Saturday morning Luca that pulled an all-nighter was still energetic and thinking deeply about the words spoken by his Philosophy teacher, rays of light on the sheets he spotted from the corner of his eyes took him out of the daze. Shaking his head with a satisfied smile, the boy thought he spent a productive time contemplating. Stretching the long-numb limbs and yawning, he overlooked the dormitory, sight hanging on the bed of his friend, Winnetou, with its curtains closed so not a peep could be made inside. His still agile and active brain came up with an idea, a malicious smirk forming as he recalled all the times of a ‘wake-up call’ on the receiving side of which he was, admittedly voluntarily, still, it required a small payback in his spontaneous opinion.

As stealthy as he could, Luca tiptoed barefoot next to the bed and pulled on the curtain, flinching as wooden circles it slid on collided. Now with access to the body of his roommate, he took out a wand and started choosing which jinx to use, observing Winnetou’s face in the meantime, imagining his changed shape, wounds suffered, and various effects he learned to inflict upon others magically. Before he could come to a decision, the Native American boy opened his dark eyes and locked sights with Luca calmly, the boy awkwardly retracted his tentacle and stretched his lips in a grimace that was intended to make him look friendly.

“Morning.” Luca greeted cheerfully to a snort from Winnetou.

“Change clothes, Club starts soon.” he uncovered himself and went to the opposite side of the bed, reminded Luca went to get ready in big strides, after he washed up and wore a pair of a bit tight shorts and a t-shirt he barely put over his head that hugged his muscles to the point of almost being able to refer to it as a second skin, the boy went to quickly write on a piece of parchment his request for Mr. Grimsditch to learn connecting minds with people, if the craft of reading thoughts was a sensitive issue, he told the old owner of the Inn to forget about it and thanked in advance for taking a moment to reply, putting the paper in his pocket to visit Grace in school’s Nest later in order to send it. Two Knights went out to take the stairs down into the Wampus common room, already filled with their former and newly recruited colleagues and those who wanted to try and join. As Luca was about to take the last five steps separating him from the floor full of fluffy carpets, a piercing whistle briefly silenced the room.

“So young but already knows how to make the girls swoon, well done, positive teachings of the Makris family do rub onto people that spend time with us, it brings tears of joy into my eyes! My boy!” Leonidas shouted after he gathered everyone’s attention, rubbing his eyes in a fake manner and conjuring a white handkerchief with a sleight of hand, pointing his hand to Luca in his clothes on the verge of ripping.

“I should have bought new clothes, yeah.” Luca agreed with the opinion of his senior, unexpectedly he seemed to enter the period of growth even more rapid than when doped with drugs. Going forward, he greeted his former sparring partners and went to find one of the triplets he needed at this moment, Leonidas eliminated, he had a fifty percent chance. “Alexander?”

“Yup, want to try a spell again?” eyes of the blonde Greek boy lit up with anticipation.

“Guessed it, this one is supposed to disarm so take out a wand.” Luca led him over the wall next to the exit and chanted, spectators having a brief argument over what improvement or deviation could there be on this one, Themistocles supposed his brother’s wand had a chance to shatter. “Expelliarmus!” a scarlet light bucket thick shot out, slamming into Alexander whose clothes and wand flew in the direction of Luca that dodged narrowly a pair of boxers in white-blue vertical stripes going straight for his head.

“Aaaaa!” Alexander’s lifted voice neighed as he put both his hands over the briefly exposed bare member to the laughs of the audience, his brother now crying for real as he plunged headfirst to roll all over the ground.

“Note to self, never again use expelliarmus.” Luca stated his resolve aloud as he watched the triplet cover himself with a cushion on both sides and go to retrieve his wand then used to cast reparo on the ripped garments, nobody helping him at all as they were busy coming up with jeers and one-liners to tease him.

“Really low from you people, let’s go for an hour of warmup, that geezer must be waiting for us.” Themistocles didn’t laugh at his brother’s misfortune and led the way outside the castle, just as he predicted, Fontaine waited for them on the grass doing pushups with one hand alternated after each repetition.

“Teacher.” Luca came up to him, the man got up with a push of his hand and looked at his student with a somehow resigned expression.

“I arranged all deans to teach your class, nice nepotism, aye? You did well to ditch potions, I never bothered standing over a cauldron since graduation.” a short sigh after he continued. “Let’s get serious in here, I couldn’t find even one vampire that had ties to Blanco family over the summer, timid rodents scurried away from their dens leaving thralls to a doomed fate. Sorry about my failure, you got to bleed a while longer it seems.” the vice-headmaster chastised himself over the perceived defeat.

“Huh? Who’s bleeding?” Winnetou on the side caught something from those short sentences.

“Nobody, I want to ask Mr. Grimsditch for instructions on mind-reading, is that impolite, considered trying to peep into some secret?” Luca voiced his concerns handing his letter over to his teacher that skimmed through it.

“Tom should at least agree to send you a book, no problem. But I can’t help if you want to train, could never grasp those brain-burning topics.” Fontaine handed the piece back and took a position. “Come on, was there any progress or did you slack for the entire duration of holidays? Let’s see if this year you can run faster than this grandpa.” he sprinted forward without waiting for Luca to react, the boy running after as did most of the Wampus gathered. An hour later, they gathered panting again, the only people with no signs of breaking a sweat were the pair of master and apprentice.

“Well, what outrageous activity you have an intention of engaging in now that the three of you got in power?” with interest Fontaine asked the triplets looking especially at Themistocles, members of the club that overheard it and were present when the ‘incident’ happened two years ago held their breaths in trepidation and worry.

“Read a book today.” Makris answered plainly, he seemed to try and maintain his majesty since becoming a president, carrying himself in a stoic manner.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Are you serious? Where is that book?” Fontaine rose his brows suspecting some sort of hidden foul play.

“In the Library, I will read it aloud for everybody.” Themistocles said calmly.

“Alright, those sorted to Horned Serpent and Wampus simultaneously are really tarnishing reputation of the warrior’s house.” Fontaine went away after spitting a joke, apparently refusing to supervise a literary event.

“What’s the title?” Luca blurted out as he was the first Knight that came to his senses after hearing that shocking plan.

“You will know, just follow me, Merlin-forsaken gang of illiterates.” Themistocles rolled his eyes and went to lead the group again. It turned out that he read Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’, a good choice if the absolute focus of the listening hundred was to be taken into account, the Club of Horned Serpent that arrived later couldn’t believe their eyes at the scene, their confused leader decided to have his people listen too, Luca’s sight involuntarily following his triggered perception that detected a strong source of magic fell on the arm of Melin Berbat, the youth now on his last year of education. Their gazes locked for a second, Luca read an undisguised malice from it, a quick blink and turn to the side later from his would-be victim to cover it up.

Without overthinking, Luca thought it normal, either way, he had no remorse at all for his outbreak back then. Knights skipped lunch to listen to the entirety of the book in one go, Themistocles’s voice breaking at the end of the session rewarded with warm cheers and congratulations, Luca, finally free, could go and send the letter. He climbed up the main staircase, exchanging a couple of words with Abigail floating there on duty by coincidence, and went outside to the castle’s roof where a small room stretched out by the charm, ostensibly added after the rest of the school was built, existed, a wide entrance of which eagles flew in and out of, it contained the ‘pet-center’ of eagles and other birds students brought to live with and communal ones if anyone needed to send a letter. His pet in an obvious position impossible to miss, surrounded by male eagles of all species and pyramids of fresh prey they hunted and brought as an offering to the Goddess in the hope of catching her fancy, Luca’s companion proudly raising her head and basking in the inferior species’ subservience and envy.

“Hey, Grace!” Luca shouted and waved to her, the golden eagle lowered her beak and glided over from her perching place, the employees of Nest coming over to in turn fawn over her owner as people that spent such money for a ‘lease’ agreement were seen to be naive and easy to scam by them. He sent his letter and left, the reply came faster than the boy expected, and by the end of the day he held in his hands ‘Open Minds: Legilimency For Dummies’, Luca had to wonder if this was a series Mr. Grimsditch wrote in its entirety and what other books were there, almost tempted to write a letter again, he decided against disturbing the old man so frequently.

“Trouble…” on the first page the boy read the prerequisite for starting was a mastery of advanced occlumency, a spell needed during the basic training. Alexander had to suffer further harm, the boy apologetic but finding no other choice than to continue using him as a guinea pig, someone had to suffer for his progress, better to be a slight freak like the Makris triplet. Sleep after a night spent awake felt sweet, the next day the study group went fine, Abigail could help with math and potions that brewing process of went unchanged for centuries, after dinner Luca walked to meet his teacher inside the dean’s office and the ghost girl on the side, starting the conversation with seeking advice on how to complete one of his goals.

“I want to learn French, how to do it correctly?” the boy inquired.

“Fine, we will try to talk in French then. How many words do you know?” Fontaine asked if he had any contact with the language.

“I know some, my father sometimes spoke it, probably around a thousand, how to count, and some basic conversationals.” Luca estimated.

“Hey, I don’t know any French, don’t leave me out!” Abigail reminded them of her presence.

“Read a dictionary then, they are in the Library as far I know going between any possible combination of two languages, a maaaassive section.” Fontaine waved his arm up to point out how many dictionaries the school had. “And you learn with him. Don’t interrupt anymore, today I wanted us to do two things: your magic has some sort of an attribute - most likely life or vitality - judging from the Herbology lesson I heard about, I remember we didn’t get to make you cast a spell on Abigail because I got distracted - do it now.” Fontaine activated his glasses and squatted on the side of Luca to have his tentacle right in front of his eyes.

“Petrificus Totalus.” the boy cast his favourite spell but didn’t know if he should hope for it to work or not. Regardless of his entanglement, Abigail without fail turned into a sculpture, her face impassive, she didn’t seem to think it would work.

“Hey, first clue! I still have zero clues as to what it means…” Fontaine and Luca alike gave up before coming to any coherent conjecture outside of an alien experiment, they decided to see if the spell expired as Luca’s average one would, leaving the perfect work of art that could put even Michelangelo to shame standing in the middle of the room as they continued.

“Second point is this, you should start learning some serious skills. I admit to having gone a bit astray, an easy and fun route, during our previous year.” Luca recalled their eccentric lessons and nodded rapidly, not an ounce of disagreement. “So we will start with one of the two most important defensive spells, protego.” vice-headmaster threw a roll of parchment at him, containing notes and tips on how to cast the barrier on yourself, hang it in the air, or around an object, the skill normally taking months and years to acquire taught during Offense classes, inability to cast it lowering marks by two motivating basically every wizard in America to know it. “Is this one of the charms you can cast like they are nothing, or will there be trouble?” curious Fontaine sat down and observed while drinking coffee as Luca read standing in place for five minutes.

“I think it’s simple.” the boy took a breath after summing up the instructions and connected with his soul. “Protego!” his power unfolded into an opaque white egg, hitting his forehead in frustration Luca Granger now trapped inside of it.

[Finally, a full book, where I should have started publishing. If you think my writing has any value and would like to own it, go search for Kervath You-Know-Where and subscribe for a month, details on bonuses received for your money there. If not yet, stay tuned until half a million words get written, maybe you will grow to appreciate Extended Potterverse enough by then.

First chapters of Durmstrang and Uagadou entries in my series are out, along with fairly sufficient for now plots for those schools, I basically know what and how to write about them, all needed is time spent pressing the buttons on my keyboard.

Durmstrang: 18+ because of gore and themes, written in first person past tense as a sort of memoir.

Uagadou: 12+, no explicit scenes, narration stays all the time with MC, written in more personal third person past tense, I looked into writing in present tense but it looked just dreadful, I haven’t read a book written like that in my life.

Write a review or comment even if it is one star or just “...” three dots, I reckon it helps make the books more visible. I won’t delete any opinion as I heard some authors do, at most I will respond trying to correct and put my thoughts of doing things the way I did them. Wish everybody that reads it to have a good day, cheers until the next half-a-book.]