Chapter 20: Ravenclaw, First Impressions, and The Problem (2/2)
He stood upon his chair and exclaimed, ”Always remember this; Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure! Repeat after me; Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure!”
”WIT BEYOND MEASURE IS MAN'S GREATEST TREASURE!” Every student in the common room repeated after Flitwick, and the collective voices of the students sound like a war chant. Even Quinn chanted the infamous quote with his fellow students and could feel the confidence that Flitwick given many students. It made Quinn think that Flitwick could have a great career as a motivational speaker.
After everybody calmed down, and Flitwick was sitting on his chair rather than standing on it, he took out a matchstick-sized stack of parchments and waved his wand above the stack, and the stack enlarged to a standard stack of parchments. With another wave, a sheet each flew to every student in the room.
Quinn gracefully received the sheet and read it. On the parchment was a timetable.
”These are your timetable for the year. You will all follow this schedule every week till the end of the year. Please note and remember the room numbers as they won't change and I would recommend that you reach your class five minutes before time,” said Flitwick as Quinn read the timetable and he was surprised to see that in a day he only had to attend two to three hours of classes. Quinn calculated, and the time allotted to classroom studies was only fourteen (14) hours a week, fifteen (15) if you added the weekly flying lesson with Madam Hooch.
Quinn was totally down with this schedule, as it would give him more time to study magic on his own. He was sure that the workload would increase from the third year onwards, but he would worry about that when the time came.
Quinn looked up when he heard Flitwick clap his hand and asking the students to look at him. ”If you would turn your sights to the library in the common room.” Quinn and the rest looked at the library present inside the Ravenclaw common room, a feature unique to the Ravenclaw common room.
”The library has many books that would help you increase your knowledge. I am in charge of selecting the books on the shelves of the library. I constantly keep note of the progress of every class that is taught in Hogwarts. So I know what is being taught to every student of the school, because of that I place complementary and supplementary material related to the topics currently being taught in your classes in our library. For example, if first-year students are learning how to brew the Sleeping Draught in Potions class. Then I would place books related to the Draught and its ingredients in our library for students to read. Then there are my weekly and monthly recommendations, which are not related to the course material but are always an interesting read. There is also a rule that the books often change on the shelves of our library, to keep those who want to learn on their feet, so even if you can't read them, please note the titles, as you would be able to find all these books in the Hogwarts library.”
Of all the things Flitwick had said today, this interested Quinn the most. Supplementary material and additional reading were always in better understanding things. Quinn made a note to take full advantage of the in-house library.
At the end of the talk, Flitwick asked, ”Now, other than Mr. West, who gained Ravenclaw their first points of the year, congratulations to you, Mr. West -- all the first years, please introduce yourselves. I want to match the names to the faces, and it would also help your housemates to know your names.”
Quinn looked at Eddie and said, ”Yeah~.”
Then Quinn paid attention to his year mates introducing themselves. Quinn too wanted to match faces to names. It would not be well if he could not recall his housemates' names.
Before sleeping that night, Quinn wrote a letter to his family. He described his first day at Hogwarts, his sorting ceremony, what he found in the castle, his living arrangements, among other things. Sealed the letter in an envelop and put it into his dorm's desk drawer, ready to be mailed tomorrow via a school owl.
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During Quinn's first week at Hogwarts, he attended all the lessons and performed all the tasks taught to him. They were easy or him, and like the typical Ravenclaw, he was among the first ones to complete the practicals. Actually, he was the first every time, but he jusst didn't raise his hand to show that he was done with a task.
Unlike Hermione Granger, he didn't jump to every answer that the professors asked. He only answered the questions that were too easy or when nobody had the answer to the question. It did cause some teachers to call out Quinn to answer questions which didn't bother him as Quinn knew all the answers, and because he didn't jump to answer all the questions, he wasn't tagged as a Know-It-All.
Because Quinn already knew all the stuff in the classes, he would efficiently make use of his time by sneakily completing all his homework in class time itself, so he had more time to himself. He even completed his potions homework in Snape's class itself, which Quinn thought deserved at least fifty (50) points.
But, Snape did pay attention to Quinn because his potions were way better than the rest of the class, and by a huge margin. When Quinn told Snape that he had learned about potions at home, he just sneered but said nothing as this practice wasn't uncommon for magical households.
But Quinn didn't know that Snape was now paying extra attention to him. Even though learning potions before coming to school wasn't uncommon, the quality of potions that Quinn brewed was not common at all, especially for someone his age.
Even the other professors remembered Quinn fairly well, and he was among the students that stood out from his batch; Quinn's practical work was just too good for a student who had been in school for a single week. But because Quinn did nothing extra other than what was asked, he was just seen as a very talented child and not the freak of nature that Quinn was. Plus, being a Ravenclaw helped Quinn's image as Ravenclaws were always good at academics.
Quinn had no idea what was going through his professors' minds because he was too busy with another problem.
A major problem.
Quinn's current capabilities were on the level of a fourth-year student. His level of ability to focus magic was stuck at his current level for a half year and had improved little. So, he had begun working at more efficiency and speed of casting, hoping that it would help, but nothing particularly helped. He did everything to improve what he already knew and could do with his level of focus, but his focus didn't improve by much.
This was the reason that Quinn was excited about turning eleven and getting a wand. But both of those events caused him disappointment.
The reason why a child started attending a magical school at age eleven was that the magic inside a child switched from a turbulent state to a state of growth. A person with magic entered a time of exponential growth from age eleven that continued to age seventeen, and a magical's ability to focus magic would increase naturally. The ability to focus magic would increase even if they didn't use magic, and if they worked hard during this time, they would reap added benefits.
The term 'Magic is Muscle,' applied heavily from ages eleven to seventeen as a person saw the most growth in this time period, and that applied to the ability to focus magic. But, nothing happened when Quinn turned eleven, there was no jump in focus for him. Time passed, but nothing changed in his magic.
Then he looked forward to getting a wand. He wanted a wand to aid him by supplementing his focus, but it turned out that if he used a wand, he would become dependent on it, and it would take an exponential amount of work to perform focusless magic. Now, his wand was encased in a block of wood and locked inside a room in a suitcase.
But, Quinn was forgetting an important event. A date that came every year, and after so many years Quinn had forgotten about it, but this year it was going to be different. Quinn didn't know it but this day would be a turning point in his life.
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A/N [1]: Just to clear a confusion that I have been noticing popping in the comments. Quinn West is one (1) year older than Harry Potter. The current year is 1990. Harry Potter joins Hogwarts in 1991. The Weasley twins and Cedric are in the second (2nd) year right now. Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley would enter Hogwarts when Quinn is in his third (3rd) year.
]
Quinn West - MC- Hogwarts (Ravenclaw) - Worried about his magic.
Eddie Carmichael - Ravenclaw - Is bad with directions.
Filius Flitwick - Charms Professor - ”You may have heard that I was a Duelling Champion!”, said Flitwick, drawing his wand on misbehaving students.
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