58 Fourth Year Part 4

Seeing how our eyes widened for a second, she smiled before saying: "Wands' primary role, as you may know, is to focus our magic for us, since it doesn't come easy naturally. However, it has a lot of different features we hardly notice. One such feature has been invented to deal with this particular issue you're suffering from: It's called a limiter. It sets a maximum value of magical output that is permitted by the wand. Whenever your magic exceeds said limit, you'd start feeling a resistance. And the more you exceed it, the stronger the resistance." She took a pause to let the words sink in, before adding: "this would act as a warning, and therefore you'd try not to trigger it. Overtime, your magic is reconditioned to have that particular output as a default, and instead of struggling to decrease your output every time, it would have a smaller default value you can increase or decrease instead."

Now that certainly seemed like the magical solution to our problem, I guess I will have to speak with Mr. Olivanders as soon as possible.

"Thank you, professor."

"Thank you, professor. That was very helpful."

"You're very welcome, Mr. Lunar, Miss Greengrass." She smiled at our words.

"Um, professor? Can we head over to Ollivanders' during lunch break?" I noticed her frown, so I added. "I promise we'll be back before next session, and I'll call Mr. Greengrass to collect us." She thought it over for a minute, before nodding.

"That's alright, I suppose. You can floo call him from my office."

"That's not necessary professor, I have other means." I grinned, while she tilted her head in confusion. Haha, time to show off! I brought out my wizard phone (I'm calling it that for now, since we haven't decided on a name yet), and clicked on Karl's name on my contact.

"Hello, Mr. Greengrass, sorry to bother you at this hour…."

"Professor McGonagall suggested a solution for our control problem. We need to visit Ollivanders'…"

"Yes… can you collect us from Hogwarts'?"

"Great. Thank you."

Professor McGonagall was watching me with wide eyes, probably questioning the reality of what she just saw. She got herself together, and said: "Was that a phone, Mr. Lunar?"

Well, at least she knows what's going on in the muggle world, good to know not all wizards are idiots. "Yes. Something similar, professor."

"Did you find a way to make electronics work here at Hogwarts?" while her voice seemed perfectly collected, I noticed it was a bit louder than usual.

"No, professor. This is an alternative we came up with. It will be released to the market later in the year."

World POV:

Professor McGonagall was gobsmacked at the implications of what she just heard. Needless to say, she was aware of the difficulty the wizarding world had concerning communication. The most interesting invention the world witnessed in this area would be the Floo network a few hundred years back, which allowed people to communicate over long distances, but its installation was ridiculously expensive, not to mention it was stationary. What she just witnessed was a tiny device, which meant that the runic scheme must be small enough, and therefore cheap enough to market it at a low price. The materials could be expensive themselves, but with the help of alchemy, that could be fixed by modifying cheaper base materials.

She also felt pride for her student. She was certain he was the one to come up with it, as it was the only explanation for this. The Greengrass family were known businessmen, yes, but they didn't have the knowledge nor the skills to pull off something like this. Karl Greengrass, the current head of the family, was a potion master, and his daughters were still studying at Hogwarts. Kaiser was the only one qualified to make them, since he also made a Runic Watch the previous year.

Karl Floo-called to ask for permission to step through, which he did right after. After exchanging a few words with the deputy headmistress, he took his daughter and her fiancée to Diagon Alley. Kaiser himself didn't need permission, since he was an adult as far as the law was concerned. He only needed to inform the school. Daphne's case was different.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Harry's POV:

I sat at the Gryffindor table with my two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron, for all his faults, is very loyal, not to mention he was my first friend. Don't judge him too hard, he certainly did mistakes along the way, but the blame for all of those doesn't rest entirely on him. Hermione was probably the smartest witch of our generation. (Note that I said witch, not wizard)

"What do you guys have this afternoon?" I asked them, as we sat down.

"Runes." "Divination." Replied both of them.

"But you already know that mate, we have it together." Ron added afterwards.

"About that…" I said uncertainly. I didn't know how Ron would take this.

"What?" Ron had a confused expression on his face. "What do you mean?"

"I won't be taking Divination this year."

"What?!" Ron cried out in shock, making almost everyone in the vicinity turn their heads to us.

"Shush!" I gestured. I didn't like the attention; I had more than enough being the Boy-Who-Breathed and what not. "Yeah, I'm not taking divination this year. I don't have any gifts for it, and it's honestly a waste of my time." Ron looked at me as I just grew two more heads.

"But it's free marks! Who cares about its usefulness!" He exclaimed. I would've agreed with you, had I still been the same Harry I was in first year.

"I need something to help me survive, Ron, not to waste my time listening to the rambling of some lunatic hag who can barely believe her own predictions." Seriously, the whole session was about her spouting some BS and predicting how gruesome our deaths would be. "You know what is to come, Ron. A certain bald bastard seems to have develop an unhealthy interest in me, almost killing me each year. What guarantee do I have he won't succeed next time?" I added after thinking for a moment.

"You do have a point." Ron said after thinking over it for a while, and is that pride I can see in Hermione's eyes. "So, what did you pick instead?"

"Arithmancy." He spilled his drink all over the table, which was met by smacks from everyone around. I just laughed my ass off at his misfortune. Even the twins came all the from the other end of the table just to smack him and go back to their place.

"Seriously mate, Arithmancy out of all the choices you had?! Have you gone nuts?!"

"Language!" he was smacked again on the shoulder by an angry Hermione. Hm, now that I think of it, she never said that to Kaiser whenever he said the f-word. Well, to be fair, he only ever used it when he was really angry, and I can't blame her for not saying anything when he is. He's usually very friendly, but when he snaps, he's one scary dude. Speaking of him, Daphne and him are unusually late for lunch, or maybe they won't come. Did something happen? I should check with them later.

"Arithmancy will help me learn and optimize different defensive and offensive spells."

"Wait, what?" Confused Ron was back in full force again. "Are you sure? Isn't that elective just for nerds who like to play with numbers?" He was smacked again in the shoulder. "Stop it, woman, you're killing me!" she glared at him.

"No Ron. Arithmancy is the art of analyzing magical phenomena through mathematical equations and properties." Hermione corrected him, but she was still glaring daggers at him.

"Sounds boring." Ron shrugged and resumed eating. Change is a gradual process, an even slower one when it comes to Ron. We'll need to work more on this laziness of his.

"By the way, where is Kai?" I asked them. "I didn't see him in the Great Hall." Hermione also turned and started looking with me, quite obviously too. She drew a few looks her way, which made me a bit embarrassed.

"You're right." She affirmed. "I don't see Daphne anywhere either."

"Maybe they're snogging somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised." Ron said with a grin.

"What?!" Hermione looked scandalized. "What are you even talking about! He's dating Susan! He'd never do that to her!"

"Isn't it common to have more than one wife?" Ron asked innocently. I'm sure he knew it wasn't THAT common, but he's just teasing Hermione.

"WHAT?!" She shrieked this time, and I had to cover my ears for protection.

"Keep it down Hermione, you're drawing a lot of attention there." I suggested, while she turned and noticed everyone looking at here.

"How can polygamy still be accepted?! That's barbaric!" she said in a lower tone this time.

"Only men of culture can appreciate the beauty of it, and you obviously cannot understand that." Ron said haughtily. I just burst into laughter that absurdity of it all. They spent few minutes bickering until Lavender decided to explain to her that it was a thing, but it wasn't very common.

It was still twenty minutes until the beginning of the next session, when we noticed Kaiser and Daphne entering the Great Hall together. It was hard not to when we heard Lavender the gossip queen squeal; all we had to do was follow where her eyes were looking.