Hadrian Black: The Abandoned Prodigy

For two weeks Hadrian trained tirelessly.

He focused most of his attention on wandless magic, Merlin had said that it was a great stimulus for the core and would increase the size of his core by the time he reaches his first Magical Maturity.

Hadrian worked hours and hours. In the breaks it took for him to recover his energy, he would read books about his duelling, as well as his other subjects.

He would also practice his martial arts sometimes, It wasn't to the same extent as what he used to do before he became immersed in magic, but it was enough that he could still progress - albeit very slowly.

He hadn't 'mastered' any spells wandlessly but he could now perform them very well. The hardest spell to learn wandlessly was the knockback jinx 'Flipendo'. It was hard to recreate, but finally, Hadrian could perform it.

The progress he had made was not little at all, he could now use these spells in duels. Hadrian hoped that this would spur Professor Anderson to allow him in the duelling tournament.

He had learned the Finite charm wandlessly too but it was much easier to use it with a wand.

Either way, Hadrian had improved leaps and bounds with his wandless spell work. Although he focused on wandless magic for the two weeks, he did have to use his wand plenty times - otherwise how else would he be able to feel the way certain spells felt as they flowed through his hand?

His Occlumency was steadily progressing too.

Merlin had told him that there were two layers to Occlumency barriers, the passive barrier, and the active barrier.

The passive barrier is what notifies you that someone is trying to use legilimency on you whereas the active barrier is how you defend your mind from the user that has breached your passive barriers.

Merlin had also told him that he could add more barriers in between the Passive and Active barriers but this required advanced training.

Hadrian then asked his grandparents for advice to which they chuckled and replied saying.

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"Hadrian, your heir rings will work to protect your mind from legilimency. It will also notify us when someone attempts legillimency on you. Imagine how many secrets would be compromised if the Heir rings didn't have this ability. Furthermore, you are the heir to two Most Ancient and Noble Houses."

Hadrian smiled sheepishly, he hadn't thought about that.

"Why didn't you tell me about this when I claimed the rings?", he asked.

"There are very few master Legilimens. Even so, we would be notified if anyone was attempting to use Legillimency on you, we thought it would be fine. Although, we were going to teach you Occlumency sometime before you went to Hogwarts. All Heirs are required to know Occlumency, you'll have no problem mastering it now that you have Merlin helping you."

Hadrian nodded in agreement, Merlin was a great teacher - even though he acted like a mad old bat at times.

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However, during the whole time he had been training, his mind lingered on one thing.

The Winter Solstice Ritual.

It would be his first one! And it was today.

He asked his grandparents and they had explained that it wasn't too outrageous for a first ritual.

It was more of a rite of passage for purebloods that helped to strengthen the flow of magic and increase the constitution of one's body. Hadrian thought it was stupid for all rituals to be banned, sure enough - there were some extremely dark rituals out there, but that's one side of the spectrum!

There are light rituals as well, rituals that focus on healing, marriage rituals that create bonds between two people as well as many more.

To Hadrian, it seemed that the Ministry was focused on banning everything to do with the old ways!

He didn't know if it was to cater to Muggleborns and allow them to better adapt to our society, or if it was to regulate the amount of power Wizarding families had.

He was leaning more to the latter reason.

After all, there was no way for Muggleborns to know about rituals, so the laws were most likely aimed at Purebloods and Halfbloods.

Hadrian chuckled inwardly when he thought about it, he knew from his grandparents that there were still families that were teaching and following the old ways.

However, some stupid families gave up the teachings of the old ways because they were now classified as 'Dark Magic' by the Ministry. The notable families being the Diggorys and the Weasleys.

Many of the families call them 'blood traitors'.

The main reason wasn't that they were accepting of Muggles, it was that they had forsaken tradition and began living as Muggles! How absurd!

They were a joke among Pureblood society for that reason, as well as other things such as wealth.

They were ridiculed for their wealth, something that Charlus and Dorea frowned upon.

However, they could easily amend this if their Head of House, Arthur Weasley had picked a respectable job. He was a Pureblood! It would have been easy to get a job that paid higher than 'Head Of The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office'.

What a joke.

But the Weasleys' were not the main thing on Hadrian's mind.

It was the ritual.

Hadrian was scared to perform his first Ritual.

Merlin had warned him weeks ago that there was a chance that his Creature Inheritance could occur during it.

He also said that it would be very painful.

Hadrian notified his grandparents, to which they tried to dissuade him to not go through with it, but Hadrian was adamant on doing the it.

Hadrian waited outside of the room while his grandparents set up the Ritual.

He was then called into the room.

In the middle of the room were two rings, one drawn by chalk and another drawn by salt. The ring was split into 3 parts with a smaller ring in the middle.

In the spaces that were split into 3 parts, were some runes. The whole room was surrounded by candles, red wax candles.

Hadrian saw as his grandparents took their places.

They smiled at him and pointed to the remaining section. He walked over.

Hadrian had to admit, it was a bit unnerving, what with the dark robes and candles but after seeing his grandparents smiling at him calmed him down.

"Did you bring your Ritual Dagger?" asked Dorea.

Hadrian responded by taking out of his robes.

"Good. Now we can begin, just like we practiced."

The Potter-Black family then began chanting;

"Winter has arrived, It is now the time of transition,

Spring approaches, While Autumn dies.

We ask Mother Magic to aid us in this time of change,

We ask for your strength and magic, to do as our blood

demands us to,

The Wheel of the Year begins its rotation, and we cycle

into Light."

They each took out their daggers and pricked their index fingers, allowing the blood to drip into the smaller ring.

The runes on the floor lit up and began to get brighter.

Hadrian felt the magic flow into his core and swim through his body.

It felt exhilarating, the feeling of external strength seeping into you.

Hadrian basked in the feeling of his core beginning to grow.

Then, Hadrian felt his body becoming colder, like really cold.

He fell to the floor, his heart was beating slower now.

He heard shouts from his grandparents, but he couldn't make out what they were saying.

Snap. His toe had snapped. Snap. That was his leg this time. Snap. His other foot and leg.

His bones had begun to break down, Hadrian couldn't speak - it was too painful.

Charlus and Dorea watched helplessly as their grandson writhed in pain, unable to help. They couldn't cast any healing spells or anything of the sort, it would affect is Inheritance.

They saw the veins in Hadrian's neck turn blue and his pupils transformed into slits.

Hadrian was in the most pain he'd ever been in his whole life. This was infinitely worse than the Ancient Artifact Assimilations.

He routinely slipped between the realms of consciousness.

The pain stopped him from passing out.

After 30 minutes his bones stopped breaking and fixing themselves.

His skin began to sting before it progressed into a burning sensation.

His skin was tearing and renewing itself now.

This process continued for an hour.

An hour of silent screaming.

An hour of him dying and being reborn.

The pain finally ceased and Hadrian released an ear-splitting roar. It shook the room.

Hadrian then finally slipped into unconsciousness...

The next day Hadrian awoke and found himself in the 'Merlin Room'.

Charlus and Dorea had moved him there so they could consult with Merlin about his Creature Inheritance.

He said that Hadrian's ritual was successful by the looks of it.

Hadrian woke up to one of Merlin's never-ending rants.

However, when he saw Hadrian was awake, he immediately stopped.

"Aah, you've chosen to wake up in time to hear the beginning of my speech.", said Merlin.

Hadrian smiled at him, "Of course not, you old geezer."

As he stood up he shouted for his grandparents.

They ran hurriedly into the room, "Hadrian!".

Dorea smothered Hadrian with a hug.

"I'm fine, It's not like I died."

"Yes, but it sure looked like you were dead."

"Felt like it too."

Charlus and Dorea smiled lovingly at Hadrian, they were relieved he was alright.

"I feel...different.", said Hadrian.

"Well ya' look different, kid." said Charlus.

Dorea saw Hadrian's confused expression and conjured a mirror.

Hadrian's skin had now become an olive-tanned color, this gave him a more foreign look - as if he had lived somewhere hot his whole life.

His eyes had now become a mixture between yellow and green - a limey color. His pupils had also become slightly slit, it would only be noticeable if someone pointed it out. His eyes were still his most striking feature, they were now even brighter and alluring than before.

His skin became very smooth, doll-like even. However, it had also become much tougher.

Hadrian's hair hadn't changed that much, It was now darker and curlier but its length had stayed relatively the same.

Hadrian stood up and frowned when he saw that his robes had gotten slightly smaller. He was taller.

He knew there would be changes - but now he looked very different.

His face structure had changed too!

'Bones breaking down huh...'

His jawline was sharper, his nose was thinner and his cheekbones were higher. He looked regal.

Hadrian would be lying if he said he didn't like the changes!

If there was one word to describe how he looked it would be, ethereal.

Hadrian then focused on his magic.

"What-!?", he exclaimed.

"What's the matter, dear?", asked Dorea.

"My core has doubled in size!"

"H-How can that be?", she said as she turned towards Merlin.

"He was guaranteed a boost to his core when he went through the inheritance, I suspect that it was a bigger boost because he had it occur during his Ritual.", Merlin exclaimed.

"I feel more in tune with my magic.", Hadrian stated.

"Yes, I would expect so. Magical creatures tend to be more in tune with their core and magic in general. Since you are now Half dragon, you would also attain the same benefits."

Hadrian felt very happy. Elated, even.

He had completed his first Ritual and completed his Creature Inheritance!

Hadrian was now well on the road to getting stronger, but he knew he had a long way to go. He wouldn't be able to face Voldemort the way he is right now.

He clenched his fist and narrowed his eyes.

'I will get stronger...I refuse to let my friends and family die.'