Chapter 12
Mid-July 1990
Robert and Beth had recently returned from their trip to France. The two of them had spent the time traveling around the whole of the country, visiting magical and muggle communities. The sights, the people, the culture, all of them were supremely unique from that of the British society. From having seen all the things that Robert had seen, he further come to realization that the wizarding world was in a societal decline.
This decline had been going on for centuries, from what he had seen. Even prior to true seclusion from the muggle world, the wizarding world was stuck in a rut, and was happy to stay there. If it were not for the lifespan of an average wizard or witch, the wizarding society, of at least Britain and France, would have fallen a long time ago.
In spite of all that, Robert enjoyed his travels with his mother. While having not revealed her true age, and as witches and also wizards age slower than muggles, he began to realize that she was not twenty something year old witch that he thought of her when he was reborn. Small tidbits of her history, and her visits to France in her younger years, led him to that conclusion.
While Robert had studied history during his years of living with his mother, and her parents, he was looking over the macroscopic view of events, instead of the microscopic side. Even with that, some of the references she made, put her age at least one decade older, if not more. But like all men, he had the intelligence to not question anything regarding her age. He would definitely not do that.
While in France, he had gone to a custom tailor for his robes. Like with his grandfather's craft, this tailor also did not use magical means to produce their crafts, it was a husband and wife team that were the owners and craftsmen of the shop. Also the same as his grandfather's works, the magical miasma was less prevalent than those of magically crafted crafts. Hearing conversations between his mother, and the female tailor, there was some type of business between their two families, though he had no clues on what the relationship entailed. It was not like he cared, in all truthfulness, they made the uniforms that Hogwarts required custom fit to him, with less of the bulkiness that the common tailors in Britain made, and he did not have to worry further than that.
As for his wand, what would be the equivalent of roughly 150 British galleons, it was made to order. The wood was selected based on what resonated best with him, sugar maple. The core of the wand was made with a talon of a turul, a bird with known a known habitat in Hungary that was known to be a protector. It ended up being 12 inches with a diameter of 1 inch, longer but the same thickness of the wand that he had created for himself. He did request for a custom grip, similar to the one he had practiced with, for his new wand.
As for his potion cauldrons, that is all they were to him. Robert did not have the knowledge on why a specific cauldron was needed for one potion, or why it was not used for a different one. Beth ended up buying a marginally higher quality set of cauldrons, and other utensil, than that was needed for his school work.
For the rest of the required gear that he was going to need, books and such, he was going to have to wait for a bit longer, until he received Hogwarts acceptance letter.
With having ended with vacation with his mother, Robert began to work on his two creations that he designed for himself. The chest, ended up being made with spruce, instead of Robert's initial plan of pine, as his grandfather had a better deal with his purveyors with spruce. All the connected corners were connected with dovetails, which after having done all the work on the dovetail joints, Robert despised the need for very exacting detail work on the joints. Leather straps were used in place of metallic hinges, though only on the inside.
As for the enchantment schemes, Robert himself had designed them based on the knowledge gained from his grandfather. While he would have liked to inscribe the runes himself, just for the practice, his Everett took over on that front. The knowledge Robert had learned, while yes, they let him create the schemes needed and where to place them, he did not have the practice of properly inscribing them for the enchantment to take maximum effect.
The second and final project that he work on, the locket, was complete. While not happy with his skills with that part of his craft, it worked how Robert wanted. The appearance, was adequate. Bronze, while he had crafted some parts from that metal before, he was over ambitious on that front. As a hidden wand holster, it worked, and he could live with it. However, once Robert was more practiced with metal work, he would almost assuredly rework that project.
----------
24 July 1990
If someone has lived long enough, they will have lived past many things that could be considered historic, at least to some. And yet, said historical event will ignored by some that would revel in that historical event. And for those, they wallow in ignorance, once they realize what they have missed. And today that was one of those days for some people, including Robert, at least in his past life.
Well, it is also true for Robert in this life. Today, for Robert, he was practicing runes, instead of paying attention to what was going on around the world, if he would have thought to remember about the subject.
The thing about runes, is that there are numerous different types of runes used throughout Britain, let alone what other magical communities use. One of the worst parts about runes, and learning them, is that each rune was a multitude of different meanings, all depending on the context and surrounding runes. For nearly anyone, including Robert, learning about runes was, needlessly to say, tedious.
Elder Futhark was the rune language that Robert was working on today. While he mostly knew the alphabet of Elder Futhark, at least when trying to recognize them, he was still trying to write them properly on paper, let alone when he would need to start to engrave them on wood or metals. And it mattered, it mattered on the order of lines, and the directions, when someone scribes the rune.
With his new sense, Robert was finally able to learn when he was creating the rune in the proper manner. His magic naturally flowed out of his body while he worked, letting him notice when the rune was coming together, or when it was failing. It was helping him to progress further in this part of his studies.
One piece of knowledge that Robert was gaining, without the help of others, is that he was learning on why all the runes for an enchantment needed to be written all continuously, without any delay. From the few times that he was able to properly scribe two runes sequentially, he noticed that his magic that he infused in the characters were linked, they became bound together. Stopping at all, was not an option when enchanting. Everything needed to be formed properly, and all at one time.
Like all magic that Robert had sensed, since he gained his new sense, enchantments also contained the putrescence that made him recoil the first time he noticed it. And noticing this foulness in the enchantments he gained a theory. It seemed perfectly reasonable in his mind, if what he thought was true. The dirty magic infected an enchantment, which would cause it to fail after a certain time. If what he was thinking was true, then what his grandfather did, and the few craftspeople like him, by attempting to keep the taint away from a piece while working on it, it caused the rune to be more stable, and more likely to last a significantly longer amount of time.
Alas, he was still a novice when it came to runes, so he could not test his theory out.
What he wished to learn, was a way to either clean the infection of magic in pieces, while working on it. Or if he was not able to do it that way, he had to learn away to ward of the infection away from what he was going to be working on. Either of them would provide the evidence of what he thought to be true.
A study on the cleanliness of magic had never been studied, or at least had never been publicized according to everything that Robert had read. He knew for a fact that if some theory about magical sanitation and efficacy of magic had ever been released, his family would most assuredly would have gotten their hands on such research. Having heard from his grandfather, Robert had learned that their family's practice of using as little magic as possible when working on a project had been a tradition for several generations.
Robert had already written out a plan on how to test out his theory, for whenever he had the knowledge and resources in hand. What he was planning was to find a simple runic enchantment that was known for lasting a short amount of time. From there, he would attempt to time the difference in time the enchantment would last when one of the enchantments was infected, and the other one being clean. If he was able to, he also wished to see if different amounts of filthy magic, in the enchantment, influenced the efficacy.
Hell, if his theory was true, and he hoped it was, it would help to increase his family's wealth, not that they needed much help in that category. But there would also be one significant downside if his theory proved true. Provide his theory was true, and the enchantment was completely clear of the dirty magic, and if the degradation of the object that was enchanted, then theoretically, the enchantment would last forever. He would cause his family's magical sales to eventually dwindle, as less and less people would need new enchanted works from them. He would be causing that side of the family business to be sent through the Cemetery Gates, into a six foot hole.
That was neither here nor there for the time being. Robert still had a good few years till he started actually being a part of the family business. There were still seven years of school that he was expected to go through before that. He still had a little over a month until he started on that part of his life.
----------
1 September 1990
It was a horribly rainy Saturday as Robert was finishing his packing for his first year at Hogwarts. Most of his possessions that he was going to take with him for the school year, had been packed as soon as he could. But like all parts of life, some things are used on the regular, precluding them from being packed until the day to leave.
For the past week or so, he had been surviving on the barest modicum of supplies, as he did not relish having to make sure he had what he needed at the last minute. Luckily for him, unlike if he would have born as a muggle, he did not have to wait to put away his school books. If he was muggleborn, he would have wanted to at least start reading through them. Ink pots, quills, robes, cauldrons, all of them had already been packed.
The only real things that he was still wanting to pack, was his tools of his future trade.
Robert had never discussed it with any of his family members, but he still wished to continue practicing on his trade skills. Hogwarts was a really old school, he had assumed that with it having been that old, there would be at least one or two rooms in which he would be allowed to work on those skills. He assumed that those like him, that came from crafting families, would be allowed to study those skills by themselves.
And so the time came, the time to take leave from his home. The home of his family. His mother, his grandmother, and his grandfather. Those few that he had to care about.
----------
Finally on his way to Hogwarts. I did add a small Easter Egg to the chapter. I wonder if anyone will get it. Though I did leave a decently large hint.