The Hogwats Gaijin

They returned to the underground classroom Moody had offered as soon as lessons ended. With only a miserable week and a half until the task, Hermione had no intention of letting them slack, and in some ways Morgan agreed.

Kieran paced slowly before his newly assembled pupils, feeling heat creep beneath his collar. It was one thing to toss Harry a piece of advice in the heat of training when adrenaline surged; quite another to stand here, under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes in the silence of an empty classroom.

Hermione watched him with that same hungry, analytical interest she usually reserved for rare editions in the library. Ginny radiated excessive motivation, clutching her wand as though preparing to storm the Ministry. Harry remained calm, habitually awaiting instructions, while Ron… Ron shifted from foot to foot with the expression of someone still unsure whether this circus was worth missing free time.

Kieran cleared his throat; the sound echoed off the bare stone walls.

‘Right,’ he began, understanding there was no putting it off. ‘Non-verbal spells are not fundamentally different from spoken ones. Magic does not lie in the words; words are merely a crutch to help the mind focus. The only difference is whether you shout the formula aloud or speak it in your head.’

He paused for a second, looking at his hands.

‘At Mahoutokoro I was silent for years. Probably that’s why non-verbal magic came to me a little more easily — my inner voice was used to being the only one.’

Kieran caught Hermione’s sympathetic glance and immediately looked away, feeling a prick of awkwardness. He did not need pity, yet the softness in her eyes somehow threw him.

‘And remember,’ he drew his wand slowly, though his body instinctively wanted to snatch it in a sharp, blurred motion; he suppressed the impulse. ‘Learning to cast one spell silently does not mean you can do it automatically with all the others. You’ll have to practise each one separately. It’s like… learning to write left-handed with every new word. But of course each new one gets easier.’

He gestured for them to draw their wands. When his friends obeyed, a ridiculous thought flashed through Kieran’s mind: he stood here like Sensei Takeda, and opposite him were those he himself had once been. The comparison made him almost physically uncomfortable. He shook his head to dispel the illusion. He did not want to be a teacher from the Jade Palace. He wanted to be… an equal.

‘Clear your mind,’ he said, trying to keep his voice simple, without any lecturing pomp. ‘Focus not on the sound of the word but on the effect. Visualise what should happen. Then… shout the formula with the voice inside your skull. Loudly. Clearly. But do not part your lips.’

Kieran spun sharply towards the wall. In his head roared a fierce: Depulso!

A dull, heavy thud rang out. Centuries of dust sifted from the ceiling, and the flames in the wall sconces flinched, nearly guttering. Kieran winced, eyeing the small crack in the stone. Overdone again. Old habits — striking to kill — still sat too deep.

‘Clear enough?’ he asked, glancing hopefully at his friends.

Hermione nodded with an encouraging smile, her eyes already alight with eagerness. Harry and Ron exchanged looks.

‘So how do you clear your mind?’ Ron asked, eyeing his wand suspiciously.

Ginny giggled, tossing her wand from hand to hand.

‘For you, Ron, that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s usually pretty empty in there anyway.’

Harry snorted despite himself, and Ron shot his sister a look that suggested he would turn her into a slug if only he knew how to do it silently.

‘Er… focus on your breathing,’ Kieran suggested, feeling uncertain. ‘I can do it, but I’ve never taught anyone. Let’s try. Well… don’t think, then strike, all right?’

The first synchronised wand wave produced nothing but the whistle of parted air. Ron puffed up until he turned red; Harry looked intensely focused, but the wall remained untouched.

They repeated again and again. Five times, ten, fifteen.

By the end of the second dozen attempts a soft pop broke the classroom silence. Hermione’s spell was weak — it barely brushed the dust on the wall — but it was non-verbal.

‘I did it!’ she breathed.

Hermione turned to Kieran and gave him a radiant smile. It was so sincere and bright that, despite his usual reserve, he smiled back.

‘Well done! What helped you focus?’

‘I just…’ She hesitated. ‘I started multiplying numbers in my head until the thoughts vanished. And then I caught the state you described.’

‘Excellent advice,’ Ron groaned. ‘I adore multiplication.’

‘Think about chess,’ Hermione advised reasonably. ‘You need to drown out thoughts. Occupy them with some task. And when everything goes quiet — just cast. Catch that state, remember it. Next time will be easier.’

After an hour everyone began producing imperfect and irregular non-verbal spells. Kieran felt drained. Cutting straw mats for hours had been simpler.

The next several days blurred for Kieran into a steady, almost meditative rhythm — strict, precise, allowing no improvisation. Hermione set the pace at once and without discussion, like someone accustomed to the world bending to the schedule in her head. And the world, in the form of their small group, had no choice but to comply.

Lessons, library, their training room, library again — repeat, sometimes several times a day. Quick meals occasionally slipped in between, but even those felt more like technical pauses than rest. Hermione led the way, books tucked under her arm and the next hours already mapped out, and Kieran found himself not even considering arguing with her.

Their little group had formed naturally. Harry, Ron, Hermione — that was expected. Ginny joined too. She came to training stubbornly and without fuss, as though proving something not to them but to herself. Formally she had no business here — no one required extra lessons from a third-year, no one forced her to stand for hours repeating the same movement. Yet she stayed. She gritted her teeth, gripped her wand, tried again and again. Such stubbornness commanded respect.

She did not, however, come to the library. Every time Hermione — almost automatically by now — suggested, ‘Come with us, I’ve just found a couple of useful chapters,’ Ginny suddenly discovered urgent business. Kieran noticed how quickly she vanished through the doors, and how Hermione afterwards pressed her lips together slightly but did not insist. Ron, who occasionally tried to slip away after his sister, never succeeded and trudged glumly to the library with the rest.

On the bright side — Hermione really helped with schoolwork. A great deal. Patiently. And almost without grumbling, which was an achievement worthy of separate mention.

Charms came relatively easily to Kieran. They demanded precision, concentration, the ability to hold an image — all the things drilled into him at Mahoutokoro until they became automatic. Potions posed no particular problems either: steady hands, care, attention to detail — familiar things. He felt confident, almost calm, standing over a cauldron and counting seconds while stirring strictly clockwise.

Transfiguration, though… Transfiguration went far worse.

Turning animals into objects kept hitting some internal barrier. The spell lay unevenly, the form wavered, details slipped away. Where Hermione produced a neat inkwell, he ended up with something intermediate, pitiful, and frankly miserable-looking.

In the end Hermione had to tutor him separately — evenings in the common room, when most of the House had already gone to bed.

For this Kieran felt pangs of conscience. He disliked being a burden, taking up someone else’s time — especially hers. He caught himself wanting to say: it’s all right, I’ll manage alone — but the words always stayed inside. On the other hand… those evenings were calm. Quiet. Peaceful.

They sat close to the fire, spread out books, and the world narrowed to a warm circle of light, crackling logs, and her focused voice. Hermione explained clearly, step by step, never irritated when repetition was needed. Sometimes she took his hands in hers — confident, dry, warm palms — to correct his wand grip, show the proper arc of movement. She smelt of ink and old parchment. Kieran allowed her to teach him with hidden joy and gratitude. In those moments he almost forgot he was supposed to be strong, collected, invulnerable. Alone. And strangely — after those evenings he often did not dream nightmares at all.

He noticed the others too. During training Kieran watched Harry. Short, slight, at first glance unremarkable. But once movement began, that impression shattered. Potter’s reactions were almost inhuman. His eyes caught every sharp motion; he seemed to sense the space around him, holding it under control. Kieran was no Quidditch expert, but he guessed: a good Seeker must be exactly like that. And somewhere deep inside him stirred the suspicion that with proper training Harry could become a very dangerous duellist.

A week passed in that rhythm. Steady, exhausting, but effective and incredibly useful for Potter and their small band of enthusiasts alike.

And at its end came something unexpected.

One evening, as they sat again in the library buried in dusty tomes, Ron made the discovery. By accident — he opened yet another volume, flicked through a couple of pages, and suddenly froze.

‘Oi,’ he said, frowning. ‘What’s this?’

Hermione raised her head; so did Kieran. Ron slowly turned the book so they could see the diagram. Bubble-Head Charm. The library was quiet. Hermione muffled her own delighted cry with her palms.

‘Yes,’ she whispered fiercely, getting herself under control, ‘that’s it. Exactly what we need!’