Chapter-14: Experimentation

Authors Note->

Well long story short, I didn't like that I was only uploading 4 times a week. As an avid reader myself, I hate stories that publish less than 5 chapters a week. It doesn't matter how much content one puts out every week, I hate books that upload less than 5 times a week. 

The only exception is Pirate, the writer of Wandering Inn.

So made some changes, and now you can read this book five times a week. 

Enjoy

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That evening when Ronan got to the library, he had a certain spring in his steps. It was because he had made significant progress in his studies, he had nearly completed all of his first-year course. He had first estimated that it might take him the whole of October and maybe 1st week of November as well to complete the course, but 2 weeks before Halloween, he had completed everything. Only Astronomy was left, which he would take his sweet time to do, as it is useless.

When he entered the library, he greeted Madam Pince, who only glared at him with her sharp eyes. He then located Hermione, who was on her usual table, looking engrossed. He then sat down in front of her and passed her Hogwarts: A History that he had borrowed.

She looked up finally, "Thank you for the book." He whispered.

She nodded, then started looking at the books again. She looked distressed for some reason, so he decided to have a conversation with her

"So." He whispered, "It was a hell of an adventure yesterday. Did you see that the dog was standing on a trap door, or was it just me?"

She looked up, "Yeah, I noticed it. It was right there." She closed her books, "The other boys didnt notice it. They were too occupied with its heads."

"What do you reckon is down there?"

She shrugged, "Can say for sure. It is either very valuable or very dangerous." He nodded, "Say Ronan…" she then stopped, and then shook her head, "Nothing. Sorry."

"If you have to say something, you can say.. We are friends." She looked up with a blank face and then smiled. "No thanks."

She then buried her face in the books, so he stood up and went to the left side seventh-floor corridor. It was time to utilize The Room to its fullest…

It took him about an hour, to find the entrance again. During the hour he tried everything, moving in a particular pattern, touching every nook and cranny of the corridor, asking Barnabus The Barmy to open the door for him. The man from the tapestry didnt reply, nor did a door appear before him. When was about to throw the towel, he figured that he should follow in his footsteps once again.

Once again he reenacted everything from what happened last night, followed every step, and even went through the monologue that he had with him the other night. Only then did he realize that the room only appeared when one wished for a room, three times. After getting through with that, he got into the room and started experimenting with the magic that he had learned so far.

In a rather big and empty room, Ronan sat down on a sofa with a bunch of wood before him. He wished to have such a room. The wood that he had before him was of various sizes, starting from 4 inches long to 24 inches long. He wanted to experiment on them, to see whether he could transform them into weapons or not.

When Professor McGonagall first taught them the magic from which they could change a match stick into a needle, an idea came to him. If he is in a tough situation, and he has a wood around him, he could change it to the needle, and then with telekinesis, he could launch it at his enemies. It was a far-fetched idea at first, but he gained control and became an expert of the spell, he realized that he might have a good idea there.

After gaining mastery over the needle magic, he realized that he could shape the resultant needle however he wanted. He saw that at first, he was only able to change the matchstick into a small and plain needle. But with practice, he was able to change to one with intricate designs on it. Which made him realize that he might be able to change the shape of the needle, and turn it into a dagger or something. 

Upon experimenting a little bit, he came to a conclusion. Dagger is out of the question. It is easier to manipulate the size of the pin of the needle, but he could not make any excessive changes to the shape. One another conclusion that he came to was that, with enough magic and intent, he could decrease and increase the size pin of the needle.

The next day, he tried using his telekinesis to shoot pins at a target practice. After a lot of experimentation, he realized that the needles with long pins, when thrown in a direction, when the pin is rotating on its axis in a corkscrew motion, the pin digs deeper into the wood. Seeing this he realized that he could try and and weaponize this trick.

He just needed to dip his pins into some sort of poison or sedative, and this trick could lethal weapon for him. He then went back to experimenting by changing longer pieces of wood into pins, because the bigger the pin, the bigger would be the penetrating power. 

By the end of his long session, Ronan made several more discoveries. One of the first and foremost discoveries that he made was that Wizards are not the kind of beings, who cannot just spam one spell after the another. It seemed to him that a Wizard's ability to perform magic was highly dependent on their stamina.

After an hour of experimenting, he was able to change 4-inch long wood into a long fat needle, but after he had safely transfigured the thing, darkness overtook his eyes, and fell unconscious. When he woke up, he didnt know how much time had passed, fearing that a long time had passed, he exited the room and made his way downstairs. Only to realize that he had been unconscious for 4 hours, because everyone in the school was present in the Hall, and were having dinner.

While going to the Slytherin table he theorized what happened to him. Previously when he was performing magic on the matchstick, the small size of the thing, combined with the amount of stamina it took to transfigure, he realized that maybe transfiguing bigger objects took more out of him. And it made sense because he had spent a lot of time in the past working on the needle magic, and he had not fainted. 

He swiftly made his way to the Slytherin table, gathering the attention of everyone in the hall. He came and sat down beside Blaise.

"Where were you?" he asked, disoriented, he just replied, "I fell asleep."

Hurridly he grabbed a plate and started devouring food as if he had been hungry for a whole day. "Slow down mate, you will choke yourself." He didnt listen to him, he was very hungry.

"You know you like a bum who hasn't eaten a few days," Came the voice of Pancy, who was sitting opposite to them.

With chicken in his mouth, he replied "Arrest me then. I dont care, I am hungry as hell."

Daphne then asked, "Where were you, we were looking for you all over the school, but couldnt find you."

"Been busy with something," he replied as he put more food on his plate, "Do you want something from me?"

"Wanted to warn you," Pany said, "Draco went to Professor Snape about you wanting to kill him. He had probably written a letter to his father as well."

"Alright," he shoved the food. Hearing his nonchalant view on the matter, "Ronan, aren't you afraid? This could be disastrous for you. You dont know the influence of Lucious Malfoy"

He then put down his fork and looked at the man, "The problem is with you my friend. You are seriously underestimating me, and you are seriously underestimating Dumbledore as well."

Daphne asked, "You think that old coot will help you."

"Think? No, I guarantee that nothing will happen to me till I am under the jurisdiction of this castle. After that, it is another story."

"You are not afraid of what will happen when you leave the school," Pancy asked,

Hearing this he started laughing hysterically, gathering the attention of all of the Slytherins, he didnt say anything at the time. But his laugh was enough to answer their question. And the thing was, based on what his friends had seen so far, the magic that he commanded, the trio of Pancy, Daphne, and Blaise believed that Ronan would become a figure to reckon with when he would leave the castle…

***

Perhaps it was because he was now so busy with Quidditch practice three evenings a week, and on top of all his homework, because Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than Privet Drive had ever done. His lessons, too, were becoming more and more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.

Professor Flitwick announced in Charm's lecture that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they had seen Ronan helping Professor Flitwick with the decoration of Halloween. That boy was able to make things float heavy pumpkins in the air with ease, which not only earned Slytherins 20 points but was also the topic of discussion among first years because none of them knew how to perform that magic. But Ronan not only performed the magic but also did it without the Professor's help.

That day, Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan, which was a relief because Neville had been trying to catch his eye. He feared that if he became a partner with Neville, he might lose an eye or so.

Ron, however, was to be working with Hermione Granger. It was hard to tell whether Ron or Hermione was angrier about this. She hadn't spoken to either of them since the day his broomstick had arrived. She didnt as that something great happened to him, despite he didnt follow the instructions of a Professor, and broke the school rules. 

"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, "Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too… never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

It was very difficult. Harry and Seamus swished and flicked, but the feather they were supposed to be sending skywards just lay on the desktop. Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand and set fire to it, which he had to put out with his book.

Ron, at the next table, wasn't having much more luck. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

"You're saying it wrong," Harry heard Hermione snap. "It's Winggar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!" Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

"Oh, well done!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. "Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"

Ron was in a very bad temper by the end of the class. "It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor. "She's a nightmare, honestly."

Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face and was startled to see that she was in tears. "I think she heard you."

"So?" said Ron, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. "She must've noticed she's got no friends." Little did Ron know that later her would regret his actions, as, Hermione didn't turn up for the next class and wasn't seen all afternoon.