Chapter 23: Resolution
Luca tossed and turned on his bed, his mind relishing the newfound breakthrough in the usage of his power. From now on, he wasn't completely helpless and could harness his own strength deliberately, without risks or an emotional outbreak, his confidence soaring unprecedently.
"I will turn you to stone..." he muttered massaging his chest, red eyes half-covered by black hair eagerly shining in the darkness. Trapped in his own head, Luca didn't fall asleep until way past midnight.
Next day, the boy woke up to the sound of his alarm clock, so loud and irritating that his roommates unanimously made him stop using it. Winnetou said he will just shake him every day to not be startled like that ever again. Packing up for today's lessons of Transfiguration, Identification, History of the World, and Flying the boys headed out.
In the common room, Luca tried to look for Ringo, but the kitten still seemed to hold a grudge or slept peacefully to the envy of the yawning boy. At the dining hall, Luca immediately spotted Abigail floating behind vice-headmaster Fontaine, the Professor amid scrutinizing gazes from Juno and other female staff seated at the teacher's table, sloppily gorged on food like a victim of starvation. Luca could also notice the presence of several ghosts unseen yesterday chatting with students or helping them write homework, everyone from the upper classes seemed accustomed to it, while Luca's table got quieter. After Luca satisfied his appetite, the duo of Abigail and vice-headmaster came to him, the man still wiping his beard with a napkin.
"Good morning, how was your first day in school?" Abigail smiled radiantly greeting Luca.
"Hello, I learned a lot." the boy stood up and replied respectfully, looking forward to what the vice-headmaster had to say regarding his 'ability'.
"Right, we had a resolution that only Abigail can contact you on the ghost side, in exchange she will become our experimental subject." Fontaine said putting on a serious look. "Now, shake her hand." Luca did as told, Abigail visibly shy as the Professor bent down to examine their connection closely, some of the eating crowds looking over too.
"Squeeze some more, mm, it looks like her skin does change shape. Try to crush it, like you want to twist her fingers. Doesn't work? Grab her arm with both hands and break it on your knee, pull out her hair, take off clothes…" increasingly weird requests made Luca hesitate longer and longer between attempting each of them. Abigail tried to encourage Luca with a smile, but she looked uglier than crying. She didn't suffer any damage besides the beforementioned skin deformation, as if ghost's had an indestructible skeleton and assured integrity of their bodies. Temporarily satisfied, the vice-headmaster wanted to take a minute to think about the possible significance or a reason for it.
"What a discovery… Ghosts and I spent yesterday going over any book that mentioned their existence, what pain was it to flip the pages for them by the way… And managed to discover only one thing - ghosts, specters, and so on are criminally underresearched, we kind of know why they can come back from the afterlife, but that's it. Nobody ever thought to interact with them, besides curses and wards to prevent their appearance in a certain place, or near a person, which got created because someone offended a ghost and had to defend himself…" Fontaine stroked his beard with an eager glint in his eyes alternating between Abigail and Luca, slowly talking to them and himself in a pondering tone.
"Could Luca's magic work on them, Professor?" Bryce listening on the side chimed in with a question, his hand raised.
"Yes, I thought of it too Fritzel. I tried to quickly invent something that works on ghosts the whole night to no avail, let's see if Luca can do it with a common spell. Go back to the wall." he glanced at Bryce appreciatively and ordered Abigail to float below the wall, where she resembled a victim about to be executed by a firing squad with her despairing expression after undertaking the abuse. Luca took out his wand, which got immediately snatched by Fontaine's lightning-fast grab to a dumbfounded expression on his face, still pointing his hand up in Abigail's direction.
"Shrunken Great Kraken tentacle, you use it as a wand? Boy, you are getting more and more outlandish." vice-headmaster gave it back after looking over it closely, at this time an elderly teacher passing by reminded the group absorbed in watching the experiment.
"Agilbert, lessons start in five." the dining hall empty but for two hundred or so onlookers standing between the tables of the first and second year, mostly fellow club members of Knights of the Round Wampus, Professor came to his senses.
"Right, come then, I changed myself with the teacher of your class. I also decided to research the topic of ghosts in depth, there will be stuff for us to try systematically later." he announced and strode out with big steps. Sluggish Luca caught up in Fontaine's tempo went running after, Abigail floating above him. The classroom of transfiguration looked ordinary as No-maj Research one, an extra box of matches and the presence of two additional teachers, one the immaculately dressed woman that reminded Fontaine of the time, one young newcomer man looking at Fontaine with the kind of undisguised fawning worship.
Vice-headmaster proceeded to clear his throat and straighten back taking out his wand. He waved it and turned the desk into a blue pigling, then turned the dude with a disgusting expression behind it into a bronze hairy cow, then turned around, waved at his own face, and made it look forty years younger. Stopping for the performance to set into the students' minds, he looked at Luca specifically with a big smile on his now handsome clean-shaven face. The class, Luca included, frozen in shock, needed a good moment to start enthusiastically cheering and voicing their reverence, some more active boys like Tolkien and Nathaniel jumping in place overturned multiple pieces of furniture.
"Show off." sour from selling herself to a half-crazed maniac, as she thought of Fontaine after only 20 hours of observing him from up close, Abigail scoffed at the attention-seeking behaviour. Vice-headmaster smiled heartily encouraged by the cheers, reverted the changes, and shushed the classroom. Quiet enough to hear a needle drop, he suddenly started leaning forward and shrinking his body. In mere seconds, on the place previously occupied by him, stood an orange cat with tufts of white fluff coming out of his ears, and missing half a tail. He repeatedly changed two or three times more, until he managed to completely satiate his playful nature to the wonderment of little wizards watching with relish a grown man switch back and forth with a cat.
"Alright, I'm getting tired so start the lesson." he said to the female colleague waiting for him to finish with a look of resignation on her face.
"Of course, we can't overwork the Great Fontaine." she said oozing sarcasm, as she stood up and Fontaine sat down on a comfortable sofa he transfigured in the meantime, the wizard turned by him to a cow not discouraged by it, transfigured a makeshift leaf fan and fanned him gently, the vice-headmaster looking at him curiously from time to time, akin to observing a monkey in a zoo.
"As you could see, the art of Transfiguration temporarily changes shape or nature of the caster or an object. Main points of what to avoid during learning this subject are present on the first and second pages of your books, get them open and read. Third page describes today's exercise, turning a match into a needle." the teacher seemed listless, perhaps knowing that she couldn't equal the previous demonstration, she simply opted to get the class working as they should.
Luca once again came under pressure from classmates' involuntary observation of his spellcasting, Bryce opting to distance himself a few steps and look at him peeking through his fingers. Luca attempted to discard the distracting thoughts of so many peers, ghosts, and authorities controlling the school watching him to witness another semi-failed magic. Gathering his will as instructed, he waved his wand downwards in the direction of his first match. Predictably, it did produce unexpected results. The entire table the boy stood behind turned into thousands of needles collapsed all over the classroom's floors, to the exclamations of some students worried about stepping on them.
Fontaine bent down to grab a couple of needles rolled over all the way to him and examined them closely right in front of his ellipsoidal glasses. As he stroked his beard, the female teacher waved her wand to gather and restore them to the previous state of a desk and a match, in her spell's process snatching them from his hand.
"This can be counted as a win again, right?" Luca asked in a tired tone the teacher looking at him in doubt, Fontaine making his way beside him, still with that stunned youth following.
"Again?" he asked with suspicion, unprompted Bryce explained Luca's anomalies in classes so far, making the vice-headmaster raise his brows and Abigail ask from above.
"So Luca has the magic power of an archmage? Could Grindelwald do all the same?" the attack on New York famous enough that even ghosts holed up in the castle knew about it, her thought went straight to the most notorious wizard of the century.
Having read the entire series of voluminous history books called 'Behind the Mystic Veil' first under the strict supervision of Isabel, transformed into his own fascination because of the incredible content and talented writing style of the author, Luca already knew those characters. Consensus among the wizarding world placed three living wizards in the exalted status of archmage: Albus Dumbledore, Gelert Grindelwald, and Nicolas Flamel. This trio clearly capable of feats incomprehensible to normal stick-wielders, enjoys great renown in the minds and hearts of aspiring wizards over the Earth.
"I doubt they ever tried to catch a ghost with bare hands or couldn't control a simple charm, but in the aspect of power, congratulations, you might rival them indeed. Tell teachers that in all practical lessons, you should have exclusive space and write down the weird deviations in casting to figure out a pattern. Also, I don't have a nice badge to give like the Knight's but consider me a private mentor. Every Sunday after dinner come to my office for experiments, east corner of the tenth floor in Wampus tower." he dealt with Luca decisively accepting him as an apprentice to prevent the highest potential student he ever saw from going astray. Fellow students headed by Bryce envious to death judging from their looks, Luca felt himself finally gain some much-needed security by linking up to a vice-headmaster out of nowhere, the boy filled with gratitude.
"Thank you, teacher." he bowed deeply to show it.
"Somebody must watch you grow up without a pointless disturbance and discover why those things happen." satisfied Fontaine patted Luca's shoulder, issuing a warning to Abigail on the offhand. The lesson resumed with him walking the boy to the corner where he pointed out tips and tricks important in transfiguration for him and surrounding students.
"Lucky, I member' mom told me bout' this guy in some sort top ten compilation of best Murica wiz." Tolkien exaggerated his envy when boys started the stroll to the outside of castle, their first outdoor lesson of Identification placed on the border of gardens - territory of Pukwudgies and fairies.
"There is a list? What is that about?" Luca quizzed.
"Best in their field, you know, there are a lot of awards in Ilvermorny for 'leading charms student', 'most promising quidditch player', 'outstanding potioneer'. People love to gossip about those rankings, Mr. Fontaine is recognized as the best in transfiguration by the official bureau coming up with some corny titles for them, like 'Delphi's Oracle' for someone good at arithmancy, or 'Grandest Alchemist' for the gentleman making the best protection rings." downcast Bryce brooding over Luca's apprenticeship blurted out of habit snapping out of his temporary gloom.
"Cool, you will work to get some awards?" Luca asked everybody around.
"Nah, imagine the competition. That is for people in clubs like you two. Maybe if there is an award for playing go, I kinda like it." Junfeng rejected the possibility.
"There is a go club in the library, a ton of small groups eligible for some commemorative award gather there in a section for board games. I saw a full list stretching for more than five meters of a rather small print presenting what associations, leagues, or circles they name themselves." Bryce informed them, making it apparent that he is one in the group of people visiting the library on the first day of school.
"So it's not hopeless to get a trophy like our main dude here for existing." Nathaniel mocked Luca's announced at the start special honor for being chosen by four houses.
"Should you be eligible to get them considering the weirdness of your magic? You kind of deserve them, but after all, you don't really do the spells as intended." Bennet reasoned that Luca should either receive the awards in bulk or none.
"Feel like I don't." Luca thought about his situation and concluded that his abilities can't be put against those who were never threatened to learn well or get their blood sucked dry repeatedly by a deadpan vampire looking at them with frightening indifference.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone