The Marauders' Legacy

Chapter 3

Eight Years and Five Months Old

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted.

To his surprise and relief, a faint white light shot out of his wand and sped towards Blaise, striking his wand hand. Unfortunately, it was nowhere near the full spell, and Blaise's wand simply twitched rather than fly out of his hand.

But, it was the best result so far, for all four of them. Harry was exhilarated - he wasn't normally the first to get a spell to work. That honor belonged to the girls.

"Excellent aim as always!" Sirius praised. At their age, their magic wasn't developed enough to learn spells as quickly as Hogwarts students. After three and a half years, they were still on second year spells, but Sirius was very happy with their progress. Though it took them a long time to perfect each spell, sometimes taking between two to three months on the harder spells, they had a lot of time to work on their target practice, and the quartet's aim was nearly on par with their teachers', though Susan's aim was by far the best of them all.

Encouraged by the first sign of results, Harry and his friends raised their wands and tried to cast the spell again. This time, Harry's light was brighter, while as expected, Hermione quickly got the hang of it with a light of her own. By the end of their Defence lesson, all four had been able to cast the spell, though none had actually managed to completely disarm their opponent.

As the quartet left to go find Remus for a Potions lesson, chattering excitedly, Sirius found himself admiring the strange pattern they had with every spell he tried to teach them. Always, they spent a week, sometimes two for more complicated or difficult spells, studying the pure theory behind the spell and practicing the wand motion and incantation with a non-magical stick. After that, they would continue working on theory, but spend about half of each lesson trying to cast the spell.

There would generally be a week or two, sometimes more, during which there would be no results. The first few times, the children had been disappointed, but after a reminder that they were learning things four or five years before they should have, they returned to their determined practice.

Then, one of them would get it. Usually, this would be Hermione, whose ability to understand exactly how the spell should work allowed her to understand how to cast it properly. She was the best at picking up new spells, and understanding their usage. Sometimes, Susan would get it first as well, particularly for transfiguration - Susan was amazing at control: control of magic, intent or Quaffles. She was very good at perfecting each spell to the tiniest details.

Every once in a while, like today, Harry or Blaise would get it first. Blaise had one of the most stubborn wands Sirius had provided, and it took him longer to produce a spell. However, he was good at producing spells to a greater extent, power, or range. Harry's magic was the hardest to control. His strength lay not in his spell variety, nor his magical control or power, but he always managed to figure out how to use them in an ingenious way. It was the application of his magic that made Harry stand out in terms of spellcasting.

It'd always take at least a week for one of them to get it, but the moment one did, the rest would all be able to get it within two days, most of the time within the same lesson. It was astounding for Sirius, and he couldn't help but pride himself in training the next of Hogwarts's star students.

Suddenly, the fire turned green, and Sirius turned towards it expectantly. The man stepped out of the Floo, his sports bag slung over his shoulder.

"Barry, you made it!" Sirius grinned, embracing the Irish man tightly.

"Of course I did, Sirius," Barry replied. "I'd never willingly pass up a chance to see what the two remaining members of the infamous Marauders are up to nowadays."