Hogwarts: the magic of music

After breakfast, we went up to my room; I opened up my trunk and brought out two rugs. I pulled out my wand.

"Wait were not allowed to do magic outside of school" Harry said.

"Harry, that's not how the trace works", I said. "Trace detects any magical activity near an underage wizard", I explained. "Not who cast it or what was cast."

"Wait, what?" Harry exclaimed.

"Yeah, and look where we are in the leaky cauldron. The trace is probably pinging all the time," I said. "Unless somebody reports us, we won't get into trouble."

"So does that mean that wizarding families could let their kids just use magic all the time?" Harry asked.

"Exactly," I said, "Why do you think Draco is any good at spells? He hardly does his school work."

"That's so unfair, that's basically a law against muggleborns using magic then" Harry said.

"I think it's more to protect muggles more than anything. If an underage wizard encounters magic in a place, there should be magic that is an investigation," I said. "Like a muggle home or town."

"And purevloods don't go to them places" said Harry.

"I'm a pureblood and I do I saw my old muggle school mates the other week" I said.

"Really, what was that like," Harry asked.

"Good, great, even though they were a bit cross that I just disappeared without telling them I was going to boarding school" I smiled, thinking of my friends. "Any enough of that, let's get our blood pumping, if you want to win the quidditch cup this year you need to train that body" I said. I waved my wand and muttered the spell to create the treadmills. "We are starting with a jog. Hop on" I stood on my magical treadmill and started to jog.

Harry joined me after a second; he took some time getting up to my speed. "How long are we going to jog for?" he asked after ten minutes.

"An hour," I said. "That's about 10 km."

"What?" Harry exclaimed.

"Hang on, I'll put on some music. It will make time go faster. I pulled out my Walkman and speakers and played my jogging mix tape.

Rhythmic music played that set the pace of the jog.

When we were done, Harry was exhausted. "Come on, Harry, push-ups next", I said to his credit; he got down and did them with my encouragement.

"How aren't you tired?" he wheezed.

"This is just a warm-up for me now" I smiled and stretched.

"Here, drink this" I handed him the muscle healing potion.

"Ahh", Harry said as his muscles were no longer sore.

I transfigured some weights next, and we spotted each other as we worked out. By the end, I was sore, so I took a potion and gave another to Harry. "This stuff is great", Harry said.

"Yeah Mike made them for me, heals the muscles, which in turns makes them stronger" I said I lifted up my tee to show off my abbs.

"Bloody hell", Harry said.

"Keep training with me and you'll get there" I smiled.

"Come on let's get some food" I said.

We head down for lunch I order a big plate of spaghetti Harry doing the same.

"Shopping?" I asked

"Yeah, I need to walk off that food," Harry said.

First stop was the book store, Flourish and Blotts, the assistant led me to the cages that kept the monster book of monsters. "Why do you have them in cages?" I asked, looking at the books, trying to tear each other apart. The assistant was putting on gloves and had a pair of tongs.

"Look at them; they're vicious. Last time we stock these things," he complained.

"It's a book," I said, looking at him.

"no, it's a monster. The monster book of monsters," he replied

"Move aside", I said and opened the cage and let out a whistle; the whistle was low and had magical qualities. The books stopped what they were doing and stared at me.

Picking up one of the books, I stroked its spine, and it let out a low purring noise and became a book. "as I said, it's a book; you just need to know how to handle them, stick 'em nice and tight on a bookcase, and they won't move. Give them a few strokes of the spine, and they will go back to being books." I closed the cage to the stunned assistant face. "you might want to tell whoever buys them to stroke the spine." I said. 

"How did you do that?" the assistant said. "The whistle thing?"

"trade secret, I'm afraid", I answered, "Now we need the rest of our books". 

After the Flourish and Blotts, we were walking to Madame Malkins. Harry and I both needed adjustments to our robes. "how did you do that whistle thing?" Harry asked.

"minstrel magic, the magic of music." I said "it took a lot of time to get the tune right with a whistle, but it can make animals pay attention." 

"so the books are animals?" Harry asked.

"It's just a spell that makes them animalistic. I took a gamble that they would listen", I said.

"and stroking the spine?" Harry asked.

"Like Hagrid once said, the trick to any animal is to know how to calm him. But it's more about the practicality of the spell. Why would you have a book that acts like an animal all the time? No, it's a book; it needs to be able to be stored on a shelf and read. When a book is on the shelf, what is the first thing you touch?" I asked Harry

"the spine, so they calm down when you stroke its spine because it's designed to go on a shelf", Harry said in realization. 

"bingo, now let's get our robes" I opened the door to Madame Malkin's.