A New Potter - V2 - Chapter 2

I woke up before the sunrise. Even in the magical world a hospital smelled the same. Part of me was wondering if I was going to wake up back home. It looked like this was my new home. I tried to think back to what I had been doing before last night. The memories were hazy at best. There weren't any bright lights, or speeding trucks, so I took that as a good sign. Maybe I wasn't dead back there.

The thought of Harry Potter waking up in my body made me chuckle. Have fun working overnight security in the middle of nowhere. Even considering the circumstances of my arrival, I had the better end of the deal.

This world had magic. Now, I just needed to figure it out. Waving a wand and shouting spells worked, last night had proven that. But even then, there was wandless magic and silent casting. That had to mean that the words and tools were there as a guide.

The faux-Latin made it sound mystical and the wand movements enhanced the perception. Using an obscure language probably assisted in providing basic protection to the spells. It would be easier to counter, or dismiss, Wingardium Leviosa than just saying Levitate.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. Taking a few deep, slow breathes I let my awareness drift into the space around me. The world felt different. There was a subtle charge in the air that I wasn't there in my world. It had to be magic. I reached my hand out, feeling the energy move around my fingers as I wiggled them.

"Lumos." I spoke softly as I raised my hand.

The charge connected to something inside of me a moment before a ball of light appeared in my hand. I could feel the connection flowing from the area around me into my being and then funneled to the spell. My attention followed the sensation from the ball of light to where the ambient energy touched my being. I needed to come up with something better to call it than that.

It didn't feel like an actual shape inside of me, like an organ. More like air in my lungs than the lungs themselves. My own personal cloud of magic drifted around, and through, my body.

I spoke the words again to cast the spell, this time giving the flow my entire focus. The ambient magic around me was absorbed by my could, focused inside my point in my body just below my solar plexus, and then directed up through my arm to my finger. I traced the flow back to the spot where the magic from outside of my body anchored to my physical form. While channeling the ambient energy this point was a whirlpool of energy, changing raw magic into the spell. I dismissed the ball of light, but kept my attention on the anchor.

This had to be the magical core that people were always talking about. The whirlpool motion continued at a much slower rate once the spell was dismissed. It was constantly pulling in ambient energy to convert to my own, but it was them releasing it into the cloud that hung around my body.

I stole a quick look at the room around me. It was still dark. There were a few other beds with patients, but no one else seemed to be awake. I folded my legs under myself and rested my hands on my knees in an approximation of what my memory supplied as a meditation pose.

My focus returned to my core. It was easy to find now that I had located it already. I tried to increase the speed of the rotation, but there didn't seem to be any change unless I channeled magic for a spell. Holding a reserve of ambient magic wasn't working either. The core didn't contain, or hold, energy. It worked to integrate the raw magic with my own. Pulling energy to the core resulted in more being added to my cloud.

Working with ambient magic was only serving to annoy me. My focus shifted to the cloud of energy that was anchored to the core. Unlike the raw magic, this type reacted immediately. The core rotation increased in speed fueled by the cloud. What was once loose magic drifting around me was now long cord of consolidated power. It continued spinning around my core, which was now moving at a constant speed that was even faster than when I had channeled magic for the earlier spell.

The cloud around me shrank drastically as it was cycled through my core. I could feel the cord of compressed magic building up. Now that it was refined it had nowhere to go and was beginning to impede the core rotation. I had no idea what would happen if it stopped, and I didn't want to find out.

I grabbed the end of the cord with my focus and began to thread it through my body. Without any better ideas I followed the systems that were already in place. I connected the cord to my heart. It moved naturally through my body with each pulse. The cord of magic was soon spread along every vein and artery. All the while, my core stayed in motion. It had worked through refining my personal cloud and was now focused on continuously circulating the cord of magic.

It felt like someone had just hit me in the head with a brick. Not an experience I had ever wanted to happen again. My hands gripped my knees, bracing myself until the dizziness passed. I took a couple of deep breathes to help things along.

My cloud was gone. The ambient magical energy was more pronounced now. I reached out and instantly felt a change. My core hungrily pulled in the ambient magic. The raw energy was refined and added to my own as naturally as taking breathing.

My head spun again. Luckily, my core let it go once I lost focus. The energy wasn't released though, it had been added to the refined magic now circulating through my body. I needed to be careful with that.

I held up my hand. With a thought the ball of light appeared in my hand. It was bigger and brighter this time. The process was the same as before, but the magic moved along the newly formed pathways with greater speed and efficiency.

The ball of light disappeared with a thought. I looked over at my wand. It jumped to my waiting hand. I spun it around with a goofy smile on my face. A jolt of power rushed from my core to the wand nearly launching it from my grip. It bucked in my hand, yanking my arm in the process.

"Hey, now." I chided the want. "Behave."

I flinched when felt something in reply. A feeling of excitement and embarrassment.

"It is exciting." I said quietly. "But I need you to keep it cool. If we start blasting spells that would make the Elder Wand jealous, then people are going to get too curious."

A feeling of pride and understanding. I paused, studying the wand for a moment.

"How far does our connection go?" I asked.

<Confusion. Curiosity.>

I placed the wand beside me.

"Lumos." I said as I focused on the wand.

There was a small spark of light at the end. I picked it back up.

"It's a start." I said with a smile. "People keep disarming me. If we can work together over some distance then it won't matter if we're separated."

<Excitement. Resolve.>