Chapter 23: Wand Motion!

Percy grumbled, "yeah I figured," he looked at the wand again and smiled, satisfied that it was once more clean, "by the way why did you tell him you were a squib? Why not just tell him you lost your wand?"

"No reason, I just wanted to see how he would react."

Percy narrowed his eyes, "no, you didn't. You don't care about him...you wanted to see how I would react."

Hecate smiled, "and you said you were a seaweed brain."

They walked down the hall until they reached an office called 'Department of Magical Education'. Inside was a normal enough office, with desk arranged in a line, row behind row.

Each table was filled with stacks of paper, but there were only a few people present at the time.

Hecate walked up to the closest person, a witch who looked very new that was being overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork on her desk.

She looked like she barely got any sleep, and the only way that humongous stack of paper was still standing was through magic.

"Because me," Hecate said gaining the woman's attention, "could you tell me what I would have to do to register my ward to take his OWLs this year?"

The woman looked up and smiled, "well ma'am you would have to talk to Gartha Mediben. She's the witch with the owl hat in the back. She should be able to sort you out no problem."

Hecate nodded, "thank you dear, have a lovely day." HEcate and Percy walked away leaving the woman to do her work.

Hecate then snapped her fingers causing the woman to be surrounded by a golden glow, no one else noticed it, but Percy did.

"What did you do to her?"

"I gave her a gift," Hecate explained, "for the next 24 hours she will have the most amazing luck in the world. She will get a promotion, a new apartment and even meet her soul mate on the way to lunch."

"Woah, why did you do that though?"

"She was nice to me when she didn't have to be, I like that."

"And for that you gave her a new apartment?"

Hecate shrugged, "to me it's nothing, but to her it meant the world. I liked her, so I decided to reward her."

"Huh….what would I have to do to get me some of that?"

Hecate laughed but said nothing.

They soon found Gartha, kind of hard to miss considering she wore a stuffed owl for a hat, and registered Percy to take his OWLs coming June.

Hecate had produced papers and done everything, Percy barely had to say a word.

Once they were done Percy couldn't' hold his silence any more, "all those documents you had on hand, are they my new identity?"

"Yes," Hecate passed the sheets to Percy, "I had them made a few weeks ago. Why? DId you really think I would have just let you walk around with no form of ID? By the Gods Percy, you realise you have to be first registered with the ministry to even buy a wand right?"

Percy sighed, "damn, guess I'm not smart huh?"

"Don't worry Jackson, I'll be sure to change that soon," Hecate grinned evilly sending a shiver down Percy's spine.

When they finally got home Hecate sat Percy down and brought out a few books on runes and Arithmancy.

"Now Percy, before we begin, I want you to explain to me what you understood from these books. What are runes, what is arithmancy and how can you relate them to wand magic?"

Percy looked at the two sets of books before him and carefully thought up his answer.

"Well….runes are words and letters. They are the physical form of the spoken spell. 'Eihwaz' is the written rune for stun, and if I engrave that rune onto a stone and charge it I can cause a stored spell of sorts. Arithmancy is the study of magic itself, giving the wand motions we use and the amount of magic we use a definable number."

Hecate nodded, "good, very good. And how do they relate to wand waving?"

"They are both halves of the same thing. Runes cover the words and arithmancy cover the movement."

"Good, good. Now tell me Percy, why do we need to combine the two in order to do magic?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean when they are seperate can't they perform magic? You said it yourself, runes can be stored spells. So why do need both wand motion and words to perform a spell?"

"Well, you don't strictly need to use words. I mean there is silent casting."

"Yes but when one casts they still recite the words in their head, the words need not be spoken but they are still needed. Why?"

Percy thought and thought. He even had the blood band on, but still, he couldn't' come up with a single idea. "I….I don't know."

Hecate smiled, "if you did then I would have thought someone had replaced you with a child of Athena. Then I would have had to interrogate you and things would have gotten messy….never mind, off topic. Back to point, the reason we need both Percy is the reason magic doesn't break reality apart."

Percy looked on curiously as Hecate summoned a long thin transparent pipe filled with water near the bottom alone. She placed it on the table and looked at Percy, "how do you get the water to spray out of the top? And no, you can't use your powers."

Percy raised an eyebrow, 'really?' He shrugged, he took the pipe and blocked the top with his finger. He then turned it upside down making the water gather in the end he was holding.

"Good. But that's not what I asked for, I asked you to make the water spray out."

Percy looked surprised but shrugged, he tightened the pipe and then flicked it causing the water to spray out the tip.

Hecate smiled, "when you jerked the pipe Percy, what did it remind you off?"

Percy looked at the pipe and his eyes opened in realization, "it was like a wand motion."

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500 power stones this week = 2 Bonus Chapter