228 Days Until July 12, 1992

Countdown: 228 days.

Gavin stared at the large words at the top of the blackboard for a long time.

It brought back the pressure of preparing for the college entrance exams.

228 days until July 12, 1992.

He had written the exact date beside it.

Gavin set down the chalk, stepped back, and sat in his chair, rubbing his brow.

It was already late November at Hogwarts. Darkness fell early. Damp seeped through the windowpanes, and the distant tower spires were little more than blurred outlines against the gray-blue dusk. The fire burned low, its flickering light falling across the messy spread of books and notes on his desk.

For days, he had been turning over the same question.

What could he do without enough recorded cases?

The library held so little on the Obscurus that it almost seemed deliberately forgotten. Professor Binns could only offer a historical explanation for why it had been more common in the Middle Ages than in modern times. How was Gavin supposed to make progress from there?

After thinking it through, Gavin came up with one approach.

If there aren't any cases, why don't I become one?

The Sorting Hat had judged him well. Beneath it all, Gavin was reckless. Sometimes he really was a little crazy.

When the idea first occurred to him, even Gavin thought it was absurd.

But he soon realized it was the most efficient option he had.

At least some conditions for the formation of an Obscurus were now clear.

Prolonged suppression of magic.

An accumulation of negative emotions.

Rejection of and hostility toward one's own gift.

And the absence of a normal education within magical society.

Modern wizarding schools had drastically reduced the number of Obscuruses not merely by gathering children together to study. Schools also kept doing one crucial thing: letting children use magic normally, understand it, and grow accustomed to it.

That, in itself, was a form of release.

If doing all that prevented an Obscurus from forming, what about the reverse?

Would refraining from casting spells help?

By the time that thought occurred to him, Gavin knew he had probably set off down an unconventional research path.

It was a dangerous shortcut, but shortcuts usually promised extreme efficiency.

So he added a new step to his plan on the parchment:

Phase One: Stop casting spells voluntarily for one month.

"Start with the variable that's easiest to control," Gavin murmured.

It was a habit from his previous life.

Eliminate what he could first.

Deal with the easiest part, then work through the remaining difficulties. Sometimes the hardest problem solved itself along the way.

As for negative emotions—

That was much trickier.

Gavin understood his own emotional makeup quite well. It wasn't that he lacked negative emotions; he simply rarely let them carry him away. The meditation habit he had developed during his overworked years in his previous life had made him good at noticing emotions, taking them apart, and letting them go. Since coming to this world, he had kept up the habit. With a younger mind and stronger focus, he had practiced it more diligently than ever.

Put simply, someone accustomed to observing his own thoughts would not easily be ruled by them. He could sometimes even control his emotions.

In an ordinary life, that would be an advantage.

For this research, it was an obstacle.

"Researching the Obscurus when the researcher himself is too emotionally stable," Gavin mused. "Rather uncooperative of me."

So he set himself a second step:

Hypnosis? (Tentative.)

In his previous life, he had held doctorates in physics and computer science, not psychology. All he knew was that top psychologists could hypnotize themselves.

Ordinary people could do little more than repeat, "Everything happens for my benefit."

"I'll need some psychology books," Gavin thought. "Looks like I'll have to trouble Professor Bill."

During this time, Gavin had not forgotten that he was an Oxford PhD. After all, even a life full of magic occasionally needed a dash of science to liven it up.

Whenever he finished a paper on magic in the Room of Requirement and needed a change of pace, he rewarded himself with a few papers on computer science.

In some ways, psychology was far more dangerous than magic. Gavin had no wish to drive himself mad.

His current idea was to feed himself repeated, carefully designed suggestions: ones that would steer him toward rejecting and loathing magic, perhaps even resisting it instinctively.

The idea sounded rather sinister.

"If a person understands the structure of his own mind well enough," Gavin wrote in his notes, "could he attempt a little limited surgery on it?"

The key word, of course, was limited.

He had no intention of truly damaging himself.

Once he had made the plan, carrying it out proved easier than expected.

Mainly because not every first-year class at Hogwarts required students to wave their Wands themselves.

And after the Halloween incident, the professors did not treat Gavin as though he were fragile, but they did accept that he might need a little special consideration now and then.

So, from the first week, Gavin naturally avoided every situation where spellcasting wasn't essential.

In Transfiguration class, he showed Professor McGonagall the first-year final exam task and performed it beautifully.

He transformed a live mouse into an exquisite snuffbox, with movements steady enough for a textbook demonstration.

Professor McGonagall watched, then held his gaze for two seconds.

"Very good, Mr. Gu," she said. "Ten points to Hufflepuff."

Gavin set down his Wand and asked calmly,

"Professor, may I spend the rest of our Transfiguration classes studying independently?"

Several first-years around him looked up at once.

Professor McGonagall clearly noticed.

"Why?"

"I'd like to sort out the question of consistency you raised earlier," Gavin said. "I think the problem with Food Transfiguration may have something to do with the material being transformed."

He was already discussing Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall.

She looked at him, then finally nodded.

"You may," she said. "But you mustn't disturb anyone, and you may only work on it during my classes. You must get my permission before casting any spells."

"Of course, Professor."

So while his classmates continued their hard-fought struggles with matches, beetles, and buttons, Gavin spread out parchment at the back of the room and quietly began writing.

His Wand lay untouched at the edge of the desk.

Like a tool temporarily taken out of service.

Charms was even simpler.

Gavin took sick leave for the entire first week.

His reason was sound: during magic recovery, he should avoid intensive, repeated spellcasting.

Professor Flitwick understood completely. He even urged Gavin not to rush back to class; a full recovery mattered more.

When Justin heard, he gave Gavin a complicated look.

"So even when you skip class, you manage to make it look respectable?"

"I'm not skipping," Gavin corrected him. "I'm temporarily avoiding an experimental confounding factor."

"...You even have technical terms for missing class now."

"That shows how seriously I'm taking this."

Defense Against the Dark Arts posed even less of a problem.

Professor Quirrell had never been particularly eager to call students up to cast spells. If Gavin did not volunteer in class, the professor naturally turned his attention to students who were easier to question and less likely to make him nervous.

After all, exchanging questions and answers with Gavin often left a person feeling he ought to return to his office and prepare another couple of pages of lesson notes.

As for Herbology, Potions Class, and Astronomy—

Those required no magic at all.

Herbology called for steady hands, sharp eyes, and an ability to avoid being bitten by plants.

Potions Class was about following the steps, minding the heat, and not blowing up the cauldron.

Astronomy was simply looking up at the stars and learning, in the night wind of the Scottish Highlands, to respect the importance of keeping warm.

Overall, Gavin's plan to "cast as few spells as possible" ran quite smoothly.

On the surface, at least.

The professors did not particularly connect it to the Obscurus.

It was too distant and too rare. No ordinary wizard would hear that a first-year had not been waving his Wand much lately and immediately think of that.

They mostly thought Gavin had grown a little quieter since Halloween.

That was hardly unusual.

He was simply more reserved than before. Most of the time, he still performed well; he just seemed to be holding himself back a little, as though he had matured.

"Perhaps he hasn't fully recovered from his illness," Professor Sprout had remarked in private.

"Or maybe he's finally learned not to spend all his energy giving the professors difficult questions," Justin said.

"I'm not sure that's a good thing," Ernie said cautiously.

"Why?"

"Because when Gu goes quiet, he looks even more like he's seriously planning something."

The observation was unexpectedly accurate.

Unfortunately, no one could offer a more concrete objection.

Because it was true.

Gavin was indeed making plans.

What he had not planned for was an interesting lingering effect from the time he had nearly drained his magic dry.

He recovered quickly.

Faster than any Healer had predicted.

At first, he attributed it to the resilience of a young body. But he soon realized that wasn't the whole story. The sensation was especially pronounced when he sat in meditation.

He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and let his heartbeat gradually settle.

His thoughts drifted apart, then gathered again.

Then, in an almost imperceptible instant, he could clearly feel it—

Magic flowed slowly and quietly from somewhere deep inside his brain.

Not his heart.

Not his lower abdomen.

His brain.

After casting so many spells and growing familiar with magic, he could now genuinely feel its presence.

Magic arose from an area whose exact location he still could not identify, yet could vaguely sense.

It was a strange feeling.

It was as though a spring that had been half dry had been drained completely. As it recovered, he could finally witness the entire process of water welling up from it.

"So that's how it is," Gavin murmured one night as he opened his eyes in the Room of Requirement.

No wonder.

No wonder the finest points of control during spellcasting had always seemed so closely tied to his attention, intense focus, and even emotional stability.

The source of magic was connected to the brain in the first place.

And sitting in meditation acted directly on the brain.

The moment Gavin realized this, he made a decision:

Spend more time meditating.

If the purpose of refraining from spellcasting was to build up more magic, then speeding up its production would make that effort more efficient.

Why conserve resources when he could increase the supply?

He sat a little longer after waking in the morning.

Before returning to his dormitory at night, he found another chance to sit.

Sometimes, even during an afternoon break, he would head to the Room of Requirement, close the door of its practice room—so quiet it hardly felt like part of a school—and sit cross-legged.

Firelight flickered.

The air remained still.

Time passed little by little.

And like a remarkably cooperative test subject, he stopped casting spells voluntarily while carefully observing the flow of magic within him grow ever clearer.

He even began to wonder whether he should separate his "Obscurus research" from his "research into the source of magic." Otherwise, he might one day lose track of which problem a conclusion in his notes was meant to address.

Unfortunately, he clearly did not have the time for that now.

July 12 was drawing closer.

There might still be more than two hundred days, but who knew what could happen?

Every few days, Gavin unfolded the parchment with the date written on it, glanced at it, and folded it away again.

As if checking that the invisible pressure was still there.

That night, the dormitory lights were already out.

Ernie slept as neatly as ever, as though he obeyed house traditions even in his dreams. Justin had kicked half his blanket onto the floor. His sleeping posture was a mess, but he was sleeping soundly.

Gavin lay in bed without closing his eyes.

Wind brushed against the windowpane with a faint sound. A distant tower clock had just struck eleven, and its echoes slowly faded into the night.

He stared at the inside of his bed curtains for a while, then finally sat up without a sound.

He did not light a lamp.

He hadn't taken the Wand, either.

In the darkness, his breathing slowly deepened, and his awareness sank bit by bit into the depths of his mind.

There, in a place so quiet it was almost empty, that familiar magic flowed once more from deep within his mind, so faintly he could barely sense it.

Like a wordless answer.

After who knew how long, Gavin slowly opened his eyes. His gaze was calm, but a trace of gloom seemed to linger in them.