บท 25: New Addition
New Addition
From the window of his recently obtained room, Tom looked out in the night, his eyes focused on the dull red light that came from the makeshift forge Rubeus had built after their return from Greece.
The Slytherin Prefect would have preferred to sleep, but he felt somewhat unease: far from the never sleeping London, and away from the reassuring quiet of his dormitory at Hogwarts, the sounds of the Forest of Dean were different from anything he had ever had to grow accustomed to. Yes, the branches rustled with the changing wind, and he even fancied he had managed to hear a howl or two during his permanence, but he just wasn't used to it, and it'd take a while to feel comfortable about his new arrangements.
Howls that didn't come from a werewolf, that was.
Still standing in front of his window, Tom gave a brief glance to the door of his room: after the use of an innocuous Levitation Charm, meant to test whether the Ministry was truly as incompetent as Hagrid made it out to be, Riddle had of course cursed and warded the entrance to his sleeping place to the best of his ability.
He didn't fancy having the werewolf Rubeus was trying to cure surprise him while he was asleep after all: to be frank, being a werewolf, while disgusting, was still a step up from being a muggle. At least Marie could have a minute silver of magic in her life: Tom knew that he would choose it in a heartbeat if their positions were reversed.
With a sigh, Riddle turned one last time towards the window that allowed him to see the forge below: it was barely a circular firepit made of stones, with a charming bellow on one side, an anvil where Hagrid was beating furiously with his wand, a barrel of water, and of course, a cauldron holding a liquid that shone oddly as it reflected the flames.
It was just like Rubeus, wasn't it? He had apparently managed to apply the 'every potion is a story' drivel to a ritual capable of granting permanent invulnerability from poisons and venoms that were lesser than the Hydra's. With Minerva, he had managed to create a rather resilient trunk with an incredibly secure locking mechanism, which was of course enlarged on the inside to the point that they'd been able to store in it the entirety of the nine-headed snake.
They had returned a mere week before, and he was already experimenting with something new. Knowing him, it'd be something mind-numbingly simple in principle, but exasperating when it came to the actual realization.
Tom sighed again, and openly surrendered to his curiosity. He dressed quickly and left his room, walking through the house at the light of his lit wand until he managed to exit and reach the back of the building: the encroaching forest had been cut down in a wide radius, stocking necessary wood to warm Marie's home as well as to stop some unwise animals from coming too close.
Riddle could almost taste on his tongue the fairly tame wards that hovered above the property: they felt like a folded section of air just out of the corner of his eye, fainter than a whisper, but surely enough to keep muggles and other random animals away.
Tom pushed away the small impulse of walking back into the house to kill the beast in its sleep and walked still towards the humongous form of Hagrid: lit as he was only by the fire of the forge, he somewhat seemed even bigger than usual. He was bare-chested and with short hair matted with sweat that dripped from his brow, his dark eyes glinting like snake scales.
Once Riddle passed an invisible boundary, he finally heard the sounds that accompanied his fellow Slytherin's movements: he rose his wand, and the bellow breathed under the fire of the forge, making the flames climb upwards with an eager wooshing whisper, and he lowered it, his muscles rippling with the force of the blow as a metallic clang thundered off the anvil.
With his off hand, Rubeus raised a piece of cherry red iron, eyeing him curiously under the faint moonlight impeded by the clouds and the flickering flashes offered by the lit forge: "Out for a night stroll, Riddle?"
With the long pincer he was holding, he placed the piece of iron back into the flames and turned towards Tom, lifting a waterskin from his side and taking several deep gulps.
Trying to somewhat mask his burning curiosity, Tom chose not to question him directly about the purpose of his actions, and tackled the issue at an angle: "Why on earth are you doing this at night?"
"I heard that the right color of the metal can be gauged only in darkness, and the nocturnal breeze helps me cool off."
And where would you have heard something like that? Riddle made a show of sniffing the air: "Yes, you could use a bath."
"Of course, I could," his much taller companion retorted, "my body spray is tailored for day-to-day use, this kind of effort would have made it ineffective, and I'll have to wash off in any case."
Of course, he brewed his own deodorant. Tom held back from rolling his eyes, returning his focus to the forge while keeping distant enough that the heat wouldn't be unbearable on him: "How practical of you..."
"We don't have to play this song and dance every time, you know." Rubeus grinned wildly while vaguely gesturing towards Riddle with his wand, "You can ask anything regarding what you're interested in, jus as I do."
Only that it wasn't a wand any longer: on the tip of the length of holly, there was the head of a mallet that seemed to grow out of the wood itself. What?
Seeing where his gaze was pointing, Rubeus chuckled: "Don't tell me you don't recognize this small transfiguration? Minerva made a note of the spell needed to turn your own wand into something useful for small, day-to-day tasks, and you were so insightful to add a variation that would turn the wand instead into the handle of a whip, while the weapon itself would be able to be used like a living extension of your will to ensnare an opponent."
Of course, Riddle remembered: his prodigious mind recalled with perfect clarity the notes from the Rùnda, and his own choice to add the tame variation of the constraining curse. He had derived it from a rather niche section of dueling transfigurations, usually meant to stall in extremely close quarters, as in competitions only a wand was allowed, and turning the part of your chosen magical tool into a knife took a fraction of the time needed for a conjuration, and was easy to conceal.
Of course, the partial conjuration of a whip directly from your wand was a clever application on its own, logically followed by turning the extension of your wand into a cursed rope of some kind: "And you thought to turn part of your wand into a mallet, striking with it metal hot enough to set the wood of the wand on fire?"
The tone was surprisingly tame considering how mind-numbingly stupid that sounded, but unsurprisingly, Rubeus simply laughed it off, rolling his shoulders to work out the kinks caused by the repeated work on the anvil: "I'm getting good at working with fire."
"I've noticed yes." Tom replied while he walked a bit closer, suddenly spotting the small table that had been covered until that moment by Hagrid's bulk: on it there was a selection of simple daggers that differed one from the other in the dimensions of the blades, as well as the shapes of the handles. It was basically a sequence of butcher knives, scaled for the massive size of Rubeus, and now that Riddle had the time to think about it, it clicked.
"You're realizing your own set of carving knives... for the Hydra?" disgust welled in his tone as he distractedly cast a cooling charm on himself, "You mean to do the rendering by hand?"
Rubeus simply nodded, as if it was the obvious conclusion: "I had prepared myself for a chimaera, in particular, to take its blood as it was the most important part: but siphoning off liquids is relatively simple despite the magical resistance of the creature in question, the book I read mentioned that it had to do with the intrinsic nature of blood or venom to flow."
His tone changed then, carrying with it a subtle cheer that Riddel found entirely out of line: "You probably didn't notice because you were dying, but carving out the heart of the Hydra ruined all the surrounding flesh: spells to kill work well enough, and a werewolf is naturally inclined to tear through a wizard's magic, it can't oppose even a hippogriff, which is arguably less dangerous."
"This is what you've been doing all this time?" Riddle pushed aside the odd certainty in how Rubeus dictated who would the winner be between a werewolf and a hippogriff, focusing instead on the more pressing issue: "But you built the forge only today."
"Forging with magic is considerably faster than its counterpart. I tried to enchant transfigured knives as a start: Minerva researched how the proper enchantment can 'pin in place' a new Shape, remember?" with Tom's nod, Rubeus kept talking, "But those dulled fairly quickly when working on the Hydra's hide, nevermind when it came to working with the muscle groups or the bones. I used the first attempts on a single neck, so I could familiarize myself with its anatomy, I have another eight necks to go through, but I'd rather perfect my tools on the first one."
Riddle remained silent as Hagrid fished the iron out of the forge and placed it one more on the anvil: now that he managed to give it a good look, he saw that it was already shaped like a blade. His holly wand descended with a metallic clang that rivaled thunder, and Tom grimaced at the incredibly loud noise, his eyes fixed on how Rubeus seemed to be working over the edge of the knife-to-be.
"I thought about using the bones of another magical creature to improve this experiment, but the blades needed to carve bone are completely different from what I'd need for the Hydra: so I'm doing an attempt with simple forging for now, otherwise, tomorrow night I'll forge the tools to forge the tools." the improvised, self-taught smith spoke after several blows, and with a flick of the wrist, he returned his wand to its natural form before pointing it at the edge of the knife.
The shimmer was lost on the air wavering because of the high temperatures, but Tom noticed that Hagrid seemed satisfied by the result. With a decisive movement, he buried the still cherry red metal into the water barrel by his side, and glanced away in order to avoid the cloud of steam that rose as an answer. He seemed to be counting internally, and after seven seconds, he retreated the metal from the water and plunged it into the cauldron to his left.
There was no hissing cloud of steam erupting by the concoction, no flash of light rush of perceivable magic, but Rubeus seemed content with stirring his brew clockwise with the newly quenched piece of iron: "Maybe it'd be better if I knew how to forge steel, or if I figured out how to do the same with gold or silver, but they melt as such low temperatures..."
While Rubeus rambled, Tom's mind was rushing through his most recent slip: he had mentioned another creature, but what could he be referring to?
"The potion is meant to reinforce the purpose I tried to forge the blade around, but I won't be able to tell if there are working differences until I try the knives quenched only with water from this one." Hagrid talked almost to himself, only to be interrupted by Riddle.
"If you're not referring to bones from the Hydra, which is what you're having problems with in the first place..." Tom began with understanding gleaming in his eyes and a faint silver of respect appearing on his face as he realized what his tallest companion was talking about. After all, it wasn't like Hagrid had many magical creatures at his disposal to craft his fabled tools, it could only mean that he had carved out everything of use from the muggle werewolf he had killed during his most disastrous attempt at finding a cure for Lycanthropy."
"Werewolf bones." Hagrid confirmed, "But I'm not sure whether using them as the blade itself or only as a handle: they do come from a cursed creature, I don't know if they'd corrupt the Hydra's parts in some way."
"And maybe you hope to be able to coax the 'Rule of the Hunt' out of those bones." Riddle nodded, still somewhat disgusted by the topic of rendering a creature by hand, but intrigued by the magic itself: "Is the same principle of the ritual, isn't it? Since the body's magical resistance destroyed your conjuration, and assuming that the flesh itself resists ordinary tools, you're trying to ritualistically create something holding a meaning powerful enough to accomplish what you need without corrupting the rendered parts."
As Tom had foreseen, it was at once simple and impossibly complex. The detail of werewolf bones however, reminded him sharply of how mercenary Hagrid could be when push came to show: he didn't know how his tallest companion had come to know the muggles he was now trying to cure, but Tom knew that any normal person would have been at least briefly saddened by having killed one of the two, and that taking apart its corpse surely wouldn't have appeared even in their wildest nightmares. How quintessentially Slytherin of you, Rubeus.
"Using my wand as a mallet is fundamental, as I've never hammered iron before."
"Where did you get the iron?" Tom asked idly, still enjoying the admission of the apparently self-taught smith. How carefree can he be with telling me things that any sane person wouldn't even consider, and that any madman would keep close to his chest?
"I've hopped around a few villages and farms, and took nails, horseshoes..." Hagrid shrugged, "I've melted everything with a really hot flame and used a transfigured stone stamp to realize the billets, now I tried to coax the metal around its final purpose, instead of coating the finishing result with the enchantment."
"Seems like a lot of work for a relatively minor gain." Riddle arched an eyebrow while he was still trying to come to terms with the strange trust that Rubeus had displayed, "I had assumed you'd just use spells, or contract a professional for a cut of the gains."
"We still need a chimaera to truly explore what your storing-ink can accomplish, don't we? Never mind your idea of building a ship to reach new places to explore." Rubeus argued back, "Besides talking with Slughorn, I thought about writing to Ollivander, maybe he's interested in creating wands that aren't of phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, or unicorn tail hair. I know for sure that one the continent there are wands made with Veela Hair."
"Veela?"
"Humanoid people." Rubeus replied, "They're more or less harpies with song capable of ensnaring men, I think."
Tom hummed thoughtfully as he walked over the table holding his finished results: "You think that selling directly to Ollivander might earn us more?"
"I was thinking of slowly easing my way into learning the basics of wandcraft." Rubeus replied with a sly glance while he finally fished the finished product out of the cauldron: "If my experiment with the forge works, it'll confirm my idea about how to craft specific magical items, but a wand... the sheer versatility is something that I can't even begin to grasp, and I observe mine extremely carefully when I cast: yet I have no insight."
Riddle heard clearly his vexed companion, and he was forced to let out a chuckle of his own: "It's always knowledge with you, isn't it?"
"In some cases, it's far worthier than any amount of gold, isn't it?" Rubeus replied distractedly, his dark eyes closely examining the last result of his handiwork before setting it down with a satisfied grunt.
"We could also talk with Slughorn to sell the parts." the sly glance Rubeus gave Tom clearly implied that he'd be Riddle the one tasked with that particular conversation, "As he can probably point towards buyers that won't scam us and won't bring the Ministry on our heads, and we'll also need an account at Gringotts for the transactions."
Tom's sneer clearly expressed how enthused he was about having to interact with goblins, and his expression turned into an outright glare when Hagrid spoke: "Despise them all you want, but I've yet to see a wizard forge steel like theirs, never mind build such massive underground structures."
"Won't the carcass spoil by the time you finish with your experiments?" changing the topic, Tom kept the greater part of his focus on why Hagrid would be so open about the fact that he had carved up a werewolf he used to know: he surely understood just how damning that information could be, and he was far from being as stupid as offering leverage so freely. Why is he so sure that I won't use this information to have him dance to my tune?
Hagrid's grin flashed like one of his knives in the night: "Minerva and I built that trunk explicitly with the purpose of keeping the result of the hunt inside, surely you remember that I used two different potions to coat the outside and the inside, yes?"
Riddle simply hummed as he lit once more his wand, observing with detached curiosity how the metal glinted eagerly as an answer: cautiously, he extended a hand and kept it above the knives, trusting that sixth sense that stung uncomfortably only to tingle pleasantly as he shifted from a knife to the other.
"If you have a spare knife, I might try some enchanting of my own." Riddle offered, still trying to work out the angle at which Rubeus was working: it was always like that when it came to interacting with him. It was clear that they had wanted each other alive for their own reasons, but what did Hagrid gain...
"Take the two on the left." his tallest companion replied with a nod, as if he had been expecting the offer. And just like that, the picture became complete and it suddenly made a startling amount of sense: Rubeus hadn't risked his own and Minerva's life because of a sense of duty, or common human decency. He had simply decided that he'd gain more on the long term by keeping Tom around and well-disposed towards himself.
Riddle barely smothered his sudden urge to laugh as he collected the weapons pointed out by Rubeus. Once again, like always when it came to dealing with Hagrid, the principle was simple, while the application escaped anything resembling common sense: it was the same crystal-clear need that had made Hagrid coax Minerva and himself into building the Rùnda. It was the very same reasoning that held Tom back from organizing an untimely demise for Rubeus.
They simply had both too much to gain from each other's continued existence.
Tom cast aside that revelation and offered a small smirk of his own to the taller and tired wizard: "It's a pity that the plan of building a pocket only we can access by using the Animagus process didn't land anywhere."
"That's just not how that magic works, as you well know." Rubeus pointed his wand at the forge and killed the fire, only to cover both the cauldron with his brew and the barrel of water with their respective lids that were levitated out of the darkness.
"Well have to rely on enlarging charms then, and maybe some other adaptation of... how did you call it? Storing-ink?" Riddle took a step back from the table with his own two knives while Hagrid packed the finished results of that night's work, "Such a banal name."
"You can name it as you want, but it's quick and to the point." Rubeus spoke as he started to walk back towards the house, "And keep the werewolf bones' art to yourself, okay? Marie really doesn't need to know."
"Of course." Riddle enjoyed recognizing how gentlemanly he was being about the abject dehumanizing that was Hagrid's relationship with Paul's carcass, "Would you by chance be willing to craft an enlarged trunk before our return to Hogwarts?"
The bargain was clear as day, but his taller companion was already shaking his head: "Enlarging charms are absolutely nightmarish to cast properly, they're on that blurry line between charms that affect a Shape and a transfiguration that meddles with a purpose, you'd have more luck with studying Minerva's notes once we're back at the Rùnda."
"How so?" Riddle smothered his flash of annoyance, Hagrid wasn't one to downplay his skills when it came to magic, and so insisting wouldn't have been productive.
"The theory, as always when it comes to any charm, isn't impossible to understand: containers a remeant to house objects, and technically, each bag, each trunk, Hell, each pocket, is a symbol by itself. Enhancing something to better perform its given task is simple enough..."
"Except that in this case, of course, it isn't."
"Of course." Hagrid agreed as he turned fully towards Riddle, the bundle of cloth wrapped around his knives held under an arm while he carefully chose the words to explain at the best of his ability: "The meaning of container is derived from the concept of space. And space is a concept almost as difficult as time to manipulate. Easier because we are beings capable of moving more or less as we wished through space, while time is something that only goes forward."
The taller wizard muttered something about his ever-growing list of topics to research only to return to the subject at hand before Tom was forced to remind him of it: "From what I understood... well, you know how partial transfigurations aren't incredibly resilient, yes?"
"A partial change in Shape weakens the transfiguration as a whole."
"Extending space inside a container is a method that is weak in the same way." Rubeus explained with a frown on his face, "So it's a transfiguration easy to unravel, and while the charm has a good grip, so to speak, the caster's understanding of the concept of 'space' can only go so far: there is no esoteric meaning behind it, and almost zero flexibility in its application, it's difficult to leverage, rigid, brittle. The magical tents work around that issue by using some trick that I've yet to read about, but the idea of standing into an enlarged space with what I know now..." the younger wizard made a show of shivering.
"The concealing charms work well with the extension one, don't they?" Tom realized, and then quickly elaborated: "After all any object that holds another is like a lie hiding a secret."
"More like a Riddle hiding a Truth." Hagrid tilted his head as he grinned unashamedly at the small pun, "Minerva's notes will clarify it further, I think."
Tom huffed at the horrible wordplay attempted by his taller companion and turned towards the house, entering first while he was starting to think about the revelations of the night.
Filius Flitwick was a wizard. An incredibly short kid with brown hair that was cut short enough to not require particular care, he had small but piercing brown eyes that shone with wisdom beyond anything one of his age should possess.
Because of his obvious goblin ancestry, declared to all sundry by his lightly pointed ears and sharper than normal canines, he hadn't needed to make his first step onto the train to realize that he'd be shunned for his blood. He was prejudged and foredoomed from an early age because of his ancestral connection to a different breed of being that was both regarded and treated as second-class citizens by most of the wizarding community.
That wasn't anything he wasn't used to: he knew the stares and the pointed whispers, and he knew, that the ignorant would always fear what they could only see as different, instead of new. It was almost understandable in children, but that on itself was merely a reflection of the dismissal inherited by their parents: yes, in Filus' opinion, ignorance explained all too well the intense scrutiny he received, coupled with the half-whispered jokes about not letting him see any money, least he stole it from the hands of his peers.
He knew of his circumstances, but wise beyond his years, he had been rightfully sorted into Ravenclaw, and he could only hope that, with time, the House of Rowena would be the first to recognize him fully as one of their own, eventually followed by others.
He was rather thick-skinned in any case, insults and petty words were taken with a weight comparable to the importance of the opinion of strangers: that is to say, they were easily ignored.
Even in his enforced loneliness, despite a few tentative smiles and greetings from those that the wizarding culture hadn't managed yet to fully poison, he often found himself secluded in the Library: his keen mind eagerly consuming everything that caught his fancy. From the clearly biased History texts that allowed him insight into the culture that so readily shunned him, to the odd legend born from even odder magical creatures, to what he instinctively understood as his true calling: Charms.
Truly, it was obvious how they were a pinnacle sustaining the entirety of wizardkind, it was blatant how much they were part of your day-to-day life, and there was something in their singular simplicity that could grow into overwhelming complexity that spoke to him at a level nothing else could. Besides the more practical effects, such as reducing the time he needed to ready himself each morning, or simplifying his study routine once he managed to enchant a quill to properly write what he spoke, each of those spells held an elegance unmatched.
"Enjoying charms, are we?" a rumbling deep voice made Filius raise his head from the book he was submerged in in order to glance to the newcomer that he hadn't spotted the approach of.
He almost fell out of his chair as he barely managed to not squeak in fright: the Slytherin student, as he had an undone silver and green tie hanging over his neck, was massive in a way that the term 'massive' didn't manage to cover.
Standing easy at more than three meters of height, with unruly short hair and a rather large build that matched perfectly his height, the wizard was regarding him with a wide smile on his face, and dark eyes that were far too eager for his approach to not be something he had planned in advance.
Steeling himself for what was likely going to be the first instance of a more physical kind of bully since his arrival at Hogwarts, Filius was shocked in a wholly different manner when the giant in all but name turned his attention to the book the Ravenclaw student had been perusing: "Ah, I tried that one: Farsee is competent for sure, but he isn't the most flexible of thinkers, and this particular author wouldn't recognize an original thought if it bit him in the arse."
The diminutive wizard found himself sniffing with some sort of outrage: he could deal with insult to himself just fine, but a wholly different thing was to label a book for him before he had finished reading it! Nevermind the barely held back disdain for Professor Farsee.
"I don't believe I know you." Filius spoke with his squeaky voice, but his stern expression only managed to amuse the older wizard.
"Odd, isn't it? That the smallest wizard wouldn't have taken notice of the one that is almost three meters and half tall." the smile on the stranger's face widened with what could only be described as pride: "Maybe I should have waited a bit more to approach you, a month is hardly enough time for a first-year to appreciate the nuances of a subject, even if it is his favorite one."
Filus narrowed his keen gaze upon the too-tall Slytherin, and he was truly shocked that, in fact, he couldn't recall spotting him in the Great Hall, where he'd have towered upon all of his housemates: "And how would you know about which subject is my favorite, oh Slytherin-Stranger?"
The newcomer casually enlarged a chair and sat beside the diminutive wizard while he let out a low chuckle. "Oh, where did I hear this before?"
"Rubeus Hagrid." Filius found himself shaking the otherwordly massive hand of the imposing stranger while he kept talking: "It's been some years since I last saw someone with eyes like yours."
"I'm Filius Flitwick." he found himself answering while he started to think that maybe the student wasn't there to bully the little Ravenclaw, "What do you mean by eyes like mine? And yes, how come I didn't notice you before?"
A bounded stack of parchment was quietly placed over the book the first-year had been studying, and a quick glance revealed the handmade notes to have a nasty script on the first page that proudly declared: 'Shadows and Secrets', by Rubeus Hagrid.
"I'm not going to publish this, but I think it's a better starting point to properly manage variations of the Notice-Me-Not." the deep voice of the older student spoke with an amused tilt: "And by eyes like yours, of course, I meant eyes like mine, even if I think you're a little too prone to follow the rules."
"I don't follow." Filius found himself answering while his hands were already opening the small stack of well-organized notes: immediately he noticed that while sparse, the script was dense with meaning, and he hadn't even reached half of the second paragraph when he caught an obscure reference to 'the three Pillars of existence', "Why are you giving me this?"
"Well, during my first month, I hopped a couple of times in the Restricted Section." Hagrid grinned mischievously, and that I'd offer you both the key to the knowledge of how I manage to move without being pointed at and annoyed by the majority of the school's populace, when it could technically be also used to sneak a peek, so to speak, is entirely a coincidence."
Filius found himself pursing his lips while he focused on the sequence of events like they were pieces of a puzzle, and still holding onto the 'gift' from Rubeus, he found himself asking what in hindsight was obvious: "Is this some sort of test from Slytherin House?"
The too-big student snorted loudly as an answer: "Morgana's tits, no, of course not: most of my House is exactly like all others." and after a beat, Hagrid grinned crookedly: "They're average, almost painfully so, I'd never considered inviting them."
"Inviting them to... what?" the squeaky voice of Filius asked once more while he placed the 'gift' he had just received on the wooden surface where he had been peacefully studying before that too-big student decided to interrupt him.
Rubeus merely tapped the side of his nose: "That'd be telling: for now, simply take this in the spirit in which it was given. Knowledge, for a seeker of knowledge."
The Ravenclaw student found himself glancing towards the bound stack of notes once more, his eyes scanning ahead while he started to make himself an idea of what exactly he was dealing with: "I won't use this to sneak into the Restricted Section only for you to have a laugh."
"We are all entitled to our choices." Hagrid nodded agreeably, "But it's odd, isn't it? A place of learning where some learning is forbidden?"
"Those books are 'restricted', not forbidden."
"Only because nobody knows what you might actually find in there." the too-tall student simply rose a challenging eyebrow, "But I have one last thing to say before I go: change is neither good, nor bad, but knowledge is always useful. You won't become a raging monster only because you learn how to be one."
The too-tall wizard rose from his seat and returned it to its original size with a neglectful tap of his wand: "Would you be willing to answer a question."
With wit striking suddenly, Filius found himself answering: "It seems I just did."
Surprisingly, instead of showing annoyance Rubeus simply nodded approvingly, and then asked: "Why do you enjoy charms?"
Somewhat surprised by the question, the Ravenclaw found himself answering: "They are, at their core, the direct exercise of will upon reality." and at the unimpressed expression on the older wizard's face, Filius rolled his eyes while he crossed his arms despondently: "Oh, sure, any piece of magic could be defined like that, but Charms are direct in their effects. While the mentality needed for them is a bit more complex, their purpose is perfectly matched to what what you need from them in each situation."
"Proven you're knowledgeable enough." the too-tall Slytherin replied with another nod as he began to walk away, his long legs quickly bringing him away from the much smaller student.
Left alone, Filius found himself eyeing again the bounded stack of notes, and felt the beginning of a faint headache thrum at the base of his skull. Why was it that the more he looked at that dark ink, the more he thought that the 'gift' was a fisher's hook?
AN
Lore:
I had to immediately nerf the enlarging charms, as I won't tolerate any 'mansion in the pocket' fuckery in this fic. The problem with every piece of magic that I add to the fic, is that at any point since its introduction, I have to build the events in a way that doesn't make the reader ask 'why didn't he use that piece of magic?'. In particular, the existence of enlarging charms on a trunk (as shown in The Goblet Of Fire where Moody is a prisoner), forces me to immediately build a lore that doesn't allow for the MC to start robbing zoos for his personal gain.
I'll have to do the same for Vanishing Cabinets when the time comes, even if canonically they've been used to sneak enemy forces into Hogwarts.
Flitwick:
His introduction to the story is a bit brutal, I know, but I didn't want to waste too much time on a secondary character, and really, how much entertaining can the Sorting truly be? Seen one, seen all.
Given that he taught to the Marauders, Flitwick was born sometime before 1958. But then I looked at how he was portrayed in the first book, which is the one I kept as a starting point for the other characters, and, if you remember how he was in the first movies, I believe we can give him some more years with no fuss. So I'm having him enter this year, now that Hagrid is a 4th year and Minerva is in her last.
Why? Because of reasons, but mostly because I can, and in fanfiction, I'd like to see the characters I know do different shit because of Butterfly Effect: it comes down to needing several characters to keep shaping the massive world needed for this story, and instead of pulling out entirely original ones (which will be necessary soon enough) I decided on using him.
So Flitwick was born in 1934, and enters Hogwarts for the '43-'44 academic year. Hagrid sees a little half-breed shunned for his size. He knows that he'll be a Monster at Charms, just like Minerva is at Transfiguration. Why wouldn't he befriend him now? He can only gain from it.
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