I almost stumbled when Paddy and I appeared in the middle of my workshop, but I managed to catch myself before I made an ass of myself in front of the help. I have my dignity after all. I have it here somewhere, possibly in the potions lab. But its definately here somewhere. "Well, that went well, wouldn't you say Paddy?"
"I'm sure the gentlemen will be suitably impressed by your performance, sir." My house-elf told me agreeably. "I trust your rings worked as you expected them to, sir?"
"Yeah," I confirmed and held up my right hand to inspect the rings there. They were nothing fancy, three unadorned rings made of ordinary steel I'd sourced from some cutlery I'd found in the Room of Requierment. They sat on my four, middle and ringfingers on my left hand. Indistinguishable from one another unless you took them off. They weren't anything impressive as far as effects go either. The first was just made to generate a three-stage illusion around my eyes, with the first stage making my pupils glow a bright bluish-white. The second ring made the air around me glow at varying intensities and the final one generated a weak electric field in a ten feet radius around me. It didn't do much beyond making your hair stand on end.
All three of them were meant to either generate an involuntary fear response or cause hesitation. Humans, and a lot of other animals, have evolved to focus heavily on one another's eyes and faces, so seeing someone's eyes glow was disconcerting, even frightening, to many, similarly having the hair on the back of your neck stand on end caused an involuntary response in your body; you would become a bit afraid without really knowing why. It's a strange but useful tidbit of information. I'd enchanted the rings to take advantage of this physiological weakness and judging by the result just now they worked like a charm. Ho Ho, magic joke! Anyway, once I got them doubting themselves I'd just cast a wandless and very overpowered light charm followed by a simple wandless banishing charm before I called Paddy to come to get me. Nice and easy, and it would probably leave an impression on those lackwits. After all, nothing was scarier than a mystery. I'd just seemingly done something very spectacular that looked far more impressive and powerful then it had been. I doubted it would head them off entirely, but I'd at least bought myself a few days. It would be enough for me to plan my defense, should I need one.
I would probebly need one by the way my luck was going lately. I sighed to myself. Had I walked under some ladders? Maurice did look like a black cat, but he could hardly count, he wasn't a real cat. Maybe I'd accidently broken a mirror when I was tearing about in the Room of Hidden Things – god knows I'd have to have done something to deserve this new streak of bad luck. Things had been going so well to. Four years I'd been able to keep under the radar only to apparently be undone by a fifteen year old girl looking for a boytoy. There was a joke in there somewhere, probably at my personal expense.
I rubbed my thumb over my first ring. It was the one I was most proud of, strangely enough. Illusionism, I would say that it wasn't a school of magic that was practiced widely by the wizarding world at large, but that would suggest that there was such a school in the first place. There wasn't even anything called Illusionism in the wizarding world, I just used a muggle term to describe this little area of my studies. The reason for that was simple; wizards didn't have much use for illusions. Why would they when they had a ridiculously robust transfiguration school that could do pretty much everything Illusionism could lay claim to just as well, and have it be real to boot. Hard to beat that, no?
Not to say that some wizards hadn't tried to find some use for it in the past, or I should say, witches, I suppose, as they tried do develop illusions to enhance their beauty. It didn't work of course. Illusions aren't any good at seamlessly cover a moving object. The Disillusionment charm was a good example of a standard illusion charm, showing both its strengths and weaknesses, and it was the most widely used illusion charm in the wizarding world to boot. It will grant the caster invisibility on par with that of an invisibility cloak, provided you don't move too much, or too fast. If you do then you get what I like to call the "Predator" effect. There had been attempts to deal with the issue, but thus far no one had actually succeeded. No one had even come close as far as I could tell.
Obviously, faced with this seemingly insurmountable problem, and being only able to expect a fairly modest return on their efforts the wizarding world had moved on and spells dealing with illusion had fallen entirely out of use in favor of the far more practical transfiguration spells. Like it often is with the wizarding world, I found this to be tremendously shortsighted, and like any marginally smart person, I, of course, decided to capitalize on it. After all, any tool that your opponent didn't have was an advantage for you.
It also fits rather nicely in with one of my personal ethe; nothing is ever as it seems, everything is an illusion. A bit grim, but something I thought was true. Life was theater, and everyone played a role, putting on airs and trying to project the image of the person they wanted to appear as rather than who they really were. Polite fiction, one might say. Stranger still was that everyone judged on appearances alone, and did so immediately upon seeing something for the first time. Twenty seconds or so is what you get, that's the window for an easy good impression. After that, it gets really hard to change someone's opinion in relation to yourself. That can be truly harsh if you're having a bad day and meet someone new.
If one is smart, that can be a powerful tool to be used agains people. Not a very nice tool, it has to be said. Some might even think it ever so slightly amoral to use someone's innocent biases against them like a weapon. I did say it wasn't very nice. But, it can be quite potent if used correctly.
The people of the wizarding world were no different in that regard. Something that truly boggled the mind, I'd have to say. In a world that is so fluid, and that could change at the wave of a wand, people were remarkably willing to take things at face value. I'm surprised that there aren't more deaths due to witless wizards wandering into mortal danger without a care in the world.
I walked over and threw myself into one of the mismatched armchairs that decorated the upper floor and leaned back and stared up at the arched ceiling above. Things would be changing now, I knew that. Before now it was just Felicitania that knew something about my unique situation out of the current student body. I don't know if the headmaster spread that little tidbit around to the adults since none of 'em has made an issue of it and I haven't done anything to warrant any negative attention, or positive one for that matter. I hazard to guess that he must have said something since they have never awarded me any points or paid much attention to me beyond asking the occasional question during class. But now that piece of information was making the rounds in a big way. How far it had gone I didn't know, but it was best to assume that the whole school knew at this point.
There would be other incidents to come I had no doubt.
It was clear to me that I needed to get ahead of this. If I didn't the students would become a constant pain in my ass.
Before now my anonymity had served to shield me from them. I was a nobody; I didn't stand out in any way, besides how much I didn't stand out, and was therefore beneath anyone's notice. That would not work anymore. It was, in fact, a danger to me at this point. A nobody didn't have the kind of privileges that I had, that just wasn't done. That was unfair. Unfairness made people angry. And angry people wanted a target to express that anger on. And that would be me. I was suddenly like a former police man suddenly faced with prison time amongst the very people he had formerly put away. Not an ideal situation. And one liable to get me hexed ten ways from Sunday.
I could go to the faculty. But that wouldn't work any better than in a regular school when dealing with bullies. The teachers couldn't be everywhere. Even worse, the old man might get it into his head to have me sorted into a house, it would be just the sort of thing that he would get excited about! No way that wasn't gonna blow up in the worst way possible, which is to say, all over me!
No, I was on my own. I had to solve this myself. And the only way out was to become deserving in the eyes of the students. And that meant I needed to put on a show. What thought? I had several avenues, several old projects that might do the trick. My eyes tracked over the floor below as I thought it through until the stopped on my leatherworking section, and the manikin that rested there.
Hmm, that might work. It was done. And it worked. I'd even tested it a bit around the room. I'd been hesitant to take it outside because of the attention it was likely to garner if I did. But right now that was precisely what I needed. I'd have to make some additions though. I needed to make a cape and enchant it – and a helmet of course. It would have to be quick and dirty for me to get it ready for tomorrow. If the weather held then it would be another sunny day and that meant that the jocks would be out in force on the pitch. Acceptable targets!
Yes... it would be perfect...
I'd have to make another ring to. If I was to do this I'd do it right and proper.
"Paddy! Get me some steel from the Room, I need to make another ring. And find something large made of brass while you are at it. Just make sure it's not enchanted. I don't need any more explosions today." I called out as I moved over to the leatherworking station and started to sort through the larger pieces of leather for something that would be useful for a cloak. I'd need to find one of the thinner pieces for it to look right.
"One would think you'd be used to it by now sir, considering how frequently you cause them." Paddy noted as he appeared on the desk beside me holding a fork and some sort of instrument.
"I never do that intentionally." I groused.
"As you say, sir." Paddy drawled.
"I'm starting to regret teaching you to sass." I grumbled.
Paddy gave me a self-assured look. "No you don't."
"No I don't" I agreed, feeling a bit better about this whole thing. Paddy always could be counted on to lift my spirits with a bit of harmless banter.