–– Gabrielle POV ––
Recognition, self confidence and worth or strength. Anyone in my families environment had that, had their talents, their achievements and so much more. I did not have that. I had a loving family consisting of my father, mother and sister but anyone else? They did not care a bit about me, only fawning over Fleur.
She did not like that attention either, huge amounts of pressure and stress bearing down on her, the brightest talent in our family, expected to achieve the first step in her journey before becoming twenty years old. Due to this, my parents did not want to pressure me, which was followed by pampering, hawk like observation of my every action and protection and dissuasion from anything even remotely dangerous, their little girl hopefully more protected from the cruel world. This also backfired horribly, even more expectations landing on Fleur, though she reassured me dozens of times that she did not love me any less for that.
We still had our differences, like any siblings had, but I had only ever known this dynamic due to my overprotective parents. It was my shell, protecting me but also constricting me, my potential and my passions. Clara Ali Ollivander, the weird girl I had met, crying in her potions workshop for hours, breaking one of the most important rules to never disturb someone in their work multiple times that day. I expected hits, my family never having resorted to those teaching methods, though some of my tutors were not as nice, but nothing ever came. No brash comment, screeching, shouting or any form of physical or spelled reproach. Just a reassuring glance, not showing any reaction to my visible distress.
It was freeing, the first time in a long while I could peak out of my shell, the exit near completely blocked by traumata and missing self confidence, worth and respect. She did not care and if she did, she did not show it, though in retrospect that would be expected of a grandmaster of the mind arts, apprenticed to THE Henry Flacks, a legend, currently teaching at Hogwarts like it was the most normal thing in the world. He was an incomprehensible person, unreachable on so many levels, anyone even with the tiniest connection to him respected in any family or organization who had any awareness of their surrounding spanning a few years back, even many muggle families still narrating the stories of the man who saved them, their good samaritan.
He was a lifeline, always found in areas of conflict. He did not try to stop them, but he helped anyone who was affected by them, a safe haven. Until he disappeared a few years back, later resurfacing shortly in an incident at diagon alley, St. Mungos and finally ending up at Hogwarts. All this through a single weird girl, most thinking her completely oblivious to all the changes she had brought, none of the families not able to attribute the recent changes to anyone else but that weird girl, an Ollivander no less.
Through the first student exchange I wanted to get apprenticed by Henry Flacks, deeming myself suitable, already having reached a master level in occlumency at my tender age. He brushed me off, labeling me as trash to anyone who could read between the lines. He naturally worded it nicer, too nice in fact. I only caught on to his insinuation after a few weeks, which landet me in the weird girl's potions laboratory, breaking down in the dark corner.
I did not know her name for a long time, only hearing rumors about her over the next few weeks, hearing her name the first time in one of Henry Flacks lessons, envied murmurs springing up around me: „That damn apprentice again", „Freak", „Weird girl". There were worse though, most of them from the French students though. It endet in a lesson long rant about standards and integrity for the class, Henry Flacks having caught on to the murmurs, restraining himself from flying into a straight up rage.
I knew the weird girl liked potions and that monicer for a matter of fact, but that she was a grandmaster of the mind arts got me with surprise, crumpling anything I had thought about her up to that point. She had never acted like someone important, lording themselves over others, disregarding others or anything similar. She just did her thing, unbothered by the world around her, completely absorbed in her current own world.
The next days I fought with myself, deciding between visiting her again or not, afraid of rejection, allegations of trying my luck with her after I failed with Henry Flacks and more, my whole mind a downward spiral of doom, only broken by a single small smile at the breakfast table.
Our relationship did not change after that, slowly forming a tight and solid friendship out of a single chance encounter. At that point, I decided to give everything I was up, trying to start anew, doing what I liked, not what anyone else wanted me to do. To live for myself, trying out new things, more dangerous things, even begging the acting head of house for an opportunity to attend Hogwarts as an eight year old exchange student, barely succeeding in the end.
I blossomed, reflecting on myself, reliving my short life over and over again while meditating, until I realized that I could no longer change my whole nature. I would always be reserved, my youth having shaped me into who I currently am, but I would not let that restrict me. And upon this conviction I built up to this day, honing my craftsmanship for this moment, a mastery in potions. I did not want it for my family, strangers or anyone else, I wanted it for me, only for me, to prove that I am capable of improving, capable to reach my dreams or even beyond.
Clara Ali Ollivander, the weird girl, gave me the greatest gift ever and I squandered it. It all crumpled down, everything I had built over these years collapsing due to a single mistake attributed to my overconfidence, not having checked my work environment and herbs thoroughly, a single ant hiding among cauliflower, ruining my potion and my chance at a mastery any time soon, the next try becoming harder and stricter due to my recent failure. I broke down, my occlumency failing right there in the examination hall, escorted out by a clerk, both him and the proctors not even sparing me a glance more than necessary, before leaving shortly after, a house elf picking me up outside of the wardline.
The following weeks passing in a bare blur, locked in my room, wallowing in self pity, kept alive by the persistent house elf who was doing his duty.
–– Clara Ali Ollivander ––
The summe break started good, the first week mainly used to tour Italy, guided by a local. On Monday, Gabrielle vanished, leaving without me. I did not think much about it, until days passed, having not seen her. I left laboratory, having studied a bit about dual brewing potions, searching for her until I found her. She was hollow, mentally collapsed, wasting away in her room. I tried everything, but she did not respond.
I needed to nearly torture it out of the house elf, the small creature oh so loyal to his small mistress. I could convince her in the end, that I could maybe help Gabrielle if I knew what was plaguing her. But I could not. She had failed her certification for a potion mastery and while I could try, this was a misfortune she needed to overcome one her own.
No one was perfect, not even me with my impossibly high standards. Mistakes can happen to anyone, but how you handled them in the end showed your true self, your ambitions, drive, attitude and mindset. And I did not believe this would stop her. It would throw a wrench in any plans she previously had, but she would emerge stronger than ever before.
Over the summer break I tried to talk with her a bit, but through closed and warded doors, it was impossible, my conscience not allowing myself to peak through the door with all my might, some of my senses able to bypass the barely passable wards of this house. So I spent the break lonely, the loneliness hitting harder than ever before. This did not mean that I was not productive, fully focusing on cultivation instead, which ended in an increase of my realm to rare breathing, consolidating my foundation even more while working on the first step of epic newcomer, the practice proving arduous even for me, working on a mere millimeter per day basis, though it slowly got better over time through increased experience and practice.
Near the end of summer break, I had mad nearly no progress, but Gabrielle slowly got out of her room again. At first she just started flying listlessly for short duration, slowly spending longer and longer in the air, until she practiced her previous maneuvers again. She slowly got her drive back, defeating her previous low, but she neither faced me, intentionally avoiding me and everything else she consciously or subconsciously associated with potions.
She did not even perceive me when her house elf brought us to back to the train station in London, picking her own compartment, leaving me alone with Luna Lovegood, both of us talking animately for once, Luna and Hagrid having visited an animal sanctuary over the break, even meeting Newt Scamander and his collection of animals there, while I told her the details about my trip to Italy and the rare few creatures I had seen or met there.
This years welcome feast was interesting. It started with the sorting, some older, some younger, some of them exchange students, many more new faces showing up, a new high of newcomers, any of them more excited than the other one, the air brimming with expectation.
Apart from that, we got five new professors for dueling, alchemy, foci crafting, enchanting and a general crafting basics classes spanning the first three years of Hogwarts, the last having multiple guest lecturers over the year, as Dumbledore spoiled. There also were a few more assistants and new apprentices, though most not stemming from the current student body, already having graduated previously.
Hogwarts itself had also changed, the wards fully repaired, the castle expanding, now a lot bigger than previously to handle the influx of new students and the increased size of classrooms. It was ecstatic, once again housing so much eager youth, someone other than me even able to communicate with her. The house elves were even more joyous, more kids, Dumbledore even having ordered them to wear better clothing, offering other benefits, most being rejected except more different books on cooking, a whole new library section added for that.
The first time I stepped into the library this year was disorienting. It was huge, even bigger than before, a whole new section with rare books added, mostly copies from one of the Ollivander's libraries, the new domain from madam Pince, the now active wards taking over most of her old jobs, but she was still as strickt as always, jokingly nicknamed the terror of the library.
The first week was busy, a lot of people testing out of classes, some classes of specific years even ending completely empty or with just one student, a few lucky ones getting one on one tutoring until the professor fought them ready to merge into the next years class, enhancing the chaos of the timetables even more, needing a few weeks for the chaos to finally settle down.
The only real new was Slughorn's speech, rent and rage after Gabrielle had tried to leave his mastery class due to failing her master certification. I heard he was absolute livid, but whatever he told her, she started brewing again, slowly but surely and we slowly got back into our routine, the first time Gabrielle came to the potions laboratory, she hugged me and whispered: „I am so sorry", holding the hug a bit too long, both of us trying to get back into our previous rhythm with success afterwards.
Thus, my last year at Hogwarts passed. I focused my effort into both potions and cultivation over this time, taking great strides forward. The roadblock for legendary entry was broken pretty fast. The main step of this stage was the manas purity. Currently, my bodies mana was not pure. I cleansed it of elemental properties, their charges and foreign influences. They do count as impurities, but there are so many more. It basically specifies the amount of mana particles in a given area or volume. One hundred percent purity means, that the area only contains mana particles. This can be done through multiple methods, but I focused on one, changing the properties of my mana skin to only let single mana particles at a time through, stripping them of any impurities. I had already planned something like that, using the mana flowing through the new material of my mana skin to cleanse the new mana of impurities through sheer volume, mass and cleanliness, expelling anything unwanted through that.
It acted as a river, only letting through mana particles, who were not affected by the flow, everything else swept away. This would slowly, over time, purify my mana. The higher my manas purity, the purer my newly absorbed mana would be, though it would get slower the higher I came. The most positive aspect of this approach was, that it was passive, not needing my input, except circulating my mana throughout my body, which happened continuously.
This was followed by legendary advanced, at which point I would make it possible through a combination of intent and an array to change the shape of my mana core body to fit any of my animagi forms and any changes happening to my physical body. It was a complicated progress, but I had already laid the ground work, the only real obstacle for this consisting of the amount of mental energy needed to imbue the intent, which was horrendously complex, spanning multiple petabytes of pure data, even more housing the insane logic behind all that, which was the reason that I did not work on the next substage.
Potions on the other hand were difficult. I tried my luck with typical med kit potions, fusing multiple different potions and or effects into one potion, failing miserably, so I went back to the root of the problem, dual and triple brewing, which consisted of making three different potions in one cauldron. It was generally seen more of an exercise, not as a serious brewing technique, but I found it interesting. The potions were split by a thin non static membrane, which translated to a new labyrinth of different potions after every stir, added ingredients and so on, a bit of their effects leaking into each other during the process.
It was a test of control, observation and problem solving skills, testing my current potions skills to the limit with just dual brewing. The process of leaking effects into another potion was what captivated me. For most of the year I tirelessly practiced a simple cure for boils, at first in dual brewing. After reaching a stable success rate of seventy five percent I also tried my hand on triple brewing, succeeding only a few rare times till now.
The graduation ceremony was grand, only the achievements in Hogwarts mattering, which meant that I only got one award, everywhere else one of the worse ones actually, if you go from my grades, which was my intention. I did not need this recognition and attention and would not refuse anyone else their just rewards for their hardships.
Luna Lovegood got the prank trophy for babysitter of the year(s), single handedly saving Hagrid's classes from utter chaos. I heard rumors that it was Hagrid's idea, slowly having reconfigured his understanding of the dangers of creatures, the man now able to accurately assess the danger to normal human beings, no longer taking himself as the scale for survivability.
The food and drinks were nice too, the great hall filled with seventh year students and their families for their special day, while I disappeared shortly after, back into my potion laboratory. Before leaving Hogwarts, I naturally cleaned and tidied my laboratory, leaving behind copies of most my notes in both the school's and Slughorn's library, the man ecstatic about it, though he still did not appreciate my less progress oriented research and learning directions, currently only being the third best student of his mastery class, another prodigy appearing.