Kapitel 10: Death and Domain - Chapter 10
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Enchanting is fine, delicate work. A mixture of advanced arithmancy, runes, charms, it takes decades to become a master enchanter. There's no one school of it either, only masters passing their way of enchanting down to their apprentices and on and on. Beyond the basic stuff, the art was as highly guarded as family magic.
Octavian was different though. In a less drastic way, he reminded me of a kid I knew from the system. He couldn't tell you what day of the week it was most of the time, but he could draw you a map of the world with every country and every border in its right place, right down to the mountains and rivers.
Enchanting was Octavian's geography. It was all there in his mind, a map only he could see. So long as he'd figured out how to do it once—and that too in his own way—he could do it again, eyes closed, with no arithmetic formulas or runic engravings.
Now, I could see it too.
I looked down at my work, at the impossibly thin tendrils of magic spreading out from the tip of my wand. It felt so natural to me, guiding them with my will alone, no hand movements or incantations, no formulas. It was as if I was the only sane man alive and the whole world was mad for trying to over complicate their way into arriving at 2+2=4.
Maybe that was why Octavian never tried to push any further, never tried to create better and more powerful things. The world wouldn't understand it. Wouldn't understand him. This talent he had for Enchanting was a total anomaly, and they would suck him dry for every creation he could pump out.
The vultures would flock to him. First as admirers, shaking his hands in their horribly perfumed parlors and cocktail parties, taking pictures with bright smiles and stamping his name into the face of every newspaper in Europe. Only they'd always be hungry for more, more inventions, faster turnouts.
Then, if and when Octavian ever faltered, they'd find his weaknesses—of which there were many—and exploit them. He would be eating in the palm of their hands in no time. If Dumbledore didn't do it, then Voldemort and his cronies would. If Voldemort didn't do it, then the ICW would.
Octavian wasn't ready for that sort of attention. He understood that, and I found myself creating a better picture of the boy that even his memories didn't manage to capture. No, he didn't have what it took to make it in such a cutthroat world.
I did.
Under my gaze, the magical tendrils wrapped around the doorknob like ghostly threads of DNA and sank into the metal, each filament imparting a different property into it.
Lock. Key. Absorption. Retention. Silence.
Simple stuff. There wasn't even enough magic here to light a candle. Octavian would never have managed otherwise. And yet, if anyone else were to do it, the arithmancy alone could fill a whole blackboard with magical equations, and the runic arrays wouldn't fit into such a small doorknob.
That's why nobody else bothered to do such a simple thing by enchanting. Enchantment was the long-road, Charms and Transfiguration the shortcut.
"Are you just about done?" Isaac asked, glancing at both ends of the carriage like he was trying to cross a busy intersection.
Standing up, I pursed my lip. "No." That was the shitty part of being Octavian. Despite the wondrous things he could create, he could barely use any of them by himself. "I need you to pump some magic into the doorknob, then we can go in."
Isaac looked at me like I was crazy, but I just nodded. He shook his head, but he knew he was already in too deep to back out now. Brows knitting together in concentration, he pushed his wand against the door handle and let a rush of magical energy flow through it.
I stopped him only a few seconds later. "Alright, alright, that's good enough. Now tap it and let's go"
He did as I told and jumped inside. I slid in after him, closed the door, pulled the curtains tightly, and sat down opposite to Isaac. For the first time since I could remember, he seemed rattled, fingers rapping nervously against the wood of the table, eyes fidgety.
"Are you going to tell me what the hell that is?" He pointed at the door handle.
I glanced at it, then back at him. "An anti-children magical lock."
His hand stilled on the table. Isaac looked at me like I'd just told him Santa wasn't real. "Really?" he hissed, leaning over the table. "That's what's going to stop Cassius and Justin? A fucking children's lock?"
"They're going to try to open it, fail, try an unlocking charm, and it won't work either, so they'll just assume there's some older students here that don't want to be bothered."
Just as Isaac opened his mouth to answer, the sound of running footsteps came pounding down the aisle. His jaw clicked shut.
"Don't worry, I added something that won't let them hear us inside."
Isaac didn't seem convinced. "You can do that?" he whispered.
I forced myself to smile. I could—theoretically, at least. Octavian, little single-subject genius that he was, had seen Snape use the Muffliato Charm dozens of times whenever he'd speak with Bellatrix, and decided to create his own form of it as an enchantment, though he never put it for sale.
The premise was different from the Muffliato too—instead of the buzzing sound transmitted on everyone else around, his enchantment created a bubble of magic that spread out from its origin point, following the contours of the room, and extending itself until it reached the other side.
It was mostly useful for small spaces, as the side of the bubble opposite the origin point was extremely weak to listening charms and even regular overhearing. Then again, right now, I wasn't really worried about people listening in on us through the carriage windows.
Outside, loud voices yelled back and forth for a moment, and despite my previous confidence, I shut up right alongside Isaac. I decided it was best not to tell him I had never tried adding the Silent enchantment to the Locking one before now.
Then the door rattled on its frame, once, twice. Isaac brought his wand out, holding it tight in his hand. By the way he held it, I couldn't tell if he was pointing it at the door or at me. My respect for him went up a notch. If he hit me with a spell the moment Justin and Cassius broke through, then they might think Isaac was just playing around with their prey as most of Slytherin was wont to do.
In his defense, for all I knew, he had it out because he was willing to go down fighting with me. Still, underneath the table, I had my own wand pointed at him. It wouldn't do much in a duel, but at point blank range, even my weakened version of the Bombarda would have a kick to it when aimed at a guy's nuts. I hadn't gotten as far as I did in the business by being trusting of anything other than my gut.
Thankfully, the door didn't buckle, and I didn't have to find out the hard way if Isaac was planning to sell me out. A shorter conversation followed outside, in which the both of us held our breaths as tightly as our wands, then the pounding footsteps took off toward the next carriage.
A thick knot that had been weighing deep in my stomach seemed to unroll inside of me. Despite trying to keep up an impervious persona, I found myself letting out a heavy breath, slumping over the table. Fuck. That'd been close. Too close for my tastes.
"Bloody hell," Isaac said, letting his wand drop from his hand. He brought it up close to his eyes and watched as his hand trembled. "Remind me never to help you again. Ever."
I let out a chuckle, and it came out with an edge of nerves to it. "I can't say I blame you." Slowly so he couldn't see it, I slipped my wand back into my pocket.
If Isaac noticed, he didn't say a thing. None of us did until the Hogwarts Express started its journey. A few other people came by and tried the handle, but they must have had the same idea of it being occupied by an older student and left quickly enough.
AUTORENGEDANKEN 
PathLiar
PathLiar So, in canon, Hermione manages to make ‘Enchanted Coins’ with a Protean Charm. I’m just going to pretend they simply named them ‘Enchanted’, and that they are really just Charmed Coins. In this world, Enchanting is a much rarer form of magic.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein