The skirmish with Travers's crew was trivial, but its implications were not. A Muggle-born wizard sorted into Slytherin House naturally became a lightning rod for the old-guard pure-blood ideology.
The intensity of the conflicts in the wider world was now spilling into the corridors, forcing an atmosphere of hostile alignment even among students.
Anduin felt no genuine fear, but he did feel a tremendous strategic annoyance. His time was a finite and highly valuable resource, and he refused to waste a single second fending off sticky, low-level harassment.
Such conflicts drained his magical energy and, more importantly, interrupted his rigorous schedule of magical study with Professor Burns. A retreat was necessary, not out of cowardice, but out of strategic efficiency.
After careful consideration of the available sanctuary, Anduin settled on the Forbidden Forest Cabin—a place too remote and too politically insignificant for his peers to bother with, but perfectly situated for focused study.
It was a stark, functional move designed to deny his enemies a clean target and allow him to dedicate all his focus to the highly delicate, potentially volatile runic research he was undertaking.
He began the transfer that very evening, moving his essential texts, his rune disk, and his rudimentary belongings to the secluded cabin. Every day, he continued his self-directed magical practice and theoretical study, and in the evenings, he would make the long walk to Professor Burns's office to delve deeper into the intricacies of Alchemical Translation and Kinetic Storage.
He had spent the early part of the afternoon poring over the 49 Formulas for Breaking and Combining Talismans. The section on acoustic modulation was particularly enlightening, detailing how the precise structural arrangement of control and elemental runes could be used to dramatically increase or decrease the vibrational frequency of a magically generated sound wave—the key, he realized, to producing the undetectable ultrasonic pulse required for his Reverberation Spell.
It was during this concentrated research that a sharp, decisive knock interrupted his silence.
Anduin opened the cabin door to find Charles Selwyn standing awkwardly on the porch. Charles looked ill at ease, shuffling his feet—a stark contrast to the quiet resolve Anduin remembered.
"You're here," Anduin said, offering a small smile. "It seems the practicality of necessity has finally overridden the pride of your House. Come in."
Charles stepped into the cramped, spartan room. He surveyed the rough wooden table, the piled books, and the singular, threadbare armchair, the simple aesthetic a world away from the lavish, emerald-and-silver excess of the Slytherin dungeon.
"Do you… do you actually live here now?" Charles asked, his voice betraying genuine surprise.
"I do," Anduin confirmed, shrugging off his robes and returning to his book. "Slytherin is not a safe or quiet place for a non-aligned wizard right now. Those who cling to the old ideas of pure-blood supremacy are forcing everyone into a corner. Staying in the Common Room merely provides a daily opportunity for trouble, as Travers proved last night. It is better to gather strength and knowledge in isolation than to constantly defend yourself in a confined space."
Charles's face tightened with genuine anger. "I can't believe those bastards are targeting their own classmates! They claim to be about Slytherin unity, but they just want obedience. It's the same in my House—Gryffindor is furious about the increased hostility with Slytherin, but I'm too useless to contribute anything."
He sat down heavily on the edge of the cot, his shoulders slumped. "I've thought about it. I feel weak and powerless. I see the pressure, and I can't help. You are capable, Anduin, highly capable. I am willing to follow your direction. I want to become strong enough to protect my interests and stand my ground. Tell me what to do."
Anduin closed his textbook with a decisive snap. The honesty in Charles's plea—the pure, raw desire for competence—was the only currency Anduin respected. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a rolled piece of parchment detailing a meticulous schedule.
"I anticipated this," Anduin said, handing the scroll to Charles. "This is the curriculum. You will be undergoing a specialized, synergistic training regimen this term."
Charles unrolled the parchment and frowned at the first few lines. "Running? This is special training? Shouldn't we be focusing on advanced spell-work, or perhaps shield enchantments?"
Anduin's expression softened slightly, then hardened with a mentor's resolve. He clapped Charles lightly on his shoulder, emphasizing the comparative frailty beneath the robes.
"Look at you, Charles. Your physical chassis is inadequate," Anduin stated bluntly. "Your body is simply not strong enough. Physical weakness translates directly into delayed reaction time and a volatile magical core. Strengthening your body is the first, most fundamental step because the physical discipline required for intense endurance training directly mirrors the willpower required to sustain complex magic."
He began pacing the small floor, outlining his unique philosophy. "The Wizarding World relies on a flawed premise: that innate talent or bloodline is everything. They wait for magical maturity. We will not. Consistent physical training burns away the impurities of the magical reservoir, making your core output cleaner and your control more instantaneous. A strong, disciplined will, forged through enduring physical pain, directly increases the raw power and duration of your spellcasting. This is the alchemy of effort, and it supersedes the alchemy of bloodline. We start there, because a powerful mind in a weak body is a brittle thing."
He outlined the schedule without pause: "You will wake early every morning. I will personally supervise your endurance jogging—not a leisurely stroll, but a constant exertion to improve your cardiovascular and respiratory conditioning. After classes, you will report here for spell endurance drills and specialized magical practice. Be warned: this regimen is designed to be brutal. It is designed to expose and destroy your limits."
Charles, seeing the determination in Anduin's eyes, and knowing the stakes, swallowed hard. "I am not afraid of difficulties, Anduin. If I can become stronger, I can endure anything."
"We shall see," Anduin replied, his voice devoid of warmth or false encouragement. "Ambition is common; the resolve to suffer for it is rare."
"Good. We begin immediately with Spell Extension Training," Anduin announced. "This is a method I developed to aggressively improve the stamina, control, and sensory perception of your magical flow."
Anduin, without drawing his wand, directed a powerful, silent Aguamenti charm from the corner of the room, filling a large, cumbersome metal basin with water until it was overflowing. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist—again, wandlessly and silently—he lifted the incredibly heavy basin and suspended it directly above Charles's head.
"Now, you will take over the Levitation Charm," Anduin instructed. "Since you cannot yet cast silently, you will use your wand and full verbal incantation. The rules are simple: Maintain the spell's integrity and hold that basin for as long as your willpower permits."
Charles, intimidated by the sheer weight of the object and the potential consequence of failure, immediately drew his wand.
"Wingardium Leviosa!"
The heavy basin gave a jerky lurch before stabilizing, hovering precariously a foot above Charles's hair. He had instinctively poured a massive amount of unrefined magical energy into the initial cast, giving the spell a fragile, overcompensating power.
"Now, the instruction," Anduin said, leaning back into his armchair and reopening his rune book, creating an atmosphere of utter academic detachment.
"Maintain your current casting stance. Focus on minimizing the magical input required to sustain the effect—find the equilibrium point. Feel the spell's flow through your body, and concentrate on maintaining that flow while drawing the least amount of energy from your core. You are not lifting a feather; you are resisting the urge to let a cannonball drop. Every muscle fibre, every breath, must be dedicated to this maintenance."
"And then?" Charles asked anxiously, already feeling a terrifying drain on his core reserves. The initial lift had been a sudden, violent exertion.
"And then you hold it. Until you can't," Anduin said flatly, his eyes scanning the runic charts. "I am checking your magical reserve capacity and establishing your current stamina baseline. This is where you learn true control: sustained, deliberate, monotonous exertion. Don't waste energy asking questions; save it for the spell."
Charles grit his teeth. Five minutes. Five long minutes passed. His casting arm was trembling slightly, his neck was stiff from craning back to watch the basin, and a deep, aching fatigue was settling into his shoulders and back. He hadn't realized how much physical effort was involved in maintaining a Levitation Charm on such a heavy, unstable mass.
"Has it only been a few minutes? I feel like my core is burning out!" Charles gasped, his voice tight with strain. "Is this truly effective? I can't hold on much longer!"
Anduin didn't even look up from his text. His voice was a calm, dispassionate blade. "It has been six minutes. When I was seven, I could sustain a far more complex charm for longer than this. Stop complaining and hold your position. You are fighting your own weakness, not the basin. The longer you endure this initial threshold of pain, the faster your core will adapt and expand its capacity. You need to push past the psychological barrier your soft upbringing has installed."
The casual comparison to his seven-year-old self stung Charles deeply. He knew Anduin was correct. The flaw in the traditional pure-blood model was the fundamental lack of systemic training.
Wizards relied on raw talent and explosive bursts, never the tedious, grinding discipline that built genuine magical resilience. They valued immediate results over the painful process. Anduin's method was the cold, hard logic of a magical engineer.
I am a wizard who wants to change his fate, Charles thought, forcing his shoulders to lock. My family suffered because of weakness. I will not break here.
"Keep pushing, Charles," Anduin's voice cut through the silence again, this time with a dangerous edge.
"If you cannot even complete this rudimentary endurance test—if you let a simple basin of water drop after nine minutes—what delusions do you harbor about confronting a real Death Eater or avenging your family's loss of status? Fall now, and you admit you prefer weakness to pain. Stand strong, and you begin the long, agonizing process of becoming someone who matters."
The mention of his family's humiliation—the loss of respect and influence due to their failure to secure their position—was the perfect trigger. Charles's face flushed scarlet. His jaw clenched, and he pushed the last of his mental reserves into the spell.
Ten minutes. Anduin had set the arbitrary threshold. Charles passed it. The basin wobbled violently, but it stayed suspended.
"Are we there yet?" Charles pleaded, his voice hoarse, the magic draining from his core like water from a sieve. He could feel the familiar prickle of magical exhaustion, the dizzying lightheadedness that preceded a full blackout.
"Not yet," Anduin lied smoothly, his eyes calculating the exact moment of Charles's maximum potential output. Eleven minutes had passed. Charles had already exhausted what most wizards his age would consider their full magical reserve for that level of physical strain. Anduin needed to force his core to draw on its deep, untapped reserves.
"One minute left. Maintain control!" Anduin commanded, though he knew they were approaching fifteen minutes.
Another agonizing minute crawled by. Charles was trembling now, his entire body shaking as he strained to hold the posture and the spell. His wand felt impossibly heavy, and the room was beginning to spin. The fear of the cold water crashing down on his face was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.
"Is it over now? How long has passed? I... I can't feel my fingers..." Charles whispered, the last of his control giving way.