As we appeared back in my bedroom we were greeted by a startled squawk from my room's latest addition.
I chuckled, "Sorry about that Archie" I said in apologies to the ruffled form of my little roommate.
Archie was a tawny owl, a bit on the small size, that my parents and I had gotten on our second trip to Diagon Alley a week beforehand.
My dad had taken one look at him and instantly wanted me to pick him, so I had done so not really seeing a problem as I would only be using him to keep in touch with my parents while at school. He had also been the one to name him, dubbing him "Archimedes" both after the famous greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, but also after Merlin's owl from the classical Disney film, the sword in the stone, which was our family's favorite disney movie.
Checking the time, from my bedroom clock, my mum nodded, "almost lunch time, I'll go down and get started on lunch," she said as she walked to the door, "be sure to wash up before you come down" she said as she left.
Giving an affirmative I walked to my school trunk that I had at the bottom of my bed and opened it as I opened up my system inventory and began to put my books back inside before taking out my potions and history textbooks.
My collection of magical books had only grown these past few weeks with the extra trips to Diagon alley on the weekends, and I was slowly building up the complete collection of Hogwarts standard text books that I was hoping to work my way through as time passed.
I was already half way through the first year's charm curriculum in just three weeks, after figuring out what I had been missing from my spell casting things had started flowing a whole lot easier for me.
'At the rate I'm going I'll probably be able to start studying third year stuff while I'm still in my first year' I mused as I closed up my trunk and put my potions and history books down on my desk next to my book on Occlumency.
That was one thing that had been a slow grind, even practicing for three hours a day I had barely made any progress with the magic of protecting my mind. It had taken me to the second week to properly enter the state of emptying my mind as the book described, and I had only managed to bring up my first mental shield to protect my memories which still needed to be sorted. It was a slow process but I was getting the hang of it.
It had first taken me a full hour to get into the state and bring up my flimsy mental wall, but after a full week of practice I'd managed to get it down to five minutes, not great but if I had time to prepare in advance my basic defense would at least alert me to anyone trying to get read my mind, or so I hoped.
'A mind mage I am not, it's gonna take years before I can even try some of the more advanced stuff that the introduction of the book mentioned a skilled Occulmens is capable of' I mentally sighed, remembering how the first pages of the book had really gotten me excited to learn the mental magic, instantaneous recall, photographic memory, emotional control and multiple thought streams all sounded really kick ass to me, but then reality had given me a swift kick in the backside when I failed time and time again to even properly clear my mind.
'It's no wonder that Dumbledore can hold down so many jobs if he can keep track of what he needs to do with this magic, and this is probably how Snape was able to become the youngest potion master by remembering so many potion recipes, their brewing steps and everything else involved which would otherwise take an additional four years of practice to do' I thought before shaking my head, mind magics regardless of what people thought of them were just too OP.
Leaving my books on my desk I went over to my wardrobe next and began laying out another outfit for me to wear after my shower, spending so many hours casting spells had left me in dire need of one.
Laying out my shirt and pants I also tossed one of the three leather shoulder wand holsters next to it, which had been another purchases from my trips to Diagon Alley, while I knew I could just keep my wand in my inventory most of the time, when out and about I'd want to actually have it at hand. I had asked about the so called "Wrist holsters" that I had read about in fanfictions before but it turned out that only licenced Hit wizards or on duty Aurors were allowed them as they all came with various enchantments on them, while normal every day witches or wizards had specific inner pockets tailored into their robes to hold their wands while not in use.
Not wanting to wear robes all the time I had these three as well as more less showy ones custom made by Madam Malkin, out of what she assured me was genuine harvest safe Dragon's hide. Apparently dragons could be safely harvested for their hide, as long as the portion taken wasn't too thick they didn't even feel it and would grow back the harvested area in a few weeks.
I had her make three shoulder holsters as well as three holsters that could carry on my hip when I was wearing a belt, all of which would leave my wand close to draw if I needed. All and all they were a bit pricey, at about four galleons a holster, but well worth it in my opinion.
One thing I had found amusing on my third trip to the alley was that she had apparently liked the designs so much she had actually started putting up some displays of them to see if she could get more sales. It had me chuckling thinking I might have just started a trend.
Chapter word count: 1049