around. Seemingly amused about receiving my help.... She agreed to let me sweep the floor and also clean some windows....provided I could reach them....

Finally achieving my goal, I rushed up to get a broom from behind the counter and began cleaning. The pub wasn't too large, just enough to host around twenty people a night.

It was tiled with hardwood flooring and wooden beams in the ceiling for support. Populated with wooden stools and round tables for the customers. Needless to say, I managed to dust the floor squeaky clean in a matter of minutes. I then grabbed a washcloth, dipped it into some soapy water and began wiping the windows down.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Now that I think about it..? I am sure she could have just used magic to do all of this. Damn.... I've been duped..... She probably didn't need any of this done, and only agreed to fulfil my request....So much for helping her out...

An hour later, I had made sure the place was uber clean. I could hear a few giggles now and then as I was working, but once I was done, Sophie praised me a lot for a job well done, and then handed me some Knuts for my work. (A/N: I don't know about Romanian wizarding currency. So I decided to just go with the currency used in the books/movies.)

I suppose she guessed my intentions from the get go...

It was odd seeing wizarding currency but money was money. So with my second goal accomplished, I thanked her and ran upstairs to my room.

Closing the door behind me and hearing a click.. I walked up to the bedside drawer and deposited all my hard-earned money inside.

5 knuts... Not bad for an hours work, I couldn't afford anything practical, perhaps a few toffees if I really wanted to. But the idea was to build up some savings in case I needed the money.

I sat down cross legged on my bed and took a deep breath. Now was the real start of the day. Yesterday, after extensive research within my limited library of books, I had determined that practical experience was the only way to start.

So today I decided to begin practice officially. A few doubts lingered in my thoughts. No matter, they would all fade away once I began practicing. But what should I start with?

Wandless magic was too broad a subject to begin with. I needed to narrow down my criteria. Wandless spells? Not possible, I was far too inexperienced with magic to cast a spell. So far, all I had done was legilimency, but even that was hard-wired into my subconscious and I had no control over it. A few minutes of deliberation later, I thought it best to start simple.

Yeah... start small.

"Forget the spells... the casting.... I need to go smaller" I mumbled under my breath, lost in my own train of thought. It was then that it hit me....

Of course.... start with the smallest endeavor... Start with feeling the magic!

When I first came into this world, I had felt a strange energy coursing through my body. I remember it clears as day. To someone who had lived his whole life obscured and in simplicity. That energy felt unreal.

So I wanted to feel it again, feel it clearly. I took a few deep breaths to slow down my heart beat. Getting rid of the noise was important. My heart beat, the blood running in my veins, my thoughts. They were all far too loud..... I needed silence.

To grasp that mystical energy, I had to focus every ounce of my consciousness towards sensing its flow. So I inhaled a lung full of air, and exhaled it as slow as I could.

Repeating this meditation exercise for 20 minutes. I could finally feel something new. A cool sensation, pulsating in my veins. With every beat of my heart, I grew closer to it. An intoxicating power.

...."Is this magic?"

I felt calm yet ecstatic, powerful but fleeting, impatient yet content. It was a fulfilling sensation.

I can barely recall, but I stayed meditating for hours. Lost in the harmony between mind, body and soul. When I finally opened my eyes....my body felt stronger.

It was a marginal increase, but progress was evident. The more I stimulated my magic, the stronger I felt. If previously I felt hollow, now I felt complete. Like every fiber of my being was interconnected through this power.

I was excited to make progress in my journey, but I did feel my mind become lethargic after concentrating for too long. I succeeded in feeling it today.... But I couldn't control it fully. Not enough to express my will through it

My concerns weren't of much importance. I needed more practice....But astonishingly, meditation despite being helpful for the body and soul, was extremely taxing on my mind. Simply put, sitting still for hours on end was too much for my juvenile brain. It yearned for excitement and adventure, not yoga....

It was a childish concern, but it did remind me of my current predicament. Indeed, it wasn't beneficial to just sit still as a healthy child. It was best that I somehow kept my mind engaged as I tried to sense the flow of magic.

For now I was dead tired and in need of rest. So like a reasonable person, I went to sleep, but not before skimming through a few books... just to entertain myself.

I was bored, and there was nothing to do but read. Besides, I had taken a liking to it. It was akin to reading fictional stories, everything seemed so unreal, even when the books mentioned something complex about spell casting, or potion brewing I felt drawn to it.

This too was a childish desire, but I couldn't help it. Anyhow, I did fall asleep mid reading, so I guess reading books till late night wasn't a good habit. (A/N: This is a personal experience, don't do it kids, that "one more chapter" feeling never ends.)

================================

The next day I repeated the same routine, went down stairs to eat a meal and help around the pub. Once I worked an hour or two, I took all my earnings and stored them in my drawer upstairs.

Sitting cross legged on the bed again, I tried to replicate the feeling from last night.....

I was successful after half an hour, feeling the magic pulsing through my arms again, I meditated. Once in a while, I would try to quicken its flow, at first it was completely useless. But soon, I could occasionally feel the magic skip a beat. As if it had passed a hurdle.

Feeling my mentality drain out, I stopped meditating.....

Estimated time today 3 hours and 34 minutes.

"I tapped out early today...", was it the exhaustion? Had I not rested well enough yesterday? Some doubts resurfaced in my mind. But I decided to ignore them. It was also a logical explanation if my connection with the magic itself had become stronger, hence requiring more concentration.

Considering I could feel it jump and flare up sometimes, this was definitely the most probable answer.

Feeling sluggish, I grabbed the book for magizoologists and read my daily bedtime story.

Before I fell asleep though... I found something odd. Two days, I had repeated this routine, but in no circumstance had I seen Dalton. He wasn't gone... I could still see his shoes by his bedroom door and his coat hung inside their room. But I had not caught a single glimpse of this man for the past two days.... ?

I could tell that he came back late at night, and seeing that he wasn't there when I went downstairs, he left very early in the morning. What kind of work would prompt him to do that? He did say he was an enforcer.... But I didn't quite understand what that work entailed.

Suspicious.... but I wasn't in any place to be asking questions. So I put this thought at the back of my mind and dozed off to a well needed rest.