The Unseen Scribe
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Lily's Journal - Chapter 6
🕑 Added 2023-10-12 16:09:02 +0000 UTCAN: Hey guys.
In this chapter Harry shows a little of his critical thinking, as well as his naivety at the same time.
He also receives a nice gift.
Hope you guys enjoy this one.
Chapter 6
As Harry walked through the empty corridors he thought about how much things had changed in the last few weeks.
It was a little over a month since he was attacked by Dementors, and his time was well spent. After the success of the radio experiment he and the girls spent a week all focused on helping Penelope with the mirror project, at the end of the week they had a massively improved mirror, it wasn't losing enchantments after just a few minutes anymore, in fact, the one hundred units they made and distributed to a few students for testing still hadn't lost their enchantments. It wasn't a full success yet, they wanted to give it one or two months more of testing, but the initial results were promising.
After that project was done, they all decided to work a bit more on their theory, so it was common to see their group inside the RoR in a common room configuration, all with a book in hand, studying many different fields of science. Penny had taken a step down to work on her NEWTs, the exams were apparently really hard, and she still wanted to get the best grade possible in charms, a good grade would help her find a master of the field willing to take her on as an apprentice while she pursued her own mastery.
After that project was done, they all decided to work a bit more on their theory, so it was common to see their group inside the RoR in a common room configuration, all with a book in hand, studying many different fields of science and magic. Penny had taken a step down to work on her NEWTs, the exams were apparently really hard, and she still wanted to get the best grade possible in charms, a good grade would help her find a master of the field willing to take her on as an apprentice while she pursued her own mastery. Hermione started studying physics and more advanced transfigurations; she wanted a better understanding of atoms and molecules for when she started to work on her magical replicator idea. Sue Li returned to their group, she was still focused on the generator project, and had taken over research on it while Hermione studied other fields. Padma had decided to learn more about enchanting and how different materials held different enchantments better than others, her studies were mostly magical, but her research of enchantments on gold, silver and precious stones usually brought her into studying a lot of metallurgy and geology. Hannah had decided to work on something different from the others, while the others worked on science aided by magic, Hannah had decided to see if muggle astronomy had anything that could help in its magical counterpart. And a surprising new permanent addition to their group was Luna, who spent most of her time reading biology books and learning about non magical animals; Luna's reading habits caused a couple of hours of fun discussions when Hermione tried to explain a platypus to her and Luna insisted that it must be a magical animal, because there was no way a non magical animal like that could exist.
Harry himself had started to research about gasses in preparation to work on his magical laser idea, he first wanted to make a ruby laser, but he quickly discarded that idea in favour of an Excimer laser, it was the best type of laser for production of microchips, and was surprisingly easier to produce with magic than a ruby laser. Hermione had given him the idea of modifying the enchantments and runes used in trunks and suitcases that are used transport animals, apparently there are runes and enchantments that both generate gases and regulate air pressure, is how those types of trunks simulate an atmosphere to allow the animals to breath. So Harry spent a lot of his time learning about the composition of the atmosphere of the planet, and trying to understand how the enchantments and runes worked; he would try to isolate the gasses first, once that was done, he would try to create a runic cluster that produced only diargon. Argon was the third most common gas on the atmosphere and diargon was used in the Excimer lasers with the lowest wavelengths, it was almost perfect, the only thing better would be to find a way to produce a laser using diatomic oxygen or nitrogen, but that was almost impossible.
He also made an effort to expend more time with Ron whenever possible. He found a surprising way to make his redheaded friend interested in their research, and that was by using Lee Jordan and his extensive knowledge of comic books and movies. Ron didn't want to know the more technical details of what Harry and the girls were working on, but he was more than happy to talk about science fiction once it was explained to him and they would usually expend hours talking with Lee and the twins about movies and comic books, he had even extracted a promise from the twins to take Ron to see a movie in the summer. He also spent some time flying with Ron and surprisingly Megan Jones, the girl had apparently struck a friendship with Ron since the start of the year, they both shared a love for quidditch and were usually seen arguing loudly about it, but unlike Ron's constant arguments with Hermione, with Megan it didn't seem like they ever said anything hurtful to each other. Harry was happy that his friend had found someone to spend some time with, now that he was spending more time with Hermione and the girls.
But all of that was in November, since the start of December; Harry and the research group had started to get their hands dirty with new or old projects.
Hermione decided to work on a superefficient runic array of cooling runes; she thought that a superconductor would help with her generator project, but superconductors needed extreme cold to function, no one had found a room temperature superconductor yet, and none of them believed they would find something that actual scientist with proper tools and years of experience had yet to find. So she went to work on cooling runes, trying to push them to the extreme cold temperatures that were needed for the currently known superconductors to work.
Sue decided to work on the other side of the spectrum, using heating runes to create a regular steam generator, something she had mentioned a during the Halloween feast. From the few times Harry dropped in on her workshop, it seemed to be going quite well, it would still take some time to have a prototype, but it wasn't an overly difficult project compared to some of the things they were working on, just a basic thermal process.
Padma decided to work on a larger version of the mirrors, as well as some type of magical camera. She got the idea after a conversation where Penny and Hermione were talking about carving the runic array that isolated electronics against magic into a TV; once Padma learned what a TV was she immediately decided to try and find a way to make a magical one, her current idea was to connect some type of magical camera to a central location just like the mirrors were, and then use that connection to transmit a 'signal' to larger versions of the mirrors, it would function just like a TV did, but it was proving to be extremely difficult to work on. The regular size mirrors were already strained with the many enchantments they needed to work, and they still didn't know if the current prototypes in use would hold the enchantments for more than a few months; using those same enchantments on the larger mirrors was even more troublesome, the amount of surface area that the modified scrying spell had to cover was so large that it immediately failed, and the sound was also a massive problem at the moment. But Padma appeared motivated enough, and seemed like she would stay on this project until she got it to work.
Hannah was still working on her astronomy project, but had moved to a more practical application; she bought a muggle telescope and decided to enchant it the same way that a magical one was, it was giving her some troubles, the enchantments would quickly break in some parts, but she seemed close to a breakthrough.
Penny didn't take a new project, focusing on her studies for her exams. But she would drop in every once in awhile and help them with their projects.
Luna was still working on theory, but now she had decided to see if she could crossbreed a magical animal with a non magical one, and she seemed to have taken a page out of Hagrid's book, talking about elephants, rhinos, and giraffes on the non magical side, and dragons, manticores and hippogriffs. On the day she announced her new goal Harry had a terrifying dream, in which Luna somehow managed to crossbreed a komodo dragon with some obscure magical animal and ended up creating a dinosaur.
And Harry himself decided to work a bit more on his alchemy research, this time taking a more practical approach and drawing his first transmutation circle. He separated a part of their workroom, that was almost the size of a warehouse these days, and used it for his first experiment in practical alchemy; he started with something basic, just combining two materials together in a way he knew would work. Alchemy was all about combining different materials to create something new, so Harry theorized that it could be used to create metallic alloys, bypassing the forging process. So with that in mind he grabbed some junk from the room of hidden things and stripped it of any metal he could find, he ended up asking the RoR for a forge, and after some research in how to use one he melted some copper he found on the room, he also found some tin, so when he had the metals in a workable form, he put them on the transmutation circle and tried to create some bronze to test his theory, and it ended up working. There was a massive loss of materials, but Harry thought that most of it was due to his inexperience, he somewhat knew the composition of bronze, but that was the first time he had used alchemy, so some loss was to be expected. The transmutation process was almost ritualistic in nature, it took a lot of intuition and the was almost just shaping magic with intent alone, it was almost like teaching a toddler, shaping and guiding the magic to the answer you want. Harry thought that something like that had immense potential.
After that initial success he decided to focus a bit more on efficiency, before trying transmutation with something different, his first attempt at transmutation lost almost 75% of the base materials, and that was just wasteful in the extreme. It was still a work in progress at the moment, but the second and third attempts he made yielded slightly better results, losing only 73% and 66%, it was still too high a number for his liking, and he would try to drive that number to at least bellow 25% which is the usual loss of materials from what he had read about.
After his experiments with bronze were finished, he would work a bit more on his laser idea, advance the concept a bit more, and then he would work on another, more complex metallic alloy, before trying to create something entirely new. At the moment he was thinking of using transmutation to try and create a fictional metal, his current idea was something like adamantium or vibranium; Lee had explained a bit about the metals during one of their many talks about comic books, and Harry thought that at least adamantium was something that alchemical transmutation could create, he even had some ideas already, adamantium would definitely use diamonds and titanium to transmute, probably a lot more materials as well.
Harry turned a corner as he walked through the corridors, still deep in his thoughts, and almost yelled when he was grabbed into one of the classrooms. His hand whent to his wand, when the person who grabbed him turned him around his wand was already on his hand and pointed towards the grinning face of Fred Weasley.
"Impressive reflexes, Harrykins." Fred said, still grinning like a loon.
"Yes, my less handsome twin, truly inspired. Our dear boy-who-lived will continue to live if he reacts this way every time he is grabbed out of nowhere." George said from a few steps behind.
"Hey guys, what do you want?" Harry asked, dropping his wand and not even complaining about being grabbed by the twins, at least they weren't pranking him this time, or at least he hoped not.
"Well, you see. We saw our star seeker walking around the corridors, all sad now that his Mrs Potter... I mean Miss Granger, has gone to Hogsmeade, and he can't go with her." Fred said, his grin getting even wider when Harry blushed at him calling Hermione Mrs Potter.
"And we, being the all-around wonderful blokes that we are, decided to help you a little bit, it is the last Hogsmeade weekend of the term, and a perfect time to go on a date, so we thought we could help our resident celebrity be with his girl on such a special day." George said, passing an old looking piece of parchment to him.
"Hermione is not my girl." Harry said in a tired tone, having lost count of how many times he had already said the same thing before. "And how is an old piece of parchment going to help me?" He asked.
"Because, my slightly vertically deficient friend." Fred said, patting Harry on the head and making him scowl in annoyance.
"This old piece of parchment is the secret to our success." George said, walking closer and touching the parchment with the tip of his wand. "I solemnly swear that i am up to no good." He said, and Harry watched in awe as words started to appear on the parchment, listing four names. Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud to present the marauders map.
Opening the parchment Harry saw that it was a pretty detailed map of Hogwarts, but even more impressive were the moving markers with the name of the person below, looking around he quickly found his own name next to Fred and George Weasley, exactly in the same room they were currently occupying, taking a step to the left he saw that his marker also moved slightly on the map, it seemed like the map tracked movement on the castle in real time, which was frankly amazing and the only way he could think that something like that would work was if it was connected directly to the wards of the castle. It was an incredible piece of magic.
"Thanks guys, this is amazing." Harry thanked the twins after inspecting the map for a few moments.
"We learned everything we could from it, and now we decided to pass it to the next generation of pranksters." George said, making Harry frown a little.
"What pranksters?" Harry asked.
"Don't play innocent with us Harrykins. Brewing polyjuice and sneaking into the Slytherin common room as a second year. Not even we did something like that." Fred responded and Harry felt himself growing pale with worry.
"How do you guys know that?" Harry asked and Fred just pointed towards the map with his head. "Oh. Please don't say anything guys?" He asked.
"Don't worry; we won't snitch on you, prankster's honour." They both said together. "We also won't snitch on anyone using this passage." Fred said, pointing towards a place on the map. "To sneak out of the castle so he can have a date with his lady." He finished.
"Thanks again guys, this is a really amazing gift." Harry thanked them again, ignoring their less than subtle mentions of his and Hermione's relationship, again.
"It's no problem to us, Harrykins. Just pass it on to the next pranksters one day, the map should be used. And just remember, to clear the map you say, mischief managed." George said, and they both walked out of the room, leaving Harry alone. Looking at the map again, he spent a few moments deep in thought before he decided to go to his dorm and grab his invisibility cloak. He just wanted to see Hogsmeade; it had nothing to do with spending time with Hermione.
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If Harry had to describe Hogsmeade with a single word it would be quaint.
The buildings of the village seemed, like every other magical buildings he saw, trying to be as weird as possible, which made for quite an unusual sight. The streets of the village were never straight for more than a few meters before some building got in the way, some literally just extending for no reason whatsoever, since Harry a shop of some kind had a plain wall on the inside of the protuberance that cut the street and made it change its path. Despite all that, the village didn't feel cramped, the streets wide enough that the weird shape of the buildings didn't make for just a pile of buildings on top of each other. The windows of the shops all had their products on display, be they potions, robes, brooms, weird magical devices and even animals. There were also a few more shops devoted to basic needs, like a small grocery store, which was the first Harry saw in a magical place, since diagon alley didn't had any; there was also a barber shop, a nice little place that seemed to be filled with pans and other kitchen appliances, and many others. With the things he saw, Harry thought that the village must have a population on the high hundreds but below one thousand, which would make it a pretty tiny hamlet in non magical Britain, but with how small the magical population was, it was probably a huge city.
He walked around the village aimlessly, trying to find something fun to do, or trying to find were Hermione was. He walked into a few of the shops, taking care to not bump into the whoever was opening the door since he couldn't do it himself without revealing his presence there, the cloak was good, but not that good. In one shop he saw a bunch of candy, and had some fun with the girl in the cashier place when she jumped seeing money just appear into the counter and candy being floated out of the shelves, he was never happier that the levitation charm didn't produced any visible light when casted. He also spent some time in a book store, where he finally decided to ditch the cloak for just a little bit since the cashier there looked a lot more alert, and he found a book he really wanted to buy as a gift for Hermione. But as he was walking out of the book shop, back under the cloak, he saw Hermione coming down the street with Padma, Parvati, Ron and Megan with her, he quickly closed the distance between them and saw that they were walking towards a building that had a sign saying 'The three broomsticks'. He followed them and squeezed himself between them to enter the building when Ron opened the door. Inside the building, he saw the girls going towards a booth, and Ron walking towards the counter; following his redheaded friend he waited until Ron was out of the view of the girls to touch his shoulder and then whisper as low as he could.
"Ron, it's me. I'm under the cloak."
"Harry, mate; what are you doing here?" Ron asked, jumping a little in surprise.
"I wanted to see this place, so I snuck out of the castle." Harry responded.
"That's brilliant, mate." Ron responded, a little too loudly for Harry's desire.
"You think you can tell Hermione I'm here, and find a way to ditch the other girls? I want to spend some time with you two." Harry asked.
"Sure, mate. I'll tell Hermione. Just let me grab some butterbeer for the girls." He responded.
Harry watched from near the counter as Ron went to the booth that the girls were on and asked Hermione to help him with the butterbeers, he saw Hermione's eyes light up as they walked back towards the counter, her eyes quickly searching all over the place, trying to find him. Harry waited until they were close to approach Hermione and put a hand on her shoulder, he didn't say anything, but he didn't had to; Hermione just nodded her head in to show she felt it. He waited as they placed their order and when they received it they grabbed the cups and went back towards the booth, placing the cups on the table they quickly made an apology and walked towards his place of hiding again. Once they were close Harry again put a hand on Hermione's shoulder and the three of them started to walk towards what seemed to be a back door.
"Potter trusted Black beyond all his other friends, nothing changed when they left school; Black was best man when James married Lily. Then they named him godfather to Harry. Harry has no idea, of course. You can imagine how the idea would torment him."( harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban) Harry heard a voice he somewhat recognized from a corner of the bar, and immediately stopped, turning around and walking towards were he heard the voice and saw the minister talking with professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Hagrid, as well as another woman he didn't recognize.
He felt the cloak slip a little in his shock at hearing those words, and some part of him must have been showing, because Hermione was able to find him and he felt her hand reach for his back. He wanted to stay and hear more, but Hermione managed to find his arm below the cloak and grabbed him, forcing him to move outside. Once outside he started walking towards the edge of the village, his form now visible since Hermione had grabbed onto the cloak, trying to stop him from walking away. He could feel both Ron and Hermione walking behind him, following him; but none of them said anything. Reaching what looked like to be an abandoned house a little outside of the village, he sat on a rock and ignored Hermione's arms going around him, giving him one of her signature hugs, and Ron patting his shoulder. Thinking about what he had heard he just couldn't believe that was right, something about that whole story just felt wrong to him.
"I don't believe it." Harry said after a couple of minutes of thinking. "I don't believe someone my parents trusted to be my godfather would betray them and be a supporter of Voldemort." He added.
"Harry, mate, he killed twelve muggles. I know you don't want to believe it but he is bad, he escaped from Azkaban; only using some truly black magic would he be able to do that." Ron said in a soft tone, and Harry felt Hermione breaking the hug.
"I'm telling you, there is something wrong with it." Harry insisted. "Hermione, you read my mum's journal as well right." He added, and Hermione nodded her head with a confused look on her face. "You think she would make such a mistake. Being a godfather is pretty important; I don't think someone as smart as my mum would agree to make someone my godfather if she didn't completely trust that person." He finished explaining his reasoning, earning a soft smile and a look of understanding from Hermione.
"Harry, I know you want that to be true, but your mother could have been wrong in her judgment. Everyone makes mistakes." Hermione said, still with that soft smile and understanding look on her face, or maybe it was pity.
She might have thought that it would comfort him, but Harry didn't like seeing that look on her face. He looked to the other side and saw Ron giving him a similar look and his resolve hardened.
"I still think there is something wrong with it, and I'm going to find out." He said after a moment, and the look on his friends faces said all he needed to know. They might not agree with him, but they would be with him every step of the way.
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"So this is your great idea to find Sirius Black, send a letter to him?" Ron asked in a tone of disbelief.
They were in the great hall, enjoying a nice breakfast; Ron sat on his right and Hermione on his left. It was the day after the Hogsmeade visit and most of the students had left the castle. Hermione's parents were out of the country, so she would stay in the castle for this winter break, which really messed up their plans. Hermione had asked her parents if Harry could visit and they agreed, but then some business came up and they had to leave the country for a few days, so the visit was pushed up to the Easter break. The reason for the visit was because they wanted to learn what was needed to set up a company in the muggle world; they wanted to sell whatever products they managed to make from their research. For that same reason, they also had a meeting set up with Madam Bones, the head of the department of magical law enforcement, some time during the summer; Hannah had set it up with the help of Susan. The redheaded hufflepuff wasn't a close member of their group, but Hannah was, and when she asked to set up a meeting, her best friend was more than happy to help.
"Hedwig will find him. She can find anyone, right girl?" Harry said, reaching out with his hand towards the snowy owl perched on his shoulder and scratching her chest.
"Hoot, Hoot." Hedwig responded, nodding her head, making both of his friends laugh.
"I still don't know how she understands anything you say, and don't even get me started on how you understand her." Ron said, shaking his head.
"We just understand each other, that's all there is to it, right girl?" Harry asked, and Hedwig bobbed her head again. "Here, one for the trip. Have a safe flight, girl." He said, grabbing a piece of bacon from his plate and giving it to his owl. Hedwig ate the bacon and then took flight, the letter already shrunk and strapped to her leg.
"There, now in a few days time we will have an answer." Harry said, returning to his breakfast.
"I still don't think this will work, mate." Ron said shaking his head.
"It will." Harry responded with certainty. "Now, what are we working on today, Hermione." He asked, and then they launched into another discussion about their many projects, ignoring Ron's muttering about 'boring muggle talk'.
They spent the rest of the breakfast talking, updating each other in how their projects were going. Hermione had some success with her runic arrays, she still didn't have a way to measure the temperature accurately, but she thought that the runic array might be operating around the 250 K range, which is considerably smaller than room temperature, which is 300 Kelvin; a massive achievement, but still a little over 100 K higher than the highest temperature superconductor they knew of.
Harry spent some time telling her about his alchemical experiments, how he theorized that alchemy could be used to create metallic alloys, how surprised he was that no alchemist had ever tried something like that, at least according to the books they had access to, and how his experiments proved that theory when he was able to create bronze from copper and tin. He told her about his ongoing work to reduce the amount of the base materials that were wasted in the process, and how he was hoping to start working on more complex alloys in the future, but it would take some time to lower the amount of wasted materials to at least 25%, which was his goal.
Hermione gave him some ideas about more precise measuring of the base materials before he started the transmutation process. And he gave her some ideas about using the same runes that she had pointed him towards in his laser research, the idea was to use the runic array to create a pressure chamber, many superconductors needed high pressure to work, and the runes could probably be used that way. It would probably be quite easy to do, since they were already used to regulate air pressure in trunks and suitcases.
After half an hour Penelope also joined them on the gryffindor table; she was staying in the castle during the break to study more for her exams. She also gave them a few ideas after she heard about how their projects were going; her advice for Harry was to read up on some magical theory, since transmutation was mostly shaping magic with intent, magical theory could help a lot in those types of things. While her advice for Hermione was to work more on insulation, since it might be possible for her runes to be working less effectively than they could, if her test box was not properly insulated against the heat of the room.
By the end of the breakfast their heads were filled with new ideas, and they were ready to work on their projects, but they decided to spend some time with Ron, going to the quidditch pitch and flying around for an hour, even Hermione flew a little bit, despite her fear. By the end of the hour they both said goodbye to their redheaded friend and went together towards the room of requirement, and they spent the rest of the day working on their projects.
AN 2: Harry shows a bit of his critical thinking to solve the Sirius situation, but he might be a little naive, or maybe too trusting by sending him a letter.
Lot of ideas also floating around.
I will see you guys in the next one.
