บท 14: Every good magic system needs limitations
Oleandra didn't speak to the Gryffindor trio after the events of Halloween. It wouldn't have been proper for the Slytherin secret weapon to fraternize with the enemy, especially since the Quidditch season was beginning. What's more, their first match was against Gryffindor, their eternal rivals!
Between the endless homework, the relentless practice sessions and Daphne begging to be taught Oleandra's special brand of magic, she was exhausted. She didn't have time to come up with any new moves, but she did discover a little more about the rules that governed star magic.
She had already established the first rules earlier in the year. The last one had only been discovered, because she basically lived in the dungeons, far underground.
1. Runes work best when they are brought forth into the physical world
(since it's a writing system)
2. Will is needed to direct the magic towards the intended result/target
(as is the case with all magic)
3. The bigger the rune, the grander the effect. (logical)
4. Star magic works best under the starlit sky (who would have thought?)
5. Star magic doesn't work very well underground (bummer)
Indeed, runes worked best when written down or engraved. When Oleandra fought against the troll, she employed the stadha (or stance, if you prefer) of Elhaz, essentially turning her entire body, a conduit for magic, into a big rune!
Although, if she were to contort her body into the shapes of all the graphemes of the alphabet of the stars, some were bound to be embarrassing, not to mention impractical… Especially Perthro, whose stadha required one to be sitting down on the ground! But it didn't matter in that particular case, since Oleandra had no earthly idea when it would be appropriate to use it, as she didn't know what it did.
Oleandra also developed the idea of using hand seals, for sneaky or urgent situations. Instead of using the entire body to form the rune, she would only use her hand, which would be much faster and discrete. Not to mention that it would allow her to dual-wield magic. Regular wizard's magic with her wand in the right hand, and rune magic with her left. Not as powerful as stadha, but at least she'd be able to use them while running and dodging.
All this would require a lot of practice though, as she wasn't ambidextrous. She could barely hold a spoon with her left hand without spilling its contents.
The last thing she would consider much later in the future. There was a limit to what stances and hand seals could accomplish…
Oleandra had a feeling that more powerful and complex graphemes than the twenty-four basic runes existed. Except, she'd probably need limbs as numerous and flexible as the Giant Squid's to even try to begin imitating them. And she also probably didn't have the brain power necessary to perfectly picture them in her head to activate their effects.
It probably would be better to have those embroidered into her clothes, that way she'd only have to touch them to activate them. Or even better, she'd have them tattooed into her skin, in case her clothes were destroyed or stolen! But then, she'd have to careful not to build too much muscle or gain too much weight, or the symbols would get distorted. Also, she'd have to remove her clothes to access her tattooed skin…
Her cheeks reddened. What on earth had she been thinking about?
"Hello, dear sister!" Daphne appeared behind her back and snatched the piece of parchment with the five lines of text. "Are you doing homework?"
"No," Oleandra responded. "I've been meaning to test — err, see if you could learn to use runes just like me."
"That's great!" exclaimed Daphne. "There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to; I'm your big sister, after all."
Oleandra briefly explained her plan.
"There will be a New Moon next Wednesday, on November 6th," she said. "That should be the period when you should be most receptive to the stars, since that's when they'll be most visible."
Oleandra paused.
"At least, that's what I think will happen?"
Daphne stared at her.
"At any rate, that's in two days," Oleandra continued. "In the meantime, I've got lots of Quidditch practice, so I'll be leaving my homework to you, deal?"
"Sure, I'll do your stupid homework," she grumbled.
"How about this," Oleandra said. "I'll cast special star magic on you to make studying easier, how about that?"
This wasn't something too outlandish. Ravenclaw's Diadem was rumoured to make its wearer more intelligent. Baruffio's Brain Elixir also popped up often at the end of the year when exams were held, and was supposed to work well. The Memory Potion was also a tried and tested method of remembering things.
Daphne didn't see why not, so Oleandra finally got to test the twenty-second grapheme she was too scared to try on herself.
"Ingwaz…" Oleandra murmured, as she drew the rune on her sister's forehead.
If someone had somehow managed to use a Time-Turner to return from years into the future, they would have surely noticed that the Daphne of that moment looked a lot like a certain female medical ninja who was the fifth to rule over the village hidden in the leaves.
With the divine-spark rune marked upon her forehead, it was as if the fire of wisdom had been lit in Daphne's head. She was immediately inspired and got to work on her History of Magic homework. Oleandra watched in amazement (and perhaps a little bit of horror), as her sister wrote foot after foot of parchment at record speed. The knowledge had always been there. Professor Binns was nothing if not prolific in his explanations, it was just a matter of remembering and sorting the useful information, then putting it to paper.
Then, Oleandra asked her sister to attempt a difficult Transfiguration. Evidently, the rune also worked at elevating problem solving abilities, since Daphne managed a somewhat difficult Transfiguration after half an hour.
Oleandra in her base state really could not be said to be the best student. She was a clever student, but she was really bad at anything that required wandwork, so Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts were out.
She was no genius, but she was good at potions and herbology due to her upbringing.
She was amazing at Astronomy, and if she studied seriously (which she wasn't going to) she would also have been good at History of Magic.
However, if Oleandra were to study every day under the influence of Ingwaz, and used the rune during her exams, these would probably be the grades that would await her at the end of her first year, considering every exam also had a written portion:
Transfiguration would go from [T] Troll to [D] Dreadful
Charms would go from [D] Dreadful to [A] Acceptable
Defence Against the Dark Arts would go from [P] Poor to [E] Exceeds Expectations
And
Potions would go from [E] Exceeds Expectations to [O] Outstanding
Herbology would go from [E] Exceeds Expectations to [O] Outstanding
Astronomy would remain at [O] Outstanding
History of Magic would go from [T] Troll to [O] Outstanding
If she worked really hard at it, Oleandra's Transfiguration might hit a passing grade, but she really wasn't destined to become a master of Transfiguration.
Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts were more straightforward branches of magic, so the increase in skill was a little more noticeable.
Oleandra already excelled at Potions and Herbology, so the increase wouldn't be as marked.
As for Astronomy, every time Oleandra closed her eyes, she would see a map of the stars, with details downloaded straight from the source! She was much more qualified to teach the class than Professor Sinistra!
As for why History of Magic increased so much under the effects of Ingwaz, it was because that course was only a matter of memorization. There was absolutely no skill involved. While Oleandra mostly practised drawing runes in that class, the information she heard would still passively be registered in her brain, which Ingwaz would dig out!
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