The success of Thursday night, the perfect, gleaming needle born from his newfound understanding, carried Jake through Friday's lessons in a state of quiet euphoria. He felt like he had unlocked a fundamental secret, a key that would open doors others didn't even know existed. But with that discovery came a flood of new questions, questions that his methodical, analytical mind couldn't leave unanswered.
What was the limit? How much did each spell truly cost?
That question drove him, and so, on Saturday morning, while most of the other first-years were either sleeping in or eagerly exploring the castle's more obvious wonders, Jake had a different kind of exploration in mind. After a quick breakfast, he slipped away from the Great Hall, a fresh roll of parchment, his inkpot, a quill, and a small box of matchsticks tucked into his bag. He needed a laboratory.
He found one on the fifth floor, an unused classroom that smelled of chalk dust and old parchment. It was perfect. Quiet, isolated, and forgotten. He cleared a space on one of the desks, laying out his supplies with the care of a scientist preparing an experiment. He uncorked his ink and dipped his quill, writing a title at the top of the parchment: A Practical Study of Magical Energetics: Session 1 (09:30).
His plan was simple and systematic. He would test one spell to its absolute limit, rest for a set period, then test the other. He would document everything.
He started with Charms. He took out one of the practice feathers from his bag. "Wingardium Leviosa." The feather lifted. He held it for ten seconds, then let it fall. On the parchment, he made a small tick mark. One. He repeated the process, documenting his state.
Casts 1-15: Effortless. Perfect control.Casts 16-25: Minor mental fatigue, like concentrating on a difficult puzzle.Casts 26-38: Significant mental fatigue. A dull headache began behind his eyes. Control wavered.Cast 39: Failure. The feather only trembled. His focus was completely gone.
He leaned back, rubbing his temples. He had a baseline. He wrote: Test 1 Conclusion: Max output for Wingardium Leviosa is 38 casts. Cost appears purely mental. He then wrote, Rest Period: 1 hour. He sat in the quiet classroom, letting his mind go blank.
At 10:45, feeling mentally refreshed, he began phase two: Transfiguration. He placed a matchstick on the desk. "Acus." The needle appeared. He immediately felt the dual cost: the familiar mental drain, now coupled with a distinct physical pull. He noted it down, turned the needle back, and cast again.
Casts 1-4: Successful. Dual cost is noticeable. Physical drain feels like a low-grade fever.Casts 5-7: Difficult. Each cast required a huge effort of will. Breathing became heavy.Cast 8: Failure. The match only turned silvery and pointy. He was spent.
He slumped in his chair, body aching and mind a foggy mess. He noted the result, then wrote: Rest Period: Until after lunch. The physical toll was vastly greater.
After lunch and another hour of rest, he returned at 2:00 PM for his second session. The results were different. Wingardium Leviosa maxed out at 35 casts, Acus at only 6. His capacity was diminished. The rest hadn't been enough for a full recovery. This was crucial data.
He took a longer break before a final evening test, where the numbers stabilised. Exhausted but buzzing with intellectual excitement, he took his notes back to the Ravenclaw common room. As others played wizard's chess, he sat by the fire, took out a fresh sheet of parchment, and began his final analysis, averaging the results and creating his system.
Jake's Final Analysis:
Resource Pools (Estimated Maximum Capacity from Full Rest):
Focus (Mental Energy):~38 Units. Primary resource for Charms/Utility spells. Recovers moderately quickly.Stamina (Physical Energy):~70 Units. Primary resource for Transfiguration/Combat spells. Recovers slowly.
Spell Costs (Averaged):
Wingardium Leviosa:Cost: 1 Focus, 0 Stamina.Notes: A low-cost, high-repetition spell. Excellent for training mental discipline.Acus (Matchstick to Needle):Cost: ~5 Focus, ~10 Stamina.Notes: A high-cost spell. Stamina is the clear limiting factor.
Overall Conclusions:1. Magic is a dual-resource system.2. Full recovery takes significant time, likely a full night's sleep.3. To increase magical power, I must increase the capacity of both pools. Question: Can they be trained like muscles?
He looked down at his notes, a thrill of understanding overriding his exhaustion. This was his edge. He had a way to measure his growth.
He woke on Sunday morning feeling a profound ache in his bones, a lingering echo of Saturday's exertions. The question he had ended his notes with the night before was now a burning imperative. Can they be trained? His own analysis provided the answer. He had two resource pools, one mental, one physical. They had to be trained differently.
Before the sun had even fully risen, while the dormitory was still filled with the soft sounds of sleeping boys, Jake quietly dressed in a set of casual clothes and slipped out of the common room. His notes had called it 'Stamina', a physical resource. And how did one train physical stamina in the world he came from? Not in a dusty classroom.
He emerged from the castle's main doors into the crisp, cold air of dawn. A light mist was rolling off the Black Lake, and the grounds were silent and empty. He started off at a slow jog, his breath pluming in front of him. His goal was a single lap around the lake. His eleven-year-old body, unused to any real exertion, protested immediately. His lungs burned, a stitch flared in his side, and his legs felt like lead weights. But he pushed on, driven by the memory of the deep, aching exhaustion from casting Acus. If that was the cost of powerful magic, then he needed a much deeper well of energy to draw from.
By the time he staggered back to the castle entrance, he was drenched in sweat and gasping for air. But as he leaned against the cold stone, a feeling of deep satisfaction settled over him. This was the other half of the equation.
After a quick shower and a large breakfast, he began the second part of his training. That day, he didn't return to the classroom as a scientist, but as an athlete. His goal wasn't to measure, but to grow. He planned his workout like he would in a gym. Physical training in the morning, magical training in the afternoon.
Back in the dusty, sunlit classroom, he started with his Focus. He didn't cast until failure. Instead, he worked in sets. He cast Wingardium Leviosa twenty times in a row, pushing through the initial signs of mental fatigue. Then he rested for ten minutes, letting the dull headache subside, before doing it again. He completed three sets, his head throbbing by the end, but he felt he had pushed the boundary, stretched the 'muscle' of his concentration.
After lunch, he faced the real challenge: magical Stamina. Transfiguration was a heavier weight to lift. He couldn't do sets of twenty; he'd be wiped out in minutes. He settled on a more gruelling routine. He would cast Acus four times, back-to-back. Then he would force himself to rest for fifteen minutes, letting his body recover from the heavy, leaden feeling, before doing it all over again.
It was agony. By the third set, his body was screaming in protest. It felt like he was running a magical marathon. This wasn't the elegant, effortless magic of the storybooks. This was work. It was a grind. He finished his final set, a mere three successful casts before a spectacular failure, and practically crawled out of the classroom, every limb trembling with exhaustion.
That night, he barely touched his food at dinner and collapsed into his four-poster bed before any of his roommates. He was more exhausted than he had ever been in his life. But as sleep claimed him, a deep sense of satisfaction settled in his soul. He wasn't just learning spells. He was building his foundation, brick by painful brick. He was getting stronger.
The next week flew by, his lessons and the new routine leaving him exhausted. Already, students muttered about him when they thought he wasn't listening. There were no new spells taught that week, but the following week, a new set of classes was scheduled to start. Thus far, he had only had Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms, and DADA. Starting the following week, History of Magic, Astronomy, Potions, and flying lessons would also be added to the workload.
He wasn't sure why they weren't all included straight away, and the other students didn't have an answer either so he pushed it from his mind, focusing on what he had to do now.
When the second Saturday arrived, he returned to his makeshift laboratory, a new roll of parchment in hand. The excitement was different this time. It wasn't the thrill of discovery, but the tense anticipation of a scientist waiting for the results of a crucial experiment. Had it worked?
He began, following the exact same procedure as the week before to ensure the data was comparable. First, the Wingardium Leviosa test. He cast, and cast, and cast, his mind settling into a familiar rhythm. The headache began to creep in, but it felt... more distant. He pushed past the 38-cast mark from last week, his focus holding steady. He managed two more before his concentration finally shattered. Forty.
He grinned, noting it down. Test 1 Result: Max output 40 casts. A clear improvement.
He rested for exactly one hour, then turned to the real test: Transfiguration. He took a deep breath, focusing on the deep well of certainty he'd discovered. "Acus." One. The drain was there, but it didn't feel as jarring. Two. Three. He pushed through to seven, the point of absolute failure from the previous week. He was breathing heavily, but the bone-deep weariness hadn't fully set in. He cast again. The needle formed perfectly. Eight. He attempted a ninth, but the match only turned to silvered wood.
He sat back, a triumphant smile spreading across his face. Eight casts. It wasn't a huge leap, but it was undeniable, measurable progress. He completed his testing for the day, the second and third sessions showing a similar proportional increase. That evening, he updated his analysis.
Jake's Final Analysis (Week 2):
Resource Pools (Estimated Maximum Capacity):
Focus (Mental Energy):~40 Units (+2)Stamina (Physical Energy):~80 Units (+10)
The results were clear. His physical training had a more significant impact on his Stamina pool than his magical training did on his Focus pool. It made sense. The body was a more malleable system. He now had a proven method. A way to improve his capacity.
He carefully filed the parchment with his first week's results into his trunk, a feeling of profound accomplishment warming him from the inside out. He had a theory, he had tested it, and he had been proven right. It was the core of the scientific method, applied to the most unscientific subject imaginable.
Later that night, tucked into his four-poster bed, the dormitory quiet around him, Jake stared up at the canopy, his mind too active for sleep. His body ached from the day's exertions, a dull, satisfying pain that was a testament to his hard work. The numbers from his analysis scrolled through his mind. A two-unit increase in Focus, a ten-unit increase in Stamina. It was a start. More than a start, it was a path forward.
His thoughts drifted to the week ahead, and the introduction of the new classes. History of Magic with Professor Binns sounded dreadfully dull, but he wondered if even a ghost's monotonous droning might reveal some long-forgotten titbit of magical theory. Astronomy, held in the dead of night, seemed almost mundane, but he couldn't shake the feeling that stars and planets might hold a deeper significance in a world governed by magic.
Potions, however, was the real unknown. It was a different kind of magic, one of ingredients and reactions, of simmering and stirring. He wondered if it would have a cost like spellcasting. Did brewing a perfect Draught of Peace drain a witch's Focus? Did handling volatile ingredients sap one's Stamina? It was another system to be understood, another set of variables to be tested.
And then there were the flying lessons. He felt a flicker of genuine, childish excitement at the thought of soaring through the air on a broomstick. It was a purely physical skill, and he wondered how his morning runs would translate. Would his improving stamina give him an edge?
A new thought, grander and more ambitious than any before, began to form in his mind. He wasn't just taking notes anymore. He was collecting data for what could become a lifetime's work. A complete, systematic study of magical growth. A thesis, not for any university, but for his own understanding, his own survival. He could already picture the title, written in his neat, academic script: A Longitudinal Study on the Deliberate Cultivation of Magical Reserves in a Novice Practitioner.
A small smile touched his lips in the darkness. It was a ridiculously pretentious title. But it was his. While the other students were learning to be wizards, he would learn to be a master of the system that governed them all. With that final, determined thought, Jake closed his eyes and let the deep, welcome tide of sleep pull him under.