Chapter 77: Tempered Glass Wall, New Door, and Lock System
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]
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Quinn started the first weekend of his fourth year at Hogwarts by visiting the Room of Requirements to begin the first motive of the year.
"Oh boy, it's been a while," Quinn rubbed his hands together as he looked around the Room of Requirement with delight in his eyes. "Haa~, now, let's start immediately."
He took out a small glass pane from his robes and gently set it down on the floor before walking a few strides away from it. As soon as Quinn was at an appropriate distance away from the glass, the glass expanded till it was back to full size.
The glass pane lying on the floor was the glass wall from the A.I.D office. He had brought it to the Room of Requirements to make some changes to it.
One of the main objectives for his fourth year was to fortify the A.I.D workshop, and the first step to achieving that was to strengthen the glass wall that separated the office from the workshop.
"Okay, let's create tempered glass," Quinn said as he squatted at the edge of the glass pane and looked at the surface and the thickness of the glass. "First, I have to thicken the glass. This one is a bit thin, I think."
Quinn took out a cloth pouch bag from his robes. He opened the string binding the bag and scattered shards of glass all over the glass pane, expanding the glass shards back to their original size.
Wisps of wavy magic flowed from Quinn to the glass, and the glass turned into a state of transformation and then a liquid. All the liquid glass mixed with each other to form a giant blob of liquid glass. Quinn applied transmutation magic to reform the glass into one uniform pane of glass and molded it to appropriate shapes and dimensions.
Tempered or toughened glass was a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with traditional glass. Tempering sets the outer surfaces into compression and the interior into tension. Tempered glass was about four times stronger than conventional glass. The higher contraction of the inner layer during manufacturing induced compressive stresses in the glass's surface balanced by tensile stresses in the glass's body.
The result of tempering the glass was that it had four times the strength and durability of the previous one.
"I have to make cuts and mold the glass into shape," Quinn said as a tape measure came out of his robes and started to measure the glass. A felt-tip pen also came out from his robes and made markings and shapes to help the cutting that would be done afterwards.
The tempered glass had to be cut to the appropriate size or pressed to shape prior to tempering. Besides, it couldn't be re-worked once tempered. Polishing the edges or drilling holes in the glass had to be carried out before the tempering process started. Due to the balanced stresses in the tempered glass, damage to any portion would eventually result in the glass shattering into thumbnail-sized pieces.
Of course, magic could overcome that problem, but Quinn wanted to do it the traditional way and prepare the shape and layout of the glass wall before tempering the glass. He hadn't done this before, so Quinn wanted to do the tried and tested way.
"Okay, let's do this," Quinn put on his trusty leather gloves and levitated the glass that had been cut, polished, frosted, and molded in a uniform shape.
"First step of tempering a glass. Heat it to a temperature of six hundred and eighty-three degrees Celsius," read Quinn from the small notepad in his hand.
Quinn's approach for tempering the glass was the thermal approach. He would heat the glass to compress it and form an interlayer of tension between two compressions.
The only good thing that had come out of the sin curse was the time Quinn had spent in the library. He spent hours every day voraciously reading books, and a topic of study that he had covered during his readings was fire, or more specifically, the concept of heat.
Taking a deep breath, Quinn channeled his magic into the glass and flooded the entire thick pane of glass. Closing his eyes, Quinn triggered a change in his magic and heated up the glass. Quinn needed a fast, uniform thermal temperature throughout the glass.
After the temperature reached six hundred and eighty-three degrees Celsius, Quinn opened his eyes and immediately changed the magic from hot to cold.
The glass immediately went from molten to frozen... but it promptly shattered.
Quinn didn't look discouraged and walked to the shattered glass, which was still levitating in the air, and observed what had happened. After a minute of studying the failed result, Quinn judged,
"I need to heat it faster. Again!"
The shattered glass returned to its unbroken state through transmutation, and the process repeated over again.
This time, Quinn raised the temperature of the glass faster. He channeled magic and used a different heating spell design to increase the heat more quickly and with higher efficiency for heating glass.
"Shifting to cold," Quinn murmured. The heat switched off, and cold reigned supreme in the glass, quenching the glass uniformly.
*Crunch!!*
The glass cracked into rough shards, and countless glass pieces floated in the air.
"I can try to keep the same heat and cool it slower," speculated Quinn and hypothesized, before saying, "Again!"
There was a smile on Quinn's face the entire time as he heated the glass and cooled it down. The smile even remained when the glass deformed, shattered, or didn't come out tempered.
'Ah, this feels nice,' that thought encompassed Quinn's state of mind.
Doing magic that he found compelling felt nice to Quinn. It didn't have the exhilarating feeling of blasting objects with destructive magic that he felt last year.
This was different.
Watching how the wisps of flame danced on the glass's surface or when the ice relaxed down the glass and sizzled brought joy to Quinn. Changing the temperatures, heat, cold, the timing of heating and cooling, small changes that just made sense.
All of it was mesmerizing to Quinn.
It was fun, it was calm... It was magic.
After an hour and a half of shattering glass, making changes to the process, and trying dozens of times, Quinn finally produced a perfect pane of tempered glass.
"Done," Quinn raised his hands and admired his new glass wall that would be in his office.
He shrunk the glass wall down to a pocket-sized version, put it inside his robes, and exited the Room of Requirements to have lunch before going to the A.I.D classroom and set up the wall.
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A well-fed Quinn entered the empty A.I.D classroom with his suitcase in hand. He turned the key twice in the keyhole and opened the door.
The classroom was bare and empty. Not a sign of the room being ever occupied.
After last year, he had taken every single thing inside the office and the workshop. After losing control of his magic, Quinn wasn't in any shape to fortify his workshop, so he just packed up everything home with him.
Tables, workstations, desks, cupboards, cabinets, raw material, tools, and everything there was in the classroom went home with Quinn.
Quinn set down the suitcase on the floor, and opened it with a couple of clicks. The owner descended into the expanded suitcase and entered the room with all the stuff from the A.I.D classroom.
A powerful wave of magic slammed into every single object in the room, and the entire inventory shrunk down for Quinn to levitate and bring out of the suitcase. After thoroughly cleaning the room, Quinn set up everything where it belonged and got back to setting up the wall.
First, Quinn widened the wall to wall indent in the roof and floor to accommodate the increased thickness of the glass wall. He then pulled out the shrunken glass wall and expanded it slowly so he could line it into the indents that were on the top and at the bottom.
The wall fitted snugly into the indents at its regular size. A moment later, the wall and the floor were transmuted to grip the surface of the glass wall, and the building material Quinn had taken out to increase the size of the indents also went to the roof and floor to create more support for the glass wall.
Quinn stepped back and admired the glass wall and double-checked if it was firmly in its place before making a beckoning gesture and pulling a barstool for him to sit on.
He touched the wall with his right hand, resting his palm and fingers snug against the cool glass. After eyeing the wall for a moment, Quinn injected magic into the glass wall.
Purple waves of magic went through the glass every few seconds, reaching every corner of the wall. The purple waves of magic were the unbreakable charms being imbibed into the glass.
Unbreakable charm wasn't the correct name for the spell because it didn't make an object unbreakable. No, it only strengthened objects so that they would become more resilient to external forces.
Quinn was increasing the resilience of the glass so that it would become difficult to break.
Why not do this to a regular pane of glass instead of a tempered pane of glass? Well, the stronger the base material, the stronger result after placing the unbreakable charm. Tempered glass was naturally tougher than regular glass. So if you put unbreakable charms on it, the result would be much better.
Quinn sat there for five minutes channeling magic into the glass before the charm saturated the glass and could no longer make it any stronger.
The next step of fortifying the glass wall was to make it resistant to transfiguration and transmutation. The strengthened glass would be useless if you could just create a hole in it through transfiguration and pass through it.
There wasn't a way to fully disable transfiguration and transmutation as it was not feasible to isolate every single spell type and individually disable them one by one. So the next best thing Quinn could do was to make it resistant to magical changes.
The concept behind achieving something like that was easy.
'Using transfiguration and transmutation to defend against transfiguration and transmutation,' smiled Quinn, in thought.
Pushing more magic into the wall, Quinn commanded his magic to transfigure the glass that made up the wall to stay the same. Quinn was forcing glass matter to stay as glass. He was making his magic to freeze/jam the state of matter so that when someone tried magic against the glass, it would be difficult to budge as Quinn's magic was forcing the glass to stay the way it was currently.
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After the wall was done came the turn for the door.
The thing about doors in walls was that people went for the door when trying to break in. No one tried to break the actual wall when you had a door in it.
The doors were thinner than the walls they were fitted in and were made from a relatively weaker material. Quinn's wooden door was no different, and it clearly showed when Ivy Potter kicked the door down to enter the workshop.
So to make sure his door wouldn't be the hole in his defense, Quinn decided to make sure it would be a hassle to break.
Quinn started with the door's wood. He used the hardest wood available to him and bought a few logs of Australian Buloke wood. This wood had a very strength-toughness level on a pound-force scale.
"I have to stain it in a hardening solution," uttered Quinn as he took out a bucket of a red potion solution that he had finished brewing yesterday. He looked at the viscous red liquid and chuckled, "This baby took three days to brew. Oh, this is going to be good~."
The red solution would strengthen the wood fibers when absorbed into the material.
"Plus, it will give the wood a nice red sheen."
Quinn looked at the Australian Buloke wood logs and levitated them over the center island. Slowly, he turned the wood into sawdust by breaking down the wooden logs into a coarse powder. He made sure that the wood powder didn't fly over the room.
He separated the sawdust into multiple trays and poured the red hardening solution into the trays. As he poured the liquid over the sawdust, the sawdust started to move and mix with the red potion liquid.
Quinn had converted the wood into sawdust so that every fiber would get exposed to the potion, strengthening the wood at a deeper level.
"Okay, done." Quinn finished pouring the liquid over the multiple trays. Now, he just needed to give it time for the solution to get mixed and get completely absorbed into the wood. Quinn continued mixing the wood using magic and moved along.
"Now, where is that high-carbon steel plate," Quinn looked around the workshop and found a sheet of high-carbon steel. "Alright, this will do. This will do very well."
Quinn laid the metal sheet on the floor and punched ten holes in the sheet; two rows of four holes and one row of two holes. The metal sheet was going inside the door, and the holes were there so the wood could go through them and really bind the metal with the wood.
The next part of the door was the lock. Quinn used the same high-carbon steel to craft a lock system with a regular lock opened with a key.
The other part of the lock was a system of thirteen steel cylinders that would enter the door from the frame around the door. And these cylinders couldn't be released from the door with the key. They had to be released by magic, and if no one knew about the cylinders, no one would figure out how to disable the cylinder system.
Ten minutes of unbreakable charms into the metal finally saturated the metal with magic. It couldn't be made any stronger by the use of the unbreakable charm.
By the time Quinn was done, the wood was prepared. It was ready to be turned into a wooden door with a metal plate inside.
The punched high-carbon steel sheet along with the lock system floated in the air as Quinn directed it with his left hand. He pointed his right hand towards sawdust trays, and around three-quarters of treated sawdust flew towards the metal sheet.
The wood fibers gathered around the metal and formed a red door made from treated Australian Buloke wood and a high-carbon steel core and locks. The completed door also went through the same treatment of transfiguration and transmutation resistance.
The remaining quarter of the treated sawdust flew towards the rectangular opening in the glass wall and formed a wooden frame for the door to fit in. The rectangular opening in the glass wall had notches around it for the wooden frame to fit on the glass wall.
Quinn fitted the door in the frame and entered the thirteen cylinders into the wooden frame, five on both lengths of the door and three on the top breath of the door.
"Done," celebrated Quinn as he opened the door and went back and forth. When he closed the door, the steel cylinders were inserted into the door in such a way that the cylinders were door and frame at the same time, jamming the door with the frame.
"Now, let's put some charms to punish anyone who touches the door." Quinn shot spells at the door that would shock and burn anyone who would touch the door and an anti-unlocking charm on the regular lock.
"Yeah, try to break this door, Ivy Potter," smirked Quinn.
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Quinn West - MC - Fortifying the A.I.D classroom.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Don't know why I wrote this chapter, but I did. So... thanks for reading.
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Chapter 78: Third Riddle, Novellus Accionites, and Hothoof.
If you want to read ahead, you can check out my Patreón @
[ https://www.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis.
.
[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]
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Now that the A.I.D office and workshop were fortified, Quinn sat at his office desk and read the sheet of paper on the desk.
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[
You can swallow it.
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Deep in the Bane of Neptune's home,
Find the forgotten dome.
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It can devour you.
Beware the force or it will crush you,
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Life is something you cherish.
If not careful, you will perish
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Yet, it is the source.
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The riddle to the third vault was written in the paper. Friar had given him the riddle after his stunt at the Astronomy tower.
The Hufflepuff ghost had lectured him a lot before handing over the starting clue. And Friar's worries were reflected in the riddle.
"Life is something you cherish," Quinn sighed and shook his head at the religious ghost's attempt to make sure he didn't repeat things like jumping off the Astronomy tower. "He should know better than anyone that the cursed vaults are more dangerous than a bungee jump without a rope."
Quinn tapped his finger on the paper and read through the riddle over and over again.
"Bane of Neptune, now that is definitely some mythological stuff," Quinn murmured, studying the riddle. "That will need some research."
He took out a small notepad out of his robes; uncapped his pen, wrote Neptune's Bane, circled it a couple of times, made an arrow extending outside, and finished it with the word research.
"... Next, beware of some kind of force," Quinn felt that this was the dangerous part of the third vault because it was followed by, "If not careful, I will perish. Now, that just screams danger."
Quinn nodded appreciatively and praised Friar, "Props to Friar for making it clear. This... this is what I like. Danger clearly specified."
The word force went on the notepad, another set of circles, and an arrow pointing to danger.
Quinn frowned and sighed, "life is something you cherish. This is useless."
Quinn copied the phrase on the notepad, put a line through it and a small cross next to the sentence. "Friar's drabble," wrote Quinn with an arrow coming out of the crossed sentence.
"Come on, Friar. Show some professionalism," Quinn complained to the ghost who wasn't there. "Has he learned anything in his long ghostly life? Well, Myrtle hasn't grown up from her Hogwarts days, so maybe ghosts are incapable of growth."
In the end, Quinn reached the three individual phrases of the riddle and felt some connection existed between the separate lines.
"You can swallow it."
"It can devour you."
"Yet, it is the source."
The three lines were the remaining lines from the riddle, and all of them had something in common between them.
"What is the 'it' mentioned here," Quinn asked himself, hoping to get some random epiphany. "It, it, it... What is it?"
Writing the sentences on a fresh notepad page, Quinn put a circle on all three 'it'-s and connected them with lines.
"Hmm... I think I will target this from the Bane of Neptune's angle to get the things rolling," Quinn closed his notepad with a snap and put it back into his robes along with his pen.
Hogwarts taught the subject History of Magic, and such the Hogwarts Library was equipped with books about history. Not that Binns taught the subject properly, but Hogwarts Library would definitely hold texts on different parts of the history of the magical world.
And the myths of the non-magical world tended to be magical anomalies of the magical world.
It was a start.
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Quinn was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch. Yesterday's rain had cleared; the sky was a clear, pale gray, and the grass was springy and damp underfoot as he set off to his first Care of Magical Creatures class.
Eddie and Marcus walked by his side, talking about the new terrorist group Novellus Accionites.
"This time, they targeted three muggles. Aren't they scared of the Aurors?" Marcus spoke about the latest news that had been circulating across the country. "They have been really aggressive in their approach."
"At least, they are targeting people at night," Eddie commented about the actions of Novellus Accionites. "The only reason the aurors knew about the muggle attacks is because of the clear traces of magic there are on the muggles."
"What do you think, Quinn?" Marcus asked for his other friend's opinion.
"Hmm, if they continue to attack, I think the aurors will set up a task force against them," affirmed Quinn on the new and upcoming terrorist group. "As Eddie said, they only strike at night, so the Muggle authorities are still treating their few attacks as Muggle matters."
"If they increase their attacks and act in daylight, the ministry will start a task force of Aurors and Hit-Wizards. The ministry will only move when the pressure from the non-magical world grows," Quinn sighed and finished his opinion on the new terrorist group.
"But why?" Eddie frowned in question. He couldn't understand why the ministry had only issued a lookout notice for such a clear threat. "I mean, what was it called? -"
"-Manifest," Marcus offered the word Eddie was looking for.
"Yes, the manifest. The manifest clearly stated that the Novellus Accionites were the supporters of You-Know-Who," Eddie shuddered in the thought of the Dark Lord. He frowned in disbelief, "Why isn't the ministry being more vigilant against these terrorists?"
Quinn patted Eddie's shoulder and explained to his friend the world of politics.
The war had brought influence on The Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Former Head Bartemius Crouch Senior utilized his powers to permit the usage of the Unforgivable Curses against enemies, among other law changes that seemed atrocious under times of peace.
Crouch Senior was so incredibly popular that he was slated to become the next Minister for Magic. If not for his son, Crouch Junior, being a Death Eater, Bartemius Crouch Senior would be sitting in the minister's office instead of Cornelius Fudge.
"A few years back, at a Wizengamot vote, it was decided to reduce the budget of The Department of Magical Law Enforcement from their war era funding. It was an attempt from the minister's faction to limit the growing popularity of the Auror's Office. The vote was passed with a vast majority because none of the factions wanted the increasing influence of the militant Auror's office."
The Dark-Faction had obvious reasons. As supporters of Voldemort, they didn't want future troubles. A lot of them had bribed their way out of a lengthy stay at Azkaban. But they weren't sure if it would work in the future because the Auror's office was becoming more and more popular.
Light-Faction, led by Albus Dumbledore, also lobbied to decrease the funding in The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, or specifically, the Auror's office. Even though James Potter, Sirius Black, the comatose Longbottom Couple and many other Light-Faction members were Aurors, and many didn't like the decision, they still followed the decision because the majority of the Light-Faction was in favor.
Albus Dumbledore actively participated and supported the motion because he wasn't happy with the wartime decision of using the Unforgivable Curses. Dumbledore's forget-and-forgive philosophy didn't support the direction the Auror's office was going.
The Grey-Faction went along with the flow and voted in favor for the motion because they, too, didn't want over-vigilant policing from the Auror's office. Grey-Faction liked freedom so that they could conduct their business in peace.
"Now, let's talk about the present. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement took a short-term hit from the reduced funding, but it was, as I speak, a short-term hit. Even though they had to struggle for a year or two, excellent leadership brought The Department of Magical Law Enforcement back to stability and glory."
Quinn smiled in admiration as he went on.
"Under the direction of DMLE head Amelia Bones, the department recovered and regained their influence. Amelia Bones is so popular among the public that she is believed she will be the winner of the next ministerial election. Even at this moment, Amelia Bones is already far ahead of Cornelius Fudge in popularity."
The world of politics was a complicated and treacherous one.
"So to limit her rising popularity, the minister's faction is trying to downplay the activities of Novellus Accionites. They don't want to add fuel to Amelia Bone's popularity by handing the operational authority to the Auror's office and let them take another victory. So they have been downplaying Novellus Accionites so that Amelia Bones won't start a campaign that might boost her popularity at the next election."
Marcus and Eddie didn't like what they were hearing. A terrorist group was hardly being given any coverage because the ministry wanted to play politics.
"That doesn't sound good. Why isn't anyone doing something?" Marcus frowned in disgust. The two fourteen-year-old boys didn't understand politics. It was their first discussion on politics, and well, they didn't like it.
"It's not like they are doing nothing. Aurors are on the lookout. Aurors won't stop their basic duties because of politics; they will still protect people," Quinn comforted them with some positivity of the situation. "And there is another reason why the Aurors and ministry aren't moving more aggressively."
"What is it?" inquired Eddie curiously.
"Novellus Accionites are public supporters of Vol- I mean, Rid- I mean, You-Know-Who," Quinn stopped himself from speaking the wrong term twice.
In his mind, he addressed the Dark Lord as Voldemort or Tom Riddle. Quinn never addressed the Dark Lord as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. But to keep appearances, Quinn had to call him with the hyphenated pseudonyms.
Plus, he wasn't sure if the Taboo on the name Voldemort would return, so he made sure to keep a habit of using hyphenated pseudonyms to not accidentally get into trouble.
Quinn coughed before continuing, "So, as I was saying, Novellus Accionites claim themselves to be supporters of the Dark Lord. Due to that, the ministry doesn't want to spread panic in which 'somehow the Dark Lord is back', because, then, there would be rumors that would spread the idea that Novellus Accionites are actually Death Eaters."
"The ministry is trying to portray a message in which Novellus Accionites aren't a big deal, just some stupid dafts who aren't a huge threat. They are keeping this under the wraps. It is all about maintaining order by avoiding chaos," Quinn shrugged at the end. "They want to leave the Dark Lord's reign behind them."
Eddie and Marcus didn't give any response. Quinn turned to regard his friends and saw contemplative expressions on their faces.
Quinn didn't disturb them and walked beside them in silence as they went down the sloping lawns to Rubeus Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest for Care of Magical Creatures.
Meanwhile, Eddie and Marcus were thinking about the situation and forming their own views. He kept silent so that they could think about the situation. Things were never black or white; there were always shades of grey present in everything.
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Rubeus Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat with Fang the boarhound at his heels. He seemed impatient to start.
"C'mon, now, move on!" he called as the class approached. "Got a real treat for you today! Great lesson coming up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"
The class followed as Hagrid strolled off around the edge of the trees, and five minutes later, they found themselves outside a kind of paddock. There was nothing in there.
"Everyone gather around the fence here!" Hagrid called. "That's it —make sure you can see— now, the first thing you'll want to do is to open your books."
The students were confused as they had no idea how to open the book.
The Ravenclaw students frowned darkly; lots of them even looked frustrated as they hadn't got the chance to open their textbooks before the class.
Eddie also squinted at his Care of Magical Creatures' book before he caught Quinn in his peripheral vision. He snapped towards Quinn and blurted.
"How did you open the book?!"
Quinn, who was in the middle of reading, shook his head slightly, turned to Eddie and said with an accusatory tone, "What is wrong with you! Don't surprise a man when he's reading!"
Eddie's and Quinn's louder than regular argument brought the attention of the rest of the class to them. Everyone saw that Quinn's Care of Magical Creature book was open. And now, everyone wanted to know how Quinn opened the damned book, which tried to bite anyone who tried to open it.
Quinn sighed and looked for Hagrid, but the giant had stepped into the woods and wasn't nearby.
'I guess I have to show them,' Quinn thought as he raised his hand towards Eddie and made a gesture to make him hand over his book.
Eddie handed over his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope.
After watching that some others also took out their books: some, like Eddie, had used ropes to bound their books shut; others, had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.
"Stroke the spine," Quinn announced to anyone who was paying attention. "Look here, like this."
He removed the length of rope from Eddie's book, dodged the book's bite and gently used three fingers to gently stroke the spine. The book shivered and then fell open and lay quietly in his hand.
"How did you know how to do that?" Marcus asked, as he stroked the spine of his copy and opened the book after it calmed down.
Quinn shrugged in reply, "I asked the bookstore manager and he told me." His tone was like he was stating the most obvious thing in the world.
And he wasn't lying. Quinn had to buy The Monster Book of Monsters for this year. He hadn't purchased this book for his British book collection. So when he went to the bookstore, Quinn did ask the book shop manager to demonstrate how to open the biting book.
"I'm back. Look who is here to meet you!"
Trotting towards them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Quinn had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, sparkling orange eyes. The sharp talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly-looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck attached to a long chain. Hagrid, who came out jogging, held the chains that were attached to the collars.
"Gee up, there!" he roared, shaking the chains and urging the creatures to move toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as Hagrid reached them and tethered the creatures to the fence.
"Hippogriffs!" shouted Hagrid happily, waving a hand at them. "Beautiful, aren't they?"
Quinn tilted his head and tried to see the beauty in the creatures. Once he got over the first shock of seeing something that was half horse, half-bird, Quinn observed the hippogriffs' gleaming coats: changing smoothly from feather to hair, each of them of a different color; stormy gray, bronze, pinkish roan, gleaming chestnut, and inky black.
"So," said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, "if you want to come a bit nearer -"
No one seemed to want to. But Quinn, with a mischievous grin on his face, grabbed Eddie's and Marcus's robes above their shoulders and dragged them closer to the fence.
"W-What are you doing?!" Marcus whimpered as he stammered in his words.
"Have you gone mad?!" Eddie croaked back as he tried to stand his ground, but Quinn was stronger than him.
"I still remember how you pushed me forward during last year's dueling club," Quinn cackled as he brought them to the fence. "Come now, don't be scared, but do remember that if the hippogriffs attack, I will use you as meat shields."
"Now, the first thing you gotta know about hippogriffs is, they're proud," warned Hagrid. "Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Never insult one because it might be the last thing you do."
"Always wait for the hippogriff to make the first move. Give the proud bird the initiative," Hagrid continued. "It is polite, see? You walk towards them; then you bow, and finally, you wait. If they bow back, you are allowed to touch them. If they don't bow, then walk away, but keep an eye on their talons."
"Now, who wants to go first?"
Most of the class backed farther away in answer. The hippogriffs were tossing their fierce heads and flexing their mighty wings; they didn't seem to like being tethered like this.
"No one?" said Hagrid, with a pleading look.
"I'll do it," volunteered Quinn, raising his hand high as Eddie and Marcus slowly inched back away.
Don't get Quinn wrong, while he volunteered for a one-on-one with a hippogriff, he did feel fear. Quinn guessed he could defend against hippogriffs. No problem on that front; he could instantly injure the half-horse, half-bird, and get away, but that didn't mean that Quinn wasn't afraid.
He still feared that he could get injured. But in Quinn's mind, it was a waste of an opportunity to not try out new things. If he avoided risks, then he would miss out on a lot of fun stuff in his life.
"Good man!" roared the half-giant, his voice booming with joy. "Right then, let's see you get on Hothoof."
Quinn jumped over the fence as Hagrid untied one of the chains, pulled the bronze hippogriff away from its fellows, and slipped off its leather collar. The class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding its breath.
"Easy, now," whispered Hagrid quietly. "You have to make eye contact, but don't blink too much. They don't trust you if you blink too much."
Quinn immediately moistened his eyes with magic he learned from Alan when he was learning Occlumency.
Hothoof turned his great, sharp head and stared at Quinn with one fierce red eye.
"That's it," Hagrid guided from the side, "Now, bow, bow..."
Quinn followed the instructions, even though he wasn't a fan of exposing his nape to the hippogriff. He gave a short bow and then looked up.
The hippogriff was still staring haughtily at him. It didn't move.
Quinn was about to give the hippogriff the same haughty look, but then the hippogriff suddenly bent its scaly front knees and sank into what was an unmistakable bow.
"Alright," Quinn beamed as he swiftly walked his way to Hothoof and patted the hippogriff's beak. He patted the beak several times, and the hippogriff closed its eyes lazily, as though it was enjoying it.
The class broke into applause.
"Who is a good boy?" Quinn cooed as he used his other hand to stroke the feathers, but then he turned his head to Hagrid and asked. "Hothoof is a boy, right?"
"Nay, Hothoof is a lady," Hagrid shook his head in correction.
"Oh, my," Quinn turned back to the female hippogriff and cooed once more. "Who is a good girl? You are, aren't you?"
Hothoof titled her neck to better guide Quinn's hands to the spot that felt better.
"Right then," clapped Hagrid. "I reckon she might let you ride her!"
"Hmm..." Quinn voiced as he looked into Hothoofs red eyes and gave it a thought. "Uh, why not? I could always jump off if things get wild. Ooh~, maybe that would feel the same as skydiving."
"You climb up there, just behind the wing joint," said Hagrid, "And mind you, don't pull any of her feathers out, she won't like that..."
Quinn put his foot on the top of Hothoof wing and hoisted himself onto its back. He used sticking charms to stick himself to the hippogriff's back.
"Let's go, big lady," Quinn gently patted Hothoof's nape, and Hothoof stood up.
"Go on, then!" roared Hagrid, slapping the hippogriff's hindquarters.
Hothoof's wings flapped open on either side of Quinn, and before he knew it, he was soaring into the sky. The hippogriff's wings beat uncomfortably, catching him under his legs and making him feel he was about to be thrown off.
'Maybe this is like life bull riding,' Quinn thought as he looked below at the trees that made up the forest.
"Oh, yeah. I should do that," Quinn put his hand over his head, and conjured a cowboy hat over his head. He also made it stick to his head so it wouldn't fly away.
"Yee-haw!" Quinn's voice was drowned by the wind, but his grin was still present on his face.
Hothoof flew him once around the paddock and then headed back to the ground. With a thud, Hothoof's four ill-assorted feet hit the ground.
Quinn looked at the rest of his classmates, pushed up his cowboy hat, and jutted his chin towards them, "Howdy, people."
"Good work, Quinn!" roared Hagrid as everyone cheered. "Okay, who else wants a go?"
Emboldened by Quinn's success, the rest of the class climbed cautiously into the paddock. Hagrid untied the hippogriffs one by one, and soon there were people bowing nervously all over the paddock.
Eddie and Marcus practiced on the inky black hippogriff named Stormswift, but they had to run backward repeatedly because Stormswift didn't seem to want to bend its knees.
Quinn stayed back and watched his classmates; his conjured cowboy hat still on his head.
"What a good day."
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Quinn West - MC - We ride, never worry about the fall. Guess that is just the cowboy in us all. *Click-Click*
Hothoof - Hippogriff - Big Lady of the sky.
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