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Chapter 8: “Exploration”
🕑 Added 2024-01-02 15:57:44 +0000 UTCJames spent the days waiting for his 6th birthday. Despite not having a wand, he will get two very interesting books to study.
On the one hand, the "Statutory Book of Spells" is a collection of books written by Miranda Goshawk. The series includes seven books, his father will give him the first of the 7. Generally, this book is used for first-year students at Hogwarts.
'Although I don't think it will take him that long to learn it completely...' thought James a little worried.
His incredible memory and high comprehension would make studying the book theoretically take little time, luckily he got another book, though not a spell book.
It's a potions book for beginners: "Filters and Magic Potions" contains information on how to brew a range of potions, although James was more interested in charms, potions were still a very interesting subject to learn.
In addition, his father was a potioner or potion maker, i.e. a wizard who makes potions for a living. A very successful potion maker, Fleamont developed Sleekeazy's hair potion and scalp treatment. This potion serves to tame thick and unruly hair, allowing you to style it elegantly.
Thanks to this potion developed by his father, he quadrupled the family's gold. It was even featured in a front-page article in the Prophet. The Prophet was the leading newspaper for British magicians.
These days his father told Euphemia about the deal he made with James, and she agreed as well. She would consider herself a very bad mother by not letting her son learn, besides children generally don't want to read academic books.
"James" said Euphemia calling out to her son.
James who was reading a magazine about quidditch looked up and asked, "What's wrong, Mom?"
"I've noticed that you like magic books very much, well not all of them, the ones about the history of magic bore you. If you invite your friend to your birthday, I will give you a present that you will like very much" said Euphemia with a mysterious smile.
James stared at his mother thoughtfully, as she named magic books she must be referring to some magic book she might become interested in.
"Alright, I'll do it" James replied with little confidence something uncharacteristic of him.
"You have about 20 days left, I'd say you should go to the square and settle your differences with her" commented Euphemia.
"How do you know we're fighting?" asked James a little surprised.
"It's not difficult. These days you stopped going to the square, you must have argued or something. It's normal to have your differences, but you should talk and make up" said Euphemia caressing James' head lovingly.
"Ok, I'll try" said James, as he hugged his mother and left in the direction of the square.
What his mother didn't know was that this wasn't an argument between children. The problem was that he punched two children in the face and Emily ran off with her older sister.
Besides, the other problem was Gwen who seemed very classist and wouldn't let Emily be with James.
'Why must she have such a crazy sister?' thought James annoyed remembering Gwen's crazy blue eyes.
Arriving at the square he started walking around looking for Emily. After about 5 minutes, he could see Gwen's gang, only this time Emily was there too.
Emily seemed completely out of place, she didn't look comfortable and wasn't talking to any of the kids. Crabbe and Goyle already had their noses healed.
James followed them secretly without being seen, however, Emily never left the group, so he had no opportunity to talk to them alone.
3 days passed and he didn't make any progress, he couldn't talk to Emily even once, as she was always with Gwen and the other kids.
On the fourth day, James thought it was going to be the same, but the gang of children started walking towards the outskirts of the village.
James didn't know what their objective was, as he couldn't hear them. So he decided to follow them.
'Where are they going?' thought James with some curiosity, seeing that they went through the forest. They didn't have their parent's permission to do this.
After a long walk, the group of children and James who was following them unseen, arrived at a place that looked abandoned. The day was waning and it was already somewhat dark.
In the center, the gang discovered an ancient stone altar covered with moss and vines. The inscriptions on the altar are illegible, and the atmosphere is eerie.
"We're here! This is the book place" said Gwen with excitement in her tone.
"Hey Gwen... it's dangerous, it's getting dark already" said Crabbe in a fearful tone.
"Tsch what a coward" said Gwen with disdain. Despite his appearance, he was much scarier than he looked.
"Gwen, Crabbe is right, they say that at this hour the ever behind comes out and his favorite prey are humans" said another boy fearfully.
The ever behind is similar to a thin, tall bear with silver fur. It also walks on two legs, giving it a very scary appearance.
The children, upon hearing the name of this creature, trembled with fear. The almost night sky, plus the haunting altar and the silent forest created a very scary atmosphere.
"Don't be an idiot, that's a myth, their parents tell them that so they don't go out at night" said Gwen.
"How they are all cowards, I'll go first" said Gwen fearlessly.
Gwen began to approach the altar, as she saw the immense darkness and the mossy walls and strange stains, she began to feel fear. She couldn't show it, so she kept walking, stepping fully into the altar, without warning, the ground beneath her began to shake.
The floor suddenly collapsed, dragging Gwen down. Falling into the abyss, Gwen screamed in fright.
Crabbe, Goyle, and the other boys were paralyzed with fear and surprise, watching in horror as their friend disappeared into the abyss.
Panic seized the children, believing it was the work of some dark creature like the ever behind. Without thinking of the consequences, they began to run screaming away from the place abandoning Gwen.
The only one who stayed was Emily who had a very worried face, "Sister!" she shouted as she approached the altar, she noticed the big hole that was made in the floor and thanks to the fact that the ceiling had some holes the night light entered, which allowed her to observe Gwen lying on the floor.
"It hurts! Help!" cried Gwen in tears as she lay on the floor, feeling a great pain in her left leg.
"Sister!" cried Emily in desperation, she didn't know what to do. She never saw her sister crying, which made her very nervous, her heart was beating a thousand per hour.
The first thing she thought was to jump, but she noticed that there were many meters which would cause her a lot of damage. Besides, how would she get out later carrying her sister?
Gwen's screams of pain made Emily more nervous, her eyes began to fill with tears, "What do I do? What do I do?" she murmured nervously.
As she was about to jump, as she didn't want to leave Gwen alone in that dark place and crying in pain, she felt someone tapping her shoulder.
She turned her head in fright, as she didn't expect someone to be so close to her, "James!" exclaimed Emily as she noticed the jet-haired boy, for some reason seeing him made her feel very relieved.
"Do something, please!" begged Emily with tears in her eyes.
James thought it was weird to see Emily in that state, but it was normal, as her sister was crying and screaming in pain.
"Stay back, you're not going to fall" James said in a calm tone as he looked down. Emily nodded and took a few steps back.
He noticed Gwen had a piece of stone in one of her legs, plus the fall must have caused some damage to her back or arms.
'The problem will be climbing up while I carry Gwen' thought James as he examined the hole as quickly as possible. With everything already on his mind, James jumped without warning into the hole, Emily was surprised.
What surprised her the most was that James was falling slowly, as if he was floating. James landed without a scratch on the ground, looked up, and noticed Emily's "O" shaped mouth.
He quickly walked over to Gwen who was still crying, her face was covered in dust and dirt and she had a few cuts on her arms, although they were not very deep. The most serious wound was the large rock on top of her leg.
"Help... snif..." said Gwen crying.
"'Calm down' said James.
"Potter...?" asked Gwen opening her eyes slowly and painfully.
"Yes, listen I will take out the stone that crushes your leg, the bad thing is that you will feel some pain, are you ready?" asked James.
Gwen nodded slightly, sobbing and trying to mentally prepare herself.
James approached the big stone, first, he tried to lift it with his strength, but it was useless, it was too heavy.
'Only magic is left...' thought James who had never tried to move something so heavy with his magic.
He stared at the stone and used all his concentration to move it, after a few seconds, the stone began to shake. Slowly it rose into the air and moved away from Gwen's crushed leg which produced grunts of pain.
Plaf.
The stone fell to the ground and made a thudding sound.
"Phew..." sighed James with sweat on his forehead.
'It's bad...' thought James as he looked at Gwen's leg which was somewhat disgusting to see. However, he knew that with magic it could be as good as new.
'Mom will be able to fix it' thought James.
"Don't look at your leg, I'll lift you now, with your arms around my neck" said James as he instructed Gwen.
With difficulty he managed to get Gwen behind his back, the girl clung tightly to him, her leg was dripping blood and she was in a lot of pain.
"Take this" James said ripping a piece of black cloth from his shirt, for Gwen to bite down on so he could help relieve some of her pain as they headed into town.
Gwen agreed and bit down hard on the cloth, 'Now comes the hard part...' thought James looking towards the wall.
With his current magic, it was impossible to float a person several meters, let alone two people. The only option was to climb like a muggle would.
