Kieran felt his magic drain as the image appeared before him.
A beautiful robin with vivid colours in its feathery plume.
Kieran smiled to himself as he stood in his spot in the back garden, listening to the rain plitter and platter against the roof above him.
He already knew his theory about magic being akin to a muscle was correct two weeks ago, but he promised himself he would reflect over his theory a month later.
And so, he did.
The progress of his magic reserves were miniscule from day to day, it could however be felt much clearer from week to week, and especially now after a month.
During the last two weeks he had tried a different theory.
What if you don’t drain the magic reserves completely, but only to near empty?
His result was that he felt less growth the last two weeks, after testing this theory.
It appeared that fully draining your magic reserves caused the fastest growth, a task that would only get more time consuming as your reserves grew.
This would explain why some wizards and witches stagnated.
Their magic reserves grew slowly because they barely spent any magic throughout the day once they reached a point where spending their magic would take hours upon hours.
The solution would be more challenging and costly spells, but unless one worked with their passion, why would they use these costly spells?
When he started using his magic, he lasted about 50 minutes before his magic reserve was fully drained for the day.
Now, a month later, his magic reserves could last 70 minutes.
It was not as long as he wanted it to last, but it was proof that consistent hard work would reward him over time.
His magic reserves were just one aspect of his progress this first month.
His greatest achievement, in his own opinion, was that he could now meditate while standing instead of sitting down.
It was step one of the plan to be able to run while meditating.
Even if that particular plan took years upon years to develop, it would be worth it.
Through countless experiments he had reached a theory on how magic worked in the Harry Potter world, the inner mechanics the books never went over since the story was more important.
He had arrived at a framework: Mindset, Emotion, Magic and Intent.
The four pillars of mastering magic in his current world.
Until he got a wand, the only way he could train his Intent was through meditation, hence deciding to see if he could meditate while moving.
It was a challenge, which meant it was worth doing.
As long as he continued with his persistent and consistent effort of draining his magic reserves, his magic reserves would grow naturally.
Emotions was the manipulator of the result, while also being one of the levers needed to develop the right mindset for a particular piece of magic, but emotions were not alone as levers.
Other levers were gestures and incantations, all tools to create the correct mindset for a spell.
As Kieran stood and meditated, thinking about his theories, he heard a voice from inside.
“Kieran! Lunch is ready!” yelled his mum.
Kieran startled out of his current thought, not having realized it was already afternoon.
As if summoned by his thoughts, he felt his stomach rumble, signalling the hunger that he didn’t notice until now.
“Coming!” Kieran yelled back, as he ran inside to the kitchen where his mum had prepared lunch.
As they sat down to eat, his mum asked how practice was going and Kieran reported his results.
Kieran knew that while his mum and dad were still new to their new reality, they were doing their best to understand magic, for the sake of him and Aunt Abi.
“Mum, did you get any replies back from Aunt Abi yet, regarding the owl mail I sent to Mr. Craig?” Kieran asked.
Kieran was curious about the wizarding population in the British Isles, since the books of his former life tended to be very inconsistent.
Aunt Abi had no idea how many wizards there was in the British Isles, therefore Kieran finally had an excuse to send a letter to Mr.
Craig; surely a Ministry official would know, or at the very least have the resources to find out.
He had also asked various other questions while he had the chance.
Questions such as how many wizarding towns the British Isles had and where Hogwarts was located.
His mum dabbed her mouth with a napkin after she finished eating.
“Abigail has not received any owl mail as of yet, I am sure Mr. Craig will reply when he gets the chance, he did warn us that he can get busy after all,” his mum said smiling.
“I knooow…I will be patient…well…more patient!” Kieran said, making his mum laugh.
He hugged his mum thanking her for the food and did his best at helping his mum put the dirty dishes away.
Before his mum was about to retreat to her study room, he held onto her shirt.
“Mum, can we play a game?”
His mum raised her eyebrow at him holding onto her shirt but smiled.
“Of course, sweetie. What game do you want to play?” she asked, while grabbing his hand with her own.
“Dad started teaching me chess last week, can we continue that? I want to defeat dad!” he said, smiling happily at the thought of his dad’s face when his 5-year-old son defeated him at chess.
As if reading his mind, he saw his mum shake her head.
“Of course we can play chess, sweetie. I will do my best at helping you learn it, but you must know, your dad is better than mum at chess. You will need to practice a lot,” she said with a faint smile.
Kieran nodded excitedly and ran to the living room to grab the chess set.
When asked what colour he wanted to be, he picked white.
The colour reminding him of his white flames.
He never really played chess in his former life, he barely knew the rules.
It was exciting to genuinely learn the game from the teachings of his parents.
Kieran could not help but daydream at the thought of becoming a master of chess.
First, however, he had to beat his mum, then his aunt, then his dad…and then the world!
Kieran shook his head at that silly thought, as he moved his knight, preparing to take his mum’s bishop.
Maybe he could challenge Ron Weasley at chess?
He was known for being a chess genius in the books, would be fun if he ever got the chance to interact with the young ginger boy in such a way.
He didn’t hold back a giggle as he took his mum’s bishop.
His mum prepared to move her next piece, but Kieran was already planning ahead to take her knight next.
“Checkmate,” his mum said casually.
Kieran gaped at the chess board.
By moving his knight, he opened for his king, allowing his mum to checkmate him.
He felt his mum ruffle his hair and said she was taking a break for now to do the laundry, leaving Kieran to stare at the chess board, trying to figure out how he had lost so easily.
…
Later in the day, at dinner, Kieran was forced to endure the laughter from his dad when his mum shared their game.
“Kieran, you are still young. While your dad is indeed invincible in chess, your mum isn’t an amateur,” his dad said, then leaned in and gave his wife a kiss that made her smile, before focusing back on Kieran.
“I hope you practice with chess, and maybe you will actually stand a chance against your old man before you reach my age.”
Kieran did his best at ignoring his dad’s smug smirk, determined to learn chess properly, if only to beat his dad at the game, allowing the smug smirk to belong to him!
After dinner, he went to his room and sat on his bed, staring at the various posters of nature on his walls, enjoying the view.
Various books were placed in a mess on the floor, his window showing the darkness of the night.
If he squinted he could barely see his meditation spot.
He closed his eyes, feeling his magic within him.
His magical reserves had recovered a tiny bit; therefore, he decided to perform his before bedtime ritual, ensuring all his reserves were drained.
This time however, he wanted to try a different way.
Normally he would create an illusion, then repeat it until his reserves were empty.
Today he wanted to experiment a bit.
For some time, he had wanted to try to see if it was possible for him to conjure magic that was not only illusions.
He wanted to create light.
Illusions were a form of light, at least in a realistic sense.
Magic tended to change the rules.
He would assume that his illusionary images were a reflection of magical light created through his own emotions, mindset, intent and magic.
What he wanted, was not an image.
He wanted to create pure light.
He focused within himself, feeling the warmth of his magic, imagining the warmth as white flames cycling through his body.
For illusion magic he always directed the white flames to his fingertips, he felt as if he should try a different direction for the light.
He opened his left palm, facing it up towards the ceiling.
He tried to focus on the centre of his left palm.
Concentrating as he tried to direct the white flames to the middle of the palm.
Light was brightness, it banished the darkness, but what emotion should he invoke to produce light?
And what mindset?
The actual spell that wizards and witches learned to create the mindset was the Lumos charm, they learned that saying Lumos created light.
Through practice they instantly entered the mindset upon using the trigger word.
Kieran wanted to do something different.
He wanted to create light without the incantation; therefore, he needed another trigger, another lever.
He could use a gesture as the lever.
It would work in theory, but he was very unfamiliar with gestures as triggers, just as he was with incantations.
He was at the moment mostly familiar with emotions.
Therefore, he wanted to use emotion as the lever, the trigger to create light in his left palm.
He tried considered what light meant to him.
Not in a general sense, but when he, himself, thought of light, what did he feel?
His first instinct was that darkness was cold and light was warmth.
Light was the sun rising as it spread the warmth to the world as it ascended to the sky.
He tried to recall the feeling of sunlight on his skin, the sharp light from the sun as he avoided staring directly at it.
Kieran opened his eyes and stared at his left palm, directing his white flames toward the centre of the palm.
He imagined the warmth he felt when he cycled his magic.
He imagined the white flames becoming warm.
He remembered meeting his Aunt Abi, the warmth he felt at meeting the new addition to his family.
He thought of the sun and it’s spreading of warmth.
The emotion, his magical energy in the form of the white flame, and his intent directing all of it to his left palm culminated.
Then he saw it.
A small pinprick of light floats above his left palm, shining brightly.
Kieran sat there for a while, admiring the success and the beautiful white light.
Can I go further?
He held onto the emotions and directed more white flames toward his palm, watching as the pinprick of light grew and grew, becoming a small ball, growing according to his will.
Too fascinated with his new magic, he had forgotten he was near empty before he started.
The last thing he saw as he blacked out was the beautiful bright white light floating above him as he fell backwards, landing on his soft bed, his vision becoming dark.