Chapter 171: Flitwick's Progress
In a dim and gloomy space.
With no light entering, it was illuminated only by a few inlaid, glowing moonstones. One could just barely make out winding patterns on the floor and various components scattered about—some hardware, some wetware. Three of the space's walls were rough stone, but the fourth side gleamed with a metallic luster.
Suddenly, the patterns on the floor flared brightly, illuminating the entire space. Only then was its true vastness revealed, like a sprawling city-state, silent and lost to history.
The light came quickly and faded just as fast. In the fleeting afterglow, countless human figures seemed to materialize.
"Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six... a surprise, isn't it?"
"Query: You already ran the calculations. The final result was within the expected parameters. Where is the surprise?"
"This is why you don't understand the human heart."
Hogwarts.
"Today's intel is... Dumbledore choked on a piece of cake right as he ran out of water."
Ryan, just waking up, buried his face in his hands. This "intel" system was even worse than prophecy. It had absolutely no logic.
Since no major incidents were pending, Ryan settled into a routine, his life a straight line between three points: the Adventurers' Club, the Room of Requirement, and the kitchens. He was researching the Magi-Alloy wand, exploring the essence of magic, and trying to break through the final barrier to becoming a Grand Sorcerer.
And... entertaining a few wild ideas.
He brought Doro with him, studying the Hogwarts Castle authority she had been granted, as well as the deeper applications of his Mana Beads.
Besides fulfilling his own ambitions, he had another reason for studying the castle's authority. Lately, his magical experiments had begun to suffer from minor, unexpected accidents, causing his once-perfect tests to fail.
The curse Voldemort had placed on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position was taking effect. It started with trivial little things, making a wizard's life difficult, until finally, all the misfortune would erupt at once. Even though Voldemort was now essentially Harry's personal power-up, the curse he had cast using his authority as Slytherin's heir had not faded with his downfall.
Two paths lay before Ryan.
One was to reach the level of a Grand Sorcerer through sheer power and just tank the curse. In most eras, a Grand Sorcerer was the pinnacle of wizardry; Legendary wizards were the stuff of myth. In the thousands of years of magical history, the number of truly Legendary wizards could be counted on both hands and feet. Voldemort was a legend, true, but the curse was cast with the authority of Slytherin's heir, not by Slytherin himself. Therefore, the curse's power was capped at the Grand Sorcerer level. Voldemort also couldn't use his own power to strengthen the curse, because his magic was "foreign" to Hogwarts and would only weaken it.
The other path was to study the authority Dumbledore had granted Doro and thereby gain the same authority for himself. Using an "admin" against another "admin"—that was a fair fight. With equal authority, a curse cast by a fragmented Voldemort was no match for Ryan at his peak.
"Children make choices. Adults take both."
During the hunt for Voldemort, Nicolas Flamel had used alchemy to tap into Hogwarts's authority, allowing Ryan to experience the castle's thousand-year-old, qualitatively changed magic. In that moment, he'd clearly felt Voldemort's curse dissipate. But after the hunt, his access was gone, and the nightmare of every DADA professor returned.
"In the end, Voldemort's curse just used his authority to leverage the castle's own magic to make it work," Ryan mused. "In other words, no matter what kind of magic, it needs a magical foundation to function. It's just like how a young wizard using an Unforgivable Curse on an adult would, at most, just cause a nosebleed."
"So, even Dumbledore's 'magic of love' is, at best, using emotion as an amplifier for magic, allowing it to achieve unexpected effects."
"But... emotion and magical amplification..."
He thought of the staff. Professor McGonagall was strict, smart, and brave. Professor Snape was reserved and gloomy, but possessed fiercely intense emotions. Professor Flitwick was calm, wise, and humorous. Professor Sprout was kind and empathetic, but had firm convictions and a deep love for her students. And the "Senior Supergroup" was even more so—Dumbledore and Gellert were overflowing with emotion. Professor Flamel and his wife were still as devoted as the day they met, even after six hundred years. What intense emotion!
Thinking about his own life, Ryan felt that "emotion-based magic" might be his weakest link. Whether love or hate, he had never experienced such extreme emotions. He had felt the joy required for a Patronus Charm, but that wasn't the kind of externally projectable emotion. The kind of emotion that could be released as magic was the protection Mrs. Evans put on Harry, or the malicious curses Voldemort cast.
"Perhaps I should consult Professor Flitwick," Ryan thought. "He's a Ravenclaw too. I can ask him how a Ravenclaw can bypass the 'intense emotion' part and just analyze the pure essence of emotion-magic."
Feeling he lacked such intense emotions, Ryan looked for a shortcut.
He contacted the professor via his Communicator, asking if he was at Hogwarts. A long time later, Flitwick replied. He'd been busy with his thirty-eighth magical simulation of nuclear fission and hadn't seen the message. He told Ryan to come straight to his office.
Simulating nuclear fission... Ryan saw the reply and felt Professor Flitwick's tiny stature seemed immense. He was carrying the future of the wizarding world's military-industrial complex on his shoulders.
He also felt that Hogwarts Castle was suddenly not very safe.
Ryan went to the Charms office. His very first words were a suggestion that the professor conduct such experiments in the Forbidden Forest in the future.
"No need to worry," Flitwick said, knowing exactly what Ryan was worried about. He was worried too, which was why he hadn't included any raw materials in the simulation. "In my spare time, I've been researching the Muggles' theories on nuclear weapons. I've found many of their concepts are different from ours. Simply replacing their physical materials with magic doesn't yield much progress."
As he spoke, Flitwick conjured a complex diagram in the air. "To be honest," he said, "if I just used an Undetectable Extension Charm to store some raw materials, I could already build and detonate a small nuclear weapon on the spot."
Ah!
Ryan's eyes went wide.
~~~
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