He spent the holidays in a rhythm: mornings in the library, afternoons in the Room of Requirement, evenings in the common room with the handful of students who had stayed behind. He practiced the spells he was meant to learn, the first-year curriculum that he had not yet mastered, and he practiced the spells that came next, the second-year material that Merrythought had given him permission to explore. He was not ahead. He was not the best. But he was moving.
The system tracked his progress, the numbers climbing slowly, the bars filling inch by inch.
**Current Progress: First Year Curriculum**
*Transfiguration: 52%*
*Charms: 58%*
*Potions: 55%*
*Defence Against the Dark Arts: 48%*
*Herbology: 47%*
*Arithmancy: 38%*
*Ancient Runes: 35%*
*Magical Theory: 50%*
*Flying: 60%*
*Estimated time to first-year mastery: 3-4 months.*
He was ahead of where he had been, but not by much. The acceleration was gradual, the way it was supposed to be. He was not a prodigy. He was a hardworking student with a system that gave him small advantages—a nudge here, a reminder there. The real work was his own.
---
On the last night of the holidays, he sat in the Room of Requirement, a fire crackling in the hearth, his books spread across the desk, and looked at the small bookshelf with the seven books he was not yet allowed to touch. He had not tried to open them again. Solomon Weylin's warning had stuck with him: *They are for when you are ready.*
He was not ready. Not yet. But he was closer than he had been.
The system pulsed.
**System Notification: Half-Year Milestone**
*You have completed the first half of your first year at Hogwarts. Your progress is consistent with the projected timeline. You are on track to achieve first-year mastery by April.*
*Reward: +50 XP*
**New Daily Tasks Unlocked:**
*- Complete all assigned homework to the highest standard possible.*
*- Spend at least one hour per day on self-directed study beyond the curriculum.*
*- Practice at least one spell from the second-year curriculum each day.*
*Note: Acceleration will increase naturally as your foundation solidifies. Do not rush. Consistency is more important than speed.*
Edmund sat back in his chair, staring at the interface. Consistency. That was the key. Not rushing, not pushing too hard, just showing up, every day, and doing the work.
He could do that.
He closed the interface and reached for his copy of *Practical Defence*. There was a chapter on shield charms that he had not finished, and the night was still young.
---
April came to Hogwarts like a held breath.
The snow that had blanketed the grounds for months began to recede, revealing the dark earth beneath, and the first green shoots of spring pushed through the mud with a stubbornness that Edmund had come to admire. The lake thawed, its surface shifting from black ice to dark water, and the Forbidden Forest, which had stood silent and forbidding through the winter, began to show signs of life—birdsong in the early mornings, the distant movement of something large between the trees, the smell of earth and growing things.
Edmund had been at Hogwarts for seven months. Seven months of early mornings and late nights, of classes and study periods, of the slow, grinding work of learning magic. He was not the same boy who had stepped off the Hogwarts Express in September. He was not even the same boy who had spent the holidays in the library, pushing himself through second-year texts while the castle slept around him.
Something had changed in the last month. He could feel it in the way spells came to him now—not after three or four attempts, but often on the first. He could see it in the way his professors looked at him, their eyes no longer assessing his potential but recognizing his progress. He could measure it in the system's numbers, which had begun to climb faster, the bars filling more quickly than they had in the months before.
**Current Progress: First Year Curriculum**
*Transfiguration: 78%*
*Charms: 85%*
*Potions: 82%*
*Defence Against the Dark Arts: 74%*
*Herbology: 70%*
*Arithmancy: 62%*
*Ancient Runes: 68%*
*Magical Theory: 79%*
*Flying: 85%*
*Estimated time to first-year mastery: 1 month.*
One month. By the end of April, or the first week of May at the latest, he would have mastered everything a first year was meant to learn. Exactly where the roadmap had placed him. Exactly where he had been working toward since September.
The acceleration had come, but it had come naturally, the way the system had promised. His foundation was solid now—the basic principles of Transfiguration, the core Charms, the fundamental potions—and with that foundation, everything else was coming faster. He was not a prodigy. He was a hardworking student who had built something solid, and now that solidity was beginning to pay off.
---
Professor Wainwright was the first to acknowledge it openly.
It happened on a Tuesday, in the last Transfiguration class of April. They had been working on turning beetles into buttons—a first-year staple, a spell that Edmund had practiced a hundred times, a thousand. He performed the transformation without thinking, his wand moving in the precise arc that Wainwright had drilled into them, his mind clear, his intention focused.
The beetle on his desk shimmered, its chitinous shell softening, its legs folding, its body rounding. When the light faded, a button lay in its place—not a perfect button, not the kind that would pass Wainwright's scrutiny in September, but a button nonetheless. Round, smooth, with four small holes where the beetle's legs had been.
Wainwright came to his desk, examined the button, and said nothing. But when he returned to the front of the room, he paused.
"Mr. Prince has achieved a passable transformation," he said, his voice dry. "It is not perfect. The grain is wrong, and the color is uneven. But the form is correct, and the magic is stable." He looked at Edmund, and for the first time in seven months, something flickered in his expression that might have been approval. "This is acceptable progress."
It was the closest thing to praise that Wainwright had ever given. Edmund sat very still, his hands folded on his desk, and tried not to smile.
---