Jack Smith and the Theory of Charms: Chapter 3: Platform 9-3/4: Part 1

Jackson spent most of the last two weeks of summer in his room, reading his books and trying to cast the spells he read about. None of them worked, but a few times when he would wave his wand random things would happen. Mostly it was things flying around the room, but one time his light bulb turned to ice.

The night before he was supposed to meet the train at King's Cross he went to his room to pack. He started with his clothes, packing first his robes, and the rest of the clothes that had arrived from Madam Maulkin's a few days earlier. Then he put in a couple pairs of pajamas, some blue jeans, t-shirts, socks, underwear, and an extra pair of shoes.

Then he crammed his cauldron in and began collecting his books, placing them in the cauldron as well. Herbology, he thought. Potions... Transfiguration... Defense Against the Dark Arts... Magical History... Astronomy. He spotted a tiny book he didn't remember under his astronomy book. He tossed the Astronomy book in the cauldron with the others and picked up the little book. It was dark blue leather. The front was blank, but on the spine silver lettering read 'Theory of Charms'.

"I don't remember buying this, but it seems familiar," he said to himself. He thought back to the bookstore, and remembered. "You were on that top shelf. I must have grabbed you when I fell, and got you mixed up with my other books. Strange. I could have sworn you were a lot bigger when you were on the shelf."

Jackson opened the little book and flipped through to the last page. The page number said it was page 10. Ten pages. I could read you tonight before I go to bed.

He grabbed his bag of potions supplies and carefully placed it in the cauldron with the books, then climbed onto his bed with the Theory of Charms book.

The first page was an introduction. It was written in first person, talking about the author's experiments and years of research. Jackson got the feeling the author was very intelligent, despite how small the book was. He wanted to know who the author was, but he couldn't find anywhere that had a name.

The next five pages talked about the three parts of every charm: Power, Incantation, and Structure. When he reached the end of that section he felt like his mind was numb, so he took a break for some ice cream. As he went back to his room with the bowl, savoring the cold chocolate on his tongue, he thought back to what he'd read, trying to picture the ideas in his mind.

Power is pretty simple. Wizardkind are born with the power. Normal people, muggles, aren't. Some people have special properties to their power that give them different abilities, like Vanessa at the bookstore, but most wizards and witches the only question is how much power they have. Part of what determines your power is just how much you're born with, but it also tends to grow with use. I don't see why the author took a whole page for that.

Incantation is just using the words for the spell. The incantation has to be pronounced right, but other than that it's just memorization.

The hard part is the structure. Thoughts, feelings, movements, concentrating to draw on your power and put it into the incantation. That's hard. That takes study and practice. Magic isn't just about knowing how to do it with your head. It's about knowing how to do it with your hands, your heart. It's knowing it so well you don't have to think about it as you're doing it.

Jackson climbed back onto his bed and turned the book to the next page.