After draining the accumulators and leaving Dorothea with a quarter of her reserve, we managed to create twenty of my doppelgangers. Unlike me, they could cast spells freely — since, essentially, they had no souls. Once we made the portkeys, each of them went about their business.
Three ran off to rummage through Muggle shops — basic goods were cheaper there, and I had plenty of dollars anyway. Another three headed to the magical markets of France. Flower Alley wasn't the only place to buy necessities — there were other districts too. In fact, the Alley mostly dealt in retail, but for wholesale, you had to negotiate with suppliers. Thanks to Black, I knew such people, and they knew me as his student, so they wouldn't ask unnecessary questions.
The seventh doppelganger went to collect branches from my apple tree and other magical and semi-magical plants I knew in the forest, stuffing them into a bag with expanded space for grafting and planting. The rest, along with the suitcase, used portkeys to reach the matrix collection sites.
Jumping ahead, I'll say that Black is quite the cunning fox — he chose specifically magical places. Yes, it would be a while before the world inside the suitcase gained enough reality to actually materialize magical plants or, especially, animals. But you could see the long-term planning. These thirteen — oh, how I love that number — doppelgangers were supposed to collect trees, soil, turf, catch animals, useful insects, and even just water to create "materialization points."
If you put it in scientific terms, you can pump as much magical energy as you want into a bubble, but without materialization points, the process won't start. The more real things you bring in, the faster the process begins. But you don't need too much — about an acre of land and everything on it is enough. This was all described in the diagrams, and it was good that I'd gone through them before doing anything.
I packed toiletries, the potions I still needed, clothes, and bedding — the "anteroom" in the form of a house was absolutely real, and even the water there materialized, was supplied, and heated. Still, I wasn't planning to cut myself off from the world completely, so I didn't go overboard.
***
"Son, are you going somewhere?" I was caught red-handed, climbing into the suitcase with a pile of linens. I'd had to summon it, along with the doppelgangers, to carry everything I'd gathered. Dorothea and the clones froze behind me. It must have looked pretty funny.
Ugh, how hard it is without magic and my enhanced perception — and I couldn't even use metamorphosis, since I hadn't fixed the changes. I always thought I'd soon find a way to improve my body even more.
After all, it's better not to decide anything here by brute force, though so far the werewolf body, crossed with the improved fire magic conductivity of a harpy, is leading. I know those two forms best, and by using their advantages, I can fix them in my main body. Of course, I could redo everything later, but I'd rather not. And I'm still growing, so everything's complicated.
Although I'm also interested in a nymph's structure — so I'm waiting for Dorothea to grow stronger and be able to transform into one, so I can take the matrix.
"I'm going into the suitcase, so what?" I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"I can see that," Ariel sighed, rubbing her face tiredly. "Why are you going into the suitcase?"
"To live in it," Ludwig was already openly laughing into his hand behind his wife's back, giving me a thumbs up.
Ugh, the first forty years of a man's childhood are the hardest. Ludwig, why are you laughing? Say something already.
"Maybe I want to go into the suitcase too?" Ludwig asked, and then couldn't hold back — he burst out laughing. Dorothea and I couldn't help it either. Although the nymph probably only understood the joke because I was transmitting my thoughts and feelings to her.
"Oh, boys. Well, show me what you and Mr. Black have come up with now," she sighed heavily.
***
Thirty minutes later.
Ariel was half-lying in a lounge chair she'd conjured, sipping some non-alcoholic cocktail on the beach. If you didn't look with true sight, everything seemed real — especially now, as my doppelgangers were dragging piles of sand, palm trees, crabs, birds, plants, and other wildlife with levitation. They'd already poured in water, simply by submerging the half-open portal in the ocean.
Ludwig stayed home to tell Black, when he returned, where I was and what we were doing. Dorothea went back to her own thing and started growing palm trees. She also loved drawing and reading — especially fairy tales about nymphs — but her love for plants was indestructible. And since her influence on the surrounding space was purely positive, I didn't interfere. It even seemed to me that her mere presence made the world seem... more real? Or maybe it just felt that way to me.
I'd already told Mother about Black's gift and our idea. Not about devouring salamanders, but about accelerated recovery. She approved, but gave me a very sideways look.
"What, Mom, can you only watch fire, water, and working people forever?"
"Can't a pregnant woman be a little capricious? We haven't been to the sea in a long time — especially a tropical one where there's no one but us."
"A pregnant woman's word is law," I smiled. "How are the little ones, not kicking yet?"
"They've started a little, but you still need to catch that moment." Mom smiled at me, then immediately became more serious. "Arthur, tell me honestly — why are you going to England? I don't believe Black gave you such an expensive gift just like that. It costs more than an ancestral manor."
"I can't tell you, Mom. It's not my secret. I can only say it was my voluntary decision — no one forced me, and I won't do anything illegal. No one's even forcing me to risk my life. I just need to save someone, and that's all. You know I'm strong, and if I can't handle it, I'll be able to retreat," I tried to reassure her.
I could have said that she'd have the twins and her husband in any case, but I can't say that to her. That would be truly inhumane. Especially since I have no right to die — because Dorothea wouldn't outlive me. And if she did, you couldn't call that living. No one had ever seen nymphs being born, but they'd seen their deaths — especially when their native trees were cut down. Nymphs died in agony for hours, withering before everyone's eyes and begging to be killed.
"You're growing up too fast, son," she stroked my cheek, then raised her hand and grabbed my ear. "But that doesn't stop me from boxing your ears!"
***
"I gathered potions for a month ahead here, salamanders, and various useful plants," Black told me when we returned home, handing over his bag with invisible expansion. "Arthur, why are your ears so red?"
"Well, uh," Ariel's small hand landed on my shoulder, clenched like a bulldog's. Damn, pregnant veela scare me. Maybe it's just that she had no experience raising children before and was afraid to hurt me with punishment. The only son then, and a reminder of her beloved. Ugh, sorry, little sisters — it seems I spoiled your mom with my disobedience. "Just, unimportant. Probably slept on them wrong."
"Really?" He glanced skeptically at Ariel, and she gave him a sweet smile. "You're probably right. When will you leave?"
"Tomorrow, probably. Today my doppelgangers will finish gathering what's needed, and there's no point sitting there yet." Mom really wanted to see the world in the suitcase, and Ludwig was already peeking in there like a curious child. Even for the magical world, such huge spaces in a bag are unusual. "Uncle Ludwig, well, what are you looking at — come in already. Twenty minutes won't make a difference."
"Really okay?" he asked, hesitating.
"Really, really, go ahead," I waved my hand, having long given permission for his passage. Identification went by aura. I also showed Mother the leaf and gave her a copy of the portkey to that bunker in Norway — so that in case of force majeure, if for some reason the exit was damaged, they could restore it. I also gave instructions for such a case, though I said it was unlikely.
Black is no less paranoid than me and set up so many layers of protection, insurance, and duplication that it's astonishing. Most likely, he took so long because creating a bubble is relatively simple if you follow instructions — but making it stable and hard to destroy, both from inside and outside, is much more complex. The more stable and real the bubble space becomes, the harder it will be to destroy the channel connecting it to our universe.
"Phineas, may I have a private word with you?" Ariel asked in a tone that brooked no delay.
"Of course, Ariel, of course," Black followed her. Oh, he doesn't know yet that the veela has awakened in my mother. I hope she doesn't box his ears — that would be undignified.
I didn't hear what they talked about, but the teacher came back looking quite gloomy and... scared. I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't learned to read him pretty well. When he came to talk about the Dark Lord and accelerating his request, it was the same.
"Your mother... knows how to persuade," he said.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I had to give another magical oath — that if you're seriously hurt or die, then I'll die," he sighed, and I was horrified inside. What did she say to him?
"Huh?"
"No, I didn't tell her about your assignment, and she didn't ask. She said that every person can have secrets, and she's grateful to me for everything I've done for you — but she's a mother, and all that matters to her is that her son is alive and healthy. She's within her rights, Arthur. I would have done the same in her place," he told me.
Well, thanks — now two people depend on my life, and in the literal sense. "As you understand, my life is dear to me too, so in the last month you'll be training with a battle magic master — Richard von Meyer."
"Where do you get so much money for me? First the house, now courses with a master?"
"I won't need money," he nodded to me, and I understood that he'd decided to perform that very ritual. Still, this wouldn't remove the oath from his soul, since it's hung by the mage himself, and you can't deceive yourself. And if I do die — somewhere, an infant will die or a miscarriage will happen. So he won't act immediately. "If I die, everything will go to the Blacks as the nearest relatives. Bequeathing to you... that would only add problems for you. Besides, money is nothing — dust. What matters is how you use it."
"Agreed." I've always had the same attitude toward money. Better to invest it in yourself or some goal — money is here today and gone tomorrow, but skills, memories, achievements remain. Though I never went to extremes and always kept a reserve for emergencies — accidents, fires, layoffs.
"Then let's go inside the suitcase — I'll tell you in more detail about everything I've done and what else can be done. And also about the properties of that space and so on. After all, I didn't lay out everything in the diagrams and notes."
"Maybe name it somehow? 'In the suitcase' doesn't sound right."
"Your suitcase — you decide."
"Marlow Manor? No, doesn't sound right. Marlow's World?" Hmm, my imagination sucks. "Oh, maybe... Narnia? I read a children's book about a world in a wardrobe."
"No, you need your own name — something sonorous, apt..."
"Availon!" — derivative of veela and Avalon.
"Good choice, my student," he smiled approvingly and led me inside, sometimes explaining, sometimes highlighting charms with spells.
The house where you appear by default after entering was actually the center of everything. This whole house was a separate space and simultaneously an artifact — responsible for connection with anchors, stabilization and feeding of spaces, as well as protection. And the protection was quite peculiar. Anyone who tried to enter my house without permission would immediately find themselves in stasis, slowed down by a factor of 100,000. No matter what archmage you are, you simply wouldn't have time to do anything. And since only the intruder would be slowed, I'd have plenty of time to do whatever I wanted with them.
Of course, nothing stops me from adding other protection systems — they just need to be controlled, and for that you need a loyal and, most importantly, smart guardian spirit. You could take a house-elf, but their appearance is something else. As the heroine of one film said — I'll think about it tomorrow.
And the next day, I was finally ready for the first inter-temporal immersion. For starters, we'd sit at a coefficient of 1 to 10, and then try 1 to 100. I think almost four months will be enough for me to fully recover and adjust to new powers. Especially since once a week we'll still come out for a day or two.
***
"Well, that's everything, little one." Sprawled in an armchair in Availon's house, I stroked Dorothea's head as she squinted with pleasure, lying next to me. The last day had been hectic — we kept finding things we'd forgotten, missed, or simply hadn't foreseen. But everything ends sooner or later, and setting the coefficient to one to ten, I settled inside with my familiar.
Right now, I didn't want to do anything — so I just lay there, watching the snow-covered mountains of, as it turned out, Tibet. More precisely, a place called Shambhala, which even the Nazis had searched for. It existed in reality, but only ruins remained, and since various magical beasts lived there, the territory was closed off from ordinary people.
The forests were taken from a magical reserve in Russia, the African prairies — from the Kenyan cradle of humanity, and the islands were located in the Bermuda Triangle. All these places were united by the fact that several dragon veins surfaced there, creating a very strong magical background. It would be good to connect to them, but alas, they're all under guard.
There are also such places near Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, the Parthenon, the stone heads of Easter Island, Angkor Wat, and many other landmarks — for which quality fakes were substituted for Muggles. Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, by the way, stand precisely on such places, since modern mages, unable to actively absorb ether from the environment, need their children to develop in a heightened mana background.
"Don't you want to do something?"
"No, I'm good here." I could feel mana flowing from me and returning as a whole stream in the form of Dorothea's mana. Such circulation is useful for both of us. In some ways, we're horcruxes for each other — if I die, my soul will be tied to her, and my familiar will be able to resurrect me. And vice versa — if she dies, I'll be able to resurrect her.
Of course, she still has a lot of growing to do, and I'm not exactly eager to test whether I can resurrect her or not. It's one thing to resurrect a still-living corpse with a soul that hasn't flown away — another thing entirely to deal with a soul without a body. Soon, I didn't even notice how I fell asleep, lulled by Dorothea's breathing. I woke up only a couple of hours later.
"Get up, sleepyhead — we'll learn household magic." I woke up this cutie, who was yawning and sleepily rubbing her eyes. Hearing about magic, she immediately lit up with enthusiasm, grabbing her magic wand — made with my hair and wood from the apple tree she was born from. A simple wand, of course, but I'm not in shape to make masterpieces yet. I can always upgrade it later.
"No, you won't need the wand yet — we'll do a different kind of magic. Kitchen magic." Taking out three eggs, a cup and a half of flour, about 800 milliliters of milk, two tablespoons each of sugar and oil, and a pinch of salt, I began mixing it all. "My grandmother was from Russia and made the best pancakes in the world."
"Grandmother? That's like mama's mama?" Sticking her curious little face into the flour bag, she sneezed and got covered in flour — as did half the floor.
"Oh, you little mess-maker." Wiping her face, I took a rolling pin and showed her the hand movement. "Remember and repeat — point your hand at what you want to clean and say 'Evanesco.' The main thing is to imagine what you want to vanish. Try it first on the eggs — they're not precious. Go ahead."
"I did it!" On her third try, she managed to make one egg disappear. The spell is simple, but the trick is to clearly imagine what needs to vanish. If I'd told her to remove a stain from clothes, either the stain could disappear, or the shirt itself... or me. Though I'm joking about the last part — to make a person vanish, you'd need as much energy as ten Avada Kedavras.
"Good girl," I said, whipping the batter with a whisk. "Now you can try on the flour. And yes, grandmother is mama's mama."
"Oh, the package disappeared, Arthur!" she said, almost in tears. Good thing I'd planned for this and there was only a little flour left. At least she calls me by name now — at first she called me daddy, and we're supposedly engaged. It was awkward.
"It's nothing, try again — imagine specifically the spilled flour." Back when I first got myself Pixie, I bought books on child psychology. Mom's taken a liking to them lately, by the way, but that's not the point. They clearly described what a child can and can't be punished for, and what punishments are appropriate. For Dorothea, not even a look — just the emotion of my irritation — was enough to upset her. That's why I tried not to get upset over trifles, sending only feelings of support and tenderness, as much as I'm capable of such emotions.
But if she started being capricious or tried to manipulate me — which was rare, but happened — I didn't let her get away with it. Still, I wasn't going to get irritated over flour, of which I still had about ten kilos in the stasis chamber. I'm more interested in whether those parents who yelled at their children over trifles are happy now that their children turned away from them. Losing a child's trust and love over a broken vase worth a couple thousand — was it worth it?
"It disappeared! Poof, and it's gone!" Dorothea rushed to hug me, and I hugged her back.
"Wow, my little sorceress — you'll be the strongest in the world!" I praised.
"Really-really?"
"Really-really!"
"And then I can become your wife?" That was a blow below the belt — I hadn't thought about it yet. Dorothea knew our engagement was pretend.
"If, when you grow up, you don't change your mind — then I don't mind," I wriggled out, since there was still plenty of time until that moment. "Well, shall we continue making pancakes?"
"Yes!" she exclaimed, even more joyfully. An irrepressible child. "Why is it so liquid?"
"Because the thinner the pancake, the better." I poured the batter onto a magical frying pan — itself an artifact with an accumulator — and it immediately hissed. You didn't need much oil, just a little for taste, since nothing burned, and the temperature could be set to tenths of a degree, staying exactly at that level. So the first pancake didn't turn out lumpy, but golden and evenly fried. "You can also spread butter on pancakes, but I don't like them too greasy."
"Mmm, smells good!" She reached out her hand, then pulled it back when I sent her the thought-image that she should wait until everything was fried. Like, it would be pleasant for her if I ate the pancakes while she fried them.
"Want to try?" I asked.
"May I?"
"Just carefully." Holding her hand, I poured batter with a ladle and spread it with a spatula across the pan. She was already making the next pancake herself. It burned a little, but nothing terrible. The third one turned out perfect. So we continued frying them in turns. Sometimes I flipped pancakes to Dorothea's laughter, and she caught them with Leviosa — telekinesis takes longer to develop.
It was fun, and I thought that many parents make the same mistake, just falling into different extremes. Some don't let their children do anything themselves, saying they don't know how or will spoil the products — making children into bunglers, insecure in themselves and their abilities. Others, on the contrary, force the child to do everything for them, turning them into a domestic slave and making them hate household work.
But in reality, it's much more fun, useful, and faster to do everything together — turning it into a game. I see in Dorothea not just a continuation of myself — I also try to give her what I myself was deprived of. It didn't work out with Apolline, though I also turned training into games, but it turned out as it turned out. Especially since we didn't have a connection to easily show my thoughts and feelings.
"Tasty?" When we'd fried a whole mountain of pancakes, I took out yogurt, jam, condensed milk, sour cream, honey — and we sat at the table, where Dorothea grabbed a pancake as soon as I sat down, not even spreading anything on it.
"Tafty," she answered, washing it down with yogurt.
After such a dinner, I read fairy tales from different peoples of the world aloud to her. I especially liked the story about a not-very-smart troll who chose a clever wife — unusual in that the husband listened to his wife, understanding she was smarter than him. But at the same time, the wife respected her husband. And this was an ancient Scandinavian tale. I liked it for the adequacy of the main characters. Russian fairy tales with a similar motif were much the same.
I didn't read fairy tales just for fun — I asked Dorothea to share her opinion about the characters and their actions, and told her how I saw it, without insisting on my own rightness. I don't need a foolish life companion who hangs on my every word — I hope to live my whole life with her. So the first day in Availon passed wonderfully.
***
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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!