Harry Potter : Chapter 81: Full Moon II
Even if it came from Alchemist Flamel himself, he'd waste years to prove with his own means even the most basic of principles.
Of course, one of the many pinnacles of the Art of Alchemy is the creation of a Philosopher Stone, but from what I gleaned from my talks with professor Dumbledore, that is a side-product on the quest of creating a self immune from the ravages of time.
...
Curious despite his reluctance to allow anyone to play him as she had brazenly declared she was out to do, Filus' nose twitched as he pondered: "Well, it is odd, isn't it?"
The first-year student hummed quietly, his eyes briefly roaming on the spectacle easily seen from the window before returning on the witch in front of him.
"If Professor Dumbledore put you in contact with him, and he set you a task... it sounds like he only wants to test your resolve... maybe?" the boy scratched his left temple.
"I have genuinely no idea how someone of his age and experience would set up a test capable of deeming someone worthy of teaching in his eyes: he must have forgotten half of which is written in this library, and discovered twice that. How can he genuinely expect that you'd create something entirely new that he has never witnessed before?"
"Exacly!" some of the witch's frustration bled through as she dramatically threw her hands upwards, only to immediately restrain herself and cast a glance around. Reassured that nobody had seen her outburst, she returned her focus on the student in front of her.
"Your turn now," she grinned again, "what are you looking for?"
Filius kept crunching through the apparently unsolvable dilemma that the witch was facing as he distractedly answered.
"The trek to the owlery is a bit long and time-wasting for me, so I was looking if there was any alternative method of sending long-distance messages that I'd be able to adapt to my situation ... Learning Rubeus' original Notice-Me-Not proved that with enough time, it is possible to eventually learn anything.
If I can figure out something that would take less time to learn than the amount I'd waste in my seven years here to send letters every week, I'd dedicate myself to it."
"How very logic-minded of you." Minerva finally gave a focused glance at the list of tomes the boy had selected, and noted that very much like Rubeus did when he began a new project.
The subject selection was unreasonably wide, spacing from the books that studied the magic of messenger owls, to an extremely advanced one on the Protean Charm, including even a battered old tome titled 'Vanishing Cabinets: where are we when we are not?'.
Blinking furiously as he considered the many implications of what Minerva had revealed, Filius felt a grin of his own threaten to appear on his face: "Do you need to create something original with Alchemy, or anything original at all?"
Minerva opened her mouth to retort, and only silence escaped her lips. Then, her green eyes brightened considerably, as she took in the apparent reasoning of the first-year boy, only to once more laugh out loud.
Hadn't Rubeus, herself, and Tom planned to do the same with Filius? Flamel had taken an interest in her because of her bloodwork, Rubeus had mysteriously decided to test the first-year Ravenclaw student, who had justified it by learning the unique Notice Me Not of the insanely tall Slytherin.
Wasn't Minerva doing the exact same thing Flamel did to her?
She wanted Filius to prove that he could do something unique: she hardly expected him to manage to turn into a magical beast as an animagus, she knew one thousand reasons why that'd be impossible.
But he was already at work on something she had never considered, mostly because she had long learned to take her time walking to the owlery to compose an answer in her mind, sending it off only after writing it with the faint smell of owl droppings in her nose after the admittedly long trek to the tower.
"Say," her green eyes sparkled with joyful interest, "would you like some company for your research?" already she could think of a couple of things in the Rùnda that could help the boy, not last the extraordinary piece of magic that Tom had recently managed to pull off with his ink.
With a smile of his own, Filius agreed readily.
After all, it was known that knowledge only grew when shared.
...
The sun slowly trailed toward the horizon behind leaden clouds that delivered the kind of crushing rain that Scotland was famous for, to the point that even if the moon hadn't risen just yet, everything looked as dark as if it was the middle of the night.
I took a deep breath, exhaling gutsily while my mind remained clear of anything but the present moment: hard, cold rain falling over my form, wind occasionally shaking the branches of trees in the first stages of winter, and the roaring, constant sound of drops of water impacting the world around me.
Sitting cross-legged under the rain, with only woolen trousers tucked into resistant boots that I had managed to craft out of the Chimaera's hide with enough enchantments upon them that they should always have room for my feet, and a simple, rumpled shirt covering my torso, I knew that anyone else would have been freezing.
Instead, every deep breath that I took rooted me more deeply in my surroundings, my body resilient enough to oppose the harsh weather, especially under the adaptation of the 'impervious' charm that I had cast on myself, and with the help of the battery of potions that I had consumed readying myself for this particular situation.
While my body remained still, my mind calmly drifted from thought to thought, running over my expectations for what was about to happen with the inexorable, negligent movement of moving glaciers.
For years at this point, I had tried to apply the risible notions of Occlumency that had been shown in the books and in the movies, paired it with the sparse knowledge given by actual books on the matter from the Restricted Section, and the tentative basis of my own general theory that would one day be enough to explain everything.
Under a transfigured wooden canopy that held back the worst of the rain, Marie rested on a plush armchair, huddled beneath covers enchanted with warming charms, her temper short.
And her muscles jittery as her body anticipated the transformation with all the might of the werewolf that would soon emerge, while her mind could only remember the agony of the transformation.
Around her neck could be seen the liquid glow of the alchemically altered quicksilver that I had forged into a linked circle of runes, forming a seal that would direct the purpose of the hunt.
Feoh for the beginning. In my mind's eye, I knew the symbol ᚠ with perfect clarity and remembered each strike of my wand-hammer onto the alchemically altered quicksilver, obtained thanks to Slughorn's less-than-legal channels.
Kenaz came immediately after, ᚳ, and then Eihwaz, which was hunting itself, the seeking of success, ᚪ. Raido, ᚱ, and Uruz: ᚣ. The last time I had used these runes, everything went tits up, but it had been because of an error I made by taking it on myself and making me an active part of the process, the ritualism of the hunt was otherwise perfectly represented in that Norse seal.
I had tried to oppose the transformation with Paul, but the results had always been less than encouraging. With Marie, my attempts had always been geared toward overcoming the curse.
The results of the experiments and the insight granted me by the rituals performed, told me that this was the correct way to go forward: pushing back the curse was akin to being a bucket in the middle of a lake, given the task of emptying it, or trying to lift oneself up by pulling on the ears.
Paul couldn't be separated by the curse because it was a part of him as much as Magic is part of me, as much as I am my Mind, and my Body, he was a werewolf.
"Body, mind, and magic." I repeated to myself while my eyes drifted closed once more. I didn't know where Riddle had come up with such a perfect distinction of the three things that made us wizards, but I could envision those at the points of a Celtic knot that held at its center the soul.
A soul that was somewhat influenced by everything we made contact with, by every choice, by every thought that wasn't followed by action. An unexplainable, ethereal mess that was passively influenced and yet actively shaped what we could think, do, or magic-up, to risk a tautology.
Given that in canon Dumbledore kind of smacked around Voldemort despite their bodies being on opposite sides of the spectrum: one old and tired, the other engineered to support the bleak existence of Tom Riddle, it was kind of obvious that the health of the Body affected neither the Magic nor the Mind of an individual.
Which is then its role? Occlumency, was, in my tentative opinion, the result of a Mind aware of itself, with Magic's presence to turn it from a merely disciplined consciousness into a much grander thing. With the clarity given me by a calm and receptive state of mind, the solution fell into place like the last missing piece of a puzzle.
In hindsight, it was almost obvious. "There is a reason why magic is cast from the wizard or witch, and not directly on the object they want to affect. Charms and spells travel from the wizard to the rest of the world, the fact that they are fast and invisible until they impact the target is irrelevant."
The Body rooted us in the here and now: through our body, we perceived the surroundings, and through our bodies, the intent was turned into action.
Sure, connected as it was with both Magic and Mind, the Body of a mage could do more than a muggle's, but the idea was that the Body was both the tangible facet of Mind and Magic, and just another piece of flesh strolling in the world.
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