The Unseen Scribe
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Lilly's Journal - Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2023-06-29 15:28:10 +0000 UTCAN: Hey Guys.
In this new chapter we find out were the research team is going to work, and learn a little bit more about Harry's theories of magic and science.
We also see the first experiment.
Hope you guys enjoy this one.
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Chapter 3
It was after classes the day after Hermione's birthday and Harry was walking towards the kitchens. He asked the twins where they found the food and when they said it was with the elves in the Hogwarts kitchens he ask them how to get there and thank them. He still remembered Dobby and even if the little guy unintentionally tried to kill him multiple times Harry still liked him, probably because he could see himself in the elf, being mistreated while doing all the house chores was something he was familiar with.
The Monday started quite well, at breakfast both Padma and Penny decided to seat in the gryffindor table in order to talk about Harry's and Hermione's research. He was quite surprised to learn that there wasn't any rule about seating in another house table and the gryffindor table ended up with quite a few ravenclaws and hufflepuffs that morning. They had another surprise when both Hannah Abbott and Sue Li asked to join in their research when they heard the conversation. Both Harry and Hermione accepted the help and now their research team was up to six members, they were growing quickly but still didn't had a place they could work in.
The night before Hermione insisted that they should organize what they wanted to teach Padma and Penny and what they would put them to research first. Despite Harry's suggestions that she should spend the night of her birthday having fun instead of working. At the end of the night, they had organized a rough schedule detailing how to best utilize everyone's time, both Penny and Padma would at first be put to research communication, using scientific principles with magic to try and create something like a telephone. The two ravenclaws seemed to like the idea when Harry mentioned it in Hermione's party.
Both Harry and Hermione still wanted to work together, just the two of them for a while more. They started it as a way to honour his mother, they wouldn't deny any help but they still wanted to keep some things for themselves.
Harry imagined that the schedule they made the night before would have to be changed, they added two more members to the research team that morning, because of that they would be able to tackle a lot more problems than they would be able to do before. Harry was looking forward to working on that transfiguration idea Hermione had, it had almost limitless potential. He still thought that it might be possible to transfigure more complex objects, despite Hermione denying it, he had read a little on silent casting and learned that the most important thing when using magic was visualization, when you cast a spell silently you need to have a clear picture on your mind of the spell you want, if your visualization is good enough magic itself will 'fill in the blanks', so it might be possible to create more complex objects if one knew enough about said object.
He came to a realization earlier in the day that he couldn't wait to share with Hermione. His research in silent casting led him to believe that knowledge shapes magic, the more you know the more magic you can do. It was almost overwhelming to think that magic, something that breaks the laws of physics so easily, could be shaped in any way a person wanted, if said person knew enough about what they wanted to do. He shuddered imagining the amount of damage someone with enough knowledge and imagination could with magic, there might be a way to create a magical nuke if someone knew enough about how they worked, magically enhanced guns were also a terrifying thought, it might be possible for magic to turn any handgun into a railgun. He knew enough about how fire worked to know it needed oxygen, he thought that with just a bit more knowledge about the atmosphere, it might be possible to create a spell that would cause a chain reaction and burn down all the oxygen on the planet, killing an entire planet with a single spell.
It was terrifying to know he had that kind of power. Something like that shouldn't be possible and he decided he would talk to Hermione later, they needed to limit some areas of research.
His mind wasn't just focused on the existential dread their research could cause. He also thought a lot about the good it could bring, it could end scarcity on the planet, it could bring men into the stars, clean, unlimited energy, medical miracles. The world could be made into an utopia if they continued with their plans, he wouldn't stop them because of fear.
He stopped his musings as he approached the door to the kitchens, he tickled the pear and it turned into a door handle, when he entered the room he immediately heard a voice that he heard for the last time just a few months ago.
"The great Harry Potter comes to visit Dobby."
Harry looked down and saw the little house elf jumping up and down near him, around him were other elves, at least fifty of them. Harry didn't knew that such a large number of elves worked at Hogwarts.
"Hey, Dobby. How are you? Are you working at Hogwarts now?" Harry asked, greeting the exited little elf.
"Harry Potter asks about Dobby. Harry Potter is an even greater wizard than Dobby thought." Dobby said, causing Harry to groan when he saw the other elves nodding in agreement. Realizing that he wasn't going to get an answer to his other question due to the excitement of the elves, Harry decided to continue.
"I just wanted to thank all the elves that provided the food for twin Weasleys yesterday." Harry said and was immediately hugged by four different elves.
"The Great Harry Potter thanks elves, elves never receive thanks from wizards" One of the elves that were hugging him said. Harry found a little weird the looks of utter devotion the elves were giving him.
"Elves will always help the great Harry Potter, whatever Harry Potter needs, he can ask elves and elves will do." Another elf said, thinking there was no problem in trying, Harry decided to see if the elves could help him with his problem.
"Do any of you know a place I can use muggle things in Hogwarts?" He asked, already expecting the elves to say no. He would be surprised if the elves even knew what electricity was.
"The Great Harry Potter can use the come and go room. Dobby learned about it from other elves." Dobby responded. Harry couldn't stop his mouth from opening in surprise.
"You know how to use electricity in Hogwarts?" Harry asked, any of his friends would have recognized his surprised tone.
"Dobby doesn't know about muggle electriky thing, but the come and go room can become whatever Harry Potter wants it to be." Dobby responded, his head bobbing up and down fast enough for Harry to think it was painful.
"Can you show me this room, Dobby?" Harry asked.
Dobby didn't even responded him, he just walked out of the kitchen followed by two other elves as they almost dragged Harry along. As he walked, Harry started to think about what he would do if the elves did knew a place he could use, his talk with Hermione would become a lot more important if he did find a place they could use to perform experiments. He still wanted to work on that portable radio Hermione received from her parents, maybe he would be able to find a way to make continuous spells work on it, he knew his mother wasn't able to do it and it might be impossible to actually do, but he would still try. Failure could teach just as much as success.
When the stairs the elves were guiding him to suddenly changed, he started to think about how the stairs of Hogwarts always did that. The way it behaved sometimes, the castle could almost be said to have some kind of consciousness. He decided to try and see if it had anything to do with his mother's research with cars and how they also started to show some weird behaviour. Maybe the land that Hogwarts stood on had some type of natural electrical current, he would ask Hermione if something like that was actually possible since he didn't knew, but magic always created some weird things so it might be possible.
When the elves were finally able to guide him towards their destination, Harry saw that it was in the seventh floor. It was in an abandoned part of that floor towards the south of the castle. He didn't see any entrance to a room, just a long corridor and a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls to dance ballet. He was beginning to think the elves were trying to be funny when Dobby looked at him and said.
"Harry Potter has to walk past the tapestry three times thinking about what he needs and the room will appear."
Seeing the other two elves nodding in agreement Harry decided to humour them, he started walking and thinking about a room where he could use electricity. After walking three past the tapestry he was surprised to see that a door appeared in the wall opposite to the tapestry, opening the door and walking inside caused his mouth to open in surprise for the second time that day. The room was unlike anything he had ever seen before, the walls were filled with veins of what appeared to be silver also lined the walls, between them were runic arrays that Harry didn't recognized, at this distance the only rune he could figure out was the one for lightning, there were six desks filled with tools and scraps of metal near the walls, between them there were bookshelves filled with books, both muggle and magical. The muggle books were in many different subjects, but the magical ones were mostly on runes and arithmancy with a few on alchemy.
He immediately realized that the room confirmed a few of their theories. First was his mother's theory of magic working in the electromagnetic spectrum, it also confirmed his own theory from earlier in the day that knowledge shapes magic. He asked for a room to work with electricity and the magic filled in the blanks, using his knowledge of silver as a good material to protect against EMPs, but also his theories that magic could be used in a similar way. The result was some type of faraday cage that combined magic and science, using both silver and runic arrays to perform the task. He couldn't wait to show this to Hermione, she would be looking around with that light in her eyes that he liked seeing, trying to understand everything about how the room worked. He was sure that was going to be extremely hard, he imagined the runes used by the room were completely unknown, maybe brand new if that was possible.
"Dobby, this room is amazing. Tell me how I can repay you and the other elves, you have given me everything I needed." Harry said, turning back towards the elves.
"The Great Harry Potter doesn't need to pay elves, elves be happy to help." The two elves responded.
"Dobby has a request, Harry Potter sir." Dobby said, his voice a little low and shy.
"Sure Dobby, whatever you want." Harry responded, smiling at the little elf.
"Dobby would like to be Harry Potter's elf." Dobby said quickly, looking down towards the floor as he finished his sentence. The other elves looked at him a little weird, so Harry thought he might have done something the other elves didn't approve.
"Elf doesn't ask for master Dobby, master asks for elf." The female of the two elves said, her voice like that of a mother scolding her child. Or at least that was what Harry thought it was.
"What's your name?" Harry asked the two other elves.
"Tilly." The female elf responded.
"Coorey." The male elf responded.
"Tilly, Coorey. You should never be afraid to ask anything from me and my friends, we will always treat you as we would any other person." Harry said, looking at the two elves as they almost broke down in tears at his words.
"And Dobby, you can be my elf. But I will never be your master, I will always be your friend." Harry responded Dobby's request.
The little elf hugged him and as he did so, a bright light enveloped the two of them. Harry was blinded by the light for a few seconds until it started to dim again, during those few seconds he could feel something change within him, he felt protected, like there was someone that would always look after him and make sure he was healthy and happy.
The little elf hugged him and as he did so, a bright light enveloped the two of them. Harry was blinded by the light for a few seconds until it started to dim again, during those few seconds he could feel something change within him, he felt protected, like there was someone that would always look after him and make sure he was healthy and happy. When the light show passed and he looked at Dobby again, he saw that the elf looked a bit different, it wasn't much but he was now taller and looking a little stronger.
"The Great Harry Potter bonded with Dobby as friends, Dobby will always take care of his friend." Dobby said, breaking the hug with tears in his eyes.
"Thanks, Dobby. Now I really need to go, I have to show this room to Hermione." Harry said, trying to stop the elf from crying before the other two elves started crying with him, something that was looking even more likely now than before.
"Dobby will help the Hogwarts elves. Harry Potter and his Grangy can always call Dobby and he will answer. Dobby is Potter elf now." Dobby said when he finally stopped crying.
"Sure Dobby, thanks. But now I really need to go." Harry said, he then started to walk out of the room, the elves were creeping him out a little. He still didn't knew what had actually happened when he bonded with Dobby, but he could figure it out later, now he needed to see Hermione.
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"Where are you taking me, Harry?" Hermione asked, as they moved through the seventh floor.
"I told you Hermione, it is a surprise." Harry responded with a smirk.
"Another one. You know I don't like surprises." Hermione said, huffing a little in annoyance.
"You are going to like this one." Harry said cryptically.
They arrived at the corridor in front of the tapestry and Harry started to walk, asking for the same room he did when the elves showed it to him, Hermione looking at him as if he was insane. He walked three times and then smirked at the look of surprise in Hermione's face when the door appeared. He grabbed her hand, walked inside and laughed loudly when he heard Hermione gasp as she saw the room. It looked the same way as it did earlier, with the runes and silver veins on the walls, the desks filled with scrap metal and tools and the bookshelves filled with books.
"Harry, is this what I think it is?" Hermione asked in an awed tone. "Even if it isn't, this room is still amazing." She added, smiling at him.
"I don't know if it will work, that's why we brought the radio. But it should work." Harry responded, still smiling a little. It always brought a funny feeling in his chest every time Hermione smiled at him.
"But how did you find this room?" Hermione asked. "It seems to perfect, the books, the workbenches, the runes and the silver in the walls, you obviously didn't build this." She added.
"I asked the house elves. I wanted to thank them for the food they provided for your birthday party, so I whent to the kitchens. When I got there I found out that Dobby is working here now, but that is not important now. The important part is that the elves asked if they could help me with anything else, so I asked if they knew a place I could use electricity in Hogwarts, they pointed me to this room, they called it the come and go room." Harry responded.
"Come and go room, Are you telling me this is the Room of Requirement? The lost secret sanctum of Ravenclaw?" Hermione asked with an awed tone again.
"I don't know anything about it, I just know the elves brought me to the corridor outside and told me to think about what I wanted. I thought about a room for us to work, thinking about everything I knew we would need." Harry responded.
"Harry, this room is supposedly able to become anything a person needs. The library copy of the first print of Hogwarts a History that I read says that it was the secret workroom of Rowena Ravenclaw herself." Hermione said in her lecture tone, glaring at him.
"Well, I didn't know that. I'm sorry." Harry apologized, he didn't know why he was apologizing but it was better this way, he hated when Hermione glared at him, he much preferred when she smiled at him.
"It's okay Harry, I know you don't read as many books just for fun as I do." Hermione responded, smiling at him again. "Still, this is an amazing finding. We really should do something nice to the elves to repay their help." She added.
"I already asked. The other elves didn't want anything, but Dobby asked to bond with me." Harry responded.
"Harry James Potter, did you enslave a house elf?" Hermione asked in a low, cold tone. Before Harry could respond Dobby popped into the room.
"Mistress Grangy be doing the thing she accused the great master Harry Potter of doing. Dobby was a free elf, Dobby asked to bond with master Harry Potter, mistress Grangy be treating Dobby like a slave by taking away his choice." Dobby said.
Harry had to control his laugh since Dobby's logic was pretty good and even Hermione couldn't deny that. The look on her face was highly amusing as she tried to think of an answer that wouldn't make her look like she was denying Dobby his choice.
"Dobby, are you sure that is what you want, don't you want to be free?" Hermione asked, her voice clearly showing what response she would like to hear.
"Dobby wants to be Harry Potter's elf. Dobby will work at Hogwarts now, in the summer Dobby will do Harry Potter's chores at the bad muggles house, and when Harry Potter and his Grangy are older Dobby will take care of the house and babies so Harry Potter and his Grangy can do wizardy things." Dobby responded and popped away again.
Harry felt himself blush and saw that Hermione was in the same situation. He had never thought about something that far into the future but now that Dobby had put the idea in his head he was starting to think about it. He could almost see in his mind, an older version of him and Hermione kissing the head of a child with bright green eyes and a mane of brown hair. He felt himself blush even more. He had never before thought of Hermione this way, but now he didn't think he would ever be able to take that picture out of his mind.
"I still don't understand how the room was able to become something like this, Rowena Ravenclaw didn't know about electricity." Hermione said a little loud. She was still blushing and she couldn't look him in the eyes.
"I had an idea earlier today." Harry said, trying to control his blushing. "I was researching silent casting and I saw that to do it you need to visualize the spell you want, the more you know about how the spell works and its end result, the better. From there I developed a theory that magic is shaped by the caster, the more you know, the more your magic can do. I think this room proved that theory, it used everything I knew and them the magic filled in the blanks to give me what I wanted." Harry said. Hermione was looking at him the way she usually looked at a new book, her blush finally gone.
"Harry, that is amazing. It does seems to be true and if it is, that theory of your could change the entire way we go about this research, if magic does work directly from our knowledge even creating new things like those runes on the walls seem to be. What we could do with magic that way could be literally limitless." Hermione said, again with an awed tone.
"You also think those runes are new, I didn't want to say anything since I don't know much about them, but I thought they were new from the moment I saw them." Harry said, his eyes leaving Hermione's and going to the runes on the walls.
"They do seem to be new. I only recognize the lightning rune, everything else is brand new to me but I can guess what the function of the array is, maybe we could test it now." Hermione said.
She walked towards the two workbenches at the far side of the room from the doors, took the radio that they had brought with them and put it into the table on the left. Harry followed her and stopped at her right side. Her hand moved towards the power button on the radio and stopped just before she pressed it. She looked at Harry, grinned and then pressed the button.
The sound of static greeted them and the smiles they had fell from their faces, until Hermione changed the stations and loud muggle music could be heard inside Hogwarts for the first time in its history. Harry didn't know what song it was or who was playing it but he started to dance anyway, or at least tried to, he didn't know how to dance. Hermione joined him after a few seconds and they started to dance together, neither of them was very good at it but they were so happy that they didn't care, they finally had a place they could work, a place they could continue his mother's research.
They danced until the music ended and then Hermione turned the radio down again. She turned towards him, her eyes shining and a big smile on her face. When the impact hug came, Harry was prepared for it and happier about it than ever before. The moment Hermione broke the hug Harry asked her.
"What do we do now?"
"Now we get to work, Harry." Hermione responded. "We start by reading your mother's journal again to refresh our memory, then we perform the same experiment that she did, to see if we get the same results, then we start our own experiments, we try to see if we can make magic work on electronics, your mother wasn't able to do it but maybe we can. Then we start the other experiments, we try to make the many devices we have been talking about these last few weeks. We try to change runic arrays to see if we can develop that generator. And more importantly, we see the limits of this room and what it can teach us. But first, we really need to see if we can learn and maybe miniaturize those arrays in the walls, if we can do it, we could maybe use it to protect portable devices like this radio." She said.
Harry nodded his acceptance, and as much as the two of them wanted to start working right at that moment, they needed to go back to the common room. They had essays to do and they really needed to spend more time with Ron, they had been neglecting their friend lately.
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The next few weeks, Harry and Hermione spent as much time as possible in the room, trying to learn the runic array on the walls that protected the electronics. They told the rest of their research team about the room the day after their little radio experiment, the girls were awed by the legendary founder's room, especially the three claws, Penelope looked like she wanted to kiss every house elf in Hogwarts for their help in finding the sanctum of her house's founder, not that Sue Li and Padma were much better. Hannah was the only one that wasn't going crazy about it, but even she was a little awed by it.
After that, all six of them started to work on the runic arrays, trying to understand it, or at least reproduce them. During that time they also started to delegate tasks. Penny wanted to work with communication first, she wanted to create some kind of magical cell phone, the first thing she would research was the protean charm and see if it could be used to link two pieces of glass together, after they were linked she would find some way to transmit sound and video through them. She wouldn't be working on it alone, Padma and Hannah wanted to help her, finding that area of research to be something they also wanted. Both girls wanted to find some way to talk to their parents while at Hogwarts.
Sue Li decided she wanted to help Harry and Hermione with their generator idea. If they wanted to use more electronics at Hogwarts, they would need to have some way of powering them, so a generator was a priority. She also was interested in the research because of her parents, but for a different reason. Apparently both her mother, a half-blood, and her father, a muggleborn, worked on the energy sector in the muggle world. She wanted to see if creating a magically powered generator was possible and if it could help her parents in their work.
During the following weeks, while they all worked on both the runic arrays and their different projects, they also learned a lot about each other. Penelope was thinking of trying to for a job at the ministry, she wanted a job on the wizarding examinations authority while pursuing a mastery in charms, she hoped that some day when professor Flitwick was ready to retire, that her mastery and her work in the WEA would help her being chosen as the next charms professor at Hogwarts.
Padma talked a lot about her childhood, she was born in Mumbai but grew up in London, and while her family still held to some of their traditions, they had also adapted quickly to their new home. She talked about how it was growing up with a twin sister, how they used to get in trouble all the time, trying to impersonate each other, they usually succeeded but sometimes the adults were able to catch them in the act. She also surprised the other when she said that before Hogwarts Parvati was the bookish one while she was a lot like Parvati was now.
Hannah didn't say much, she grew up as a typical half blood magical, her parents worked at a store on diagon alley, how her parents were friends with madam Bones and how her friendship with Susan started because of it. Susan's aunt couldn't leave her alone at home so Susan would stay with the Abbots most of the time.
Hermione talked a little more about her childhood, most of it Harry already knew but the girls still enjoyed hearing about the life of young Hermione, her problems with being the only daughter of two extremely busy dentists, how she has a table reserved for her in the local library near her house and how she always had trouble in primary school because she learned too quickly compared to the other children.
Harry also talked a little about his childhood, he didn't say much and the other girls didn't make too much of a fuss about it, but he could see that Hermione wasn't convinced with his lack of details, he just knew she might try to get him to talk more about it sometime. But even with the lack of details he still said some things, he talked about Mrs Figg, the kind neighbour who he usually stayed with whenever his relatives had to travel. He even caused the girls to laugh when he told the story of how he had a bout of accidental magic and set a snake free at the zoo.
Two weeks later they had finally managed to miniaturize the runic array and were ready to try it. It was a Saturday morning, the second day of October, the weather was still clear and somewhat warm as they walked towards the shore of the lake, they didn't want to test the array inside the castle since there was a chance for the radio to explode. As they sat down near the shore of the lake, a blanket on the floor and a basket full of food that Dobby had provided, they all enjoyed a nice meal before they started the test, they spend the their meals talking and sharing jokes, they were all quickly becoming friends instead of just work partners. After they finished their meals, Hermione picked up the radio and put it on the floor in front of her, as they all moved and sat in a circle around it.
"You think this is going to work?" Padma asked.
"There is only one way to find out." Harry responded.
He then turned his head towards his right, were Hermione was seated and nodded, smiling at her. Hermione smiled back at him and then pushed the button on the radio and the moment she did it smoke started to rise from the device. Harry looked around and saw the disappointed looks on the girls' faces, he hated seeing that look on Hermione, and the other girls were quickly becoming his friends as well so he didn't like it either. He put his arm around Hermione's shoulder, bringing her close to him and then said.
"Don't make that face. It didn't work this time, now we have to keep trying to find a way to make it work. We learn from this mistake and do better the next time and if the next time doesn't work, we will also learn a lot more about what went wrong so we can be better prepared to try a third time. We just have to keep trying, never give up." Harry said and was rewarded with the girls smiling at him. Hermione's smile making him blush as it started to happen since that comment from Dobby.
"You're right, Harry. We just have to keep trying." Hermione responded, a smile still on her face.
The six of them continued to talk for another hour, discussing what might have gone wrong and how they could correct it for the next test, by the time they decided to return to the castle, Harry was happy to see the girls smiling and joking again. Today they would have some fun, but tomorrow they would start working again, they would find were things went wrong and then correct them and in the next test, they would be successful.
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AN2: Some relationship stuff, some research stuff and a first unsuccessful experiment. But you always learn more from failure than from success.
As you all have seen in this chapter, the ROR will be really important to the story. The more one knows about what they want, the more the room will be able to provide. Knowledge shapes magic.
See you guys in the next one.
