"Here they come!" Cho screamed, joining the roar of the Ravenclaw crowd.
Fourteen brooms shot into the air. The Gryffindors in scarlet, the Ravenclaws in blue.
"And they're off!" Lee Jordan, who was the commentator, is in same year as twins was sitting on podium as his voice echoed over the magical megaphone. "Johnson takes the Quaffle, passes to Spinnet—nice dodge by Ravenclaw's Davies—ouch! That was a Bludger sent by one of the Weasley Twins! They are looking particularly vicious today!"
Alister looked up. Sure enough, despite their zombie-like state at breakfast, Fred and George were flying with terrifying energy. It seemed the adrenaline of the game had woken them up. Fred hit a Bludger so hard it cracked the handle of a Ravenclaw Chaser's broom.
"Did you see that angle?" Cho grabbed Alister's shoulder, shaking him. "If he had hit it three degrees lower, it would have been a foul!"
"Brutal," Alister rasped, keeping his teeth clenched to keep Mandrake safe.
The match that followed was nothing short of a spectacle. It wasn't just a game; it was a high-speed dogfight.
Usually, school Quidditch was messy—missed passes, wide turns, and clumsy bludger hits. But today, the players moved with terrifying synchronization.
Angelina Johnson took the Quaffle, diving into a corkscrew spin that defied physics to dodge a Bludger sent by a Slytherin beater. She didn't lose momentum; she accelerated.
"Johnson passes to Spinnet—Spinnet back to Johnson—GOOD MERLIN! Did you see that weave?" Lee Jordan screamed into the megaphone. "They're threading the needle through the Ravenclaw defense like they're flying through... well, like they've been training in a hurricane!"
On the Ravenclaw side, Roger Davies led a formation that cut through the air with military precision, banking hard enough to make the stands gasp. Even the beaters, Fred and George, were hitting with calculated ricochets rather than brute force.
It ended in twenty minutes flat. The Gryffindor Seeker spotted the Snitch near the ground. Instead of a messy scramble, both Seekers executed a perfect "Wronski Feint" variation, pulling up inches from the grass. Gryffindor snatched the victory by a split second, but the crowd was roaring for both teams.
The players landed, sweating and exhilarated.
But as the cheers began to die down, Professor McGonagall stepped onto the podium. She raised her wand to her throat.
"QUIET, PLEASE!"
Her magically amplified voice boomed across the stadium, silencing the thousands of students instantly. She looked down at the players, a rare smile gracing her stern face.
"I suppose," McGonagall began, her voice echoing off the towers, "that all of you felt today's game was... different from last year's."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the stands.
"I can feel that all their movements, their reflexes, and their skills have improved drastically in mere weeks," McGonagall continued. "The precision we saw today is not a coincidence."
Alister felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. 'No. Don't do it. Professor, please...'
"All of this," McGonagall declared, sweeping her arm toward the Ravenclaw stands, "is thanks to the student who spent the last term calculating aerodynamics and donating the enchanted training constructs known as the Aerial Gauntlet to the school."
She looked directly at where Alister was sitting.
"Mr. Alister Potter."
The silence lasted for one heartbeat. Then, every single head in the stadium—thousands of students, the teachers, the exhausted players on the pitch—turned to look at him.
Fred and George, down on the field, raised their bats and started chanting. "Potter! Potter!"
The crowd joined in. The noise was deafening.
Cho grabbed his arm, shaking him violently, her face beaming with pride. "Alister! That's you! You didn't tell me the Gauntlet was working that well!"
On the surface, Alister looked the picture of humble genius. He offered a stiff, polite nod to the Professor, his face impassive, his posture straight.
Inside, he was screaming.
'So much for the spotlight. So much for being the grey man."
He clamped his lips together so hard his jaw ached, gave a small, awkward wave.
The applause finally sputtered and died down, replaced by the chaotic shuffling of thousands of students heading for the exits.
Alister let out a slow, controlled breath through his nose.
Cho beamed, linking her arm through his as they descended the wooden stairs. "You're practically a celebrity now, Alister."
Alister offered a weak shrug, tapping his throat again to remind her of his "condition."
"Right, right, the cold," Cho lowered her voice, squeezing his arm sympathetically. "Let's get you back to the castle. I'll fend off anyone who asks for an autograph."
Alister nodded.
______________________________________________________
It was the last day of January, and the windows of Hogwarts were frosted over with thick, fern-like patterns of ice. Inside the Alister's base, however, the air was humid and smelled of ozone and volatile chemicals.
Alister stood in the center of the room, his eyes closed, his breathing rhythmic.
The Elder Mandrake leaf sat heavy and silent under his tongue—a familiar weight now, like a smooth stone he carried everywhere. But his focus wasn't on the leaf. It was on the network of mana channels coursing through his body.
He had spent months mapping, testing, and refining. He had simulated thousands of variations in the System to prune out the dangerous side effects—the ones that caused vein rupture or magical cancer.
Now, it was finished.
[Universal Magic Circulation Method]
[Status: Complete]
[Safety Check: 100% Stable]
Alister inhaled, and in his mind's eye, he pulled on the ambient magic of the room. Usually, absorbing mana was like sipping through a straw.
With the new method, it was like opening a floodgate.
The mana roared into his core, filling him instantly. His skin glowed with a faint, translucent blue light as the energy saturated every cell.
Alister frowned, opening his eyes. The glow faded.
He checked his stats. His mana bar was full. In fact, it was overflowing, but the "Max Capacity" number wouldn't budge.
"I'm at the cap," Alister realized, looking at his hands. "The method works perfectly. My regeneration is practically instant—I could cast high-level spells all day and never run dry. But I can't grow the tank."
He was like a cup sitting under a waterfall. He could refill instantly, but he couldn't hold more than a cup's worth of water because of world's limit.
It was frustrating but also liberating. High mana regeneration meant he had infinite stamina for what came next.
He turned his attention to the other side of the room.
A long granite table was cluttered with failed experiments. Scorched cauldrons, shattered vials, and piles of ash marked his attempts to brew the Apex Animagus Potion.
"Attempt forty-two," Alister muttered, walking over to the workstation.
The recipe for the potion was a nightmare. The Dragon Heart-Blood and Phoenix Ash were diametrically opposed forces—one was destruction, the other rebirth. Every time he tried to fuse them, the mixture destabilized and turned into useless sludge.
After Alister checked the progress of his potion, he turned his attention back looking down at the sheaf of parchment covered in complex arithmancy and runic diagrams—the blueprints for the Universal Magic Circulation Method which is also a solution for a huge problem in magic world.
Squibs weren't born without magic; they were born with disconnected cores. Their engines were there, but the starter motor was broken. This method... this method was a hand-crank that could force the engine to turn.
"If the major wizard families knew I had a 'cure' for their greatest shame..." Alister's expression darkened. "Or if the Ministries assume I could mass-produce wizards..."
It would bring a war. The Purebloods would kill to control it, the Goblins would riot seeing wizards strengthen, and Dumbledore...
Alister glanced at the door. Dumbledore would bury it. Not out of malice, but out of fear. The Headmaster believed in the 'Greater Good,' and handing humanity a way to force-evolve wasn't safe. It was chaos.
"I'm not ready to be the center of that storm," Alister decided cold-bloodedly.
He gathered the papers. Every chart, every note, every calculation. He threw them into the empty stone basin in the corner of the room.
He pointed his wand. "(Incendio)."
He watched the flames consume the work of the last month. He didn't feel a sense of loss—the data was already backed up perfectly in his Brain, encrypted behind a mental fortress of world's core that even Voldemort couldn't crack.
It was just waiting to be spread until he discovers a solution.
"Safe," he thought, watching the last parchment curl into ash. "For now."
He turned his back on the ashes and walked toward the granite workstation.
The Apex Animagus Potion. Attempt forty-three.
The cauldron was bubbling sluggishly. The liquid inside was a muddy, unhappy grey. The Dragon Heart-Blood (Destruction) and Phoenix Ash (Rebirth) were still fighting for dominance, refusing to bond.
"You want to fight?" Alister thought, rolling up his sleeves. "Let's see who has more stamina."
_________________________________________________
Alister spent most of his time working on potion until twins pulled him to Gryffindor common room.
The fire crackled warmly in the Gryffindor common room. Alister shouldn't technically have been there—being a Slytherin and all—but the Weasley Twins had insisted he review their "business plan," and Percy Weasley was too busy polishing his Head Boy badge to notice the intruder.
A surprisingly peaceful silence hung in the air—which, as always with the Weasleys, meant something catastrophic was about to happen.
Fred Weasley broke the peace by slamming a glass jar onto the wooden table.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Fred announced, spreading his arms wide like a ringmaster. "I present: Weasleys' Experimental Hair-Growth Formula!"
"Guaranteed to work!" George added, leaning over the back of the sofa. "Or at the very least... guaranteed to do something."
Alister, who was nursing a cup of tea he couldn't drink, raised an eyebrow.
"Why do I feel like I should go alert Madam Pomfrey in advance?"
"Oh come on, live a little!" Lee Jordan grinned, leaning back in his chair. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Fred uncorked the jar. A puff of faint green smoke escaped, smelling suspiciously like burnt socks and despair.
"Now," George said, scanning the room. "For the volunteer—"
Fred and George's eyes locked simultaneously onto Lee.
"Lee! Congratulations!" they shouted in unison.
"Absolutely not," Lee crossed his arms instantly. "The last time you two made me volunteer, my eyebrows migrated to my chin! It took a week for them to crawl back up!"
But he was outnumbered. Fred moved with beater-like speed, shoving a tiny spoonful of the green sludge into Lee's hand.
"Just a drop! On the head!" Fred urged.
Lee looked at the goo, then at his friends. He sighed, the resignation of a man who knew his fate. "If I die, tell my mother I went heroically."
"We'll tell her you tripped on your shoelaces and face-planted," George promised cheerfully. "Much more believable."
Lee squeezed his eyes shut and dabbed the potion onto his scalp.
For a moment, nothing happened. The common room held its breath.
Then—POOF!
It wasn't a growth; it was an eruption. Lee's hair exploded upward like a pink cotton-candy tornado. It spiraled out, wrapping around his head and expanding at an alarming rate, consuming his ears, then his face.
"I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!" Lee's muffled voice screamed from inside the pink wool. "I'M BEING SMOTHERED BY MARSHMALLOW HAIR!!"
George tapped the jar thoughtfully, looking at the expanding mass. "Hmm. That wasn't supposed to be pink."
"Or alive," Fred noted.
The hair started crawling across the table like a giant, fuzzy octopus trying to escape.
Alister scrambled backward over the sofa, his eyes wide.
"IT'S MOVING!" Alister rasped. "WHY IS IT MOVING??"
"SOMEBODY HEX THE HAIR!" Lee shrieked, flailing blindly.
Fred whipped out his wand. "Don't worry! I know just the spell—"
"DON'T SAY 'I think'!" Alister warned, clutching his jaw.
"I... think it's Reducio!" Fred shouted.
A flash of orange light blasted across the room—BOOM.
Smoke cleared. Suddenly, Lee was standing in a giant pile of severed pink hair... completely bald. His head shone in the firelight like a polished egg.
"WHAT—WHERE—MY HAIR!!!" Lee yelled, feeling his smooth scalp with horror.
"Well," George said cheerfully. "At least now you can see."
"And look!" Fred pointed. "No eyebrow migration this time! Vast improvement!"
Lee glared at them, shiny-headed and furious. "I'm going to murder both of you. Slowly."
"That's fair," George nodded.
"But look! At least it worked," Fred argued, gesturing to the pile on the floor. "Technically. It grew hair."
Alister collapsed onto the sofa, his shoulders shaking. He pressed both hands firmly over his mouth, not to hide a laugh, but to physically keep the Mandrake leaf from flying out as his body convulsed with silent mirth.
"I'm never letting you two experiment on me," Alister wheezed through his fingers. "Ever."
"Oh don't worry, we're working on a Confidence Potion next—" Fred began.
"Actually it makes people bark uncontrollably," George clarified. "But it's mostly confidence."
"I'm transferring to Beauxbatons," Alister choked out.
Suddenly, the portrait hole swung open. The laughter died instantly. Professor McGonagall stepped in, her tartan robe sweeping around her. She stopped dead, staring at the battlefield-pile of pink hair and the bald Lee Jordan.
Her lips thinned into a straight line. She looked at the Twins. She looked at the hair. She looked at Lee's egg-head.
"I am not even going to ask," McGonagall said, her voice tight. "Just... clean it up. And Mr. Jordan, please visit Madam Pomfrey before someone mistakes you for a large boiled egg."
She turned and marched out.
Lee sighed dramatically, sinking into his chair. "I should've stayed in bed today."
(END OF CHAPTER)
"Can't wait to see what Alister does next?
You don't have to wait! I am currently 15 chapters ahead on Patreon.
special thanks to all my EPIC members and,
LEGEND: Franco Steam
MYTH: Asaf Montgomery
Link: patreon.com/xxSUPxx