Chapter 36: First Task Aftermath (UNFINISHED 50%) (Patreon)

I'm too sleepy to finish the chapter properly, I'll finish it up with tomorrow's chapter.

30th of November 1994, Hogwarts

(Nathan POV)

It’s been almost a week since Nathan saw his sister amaze the entirety of magical Britain during the first task. When he learnt that Jasmine was finally back after all these years, the first thing he felt was joy. That joy, however, was immediately squashed by the amount of shame he felt. Something that has always been in the back of his mind, ever since he heard about what happened to his sister, that what she went through was his fault. His parents sent her away because of him, to keep him safe. They had shown in such an obvious manner that he was their favorite; they chose him over her. And from the tongue lashing Jasmine gave his parents, he could tell she didn’t want anything to do with his family.

So, he kept his distance, despite wishing with all his heart that they would be family again. After all, in the magical world, there are few things as intimate as a twins’ bond. He had hoped that their bond would be repaired by itself but it wasn’t the case.

He had researched about the magical twin bond, hoping to use it to contact his sister somehow, it didn’t work, of course but it was worth a shot. He discovered that even in case of separation anywhere in the world, the bond was weak but still present. There were only ways to suppress the bond using certain spells or rituals, all of them were painful to both twins, and he didn’t feel any of the excruciating pain described in the books so he doubted that happened. Even after the spells were cast, the bond was reforged when the siblings met each other once again.

The only permanent separation he had ever read about was in a very old book in Hogwarts where after their bonds was suppressed, one of the twins used a time turner regularly. For some reason the bond could not link the two brothers after the met again, traveling through time was for some reason making both their minds incompatible for that kind of bond. Although, he did doubt that Jasmine was able to get a time turner, even Hermione had been rejected access to one when she wanted to apply for all the Hogwarts electives.

On the other hand, she did graduate early from Ilvemorny. As a prodigy, she could have been granted access to a time turner but the magical congress was even more strict than the department of mysteries about time manipulation. Her early graduation served as reminder at how much he has been slacking during his time at Hogwarts. Magic did come naturally to him, but he couldn’t help but feel jealous when he compared himself to her. Isn’t he supposed to be the boy who lived? The magical powerhouse that will probably one day replace Dumbledore?

But that wasn’t enough, what really pissed him off was Jasmine’s relationship with Rose. He had been surprised and hurt when Rose told him about how much time they spent together. Jasmine had even helped her by teaching her magic. It was nice seeing Rose this happy but it didn’t stop him from feeling hurt that his twin obviously preferred his sister to him. It started with Rose but it didn’t end there. Jasmine even got along with Mordred, his teacher. He could see them sometimes talking and laughing like they were old friends or something. It was odd, Mordred rarely spoke with anyone and when she did, she didn’t seem so carefree as when she was with his sister. Damn it, Mordred was supposed to be his teacher. Well, at least she kept teaching him swordsmanship but he still didn’t like the situation. To deal with it, he had then decided to ignore Jasmine out of spite and a little bit of fear.

These feelings, of course went out of the window when Hagrid showed him what the first task was. Dragons, are they crazy? Who the fuck brings dragons in a school competition? After the panic attack was over and he had his head straight again, the first thing he thought of was warning his twin. T avoid contact with her, he just told Rose who in turn told Jasmine. Now he had to develop a strategy with dealing with the dragons, and thanks to Moody’s help, he decided on flying, he only needed to be able to use a summoning charm powerful enough to summon his broom from the tower since he wasn’t allowed to get someone to hold it in the stadium, apparently it would count as cheating.

This presented another drawback, while the summoning charm costs little magic when the object is near, the amount of magic needed to summon something grows exponentially when the weight or the distance increases. Assuming he could do it, it would still cost him half his magic to perform the spell. He spent days practicing the spell with Hermione, adding more mass and summoning from further away each time, until he was confident he could do it during the task. And he did, by the way. He summoned the broom from the castle and outflew a dragon with minimal injuries, he even got some good scores out of it. After a quick visit to the infirmary, he decided to spectate during his sister’s task, he was curious what her plan would be.

Well, if he thought he had it bad fighting a dragon, she had it so much worse fighting what can only be described as a death with wings and spikes. It was far larger than his and far more aggressive, the number of dragon handlers was almost the double for any of the other dragons when they stunned it. He just got his sister back and he couldn’t bear to lose her now without so much as talking with her. He promised himself he would try to talk to her if she gets out of this alive.

Well, she did get alive in the end but her performance was one of the most shocking and amazing thing he ever witnessed. He didn’t understand what was going on but it was clearly on another level. His parents didn’t know and the countless experts also didn’t understand a thing. He should know, he sat next to his parents during the first task and a number of lords and scholars were sitting near him. Even Dumbledore was openly gaping at her performance. And no one got to ask her about her performance since she disappeared ever since the task ended. She didn’t even return to receive the score, which was first place obviously.

Now that the symbols she used in her magic were confirmed by Dumbledore to be runes, the amount of interest in the field star rocketed for the next few days after the task. Professor Babbling, the rune mistress in Hogwarts kept getting harassed by students from all three schools asking her questions about Jasmine’s magic. And while she did translate some of the runes she understood, which after a couple of hours of study, she discovered had an interpretation as what the spell did perform.

She still had no idea how she managed to use runes that way but she did understand most of the runic arrays since Jasmine mostly used, Elder Futhark and Norse runes during the task. Even Hermione wasn’t spared from the runes hype as she was currently reading a tome, during lunch about runes that’s as thick as his arm. He still had no idea why someone would willingly read something this long and boring.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” bemoaned Hermione, “runes are elements that must be carved of painted into the artifact for them to work. You can’t just write them out of the air and you definitely couldn’t manipulate them after they activate. Your sister created a solid construct mad out of runes. I don’t even know how to begin looking for it in the library.”

“It could be some sort of family technique back in the states. Their laws are still weird.” Nathan responded.

“I just wish she was with us during lessons. We could be asking her all of this directly.” Hermione said.

“I already told you, she already graduated and you didn’t believe me.” Nathan replied.

Indeed, Hermione was skeptical about a student as young as her graduating this early, and maybe a little bit envious. She was called the brightest witch in their generation but compared to Jasmine Potter she felt like a toddler with a wand.

“It doesn’t matter, what does matter is how she was able to do all this stuff by herself. This isn’t just an obscure type of magic, it’s something no one has ever seen before.”