Chapter 24: By Hand and by Will

Even at the very beginning of creating my protective artifact, I realized I'd bitten off more than I could chew. Sure, I knew the ethereal and steel shields, but the rest? I still had to master them from scratch.

That's when my anti-talent for inventing new Sumerian spells reared its head in full force. And I'm not even talking about the difference between casting a spell and embedding it into an artifact — those are two completely different beasts.

On top of that, I couldn't forget about the other facets of my abilities: mind magic, yoga, metamorphism. Speaking of the latter…

"Where are you taking us?" Patrick asked, walking beside Apolline and swatting away Pixie, who was busy doodling with her tiny quill. "And tell your fairy to stop drawing on everything already."

"You still can't get over that time you walked around with 'Little Wolf' written on your forehead? Come on, she's just a kid. She marked me too," I grinned, and Apolline burst out laughing.

"But you knew about it! I thought she was just being affectionate, and I ended up a laughingstock. You've spoiled your little troublemaker!" The fairy in question stuck out her tongue and flew over to me, perching on my shoulder as usual.

Over the past six months, she'd grown another five centimeters and then stopped, but her appetite for prana and mana hadn't lessened — if anything, it had increased.

"Come on, how can you be mad at this cutie? Am I right?" I stroked Pixie. In response, she held up her tiny notebook, on which "Yes" was scrawled in wobbly letters. She was still far from complex sentences, but she could answer consciously now.

"What's this?" She flipped to another page and pointed at a small bush.

"That's black elderberry. You can only eat the berries when they're ripe, but they're sour," I answered, and sent her a mental image and a note in my own notebook. Pixie had recently entered the "why" stage and was now asking about everything herself.

"How did you even manage to teach her to write?" Apolline asked.

"I pointed at objects, said their names, and wrote them down on paper," I replied, waving my notebook — carefully omitting the mind magic part.

"No, that's not what I mean," she shook her head. "How did you even think of it?"

"What's so special? Fairies are intelligent, they just can't speak. You didn't learn to speak French right away either — your mom taught you. Same here."

"So you're Pixie's mom?" Patrick laughed.

"No, Papa!" the fairy wrote, her letters crooked, and all three of us burst out laughing while Pixie pouted adorably.

"Don't be offended," I soothed her, and, seeing our destination — a small hill — I stopped. "Here we are!"

"And what's this? Some kind of mound?" Patrick asked skeptically.

"You're a wizard. Aren't you used to the fact that not everything in the magical world is what it seems?" I pointed my wand at what looked like a thorny bush, said "Finite," and it dissolved, revealing a dark cave entrance.

"Illusion magic? How didn't I guess?" Apolline said, half to herself.

"Well? Shall we go?" I called, lighting my wand with a "Lumos." My friends followed, lighting their own wands and trying not to stumble.

Too bad I couldn't see their faces — we were walking down comfortable steps with handrails. I didn't forget to cast more illusion spells behind us, just in case.

The next obstacle was a steel door — or rather, a titanium alloy. Turns out, modern wizards know almost all elements, except maybe the newest ones discovered in the last thirty years. There's still some inertia in the magical world.

And spells that turn anything into pure titanium aren't a secret. The only issue is that pure titanium is brittle, but there are metal-mixing spells, and mixing it with aluminum or molybdenum isn't hard — as long as you follow the proportions from any Muggle reference book.

Honestly, this was just a side effect of my research into the best material for my bracelets. But why not use it? It was good training, too.

I approached, tapped out a code only I knew, and opened the heavy door inward. It was almost half a meter thick. Inside, magical lights flickered on, illuminating a huge dome of the same alloy.

"What is this?" Apolline asked in amazement, while Pixie lifted her nose proudly. Of course — she'd been with me when I built all this.

"My shelter. It's where I usually train," I explained. I needed a place to practice Sumerian magic.

"And you did all this just for that? Alone?" Patrick was stunned. No wonder — at its highest point, the dome was ten meters tall and fifty meters in radius.

"Household spells work miracles. Or, more precisely — construction spells. When I found this cave, I just wanted to tidy it up. Then I got carried away," I laughed, a little embarrassed.

After removing stalactites and stalagmites, compacting and leveling the walls, floor, and ceiling, I gave them a dome shape. Then I tried ersatz-permanent transfiguration: after transforming and strengthening, you carve a stabilization rune, and over time, the object becomes real, not temporary.

I gathered blocks, glued them with permanent sticking charms, and welded them together. The result was a monolith you could hide from an atomic explosion in. I hadn't done much else — I was afraid my knowledge wasn't enough for further strengthening and isolation.

The only other thing I did was install ventilation pipes leading outside. Some pump air in, some pump it out, so you don't suffocate.

"Yeah, you really got carried away. Why didn't you tell us about this place before?"

"Because I only just finished. So, are we going to train or not?" I spread my black wings — just wings, no feathers all over my body or beak. I also changed my eye color to brown and became a brunette.

"Wow, so that's your form? You look like an angel!" Apolline was amazed. Not for nothing had I trained metamorphism so long and kept my form secret. Now there'd be fewer questions — no one had ever seen a male veela, after all.

"Some kind of fallen angel," I replied.

"Finally decided to fight at full strength!" Patrick grinned, showing his elongated fangs.

And then we started training, just like in the old days. Apolline showered me with fire, Patrick tried to hit me — sometimes he managed, though it didn't do much harm. I still wasn't a master at flying. I needed to learn.

Controlling six limbs would be impossible without the veela's instinctive understanding. When they took up wands, dodging became even harder.

I could have activated ethereal armor — I always kept it in memory, along with the others — but that would be unsporting. Doppelgangers had the same skill as me, so they helped polish technique. But real people are more cunning, more creative, and know how to work as a team. The fight with these "weaker" opponents proved it.

"Stop, stop! You did great!" I let them win a little at the end, just to please them.

"Vive la victoire!" Apolline cheered, and Patrick joined in.

"True, your spell set is small. You only overwhelmed me because I still can't fly well," I teased.

"Yeah, make excuses now," Apolline stuck out her tongue. "What do you want? We're studying and training with you, and you make us learn spells, you meanie!"

"But look how much stronger you've become! Even upperclassmen can't hold a candle to you."

"Why do we need this strength? Are we aurors?"

"Alright, will you come tomorrow?" I waved off the old argument. If they didn't want to, I wouldn't force them.

"No, tomorrow I'm going to Sangleur with my girlfriends," Apolline said. Sangleur was the nearest magical village, where third-years and up could go with parental permission. There were a few shops, a prank store, and a couple of cafés — one for kids, one for older students.

"And you?" I turned to Patrick.

"I can't either, sorry. I have Quidditch practice," he said. What was it with everyone and that sport? Even the wolf hadn't escaped — he was now a keeper on the mixed team, the Dragonflies.

"Let's go for a walk instead," Apolline suggested. "There are already rumors about you."

"What kind?" I asked, curious.

"That you're an old dark wizard who possessed a child's body and forces him to study and train. Come on, let's go!" And they dragged me out.

I don't deny you need to rest, but not all the time! Before, I didn't even have to say anything — we'd just go and train. Now they'd gotten lazy, and I had to drag them, persuade them.

Lately, I've wanted to just let them live as they want. If they don't like studying, fine — they already surpass their peers. Maybe they'll come to their senses later. For now, I went for a walk by myself, my head buzzing from calculations for another artifact.

***

The next day, I was in my "bunker" alone. It was far enough from Beauxbatons, and hidden behind a rock, so it was impossible to spot.

Today was yoga training — and honestly, I was nervous. I'd already learned to inhabit Pixie and feel everything as if I were her. Thanks to that, I understood how to teach her better. Trees and even stones were no longer obstacles for me.

Now it was fire's turn.

I built a small fire, tossed in floo powder, cranked the ventilation to maximum, and began to meditate. I didn't call Ariel — last time, she couldn't help, and I was afraid she'd get hurt.

Why take the risk? Because I'd hit a wall. My fire control was growing at a snail's pace. Sure, in forty years I'd reach mastery, but who says I have that much time?

Again, I felt myself as fire, but this time, I sensed a blurred boundary. Cross it, and I'd lose myself. So I balanced on a knife's edge, not losing my sense of self, trying to know the spirit of flame.

It started to pull me in again, and with great effort, I broke free — and was stunned. Good thing I'd undressed beforehand, because instead of a small fire, the alloy was burning, the air was burning, and it seemed like space itself was warping under tongues of green flame.

But once the fuel was gone, it died out quickly, leaving a shallow, white-hot crater in the center of the bunker and red-hot air all around. I started to burn, and I entered meditation again.

Now I understood how yogis gain invulnerability to physical phenomena — they understand them, temper themselves in them! By all rights, I should have been a roasted piece of meat, but no — I was sitting on red-hot metal and didn't care, though my mana was draining fast.

This was yoga.

After that, I began to understand what this mysterious discipline really was. It didn't give me a sudden leap in strength, but I stopped being a blind kitten who only knows how to meditate on everything.

I could only see my future path vaguely, but I saw it. Take physical enhancement, for example — my coefficient had been stuck at fourfold for ages. It turned out, all I needed was to create unbearable conditions for myself. I'd cast "Pondus" on myself — a spell that makes anything heavier, and you can stack it, like "Engorgio." And progress began.

It turned out that it's not enough to understand yourself and others — you also need to put yourself through extreme, risky trials. Interestingly, my progress in metamorphism also sped up, because as I tried not to get seriously hurt, I rebuilt myself with that discipline, often unconsciously.

***

The last Quidditch match of the year — April 17, 1972.

Petit and Patrick sat next to me as we watched a bludger knock another chaser off his broom. He tumbled down, and right before hitting the ground… froze. Then he landed softly, dusted himself off, and went to look for his broom as if nothing had happened.

"Ever since you and your mom invented those safety bracelets, it's gotten boring to watch!" Petit complained.

"How bloodthirsty you are," I replied. "But people suffer less now."

"I agree," said my neighbor, who gets hairy during full moons. "You wouldn't believe how many people they can't save when they fall from brooms. Broken arms and legs are fine — they heal in minutes, if not seconds. But if you break your neck? And if it happens far away, in the wild?"

"Exactly. Listen to the smart one," I agreed.

"Though it really is less interesting to watch now," — and you too, Brutus?

"Hey, are you for me or for him?" I protested. At that moment, Pixie wrote on her paper: "I'm for you."

"See?" I threw up my hands, stroking the fairy. "Everyone's betrayed me. Only you are on my side."

"Enough, clown. Let's watch the match," Petit said, trying not to laugh, and we turned back to the game.

This time, I wasn't training telekinesis. Instead, I watched with pride as bracelets gleamed on the hands and brooms of every Quidditch player. The development of my protective artifact had been slow, but one day, after seeing a player flying head-down — the coach barely caught him with "Arresto Momentum" — I got the idea to create an artifact that would cushion a fall if a player fell from their broom.

Said and done. I went to Ariel — she loved the idea — and we dove into calculations, experiments, and error correction. I don't know why we chose bracelets again. Maybe because it's easier to inscribe runes on them, or maybe we were just used to it. But that's how it went.

In the end, we made two rings — one smaller, one larger. The smaller one goes on the broom and is powered by it, the larger one goes on the hand. They act as receiver and transmitter, connected by Protean charms, so they can't get mixed up with another broom.

When the distance between them exceeds three meters, the bracelet on the hand activates, and the person lands as if on a soft pillow, unharmed.

First, I tested it on my doppelgangers, then on paid volunteers. After a series of successful tests, we started selling it.

The professional league was still only considering buying our artifacts — after all, spectacle is often more important to them than player safety — but concerned parents bought them by the hundreds.

Even most kids didn't complain. Before, they could only fly under adult supervision. Now, you put on a bracelet and fly. Of course, there were some like Petit, who want to see people turn into bloody chunks and writhe in pain. But we won't listen to them, right?

The money didn't interest me much, though the income — especially at first — was considerable. Much more important was the experience of creating artifacts and the reputation. No one would be surprised that the son of a famous artificer, who helped his mother create them, became an artificer himself at such a young age.

That would mean fewer questions and more trust in me.

***

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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!