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(HPMM)Chapter 17: Intense study
🕑 Added 2025-09-07 14:20:22 +0000 UTCThe ham was oily and flavorful with it's spice crusted edges and juicy center. The Rolls were my favorite though as they were steaming hot, fluffy and soft. The butter and honey really took them to a whole other level. Once I was done eating I hauled the trunk up the stairs and across the old creaky wooden floor until I reached the door marked with a seven. Pulling the key Tom gave me out of my inventory I slid it into the lock and turned it unlocking the door with a "click".-
Putting away the key I turned the metal knob and pushed the door open to see what I would be living in for the next month or so. The room was plain with a dresser and bed that had my trunk at it's foot. There was a window that looked out over London at the far end but that was it. The place was clean and tidy though so I couldn't complain. I pulled the other trunk across the floor and set it against the wall before popping it open. I dug out the first copy of my potions textbook for this year and closed the trunk before taking off my shoes and hopping on the bed to get comfortable as I read it.-
The notes in the margins were a mix of fanciful doodling and actual helpful insights that the previous owner of this copy figured out through experience. For example when the recipes for Wiggenweld potion calls for chopped Dittany stalks you actually can cut the time to brew the potion in half by bruising the stalks first by rolling them under pressure. Perhaps not like game changing or anything but this gives a deeper insight into how Dittany as an ingredient works.-
As I thoroughly studied each piece of information in this copy of my textbook and compared it to the original recipes I learned so much more than the mere original texts could give. The many small shortcuts and tricks that I found were in particular treasures and well worth going out of my way to purchase these second hand copies. By the time the sun started going down I had memorized the information within this book and felt much more prepared for Snapes looming presence in the potions class.-
I didn't bother grabbing the second copy of the same book I had in the trunk as I knew soon enough Tom would be coming to let me know dinner was being served. I was right too as within five minutes of putting the book away he did. As promised the meal was much better than the stew they gave us at the orphanage as it was mashed potatoes, gravy and a Salisbury steak with mushrooms. I ate the food with gusto and even gave Tom five knuts for a slice of apple pie. Once I was done though things started to get noisy from everyone coming to the pub for a drink and I turned in for the day.-
Over the next week I would wake up, practice my magic without my wand, eat breakfast, practice magic from the standard book of spells, eat lunch and then study my textbooks until dinner before going to bed. It wasn't the most exciting of schedules but thanks to it had have made a few discoveries. The first was that actually using magic rather than just summoning it up before letting it fade sped up it's reaction time drastically. Thanks to this between my spell practice and morning magical workout the time I need to draw my magic up dropped to a mere three minutes and the speed of improvement seems consistent for now.-
The second discovery was that my wand was more responsive when I had thoughts about how I could earn a profit from whatever spell I was trying to cast. Otherwise the wand didn't seem to care one way or the other what sort of spell I attempted with it. That said I did find it annoying that I couldn't really practice transfiguration. Like the spell was there and all but the book made it abundantly clear why it should only be attempted in the presence of a teacher.-
Transfiguration magic had a bad habit of working on the caster as well as whatever they were trying to use it on without proper focus. Even worse was that without proper treatment these accidents could become permanent. Needless to say I was not willing to take the risk when it wasn't necessary. Still in this week of practice I had mastered four spells already, Lumos, Winggardium leviosa, Alohomora and Accio. That last spell was actually a higher year spell but WAY too useful not to try and learn earlier.-
I hadn't tried learning any of the more combat oriented spells in the book since those tended to be rather loud and would tip off the fact I was practicing magic when I shouldn't be. Also I didn't have a target for them which was kinda important. Look the room was spartan in nature and I hadn't bothered to buy decorations or well anything this whole time. Technically that was on me but the point still stood that I wasn't just going to go casting destructive spells at the stuff Tom owned that I was borrowing.-
The only reason I interrupted this schedule after this week was because something strange happened, I gained a skill.
{Speed reading}
It did exactly what the name said, it let me read faster. I hadn't even considered that I could gain skills manually and this changed things, like a lot. This new skill much like extraction was a cumulative skill that grew alongside my usage of it as well as my knowledge base. In other words the more I read the faster I'll get at it but unnaturally so. Where it would normally take someone months or even years to read a large book in half a day I could in theory cut that time down to a single month or less, with enough effort.
