Minerva had waited a few weeks to see how matters would progress before feeling she absolutely had to say something, Hogwarts now had six second year students performing magic without the aid of structured spells. She asked the Potters if they cold wait behind after class for a couple of minutes, their friends were reluctant to leave but she assured them that no one was in any trouble.
Once they were alone Minerva got right down to business, "I couldn't fail to notice that both Mr Longbottom and Miss Bones are now also using unstructured spells, I was wondering if there was a particular reason you haven't taught anyone else but your three friends?"
"There is a very good reason Headmistress, it would probably be easier explained if you allowed us to demonstrate the point, we promise to keep it quiet." Minerva had no idea what Lady Hermione meant but decided to go along with it for now, she nodded her agreement.
She was suddenly afraid for what she'd agreed to as Minerva found she couldn't move a muscle, her clothes were transformed to those of a ballerina as she gently floated a few feet off the ground. No one in the castle would ever believe the sight of Minerva McGonagall dressed like a figurine from a musical jewellery box, complete with pink tutu, slowly spinning around in the air, totally helpless.
Hermione spoke calmly as if this was an everyday occurrence, "The reason for this demonstration Headmistress is to let you see the power and abilities performing magic by this method can give to a witch or wizard, we know that all three of us are above average in terms of raw magical power but this gives us so much more control. Should you or the ministry check our wands no spell would actually show up, the point being should we wish to harm you, we don't need to know restricted spells or complicated wand movements, we just tell our magic what we want it to do and there would be no record of us casting any spell."
McGonagall was gently lowered and her attire returned to normal before the body bind was released, Luna finished the explanation, "We only teach this to people we trust, can you imagine what would happen if someone like Malfoy could use his magic like this?"
Harry took over to finish making their point, "Grandfather has informed us that the reason structured spells are taught is to control the type of magic learned by students, no one needs to know curses that turn people inside out but we could probably do it without needing the restricted information."
Minerva couldn't really disguise the shiver of dread that ran down her spine, "So the potential for performing dark magic is increased using is method?"
Hermione shook her head in disgust, she'd missed the whole point and just latched onto the one fact, "No Headmistress, the potential for dark magic comes from within, the difference here is that you don't have to search for dark curses to perform the magic. We won't teach this to just anyone and the only other candidate we're considering at the moment is Hannah Abbot. Hedwig would soon inform us if we were teaching the wrong person how to use their magic this way."
Minerva took a lot of comfort from the fact that any potential candidates for learning this technique were going to be screened by a white phoenix. Dreams of teaching this method to all first years crashed and burned with the realisation that the first confrontation between Slytherin and Gryffindor could turn lethal, eleven-year-olds with the power to kill each other was not something she could contemplate teaching.
"Now I understand and totally support your stance as well as your choices of the people you're sharing this technique with, all three of your friends are from what would be considered 'light' families. The thought of someone like Mr Malfoy being able to do this would prevent me sleeping at night, I also realise you could have literally and legally have taken him apart and as Headmistress I thank you for showing restraint in your duel."
