Chapter 122: Apparition: The Art of Teleportation (1/2)

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_L / Alan_Loo]

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It was ten in the morning, and Quinn was walking through a green field with Aksel following behind him. It was the day after Quinn had arrived at Aarhus, Denmark, and Quinn had gotten up at six in the morning to start his day with the two-hour workout exercise he had started in the summer break.

Unlike Hogwarts, where he had to walk across the lengthy webs of corridors and go down the stairs between every period to get to his next destination, the summers at West Manor were different, as they lacked the staircases and intricate corridors.

Therefore, Quinn had decided to compensate that by adding an hour to his morning conditioning session and his evening Muay Thai practices. Quinn had been thinking about upping the intensity and length of his sessions for the upcoming year. He had plans to tackle the mind, his body and soul.

After eating breakfast, Quinn and Aksel arrived at the place where Quinn was going to learn apparition.

Aksel looked at Quinn's back and thought about yesterday and this morning. Quinn had been perfectly polite and manageable while he escorted him through every place Quinn asked for. He had followed his lead and didn't seem to be a problem at all.

Yesterday, Quinn had promptly informed him that he exercised in the morning and asked Aksel to show him to a park to work out, preferably outdoors.

Aksel had met his share of kids from wealthy families; his job had made him come across a few of them. Rich kids who had all kinds of luxuries and, more often than not, those luxuries would make them complacent. They wouldn't know the fruit of hard work.

In his experience, rich kids didn't like to wake up early in the morning and work out till sweat was dripping down their entire bodies. But he had seen Quinn voluntarily wake up and vigorously work out. And from the looks of it, Quinn had been doing it for a while as he looked comfortable doing it despite putting a lot into it.

”When will this teacher of mine show up, I wonder” asked Quinn as he looked around the patch of green that surrounded him.

”There are a few minutes to go before the agreed time,” replied Aksel, looking at his wristwatch.

The location of this place was also a good distance from the urban Aarhus. It was in the countryside. Many magical places were like this because they would provide a decent enough cover from non-magical people.

'There's only a simple non-magical repellent ward around the place,' noticed Quinn. He looked at the small wooden cabin in front of him and saw the sign hanging on the cabin roof. 'I wonder if it's a charm covering the area, or is there a ward stone inside that cabin with runes keyed to it.'

”What does that sign mean?” asked Quinn. He knew a number of languages, but Danish wasn't one of them.

Aksel gazed at the wooden sign and read the text written in his mother tongue.

”Haldor's Apparition Class.”

'Haldor, that's a male name,' thought Quinn.

After a minute, Quinn and Aksel heard a familiar pop sound; they saw a man dressed in a jacket and pants with a cap over his head appear in the field.

The man had his hands tucked deep into his pockets, and the way he walked looked like he had just woken up and was slowly strolling through his house. It looked like the man didn't notice them because he kept walking towards the wooden cabin without looking at either Quinn or Aksel.

”Hello,” called out Quinn.

The man stopped in his spot and turned his head to see two people standing nearby him. His face lightly scrunched up as he wanted to get a cup of coffee before starting his day.

”... Yes?” said the man in Danish. Quinn understood it as he had learned a few common phrases from Aksel yesterday.

”Are you the owner of this place?” asked Quinn.

The man stared at Quinn, who spoke in English, and from his accent, the man could guess that he was British. Then he glanced at Aksel suspiciously. The kid was smiling, but the big fellow with the kid had his arms crossed and was staring at him with unblinking and observing eyes.

”... yeah, I'm the owner, Haldor,” replied the man in English, who owned and operated the Haldor's Apparition Classes.

”Excellent! Nice to meet you, Haldor. My name is Quinn West,” introduced Quinn, happy to know that he could finally get started. ”I'm here from my apparition lessons. You asked us to meet you here at ten.”

The man looked confused for a second as he couldn't recall setting up a meeting today. Then he slightly grimaced because his head hurt.

'Damn, I shouldn't have drunk so much. This hangover is killing me,' thought the man. He suppressed a groan before saying. ”Yeah, wait here. I'll be back in a second.”

He entered the cabin and closed the door behind him. The interior of the cabin had only a single room with no partition or walls separating anything.

The cabin was messy, as if it wasn't cleaned regularly, and the things inside weren't arranged properly.

A small wooden desk stood near the wall that was opposite to the door with a wooden chair a distance behind it in the opposite direction from the table. Moving to the side, one could see a metal closet in a corner near the desk that had its door ajar open.

The door to the cabin was near the corner of a wall and on the other corner of that wall laid a cot that had enough space for one person to sleep comfortably. The covering sheet was haphazardly spread out, and the bedding, too, was a mess.

On one side was a brick fireplace built into a wall that looked like it had been recently used. It was connected to the chimney. The brickwork framed the fireplace and had a ledge over it for storing things. Right now, the ledge held empty liquor bottles, dirty mugs, glasses, and ash.

Haldor walked to the table in the cabin and started to riffle through the unorganized mess of parchment, newspaper, magazines to find something.

”Where is it?” asked Haldor, reading papers, seams of the newspapers, and flipping through the magazines in an attempt to find a particular parchment.

Haldor's hands moved through the pile, and his eyes studied until they caught sight of the item he was looking for. He snatched up the crumpled sheet of parchment and moved it in the path of the sole window in the cabin to get some light on it.

”Here it is,” muttered Haldor. ”Quinn West; paid in full. Today at ten. Classes will be every day, yes, I remember now.”

Haldor, through his hangover haze, remembered being contacted for this case. He had got this client through his landlady, who had suddenly, out of nowhere, brought him a customer.

'Didn't she say that the kid out there is someone from a rich family?' thought Haldor while rubbing his shoulder.

Haldor's landlady had suddenly knocked on his door and said that she had a job for him and wanted him to teach a kid how to apparate, which wasn't unusual here in Denmark, but then, she said that the kid would be a foreigner.

She told him that some kid from Britain would be coming to Denmark to learn apparition and that she had snatched this opportunity for him. The landlady told him that the kid was from a rich and powerful family, so the pay would be extremely good.

Haldor, who was short on money and was deep in debt, had accepted because he ran apparition classes and knew how to speak English. Haldor really needed the money because the people he owed were getting annoyed that he couldn't pay up; some of them had even come up to his house to ask for money.

It wasn't until he had a fat pouch of coins in his hand that Haldor realized the landlady wasn't kidding when she said that the kid was from a rich family. He was able to pay all his debt, pay his bills for the month, and still had some coins left. So to celebrate being debt-free for the first time in years, he went to drink and splurged to his heart's desire.

And now here he was, suffering from a heavy hangover on the day he needed to teach.

'Well, whatever, I'm sure they won't notice,' thought Haldor, and a yawn overcame him and then another bout of headache. 'Ugh, I'm not drinking ever again.'

Haldor, who was thinking about getting a coffee before starting his day, threw the thought out of his mind and walked out to do the job.

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- (Scene Break) -

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”Good morning,” greeted Haldor. ”My name is Haldor, no family name, just Haldor. I'll be your apparition instructor as long as it takes you to learn apparition. I realize that you aren't from Denmark, but I hope that by the end of our time together you pass the apparition test set up by our ministry.”

Haldor looked at Quinn, who stood in front of him, listening to him attentively. Then looked at Aksel, who stood under the shade of trees, observing them with a lazy, yet watchful eye.

Haldor withdrew his eyes from Aksel and looked back to Quinn. ”Before we start, I would like to warn you that apparition, if not used properly, is a dangerous magic. There are places where you can't apparate because of wards and enchantments. And some of those wards can be nasty, so I insist that you exercise caution.”

Quinn nodded. He knew about the danger of anti-apparition wards. He had read about anti-apparition wards and knew the variety of extra effects that could be added into the wards aside from just prohibiting spatial travel.

Some wards wouldn't allow apparition when you tried it from your origin/destination point. The apparator wouldn't be able to jump to the destination and would simply remain in their spot while feeling a wall-like feeling while trying to apparate to the ward destination.

Other wards would allow the apparition to be initiated. But just before reaching the destination, the ward would come into effect and they would be violently thrown just outside the ward line. If the person was skilled at apparating, they would only suffer physical damage from being thrown down mid-travel, but if they weren't, there were good chances of being severely splinched.

”This area here doesn't have restrictions against apparition. Thus there won't be any danger in that regard,” assured Haldor. He didn't want to scare Quinn before they could even get started.

”That's good to hear,” smiled Quinn. He took out his fake wand.

”Let's get started,” said Haldor and took out his wand from his pocket and held it in his hands which were covered in fingerless gloves.

He pointed his wand, and at a distance of ten feet, a patch of grass turned bright yellow.

”As you can see, I turned a patch of grass to yellow. The yellow color is the most noticeable color to the human eye, you see,” explained Haldor and then instructed. ”I would like you to concentrate on that spot and properly memorize it. Make sure that you can hold it in your mind.”

Quinn nodded and gazed at the yellow patch of grass and nothing else for a few seconds before diving into his mindscape to use occlumency to strengthen that memory by magical means.

Haldor continued to stand beside Quinn, but didn't urge him to hurry up. He wanted Quinn to be satisfied with his image of the yellow spot so that the upcoming tasks would be smoother. Plus, he felt lethargic and didn't want to speak anything more than his usual teaching dialogue.

”I'm ready. What's next?”