See If I Care

~5~

*Gobbledygook*

~Parseltongue~

-July 31st, 991-

Alex had been in the past for almost three years, and they were flying through their training. They knew that there was much more that they could learn in the future, due to magical advances in every area, especially new spells and potions, but still couldn't believe how much they were being taught.

The first thing they had done, had been to get fitted with a wand, which Merlin had crafted for them. It was made specifically for them and their core classifications and was a beautiful mix of two neutral woods twining around two cores, both of which were a balanced mix of Light and Dark; the wand was made of Walnut and Ivy, with a core of phoenix feather soaked in basilisk venom and dementor's cloak coated in willingly given unicorn blood. While Merlin had created the wand, Godric, Salazar, Rowena, and Helga had provided the cores; they all knew that the phoenix feather came from Godric's familiar and that Helga had gotten the blood from a unicorn she had healed, but none of them asked where Rowena had gotten the dementor's cloak or where Salazar had gotten the basilisk venom, although Rowena had mentioned to Alex in one of their lessons something about negotiations with the dementors about territories in Britain.

Once they had their wand, they had begun their training with all of the founders. They already had a theoretical foundation from all their reading but had spent the first few months in all their lessons going over theory to make sure they understood the basics before they started getting into everything, especially for the magics that could be extremely dangerous if they went wrong.

They had then started with the basics for everything.

Helga's art lessons allowed them to be creative however they wanted before she started helping them improve on their skills. The animals they started with were peaceful and gentle. Their lessons on human languages had started with their choice of language, French, and they started simple, working through the language before learning the customs and etiquette in the language they were learning. Additionally, Helga had put aside a special session each week to work on learning Latin, since most magical spells were derived from the language. Their healing lessons began with learning to diagnose and administer potions and apply salves, how to wrap and brace injuries.

Rowena's lessons on Fundamental magics began with a lot more theoretical discussions than most of their other lessons, with Rowena teaching them to understand how magic worked and the way it could be used in the different branches of the Fundamentals: Charms and Transfiguration. Arithmancy began with maths and learning the different equations and the discussions over how the numbers interacted with the equations. First for Runes, was learning how the different order of strokes affected the final rune, and practicing drawing the different strokes on their own. They had touched on Divination, but Alex had no inclination towards it at all and didn't like to rely on it, even though they would admit that prophecies were real, no matter how abstract and vague they were; instead, Rowena taught them how to base their decisions on prophecies that other people believed and put faith in. They began their lessons into magical languages in the same way as Helga did for human languages, starting with Mermish, as Alex had started reading about it already. Rowena had also refused to start with spell craft at all until they had studied the Fundamentals, Light magic, Dark magic, Offensive and Defensive magic, and Arithmancy for at least three years, since it could be so dangerous.

Godric had started their blade handling lessons by going through the various blades they would learn to work and letting them get a feel for each before settling on which one or ones felt most comfortable; they had settled on double short swords and double daggers, finding that the shorter blades felt easier to carry and using double kept them balanced. They had also found that they were comfortable working with a knife, especially knife throwing. Their hand-to-hand lessons had started with simple physical exercise to get their stamina up so that they could last in the lessons that would come later. The lessons in Offensive and Defensive magics began the same way as the Fundamentals, with much more theoretical work and discussions and looking into the difference between Offence and Defence, while their Light magic lessons were much the same, as well as looking into what made certain magics Light. Alex had also taken to flying eagerly, finding being in the air as natural as being on the ground, although Godric kept them to working on the basics on a broom so that neither Rowena nor Helga would yell at them, mainly Godric, for being irresponsible.