An American at Hogwarts

Progress

The rest of November passed without any real incident. I was still struggling with the blasting curse, but had decided to take Marie's advice and just be patient with it. It wasn't that I was no longer frustrated, I most certainly was, but she had a point. I was going to burn myself out if I kept going like I had been. Marie also took a lot more interest in me teaching her more of what I knew, which served as a rather welcome distraction from the intensifying classes. We woke up one early December morning to find that it had finally snowed. I absolutely adore snow. There is just something about it that makes me unbelievably happy. I pretty much dragged Hermione, Marie, Ron, and Harry outside immediately after we finished breakfast. The Weasley twins were already outside and had enchanted some snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell around constantly, slamming into the back of his head every so often. They got told off and given detention by McGonagall for doing that, but it was ever so worth it. Harry kept wanting to go inside though, back to the library. See, ever since Hagrid had let Flamel's name slip, we had been reading through every book we could think of on notable modern wizards to try and figure out who he was, but had been having no luck whatsoever. As he asked if we could go in for the fifth time that day, I sighed.

"Listen dude, if you want to go by yourself be my guest, but I'm going to stay out here and enjoy the snow for now. We've spent virtually all our free hours in the library over the past month. Even for me and Hermione, its been a bit much. I doubt a couple hours spent outside today will be make or break for our chances at finding out who Flamel is."

Harry groaned. "Mate, I just have a good feeling about today, please?"

Ron groaned in reply. "You've said that like ten times, I think your senses are a bit off."

Harry huffed and stormed off. Ron and Hermione moved to follow, but I stopped them. "He will be fine, guys. If he feels like he needs to look, it's best we just let him. I won't pretend to understand or know how he's feeling, but this is clearly important to him. If you want to go look with him, feel free, but we aren't exactly going to convince him not to, so don't bother trying. We can catch up with him later when we go to look ourselves, I doubt he will be running off anywhere else."

They sighed and nodded. A couple hours later, after several snowball fights and some ice skating on the frozen lake, I decided to take advantage of the snow to practice my shielding charm. I had tried it with some of Hermione's spells a couple days earlier, but they had broken through rather easily, and I thought that perhaps snowballs wouldn't have quite as strong an effect. I had Ron, Hermione, and Marie line up with a big pile of snowballs we had made and moved about ten feet from them.

"Alright guys, when I cast the spell, just pelt me with as many as you can, don't stop unless the shield is broken. I want to see how long I can hold it."

The nodded and I drew my wand.

Protego!

As soon as I cast the spell, the snowballs came flying at me. Sure enough, as I had hoped, the shield was able to withstand them, and I was actually able to keep it up for a good while. I learned a few things from the exercise. First, I had to sort of focus on what I was trying to defend against. I couldn't just cast the spell and forget about it like I had been, it required rather intense focus on what I was doing. I suppose that made sense in hindsight, but it was something that I hadn't quite wrapped my head around. Second, I could almost feel the momentum of the snowballs I was blocking, which felt odd. It was as if they were, well, hitting a physical shield that I was holding. It didn't feel like they would have had they actually been hitting me, mind you, but I could still feel something. Finally, they ran out of snowballs.

Ron clapped loudly. "That was brilliant Y/N!"

"He's right, you did really well with that!" Said Marie, beaming. Hermione simply nodded happily.

I smiled back at Marie. "You mind trying to cast vermillious on me while I try and block it? I feel like I made a bit of progress there and want to see how it goes.

Marie seemed a bit concerned, but nodded, and I got back into a dueling stance.

Protego!

Vermillious!

The red sparks smashed into a slightly translucent film a foot or so in front of me, spreading out into a disc of sorts. This was new. Usually they just busted through almost immediately. Marie held the spell for a couple seconds, and I could definitely feel the shield begin to strain slightly, but it was holding strong! I'd actually done it! Against perhaps the weakest spell I could think of, in fairness, but it had actually blocked a proper spell!

Marie let off and I dropped the shield. I was a bit fatigued from the mental effort, but I still jumped up and down with excitement. This was the most progress I'd made on any advanced magic all month, and it came at a time where I kind of needed that. I'd begun to doubt my abilities a bit in a way, wondering if perhaps I'd just been lucky in the past. This, however, taught me otherwise. I was good at this, I just needed practice.

We ran inside a couple minutes later to go meet with Harry, but Marie pulled me aside as we were about to enter the library, telling Hermione and Ron to go ahead, which they did. I gave her a bit of a confused look, but she simply stared back, fidgeting with her hands a bit.

"So. I know you said you were staying here at Hogwarts for Christmas, but my parents were wondering if you'd be interested in staying with us over the break. My dad was rather excited to hear about your prowess in dueling magic and thought it might be an opportunity for you to learn a thing or two, and have fun in general. We have a house over in Wales we usually go to during the winter, so..."

I beamed at her, rather surprised, but happy. "I'd love to Marie! I am a bit intimidated by the prospect of discussing my dueling skills with an Auror, but it seems like it would be a fun time! I'll let McGonagall know about the change of plans next time I see her, since I already signed that form or whatever to stay over the break."

Marie smiled at me and pulled me into a hug. "You're the best, Y/N! It'll be so nice having you with me over break!"

"It... it'll be nice to be with you as well, Marie!" I said, blushing rather deeply. I was very thankful we were in a somewhat gloomy hallway, because I probably looked quite red. Suddenly, Hagrid stumbled out of the library, a book about pine trees in hand.

"Oi! You two! You're not helping them three look for Flamel, are you?"

I looked down, a bit embarrassed. "Maybe..."

He sighed. "I told you all, it's none of your business!"

I thought about telling Hagrid about what Dumbledore had said, but decided against it. Dumbledore had been rather clear about keeping that conversation private.

"See you Hagrid!" I said, dragging Marie into the library before he could reply. We spent the next hour or so going through more books, but had no more luck than any other day, leaving us rather disappointed.

As I went to sleep that night, a singular thought ran through my mind. My mom had told me once about how she felt when she first met my dad. This very long, cheesy story about love at first sight. I hadn't thought of it at all since she told me, but the conversation with Marie about staying with her family over Christmas made me realize: that was how I felt with her.