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AN: I think this is around the second-longest Harry Evans Chapter ever, so you better enjoy it... You should reward that with praise in the comments if I wasn't being clear enough.
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If anyone had looked at the way that Harry had spent his Saturday, they would have been surprised to see that he spent more time working than most people did on any given day during the week.
Several hours of teaching and practising with Penny, Cedric and then Neville, followed by several hours of lonesome practice in the Room of Requirement, with the only thing keeping him company being a cold stew that he ate so that his stomach wouldn't become too full or empty to continue with the practice.
Cumulatively, that came to around nine hours. Supplemented by the fact that he'd also jogged in the morning. Essentially, he lived the life of an Olympic athlete whose discipline was magic.
There was just something about the youthful vigour of a 13-year-old body that wouldn't let him sit still. There was so much energy everywhere, and he, as a former adult, knew perfectly well how little of it he would still have in the future. Now was the time to grow. Being an adult in a child's body meant that the teenage years were the new twenties, the time to accomplish as much as one possibly could before the world started really fucking you over.
Suffice to say, Harry liked getting fucked. Just not by the whole world.
Of course, this wasn't an attitude everyone shared. When he jumped out of bed at 8 in the morning the next Sunday, he got a queer look from Cedric who had just fluttered open one eye due to a sunbeam hitting it through the curtained-off windows.
The brown-haired boy googled at him, groaned and turned around. "I'm so sore from yesterday, how are you still moving?" he said before promptly falling asleep before getting his answer.
Harry rolled his eyes and got dressed. There was no point in showering yet, as he was going to go meet Flitwick today. Yesterday, it had been him delivering the beatdown on everyone else. Today it was his turn. The master would once again become the student.
He jaunted through the common room, which didn't have many occupants yet, and considered for a short second if he should wait around for Neville to wake up.
He hadn't kept track of the boy yesterday, so he didn't know if the Fluffy thing had happened, or if Draco had actually shown up for the duel. He glanced at the large black and yellow hourglass clock, which measures the points earned and lost by Hufflepuff. Nothing had changed since yesterday.
Presumably, if Neville had been caught out of bounds, the hourglass would have already reflected the major loss of points this would have incurred.
But, as it stood, the points earned were hovering at a decent 75. Hufflepuff had won the house cup two years in a row now. Most would hesitate to say that it was only due to Harry Evans, but Harry knew that without his presence, it would have been Slytherin on a seven-year winning streak.
The hourglass remaining unchanged invalidated one of four possibilities.
Neville had at minimum not gotten caught. Honestly, getting caught by a schoolteacher while covered by one of the Deathly Hallows would be quite pathetic, so no props for that. Unless, of course, Neville hadn't gotten the cloak. After all, an active auror like James Potter could very well need it more.
Although if he was running for the minister's office right now, perhaps he wasn't out there risking his life against dark wizards anymore. It was never the people doing the actual work in society who tried to become politicians. That statement was also true the other way around. It was never the politicians who did any of the real work.
There were three remaining options. Either the duel had found place, and Neville had come back to the common room after winning or losing. Or, it hadn't, and he'd just come back with, or without exploring on the way and thus finding out about the Cerberus.
Whatever the case, Harry decided that he wasn't too interested. He wanted to prepare The Boy Who Lived for the potentially conflict-rich future he was likely doomed to. That didn't mean he had to get directly involved in it.
A mentor who only taught the boy some tricks taught him how to handle some of the fights, rather than being close to the mess that was in the third-floor corridor. Harry believed in fate; surely nothing bad would happen, right?
He continued onwards to breakfast. He was one of the only ones out so early on Sunday. It wasn't even a nice day. Looking out of the windows confirmed that it was just the usual rain and clouds of Britain. The children didn't have an excuse to get up early so they could play outside.
It was just a slog. He joined the two other Hufflepuffs already up at the breakfast table, but didn't talk to them as they were involved in a very serious discussion about the proper explosive snap tactics necessary to make sure it was always the person on one's left who had the explosion.
He exchanged a nod with Flitwick, who was also already up at the table and then went for a light jog. It was good to be warmed up before these meetings. He never knew when the professor would spring an absolutely dreadful bout on him.
After that, it was time to meet. Ten in the morning. Harry had taken it easy, walked around, had breakfast, jogged, and meditated a bit. Now it was time to face the music. He knocked on the door to the professor's office. It was one of the rare times that they were meeting in the office to discuss matters of duelling. That made sense since it was technically too small to do any of the actual practice.
A squeaky voice bid him to come inside, and he did so with a respectful nod towards the diminutive professor already sitting behind his desk, pouring over what looked to be a relatively new book when one considered their archaic standards of magical education. It was only here that a primary text one had to read for school had sometimes been published 300 years ago, or even longer.
"Good morning, professor, how was your holiday?" Harry asked as he sat down opposite the man, who put down the book and waved his wand to pour the two of them a cup of tea. A tin can full of biscuits similarly floated to the table, covered in assignments and books to float down gently between the two of them. Harry abstained while the half-goblin started snacking away. Considering the man's size, Harry didn't know where it was all going.
"Quite frankly, Harry… After we finished our little tournament, I found the rest of my summer excruciatingly boring," Flitwick said with a shake of his head as he finished munching on a biscuit. He sipped some tea and clapped his hands to get rid of the crumbs.
"There's just nothing quite like watching a fast-paced duel. I haven't gotten involved in the scene in a very long time, so it brought back some memories," he said ambivalently as if indecisive if the memories were good or bad.
Harry smiled. "I do have to agree. In terms of sheer excitement, the rest of the holidays didn't quite pack the same punch if I can say so diplomatically."
"Yes, indeed. That is the issue when one's hobby gets the blood pumping, and other things can't quite measure up anymore. Did Professor Quirrell approach you? He came to me asking if you would perhaps be interested in doing the same deal that you had with James last year…" He contemplated for a second. "Or should I perhaps refer to him as Minister Potter to prepare for the future?" the professor gave a brief laugh while rolling his eyes. "That boy, truly, to think that the thirteen-year-old who made the Slytherins burp soap bubbles for a whole week would one day become head auror, or perhaps even minister." He shook his head.
"Well, as sad as it is to say, I don't know if we should count out Fudge quite yet. People might get behind him simply because he is currently the only real alternative to Potter," Harry brought up.
Flitwick grimaced at the mention of the other candidate. "Fudge, I taught the boy when he was still at Hogwarts, and I know that one shouldn't judge adults by the teenagers they once were, but I can't really imagine that his competency has improved much. Of course, it's amazing that he was able to neutralise the werewolf threat, which the auror department had dropped the ball on, but he never was the brightest," he muttered, before seemingly noticing that Harry was a student and not someone he met up with to chat over tea. He blushed and waved off the words he just said as if they could just dissipate in the air. "Forget I said anything. Let's discuss the results of the tournament. Are you satisfied? Now that you've had some time to think about it."
Harry considered his answer carefully. Flitwick didn't know that Habsburg had been cheating. Harry had fought the boy while defending himself against mental attacks. Considering the fact that Habsburg had been 16 at the time, this meant that this could still reoccur this year when he turned 17. It was a good practice, so he wouldn't necessarily mind, but he did get the feeling that having met someone with enough Occlumency knowledge to defend against the cheating might make them reluctant to do it again.
However, they might just try to consider alternative strategies against him if they were paired up again. Something to mention to Filius if they ended up in the same bracket next year. If Habsburg failed against someone else before even meeting Harry, then it wasn't an issue. Quite frankly, Harry couldn't imagine that some of the people he'd faced in the tournament didn't have at least enough of a grasp of all Occlumency to realise they were being attacked and call the foul.
Had they simply tried it against him because of his age in an attempt to conserve Habsburg's stamina? Or had they done some previous scouting to see who had some skill and who didn't?
It didn't matter.
Harry had ended up getting relatively far in the tournament, and considering how tough his competition had been, he was very happy with his results. Both Habsburg and the Greek boy who had eventually beaten Harry had been tough nuts to crack. One of them had cracked him, in fact.
There was nothing more to say about that.
"I'm quite satisfied with my results. Winning two duels and then losing to the eventual finalist is quite a feat for someone who participated at only 13 years of age." Harry said. "Of course, I think I can do better this time, but I'm not deluded about my chances. I'm unlikely to win this time either."
Flitwick tapped at his chin, looking forlornly into the air. "I will critique you by saying that in terms of greater strategy, you would have had more of a chance of winning next year had you not revealed your ability to deflect spells with your free hand. Everything else was necessary to get you where you were. I don't know if I've told you, but as your master in the circuit, I got a lot of letters, both congratulations and disparagements for that performance. I will agree with one of them who claimed that while I had found a diamond in the rough, your braggadocious attitude would be the thing eventually preventing you from ever winning, especially when the writer's student will be participating."
Harry shrugged. "I felt it was the correct moment to reveal it. In terms of grand strategy, perhaps it was a bad idea, but revealing my tricks will force me to create new ones. At some point, I will have so many that no one will be able to plan against me."
"That is not a particularly good opinion to have, but I imagine that age will teach you better than I ever could," Filius said with a sigh. "Nevertheless, for the accomplishment of getting as far as you have, you have paid dearly by revealing all of the tricks we have painstakingly built up over the last year. Everything being out in the open builds a solid foundation, but it means that we will have to work hard once again to get you as far as possible. I just had a tiny suggestion and a question for you, I guess," the man said, steepling his fingers.
Harry raised his eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"I think that if you participate again next year, it is very unlikely you will win. It will be a great experience once again, but it will serve to reveal your progress so that people have a very clear idea of where you were last year, where you are this year and where you will likely be next year. It gives them a timeline of what to expect. I was thinking that if you want to win, your first opportunity to do so will come in two years, in the next, next tournament. I believe that if you train in seclusion without participating publicly this year, it would raise your chances to win it all at the age of fifteen."
Harry considered it. It was a good point. He'd gotten relatively far with just half a year of training from Flitwick last time. If he took two years now that the man was invested in his development, then he could come back stronger than anyone would have ever suspected. Even if he participated, he would at most get four duels in before losing again. Maybe five. It wasn't like the practice was so valuable. But, in a way, the more prepared opponents were for him, the better the fight, the better the experience for real-life conflicts.
He wasn't necessarily in it to win it. He just liked winning, and at some point, it would be inevitable. But then, if winning was inevitable and not the main goal, did he want to lose out on some practice and some fun and some travelling just to optimise his strategy?
"I think I'd rather compete. A sword has to sharpen itself; without sharpening, it is likely to become useless, no matter how well it is forged."
"I suspected that this would be your answer. There's another reason I'm hesitant, however. I think that duelling sometimes comes down to luck. The way brackets are made might mean that you have an easy path to the finals or a hard one. I think that at the end of this academic year, you will have gotten to the point where if you get the easy bracket, you might be able to win the whole thing if you also get a bit lucky."
Harry shrugged. "I fail to see the issue in that."
"The issue is that the last, and the only person, to win the U17 international duelling tournament at the age of 14, was Gellert Grindelwald," Flitwick cautioned.
"Ah," Harry said articulately. "That would be a problematic comparison."
"Disregarding the fact you're a half-blood, the implications of your potential would simply mean that it would be the other political camp disquieted by your potential ambitions in the future. The pure-bloods would be afraid, and they might try to squash you. I am not powerful enough to protect you in all the ways that you can be attacked if this occurs," Flitwick said with a sad shake of his head.
"A compromise, then," Harry suggested. "We train my fundamentals, and we start developing some tricks. But, I won't use the newly gained tricks in next year's tournament. This will give people a wrong assumption of how quickly I learn and progress, as well as meaning that in two years, when you say I will first have a chance on my own merit, I will have more things prepared in my favour."
The professor started nibbling at another biscuit as he considered his words. "It is usually the compromise which is the correct decision, isn't it? Would you be willing to hold back? Lose even if you could win just for the sake of not ruffling a few feathers? Grindelwald was the only one who ever won at age 14, but there have been two or three who won at age 15. They've gone on to have amazing careers in the circuit and outside of it, becoming quite impressive witches and wizards. One of them, I think, lost her life to drugs, but regardless. It will still imply a lot about your future, but it would not imply something so extreme."
"Did Grindelwald win because he got lucky?"
"He had a remarkably easy path to the finals. But when he arrived there he crushed the other person like a bug. It was a massacre. He refrained from ever entering again with an open letter stating that there was chance involved in his first victory and that in his next one, there would be none, which would make the whole thing not very exciting. He was expelled from Durmstrang two years later for experimenting on magic even they considered reprehensible."
"Compromise then, as we said. We will train but not reveal all of the fruits of our training," Harry decided.
Flitwick nodded in agreement. "That's good to agree on early. I'm happy that you're willing to listen to advice on this. Just because you are young does not mean that you cannot gain the interest of the wrong people." He chuckled. "Regardless, I'm glad that's settled. The next international dealing tournament will happen in Helsinki. Pack your warm robes."
"It will be in the summer, so maybe that's not necessary," Harry said, having already visited the same city in his past life. He was a bit worried that the food wouldn't be as good as the one time that he had come. The Finnish people had told them that the reason why he'd liked all the restaurants when he'd visited was because the city had experienced a gastronomic reawakening during COVID-19, when everyone had been stuck at home and cooking all the time. Beforehand, the food was supposed to have been quite disgusting. Although considering he lived in Britain…
Flitwick shrugged. "Who knows? In the end, I've never been myself, but I imagine we'll find something to amuse ourselves with. Anyway, with that decision made, we can focus more on other things now." He glanced to the side at an ornate golden watch with way too many pointers.
"Goodness gracious!" he exclaimed. "It's already been half an hour. I don't think we'll get to practice today, but I think we will be able to set the foundation for the rest of the year. Now, in terms of your duelling, what do you think are your strengths?" he asked.
Harry considered for a few seconds before shrugging. "My disarming charm has gotten quite good, and I'm fairly decent under pressure. I'm innovative and open to learning new things. My biggest weakness is the lack of basic technique in terms of body movement in comparison to some of the other duellists who have been training for their whole lives. Similarly, I guess I would say that my spell coverage is quite low."
"I see that you already mentioned your weaknesses as well," Flitwick said with a small smile. "It was a decently self-aware analysis, but let me give you my interpretation. While your disarming charm is certainly something to behold, I don't think it can be considered a strength because no matter how good you get at it, everyone else is also focusing on this spell in particular. I do think you're innovative, but I have to say that thinking under pressure at some point won't matter as everyone unable to do so will have been sorted out. Your ability to move your body correctly and strategically is definitely less developed than what some of your adversaries have shown, and your spell coverage is low. I would, however, say that your greatest strength is your adaptability and willingness to work hard and listen to your elders. You didn't question me last year when I told you that you would have to practise the disarming charm until you got sick of it, you just did it and look at the results that you got this year. I think in comparison to most other duellists, you lack a bit of the ego, which is a good thing. Also, of course, the wandless magic and the Occlumency. They're force multipliers."
Harry tilted his head. "That's a good strength and everything. Being able to work hard. But it's only something that helps me learn things, not an advantage in itself."
"Why not? The fact that you're tactically adaptable and moldable means that we can develop you towards a specific direction without me having to be afraid of giving you fun tasks to intersperse with the important ones to keep you focused. It means your rate of improvement is simply faster than anybody else's."
"All right, that makes sense," Harry admitted. "And what will we work on this year then?"
Flitwick tapped his fingers on the desk, half-lidded eyes glancing at a parchment on the desk, which Harry could see had some notes and wand movements drawn on it.
"Work on your fundamentals for sure. Your stance needs to improve. There's no way around it. Similarly, deflection is still a big topic and will remain so for the rest of your career. The disarming jinx has been mastered to an extent in which further improvement is not necessarily worth the effort, but your shield and your bag of tricks for dealing with adverse situations need to be broadened. I'd define our goals for the year as follows. Improve the fundamentals of movement. Increase the bag of potentially useful charms to use in different situational responses. Improve spell deflection to cover more counters. Improving spell deflection will go hand in hand with improving the amount of spells you know, considering you do have to know the spell to deflect it. This, in turn, will go hand in hand with magical sense because if you can identify which spell is coming at you, then you know if you can deflect or not. Your magical sense is something that I have been thinking about a lot during the break. I have come to the conclusion that tied to this particular aspect of your abilities, we could have a very powerful trick which could be held in reserve until two years down the line."
Harry raised an eyebrow. He understood how his magical sense helped him deflect better than some of his contemporaries, but he was curious about what kind of trick Flitwick was talking about. Summoning steam had been good and all against Tonks, but it would simply be blown away by an errant wind spell in the tournament.
"I have found a spell, which should be particularly hard to learn. However, it is also a spell that takes advantage of the one skill you have that I'm fairly sure none of your enemies will share until you enter the adult circuit. Similarly, it is not something that the children you'll face will be used to dealing with. The U17 circuit is all about fundamentals. There is little Transfiguration considering there are no objects on the podium, which leaves only conjuration, which is much more difficult. Similarly, there is hardly any enchantment because if you can't create anything, then what are you enchanting exactly? Your wasp creation, which has been a slow work-in-progress, is noted; it's something on which an enchantment could be applied. How many wasps can you create now?" the man asked.
Harry sighed, knowing that he was still a long way off from becoming the WASP wizard with an army of insects at his beck and call. It was exponentially more difficult to create every additional wasp. "I can currently create three, I'm working on four," he stated. The professor nodded.
"I can't help you much with that. If you want, you can ask Professor McGonagall, but the idea did set me on a different path. Because conjurations are rare, and so are enchantments, duellists at this age are usually inexperienced in dealing with not only conjurations but also enhancements. I looked through a lot of books, finding the perfect spell, until I finally identified it around a week ago." Flitwick rummaged through a stack of parchments for a bit before pulling out an overly long roll and shoving it into Harry's hands.
The boy unrolled the parchment and looked at the title. "The Mists of Moria?" he wondered aloud.
Flitwick nodded. "Perhaps you've heard of the limbo mist, the golden mist popular for its use in labyrinths. It turns up into down and down into up. A reversal of gravity and an enhancement that can be used defensively to protect a place and at least slow down any approaching enemy. The Mists of Moria is a spell similar in concept to that it is a mist. However, rather than dealing with fundamental concepts such as gravity and mirroring, it is simply a particularly dense fog which makes it impossible to see. Some charms do the same thing, but this is an enchantment, which means that dispelling it becomes much more difficult."
"I see," Harry muttered. He hadn't thought of this, which just went to show how useful it was to have someone to bounce ideas off of. "The fact that I have a developed magic sense will allow me to see through it, whereas my enemies won't be able to. At first, they'll try aventus, thinking it's a normal fog, which already makes them lose initiative. After that doesn't work, they'll be stumped because they most likely did not work on destroying enhancements before."
Flitwick shot him a smile, some biscuit crumbs stuck in his moustache.
"And they won't find an answer even if you reveal this trick in the first round, considering that the whole tournament lasts less than a week." He paused. "Well, suffice to say I doubt there's any teenager out there who will be able to learn how to dispel enchantments so quickly if they haven't already been working on it beforehand."
"I've actually been working on enchantments since I came back to Hogwarts. Making a levitating spoon, making it see through things like this," Harry admitted. "My goal is to make a self-cleaning broom which I can give my aunt so she can not spend so much time cleaning the house. But, this is much, much more complex," he said as he read through the list of requirements one needed to fulfil to even attempt the Mists of Moria.
Flitwick nodded. "It's a tough nut to crack. I'm glad you've already started, though, even if I am a bit confused as to where you find the time," he said with a raised eyebrow. "I imagine then that you know the difficulty involved in this, then?"
Harry nodded. "The first step of enchanting is to do so with a single object. The second step is to abstract the process to an area, such as this mist requires. This is only the second step because it applies to an area rather than a conceptual boundary. The third step is usually when wards start getting involved. Summoning not physical effects, as hard to dispel as they are, but rather conceptual shields to prevent intruders from entering. In essence, if I ever wanted to learn how to ward, I would have had to do this anyway. Which is good since it is one of the things I consider to be of interest once I graduate from Hogwarts. I just didn't think I would be working on it so early," he admitted.
The professor shrugged. "Quite frankly, if it was any of my seven-year students demonstrating something like the Mists of Moria on their final N.E.W.T exam… It would, assuming good grades otherwise, bump them up to an O+. That is much less valuable for your resume than winning an international duelling competition."
Harry smirked. "And I can still use it at the N.E.W.T as well." He paused. "You sure I can manage this? It seems incredibly difficult."
He hadn't even managed to perfect the single object requirement of enchantment, going to area enchantment, even if it was something as simple as the fog was…
"You'll have a year to get it down, and then another year to master it. I'm sure you can manage. Once you've got your fundamentals to a certain point, it's these sorts of individual mastery of difficult spells that make you win duels," Flitwick said reassuringly, which made Harry feel better.
This was actually a much more difficult project than even the patronus had been because that had simply necessitated finagling the perfect emotional state. This was pure theory. "It would be fucking useful though wouldn't it," he muttered to himself. Even in a straight-up fight, he doubted many adults would be able to match his magical sense in the future, which would put him at an immediate advantage.
"I'm sure it would," Flitwick said disapprovingly.
"Any other secrets I should be working on so I can use them in two years?" Harry asked.
"I certainly considered many of those before I decided on the enchantment route," Flitwick said. "However, I do think it's better to just focus on one thing until you have it down and then focus on the rest. One particular thought I had is that you can continue working on your wasp conjuration. As I said, it's a bit rare in the duelling circuit at that age, so it will catch people by surprise if you increase the amount significantly by next time. Similarly, considering you will be learning enchantment, enchanting the physical objects that are the wasps once you create them would be useful. Perhaps make them hard to untransfigure, or to become invisible, that would also certainly be something, no?" the man asked.
Harry agreed. "Technically, to get done with the single enchantment phase, I could work on making things invisible or hard to untransfigure." He suddenly got an idea and smiled diabolically. "Say, Filius. What would happen if I enchanted a conjuration with invisibility, and then with the attribute of generating a false mirror image of itself right next to itself? The untransfiguration spell can cover a wide area if necessary, but it requires the caster to have in mind what they're trying to affect. If they're trying to affect an illusion, the spell won't work no matter how many times they cast it, since the property of creating the illusion would be anchored to the invisible wasp. This would technically be more useful than simply an enchantment to make it harder to untransfigure, since the opponent would be trying to do something impossible, rather than something improbable."
"Once you get just a tiny bit of experience in enchantment, your conjurations become much more difficult to handle, I agree. Of course, this would only work against those with no magic sense capabilities. So basically, the level we're at right now. But I like the way you think," Flitwick said.
"All right, invisibility enchantment and protection against dispelling. I can manage both of these in a reasonable amount of time, and also, work on the illusion," Harry decided.
"Wasps, technically, even if they can be transfigured, are still very vulnerable insects," Flitwick warned. In regard to wind and fire. If you could also make them immune to most elements, then you would have quite a dangerous weapon on hand."
Harry nodded thoughtfully.
"I know that you can cast the disillusionment charm, so I'm sure you can also figure out the disillusionment enchantment," Flitwick praised. "My suggestion is that you start early, he said with a small smile."
"You've given me a lot to think about and more homework than I've ever had to do in my life," Harry said with a sigh.
The professor shrugged. "I'll work with you on your fundamentals starting next Sunday. Your extracurricular projects are your extracurricular projects, but of course, do come to me for help if you're ever struggling. Although when it comes to the untransfiguration business, it might be better to ask Minerva."
Harry nodded, causing Flitwick to clap happily. "Class dismissed," he cheerily said.
Harry stood up when the man asked him one last question.
"So did you take up Professor Quirrel's deal? You never answered. I would suggest you do so. He is a competent wizard, and I'm sure he would have some things to teach you. It would also unburden me a bit, considering I don't have time to meet you twice a week," the professor said.
Harry nodded. "I'm sure Professor Quirrell has much to teach me," he said in a deadpan voice.
"Stupendous!" Flitwick said happily. "I'll see you in class soon, then."
"Goodbye, professor. I'll see you in class." Harry said and departed
His workload had just gotten bigger. It was a good feeling. Two years, huh? Two years, and nobody else would stand a chance anymore.
Simple enough, right?
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AN: I think at the start of every year, we've locked in an academic direction. First year was spell creation, last year was duelling in general, and this year it's obviously enchantment and minor conjuration and their applications in duelling and other areas. Let's see what Harry's chances are in the duelling tournament at the end of the year. It might mostly depend on the mists of Moria. And yes, I've made the U17 duelling tournament a bit of a baby zone where people mostly grind their fundamentals with maybe a few powerful charms. I hope the reasoning why transfiguration and enchantment aren't that popular makes sense.
Read ahead and support me on patreon if you like the story, school year is almost over there haha.