Chapter 20

I walked across the bed and stood in the corner of the room. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I placed every manner of disillusionment charms I knew without dispelling the illusion, and I knew with certainty that past Matthew wouldn't be a match for me, not with the mad 50-ish hours I had put in the RoR.

'Alright, here it goes..' I closed my eyes and focused inward, wishing to see my Soul, or whatever it was that I saw earlier. Peering focusedly at it, I 'saw' my newly acquired time-traveling abilities as a square block, with something white coloured filling the black borders of the geometric shape. My Soul or whatever it was I was seeing was a pale shade of golden, and I would have focused on the small bright golden part lodged in it, or the other squares had it not been for the leaking white coloured magic from the square I knew instinctively was the one I had gained from the Time-Turner.

The use of it was as easy as I had found earlier. All I had to do was wish to use it, and..and that was it. So after enough dawdling, I proceeded to mess with something regarded as an absolute by people all over the world.

It was kind of anticlimactic that such a huge act, the deed of actually traveling through time, didn't show any large, flashy effects. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was certainly not this...this being the utter lack of any sign of tampering with time. For all I knew, it had failed and I would have to learn to live with my utterly idiotic deeds. Perhaps I could somehow salvage my situ-

Further thoughts were abolished from my brain when I spied past Matthew (me, a part of my being whispered) entering the room with a nonchalant air, both hands in his pockets.

I saw past Matthew casting a few alarm wards around the door and a few more revealing charms around the room before nodding satisfactorily and producing a shrunken trunk from his coat pocket. (I had taken to carry my trunk along with me after I had bought it...I still don't know if it was because I was attached to the trunk or because I wanted to keep my belongings on my person in case of an emergency or just plain old paranoia).

I had tensed when he had used the revealing charms but fortunately, past Matthew didn't know that many revealing charms and the ones he did know, weren't effective on my spells.

I would have liked a far more comforting setting for the deed I was about to do, but then again is there a suitable situation for stunning your past self? Inwardly reflecting on thoughts that were more or less useless as was my habit, I sent out silent stunners at his sitting form, peacefully reading a book.

A sort of mixed feeling of pride and anxiety filled me when he dodged the first and blocked the second in one smooth motion, no doubt due to his magic sensitivity and rather strenous training. I was even more impressed with the graceful way he dodged the next while simultaneously casting a few spells at my general position while jumping backwards towards the door.

His reflexes were impressive and so were his decisions, but I had prepared for this encounter. After all, who knows someone better than themselves?

I sent the spells he cast back at him with increased speed and power, and then cast a powerful summoning charm on him at the moment his feet touched the ground. Distracted by shielding himself from the spells he himself had cast seconds before, he couldn't protect himself from the Accio, which caused him to rocket towards me. Caught off guard, he never saw the punch I had decided to finish him off with and fainted as his body fell to the ground with a thud, his head momentarily resting near my hand while the rest of his body stretched out behind and beyond me. Just to be safe, I cast a powerful Stupefy at him and cast a few body binding charms as well as a newly found magic restraining charm that took everything I had to cast it. I even had to chant out a long, poetry styled chant in an unknown language whose pronunciations were a pain. But finally, it was over and I took a moment to gather my thoughts.

Now that the pact was over, I could finally think properly.

First, I needed to take care of the body. Past Matthew wasn't dead yet but I was sure I would be able to kill him, and this callousness of mine surprised me. Was this my true personality?

My thoughts were muddled but that didn't stop me from making a list of things I wanted to do now. The body I was sure I could use in a ritual to boost my powers. My Hogwarts life this time would be way better without the pact influencing me to make idiotic decisions. Goblins would be great allies for my future plans, especially because I saw that there was a patent office for spells and potions. But before those, I wanted to take a closer look at my 'Soul'.

I put a couple of locking charms and wards around the room and cast a spell to repair the pitiful amount of damage the room had sustained. Then I put the body in the trunk behind a door which was put under various charms and wards. By the time I was finished a couple hours later, I was drained magically, and exhausted mentally and physically. But I still had enough left in me to delve deep into my Soul and look closely at the things I hadn't noticed before.

The boxes containing my powers I had seen last time proved to be far more numerous and brighter than I had imagined. All of them somehow seemed to be transplanted onto my pale golden soul. The box containing my time-traveling abilities seemed to have vanished, but it did it's job of bringing me to August 31st so I wasn't complaining..much.

The bright golden part I had noticed before was apparently the original soul of this body, and it's luminance was probably due to it being a newborn, pure soul. As I was focusing on it, it seemed to dissolve into my soul, and all of a sudden I felt better than I had ever felt before. My magic seemed to have improved as well. But that wasn't even the biggest surprise I found. No, that I would attribute to the big boxes I had found that seemed to have deeply lodged into my soul.

And all of a sudden, it became clear to me why I seemed to have such unimaginable talent. My suspicions were becoming clearer by the moment as my thoughts turned to something I had suspected since the beginning.

I had apparently been gifted these talents by.. someone. And this someone seemed to be the same being who had caused me to reincarnate in this world.

A/N : Due to a few RL matters I'll be unable to write and post chapters properly for a few days, and a week at most. Thank you for your understanding and please, try to enjoy this mediocre piece of writing. Next chapter will most probably be the last of this Volume and the next Volume will most probably be something like Re: Hogwarts, Year I. Until next time!