Sweet, sweet morning. Everyone loves waking up to someone poking you in your side like you’re a dead animal on the side of the road.
. . .
No, that was wrong. Very wrong.
Pyram took out his wand and pointed it at the children qualming over him and warned them with an icy tone, “I will begin counting down from ten, you all should be out of this room by then.” He began counting, and after the third second, he heard them all scramble out in a hurry.
He sighed and sat up, feeling very irritated that he was woken up before he realized he had classes. Checking an alarm that was set next to his bed, he found that class started in about an hour, so he got up, got dressed, and went outside his room to eat breakfast.
It was a repeat of the day before, literally. It was that one day teachers did the same thing so the slow students could catch up. So all Pyram did was go over everything with his legion so that he could properly fill the role of a good liege.
To make up for the boredom, Pyram returned to the will-do room and asked it to give him some good dueling spells to practice. After reading the book over, he found a particular event that could allow him to practice more deadly dueling magic.
He was training for the troll encounter, of course. Pyram’s wand suggested to him exactly three spells to master. Sectumsempra, expulso, and impedimenta. After a helpful tip from his wand, he found sectumsempra in his potions book–how helpful this genius perfectionist of his– and decided to practice that one first.
According to GP (Genius Perfectionist), the sectumsempra is just cutting your opponent with a wand. Say the incantation, have the intention, and wave your wand at your target. After practicing on a few dummies the room conjured, Pyram found that depending on how you move your wand, your target will be slashed in that same motion.
Say you thrust your wand forward, it would give a more impaling effect than just, say, flicking your wand, which would give the target more of an actual cut. The nature of the spell was, well, less than pretty, but no one is perfect…except maybe Mister Genius Perfectionist, as he apparently reigns supreme in all things that can be perfected.
It had taken about 2 weeks of dedicating all of his free time to the curse to really “get it down”. Although by Sunday, Pyram wouldn’t doubt being able to effortlessly cast the spell without speaking. His wand informed him that this was in no way normal and that he shouldn’t get used to such easy things, but in the end, his mastery of the curse was all that mattered.
The actual school day ended at 3:00 PM and started at about 8:00 AM, which meant that school was 7 hours long, but the prestige of the school and the fact that almost every student at Hogwarts is at least somewhat successful in later life gives Hogwarts its good reputation. Pyram dedicated about 6 hours every day to practicing sectumsempra. Using a little math, one would find that he spent around 84 hours just practicing a single spell. His mastery of the Sectumsempra was self-explanatory.
And so by week 3 of school, he started his second spell. Expulso. Another curse, but at least it sounded useful, so Pyram went with his wand’s suggestion, as usual. Expulso was a curse of the exploding category, so it went along with Bombarda and Confringo, two very popular exploding spells.
It worked by bringing atoms affected by the spell extremely close together and then releasing them all in a sharp and fiery explosion. Since the book that the Will-Do Room supplied for him went that in-depth about the curse, Pyram noted that in the future he could innovate the spell for his own needs, whatever they may be. Perhaps he could even make a slightly risky version of Scourgify.
This was a good bit easier than Sectumsempra because of this; he knew how it worked and what he could try to make the spellcasting come easier. Fast forward a week and four days and Pyram could use the spell properly, then with one more day of diligent practice, he mastered the spell to the point where he could probably use a much weaker version without an incantation.
Next was the Impedimenta, which was one of the more complicated spells which slowed down the target. It would be useful against the troll, but Pyram was a little annoyed at the use of the spell. To slow down dragons and run away. Why would you run away? Don’t dragons have useful potion ingredients?
So obviously, Pyram snubbed all the uses he learned and went on with his learning of the jinx itself. This one was also a good deal easier than Sectumsempra, but Pyram didn’t have the in-depth knowledge of the works so it took a little longer to master it, but when he did he could slow the target down till it would be almost immovable, although this was against a wooden dummy, so Pyram made sure not to overestimate his skill.
This spell had taken significantly longer than the Expulso curse, to Pyram’s dismay, and took a whole two weeks and six days. This wasn’t terrible, in fact, it was rather good because it meant he had 10 days to prepare for Halloween. Maybe he could even find some more cool stuff in the school during this time or read more books about the future from the Will-Do Room, but his wand told him that future seeing only went so far in a world such as this. Bummer.
Nevertheless, his opponent would be a troll and the main trio’s relationship shouldn’t be affected all too much; Harry and Ron would still be concerned enough to face the prospect of meeting the troll to find Hermione, after all.
So yes, was he taking a risk by going after the troll? Yes. Did he think of the consequences? Also yes. Did he particularly care about the future’s “original plot”? Not at all, were his thoughts as he made his way to the girl’s bathroom in the dungeons during the Halloween Feast.
He had scoped out the area beforehand and found that it was an ill-visited place. He knew by now that Quirrell (and Voldemort) had probably screamed about the troll in the Great Hall, so he was on a timer while he ran down many steps to the dungeons of Hogwarts. Then he smelled something awful, and then he heard loud stomps like a drunk person just returned home from a late night out and was lazily walking to bed.
Pyram knew it was the troll. He knew it, and his body knew it. His heart was pounding in his ears and he had trouble focusing on what he had to do. A pulse of calming magic went through his body from his wand, and Pyram knew it had done something because now his heart was beating normally and his thoughts were right as rain.
I know what to do. Pyram pressed into his brain, his soul even, as he raised his wand at the big gray mountain troll and said three words in a deliberate sequence.
“Impedimenta!” the troll slowed down comically as if it had gone into slow motion.
“Expulso!” The explosion sent the troll falling, still slowly, before Pyram canceled his first spell to give it more of a shock.
“Sectumsempra!” With the last spell slicing through the troll’s major neck arteries, Pyram left. He knew the troll would die. Harry and Ron didn’t get to Hermione that quickly.
As Pyram sprinted back to the feast, heart now pounding as it did before, he saw four jumbled lines leaving the Great Hall’s huge doors; Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. He quickly bolted into his own house’s line and scampered down to the back with some alert seventh years who noticed him and pushed him in line annoyedly, one even muttering about terrible bladders and their terrible timings.
Pyram Claraflam sat on a chair in the Will-Do Room, practicing some more spells that his wand offered him. When he asked his wand what the spells were, it said humans didn’t have a word for them, so Pyram went with it.
One spell was supposed to deprive the target of its senses for some time, and another was supposed to send them into a short episode of madness that made the target laugh so hard they shredded their vocal cords. He learned that one the hard way; it kinda sucks having no live test subjects. The Will-Do Room could do many things, but creating living things seemed to be beyond its capabilities. Both were very interesting, to say the least, but there was one particular spell that Pyram was extra-skeptical of.
It was a spell that his wand related to darkness and stealth. The first time Pyram managed to successfully cast it, he had felt an all-encompassing irrational fear that made him scream at what was not there. The Will-Do Room knocked him out after a passing thought from Pyram’s crazed mind, and an hour later Pyram woke up in his bed, all the way up in his dorm. How he was transported there, he didn’t know, but his wand stopped responding to him for a little while after that.
At some point, Pyram felt a distinct change in his body that accompanied a terrible pain that felt like something was tore away at his insides, washed them with hand sanitizer, and shoved them back in without any care in the world. At least his wand came back afterward, seeming to radiate a more familiar air than before.
The spell wasn’t scary anymore, either, so that was a plus. It ended up being able to shroud the very presence of Pyram when he used it on himself, but he knew it had other effects he wouldn’t know until he used it in a situation that called for the effects.
Something called the “quidditch” season started, and everyone that wasn’t Pyram and maybe a few others were excited about it. Pyram wasn’t against it at all; he was all for the rest of the school being distracted by games. This meant that he could happily practice spells for a whole…well, a long time.
The school had been alright. Pyram only practiced spells when his homework and classwork was done, and he tried his best to get a good chunk of it done during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The rest he finished in the Will-Do Room and then he spent the rest of the day practicing his spells. All in all, a very healthy schedule by Pyram’s skewed standards.
Pyram’s wand was often a subject of curiosity from his legion since it didn’t come from Ollivander’s set. Pyram told them that he found his wand in an alley when the orphanage kicked him out and that it had been his greatest friend ever since. His legion then awkwardly apologized for whatever reason and went back to eating breakfast. This was true, but he left out a few details. Pyram didn’t, not really, need to tell them that he had taken it from a dying wizard who wished to give the wand to another before they died.
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Pyram finally got all the spells his wand had given him mastered only a day after the Quidditch season ended, having skipped all six Quidditch games to practice them. Pyram wanted to get ahead of the game now and check out the Mirror of Erised. His end goal would likely be easier when he knew what his greatest desire was.
It had been a while since Pyram had killed the troll–something he had been reluctant to even think about–, and today, December 20th, he planned to do something about the Mirror of Erised. He didn’t know whether it was even in the disused classroom yet. But Pyram had to find it. Both he and his wand willed it, so both he and his wand would find it, regardless of where it was.
So Pyram walked the empty halls with his “mysterious” stealth spell active. At some point, he passed Filch’s cat who stood stock-still upon sniffing the air. It seemed the spell paralyzed whoever found out the user was there. It was around midnight, so no one but teachers were roaming the dark corridors of Hogwarts. As he passed by a door, he felt his wand nudge him and he opened the door in response.
There it was, the Mirror of Erised. Pyram looked into the mirror but remembered that he was practically invisible, so he let the spell fade away. He glanced around the empty classroom with slightly squinted eyes, Dumbledore may just be in this very room, wondering why Pyram was there.
That doesn’t matter, Pyram thought as he looked into his reflection. He saw nothing, but…well, there were no changes in his appearance apart from a dark cloak he now donned with a warm smile, and he was older. Older, yes, but not like an old man. Pyram tilted his head at his reflection, who did not move but only smiled wider. It wasn’t a creepy, villain smile. Just the happy smile of a man who had fulfilled all his goals and only lived in peace.
Pyram smiled back at his reflection and squeezed his wand. Then he began to walk out of the room, imagining a billowing cloak behind him. That was until a voice interrupted him.
“How curious, for you to come here so soon, Mister Claraflam,” Dumbledore said from behind him.
Pyram looked back at the elderly man, who smiled at him, eyes twinkling like his phoenix’s eyes. “You, too, professor.” Pyram regarded his headmaster with a slight dip of the head.
Dumbledore dipped his head in a repetition of Pyram’s action, “What did you see?”
Straight to the point, then. No point in telling a lie for something so pointless. Pyram reasoned as he told Dumbledore, carefully avoiding looking into his eyes, “I saw myself. Older. With a beautiful cloak. It seems I desire nothing more than a life unchanging and predictable.” Pyram thought of a world like that. One with no war, and no governors. Just him and people and nature. Peace.
Pyram then looked to Dumbledore, his eyes having drifted off to look back at the mirror, “What did you see? I understand the weight of the question, but I have told you the truth, and it would only make sense for you to do the same.”
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled again, “Myself, holding a pair of great, woolen socks.”
Pyram’s smile dropped a little, and he sighed, “Goodnight to you, professor. I am far too tired to continue this particular escapade.” Dumbledore had lied to him, just as he did to Harry Potter. Pyram wasn’t angry, he was simply disappointed. He made the long trek back up to the Ravenclaw Common Room.
By the time he had reached the stairs, he had taken almost 15 whole minutes. Why am I so slow? Did Dumbledore do something to me to make me feel so…odd? He was pretty sure Filch had found him because the caretaker was standing right in front of the steps and yelling furiously, pointing at his still-paralyzed cat which he held in his arms.
“That’d be detention…” Pyram muttered with half-lidded eyes as he leaned against the wall, mind swirling around dizzily. He heard footsteps walk up behind him and felt a hand on his back.
He remembered murdering the troll. The cruel coldness he felt spread in his chest when he cast Sectumsempra on a real, living being. He remembered the fear of the spell he cast. It was supposed to put a shroud of stealth around him. But it was terrifying. It hurt so much, he just couldn’t do anything about it. His insides were being shredded about, something ripping up his organs and changing them.
And then he remembered the child he had murdered. Killing a monster was one thing, but a human being? He had been in school. The bell had rang, and then he was forced into the hallway to get to his locker, but then some one pushed him into another persona and he just—snapped. His magic had gone out of control and tore into the kid he had been pushed into.
Pyram emptied his stomach on the stone beneath him and coughed. It was like a kick in the bum, a shock to get him on track again. “Claraflam!” he heard a raspy voice growl at him. Oh, it was Filch.
“Hospital wing, now! Then detention for sneaking out so late!” Filch snarled at him. What a sociopath, Pyram thought as he stumbled towards the Hospital wing as he was told.
“Mister Claraflam–have you been dealing with dementors!? This is unseemly! Here, eat some chocolate, it’ll help-” Madam Pomfrey started. At the mention of chocolate, Pyram felt a jolt of revulsion. Chocolate was the rotten food for people who liked cavities, not Pyram!
“No! No, I’m fine, Madam Pomfrey. I’ve just eaten something bad and decided this night would be excellent for exploring the castle,” He didn’t dare tell her about the mirror, “Honesty!”
In reality, Pyram was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane and was paler than a ghost as he sat on the hospital bed. He felt terrible and did feel like a dementor had almost sucked his soul out, as damaged as it may be.
Madam Pomfrey looked livid, “Well, you’d best stay the night! I won’t be having you collapse in the middle of brewing a blasted potion!” she bustled around, looking for something and finally finding a potion vial filled with a warm, cinnamon-colored liquid, “And if you won’t have chocolate, you’ll have a Winter Fire’s potion, child.”
Pyram reluctantly took the vial and uncorked it, smelling the familiar scent of lavender from the potion. He shrugged and drank the potion, feeling the soreness in his legs fade away a little bit. It was rather like drinking hot chocolate on an empty stomach, which was what he was technically doing.
Pyram opened his mouth a few times, licking his lips and feeling how dry they were. Perhaps dedicating all of his time to his spells wouldn’t be the best thing to do, he thought as he asked his caretaker for a glass of water. Madam Pomfrey nodded sternly and waved her wand. Soon after, a large pitcher of room temperature water–and a pristine glass– popped into her hands and she poured him a glass of water.
Pyram drank it gratefully while Madam Pomfrey set the pitcher down on his bedside table. Pyram then yawned and laid down on the mattress, relaxing his tense muscles and slowly falling asleep under the careful yet strict supervision of Madam Pomfrey.
This time, Pyram did not wake up to the incessant nagging of children, but instead to the incessant nagging of; surprise, crying children! How wonderful to be in the presence of “WAAAAAAH”s and “Oh no he’s dead!”s from his over-the-top legion of babies.
Pyram pinched the bridge of his nose and sat up, sighing when a particularly panic stricken girl shrieked in terror. He held up his hand to his legion and said, “All right, calm down. I was just very “under the weather” last night.”
His legion then, understandably, looked embarrassed and tried to act calmly professional. They ended up just coughing, as a whole, and stating, as a whole but in various different ways, that they knew exactly how well he was and were completely serene about it the entire time.
Begrudgingly, Pyram accepted this in a completely fake act that his legion could clearly see. He then guided his legion to the first period; something he had refrained from doing past the first week of school. It was Defense Against the Dark Arts, DADA for short. During his months of hard spell-practicing, Pyram had gone through halls as if on autopilot. He had gone through all his classes, simply doing the bare minimum aside from that first day.
Perhaps it was time for Pyram to wake up.
Today was a practical class. Good for Pyram, at least. They were on the Verdimillious Charm; a charm that emitted green sparks which could be used to reveal dark magic, cause small explosions, and emit a blinding green light (if it was used proficiently enough).
Quirrell, in his fake stuttering fashion, was asking the students to demonstrate their completion of the spell as a way for him to more easily grade the homework he had assigned them. The homework in question was simply, “C-c-c-ca-cast t-t-t-the ch-ch-ch-charm c-correctly.”
Pyram had finished his DADA homework a while ago, so he was confident when Professor Quirrell called him up to demonstrate his own progress, “P-P-P-P-Pyhram C-C-Claraflam.” although he was a little irked that the possessed teacher still couldn’t get his name right after literal months of Pyram correcting him.
Pyram faced the whiteboard that he was meant to aim at and glanced at his professor, who nodded a little too much. Pyram lifted his wand and felt it rise up with him, causing a shiver to go down his spine. Pyram settled his breathing and incanted, “Verdimillious,” in a finite tone.
Bright, venom-green sparks erupted from Pyram’s wand in a splatter of bright light, casting the classroom into a temporary green hue till they struck the white board and went off like firecrackers. “Ckr! Krkrkrkr!”
“E-e-e-ex-excellent w-work, M-M-Mister C-C-C-C-Claraflam, t-t-ten point to R-R-R-Ravenclaw.” Professor Quirrell jabbered. When Pyram looked in his eyes–for just a moment– he could feel something disgusting clawing at his mind.
His wand pulsed, radiating a primal rage and coldness that went through Pyram’s body and ripped into the thing trying to read his memories. Pyram blinked, took his eyes off of Professor Quirrell’s and quickly walked back to his seat.
Pyram spent the rest of class reminding himself that Quirrell was not simply Quirrell. He was Voldemort. The Dark Lord. Revealing himself to Voldemort was even worse than going up to Harry Potter and telling him what would happen in the following months. His idiot self had just shown off, and now he was on Voldemort’s radar.
Pyram’s eyes focussed when the bell rang, although before he could storm out of the class and to Professor Flitwick, Quirrell called to him, “M-M-Mister C-C-Claraflam, c-c-c-c-c-c-could you stay b-b-b-back for a c-c-couple moments? I-I-I-I-I would like to s-s-s-s-see your V-V-Verdimi-millious Ch-Ch-Ch-Charm ag-g-g-g-gain.”
Pyram gripped his wand, feeling the room’s temperature drop as if it had turned from burning hot to freezing cold in just a few seconds. He walked up to Quirrell, steps ringing impossibly loud in the quiet classroom. He tilted his head a little as he faced the whiteboard once more, asking Quirrell for the go-ahead.
When Quirrell gave a shaky nod, Pyram cast Verdimillious again, producing slightly more aggressive green sparks, likely a result of Pyram’s annoyance with himself, that striked their target and made the peculiar “Krkrkrkr!” noise, the trademark of the Verdimillious Charm.
As the effects of the charm wore out, Pyram looked to Quirrell, only to flinch slightly as he realized that Quirrell had stood right beside him from the moment he had cast the spell.
“Very impressive…” Quirrell (Voldemort?) muttered, seemingly unaware that Pyram could hear him. Pyram edged away from Quirrell, who then noticed him and told him to move on to his next class.
As Pyram swiftly took his seat–facing more towards the front of the class– in Professor Flitwick’s class, his eyes lit up and Professor Flitwick asked, “Ah, Mister Claraflam, I heard from Miss Greengrass that your Verdimillious charm was quite exceptional! Would you care to show it to me?”
How did he even tell you so soon? It hasn’t been 10 minutes. Pyram thought with irritation.
Pyram pinched his nose, clearly vexed that he had to deal with something so stupid, and drew his wand which showed his annoyance by letting out three dark red sparks, all of which gave off a sharp crackling sound.
Just before Professor Flitwick opened his mouth, Pyram said, again, “Verdimillious,” while aiming at a wooden target likely put up for another class.
The sparks were less vibrant, but that was traded for an even more explosive result, so much so that it burned the wood specifically designed to take spells like it, albeit less strong spells.
Professor Flitwick, in his cheery fashion, clapped a few times and gave Pyram’s house 20 points. He then began to teach the class’s next lesson; the mending charm.