CHAPTER 52 – Before everything started (Part 4)
Weeks passed, and the routine slowly imprinted itself in him. His skills in potion and transfiguration were improving at a high rate, as he focused on it both inside and outside of the Room of Requirements, which picked his friends' interest.
He actually got Badeea to help with transfiguration, as it seems she was quite skilled at it and was one of her courses for the N.E.W.T. Tulip and Talbott were also outstandingly good in transfiguration, from Badeea and Andrew’s words. But they were occupied with their own stuff. Talbott was busy being his lone self while passing time in the owlery, while Tulip was occupied pranking people with the help of Tonks; they even teamed up with the twins, teaching them new ways to prank.
“It’s our legacy to Hogwarts!” Said an excited Tulip and Tonks when questioned.
Sadly, he didn’t find anyone good enough in potions to help him inside Ravenclaw, at least not from those he knew. After all, the others mostly evaded him. He did find help in another house though.
With the recommendation of Andrew, Logan went and asked help from Liz Turtle, who was called Lizard by some of the students in the school because of her name. Turns out Liz was an expert when it comes to potioneering. She gladly accepted to help him.
[One of the perks of helping Protectors of Hogwarts. You say thank you to your mighty system to push you into helping them.] Remarked the system once she accepted, after all, she was part of said organization, and like almost everyone there, she received help and pointers from Logan.
With the help of both older tutors, and with the help of the RoR, he was able to advance leap and bounds in both classes, receiving recognition from McGonagall and a side-glance from Snape.
A week after the incident with the upperclassman, and while Logan was studying potions and helping Roger with his potions homework in the library, Cho Chang went towards him and actually asked for help with her charms homework.
Logan took a look and found that it was mostly alright, if anything, there were just a couple of small mistakes that could be very well attributed to her inexperience in charms. He stopped his studies of potion making and guided her on solving those mistakes. Cho listened quietly, nodding and commenting in case she didn’t understand something or if, on contrary, she knew of something but wasn’t really sure of it.
She soon clarified all her doubts and thanked him for the help. He nodded and told her not to worry, but just as he was going to go back to his potion book, she asked if she could stay and make her other homework with them.
“No problem!” Roger quickly intervened and said with a wide smile. “If you need any help with it, don’t hesitate and ask us anything!”
Cho chuckled and nodded while taking out her other classes' books. Logan quickly noted that one of her books had some notations and scribbles, but he simply shrugged and focused on his potions book, which was actually not the one designated for second-years, but one for fourth years.
While comparing some of the things he read in this book, he couldn’t help but remember something. {This book is really specific on some of the procedures for making potions… Wait. Wasn’t there a cheat-like book of potions?} Logan thought for a moment and started to contemplate really hard his memories of this world. {Half-Blood Prince…} Logan suddenly had an epiphany. {Right! In the potions room, there’s a sixth-year book written that’s a cheat for potions!}
[5 points for finally remembering after a whole week of studying potions.]
Logan clicked his tongue, and decided to check on his next potions classes, going in before the classes even started, he certainly wouldn’t want Snape to know.
{What are the chances of him finding out?} Logan thought for a moment. From his memories, Harry didn’t get this book until his sixth year, when the other professor took the role of potion professor. But right now it was Snape who was in that role. {He knows that his book is in there, and I don’t think that it would be a good idea for me to actually try to take it… I don’t want to think what he would do if I dared to steal that book.}
With an inward sigh, Logan decided to leave that idea behind. The only thing that he might want to learn from that book is maybe the magic that Harry used against Draco in the movie.
Days passed, and soon October 17th came, with all he has been studying and practicing these days, he finally felt ready enough to try and transform into an Animagus. He quickly looked for a Mandrake’s leaf and started the long and arduous process. {What will I even turn into? A thestral? I hope not…} He thought, frightened of the possibility of being a skeletal horse.
Starting from the moment he put the Mandrake leaf in his mouth to hold it there for an entire month, he decided not to use the Time-Turner, leaving it inside his inventory while he waited for the entire process to finish.
Taking out the exception of the visits to the Room of Requirement, his routine didn’t change much. Well, and also the fact that after Cho asked for his help, his juniors came from time to time to ask for help from him. Cho was the one that visited him the most with consults about her studies.
There were no more problems with the upperclassmen, so it could be said that everything was quite pacific during this time. During Halloween, nothing happened, and this finally confirmed to him that this was going to be a nice and tranquil year, which gave him all the time necessary to enjoy his school year and to actually advance his power.
Though on the other hand, he couldn’t get many points from quests, as there wasn’t much for him to do. He thought about destroying Rowena’s Diadem, as that would certainly get him some points. But quickly discarded the idea, as he was in no rush, and the story hasn’t even started; he had already broken Harry’s second-year storyline, why hurry it any further?
While he didn’t keep his classes with Badeea about transfiguration, he did keep studying under Liz, who was a great help for him, increasing his skills in potion-making. On their third week, even Lisandra joined, as she too asked for help from Liz, who gladly told her that she could join Logan on his tutoring lessons.
Though different from what Andrew did last year, they didn’t reveal Protectors of Hogwarts to her during their tutoring, even after days of sharing their tutoring lessons, making both Liz and Logan think about how was it even possible for Andrew to spill the beans to Alanza Alves, who was just an exchange student, the first day of meeting her, and in just a couple of hours no less.
Regarding Andrew, it seemed that he was having some slight troubles with Merula. She, snarky as she was, did seem to have feelings for him. Meanwhile, Andrew didn’t really know how to approach this, as both of them had had some special and romantic moments, their relationship didn’t progress at all, which made Logan dubious of why would that be.
It was Tulip and Tonks that finally explained to him that Merula wasn’t an easy girl to be around, mostly because of how she was raised and the history of her family. Being basically left alone after her parents were sent to Azkaban for their support to Tom, she has been trying to be this bully girl that needs no one.
He tried to look for a way to help, but couldn’t do much. Not that he had the time to worry about two grown young adults in the first place. He did find it curious Lyra raised an eyebrow at him when he was looking for some kind of advice from William, Jake, and Roger. Of course, neither of them had any advice to help Andrew or at least none that would be really useful, as Roger did give advice that was rewarded with Lyra and Johanne’s combined hit.
After all, in their words, “You can’t simply go and tell a girl to either be your girlfriend or leave so he can look for someone else.”
Lyra also rebuked Logan, saying that he was an idiot for trying to look for love advice from those three and that the best he could do was simply leave things to take their course. It wasn’t his job to help with Andrew’s love life. Praying for Andrew, Logan simply decided to listen to her and don’t interfere in their relationship.
Sooner than he expected, the 30 days have already passed, and he followed the rules and instructions that Talbott gave him without missing a single thing. He followed the process the best that he could, including chanting the incantation every morning with his wand pointing at his heart. He was perfectly able to hear the second heartbeat, which means that he was doing it right, or so he thought.
Now it was only a matter of waiting for a storm to appear in the skies of Hogwarts, which he hoped would be soon. He had the potion prepared for whenever the storm appeared. And thankfully for him, it wasn’t that long until he finally saw clouds forming in the sky.
“It’s time.” Logan thought as he looked at the dark cloud forming in the night sky. So he rushed out of his room using the invisibility and the levitation spells, going towards the seventh floor, where he would wait for the first lightning before rushing towards the Room of Hidden Things, where he hid the potion.
On a side note, he thought about using the inventory but quickly dropped the idea, after all, time didn’t flow in the inventory, which would be detrimental for the process.
Waiting on the seventh floor, he looked up at the sky, from where rain soon fell. {Come on…} He thought, hoping for the lightning to appear. And he didn’t have to wait too long.
BOOM!
Soon, lightning flashed in the sky, followed by roaring thunder. Logan didn’t even wait for the thunder to make its loud apparition when he was already rushing towards the Room of Hidden Things, making its door appear in a flash and rushing towards the close-by place he hid the potion.
“Here goes nothing.” Logan said while emptying the contents of the flask in his mouth.