{Harry's room, Leaky Cauldron}
The shopping trip had been quite entertaining and revealing about Hermione's family dynamics. Still, with the book in hand, Hermione and Daniel quickly concluded that doing spells in the Leaky Cauldron wouldn't really hurt me as long as I practiced during the day. That way, the pub would be crowded, and the magic could be attributed to anyone.
I hadn't looked at anything else and simply selected the three jeans and T-shirts that Emma had suggested, while Hermione ended up taking the grey and black dress. Emma had also sneakily brought the black dress that I had complimented her on when Hermione and Daniel were busy.
'I can't really get a read on her. On one hand, she seems like she's fed up with her husband, but most of the time she seems content with her little family.'
Not like I was any expert at handling women, I thought, and stopped myself from thinking about my girlfriend from my past life. We were a new pairing, so it didn't really hurt that much, but I couldn't help wondering what happened to me.
Shaking myself out of depressing thoughts, I grabbed the common spellbook and moved on to the third spell listed in it. I expected it to be the levitation charm, but instead, the third chapter listed the Spark-Producing Charm.
'I think I have read about this in fanfiction. It's the red, green, and blue sparkly spells that are the most basic attack spells that you can learn.'
...
'''Red Sparks Charm
Incantation: Vermillious
Classification: Charm
Difficulty: ★☆☆☆☆
Range: 0-50m
Prerequisites: None
Effect: Produces a brief shower of red sparks that can cause minor burns on impact.
Uses: Signaling, Emergency Communication, Wand Testing, Illumination, Celebrations.
Wand movements: Raise your wand forward, then flick it in a circle toward the intended target.
Common failure reasons: Unfocused intent can cause the spell to miss its mark. Unfocused intent could also cause the spell to do more harm than common burns, so please keep your wand away from friendlies during practice.'''
...
'Can't learn this spell inside. I wouldn't want to burn anything,' I thought as I moved on to the next spell.
'''Levitation Charm
Incantation: Wingardium Leviosa (Wing-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa)
Classification: Charm
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Effect: Causes the target object to rise from the ground and remain suspended in the air. The spell also gives the caster some freedom in how they can control its placement.
Wand Movement: Swish and flick toward the target.
The Levitation Charm was invented in 1544 by warlock Jarleth Hobart, who mistakenly believed he had at last succeeded in doing what wizardkind had so far failed to do: learn to fly. The spell lets you suspend inanimate objects in the air by continuously supplying it with mana.
Common Failures:
Incorrect Wand Movement: The most common failure that a new student encounters when learning the spell. The levitation charm requires smooth movement, so any movement that is too sharp, too wide, or improperly timed causes the spell to fail or produces an unstable levitation.
Insufficient Intent: The caster must clearly intend for the object to become lighter and rise into the air. A vague or distracted intention may produce only a slight tremor or no movement at all.
Poor Pronunciation: The caster must speak the incantation clearly. Incorrect pronunciation can distort the spell's magical structure and cause an incomplete casting, which could have a variety of different effects based on intent.
Breaking Concentration: Once the object has been lifted into the air, the caster must maintain focus. Looking away or becoming distracted could cause the spell to lose focus and the spell's magical structure to dissipate.
Attempting Excessive Weight: First-year casters should begin learning the spell with light objects. It is not only less taxing on your magical reserves, but it is also easier to imagine a feather lifting into the air because of its lack of weight rather than a table or a book.
A student is considered proficient in the spell when they can: Cast the levitation charm on a feather reliably, maintain it for at least a full minute, and move the feather in the air on command.
...
The chapter describing the levitation charm was much longer than the chapters on Lumos and Nox. This clearly shows that the spell is harder to learn and that there are many things you need to keep in mind. Reading the confusing description of the spell in the book, I thought of the scenes from the movie.
'Okay, Hermione and Flitwick showed in the first movie that they were able to easily move the feather around however they wanted. But in the second one, when Harry suspended those cupcakes in the air, he used the same charm, but not only does he hide. He doesn't control the spell at all.' I thought, obviously, the movie likely wouldn't be true to the source material, but I don't exactly remember how the spell works in the books.
'Well, the easiest way to figure out if the movie was right or not was to just learn the spell,' I thought as I grabbed a notebook I had stored in my inventory, for notes that I never took, and tore a piece of paper from the last page.
I put the notebook back in my inventory, set the torn paper on the bed, and grabbed my wand. I took a deep breath as I cleared my mind. I looked down at the piece of paper and imagined it floating in the air. I practiced the swish a couple of times before I cast the spell.
"Wingardium Leviosa~" I cast, the smooth, elongated 'U', shaped swish and flick ended with my wand pointed at the piece of paper before I lifted it up. The paper thankfully followed my wand movement and floated upwards. It didn't wobble in the wind like a feather would, instead, it floated up to about 4 meters before it stopped.
...
[Spell Learned: The Levitation Charm Lv 0 (5/50)]
...
'Interesting,' I thought as I moved my wand around and the paper moved with it like a drone in a horizontal plane. When I thought about lowering it and moved my wand around, it descended in a vertical plane. It felt less like free control and more like playing a game with up, down, and left-right controls.
Still, I grinned as I waved my other hand underneath it, as if I was proving to a real audience that this was real magic. My concentration lapsed and the piece of paper floated down, following a far more natural trajectory. I stared at my wand and fed mana into it as I pointed at the falling piece of paper, and unexpectedly nothing happened.
Unlike Lumos, the spell didn't resume just by feeding my wand with mana, which means the principles that I had discovered this morning weren't foolproof.
'Now I need a new theory...'
AN: 23+ extra chapters on P.atreon: P.atreon.com/AndreaHodges