Chapter 5
With a timid knock, Robert announced his presences to his grandfather, and waited. Everett, instead of working on some piece of wood, or another, he was instead manually fiddling with some tools. From what Robert could see, his grandfather was using a whet stone to sharpen some type of blade, methodically. Everett was completely focused on his task, meticulously working.
His grandfather was a wizard, so why was he doing all this manually? If magic was so useful, why was he not using to at least sharpen some instrument? Hell, why was he using tools at all? Surely, magic could complete the same process, quicker and just as easily, if not easier.
It was a conundrum.
Robert waited a while, and when he finally saw Everett cleaning off the blade with one rag, and then moving to a different one to rub down the blade, he knocked at the door again.
"Give me a few more moments, and I'll be done," responded Everett.
Everett grabbed one of his tools, a rectangular item, with a knob the handle projecting over the top the rest of the device, and inserted the blade. Taking a couple moments, he adjusted the positioning of the blade, and tightened it down. Standing up from the stool that he was sitting on, while working, he put the hung up the tool on the wall, near several similar objects, all of different sizes.
"Oh, Robert, sorry. I forgot I asked Mary to call you down here. I was working, and noticed that the plane was getting dull, so I started to sharpen it. You know, always maintain your things properly. It will save you a whole heck of a lot of trouble in the long run. And…sorry, you don't want to hear about that right now."
It was a teaching type of moment for Everett. His passion for his trade was all encompassing. And with his grandson here, he wanted to share with him something that he loved to do. His love for his trade, he wanted to impart his passion onto this young boy.
"It's okay Gramps. It was interesting."
"So, your grandfather is a craftsman, like all of the past generations. But we are a different kind than most of the rest of the wizarding world. Instead of basic items, we create works of art."
"Why would you do that?"
"Simple answer, wealthy people like to spend money on luxuries. And our family is at the pinnacle of said trade."
"You make a lot of money from this?" It made sense to Robert that there are always people that like to waste money on extravagant items. For Robert, while never wealthy in his previous life, was more of one that cared about functionality and practicality over status symbols. Why was there a reason to spend double or triple the amount of money for something when you could buy a similar item for the fraction of the cost.
"Yes, yes we do." It was just a plain and simple answer that responded to Robert's question. "And people pay for our works, because they are high quality, and they last."
"But why would someone want to buy something from us, if they can buy something cheaper that can do the same thing?"
"As I said, at least in part, it's a status symbol to them, because of the quality of the work that we give them. And yes, a normal craftsman can make nearly identical pieces, at least in appearance, but ours can hold enchantments a lot longer than anything they can hopefully make. I do not craft my works that others do, I do everything by hand. It was the way my father taught me, and the way his father taught him."
Perplexed by Everett's diatribe, Robert could only wonder why the need to do everything by hand matter. So, using his persona of a child, he ask, "But why not use magic to make them?"
"There are basically two answers to your question, that basically do the same thing. Do you know why enchantments fail after a certain time?"
"Umm, no." True ignorance showed on Robert's face at this time. First of all, he did not know a single thing about enchantments. Secondly, he had no idea that enchantments failed after a certain time.
"Magic degrades them. The more magic around, the quicker they degrade. And, if you are using items altered by magic, the items are already contaminated by magic. This means the enchantments will start failing sooner. That is the first reason. Does that make sense to you?"
While never having to think about something like that before, Robert vaguely understood where his grandfather was coming from. As his introduction into magic was less than a week ago, he still had many things that he needed, and wanted, to learn about magic. And, his grandfather was starting to teach him about some of it.
"Magic makes bad things happen to 'chantments?"
"A little simplistic, but that's the basic idea. As for the second reason, it's related to the first. Magic is all around us, everywhere, constantly in contact with everything. All the items I use have some inherent magic diffused throughout them. By doing everything manually, I'm basically performing a ritual. One to is meant to remove all traces of magic around my works. This way, when I finally enchant them, they are able to take enchantments more fully. It makes the enchantments harder to fail."
"...makes sense." Robert to his grandfathers secondary reason of doing his work in a mundane way.
"And the final reason," Everett started to smile as he was giving his final reason. "It feels more rewarding to do it the same as a muggle would, by hand. I can feel content to consider my completed projects pieces of art."
Everett was a true craftsman. He truly took pride in his work, making sure everything matched his specifications. If needed, he would start from scratch if what he was creating was not up to his standards. A perfectionist.
"It's amazing what muggles have done to innovate their crafts when limited to non-magical things. Using maths to figure out the strongest joints, only attached by joints. How to blend seams, in those said joints. Figuring out where you need support for a shelf, or when you can forgo extra supports, by spacing them out differently. Magic has made too many of us wizards lazy."
From there, Everett talked passionately to his grandson. Like gossiping women, he started talking about one avenue of woodworking, and then seeming going off on some random tangent, and then to another.
It nearly scared Robert when his grandfather talked with such fervor. He had known some people like his grandfather, the ones totally enraptured in a topic, that they just had to share it. To those people, whatever interested to such extents overwhelmed nearly everything else when they had someone to listen to them. Unfortunately for Robert, he was the recipient of his grandfather's willingness to share.
He listened to his grandfather, while trying to retain a fraction of the knowledge that his grandfather was sharing, but the majority of it was lost to the aether. As much as Robert could, his grandfather could not transfer for his passion to Robert, so that he could be an open receiver to absorb everything. Eventually, as much as Robert tried, he could no longer keep his attention to his grandfather.
"...we'll start tomorrow."
"What?" As Robert lost his concentration, he had no idea what his grandfather was saying.
"Sigh. I'm sorry. I was paying attention to your age. But, I said I will start teaching you about woodworking, and some other crafts tomorrow."
While not interested at this time, Robert did not want to disappoint his grandfather, so reluctantly, answered with all the happiness he could dredge out of himself, and replied with a simple yes.
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As time was passing, Robert was spending his time going to a magical elementary school, interacting with children of his own apparent age, which was what eventually decided to do.
Nothing that was taught in the school was something he had not learned previously. The children themselves played normal games that mundane children did. Games such as tag, hide and seek, and other similar physically exhausting games, which the adults loved for wearing down all those children with excessive energy. And Robert, he begrudgingly played those games too.
It was a strange thing, for all these kids that knew about magic, and have lived their whole lives around it, they treated it as if it was a chore to learn about it. Yes, they wanted to learn how to cast magic, but they did not want to learn about magic itself. Was this what his grandparents were talking about when they told him about the family rules?
To be perfectly honest, Robert, himself, was a unique case, as he still held the mind of an adult. But still, to him, he wanted even a rudimentary understanding of magic. He often pondered if he was just too strange in his thinking, or if it was the magical world that was...complacent.
Other than story time, which Robert dreaded, there was little talked about magic in his school by his teacher, Mrs. Fornsworth. The school was only teaching the children, age appropriate, maths, reading, spelling, and a modicum of history, purely based on the wizarding world. Ignoring history, change some terms used in class, and there would be no difference is this magical based elementary school, and that of a non-magical one. And it was draining Robert.
At least he had two outlets for his desire of knowledge at home. The first was under his grandfather's tutelage. It had been only for a brief amount of time, so his grandfather was still teaching him basic knowledge about the tools, and their safe usage. For this part of his education, it was purely practical. A little slow for Robert's taste, but his grandfather was trying to educate a child.
The other was like when he first moved into his grandparents' household, he actively perused the library. Most of the time, he was reading basic books on magic, which he was slowly becoming accustomed to.
In fact, while using the library, instead of just reading all the books in there, and just trying to absorb whatever knowledge he could, he was finally able to start asking pertinent questions. Though, for all the truth, his list of questions that he was wanting to learn more about, was growing faster than he was able to find answers for them.
Why did some charms necessitate a specific set of wand motions, while others required none? Was there some actually reason why each spell used Latin adjacent words, to there English counterpart? Serious, Lumos, was a spell for light. Wow, to him lumos essentially means light, so does that mean any spell can be created if you use a representative word for what you wanted done?
Alas, he had no wand yet, which would help him focus his magic, into a usable form of energy, or whatever he could consider it. And that is where he was focusing most of his time in the library. He wanted to know if there was a to start training himself so that he could cast spells while he was without a wand.
In one a few of the books that he had read through, there were antecedents of people being able to use spells barehanded, and for that matter, silently. However, the people that had been reported to using spells without a wand, were of those of advanced age and skills. At this point in his self education, he had found no first hand accounts of what or how those wizards and witches had been able to advance to that stage, if it was a stage, of magic.
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"Alright, gather round children. I think it's time for a story. It's definitely story time."
Mrs. Fornsworth called out to all the children, like she did every day around this time. And like the good child that Robert was, he got into a circle with all the other children.
'God, this is annoying. Maybe I should have gone with the home schooling like grandma suggested. I just want to get out of this hell.'
"Now what story should I read for you today? Hmm...something old, or something new?" In the caring voice, that only teachers of young children could create, she engaged the children. And like the good children they were, they responded back, with the majority asking for a new story. "A new story it is. I have one for you. I now listen closely as I tell you about Harry Potter and the Kneazle Knave."
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Finally some fun in the story, or at least the beginning of it. Give me some comments, PLEASE!!!!