An American at Hogwarts: Book Two

Chapter Forty-Eight

A/N: Dedicated to Chadwick Boseman, one of the greatest superheroes both on and off the screen. May he rest in peace 🙏🏼❤️❤️

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Strange was not happy about losing. He kept protesting that I'd never be able to beat him in another fight, since I'd no longer have the element of surprise. Secretly, I thought he was probably right, but there was no way in hell I'd ever admit it.

We went into the living room to finally get some food, and I started explaining all the spells I'd cast to my family. It took damn near all day, but I wasn't complaining. It was fun, and I'd just won the ultimate magic battle.

I was floating on air.

Later that night, me, my dad, and all our science-minded family members headed down to the lab to try and find some explanation for that physics-breaking Reducto spell from earlier. We tried to drag Strange down to help us, since he'd made the shields, but he flat out refused.

"No. You already knocked me flat once, I'm not doing it again."

"Strange, come on! We need your Mystic Arts shields!"

"Really?" He raised one eyebrow, giving me one of the sternest looks I'd ever seen. "Because I thought all that work we did this summer was to make sure you could do those shields too."

"I'm not as good at them as you! I don't have as much practice with them."

"You fight dragons and you're telling me you haven't been practicing your shields?"

"It's just not a reflex for me!"

"Well that definitely needs to change."

And just like that, I had extra Mystic Arts practice on top of everything else.

The combined might of all the science minds in the Tower wasn't enough to find a satisfactory answer to the weird behavior of the spell. The same thing happened every time we tested it, and we could never come up with a satisfactory explanation for the abnormal blast pattern.

We were forced to chalk it up to magical bullshit again. For now.

Unfortunately for me, Strange's idea of Mystic Arts practice wasn't what it was last summer. Instead of training in his study, apparently he decided I needed to develop a reflex. He wanted me to instinctively put up Mystic Arts shields whenever I had the slightest inclination, without even having to think about it.

He decided the best way to do this was to get everyone in the Tower to throw shit at me out of nowhere all break.

Literally! I'd walk into Uncle Steve's room to help him with his smart phone, and then out of nowhere he'd hurl a pillow at me with the same force as his shield! Then I'd go to the kitchen and have Harley launching potatoes at me!

It was so annoying!

Nobody was willing to stop, no matter how much I yelled about it. Which meant this was the perfect time for me to get a little revenge, with the help of the twins' Canary Creams.

My first order of business before launching my Canary Creams assault was to talk to Uncle Clint. He'd promised me payback for the biting teacup, and I definitely wanted to avoid whatever that was going to be. So, I decided to offer him a truce. I'd tell him about the Canary Creams so he could avoid them, and in return, he wouldn't try to revenge prank me.

I was a little nervous that it wasn't going to work, but thankfully he took my deal. We wreaked havoc on the Tower for the rest of break, and still, nobody stopped throwing things at me whenever they saw me. It was utter chaos in the days leading up to New Year's (much to Loki's delight), with Avengers turning into birds just about everywhere you looked and pillows and shoes flying through the air around the compound with almost no notice.