Lux sat toward the back of the class and gazed up at the chalkboard in front of him.

Expelliarmus - Disarm

Wingardium Leviosa - Levitate

Alohomora - Unlock

Lumos – Light

Nox – Extinguish

The spells were fairly straightforward, and as he found out were fairly easy to learn, although hard to master. They teamed up in pairs, which Lindsey had found him rather quickly, and began practicing with one another with ‘Expelliarmus’.

“So,” she began, practicing the motions with her wand as Lux did the same, “You’re a lot more fun when you drink.”

Lux glanced up at the teacher, Professor Swineheart, who was demonstrating the proper form. “Isn’t everyone more fun when they drink?” Lux retorted.

“You’re not wrong.” She said, chuckling. “But I didn’t think you had it in you.”

She glanced over at the two students practicing next to them, one of which was Caleb, and she walked on over to Lux and pretended to show him the proper form. She cocked her head over to Caleb’s direction who was awkwardly trying to conversate with his partner. “Every class has one.”

“Has one what?”

“The reject.” She said, laughing.

“He’s not a reject.” He said quietly, stepping back away from her, glaring. “He’s autistic and misunderstood, so how about you talk to him for a minute before jumping to conclusions.”

She held her arms up in surrender. “Okay okay! Yeesh, Mr. Sensitive, my bad.”

Lux sighed. “Just get on the other side so we can practice.”

Lindsey obliged, walking a few meters away from him.

"Expelliarmus!" Lindsey pointed her wand, imitating the professor's form perfectly. A brief flash jumped from her wand, a glowing fly sized ball of light rushing toward Lux’s wand, which jumped from his hand and flipped in the air multiple times before she caught it in her grasp.

She smiled. "Your turn."

Lux didn’t have quite as much luck. He tried several times, and the wand moved in her hand slightly, and one time even falling out, but never succeeded in flying out of her hand like his own had.

“Mr. Avery, may I?” Professor Swineheart said while she approached. “Your motions are right, but it seems you might be lacking intent and concentration.” She performed the spell on Lindsey, the wand flying from her hand and into her own. “If your posture and wand mechanics are right, there can only be one problem. You must concentrate, and focus on the connection with your wand, and through that connection, perform the spell. For me, it feels like a string is pulling down my veins toward the wand. I just need to allow it to orchestrate the strings as it deems necessary.”

Lindsey chimed in, “For me, my wand starts to feel cold and my hand begins to feel warm, so I allow the warmth to spread into the wand.”

“Ah, you must have a fire dragon’s heartstring. You feed it your magic, warming the core, and allowing the dragon to help manifest your power by mixing it with its own. Quite a powerful core, Lindsey.”

She beamed at the compliment, clearly happy with the praise on her and her wand.

Lux frowned. “What if I don’t feel any connection with my wand?” he asked.

“Where did you get your wand, Mr. Avery?”

“Ollivanders.”

Professor Swineheart smiled. “Then the connection is there, you just haven’t let it mature enough in order to feel it. Ollivanders’ wand experts are the best there is, and you wouldn’t have left with a wand that didn’t choose you. Don’t worry!” she said, trying to lift his spirits. He decided not to mention the difficulty they had in getting a wand to respond appropriately to him, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself.

Lumos and Nox were the only two spells Lux was able to perform above average on, having practiced Lumos so extensively the one night he laid in bed, with Nox coming second nature due to the synergistic relationship between the two. He still never felt the connection with his wand, however, and just nurtured the magic he felt within himself.

The more he practiced, the more he felt the magic stirring from within, so he concentrated as hard as he could to create a tether of sorts with his wand and the sensation of magic, to no avail.

After class was dismissed, Lindsey walked up to him on their way to second period. “Cheer up, it’s day one. Long way to go.” She patted him on the shoulder and jogged ahead to talk to a few other students from different houses she must have known from the wizarding world. She was quite popular, people introducing themselves to her or acting as if they knew her. Lux was beginning to understand that the attention she first got on Sorting Day was not entirely based on her looks, but maybe because she was known somehow in the magical community. He would have to be careful.

Battle Magic was relatively simple on their first day. They practicing some of the charms they had learned earlier, and how to apply them effectively in a duel. They discussed the different forms of duels, and what to expect over the next several months.

For their first semester, they would focus on the “Formal Duel”, which had them stand 20 meters away within a 5-meter circle, firing spells at one another. A lot of spells were off-limits – anything that could cause major damage, and they weren’t allowed to leave the circle they were standing in. This allowed them to concentrate on defenses and form, without worrying about their environment.

Lux felt it was rather controlled - he doubted he would ever face a wizard in such a restricted way, but he figured if it was just for a semester to learn the basics, it at least would help install good habits.

On the way to lunch, Lux was stopped by an older lady in robes that were unrelated to any of the school’s colors. She wore a light gray robe, with the letters ‘UW’ stitched onto the chest.

“Mr. Avery?” She asked.

“Yes ma’am?”

“Come with me, I’m to take you to your magical aptitude test.” She said, motioning with her hand to follow her. Lux looked at his classmates who walked on without him, either not caring or overhearing the conversation and not being surprised by the request.

Lux nodded and followed her lead, which she led him through a part of the school he had only passed by once during his tour. It led to a tall observation tower, where Astronomy classes were held back in the day before being discontinued as a class due to the randomness of the information gleaned from the constellations and students having always put into question the usefulness of learning about planets and galaxies.

Now, the tower was used for events put on by the school or outside organizations. Secretly, it was also used fairly often as the ‘Hook-up spot’. Nothing says romance like being in the tallest tower at Hogwarts-Ilvermorny overlooking the forests and lake while the moon and stars provided a soft glow to the room.

Once they reached the top of the tower, Lux saw three other people, two of which had gray robes, and the other being Headmaster Blas. The group stood in a semi-circle around a chair, which had a few cords dangling off the armrests and a contraption of some sort off to the side. Connected to the machine was a dial that had numbers labeled 0-100, with the needle currently resting at the ‘0’ position.

“Enjoy your first two classes?” Gembol asked while motioning Lux to sit down. He remembered Robert saying something about the aptitude test, but he figured it would be an actual test he would need to perform rather than getting poked and prodded.

“Yes sir, thank you.” Lux said nervously as he sat in the chair. Gembol heard the uncertainty in his voice.

“We do this with every incoming student Lux. We just find out about your magical potential and genetics. Robert explained this, correct?”

Lux nodded in confirmation, looking at the Headmaster. “Do you, um, know about..,”

Gembol nodded. “That you are muggle-born? Yes. So does the ministry, at least those directly responsible for documenting such things. Don’t worry, it's confidential.” He said, trying to reassure the young man.

Various sensors were placed in different spots on his body, while a woman took his blood and put it into the machine, waving her wand and initiating some protocol with an enchantment he didn’t recognize. Her wand continued to wave, and she maintained the connection with the device allowing it to work solely under magical means.

“Doing okay so far, Lux?” Gembol asked.

“Mmhmm. Thank you.” He said quietly as the machine-made different noises that fluctuated like a motorcycle revving its engine.

Gembol and the other two UW employees walked over to the other side of the machine, waiting to analyze the readings from his blood and see his potential score.

“So, I’m sure this is common knowledge, but what’s normal?” Lux asked.

Gembol spoke up. “Average for incoming new students is around 33. This machine has only been used for the last one hundred and twenty years, but when we first started to use it, the average was around 46. At that point, we had already noticed a decrease in our abilities.”

Lux nodded. He was hoping for at least a 30, since the average was just slightly above that.

A few seconds worth of silence filled the air.

“Check the sensors.” One of the employees said. She came around the corner, adjusted the sensors, and replaced them.

A few more seconds worth of silence.

“Redraw his blood, run it again.”

Poke. Blood. Spinning noises from the machine. Silence.

Gembol came around the corner, his face not revealing anything.

“Let’s get the sensors off of him, I want to go over the spells he’s learned so far.”

Once they got all the devices off of him, he stood up and drew his wand out.

“Go ahead and use Expelliarmus, if you would please.”

Lux nodded and did as he asked, the wand only fidgeting in his hand.

“Is this the normal response for you, Lux?” He asked.

He nodded, his cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I knocked it out of my partner’s hand one time.” He added, trying to offer any redeeming quality he could find.

Is my score that bad?

Gembol thought for a moment. “Lux, what kind of connection do you feel with your wand?”

Lux hesitated. “It’s okay, I don’t care what the answer is.” Gembol said reassuringly.

“I don’t feel a connection at all.” He admitted.

“Do you feel anything?”

“Well… yeah. But I only feel it within me. I can’t figure out how to tether it consistently with my wand. Some spells are easier than others, like Lumos, but the more complicated the spell, the harder it is.”

Gembol nodded in understanding, a sly grin creeping across his face.

“Let’s run his blood against our database, see if we can trace his heritage back to before they lost their magical gene.” The Headmaster asked one of the employees, who took his vial of blood and walked over to a fireplace in the room, disappearing within it with a toss of powder.

Lux tried to table his astonishment at the evaporating woman to ask, “What was my number? Is something wrong?”

Gembol chuckled. “No Lux, nothing is wrong.”

He walked over to the dial and spun it around toward him so he could see it.

“You scored a 91 out of 100."

"The introduction of The Magical Aptitude Test, created by none other than Frederick Gibbons (who would go on later to create The Arena), was a hotly debated piece of magical artifact when it came into existence in 2065. With birth rates beginning to decline, and whispers of students under-performing, Gibbons sought a magical method in determining baseline values for the future generations. He was quoted saying, "If we don't know where we came from, how on Earth will we determine our future destination?" Some found this to be an unwelcome piece of information; why put a number to someone's potential when the ramifications to that person's confidence could be irreversible. However, as time went along, and data was collected, the overwhelming majority saw the potential in getting tested, including to check their magical gene's dominance. Eventually, the machine became mandatory in every academic school and major job application." - Grim Bagshot, The History of Magic ed. 3