Chapter 8: Crafting the first Spell
Autumn 1992 draped Evan Grayson's cottage in gold and crimson, the brook gurgling past as he paced the barn, now a full-fledged spellmaking lab with a chalkboard dominating one wall. At eighteen, he was elbows-deep in his first real creation: a passive shield spell, born from a world gone wild with magic. Everyone had power now, Muggles fumbling wandless sparks, wizards flexing new tricks, and animals turning feral with glowing eyes and crackling hides. Reports piled up in the Daily Prophet as a hawk in Surrey shot lightning at a postman, a boar in Wales uprooted a village with flaming tusks, and a swarm of glittering bees chased kids in York. Protection wasn't a luxury anymore, it was a need, and Evan aimed to craft a spell that slept until danger struck, then flared to save its caster.
Spellmaking demanded precision, no cauldrons or dusts, just mind and wand. He started with intent, sketching the shield's core: a barrier dormant and tied to the user's magic, waking only when an attack promised real harm. Arithmancy came first, his college brain's old friend, so he grabbed a quill and parchment to plot wand movements. The shield needed a trigger, a detection weave, so he calculated a five-point arc with two flicks up to scan for intent, a curve left to gauge force, a jab right to lock the target, and a downward sweep to activate. He filled the chalkboard with equations, balancing energy draw against reaction speed since too slow meant failure and too fast drained the caster dry. Three nights of scribbling nailed it, a tight 3.7-second window from threat to shield, efficient yet sharp, numbers aligning like a perfect equation.
Next was the incantation, Latin his backbone. He flipped through Magical Lexicon, a Hogwarts tome yellowed with age, and pieced it together: Scutum Latens, Hidden Shield. "Scutum" stood for the barrier, solid and Roman, while "Latens" captured its dormant coil, waiting unseen. He tested the words in the barn's hush, rolling them off his tongue, tweaking rhythm until they flowed crisp and commanding. The trigger needed a hook, so he added a sub-chant, Defende Me, whispered in the mind to bind it to the caster's will, Detect and Defend Me. Two days of muttering refined it, voice echoing off stone walls until it clicked, a spell that felt alive.
Execution took weeks. Evan stood before a charmed dummy, wand in hand, ash and unicorn hair humming with his magic. He traced the five-point arc, chanting Scutum Latens soft, then sharp, and lobbed a Stupefy at the dummy. A shimmer flared, then fizzled, too weak, so he recalculated the curve's angle, tightening it by 15 degrees for better focus. The second try glowed blue, a faint dome pulsing over the dummy, but it buckled under a flung book, cracking like glass. He cursed, adjusted the jab right to a sharper angle, and deepened the incantation's s to Scutum Lassstens, letting the sound resonate longer for strength. The third cast held, shimmering awake when a red bolt flew, deflecting it into the wall with a crack.
He grinned, heart pounding, and upped the stakes with Reducto from his own wand. The shield flared, blue and solid, absorbing the blast, though it flickered at the edges, marking it Tier 5, maybe 6, not higher yet. He spent October refining it, pacing the barn, snow tapping the roof outside. Each tweak sharpened it as he adjusted the upward flicks to a steeper 45-degree rise for faster detection and stretched the downward sweep into a slow arc for stability. The final cast came late one night, wand tracing the perfected arc over the dummy, Scutum Latens, Defende Me. A boar's tusk, nicked from a Hogsmeade trader reporting attacks, sailed from a charmed sling, and the shield snapped up, deflecting it with a clang that echoed through the barn.
Evan sank onto a stool, sweat-soaked but triumphant. It worked, a passive shield dormant until harm loomed, strong enough for his needs. No ingredients cluttered it, just pure Arithmancy and Latin woven tight, a creation born of numbers and will. He'd aim to push it to Tier 7 someday, but for now, it was his trump card, not for the Towers where Tier 8 meant city-wreckers and Tier 10 could split continents. This stayed private, a secret he'd share with Lila and Theo, a first step into spellmaking's wild frontier as the world begged for safety.