A Young Wizard's Journey - Goblet of Fire

Arcane Nametags

Y/N's eyes were closed. His mind empty. The tendrils were wandering outwards away from him, gripping the boundary around his house. Drawing on it, feeling its way through.

He felt an ache begin to form in his temple but pushed it aside. He'd deal with the consequences of that later. He separated out the enchantments again. He'd gotten to number fifteen last time. It was time for number sixteen.

He imagined flicking through them like pieces of paper in a filing cabinet. The one's he already knew of simply flashed by in his mind. Then he arrived at the one that he needed.

He pushed the rest out of his mind. They didn't matter right now. He focused all his effort on this one spell, tracing through its outline.

And much as he was now semi-used to, the image of Minerva McGonagall swam into view. And again, standing alongside her was that shapeless figure, wand also raised. It looked human, they were about the same height as Minerva, but had no other discernible features. Y/N had guessed that this was most likely the old occupant of the other room, the one Hermione stayed in. But he did not want to press for the answer to that point, lest his mum find out what he was doing.

He watched her wand trace through the air downwards whilst her other hand was held up, palm out.

'Salvio Hexia.'

The image left his view. It was only a matter of seconds, but it was long enough. Y/N opened his eyes and turned back to the parchment on his desk, noting down the incantation and wand movement before snapping off a piece of the chocolate resting on the desk next to him and placing it in his mouth with a sigh.

It had taken a while for Y/N to figure out that he could do this. Not long after he'd arrived back home, he'd begun experimenting with his sense to see how far he could stretch it. How much he could draw from the enchantments that he knew surrounded his house. He'd felt a feeling of familiarity with one of them. He recognised it as the shield charm, but a different iteration. Stronger even than the Protego Duo he'd been contesting the year before against Remus.

He'd followed the thread, investigating the spell and then an image had swum into mind. His mother, much younger than she was now, tracing her wand through the air before aiming it up into the sky.

'Protego Horribilis!'

A silvery beam had shot out of her wand and looked as though it was beginning to form a dome, but the vision faded not long after. The memory of it did not, however. Y/N noted down the spell at once and then began trying again and sure enough, as he focused on each spell, the image of the initial casting swam into view.

There were several in here that Y/N was now heavily looking for, though he was concerned that there was one he would not be able to find. The Fidelius charm.

He knew it was complex magic, knew it would take a lot for him to be able to perform it, but that didn't curb his interest in the spell. The idea of it intrigued him, not least of all because it guaranteed protection from unwanted eyes, though he also knew that Hermione, Dumbledore, Remus and the Weasley's once in a car had all visited him without direct permission from his mother. So, he doubted that the Fidelius charm was actually in place.

This didn't discourage him, however. These spells were guaranteed to be life savers should he ever have any use of them. And in a weird way he saw it as forward revision. His ability had gotten so used to these enchantments now that he could normally tick through three to four of them before he properly began to feel it, and even that was beginning to subside.

He heard a hoot from his wardrobe and quickly stuffed the piece of parchment into his desk draw just as his door opened.

'How are you getting along? Nearly packed?' asked Minerva as she stepped inside.