12. Annoying Things

After my tenth birthday, I decided to take the stone everywhere I went, as I could talk Henry into taking me to different magical communities on a search for my foci material. The foci part also needed longer than planned, as he faced difficulties with some space continuum disruptions, so I hadn't received that one yet. In this one year we visited magical communities in France, Russia, Portugal, Indonesia, Iran, China, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Africa and Italy, though we only stayed for a few days each day, only looking through as many shops, muggle and magical alike, to find my second foci material, though unsuccessful. My favorites were africa and germany. Africa for the hallowed use of parseltongue in healing and germany for its cultural differences to britain. We originally wanted to go to the USA, but time didn't allow for that, as Henry had other things scheduled.

The rock was still whole, but now you could see that it was an egg in disguise before. Which one exactly? I had no idea, but I couldn't wait for it to hatch, though it took its sweet time. A professional also had no idea about what exactly it is, but could only say that I should just have it on my person at all times, as it didn't need anything else to hatch.

In the end, we found my third foci material, which was a pocket compass, as expected. Andy had the brilliant and belated idea to ask, if anyone of our crafters had made a lightly enchanted pocket compass, which he then collected from everyone who answered him to show me. It was practically identical to the pocket watch, being styled in green and blue, though inverse to the pocket watch, as it had a green grassy animated plain in the background. Its function was naturally different too.

After that, we also went and got the last foci part, which was late by a year, as the crafter needed half a year longer and we couldn't pick it up while being out of britain, well didn't want to really, as it didn't serve any purpose, to the chagrin of the crafter. While he didn't consider it a masterpiece of his, as he didn't make most of the calculations, but just checked for mistakes, it was the epitome of perfect, exactly like I envisioned it to look like. I just needed to flood the steril room, in which it was stored with my magic, until a preliminary resonance to my magic was established. This didn't mean, that it was accepted as a real foci material, it is just a necessary step to later use it as foci part, as it shouldn't be corrupted by ambient magic. 

The crafter looked elated, after we took that: „Damn hard piece of work" out of his hands. After that, we visited one Garrick Ollivander, as while not his speciality, he still knew how to fuse together a foci part and two foci materials to make a custom foci . This is, as I learnt, done through a very complex triangular array, which I needed to power with my own magic. After that, the foci components started rotating around themself with a slowly accelerating speed, until they crashed into each other, after which they turned into dust, before rearranging into the final foci. Mr. Garrick titled it as: „An abomination which should never be considered as a foci!", while I couldn't be happier.

The end result was a sleek black staff, with a 2D design of a rosebush, which could also expand to be 3D and so much more. Every function I had envisioned was still applicable and through the foci's bond, which was completely different to the one from my second skin, I could maybe even control the wards, its storage and everything else I had envisioned. The only thing which didn't work out perfectly was the array carver, as it just didn't want to work the way I wanted it to, though it may be salvageable in the future. The idea with the wards also worked out perfectly in the end. I already tested it.

Only downside was that it was unpleasant to the touch, which also swiftly vanished, after my second skin thought itself funny to torture me with exactly that for the next two months, after which I didn't like that feeling any more than before, but the staff felt more neutral to the touch. We originally also wanted to buy my wand, was I was eleven years old now, but Garrick shot that down very quickly, as he explained that one shouldn't bond with more than one foci per year, in ones youth and per decade after the maturity of the core at the age of seventeen, though having multiple foci was very rare in this age. While saying goodbye, he also added: „While I don't appreciate the functioning of your staff in any way, it was a nice experience and I will extend and open offer for my services, if you need them again. It was a pleasure crafting a staff after that long, the last was Mad-Eyes staff a few years prior, which was equally interesting. Until next year."

While it was kind of troublesome to explain this to the ministry and hogwarts administration, it didn't bring any repercussions, though I was on most radars now, as having a staff as foci was quite uncommon around here. This is also why I decided to take my mastery in the mind arts in that exact gap year, to be specific in its MACUSA branch, which weirdly enough happened within the next month without any hitch and according to the committee's speaker, I was way overqualified for it, which they attributed to Henry's approach to teaching, which sent him into a frenzy over the falling standards and the plebs who decided it was a good idea for the rest of that month. I learned a few new insults through that too. We also visited Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though we could only watch from afar, and it looked damn impressive and also pretty modern, while I could only start salivating at the feeling of its wards, which were a piece of art and also sentient, which is on the level of creating an independent soul. Whoever did that is a grandmaster in warding and multiple other subjects.

For the rest of the year, I continued with upping the ante of my second skin, finally achieving a continuous activation of the nightmare mode, which changed from its initial 100.000 at nightmare mode to 200.000 times amplification, which just showed how damn effective the training was. I also somehow increased my magics purity by another 2%, seemingly having used the pure and dense mana from my seventh birthday for something as well.

Also, finally, after coming back from the trip, the egg I had on me the whole time, hatched, starting with a small crack, followed by a creature bursting out of it and eating its shell in a frenzy, before falling into a deep sleep. I was now an owner of a small baby turtle, which had five differently colored heads, which it somehow stored in its shell. It didn't yet and hopefully never will have five personalities though, as I resolved myself to teach my little turtle occlumency, as I realized he had a talent for that, well he probably had a broader talent for everything defense related, but still, it should be possible. The other obvious thing about the little turtle was, that it had a shell with currently six pentagons, on which it had implanted the 5 stones from the eggs surface with a space for a possible sixth one. Or probably even more, if its personal talent is to integrate them into his shell.

A small mosaic turtle, I like that, and so, much to the chagrin of Henry and Andy, who wanted to stop me, I now had a little pet turtle named Mosaic, which was female btw. I also needed to acquire a portable aquarium, as Mosaic couldn't stand to not be in the water, though as I learned a little later, as I read it in a book about turtles, it was just an inborn instinct to crawl to the nearest waterbody, to get away from predators. I decided to keep it though, as it still liked its own aquarium a lot. I also put another gem, to be exact an amber, into the sixth slot on Mosaic's shell, which now gets absorbed slowly and is no longer removable. Apparently I didn't need a blood crystal as fifth stone, but just any stone or gem I found out at that moment. Anyway, I now had my very own familiar.

— Observer POV —

What Clara didn't know, is that at the bottom of the pacific ocean there lay a small little parcel, addressed to one Clara Ali Ollivander, holding the last missing gem, also being an amber one, with instructions of what to do with it. The delivery owl was just sadly hit by an airplane, which will be an increasingly big problem in the near future.