Weekends at Hogwarts had a strange rhythm—equal parts chaos and coma.

  The younger students ran around like pixies with sugar poisoning, while the older years colpsed into chairs like veterans who’d seen too much. I didn’t bme them. After surviving a week of half-dead professors, aggressive shrubbery, and levitating disasters, I was considering early retirement myself.

  But not today.

  Today, our merry band of Gryffindor half-functional idiots sat in a corner of the common room surrounded by parchment, ink pots, textbooks, and the collective will to not fail before midterm.

  Jake, for once, wasn’t talking. That worried me.

  Nathaniel flipped through A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration, muttering about object permanence and focus.

  Desmond was scribbling notes like he’d been possessed by a studying poltergeist.

  I sat with my wand, a matchstick, and a theory.

  Magic is shaped by will, directed by words, and released through the wand.

  Sounded simple. But I was never one for simplicity.

  Instead, I thought of it like jutsu. I had no chakra here, but some instincts were hard to shake.

  In my past life, chakra was internal energy, molded with precision, released through seals. What are incantations, if not the verbal equivalent of hand signs?

  I didn’t believe in “just feel it and wave your wand.” No. There was structure. Language. Will. And intent.

  I gripped the wand in my right hand.

  Laid the matchstick on the table.

  Focused.

  Visualize the end. Metal. Weight. Cold precision. Not just a needle, but the concept of transformation—a command to change reality.

  I whispered: “Ferro Verto.”

  My wand tip sparked.

  The matchstick wobbled… bent unnaturally.

  Then shimmered.

  A sliver of metal glinted in the firelight.

  Jake let out a gasp. “You—wait—you did it?!”

  I looked at it. Then looked at them. “Yes.”

  Internally, I wanted to scream. Externally, I raised an eyebrow.

  Nathaniel leaned closer. “You just—how? We’ve been trying for days!”

  Desmond blinked. “You barely moved your wand.”

  Jake grabbed my arm like I was some kind of spell prophet. “Okay, okay, you have to tell us what you did.”

  I sighed. “Fine. You want the secret?”

  They all leaned in.

  “I used my imagination,” I said, dry as the Sahara. “And I said the spell.”

  “…That’s it?” Desmond asked.

  Nathaniel frowned. “That can’t be it.”

  I smirked. “Of course not. But if I told you the rest, I’d have to hex you.”

  Jake ughed. Then pointed at the matchstick. “Okay, move over. It’s my turn.”

  He grabbed his wand, stared at the matchstick like it owed him money, and shouted, “Ferro Verto!”

  Nothing.

  Then—faint sparks.

  It twitched.

  Trembled.

  Turned into a nail.

  Close enough.

  Jake whooped. “YES! OI! Evie! Did you see that?!” he shouted across the common room.

  Evie Lockhart—red-haired, rosy-cheeked, blissfully unaware—looked up from a book and gave a polite smile.

  Jake practically melted.

  “I swear,” I muttered, “if he starts writing poetry, I’m reporting him to Flitwick.”

  Desmond leaned back. “So… Jake’s in love, Caelum’s secretly a genius, and I’m apparently a background character.”

  Nathaniel tried next. His matchstick vibrated itself into something vaguely metal. Desmond’s turned into a bent fork.

  “Fork,” he said, deadpan. “I made cutlery. I’m a wizard now.”

  I gave them a slow cp. “Next you’ll be conjuring soup.”

  Jake was too busy humming love balds under his breath and making heart shapes with his wand.

  I ignored him.

  Instead, I pulled out the small bck leather notebook I’d found in the school supply shop—simple, unmarked, and more valuable than a dozen textbooks.

  I inked the top of the page in careful strokes:

  Spell No. 001 – Ferro VertoType: Transfiguration

  Latin Root: “Ferro” = iron, “Verto” = to turn/change

  Gesture: Minor wrist flick

  Intent Focus: Solid-to-metal object, must be non-living

  Application: Needle, nail, coin – useful for tools, symbolic use

  Notes: Must visualize object + mass change. Conceptual crity critical.

  This would be my spellbook.

  Not a school-issued grimoire, but mine. A record of understanding. Function. Utility. Adaptability. Not just how spells were cast, but how they were built.

  My version of ninjutsu scrolls—except this time, it was Latin and wandwork instead of kanji and chakra.

  I flipped to the next page.

  Left it bnk.

  A promise to fill it.

  “Where’re you going?” Jake asked as I got up.

  “Library.”

  Nathaniel blinked. “Voluntarily?”

  Desmond looked at me like I’d grown antlers. “You’re not even being forced?”

  “I want to check the Advanced Transfiguration section. If they let me.”

  Jake slouched further into the armchair. “You’re going to burn out by next week.”

  I shrugged. “Or I’ll set the library on fire. Either way, something’s getting lit.”

  The corridors were quieter on weekends. I passed a few students dragging their books, faces sunken from magical overload. I recognized the symptoms. Too much new. Too fast. Brains leaking from the ears.

  I felt fine.

  Better than fine.

  The needle trick wasn’t powerful. Wasn’t fshy. But it was mine.

  I understood it. I’d shaped it.

  I was starting to remember what it felt like to command something again—even if it was just a spark in a stick.

  Not chakra. Not Uchiha fire.

  But magic?

  Magic would do.

  For now.

  [End of Chapter 7]