Prodigal To Prove Herself

2 Sep 2024

Norwegian
English

Astrid was starting early, relative to the academic year. It was only the first day of class, but she wasn't at Hogwarts to slack off and waste time. She was at Hogwarts to learn magic, and she intended to do so, but following the lesson plans so concisely was boring. She'd read enough of Miranda Goshawk's Book of Spells that her first day of class was anything but challenging, so if she wanted challenge, she decided she would have to make it herself.

It was late. Dinner time late. Astrid turned through the pages of her textbook as fast as she could until she found a spell that was more advanced than the beginner level spells she should have been learning. Obscuro, the Blindfolding Spell. She could think of a hundred practical uses for a spell like that, from defense to humbling some of her more bumbling family.

She traced the shape in the air with her wand, feeling the surge of magic in her veins, almost begging to be released. Her wand moved in the shape of a circle, coiling around a center and then a sharp diagonal tug that would fasten the supposed knot of the blindfold. She practiced for several more minutes before searching about for a target on which to practice.

With the room being a room dedicated entirely to the study of defensive magic, there were a number of targets scattered about, so Astrid dragged one of them to her little corner of the classroom and pointed her wand at the target.

She glanced back to the book, mouthing the incantation silently for another several minutes before even trying to say it. A misspoken spell could be just as dangerous as any intentionally dangerous spell.

"Ob-SKOO-roh," Astrid said under her breath, then again, then again. Satisfied, she said it louder. And louder. She pointed her wand once more at the target dummy, which stood still, its eyeless head facing her almost tauntingly.

"Obscuro!" Astrid commanded her magic to release itself from her wand, waving her wand in the practiced motion of a circle and a diagonal tug. She could feel the power pushing through her arm and out of the wand, and unsurprisingly, a cloth blindfold appeared upon the head of the target, tightening along with the tug of her wand.

"I can do it faster," Astrid mumbled to herself, clearly disappointed. She manually removed the blindfold, readied her wand, practiced the incantation again until it rolled neatly off her tongue and cast the spell again. She spent the following three hours practicing the spell, and still she wasn't satisfied.