章節 170: Ancient Magic isn't as Impressive as it Sounds
The Charms that had been cast upon the metal bars fought bravely to resist Oleandra's runic spell for a few moments, but eventually, their enchantments couldn't take it any longer, fizzling out of existence. With the protective enchantments out of the way, the mundane metals were completely defenceless, and the aspect of harmony in Oleandra's magic gradually Transfigured her jail cell's bars into cooked fish.
"Cloak!" Oleandra murmured. Reading her intentions, the Lethifold transformed the part of itself attached to her right arm into a serrated blade of shadowy teeth. Oleandra took aim, then swung her arm downwards, severing the fishy bars as easily as if they had been made out of soft tofu. They were free!
"Hey, do mine too!" Mundungus said, rattling his cell's bars. Oleandra and the Weasley twins ignored him.
The twins quickly located the wooden chest where their personal effects had been stored and gleefully raided it for confiscated goodies. To Oleandra's dismay, she didn't end up finding her own belongings: her wand, and her pouch, which was stuffed full of items that ranged from suspicious to incredibly illegal, such as her Hand of Glory and a few vials of Basilisk venom. Oleandra searched the room for a while, but eventually, she had to come to a conclusion: her things were gone.
"So, why sturgeon, of all things?" Fred asked as the three escaped the basement, finding themselves in a deserted stadium.
"This really isn't the moment!" Oleandra said breathlessly.
"What if a Death Eater pops out of nowhere and gets you?" said George melodramatically. "We'll have to spend the rest of our lives just wondering why! You wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you?"
"I'll tell you later if we make it out of this safe and sound!" snapped Oleandra. "We'll only get caught if you two won't shut up!"
It was just too embarrassing to say out loud; from the moment Oleandra had used the Vanishing Spell for the first time on her supper of sturgeon earlier in the evening, she'd been stuck with a mental image of the fish. When she'd searched for an appropriately brittle target for her spell to transform the bars of her cell into (honestly, the chalk she'd been holding in her hand would have done just fine), she'd used the properties of the sturgeon saved in her head, which was the first thing to pop into her mind.
"You know, we've been running into some problems making our items," said Fred as they ran into the forest. "We could use your know-how with runes at Weasley & Weasley's; our enchanted items might be genius, but what they really need is to last longer. For example, we've been designing…"
Fred abruptly stopped talking mid-sentence.
"George, did you just see what I just saw?" he said.
"I believe I just did," answered George. "Ginny was wandering all alone in the forest, she must have got separated from the others."
"Sorry, Oleandra, we need to fetch our sister," said Fred. "You can come with us, if you'd like."
"I still need to find my wand," said Oleandra. "But you guys go on ahead; I'll be fine. Not that I think Ginny needs any help, mind you."
The Weasley twins bid goodbye to Oleandra, then dashed off into the inky darkness of the woods after their little sister. Now that Oleandra thought about it, it wasn't the first time she'd seen Ginny wander around in the dark all by herself. Well, whatever it was she was after, Oleandra was sure Ginny could take care of herself just fine. Now, how in the world was she supposed to find her things?
Luckily, Oleandra had some knowledge of runestone divination. She wasn't a true seer by any means, but that didn't mean she couldn't divine some basic things like the potential danger of doing a certain action, or the location of her lost things. However, she didn't have her runestones with her; they were in her pouch. And she didn't have her wand; she couldn't use the Severing Charm to engrave runes into pebbles.
"Time for some more sympathetic magic," Oleandra said out loud, in order to help her organize her thoughts. "Thank you so much for teaching me the theory, Mr. Adalbert Waffling."
Sympathetic magic was a form of ancient magic used by primitive Wizards, and as such, it didn't require anything fancy such as wands. The goal was basically to influence a greater thing by using a smaller-scale replica that resembled the original. For reference, voodoo was an example of sympathetic magic: planting needles in a voodoo doll in order to cause pain to someone from a distance, by linking the doll to an actual person. Oleandra had previously used these principles to invent the Tree-Portation spell, by using the fact that the World Tree was sort of like a regular tree to teleport between mundane trees.
The grass in front of the stadium had been worn down by the hundreds of thousands of people passing through, leaving nothing but mud. Oleandra grabbed a fallen branch from the forest nearby and returned to draw a big circle in the dirt.
"This is the stadium," muttered Oleandra, drawing an oval shape in the mud within the circle. "And this the forest," she added, sketching out some trees, "And the tents are here."
Outside the circle, going clockwise from the north, she successively drew at each cardinal point, ᛟ, ᛜ, ᛗ, ᚲ. Once she was done, Oleandra took a step back to admire her handiwork. Wow, she had made a mess in the mud. In any case, Mannaz was supposed to represent herself, Kenaz should guide her to her destination, Ingwaz was there to help focus the magic, and Odala represented the thief who had taken her things.
"Odala! Ingwaz! Mannaz! Kenaz!" Oleandra shouted out. "In the name of the Thief and the Inheritance, the Divine, the Torch and the Cosmic Egg of Man! Guide me to my stolen belongings!"
Nothing happened for a few seconds, but just as Oleandra was beginning to worry she'd played in the mud for nothing, the runes started glowing gently, and the rough patterns Oleandra had drawn in the dirt became sharper and more detailed.
Mannaz moved by itself to the inside of the circle, right in front of the oval which represented the stadium; which was where Oleandra was standing. Ingwaz and Kenaz stayed where they were, and Odala finally moved to the middle of the tent area.
As Oleandra committed the location to memory, another rune appeared of its own volition right next to Odala, blinking slowly and steadily. Naudhiz, the rune of distress. Danger existed here.
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