The birthday celebrations themselves were much like last year but with a few notable differences. Snape brought me a selection of rare potion ingredients that I had never seen before, each carefully labeled and with a brief note on their properties. He also gave me the next two years' worth of textbooks and a stack of homework. It is good to see that my uncle is as serious about my education as I am, maybe even more so. Draco was given seven more glow-in-the-dark Quidditch figures by his godfather. My mother had somehow managed to guilt-trip Snape by mentioning how much time we had spent together and how he would have to get him something extra special. Draco barely managed to thank our godfather before running to the other room to play with them.
Draco only returned when he heard the promise of sweets. Narcissa, ever the doting mother, had prepared a lavish cake, adorned with intricate magical decorations that danced and twirled around the icing. She gave me a beautiful set of enchanted paintbrushes, each imbued with a different magical effect. One could make the paint shimmer like stardust, another could change colors with a thought, and a third could create images that moved like the characters in my Magical Mates and Merriment (I'm tired of writing the name out and will use MMaM when referring to it from now on) show but without me having to place runes. These were a type of enchanting I was yet to be able to practice, long-term spells placed onto objects. They were not just functional as paint brushes but also pieces to try and copy using my methods.
My mother's gift to my brother was just as extravagant. Draco's eyes lit up with joy as he unwrapped a set of miniature Quidditch players that zoomed around a tiny pitch, their movements controlled by a glove on his hand. I could instantly tell that this had been commissioned as none of the various catalogs I could see had contained something similar. He immediately set them up and began playing, his laughter filling the room.
From my father, I received a beautifully crafted magical quill that never ran out of ink, a set of crystal phials for my potion experiments, and a rare book on ancient runes that may have cost more than everything else I had been given today. I was also given something heartwarming as well—a delicate silver locket, engraved with the Malfoy crest and inscribed with protective enchantments. Inside was a tiny portrait of our family that would age with me and Draco. Draco had been given his practice broom, a bunch of toys that he had circled in a catalog, and a similar pendant. It was to remind us that no matter where we were, family was always close.
This year I gave Draco a "Where's Merlin" book. He seemed to have enjoyed the old wizard from MMaM and he had given me the idea back in the library. Two weeks ago, I had brought my handiwork to my father to get his opinion on what the cost of making this book would be and whether it would sell well. This led to another trip for him to the patent office. This marks the third patent under the "Nyx" name, with the lamps and MMaM both having large-scale success. The publishing rights for this book were sold to Flourish and Blotts, and within the month, this book would hit shelves. If it sold well, I would probably make a sequel with the whole cast. Future knowledge really comes in handy; I had beaten out "Where's Waldo" by about five years. I had written on the inside cover that this book was inspired by "my brother's adventurous spirit." I even decided to put 5% of the profit into a vault with his name on it out of the kindness of my own heart. I was, however, going to take that back if he didn't get me a birthday present next year.
The event ended with a final portrait being made of the family, the magical artifact used acted like a camera, painting the picture based on the photo taken, this would take about 5 minutes each time, a digital camera would be a must in the future. Even Snape was allowed to join in after Draco said "He got me such a good present, he deserves to be in the photo", it is quite easy to buy the heir's love. It took seven tries before we got one where my darling brother had stood still and not made a face. Narcissa sent Dobby to hang up the portrait while Snape was walked by his godchildren to the fireplace. "I expect to see you at 12 tomorrow at my lab, Seras. Don't be late," he said with his usual stern voice, a slight smirk appearing on his lips.
With that, I went to my room to sleep. Roughly ten minutes later, I heard a loud knock at the door. I got up from my bed to find out what was the matter, and there stood Draco. In his hands, he had a small stuffed dragon that he had begged Mom and Dad to buy him from a catalog. He had never touched the dragon after its arrival as it was too small, apparently. He looked at me and said, "Happy Birthday," before putting the dragon in my hands and running back to his room. Maybe my little bro wasn't so hopeless, I thought to myself, before going back to my bed and putting the little dragon onto my desk where I would be able to see him when I worked. I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
I'm still trying to figure out how valuable that ancient rune book should be. Expect very little on the 4th of July, I got stuff to do.
I would like to know what people want to see, how strong should she be when she gets to hogwarts, this is less a question of whether or not she'll be broken and more one of just how broken.
I hope I'm doing a good job trying to make her becoming strong make sense and not just be "My OC kills god at the age of 3 becuz they have that Dawg in em."
(Seras POV)
It had been a few days post-birthday celebrations, and after a few long lessons with my godfather, I was given a short reprieve. I found myself in the library, once again drawn to the world of runes. Reproducing the enchanted paint brushes from my mother with runes instead of spells was quite the fun exercise.
The paintbrush that made the paint shimmer had been a relatively simple challenge. I could reproduce a similar effect using a few different visual runes, tweaking the parameters until it matched perfectly.
The instant life paintbrush was also not that hard. I just made it so that the runes that would usually make the completed painting come to life were placed into the paint itself. My first attempt lacked a delay, resulting in a cute cat painting becoming wildly deformed as it animated mid-creation.
The color-changing paintbrush, however, was a significant challenge. Due to my natural occlumency—which likely came from me forcing magic into my brain in the womb—the paintbrush was unable to connect in the way it needed to read my thoughts. The occlumency that has kept my reincarnation a secret for so long was now stopping me from using an artifact that reads surface thoughts. It was a worthwhile trade-off, but still frustrating. I decided to put this project on hold until I had greater control over my mind. I would have to ask Snape for books on occlumency and legilimency after our next lesson.
With that project on the back burner, I decided to broaden my runic knowledge through more study. Luckily, I had received an ancient runebook from my father for my birthday. I placed it on the empty bookshelf in my room, marking the beginning of my personal library. This book was bound in dark leather and bore no title on its spine, but its age and aura of mystery called to me; what can I say, but I'm a sucker for a bit of mystery. Somewhat nervous that it would fall apart like dust in my hands, I carefully pulled it from the shelf and opened it, revealing a collection of ancient runes and their descriptions.
The book's descriptions, titles, and even the author's note were all written in ancient runic script. I could already tell that this was going to be a lot of work for somebody with only a passing understanding of the language. I had been so focused on the magical part of the characters that I completely ignored the linguistic part of them. There was almost something calling to me in the book itself, a strong magical aura could be seen through the yellow pages. I instantly flipped to the exert that exerted this force. I then came to the realization that I couldn't read what it said, so I returned to the library, book in hand, to find a translation dictionary. If I hadn't set up my library system earlier, this may have been a multiday process, but it was simply a ten-minute search. After accidentally finding a "Rus to English" dictionary due to a typo, I found what was needed and got to work.
The rune was a complex symbol, intricately designed with curves and angles that seemed to defy the typical simplicity of most runes. My translations were incredibly rough, but the broken-sounding English was understandable enough. The paragraphs detailed strange experiments with objects floating away, objects becoming too heavy to lift, and someone using it as an attractive force to pull a boulder closer to them and then themselves closer to the ground. The final paragraph expressed the author's confusion, noting how this rune made no sense despite its wondrous effects. The authors of this book had discovered a gravity rune.
Most magical runesmiths came from incredibly rich families, as it takes money to learn and practice runes. This led to most of the premier experts being from Pureblooded houses. Due to this, the top researchers of this field in each generation hadn't come into contact with muggle science. If they knew just how much could be done with control over gravity, they would be rolling in their graves.
The practical applications behind this rune are nearly endless. Enchanted objects could be made lighter or heavier at will; carrying a cube of tungsten would be like carrying a cube of feathers. Buildings could be constructed with materials that defied traditional weight limitations; the wizarding world could build a skyscraper ten times that of the Burj Khalifa if they had the materials and a powerful wizard willing to scribe this rune a hundred million times. My training of muscles could theoretically be improved as well, using gravity to compress muscle fibers while they heal and to allow greater force to specific areas while training. You could create robes that allow you to fly by switching off gravity at precise times and swing a sword with genuine tons of force behind it. This rune was the game-changer I had been searching for to take me up another level.
This led me to wonder about new things. Were there runes that allowed control over the other three fundamental forces? Electromagnetism is responsible for practically all phenomena encountered in daily life above the nuclear level. Control over this would make someone untouchable. The strong force is responsible for binding protons and neutrons together in the nucleus and holding quarks together. Mastery of this could make someone godlike. The weak force is responsible for radioactive decay and nuclear fission. With control over this, one could easily destroy the world. With the existence of the gravity rune, it's a wonder wizards haven't accidentally blown up the planet.
I got busy watching Surfs Up with my younger cousins, that shit still slap.