Birth And Scouting

Narcissa POV:

The labour was relatively short, however it felt like it went on for eternity. Now, however...

"Waah, waaah" The newborn cried.

''Congratulations madam, it's a boy!" Said the onsite healer, a short pudgy woman with grey hair wearing a white healer's gown. She quickly but gently wiped the blood and gunk off the baby, her son... Her son!

Sitting up with the help of the enchantments on the bed, Narcissa didn't even need to demand to hold her son before the healer gently placed him in her arms. Clearly an experienced healer. She couldn't care less about that at the moment however and she looked down at her baby boy in her arms. He was pink like all newborns with a pudgy face and wrapped in a blanket.

She couldn't stop the smile that came to her face, nor did she want to. He immediately stopped crying as soon as he was put into her arms, and she stared at the pale blue eyes characteristic of all newborns.

"My baby boy. I love you so much. You make me so proud just being here." She said, tears in her eyes. She continued whispering her love for her newborn son as the healer left to deliver the news to Lucius who was waiting just outside the door.

Lucius entered quickly, looking both tired and frazzled which was unusual for him. None of that mattered though. He walked over quickly and held her hand as he stared down at his son.

"My son... I have a son. Narcissa... I don't know what to say... thank you for giving me a son." he whispered in a hoarse voice. He didn't look at her, still transfixed on the newborn in her arms. Reluctantly, she offered the newborn to Lucius, who took him into his arms awkwardly as if he might break the baby by accident.

She couldn't help but smile at the sight. "What should we name him?" she asked, watching the sight of her husband and son together, filled with contentment.

He smiled. "I like the name you suggested if we had a boy. Draco. Our little dragon." He didn't look at her just like she hadn't looked at him before, all his attention focused solely on his newborn son.

The newborn, newly dubbed Draco, let out a mighty yawn and soon enough fell asleep.

Draco POV: 

The next time I woke up It was night time. I was in a cot in my new parents' bedroom. Just from a few checks with soul detection, everyone was asleep except one elf in the kitchen. I didn't mention it before, but we have 3 elves in the mansion.

Lucius and Narcissa must have been completely exhausted from the birth so it's no wonder they're sleeping so deeply. First things first, I checked the state of my body. Looking through everything with my soul, there were no defects to fix and nothing was wrong from the birthing process. My automatic flow of magic from the atmosphere through my body was still ongoing, even in my sleep. I don't know if it will help anything, but it won't harm anything either so I let it continue.

I went back to sleep again soon from lack of energy. The next few months continued in this vein. A magical household is different from a normal one though. Whenever I was hungry, the elves came and fed me even before I could cry out. They must have some way to anticipate the needs of their masters, probably the elf bond.

Whenever I was awake, I didn't have much more to do other than what I had already been doing before I was born. I refined my control of magic energy, continued my soul cultivation, monitored my growth and continued my information gathering. The only difference of note was that I was continuously trying to move around and develop my body. 

Right now, however, I've finally refined my soul detection enough that I can read books! Hahahaha! I've been so bored! Let me tell you, being a baby absolutely sucks. I mostly get fed by the elves but my mother will occasionally breastfeed me herself. Let me tell you, it isn't traumatising or anything, but it feels incredibly demeaning for someone with an adult mind to be breastfed.

I have spells constantly surrounding me that report mostly to my mother but to my father too sometimes, that tell them different information about things like my health, state of hunger/thirst and my location. Most of the time I'm with Mother, however. Father is always busy and quite frankly, isn't very interested in me just yet. He'll probably become more invested in me as I get older.

It feels like I'm completely caged in. I understand it mentally. I mean I'm barely 3 months old, but I'm getting very antsy. Now though, I can read the library through my soul!

I was currently flailing around in my mother's arms as she read a book, but my focus was on the library. The first thing I looked for was the basics of magic theory. No point in running before you can walk after all.

I spent the next day reading through all the books on basic magic theory we had in the mansion, including the books in the second basement. I love having a strong soul. This allows me to read and understand information incredibly quickly. I can read a whole book in less than a minute. The time it takes to understand it, however, varies depending on the content. 

I stopped myself from reading further than basic theory simply because I didn't want to learn higher-level stuff without the ability to confirm it for myself. It's a pretty safe bet that the basics of the basics are correct, but even then I won't count on it being everything.

This is my summary of magic so far: At its most basic, magic is an energy that permeates the world and can affect Change. Not change, Change, the concept itself. Magic is somewhat sentient. Not in any way that people could point at and say: yes that's a sentient being. But most scholars agree that magic has a will of its own, at least according to the books available.

This energy affects change in everything it touches in one way or another. One thing is clear with magic though: it likes living beings and the natural world. The best conductor for magic is wood which is why wands are made out of it. At least in this universe anyway. There are definitely universes with magitech. In this universe, however, magic doesn't like technology. I'll have to test it, but I bet that the worst magic conductor will be plastic.

Going deeper than that, however, magic needs 4 things to be used: Willpower/Intent, Magical Power, belief and knowledge. Willpower and intent can be bunched together as intent is just an application of willpower given direction. Magical power is obvious. Knowledge and belief however are a little different.

Incantations are purely placebo for the caster to believe they can cast the spell. They mean nothing. But belief is very important for magic to work. If you don't believe it will happen, it won't happen. Knowledge is again self-explanatory, but it goes deeper than that. What mage is a moron? The more you know the inner workings of the spells, magic itself and what you are affecting, the deeper and more fundamentally you can affect something. It's fascinating and I'll have to confirm for myself, but that's what I have summarised so far.

Getting deeper still, magic is theorised to have always been there. The first spells were more directed accidental magic than actual spells. Things like levitation, summoning, colour changes etc. Then as wizards developed, people discovered that magic flowed through things in the natural world much more efficiently than flesh and started to create different focuses out of things like magical beast bones, wood, gems and more.

Eventually, as civilisation progressed and writing evolved, runes came into existence. They aren't imbued with power or anything like that. The power comes from the user, not the writing. Dead languages are used for 2 reasons: 1, they're more esoteric than modern languages and each character links to different concepts rather than needing a word for it. 2, different characters often have multiple meanings and can be more freely linked with many more runes rather than the rigidly structured words of modern languages.

The above is what is summarised about rune theory in the magic books, but I'm not 100% sure I buy it. I know different fiction stories with things like primordial runes that govern core concepts of reality like in Fate and the Dovahzul, Divine and Daedric languages in the Elder Scrolls Series. Not to mention many series have things like divine languages etc. With the omniverse being real, I bet there must be runes of power. But I can't access them anyway. Something for later. Much later.

Getting back to magic, people found through increasingly complicated spells that the shape and structure of different spells have commonalities. From studying these phenomena, the magical equivalent of mathematics came into existence: Arithmancy. With this, people could now craft whatever magic they could possibly dream up with theoretically no limit whatsoever. Spells, enchantments, rituals, potions, alchemy etc. Everything magical can be calculated with arithmancy either beforehand to create it or retroactively for study.

From the invention of arithmancy, magical society finally stabilised and started progressing slowly but steadily. These basic theory books were part history as well as magical theory.

Finally, we have dark magic. There were some basic theory books covering dark magic in the second basement. Basically, dark magic doesn't exist. There are 2 different ways for 'dark magic' to come into being. The first is magic directly crafted to hurt living creatures. Take the spell 'reductor' for instance. It's the disintegrating curse that turns anything to dust shown by Ginny Weasley in the movies. Lethal if hit, yes, but much less than you would think.

This is because living creatures have their own life, mind, magic and soul. Therefore, the spell needs an extra component in its structure to be able to affect living creatures more directly. This requires extra power but isn't evil or anything, simply tailored for living beings. Spells with these components are commonly called 'dark arts' and many are banned.

The second category of dark magic are those magics that require negative emotions to use like the unforgivables. As I learned in the afterlife, the colour of a soul is determined by the thoughts, emotions and actions of the soul. All spells that require emotions to use, including those like the Patronus charm, feed those emotions back to the caster except amplified.

Because of this, someone who overuses any spells that require emotions to use will lean more heavily into those emotions and their emotions, thoughts and actions will reflect that. This will lead to people who use the unforgivables to slip off the slippery slope into control freaks, sadists and homicidal maniacs as they use them repeatedly whilst the opposite is also true.

Harry for instance uses the patronus as his signature spell alongside the expelliarmus. He never killed. In a WAR. This was detrimental to him in the books and movies. They only won due to complicated long-term manipulations by Dumbledore and Harry only survived on a fluke. For the second time.

Some might argue that that was part of his character or that he was manipulated by Dumbledore to never kill. All that is true from the books and movies, however, it can't be denied that his constant use of the patronus spell had at least some effect, probably cementing his beliefs.

Well, this universe's Harry will not have to worry about having that kind of shortcoming. I will make sure to educate him as best as I can. I've been thinking about my mission that the Guardian gave me before he let me into a universe under his jurisdiction and how I can go about it.

The first option I considered was waiting until school started to help him in the background, however, I realised that that was a stupid idea. Any direct contact will be prevented - everyone around him will prevent that simply because of the family I was born into. In the future, everyone knows that Lucius was a death eater and I come from that same family, so that option was right out the window.

I thought about subtle manipulations with things like compulsion charms to direct him but thought better of it. In all the movies, books and fanfictions, one thing all Harry's have in common no matter if they're good, evil or anything in-between is a strong will and a hate for manipulation. Plus, this option feels quite scummy and I don't particularly want to be that kind of person.

Eventually, I settled on the beginnings of a plan of honesty with him. Obviously, I won't be telling him everything about who I am from right from the beginning if ever, but it's perfectly reasonable to tell him some things. Instead of trying to manipulate him from the shadows, directly tell him that following my guidance will result in these outcomes and then list the possibilities for actions taken. 

I obviously can't do this face to face, but I know where he lives so it shouldn't be a problem to get him a journal that is linked to mine so we can write to each other. I can provide education before Hogwarts, companionship and answer his questions about our society.

Remember, my mission here is to make sure that this Harry Potter not only unites the hallows but also accepts them. For this, he needs a large source of knowledge, strong beliefs that have supporting information he knows for himself is true and not just what others told him and also be a strong person in every sense. I need to build him up so any negative manipulation would be bad.

My task is to make sure that the Harry Potter of this universe becomes the best version of himself that he can be. Plus the Guardian told me that this Harry has the best potential he's seen out of all of them so he must be at least quite intelligent if not a genius himself. 

So I won't be trying to persuade him of my views or anything like that. I'll present the facts and all the opposing arguments so he can form his own opinions.

Before getting involved with Harry, however, I need to study everything for myself first and have some kind of independence. I need to grow up first. *Sigh* Being a baby sucks.

For the next week, I read through more books in the library from the comfortable position of being held by my mother. Soul Sense is such a cheat. I read through some history books with none being very interesting, but they were informative. Immediately, I noticed that I would have to expand my language base to include things like Old English, Greek, Sanscrit and Gaelic. Thank fuck I already knew Latin from a soul in the afterlife otherwise my next topic of study would be extremely difficult.

The next thing I studied over the week was the mind arts. Occlumency and Ligilimency. These books were written in pure Latin and were actually quite straightforward. I was very thankful for that as some books I've glimpsed at have a lot of verbose and winding language that doesn't actually say much of anything and only has some small bits of information littered throughout. A lot of magical 'texts' read more like autobiographies than a text about magic.

I was very happy to learn that the mind arts are a kind of magic discipline that is... not unrelated to other magic, but there isn't too much crossover. This means I can study and practise it now as opposed to needing experience with other magics first which I won't be able to get for at least another 6 months to a year. I will need my own room to begin my studies on magic.

I read through all the occlumency books in the house first and I was very happy to learn that I had already completed steps 1 and 2. Step 1 is to be able to focus your mind in an instant. I only have shallow experience meditating but I can direct my thoughts in an instant through my experience wandering through the Void. It was a requirement to be able to stay sane in the nothingness.

Step 2 is to be able to find your mindscape. Soul sense is a cheat in this as I can view everything about everything around me including myself. I already knew where to find my mindscape. I haven't accessed it of course so it's undeveloped, but the mind acts as a bridge between the body and soul so it's easy to find and stands out like a lighthouse.

Steps 3 and 4 can be done in either order. They are the setting up of defences and the sorting of memories. You can of course sort your memories first, but this simply makes it that much easier for someone to read your memories as they are nice and ordered for the reader. People generally put up defenses first before sorting their memories but you can do it in either order.

Step 5 is taking the emotional centre of your mind and bringing it inside your mindscape for both control and protection. In theory, this will allow for the perfect control of emotions and stop outside influences from affecting you with spells, potions or other methods.

Step 6 is locating and connecting your mindscape to your magical core to power your mind. Until this point, the mind acts as the bridge between the physical body and soul. It is partially physical and partially mystical. After it is connected directly to your magic core, however, it is now its own entity. It still acts as the bridge, but it exists separately from the body and soul as the third component of a wizard. This is what I've inferred from reading a few different instruction books on the subject.

This step is the step that most people can't cross and has some serious benefits for the user. Steps 1-5 are simply accessing, organising and defending your mind. Most people stop here and can't progress further due to a lack of ability. Connecting the mindscape to the magical core is an arduous process and has many, many benefits.

The first obvious benefit is that the user no longer has to renew their defences on a regular basis. Before this point, a practitioner of occlumency has to renew and strengthen their defences regularly to keep them strong. After being connected to the magical core, this is no longer the case as your core now powers your mind which includes the defences.

The second obvious benefit is that due to the connection, you now have much finer control of your own magic. I have the benefit of being consciously aware and able to use my own soul. This allows me to control magic energy extremely finely along with other benefits. 99.9% of people aren't aware of their own soul and if they are, they're already at step 7, the final step, of occlumency.

There are many more benefits too, but they can all be summed up into: your mindscape is being powered by magic. You can speed up your perception of time. You can gather your understanding of different concepts in your mindscape and manually create connections between them to artificially increase your intelligence and creativity. A moron could become a genius through this. You can partition your mind to have 2 or more different thought processes at once.

Fundamentally, connecting your mind to your magical core grants amazing benefits for the user but is a long and arduous process.

Step 7 and the final step of occlumency is being able to locate your own soul through the mind arts. I'm already aware of it due to my unique experience after death. Other people aren't consciously aware of it until they complete this step. This will allow the user to be able to use their soul for different things like I can whilst also allowing them to combine the capabilities of the soul and mind. It opens the door to soul related abilities and study.

I can already slow down my perception of time, but if I reach step 6 and can do the same with my mind, I can combine those capabilities to slow down the world a lot further depending on the strength of my mind and magic.

Of course, even if someone reaches step 7 and can now use their soul, they will still be way, way behind me as I have the soul cultivation technique that includes how to use the soul for different actions. Everyone else is practically stumbling through the dark.

I'll leave legilimency for after I've mastered occlumency. I have no need for it now anyway. The final thing to think about is my magic core.

For the past few weeks, I've been feeling that my magical core will manifest soon. I've read through our libraries with my soul for information regarding the magical core whilst also studying the magical core of my parents. According to the books, the magical core manifests during childhood between birth and 11 years old. It differs depending on the child.

The magic core isn't a physical thing. It's a core of magical energy that sits in a theoretical yet real space between the mind, body and soul. It isn't accessible through physical means but I can still touch it through the soul. Once the core is formed from the initial spark of magical energy, your will produce magical energy through a process I haven't figured out yet. It seems to be produced from nothing, so it's something to look into.

I have been feeling a convergence in myself for a while now as a lot of the magic energy I cycle through my body has been siphoned into that imaginary space between my mind, body and soul. It feels like my magic core will form within a few days to a week from now. Once that happens... well, not much will change until I have my own room.

The biggest advantage I have in this life apart from my soul cultivation technique is the fact that I've been running magic through my body pretty much from conception. I've stated before that my flesh is like a supercondutor for magic. The human body isn't a great medium for the transferrence of magic. My body is different.

What this all means is that my body has magic conductivity even higher than the wood in my parents wands and is comparable to the dragon heartstring in the core of my father's wand. This will allow me to use wandless magic with little difficulty.

I will still need a wand simply for learning magic. The wand is a precision instrument honed for many thousands of years. I've watched what the wand does when my parents use them and it's fascinating. Whenever they wave their wands, the different motions they make pulls magic from their cores and shapes it into the different structures the piece of magic requires.

There is little to no input from my parents themselves whenever they're casting magic, the wands are doing the majority of the work for them. So I will need the wand to learn how magic moves for performing spells. Only once I know how to form the different structures will I be able to weave spells myself.

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by my mother.

"Draco, are you hungry?" She asked, gazing down at me with a face full of love. I couldn't help but become happy with that. I'm starting to grow attached to her. Thank fuck Lucius isn't around often. I don't want to get attached to him.

"wfhsdkjhfkdj" I made some baby noises and gurgled.

Mother simply smiled and pulled me to her chest. I have a lot to do now that the mind arts are open to me. The next few years will be very busy.