章節 27: First Year End
*Gasp*. A sudden sharp inhale from Daphne broke through the quiet of the night. Her eyes widened ever so slightly as we peered through the window. My reaction was less pronounced, but I was still intrigued by this novel experience.
We had snuck out earlier that night and followed Harry and his gang down to Hagrids hut which was radiating heat. Through the window, the large egg on the table cracked as a tiny snout emerged with curious little eyes attached to a draconic head. A shake of the baby's body shattered the rest of the shell and it flared its little wings in pride at its birth.
Hagrid immediately began cooing over the baby dragon on the table as it belched flames, setting his beard on fire. The dragon was a spindly little thing, all skin and sinew, very different from the image I have of dragons in my mind. Well, the dragons in this world are more like wyverns than real dragons, simple beasts really. True Dragons should have 4 legs along with their wings, should be able to speak and have their own magic. The Harry Potter world dragons disappoint, but even so, I wasn't going to miss this.
"Look at 'im, he knows 'is mummy." Said Hagrid, patting out the flames on his beard with one hand and cooing over it some more.
"What kind of dragon is it?" Asked Neville. Ron isn't part of their group in this universe, so he wasn't here to answer.
"If I'm right, 'e's a Norwegian Ridgeback," Hagrid said as he brought over a bucket filled with blood, minced meat and brandy.
The little dragon soon had its face buried in the mixture, eating greedily to satiate its ravenous appetite.
"Hagrid, how fast do dragons grow?" Asked Hermione warily.
"I know this one," Harry interjected. "The dragon..."
"Norbert." Hagrid interrupted.
"W-what?" Stuttered Hermione.
"Well 'e's gotta have a name don't 'e?" Hagrid replied, gainfully ignoring the sharp little teeth doing their very best to snap at him as he stroked it.
"Right..." Said Harry. "Well, from what I've read, Norbert should double in size within a week and then double again in another two. He'll be the size of this house in two to three months."
Hermione looked mildly alarmed and looked pleadingly at Hagrid. "Hagrid, you can't keep it." She said.
Neville nodded alongside her. "She's right Hagrid..."
While the trio tried futilely to convince Hagrid to send the now named Norbert to a dragon reserve, Daphne and I were having our own conversation outside.
"That was amazing!" She whispered excitedly. "How many people can say they've witnessed a dragon's hatching?"
I smiled at her enthusiasm. "It was pretty cool," I admitted. "A bit underwhelming though."
She looked at me, her eyes questioning so I elaborated. "I half-expected there to be some kind of flare, pulse or something in magic when it hatched, but nothing. Maybe that's putting my ideals of dragons on a bit of a pedestal, but I'm still a little disappointed." I said.
She scoffed, her face blank but eyes dancing in amusement. "Hahaha," She laughed. "Draco, that's pure fantasy. You need to get over your infatuation with dragons, regardless of your name. You're obsessed." She said.
I huffed. "Dragons are cool." I said petulantly.
Her eyes widened. "Are you pouting?"
"No," I said stubbornly. I wasn't pouting and anyone who says otherwise is wrong. Case in point:
"Hahaha!" She laughed, her mask cracking as her face lit up briefly. "I've never seen you pout before!"
I looked away.
"Tonight has been fun. I got to see a dragon hatch and I have a new patronous memory." She wiped a tear away as she regained her calm.
"Whatever," I said.
"At least you got to see a dragon hatch. I'm sure that was on your wish list." She said, gracefully giving me an out. I took it.
"That it was. I'm still disappointed, but it's pretty cool nonetheless." I said.
"It's quite ugly, I expected it to be more... I don't know. Menacing, intimidating - dragon-like." She commented, looking through the window again now that she wasn't focused on me.
"That's to be expected," I said. "Dragons are creatures of magic, they need magic to hatch but Hagrid only used regular fire."
"Dragon fire." She said in realisation.
"Exactly," I nodded. "This dragon didn't get enough of it as an egg, so it's born like this. It isn't a big problem, dragons are resilient creatures. As long as it gets enough food, this deficiency will be eliminated in a few days." I said.
She hummed in understanding, saying nothing as we continued to observe. Half an hour later we had enough and went back to Ravenclaw tower. We didn't meet anyone on the way, so the canon event of the golden trio being caught out of bed didn't happen.
It was a nice little distraction, but there really wasn't much to look at. Daphne was right about one thing though - I need to get over my dragon obsession.
A month later, there was a small commotion, and Dumbledore had to put out the fire both figuratively and literally, but it was a small hiccup. No one was surprised that Hagrid would keep a dragon. A few of the smarter students wondered where he got the egg from as they're closely monitored, but overall, it was only a minor blip in Hogwarts' life and the event was forgotten in a few weeks.
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"You pushed yourself too far," I said, scanning Daphne's body with soul-sense. "You're lucky you stopped when you did. You will need to halt the active magic circulation training for a week or so as you heal."
I could practically feel the frustration pouring out of her as she sat still in front of me to reduce the need to move and therefore reduce the pain she felt.
She clenched her fists tightly, her head lowered, "I know, I'm sorry. I just..." She trailed off.
I sat next to her and gently pulled her in for a hug. "It's okay. I'm not mad at you, or even disappointed. I expected something like this to happen sooner or later." I said.
She looked at me, questions brimming in her eyes so I explained. "Ever since I showed you the ROR, you've been pushing yourself hard. Harder than usual and harder than is healthy. You saw the gap between us and became desperate to catch up right?"
She nodded, her cheeks flushing in shame, but confronting herself nonetheless. "I didn't realise you were so far ahead of me," She said softly. "Watching you practise opened my eyes. I wanted, no, I needed to catch up. I don't want to be left behind." She trailed off, turning melancholy.
I held her just a little tighter. "And you won't. I can understand why you've been pushing yourself so hard, but it isn't healthy. And now you're injured from overdoing it."
She kept her head lowered, but I could feel the anger and frustration boiling under the surface. It was all aimed at herself, and it wouldn't be good to let it fester.
"You need to remember that I invented the active magic circulation exercise when I was 6 and I've never stopped practising. Then I underwent intense instruction from grandfather after my social introduction." I said.
She nodded, but her feeling didn't subside much. "One thing you need to know about the active magic circulation training I taught you is that the beginning period is slow. It's a way to enhance the body in every aspect with theoretically no limit, but I've made more progress in pure enhancement this year alone than in all my previous years of practice." I said
"The beginning period does provide a boost in strength, but that's secondary. The focus is to refine and strengthen the delicate parts of the body. The organs, the blood, cartilage, tendons and ligaments etc. Only after your body is brought up to a uniform level will the overall enhancement begin properly. And this takes time Daphne. Years." I finished.
I could feel her nodding as her frustration gave way to reluctance and her anger dissipated.
I did have good news for her though. "I've been working on something recently that should speed up both of our training," I said.
She looked at me sharply, "Really?" She asked, hope blossoming.
"It's not finished just yet, but I should be done before summer. I've always wanted to find a way to speed up my progress. I know that certain potions can speed up the development of the physical body. Taking these regularly can speed up your progress, but weak potions are limited and I don't want to take potions every day for the rest of my life." I said.
She nodded in agreement. "No one wants to have to take potions every day, they're disgusting." She said. Using this method would be inconvenient and annoying for a small gain.
"So I've devised another method: A medicinal bath," I said. "If I can get the mixture of ingredients just right, we should be able to train active magic circulation for as long as the medicinal effects remain. Training in the bath would allow us to spend multiple hours training in one session, without drawbacks, and will speed up our progress multiple times. You should be able to get to where I am now within 6-9 months." I said.
Her eyes lit up at that. "That sounds wonderful," She said, before frowning. "What about the cost? It must be expensive." She said.
"The cost is indeed high, but that isn't the problem," I said. "From what I've tested, a medicinal bath won't deplete that fast as it's only there for support, so it should speed up our progress by magnitudes. Potions with the same effects need very potent ingredients and those are both expensive and rare. A bath may use more overall, but normal ingredients will work just fine." I finished.
There are many potions with long-lasting effects, but the ones that enhance the body's recovery speed and support development are usually fast-acting for obvious reasons. Our needs are more than simple recovery: We need to support prolonged physical development so the effects need to be strong.
You would need to make the same potions using ingredients with several times the medicinal strength. I could tweak some potions to last longer, but you would still have to take multiple different ones a day and I would have to brew them all the time. This is a waste of time. A medicinal bath is simply easier for better results and lower maintenance. I also wanted to bring out my inner cultivator. That's not the only issue either.
"Forget about money, I have the Philosopher's Stone," I said. "Ingredient acquisition will be the main hurdle. The medicinal bath uses many normal ingredients whereas same-effect potions require expensive ones. Price isn't an issue, availability is. I know your family owns ingredient farms, but the high-end, expensive ingredients should still be scarce." I said.
She nodded. That was the other issue. Indeed, her family has large ingredient farms for their international businesses, but most of that is regular ingredients. The rare or strong ingredients are hard to grow and sell for a massive premium to selected buyers. Even if we can both afford them, getting them is a problem and I don't want to overly burden her family; a lot of their profit comes from the high-end market.
"Thanks for thinking of me." She said.
"You're welcome," I said with a smile. "And it's not like this is the final result either. Eventually, we will reach a point where the medicinal baths won't help much either. At that point, I'll have to come up with something else. Either to use better ingredients or make some kind of super potion or alchemical concoction that will provide a long-term solution." I said.
She nodded. "That sounds amazing, I'm looking forward to it." She said before falling into silence.
We sat together on a couch the ROR had conjured for us and enjoyed a moment of calm. Daphne was sorting through her thoughts and coming to terms with her feelings of inferiority while I accompanied her. The current mood was peaceful and I could feel the moment that she settled everything within herself, gaining a surprisingly deep level of inner peace.
She slowly stretched out, careful not to aggravate her current internal damage as she spoke, "Do you have any potions to help me recover? I can't go to Madam Pomfrey like this," She asked.
"I keep a surplus of potions stocked up in my trunk," I replied. "We both know your current state: skeletal hairline fractures, slight muscle trauma, damaged tendons, and the list goes on. Thankfully it's only minor. The damage is at a fundamental level, however, so I stand by what I said: No training at all until you're fully healed which will take about a week."
"I'll do as you say and rest," She said, "As you said, I've been pushing myself too hard and too far ever since the first time I watched you practice. I wanted to catch up to you as fast as I could and ignored the warnings from my soul."
There was no shame, disappointment, inferiority or other negative feelings when she said this, only a statement of facts. I smiled inwardly, happy she could deal with this setback well and recover.
"Mipsy, please bring me my trunk," I called to the air.
A soft *pop* and my trunk was in front of me. I opened it and summoned a few vials from the potions lab, handing them to her.
"Skelegrow to fix the fractures, muscle soother, swelling reducer, muscle growth, pain killer and tissue repair. Start with these for now and we'll see if you need any more." I said.
She thanked me and took them on the spot, shuddering slightly from the taste and relaxing enormously as the pain subsided along with the swelling. She relaxed back onto the couch and sighed contentedly. It was a minute later that she broke the silence.
"How do you think Dumbledore will react when he discovers the fake Philosopher's Stone?" She asked.
I snorted. "That's obvious, isn't it? I'd be surprised if his office is intact afterwards." I said.
"Hahaha," She chuckled. "I can just imagine it. It's a shame we won't be able to see it."
"Says who?" I replied. "The ROR can recreate anything. We'll ask it to show us at the beginning of the next school year. Bring some popcorn and have an entertainment evening." I joked.
Her eyes lit up. "That's a good idea. Hahaha. I can't wait, it should be a good show," She laughed.
"Do you have any plans for the summer?" I asked, changing the conversation.
"Hmm..." She hummed in thought. "Not that I know about - it's only the end of April. The family might take a vacation abroad, but nothing is set in stone just yet. If we don't, I'll spend my time practising magic and reading. How about you?" She said.
"Same as you. I haven't heard anything from Mother or Lucius." I said. "I'll probably be spending a lot of time at the Black mansion and working on different projects. I also want to spend time researching the Philosopher's Stone." I said.
She nodded. "Will you invite me? To the Black mansion, I mean. I would like to continue my training with you." She asked.
I started for a moment. "Of course I will. You've been there before haven't you?"
"I have, but not often. Whenever you taught me before, we would find a secluded area on my estate." She said. "Come to think of it, I only ever visit your home during the yearly Yule balls." She mused.
"Well, I didn't want you around Lucius. He wouldn't do anything considering he still thinks he has your family in a vice grip, but he's not a pleasant man. I imagine there would be a lot of veiled insults and sneering if you visited frequently." I said.
"I can imagine." She nodded. "It was just an observation. After what he put my family through, I don't want to be around him either."
"It's for the best. You're welcome to visit the Black mansion whenever you like though, even when I'm not there," I said.
"Thank you. I'll use it to escape Astoria." She joked.
"Hahaha. Maybe she'll finally stop hounding you. Is she still sending you letters demanding to know all the gossip?" I joked.
She sighed, exasperated. "She hasn't stopped. Mark my words, she'll be the gossip queen of her year when she starts Hogwarts."
"I can imagine," I said. "Back to the point though, come to Black Mansion whenever you feel like it. We won't be able to continue your training at your estate anyway. I suppose we could do it in my trunk, but it's still better to have more space. Plus, Mipsy and I will be able to set up different environments like grandfather did when he trained me. We won't have access to the Room Of Requirement in the holidays so it's the next best thing."
She nodded. "It sounds like you have it all planned out, I look forward to it. Should we go to breakfast?" She asked, looking at the clock on the wall.
I followed her gaze and noticed it was nearly 7:30. It was a Sunday today so the plan was to relax and enjoy the day, but Daphne overdid her training, injuring herself. After introducing the ROR to her, we would often spend the whole night here. Neither of us needs much sleep so there is a lot of free time. We just need to be careful of others noticing us breaking curfew.
"I could eat," I said, getting up and helping Daphne up as well.
"I'll help you around the rest of the day," I said. "The potions stop the pain, but you know how bad the damage is. With the potions, you should be fine with moving around on your own by tomorrow, provided you don't make any strenuous movements like running. Just take it easy." I said.
She nodded slightly and took my offered arm when I presented it to her. "I keep that in mind. I don't want to make it worse and slow my recovery." She said.
We headed to breakfast together, enjoying our day off. Thankfully, no one had any inkling of her being injured during the rest of the day. Mostly because we only showed up for meals and disappeared to the ROR the rest of the time.
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"And done!" I exclaimed, looking happily at my creation.
In front of me was a large pot of water with dozens of different ingredients mixed in. It has to be boiled at a simmer for a few days for all the medicinal properties to be extracted and mixed, but now that I've got the perfect ratio I just need to scale up production and buy the actual ingredients. After all, this was all done in the ROR.
"So this is the medicinal bath that will help to speed up our progress?" Asked Daphne, standing beside me and looking at the pot curiously.
"Yep," I said happily. "I'm just glad to be done with this project. Even with soul-sense helping to match the ingredients, it was beyond annoying and overly finicky matching all of them and finding the correct ratios." I said.
"I know, you spent so long tweaking the mixture I thought you forgot about your other projects. So when can we start using it?" She asked.
I pondered for a moment. "I'll order Mipsy to buy the ingredients and start making a batch. Even with how the Room works, I don't know if there will be any long-term effects if we use what it provides. In theory, this shouldn't matter because the bath is only supposed to support our training, but it's unwise to take that risk." I said.
"Understandable," She nodded. "In that case, I'll help you out when the time comes."
"Thanks," I smiled at her.
"Now that you're done with this, what're you going to work on next? I know you finished your work on your trunk so far, and you're still studying the Room Of Requirement." She asked.
"Alchemy" I responded immediately. "I've been putting it off long enough. I have the world's most advanced alchemical treasure in my possession, but I still don't know how to use it. I actually feel a bit incompetent." I said.
"Why put it off? That's not like you." She asked, curious. Neither of us is the type of person to put off learning knowledge.
I sighed. "It's been in the back of my mind for a long time and I have read some introductory books on the subject, but I put it off until I was more learned in magic. Just from a cursory glance, alchemy goes deeper and wider than any other magical subject." I said.
I continued, "It is quite special and incorporates everything. All branches of magic can be used, literally every branch. From this, I judged that the better the foundation and general knowledge I have about magic, the faster my progress will be."
"I could have started at the beginning of the year and that was the plan originally, but I got sidetracked by Hogwarts and its wonders. The castle just has too many curiosities, so I focused on that this year instead. It's fine though, I'm not in a rush." I sighed.
"I can understand that - Hogwarts is amazing." She said. "Does alchemy really include every branch of magic?" She asked skeptically.
I nodded, "In its essence, alchemy is the science of magic. Breaking things down into their base elements, combining things together, manipulating the world around you however you please, and creating impossible and wondrous things." I said.
"Speaking very, very broadly, there are really only two aspects to magic: Pure spellcasting and alchemy. Of course, it's stupid and flawed to group things like warding or rituals under alchemy, but the fact that you can if you tilt your head and squint makes my point pretty clear." I continued.
"Hell, potions as a subject doesn't even exist, it's just a branch of alchemy. What potions does: combining ingredients to form something new just smacks of alchemy, only that the actual subject takes it further. Creating your own ingredients, adding outside magic into the process, using a finished product as an ingredient in itself, and more besides. The possibilities are endless." I finished.
She looked at me strangely, "You rant for half a day and say very little." She commented, full of amusement.
I felt a little embarrassed at her words, realising that I didn't actually explain much, only the broad strokes of what I think alchemy is.
"Hahaha. Sorry, sorry." I laughed. "I'll explain more when I know more. I've only read some introductory texts so far, nothing deep. I'll delve into it this summer as I try to figure out how to use the Philosopher's Stone." I said.
"Only how to use it? Not how to recreate it?" She asked.
I shook my head, "The stone is an end product with no relation at all to its components. Not even my soul-sense can discern anything other than it's a lump of crystallised magic. Honestly, Nicholas Flamel is a genius for making it. When I look at it through soul-sense there are no other mystical connections, no history, nothing at all to go on. It's amazing." I said, admiring the skill required to make something like it.
"But enough about alchemy. Final exams are nearly finished and summer is coming, I want to relax a bit before leaving. This year has gone fast." I changed the subject
"It has, although I'm excited to go back home for the summer and spend time with the family." She said. "Hogwarts is great, but I would rather be at home."
"I'm looking forward to it as well," I replied.
"It's funny to watch the others stress about their exams and work themselves into a frenzy." She snorted.
"Hahaha! True." I laughed. "Watching their last-minute cramming is prime entertainment."
Final exams were a breeze, both Daphne and I went through them with no trouble. Then a few days later first year officially ended and we were boarding the Hogwarts Express for the summer. For me, this year has been uneventful. I spent all my time focused on magic. For others, it's been a hectic year full of studying and adventure.
Harry especially was doing well. As far as I was concerned, my job is pretty much complete. All I need to do is pass him the Horcrux in my possession and my mission is over. I've set him up on the right path and now he can make his own life. I'll still talk to him occasionally, but everything is set.
Gryffindor won the house cup and there were rumours about Harry protecting an important artifact, but nothing more was known to the public. I didn't get involved in their adventure to save the Philosopher's Stone, we're not close in real life.
It was strange watching this year go by. Some things were the same as canon and many things were different. For example, Harry got on the quidditch team as the youngest seeker in a century just like canon, but there was no midnight duel in this universe. It was interesting to watch, but nothing that impacted me. Ultimately, I think my school life is going to be very uneventful.
(A/N: Writing about first year was getting difficult, I was getting some writer's block as there wasn't much else to write about. The Hogwarts chapters will start going faster from now on. There's not much to say about it as MC isn't involved with the big events. I will still write Hogwarts chapters, but I won't put much emphasis on it.)
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