Planning

On Anduin's side, Professor Slughorn prepared several glass potion bottles for him, allowing him to take his finished product with him. He gave Anduin a few more words of encouragement and awarded Slytherin 10 House Points. After all, Anduin was one of his own students, and a professor could afford to show a little favoritism.

After class, Anduin carried five bottles of Calming Potion. He took out two, intending to give them to Vivian since they had made the potion together.

"No, thanks, Anduin. These potions are all your work. I feel like I didn't help at all," Vivian said, refusing. She didn't feel right accepting them.

"Then just take one. You're my partner, after all. And I kept you from getting any hands-on practice in Potions Class today." Anduin firmly pressed a bottle into Vivian's hands, coming up with an excuse to reassure her.

"Heh... You really know how to talk," Vivian said sarcastically, unimpressed by Anduin's shameless attempt at consolation.

"By the way, the weekend's coming up. Could I borrow your Mahjong set? I've got a few friends among the girls, and I was thinking we could play this weekend..." Vivian rubbed her fingers together, making a little gesture as if she were drawing a tile, and smiled at Anduin.

How had she picked up the bad habits so quickly, while ignoring the good ones? Anduin gave Vivian a helpless glance. Lately, he'd been holed up in his room studying spells all day. Aside from classes and meals, he barely saw even Vivian.

When they returned to the Common Room, Anduin dug out the box of Mahjong tiles he hadn't touched in ages and handed it to Vivian. Then he went back to his room to resume his spell studies.

Anduin reviewed his first week of classes.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was so forgettable he barely seemed to exist. He was old and looked like a skeleton, and spent nearly every lesson reading straight from the textbook. The class was incredibly dull, with practically no practical work. Rumor had it that Voldemort had cursed the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts, so no professor could teach it for more than a year. Anduin was always worried that the professor might suddenly drop dead during class.

Anduin could keep up with Transfiguration. He'd discovered that he had a pretty good knack for it. In their first lesson, Professor McGonagall had asked them to turn a matchstick into a needle, and Anduin had managed it perfectly after a little over half an hour of practice. Professor McGonagall had even awarded Slytherin five House Points for it. Although Anduin was very interested in Transfiguration, he still put it off for later. Everyone had only so much time, and Transfiguration Spells required a great deal of practice. He planned to spend more time improving his Transfiguration once he'd made some progress in Charms.

Today's Potions Class had taught Anduin one thing: the subject suited him extremely well. He could master how to brew a potion in a very short time. He planned to devote more time to studying and brewing Potions, focusing on learning as many Potion Recipes as possible. He already had a few ideas.

Anduin planned to earn money by selling Potions in the future. Gringotts would only exchange up to 100 Galleons for him—not every year, but 100 in total. He had no intention of living off his savings. The money Sirius had given him hadn't come without a price: it had brought him into conflict with two Death Eaters.

As for Herbology, Astronomy, and History of Magic, Anduin's basic goal was simply to keep up with the lessons.

For now, Anduin planned to focus most of his time on Charms and studying Lily's protective amulet. He sorted out his priorities and drew up a detailed plan.

First, he would learn New Spells from the old textbooks he'd found in the Spell Classroom and the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He was still mostly at this stage. His goal was to learn all the mainstream spells from years one through seven, with the ability to cast each one properly as the standard. He didn't need to be especially good at them yet; learning them was the priority. Of course, he would skip the more difficult ones for now, such as Apparition. A mistake while casting that spell could leave him Splinched.

Next came practicing and developing Defensive Spells. Once he'd finished learning the New Spells in the first step, he would select several suitable ones for focused practice and build an appropriate Tactical System around them.

Anduin divided all spells into four levels: beginner, proficient, instinct, and extraordinary.

Being able to cast a spell at a basic level counted as beginner. His goal for the first step was to reach that level with most spells.

Proficiency meant mastering a spell well enough to cast it quickly and accurately, even in difficult conditions or while in a poor state, without making mistakes.

Anduin called the next level Instinct Level: mastering a spell completely and being able to cast it silently and without a wand. His Levitation Charm and Obstacle Charm were basically at this level.

Extraordinary was a level Anduin had come up with himself. As he saw it, an Extraordinary Level spell had to go beyond complete mastery: it needed either a unique Casting Skill or the ability to produce far greater power than the original spell. Once a spell had been developed to the Extraordinary Level, it was no longer the same spell as before. Anduin thought Vanessa's Extraction Curse had the potential to become an Extraordinary Spell. For now, though, he considered Vanessa's Extraction Curse a little better than proficient, but not yet at the instinct level. Further development of its Casting Skill could give it extraordinary potential.

Anduin had also wondered whether he could further develop his Obstacle Charm and Levitation Charm, elevating them to the Extraordinary Level. So far, however, he had no idea how.

At the same time as he studied defensive magic, he would also investigate Lily's protective amulet and see whether he could make other Alchemical Items.

Anduin's current plan was to bring several spells to at least the proficient level and make practical Alchemical Items to improve his strength, such as reproducing the protective amulet. Together, these would form his Tactical System. Anduin suffered from a severe case of Fear of Insufficient Firepower and hated having his safety beyond his own control, so he studied New Spells day and night.

After that came the research topics in Professor Flitwick's Spell Club. Anduin planned to start working on them once he'd learned most of the spells, with the exception of Silent Spell, Wandless Spellcasting, and Magic Sensitivity. He could develop Silent Spell and Wandless Spellcasting through intensive practice with a single spell, and he already knew how to improve his Magic Sensitivity.

Anduin had concluded that there were three main factors related to magic and spells: Magic Power Reserve, Magic Strength, and Magic Sensitivity.