Wednesday is a hard day. Just like Monday, and Tuesday, and any other day when too much falls on you all at once.
After breakfast, I exchanged literally two phrases with Delacour, and we agreed to determine the degree of incompetence of my dancing skills in the evening after dinner. During this short conversation, the glares from Delacour's French entourage annoyed me somewhat—it was unclear whether they wanted to just kill me, or kill and eat me. In general, a typical social group tuned for a light confrontation with the whole world in general, and me in particular. But to Mordred with these ladies...
Looking after them, I never cease to wonder and ask myself—what parameters were used to select potential champions for the Tournament? I mean, figuratively speaking, if you gave them identical haircuts and hair color, and put identical masks on their faces, distinguishing them would become extremely difficult. Extremely!
But even this somewhat unplanned activity turned out not to be the last event to complicate my life a little.
"Well, rookie," Professor Moody grunted, having crept up almost imperceptibly near the entrance to the Great Hall. "Lost the desire to learn something new?"
"Not at all, sir," I replied with a nod.
"Ho, that's excellent then. Let's go."
And I had planned to attend to my own affairs, taking advantage of the window formed in Wednesday's morning schedule—for the Divination stream. And what now? And now I'm following a professor who walks around even in the castle in his brown coat—the only one among the teachers who ignores robes. The rhythmic tapping of his staff on the corridor floor dispersed the students around, allowing us to pass without pushing through the stream or maneuvering in it. Convenient, can't argue with that.
Despite the fact that Professor Moody boasted a prosthetic just above the knee, it was decisively impossible to accuse him of slowness—this invalid moved with a wide stride and very swiftly, albeit slightly limping, and only slowed down a little on the stairs. In general, we reached the DADA classroom quite quickly—there was no one there right now.
"Wait here," Moody threw over his shoulder without turning, moving between the desks to the door of his personal office.
Finding no reason to do otherwise, I simply sat at one of the desks. Less than a minute passed before the professor came out of his office, holding a stack of bound parchments in his hands. Reaching my desk, he sat facing me at the adjacent table, stretching his prosthetic leg forward, and only then placed this file of sheets before me.
"Found a minute, sketched out the text and diagrams with magic," Moody pointed at the file with both eyes. "Dry, clear, and to the point. Not like textbooks, where there's too much unnecessary water."
"There's use in water too."
"While you're learning the basics. Later—it only gets in the way. Here—it will get in the way."
Raising my hand to the file as if to take it, I imperceptibly checked for various magical responses, possible harmful charms, and so on, but found nothing, and only then took them.
"Checking?" Moody smirked, causing the scars on his face to deform terrifyingly. "Doing it right. Never know where a trap might be. Constant vigilance!"
To confirm the weight of his words, the professor struck the floor with his staff.
"Looking at you, one thinks that either constant vigilance didn't help at all, or conversely, saved you repeatedly from inevitable death."
"Fifty-fifty, rookie," the old warrior wasn't offended in the slightest. "No matter how good you are at something, there are always stronger opponents, and they don't give a damn about your constant vigilance. But at the same time, without it—you're definitely done for."
Moody didn't mince words, but without blatant excess of profanity. Just spoke it like it is.
"Thank you, Professor."
I hadn't managed to take the notes before Moody stopped me.
"Learn it here. And practice while you're at it. So I can be sure of success, and have no complaints about quality."
Shrugging, I began reading the first page of the file, simultaneously memorizing everything verbatim. Second, third, tenth, sixteenth, twenty-eighth... Almost thirty sheets of small but easily readable script, applied with ink using magic, wand movement diagrams for charms, runic chains specifying nuances of their application on different types of surfaces—spherical, flat, or some polyhedron. Formulas for recalculation, precise description of necessary images, description of interaction with other charms... In short, quite a complex enchantment.
"And they say," I couldn't resist a snide remark when I finished studying the papers, "that here in England, Artifact Creation isn't developed."
"And this isn't Artifact Creation," Moody shrugged with just one shoulder, having watched my work closely all this time, occasionally thoughtfully examining his own fingernails. "Just complex composite enchantment using various techniques and runic chains. Here..."
Moody reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple steel ball the size of an eye, rolling it across the table to me. Still checking with magic beforehand, I caught it.
"As I wrote it all down, the complex is designed specifically for a sphere and specifically of these dimensions. Practice, and I'll check. If it works—excellent. And if you make it for other shapes, you'll do the recalculations yourself, not a little kid anymore."
"Did you develop this yourself?" I twirled the ball in my hands and put it on the table, taking out my wand.
"Do I look like a brainiac?" Moody leaned forward. "No? That's just it. Not myself, of course, but I took part. Don't worry. People were verified, don't make junk. No undocumented functions either."
Looking at the steel ball, I nodded, waved my wand, and began to reproduce strictly according to instructions the first of the six stages of the enchantment cascade. First, second... The ball started to flow like plasticine.
"Crooked," Moody stated the fact and struck the floor with his staff.
A thin beam struck the ball from the head of the staff, and it became normal, all charms dispelled.
"Again."
Nodding, I considered where I messed up, and started enchanting again. A series of movements for the first stage and, naturally, the necessary image in my head, as well as the correct keyword, second stage—this time nothing happened, and that was correct. Third stage, third series of waves and other accompanying manipulations—an iris and pupil seemed to appear on the ball, but I slightly erred in the hand movement, and that is important for charms. The ball turned inside out like popcorn, and every bump was covered with deformed pupils and irises.
"Crooked," the professor again stated the obvious fact and, again, struck with his staff, bringing the ball to its original state. "Again."
"Not simple charms," I smiled meagerly.
"Yeah-yeah, work, rookie, don't wag your tongue. You can tell me later how hard life is."
The next mistake happened at the fourth stage, causing the steel ball to turn into long steel shavings trying to fly apart briskly. Moody seemed ready for such a thing, collecting everything with one short movement of his staff and returning the ball to its original appearance. The next mistake—at the fifth stage, and another—at the sixth. Basically, I made a mistake once at each stage except the first. The result? A steel-colored ball, extremely similar to an eye—there was a pupil and an iris, albeit also steel-colored.
"Not bad, not bad," Moody nodded, seeing the result of my labors.
"Still not simple charms."
"I can say that this is far from Hogwarts level. The fact that you," Moody nodded in my direction, "managed to make fewer than ten mistakes is an excellent indicator. So, generally, understood what you conjured?"
"In general terms. I'm just confused by the limitation of the field of view through the pseudo-pupil."
"You can, of course," Moody struck the floor with his staff, not for magic's sake, but simply positioning it more comfortably, "recalculate for other viewing angles. Make it 360 if you want—all formulas are provided. Only it'll jam your brains something fierce. Not a fact you'll get used to it. I didn't."
The professor sighed and stood up, leaning on his staff and shifting weight to his healthy leg. I put the notes in my backpack and stood up after him.
"That's it, rookie. Taught, checked, and now, I need to prepare for the seventh-years' lesson."
The hint was absolutely transparent, so I hastened to take my leave and head to the Charms classroom—the next lesson would be there. Stood, looked around the empty corridor, and finding no worthy occupation, simply walked to the window and sat on the sill. The weather outside was gloomy, overcast, the sky covered with a uniform gray mass, among which it was difficult for the eye to find the outlines of individual clouds. Sighing, I simply took out my wand and created a steel ball from air, fixing the transfiguration with the necessary formula. What to do? Practice the newly mastered skill. Actually, these are the first truly complex cascade charms in combination with a runic chain, which is applied by a specific spell at the fifth stage.
Enchanted one ball. Successfully. Destroyed it and created a new one. Enchanted again—already a little faster. Destroyed again and created a new one again. By the tenth ball, conscious participation was almost not required. Thanks to increased brain activity, I mastered new skills extremely quickly, which made me very, very happy. Now, while my hands were doing the work themselves, and only a small part of my consciousness participated in the process, I allowed myself to start analyzing and recalculating the charms for a spider's head in my mind—I don't need a head per se, and two "sensors" for binocular magical vision will be enough. So I began calculating the system for such a structure of two hemispheres grown on an equally spherical head. Yes, the spider will turn out somewhat caricatured, but I don't need excessive authenticity and complication of such a small object.
While thinking and calculating, I couldn't help but notice that as the object of enchantment decreases, the complexity of this process increases proportionally. It seems to me the problem lies in the need to control magic. From the existing, albeit meager, experience of sorcery by the local method, I can already draw some conclusions. For example, the mandatory part with visualization is a panacea that facilitates sorcery, but it is also poison. To enchant an object, or apply a full-scale spell to the entire object, one needs to sort of wrap it in one's magic and apply "visualization." Well, that is, it happens by itself in the local school of witchcraft, but it doesn't cancel the fact of the necessity of the process itself.
When it comes to medium objects, the size of a soccer ball, for example, it's simple to wrap it in magic, because you don't need to generate very much, and there are no problems with visualization, be it some animation of action or transformation, or applying some symbols. With large objects, the problem is obvious—you need to generate more magic, which means you need to work your brains harder. With small objects, it would seem everything is simple, but no. Wrapping a tiny object in magic is simple, but without a baggage of practice in sorcery, without some control of magic, you don't wrap it—you drown it in an ocean of magic. You can't do that, because charms or spells, as I understood from experience, are themselves that magic, that energy that you splash out of yourself through the wand. The ideal application of charms and spells requiring wrapping an object in magic is to wrap this object ideally—exactly as much as needed, no more, no less.
That's where the problem with small objects pops up—the manipulation is too insignificant and unfamiliar, it's difficult to dose the energy. But there is also the problem of visualization—you cannot use scaling in imagination. That is, if we are talking about the manifestation of certain runes on the surface of an object, then you need to imagine how these runes appear on the object in your imagination, and the object itself is exactly the size it really is. You cannot, as it were, enlarge it in your inner eye... Well, these are my thoughts based on practice—how it works well, how it works poorly, and under what conditions it doesn't work at all or not as it should.
The obvious solution is Engorgio. But it doesn't work. More precisely, it will work if you correctly inscribe the preliminary application of this spell into the subsequent charm cascade, but because of this cascade, Engorgio will become self-sustaining, and cancelling only it from the entire cascade is extremely difficult. Or I just don't know exactly how to do it according to the local school of magic.
My thoughts, as well as the training, were interrupted in a brazen manner—students began to leave the classroom for Charms and Spells lessons, which means our lesson will start in ten minutes. Not waiting for the others, I entered the classroom. Professor Flitwick hadn't managed to run to the adjacent office on business yet, and stood behind his lectern on an improvised stand of books. He was slightly surprised to see me.
"Oh, Mr. Granger. You are earlier than everyone today, I see. Take a seat, since you're here—can't chase you out."
Indeed. Can't chase me out...
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